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Patterns in Voynich Script – Could Word Spacing Reveal a Cipher Method? - Printable Version

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Patterns in Voynich Script – Could Word Spacing Reveal a Cipher Method? - pijiko - 04-03-2025

Hello everyone! I’m new here, but I’ve been following Voynich research closely for some time. 

I wanted to bring up a specific angle on the text structure that I haven’t seen widely discussed in detail: word spacing as a cipher key.

Many traditional ciphers introduce ‘nulls’ or spacing tricks to obscure real content. In the Voynich Manuscript, the spacing between words seems oddly regular, unlike most natural languages. Has there been a deep statistical analysis of spacing patterns between words? Could this reveal a consistent mathematical structure, such as letter grouping similar to polyalphabetic ciphers?

Some initial thoughts:
  • If the spaces were artificially inserted, they might divide real meaning differently than we assume.
  • Could word-length frequency distribution hint at a hidden key shift pattern?
  • Has anyone tested whether common ciphers (e.g., Vigenère, Playfair) align better when spacing is ignored or modified?

I’d love to hear thoughts from those who have worked with text pattern analysis. Have any previous computational studies looked at spacing as a decryption variable rather than just focusing on letter frequency?

Looking forward to your insights! Smile

RE: Patterns in Voynich Script – Could Word Spacing Reveal a Cipher Method? - Addsamuels - 04-03-2025

Welcome to the Voynich ninja! I personally love text analysis, but I'm slightly busy in one of my theories to comment too much. However, what do you mean when the spacing is regular? Sometimes the spacing between words (actual spacing on page/vellum) can vary within the text.

Regards

RE: Patterns in Voynich Script – Could Word Spacing Reveal a Cipher Method? - Koen G - 05-03-2025

I am not aware of research into the regularity of spaces. But my impression is also that they are anything but regular. Try transcribing a couple of pages and see how often you wonder whether something is a space or not.

If there is any meaning in the text, spaces will probably play a role. But what exactly are we thinking of then? Spaces play an important role in the code we are using to communicate in right now as well.

RE: Patterns in Voynich Script – Could Word Spacing Reveal a Cipher Method? - nablator - 05-03-2025

(04-03-2025, 09:01 PM)pijiko Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the Voynich Manuscript, the spacing between words seems oddly regular, unlike most natural languages.

Do you mean irregular (variable)? If not, I'd like to know what kind of regularity you noticed.


(04-03-2025, 09:01 PM)pijiko Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Has there been a deep statistical analysis of spacing patterns between words?

I could do one if I knew what to look for.

RE: Patterns in Voynich Script – Could Word Spacing Reveal a Cipher Method? - bt2901 - 06-03-2025

The autocorrelation of word lengths was discussed in two recent papers:

* V. Matlach, B. A. Janečková, and D. Dostál, “The Voynich manuscript: Symbol roles revisited,”
* D. Gaskell and C. Bowern, "Gibberish after all? Voynichese is statistically similar to humanproduced samples of meaningless text"

Quote:Word lengths in most meaningful texts are negatively autocorrelated: that is, long words tend to be interspersed with short words (long-short-long-short). By contrast, the VMS exhibits positive autocorrelation (long-long-short-short). Positive autocorrelation is only observed in a limited number of natural languages...