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Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
- Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
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RE: Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
ololololo > 15-06-2026, 10:13 PM
(13-06-2026, 06:12 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If Voynichese is a numerical substitution, it means that letters or parts of words are hidden under numbers.
Expanding on the idea from that post, I should check if this method works on other similar words.
Let's take words with predictable translations on f77r: olkchs = air, otedy = water, dchdy = earth (the four elements).
First, let's go over what we know: is-n-ch-s, i-gn(g)-d-y.
Second, let's look at dchdy - two letters d. This is very similar to terra. Therefore, d = r, which means that ch and y should be equal to e and a. It turns out to be a literal translation.
Now let's consider olkchs and otedy, for which we already have more data: is-n-e/a-s and i-g-e-r-e/a. Only s is unknown.
We compare similar words and try to solve the resulting puzzles:
is-n-e/a-s - this is reminiscent of the word ventis (winds), but we are missing one letter. We can assume that v is omitted, and then s = t. We also get that ch = e
i-g-e-r-e - it sounds like the word "inrigat" (to water), but we don't have t, a, n and the second i. Is it a shortened version of the word inrigo?
What can I say... Of course, I still lean towards the fact that at least the words otol and okalo have a known translation (fire and intestines, respectively), and that my decryption may be generally correct, but we don't know the intricacies of the text's encryption (for example, in the translation of okalo = intesti, the scribe shortened the word, but otol = ignis, without any abbreviations; also, don't forget that the author may have mixed numbers or "dissected" the word), which makes us uncertain about the other words.
In general, such a technique can be used to analyze signature words (such words can also be found in the astronomical section). I see the translation of such words as an important step towards studying and gradually deciphering the rest of the text (for, of course, a single translation of these words will not reveal the entire manuscript to us. The text has many nuances, including those that we don't know about, and it will also take some time to study them). -
RE: Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
ololololo > 17-06-2026, 06:22 PM
Here, I will collect all the notes and thoughts that I did not mention in the main post or that did not exist at the time the main post was published.
First, I'll say a few words about the text, and then I'll go over the other one.
1). From the set of "syllables" I have derived, I want to highlight the layer of "units": i, r, l, and m. All of them are a copy of i, but with the addition of a curl or loop. i and m are most often found at the end, while r and l can also be found at the beginning (excluding cases where al/ar and ol/or are found together). The positional features and similarity to a unit led me to conclude that it is a unit with something. Let's say i = 1, then perhaps r = 2, l = 3, m = 4, and so on. Digrams can be represented as a sum. Let a = 5, then ai = 6, ar = 7, al = 8, and am = 9. This suggests that in the supposed "alphabet," the Latin letters were not only arranged in ascending order, but some of them may have had unique indices. It is also possible that this was a way to distinguish between letter bigrams and abbreviation bigrams (It is actually possible that the author of the manuscript was encrypting some Latin roots, prefixes, or endings, which were often abbreviated in writing. I don't think it would be difficult for a medieval educated scribe to encrypt a couple of roots).
Why is that? I don't see any problem with writing a unit with a pen and then abruptly moving the pen away to create a scribble. There is no particularly complex system here.
2). When I say a numeric cipher, I mean a cipher where letters are replaced by numbers or digits, and then by letters from an artificial alphabet. In my understanding, we can assign a meaning to the Voynich letters, but we can't remove the letter from that meaning (because it's a nomenclature, not a simple substitution). Using the positional rules of Roman numerals, I was able to derive the most likely values for the following letters:
i = n = 1 (it is almost always the last letter in a word. If we think of a Voynich word as an ordered set of numbers, it is clear that the unit would be at the end as the smallest digit).
a = 5 (it never occurs twice in a row and is combined with a unit)
e = 10 (it can be doubled, but it rarely appears at the end)
ch = 50/100 (why is 50? because it comes before the above-mentioned letters, which means it is greater than them, but it also does not repeat. Why 100? there are 18 words where ch goes in a row, and logically this means that ch = 100, but these examples don't give us any information, and it's also possible that it's just a repetition of 50-50, because if the numbers are arranged in ascending order and there are two identical numbers in the set, they will be next to each other. But I'm more inclined towards 50).
It's not that valuable, and it doesn't actually give us anything, but it's still there.
3). I repeat the theme of previous posts. How can we decrypt a cipher if we don't know anything about the algorithm? Right! We can take a word that stands next to an identifiable object.
