Distinguishing Characters

[MichelleL11]

One thing which may be harder in ciphers other than the Voynich is identifying spaces. 

Hi, Mark:

I wanted to confirm my experience with 15th C ciphers.  Even if it is just a "simple substitution cipher" the only thing I see consistently is inconsistency.

What I mean by that is: (1) the cipher shapes are not drawn consistently (thus making homophonic keys where maybe it is or maybe it isn't?), (2) word spaces are inconsistent -- particularly at line breaks, where you'd think that might be a "stronger" space but instead what I see (although it is dependent on the scribe) the cipher writer just keeps going until space runs out and then finishes the rest of the word on the next line (no difference if it is Latin or venacular plain text -- this is seen in all cases); and (3) the often recognized Medieval spelling and grammar inconsistencies of the time for both Latin and venacular not surprisingly continue in the ciphers' ultimate plain text.  It is particularly discouraging when you are trying to decipher maybe a few words or a short text and you can see in the plaintext that the same non-ciphered word is spelled different ways in the same line.  Makes things really hard.

Thus, I think that attacking even a "simple cipher" with a modern mindset is just impossible because there was just no expectation of communicating in writing in a consistent manner.  I really don't think this attitude changed until after the printing press had been around for a while and even then it took some time (probably 100s of years) before some consistency could be counted on.  And this doesn't even take into account all the possible abbreviations and variations that can be introduced with that extra layer (again, both in Latin and in vernacular).

So people can sneer at how the ciphers (other than the Voynich, if it is a cipher) are "simple" but in reality actually figuring out what was encoded is a multiple level puzzle that in the community (and even on this board, dare I say it) just doesn't get enough respect.  Until you've tried a few yourself --- then I want to hear how "simple" you think these things really are.  I found it gave me a very different view into the deciphering process and recommend it very highly to anyone who is working with the text.   There are plenty that have never been figured out . . .

Okay, off my soap box but I do recommend maybe making a New Year's Resolution to try a few and prove to yourself how really shaky the understanding of how ciphers work was in this time period.  And a very lossy cipher (like the Voynich probably is, if that is what is going on) just doesn't shock me at all because I haven't found any indication that even the most "careful" cipher writers displayed any understanding of how sense could be so easily lost by how they actually did ciphers.  This is particularly true with non-diplomatic ones -- which is where I have focused my efforts.

But I'd be interested in your view, Mark, on how it plays out in diplomatic correspondence.

Thanks for reading my rant,

Michelle