geoffreycaveney's Middle English theory

[geoffreycaveney]

The Middle English word "si-sib" does not need to be written backwards, because "b" is already at the end of it, "where it belongs" according to the Yorkist anti-Bolingbroke perspective of the authors and creators of this cipher!

I'm afraid you have missed my point here.  Let me rephrase my question:  how are you determining whether a word ending with -b needs to be reversed by you or be left untouched in order to find meaning? 

In the small sample you provide, there are a number of words ending with EVA m, which you transpose as -b.  These are theoumib; chtyib; irib; sisib; and oub (EVA sheoctham; olfcham; aram; dalam; and aim).   You then reverse the order of four of these in order to produce a Middle English word.  But not sisib.  You say the b was naturally at the end of the word.  How does your system distinguish between sisib and the others, and does this happen anywhere else?

The nature of the encryption method of this cipher is that there can be no "automatic" way to distinguish between these two possibilities. Yes, one may say that according to strictly and purely cryptographic principles, it is thus a "defective cipher". I do not dispute this point. However, I argue that we may able to find enough context clues in order to suss out the intended meaning of the great majority of the words and lines of the MS text anyway. For example, with the word "theoumib" it is really not so difficult at all to see that this must have been "bimoueth" written backwards, as it is fairly clear to see that "theoumib" is not a word. And with "chtyib", well, given the context, it is fairly obvious to recognise which English word is spelled backwards here, even 600 years later. In general, there are many more words that begin with "b" than words that end with "b", so very often it will be clear or even obvious that such a word is written backwards.

But I admit that there can be certain ambiguous cases. In general, the shorter the word, the fewer letters it has, the more possibility there is that an added layer of "Yorkist cipher homonymy" can be created by these cipher rules. In such cases, the reader attempting to decipher the text must hope that the other, less ambiguous, words provide enough context to guide one in the correct choice of the intended original word and meaning of the more ambiguous cipher words.

Thus, the whole thing is like a very complicated word puzzle game. It cannot have been intended as a very practical method of encrypted communication. Rather, it was a secret cipher word puzzle shared only among a very small and close group of people. One can imagine the author of a particular line showing it to his siblings or other close companions, and challenging them to figure out what the words mean and what the line says. And again, of course, it was a very good thing for them that the cipher was so complicated, obscure, and ambiguous -- because if Henry IV or an official in his court had discovered the manuscript and somehow been able to crack the cipher and figure out what the text meant, its authors all would have been executed for treason!

Geoffrey