We won't translate the names of plants, but we will take on more obvious examples:
otol - fire (f77r)
olkchs = air (f77r)
otedy = water (f77r)
dchdy = earth (f77r)
okalo = intestine (f77v)
We match the Latin words:
o-t-ol = i-gn(g)-is, o = i, t = g, ol = is. The words are similar because they have the same vowel twice.
dchdy = terra, d = r, ch = t?, y = a? We check for similarity - two consonants are repeated in the words. It's unclear why there's a single d at the beginning, as the logic of the permutation would suggest that it should be chddy, but it's possible that the author has devised a clever strategy. The equality y = a is quite logical, a is the first letter of the Latin alphabet, and in numerical substitution it is often given a lower value. It turns out that y is also equal to one (this is also logical, by the way, because in the manuscript we will not find examples where two types of units occur together. There is only daiiny, but there is no yii or iiy), i.e. once again we see that in the cipher, most likely, one number can have several meanings.
o-k-al-o = i-n-test-i (a possible contraction of intestinum, where the ending -num is just omitted). We check for similarity - two vowels are repeated, but there is a difference in the total number of letters. From here, we get that the bigram al = test. In the last example, the digram ol gave us is. We could be quick to say that l = s, but I won't jump to conclusions. In two different examples, bigrams have already given us shortened morphemes.
Expanding on the idea from the post about planets (here's the link:https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-4089.html), we will also try to compare the encrypted names of the planets with the Latin words. Let's start with Mercury.
o-p-ch-ol-d-y = Hermes. There are no external similarities, but if we remove the y and decompose ol into o and l, we will see them:
o-p-ch-o-l-d = Hermes. The repeated vowel is e twice, so o = e. d = r, We already know that. This leaves only m and s, which must be equal to p and l. Only ch remains. If we assume that l = s, then we get that e-P-CH-e-s-r, XerXes, and ch doesn't look superfluous anymore.
okal = Jeus. We get that e-K-A-s, XeXs, it turns out that k and a here should mean j and u.
ofar oeoldan = Helios. No letter is repeated in the word Helios, so we remove the repeated letters in the Voynichese word: of® ldan = Helios (there are other ways, but I decided to do it this way). Taking an as one letter, we get an equality in the number of letters. But there is a d = r here, and there is no r in the word Helios, so we will get rid of it too.
of® lan = Helios, and to make the letters equal, we have to divide an into a and n. e-F-R-s-A-N, XeXXXs.
y-t-o-ai-in = Selena. The Voynichese word has only one e and no s, but there is one a (if y = a). It turns out the following: a-T-e-AI-II, XeXXXa. It is possible that the digrams encrypt Se and l, or that two letters are omitted (unlikely).
y-f-ai-n = Ares. Matching by number of letters, but no e, s and r. There is only a. a-F-AI-II, AXXX. Despite the matches, I can't explain why the letters we need are missing (and I probably won't, to avoid making mistakes).
d-al-ch-s-o-dy = Cronos. e (o), a (y) and second r (d) are redundant, so we remove them:
d-a-l-ch-s = Cronos. I divided al to get s. We have: r-A-s-CH-S, XrXXXs.
o-k-ai-n am = Aphrodite. There is one e, no r. e-K-AI-II AM, XXXXXXXe. The score is not in our favor... Something tells me that it's related to am, and it's probably the reason for the lack of letters.
In general, the method works intermittently. There is evidence that the alphabet changes slightly depending on the section. In the examples, we see that bigrams encode morphemes or combinations of letters. I'm not sure if I've done the correct decoding, but at the very least, we can say that the substitution logic applies to Voynichese, and we didn't encounter any issues or anomalies during the decoding process. There are prospects for checking the signatures on the f68r1 and f68r2 charts with the names of the lunar months (regular and sacred, respectively) and, probably, the signatures in the pharmaceutical section.
And now, my thoughts, speculations, and assumptions...
1). It seems to me that the botanical section still depicts real plants and is about the healing properties of plants, but! The artist intentionally distorted all their parts except the main one (i.e., the one with healing properties), or simply distorting everything except the key feature. For example, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - we recognize the castor bean by its spines, but the leaves are not quite the same.
2). I believe that balneology is not balneology, but anatomy. For a medical book, it's more expected to see anatomy than some complex alchemy. I was unable to find 15th-century anatomical books for comparison, so identification will be based on comparison with organs.
