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+--- Thread: f116v is a decryption attempt? (/thread-5910.html)
RE: f116v is a decryption attempt? - Jorge_Stolfi - 04-08-2026
(04-08-2026, 06:20 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.it looks likely that no amount of microscopy can disprove the retracing hypothesis.
There is something we seem to agree upon.
All the best, --stolfi
RE: f116v is a decryption attempt? - ololololo - 07-08-2026
The German‑speaking participants of this forum did a lot of work to identify the words with f116v. Sometimes I want to believe them, but let me think it over for a moment...
If the text is only partially coherent, even though it contains errors, this could be an argument in favor of the hypothesis that scribe B (the author of the balneological texts and recipes) encoded the text incorrectly.
In particular, he could simply follow one rule. In balneology, there are many examples where most of the lines start with s. In such large numbers, it looks strange. Maybe the author told him how to mark the lines, and he decided to mark almost all the lines in this way...
RE: f116v is a decryption attempt? - ololololo - 18-08-2026
1). By eliminating ar = m and ch = ich, we are left with iton, which must correspond to e, d, and p.
But p-ed is only three (or even two!) letters, while iton is four. Moreover, perhaps p is not a letter at all!
Consider the options:
1). P-ed, e = i. It turns out pICHIdM. Positions remain for ton. One of the letters should mean t (to), the other — on. Why on? Well, perhaps the decryption principle included substituting not only letters but also syllables.
I can substitute: TOICHINM, p = TO, or TICHIONM, p = T.
The first option seems more concise, as all the encrypted syllables are grouped at the beginning of the word, which sets them apart in the anagram.
2). p-e-d, e = i. It’s as simple as can be p = t, d = on (roughly speaking).
3). ed. Well, this is where it gets tricky. We end up with the fact that the encrypted word consists of three letters/syllables — ch, ed, and ar. char together give us mich, from which we deduce that ed = iton/ton. Of course, ton is also possible, but then it would be michton.
If d were equal to something, the author would have deciphered them both in miltod and in palden.
oladabad = qokaiin qotaiin d. In vord, qo is repeated twice; in oladabas, there is no suitable repetition, so qo is combined with the adjacent gallows.
If D and B: Daiin Baiin. That left ola and two a's. One might assume that these two aiin are a combination of different symbols, one of which is ola, and the other = a a. Well, perhaps ai = ola, i = n = a. But this... strange.
If DA and BA: DAaiin BAaiin. It’s still ola, but there are two more aiin in the vords. Then it should be DAOLA BAOLA. It’s unclear where the second one went.
It might be that one qok = D, and qot = BA. Then. for example, there will be Daiin BAaiin. But then again, the same aiin are different symbols — ol and a (or, in general, o, l, and a).
milto - l ral cheo. If ra = m, and the first l is cut off (because of it, there’s an inequality in the number of letters. Let’s assume it’s a special symbol, like a placeholder). ch-e-o will remain, and they must correspond to i-l-t-o. In ilto, some two letters must be combined into a syllable. Let’s assume it’s il to balance the number of characters. Then it turns out that ch = “il.” Why ch? Because it’s a likely candidate for a syllable
2). In the comparison, there is something similar to LAAFU. In the sense that the meaning of the symbol changes depending on its position.
In the word pchedar, ch = ich, but there is the word olcheear. ar = m, which means it’s marix/morix. If you take the two e’s as two separate letters, it turns out that the number of letters is equal. ol-ch-e-e-ar (5) = m-a/o-r-i-x (5). But here’s the problem — ch clearly doesn’t mean “ich”. Moreover, in marix/morix, no letter is repeated.
If ee is a syllable, then it could be ar or ix. Let’s assume it’s “ix” (it’s not particularly important right now):
olchIXM - MolchIX
Here, ch will already represent a single letter — a or r — but no longer a syllable.
3). Based on this, we can assume that olkeechy = pbrey. ch = r, and the nearby ee affects ch.
But the nearby word palden is suspicious. The words palsen and pbrey share one common letter — p. It corresponds to ol, since there are two repeating letters in the text: olkeechy or char cheeol...
So, it turns out that olkeechy = PkeeRy, and cheeol = ReeP... But where is palden? In the previous example, the combination ch(ee) yielded either A or R. If ch(ee) = a, then cheeol = AeeP. It's almost palden!
It turns out that ch(ee) = a. Then olcheear = PAeeM, but... There is not a single letter p in the second line. Then ol = something else...
Perhaps the placement of ee matters. So, ch(ee) = a, while (ee)ch or (kee)ch has a different meaning...
Total: The combination ar (ra) in all cases corresponded to m. The symbol ch seems to be located depending on the nearby E. For example., ch = ICH, ch(e) = IL, ch(ee) = R/A.
One could say that this theory is nonsense if the same ch, standing next to different symbols, would yield different results. But we have very suspicious e’s, which in the text often gravitate towards ch. Moreover, there is a dependency — it only changes its meaning next to e*. With ar = m, it is always ich.
It turns out that the author imagined the cipher as follows:
1). The cipher is based on substituting letters and syllables using a limited alphabet, where a single symbol can have several meanings. That is, it’s a kind of polyphonic cipher**.
