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How perfect is Voynichese? - ololololo - 07-07-2026
Trying to create a cipher based on Roman numerals that would give a result similar to VMS, I came across the fact that even after all the manipulations with the text, it was not quite similar to Voynichese. But by adding various third-party rules, such as turning er into or in the right places, I gradually crept up on the most Voynich-like result.
I couldn't create an accurate algorithm that would immediately give me the desired result, no matter how much I wanted to (if anything, I made a cipher based on Roman numerals).
In the course of these attempts, I wondered how accurate the Voynichese itself was. How perfect and accurate is this algorithm from the point of view of cryptology? Is it an algorithm at all?
These questions call into question the usually unconditional "presumption of perfection" (my name for this cliche
), which is implied, in particular, by referring to the "scribe's mistake". For some reason, errors on the part of the author are often omitted. One of the difficulties for analyzing Voynichese may be that it is not suitable for analysis as a cipher due to the lack of a clear encryption algorithm. By a clear algorithm, I mean a strictly defined and mathematically clear technique that gives and gives the same result (APPLE - GVVRK, the shift is 6; if I do the same with the word GVVRK, I get APPLE back). You can try to complicate this algorithm by adding non-mathematical rules. In the example with the Caesar cipher, I may want the first consonant to be I, the middle consonant is shifted by 2 again, and the final consonant is not encrypted. So I'll get GIXXRE from GVVRK. It became more difficult to determine the encryption algorithm and the specific substitution method that I used, the letters G and R, unaffected by my crazy rules, will not give me anything (I can shift them back to 6, there will be AIXXLE. Of course, although it's easy to guess the word APPLE, we may be confused by the two XX's in the middle and by the I. Or maybe it's not APPLE, but ACCEPT, but E is put at the end, C = X, and P and T are put in other places?). Briefly, we have the opportunity to blur the algorithm, making it difficult for a stranger to decipher it.
And now we ask ourselves the question - why should the Voynichese be a clear cipher? Why do we believe that the author was so brilliant and talented that he created a great undecipherable method unknown to science? In general, a person who is ignorant of cryptology is not expected to create the cleanest algorithm, but to use conditional substitution as a basis, having previously complicated it. There is nothing supernatural in the fact that Voynichese is unlike other ciphers of its time, because I can also mock an ordinary substitution to bring it to "perfection" without changing the algorithm itself. At this rate, I won't have any trouble, but...
By abusing these so-called "rules", I can't complicate the cipher, but distort it, making decryption difficult even for a person who knows the cipher, especially if these rules are unclear (for example, not "after every first consonant I", but "after some first consonants I"). In theory, it is possible to complicate the cipher so much that decryption will be a great challenge for the expert (that is, I will ruin it), which should not be.
And there's no guarantee that Voynichese is not a corrupted cipher. There's no guarantee that even with an algorithm, we will immediately decipher the entire manuscript without difficulty. It is possible that it is impossible to decipher Voynichese a priori (more precisely, it is possible, but the decoding will be incomplete). Perhaps that it's impossible to decrypt Voynichese a priori (or rather, it is possible, but the decryption will turn out to be incomplete) due to the fact that the author knew very little about the logic of ciphers and, without realizing it himself, made his possibly rather simple cipher very difficult to decrypt.
In general, questioning the presumption of perfection applies not only to cipher theory. Some linguistic hypotheses also depend on it, for example, Chinese theory, but to a lesser extent (most likely, the author was not a professional linguist, and his transcription of Chinese could be completely unreadable. Historical example: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for Armenian and, maybe, Hebrew, which requires knowledge of the language itself to read).
What are some historical examples of a "corrupted cipher"?
Codex Copiale (but here, rather, an example of a complicated substitution with the addition of zeros) and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (still not deciphered, but it is believed that this is a complicated Polybius square).
How did the owners read this manuscript?
