26-10-2026, 09:33 PM
I wanted to thank you for your interest in the skriba code, @mauro and @nablator.
Nevertheless, I am still skeptic about the use of such a generator. The results are quite good, but it has been a work of finetunning and adapting the rules to the skriba. I know that having a Voynich generator that works is quite difficult, but I really don't know id it is useful at all.
If you think about the rules... I really don't think that they were the instructions to write the VMS. They are sort of the result of some other instructios (in thecase it was artificially written, no natural language). I have tried to summarize the rules into instructions but they don't make that much sense.... In THE_SCRIBE.md you can see "The instructions, as the master of the workshop might have given them"... do they really make sense? For those that don't have access to github, here are they:
The drawings are done. You write around them, afterwards (or at least, around the blank space left fot the drawing)
To begin. Start a paragraph with a word that carries a gallows, never with q. In that first line write the tall gallows, p and f, where you would otherwise write k and t, and more so when the space above is empty. The first line is a line apart: more sh than ch, more t than k, fewer ee, longer and rarer words, nothing taken from the page.
To make a word. A word has four places: a start if it needs one (qo, o, y, d, s), a core that is a gallows or a bench or nothing, one to three e, and an ending. One gallows at most. Decide the family before you write: with e the word ends in y or dy; without e, in aiin, ar or ol. Never put e and i together. Four to six glyphs is the usual size. To choose the next glyph, remember only the two before it. q goes only before o and only at the start. Between k and t, ch and sh, p and f, choose by the place and by the taste of the day, not by the word.
What to put in front. If the last word ended in y and the next begins with o, put q in front; if it begins with a, put d. After r or s, nothing. It is the last stroke of the pen that decides, not the word. The word itself tells you nothing about the next.
The line. Begin with d, s or y, or with a bare gallows, never with a. Do not begin with the glyph the line above begins with. Make the second word short. When you start a line, decide whether it will be a line of words that start straight with a gallows (tchy, kol, pol) or not, and on some pages more than on others. Close the last word: aiin becomes am, ol becomes oly, ar becomes ary, y becomes g. Close it because it is the last, whether you reach the margin or not, and do not squeeze the letters to get there. In the last line of a paragraph, close less.
When the drawing is in the way. Treat it as a margin: half close the word before it and start again after it as if it were a new line. Do not break a word across it.
Labels. Next to the figures, single words: they start with o, no q, and end in y, ly, ry.
The sheet. Write the four pages of a sheet in one sitting, with the same size of letter and the same tastes from start to end.
Copying and making up. About one word in five, take a word you can see on the page, from the few lines above, and change one glyph if you like, but as your hand would write it. The rest, write as you always write. Now and then repeat a word right after itself: chol and qokedy bear it, daiin does not.
Where you are free. This you decide yourselves, each in your own way, but once chosen you keep it for the whole sheet: more k or more t, more ch or more sh; whether you like the words with e or those without; y or dy; how often you put q in front; how firmly you close the last word; how strictly you avoid the glyph of the line above; how often you repeat a word; and your own words, which change a little from one section to the next. The places do not change: where a line begins, where p and f go, where q never goes. The strength is yours.
Never. Never begin a line with a, never two gallows in a word, never e with i, never q away from the start or without its o.
Nevertheless, I am still skeptic about the use of such a generator. The results are quite good, but it has been a work of finetunning and adapting the rules to the skriba. I know that having a Voynich generator that works is quite difficult, but I really don't know id it is useful at all.
If you think about the rules... I really don't think that they were the instructions to write the VMS. They are sort of the result of some other instructios (in thecase it was artificially written, no natural language). I have tried to summarize the rules into instructions but they don't make that much sense.... In THE_SCRIBE.md you can see "The instructions, as the master of the workshop might have given them"... do they really make sense? For those that don't have access to github, here are they:
The drawings are done. You write around them, afterwards (or at least, around the blank space left fot the drawing)
To begin. Start a paragraph with a word that carries a gallows, never with q. In that first line write the tall gallows, p and f, where you would otherwise write k and t, and more so when the space above is empty. The first line is a line apart: more sh than ch, more t than k, fewer ee, longer and rarer words, nothing taken from the page.
To make a word. A word has four places: a start if it needs one (qo, o, y, d, s), a core that is a gallows or a bench or nothing, one to three e, and an ending. One gallows at most. Decide the family before you write: with e the word ends in y or dy; without e, in aiin, ar or ol. Never put e and i together. Four to six glyphs is the usual size. To choose the next glyph, remember only the two before it. q goes only before o and only at the start. Between k and t, ch and sh, p and f, choose by the place and by the taste of the day, not by the word.
What to put in front. If the last word ended in y and the next begins with o, put q in front; if it begins with a, put d. After r or s, nothing. It is the last stroke of the pen that decides, not the word. The word itself tells you nothing about the next.
The line. Begin with d, s or y, or with a bare gallows, never with a. Do not begin with the glyph the line above begins with. Make the second word short. When you start a line, decide whether it will be a line of words that start straight with a gallows (tchy, kol, pol) or not, and on some pages more than on others. Close the last word: aiin becomes am, ol becomes oly, ar becomes ary, y becomes g. Close it because it is the last, whether you reach the margin or not, and do not squeeze the letters to get there. In the last line of a paragraph, close less.
When the drawing is in the way. Treat it as a margin: half close the word before it and start again after it as if it were a new line. Do not break a word across it.
Labels. Next to the figures, single words: they start with o, no q, and end in y, ly, ry.
The sheet. Write the four pages of a sheet in one sitting, with the same size of letter and the same tastes from start to end.
Copying and making up. About one word in five, take a word you can see on the page, from the few lines above, and change one glyph if you like, but as your hand would write it. The rest, write as you always write. Now and then repeat a word right after itself: chol and qokedy bear it, daiin does not.
Where you are free. This you decide yourselves, each in your own way, but once chosen you keep it for the whole sheet: more k or more t, more ch or more sh; whether you like the words with e or those without; y or dy; how often you put q in front; how firmly you close the last word; how strictly you avoid the glyph of the line above; how often you repeat a word; and your own words, which change a little from one section to the next. The places do not change: where a line begins, where p and f go, where q never goes. The strength is yours.
Never. Never begin a line with a, never two gallows in a word, never e with i, never q away from the start or without its o.
![[+]](https://www.voynich.ninja/images/collapse_collapsed.png)