2). There are certain dependencies between the symbols, which likely serve to make identification easier (given that the alphabet includes letters and syllables, this wouldn’t hurt). But the thing is, the cipher doesn’t have any special nulls or modification elements, and it seems that in the examples with ch(ee), ee is also some kind of letter. However, it’s unclear whether the meaning of a single symbol changes, or whether a combination of certain symbols gives rise to a new meaning. But the first option is more logical than the second...
3). The logic behind Roman numerals is no longer as obvious as I would like it to be...
4). First, what seems interesting is that, taken together, such a cipher could theoretically produce low entropy and possibly other parameters of the Voynichese. The limited nature of the alphabet and the relationships between the symbols hint at this.
Secondly, the inconsistencies can be explained not just by assumptions, but by examples from the text. The range of values for ch can be explained by the adjacent ee; they appear in all cases of inconsistencies. The unclear ol also has a dependency — in olkeechy = pbrey? it comes before k, and in olcheear — before ch. In cheeol, it is at the very end, but in theory it also gives p. The result is a line of dependencies: ch affects the initial ol, transforming it from p into something else, and in other cases it follows the rules. Perhaps ee before ch “nullifies” its effect on ol.
Although, maybe I’m just imagining all of this… Nevertheless, there would be more doubt if, for example, one word gave different meanings, and two identical symbols gave different correspondences. Moreover, the Voynichese clearly has some affinity for the principle of positional arrangement and the interconnection of symbols...
Well, let’s not forget that this might be an erroneous decryption of one ancient miracle solver that has impressed many participants of this forum
*Survivorship bias is possible. There are no other combinations where such problems would occur with ch.
**This refers to a cipher where a single symbol from the cipher alphabet corresponds to several plaintext symbols. The opposite of an homophone, where several cipher symbols can correspond to a single plaintext symbol. I’m not sure if I used this term correctly. If not, I’m sorry…
RE: f116v is a decryption attempt? - ololololo - 19-08-2026
First of all, I’ll mention the following assumptions for this theory, as I didn’t pay attention to them last time:
1). The problem with the word “palden” is that there is no d in the third line, so we make the assumption that either d = s in the form of a figure‑eight, or this word was added by the author.
2). The problem with ol is that, in theory, it should yield p, but in the excerpt corresponding to portad, it is not present. There is only the letter l at the beginning. It can be assumed that d removes ol, leaving l (this may explain the abundance of words like lchedy in Currier B). But I think I’ll pass...
We can continue comparing the strings, and this time I’ll focus on the third line.
First, let’s try to address the discrepancy in the lengths of the excerpts:
pbrey so nim gaf mich
olkeechy or char cheeol s or or aiin otam
Let’s exclude the words that have already been “decoded”:
so nim gaf
or s or or aiin otam
Cheeol is gone because it might be palsen.
There is still a difference, and the text You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. contains nothing that could correspond to a triple or (s) or or. But what if everything that comes after s is a new line, not related to so nim gaf mich? Of course, this could be plausible, given that s often appears as the first letter of a line. If there was still room for a new line of ciphertext, the scribe could simply put s and continue writing.
Then it will be...
so nim gaf
or
...
Okay, let’s put everything back the way it was before.
so nim gaf
or s or or aiin otam
According to my assumption, some part of aiin may include the letter a.
But it’s still hard to make out the letters…
At the end of f116v, there is a symbol that looks like an o. If it’s an o, it could correspond to s or the second or.
Perhaps the author deciphered the entire line, tried to assemble words from the letters, and came up with so nim gaf mich, as if suggesting that “gaf mich” means goat’s milk, partly due to “so nim,” but he couldn’t assemble the remaining set of letters into any meaningful word.
I can imagine that after the author asked the scribe to decipher what was written and saw that he hadn’t managed to do it and ended up with something incomprehensible, he gave up and simply decided to sell the manuscript. Well, or the author himself forgot the spell, decided to decipher it, failed, and also gave up.
RE: f116v is a decryption attempt? - Stefan Wirtz_2 - 19-08-2026
ololololo Wrote:The German‑speaking participants of this forum did a lot of work to identify the words with f116v. [..]
Some few (2? 3?) German-speaking participants of this forum tried to work out somehow-German words, needing many unique exceptions from our language of all eras to get „results“.
Some other German-speaking participants are more than sceptic about those solutions.
Even with much corner-cutting, there is not a lot of sense in these words, neither the German nor the Latin ones…
RE: f116v is a decryption attempt? - ololololo - 19-08-2026
Two are definitely known
In any case, I’m not saying they’re absolutely right.
RE: f116v is a decryption attempt? - Bernd - 19-08-2026
This German speaking participant cannot find any sense in those words outside of 'poxleber' and 'so nim'. I think it's a stretch to assume that all the words form a coherent text. It might as well be unrelated short phrases or even pen trials. But again, the marginalia show the same pattern as the main text and the imagery. Consisting mostly of familiar elements with some weird amendments, some parts appear recognizable but the way everything is arranged is profoundly odd and seemingly yet not fully random.
Why? No idea...
RE: f116v is a decryption attempt? - ololololo - 21-08-2026
I found something that looks like a rearrangement of ar-ra:
ro-or
Not enough...