By owners, I mean a team of people who understood what VMS was about and may have participated in its creation. In this case, they have an advantage - they know in advance what should be written, and therefore at some points they can, for example, guess undeciphered words from the context, or even intuitively understand the meaning of what is written without deciphering it (for example, if the balneological section is anatomy, then the reader can take a look look at the illustration, remember what kind of organ it depicts, and from there remember what he knows about this organ. In this case, he probably won't need to decrypt anything anymore).
What should I do with VMS now?
It's worth thinking not about how to create the most warlike cipher possible, but about how we can achieve this result in more mundane and accessible ways. What we can learn from these attempts can be applied directly to the text of the manuscript to find any coincidences or something else...
In any case, it seems to me to be a satisfying food for thought...
What do you think?
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - oshfdk - 07-07-2026
(Yesterday, 06:29 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And now we ask ourselves the question - why should the Voynichese be a clear cipher?
Because normally in a project of this size if one finds any problems there is plenty of time to sort them out. For example, one possible explanation of the missing q in the first 1.5 pages of the manuscript could be that some problem (ambiguity or just inconvenience) was identified and fixed by adding a new character.
And, conversely, I find it less likely that a 240+ pages long manuscript was (seemingly) completed while using a badly designed system.
(Yesterday, 06:29 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why do we believe that the author was so brilliant and talented that he created a great undecipherable method unknown to science?
It's not necessarily about being brilliant, but the author most likely had some out of the box thinking. Look at the images. There are plants, nymphs, star charts, animals and strange diagrams, hundreds of images. Some of them contain seemingly known symbols, many of them appear to refer to some known scenes or existing medieval stock images, but in a heavily reworked way. With the exception of the Zodiac, not one of the images was certainly and positively identified, and even for the Zodiac, we don't really know what the charts mean, but each of the images appear to mean something. The author of the manuscript managed to fill the whole book with images that elude simple identification. Whether they are just decoys is not important here, but the author certainly had some imagination.
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - ololololo - 07-07-2026
(Yesterday, 07:28 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For example, one possible explanation of the missing q in the first 1.5 pages of the manuscript could be that some problem (ambiguity or just inconvenience) was identified and fixed by adding a new character.It would be interesting to identify this problem... In the context of my theory, I could assume that q means some kind of prefix, such as con-, to make it easier to identify and faster guess the right word in the anagram (for example, the word concado. If I align it in alphabetical order, I get ACCDNOO. I can put a part of con "out of brackets", and it turns out CON ACDO. This way you can guess the word CONCADO faster).
(Yesterday, 07:28 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Whether they are just decoys is not important here, but the author certainly had some imagination.I think it is. But considering that even though he was smart, he didn't understand cryptology, it still points to the thesis of this post.
(Yesterday, 07:28 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And, conversely, I find it less likely that a 240+ pages long manuscript was (seemingly) completed while using a badly designed system.The number of pages does not mean that the cipher must be complex or "perfect". The Codex Seraphinianus has about 360 pages, but this does not mean that it is written in a clear and meaningful language.
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - oshfdk - 07-07-2026
(Yesterday, 07:44 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But considering that even though he was smart, he didn't understand cryptology, it still points to the thesis of this post.
What do you mean he didn't understand cryptology? I don't think we know if the author was familiar with the contemporary cryptology.
(Yesterday, 07:44 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The number of pages does not mean that the cipher must be complex or "perfect". The Codex Seraphinianus has about 360 pages, but this does not mean that it is written in a clear and meaningful language.
I'm sorry, I don't think I understand many of your statements. Are you using an AI translator? (Which is perfectly fine and is allowed by the rules of the forum, as far as I understand.) I don't think we have discussed the complexity of the possible cipher, I think we were discussing whether the cipher was "accurate", and I presume "accurate" means you can follow some well defined rules to successfully decipher it?
I'm not sure how Codex Seraphinianus plays into this, as far as I know, it's an art project, whether it follows some strict logic or not is not very important to its nature.
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - ololololo - 07-07-2026
(Yesterday, 08:08 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm sorry, I don't think I understand many of your statements. Are you using an AI translator?Yes, Google Translator
This can cause many problems, but there's no other way.(Yesterday, 08:08 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What do you mean he didn't understand cryptology?The author apparently knew about the existence of nomenclator ciphers. In other words, for the author, a cipher is just a way to hide information and replace letters. Most likely, his knowledge of ciphers was at that level.
(Yesterday, 08:08 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm not sure how Codex Seraphinianus plays into this, as far as I know, it's an art project, whether it follows some strict logic or not is not very important to its nature.I'm just saying that the number of pages doesn't say anything about the cipher itself. Of course, I could mention Codex Copiale as an example, but it only has 105 pages.
(Yesterday, 08:08 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.and I presume "accurate" means you can follow some well defined rules to successfully decipher it?Yes, it is. But it is important to add that the exact cipher also assumes that if I decrypt the text using the algorithm, I will not experience any difficulties and will receive the text in its original form.
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - oshfdk - 07-07-2026
(Yesterday, 08:30 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The author apparently knew about the existence of nomenclator ciphers. In other words, for the author, a cipher is just a way to hide information and replace letters. Most likely, his knowledge of ciphers was at that level.
I have no good proof of this, but I tend to think the creator was quite versed in cryptology of the time. I can't even exclude that the whole manuscript was designed as a crypto puzzle Trithemius-style. And the fact that the Voynich MS hasn't been deciphered yet is not so strange, considering tome 3 of Steganographia was only You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (by a now member of this forum Jim Reeds). But this is a pure conjecture, the truth is, I think, we just don't know if the author was a genius or a dunce or anything in between.
(Yesterday, 08:30 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm just saying that the number of pages doesn't say anything about the cipher itself. Of course, I could mention Codex Copiale as an example, but it only has 105 pages.
What's wrong with Codex Copiale?
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - ololololo - 07-07-2026
(Yesterday, 07:28 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And, conversely, I find it less likely that a 240+ pages long manuscript was (seemingly) completed while using a badly designed system.If the book was encrypted in order to make it unreadable for strangers, but not to someone (let's say the "addressee") does decipher it, then it becomes even more likely.
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - Rafal - 07-07-2026
What do you exactly mean by "corrupted cipher"?
I guess that by "corrupted" you don't mean "immoral" but rather kind of "damaged"
But damaged in what way?
- copied in untidy way or by a clueless person so changing many chararcters or losing many important details?
- enciphered in a bad, lossy way so the text is broken beyond repair and impossible to recover?
- something else?
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - ololololo - 07-07-2026
(Yesterday, 09:44 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I guess that by "corrupted" you don't mean "immoral" but rather kind of "damaged"All right
(Yesterday, 09:44 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.- copied in untidy way or by a clueless person so changing many chararcters or losing many important details?What you have listed refers to the "scribe's mistake". I suggest we look at it from the other side and stop blaming the scribes...
- enciphered in a bad, lossy way so the text is broken beyond repair and impossible to recover?
I mean something completely different. Take, for example, the Caesar cipher with a shift of 10 and the word APPLE:
QFFBU
Now let's put these letters in alphabetical order.:
BFFQU
Since this is a whole word, we'll denote it at the end with I
BFFQUI
Insert an arbitrary vowel between the repeated consonants, let's say A:
BFAFQUI
I won't tell you the next iterations, but the result is the following:
BFE OAFQEU EUEI
The new rule was the arbitrary division of the word and the addition of an arbitrary vowel before each vowel.
It's not an algorithm, because I didn't get this result right away. This is a "corrupted" cipher. I can use it to encrypt a word, but even if you know all its rules, you will have difficulty deciphering it.
Only my example is also redundant, while, in my opinion, Voynichese itself is complex, and there are no such "additions" in it.
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - ololololo - 07-07-2026
(Yesterday, 08:51 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think, we just don't know if the author was a genius or a dunce or anything in between.Anyway, his knowledge of medicine was impressive, which means he was hardly a dunce.
(Yesterday, 08:51 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What's wrong with Codex Copiale?This is not an example of a "corrupted" cipher, but it seemed to me that this is a good example of a cipher with additions (in the case of Copiale substitution + nulls).