I'll use an asterisk (*) to indicate something I'm not entirely sure about: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - mouth/throat/pharynx* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - maybe the nasal cavity, the shape of the pond below strongly resembles a brain You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - something red can be a heart. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - uterus and fallopian tubes are on top; the intestine on the right;
f78r-f79r - the digestive system. Apparently, it is presented here in a generalized form, and the focus is on the digestive process itself rather than the organs. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - lungs* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - stomach* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - phallus on top and testicles You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - kidneys*
I can't prove or support these identifications; they are based solely on similarities. It can be seen that the author has a rough understanding of how the internal organs look, but draws them symbolically (either due to a lack of drawing skills or intentional concealment). Additionally, it can be observed that the organs are described in order from the head to the groin (although the female reproductive system is mentioned outside of this order).
3). It seems to me that the pharmacist's containers in the pharmaceutical section are nothing more than conventional symbols for the category of plant parts. I also think it's obvious that there are other fruits depicted besides turnips.
4). I believe that the cipher changed over time, and it was somewhat simpler at the beginning than at the end. Over time, it adapted to the text, and new morphemes could be added, or the meaning of the symbols could change (as we saw in the examples, where o = e in astronomy and o = i in balneology). The cipher could also be modified by the scribe himself, as he saw fit (for example, the author of the astronomical section chose to encrypt e as o, presumably assuming that i would be rare or abbreviated).
5). I believe that nymphs in balneology (don't be surprised that I'm using the term "balneology" instead of "anatomy"; for your benefit, I'll stick to the conventional terminology) represent vitality, but no more than that. -
RE: Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
eggyk > 17-06-2026, 06:47 PM
(15-06-2026, 10:13 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Second, let's look at dchdy - two letters d. This is very similar to terra. Therefore, d = r, which means that ch and y should be equal to e and a. It turns out to be a literal translation.
dchdy with d=r, ch=e, y=a is: "rera", not "terra"
(15-06-2026, 10:13 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.i-g-e-r-e - it sounds like the word "inrigat" (to water), but we don't have t, a, n and the second i. Is it a shortened version of the word inrigo?
"igere" does not sound like "inrigat" or "inrigo" in any meaningful sense. "igere" also sounds like "belligerence" without the b, an e, and the l's.
(15-06-2026, 10:13 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.is-n-e/a-s - this is reminiscent of the word ventis (winds), but we are missing one letter.
"isnes" or "isnas" is not reminiscent of "ventis". Even with the v it's a really big stretch.
Has this thread become an AI driven theory thread? -
RE: Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
ololololo > 17-06-2026, 06:58 PM
(17-06-2026, 06:47 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Oh, well, thanks for the comments! Ch = te, not e.(15-06-2026, 10:13 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Second, let's look at dchdy - two letters d. This is very similar to terra. Therefore, d = r, which means that ch and y should be equal to e and a. It turns out to be a literal translation.
dchdy with d=r, ch=e, y=a is: "rera", not "terra"
(15-06-2026, 10:13 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.i-g-e-r-e - it sounds like the word "inrigat" (to water), but we don't have t, a, n and the second i. Is it a shortened version of the word inrigo?
"igere" does not sound like "inrigat" or "inrigo" in any meaningful sense. "igere" also sounds like "belligerence" without the b, an e, and the l's.
(15-06-2026, 10:13 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.is-n-e/a-s - this is reminiscent of the word ventis (winds), but we are missing one letter.
"isnes" or "isnas" is not reminiscent of "ventis". Even with the v it's a really big stretch.
Has this thread become an AI driven theory thread?
As you correctly pointed out, this interpretation has assumptions and is not entirely accurate (as I mentioned in a subsequent post). And yes, I am also mistaking
But I don't pay attention to it...
And yes, you've noticed that the words don't look like irrigat or ventis. That's the only thing I've found that matches. But this isn't a translation, it's just something I've picked up and tried to make sense of (the translation should be aqua and aer, logically).
I am absolutely certain only about otol = ignis and okalo = intesti.
I'll also explain about rera. So, yes, dchdy = rtera (ch = te), but by rearranging one r, we get terra (if ch = e/t, then it becomes trra or erra, which is not too far from terra). -
RE: Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
ololololo > 17-06-2026, 11:22 PM
(17-06-2026, 06:47 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
And if you didn't get the logic, the idea was to rearrange the letters based on the fact that a certain letter (or rather, its numerical representation) is greater than the one that follows it. So it's not rera, but erra and not isnes, but ensis (well, there's no way to get to ventis here).(15-06-2026, 10:13 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Second, let's look at dchdy - two letters d. This is very similar to terra. Therefore, d = r, which means that ch and y should be equal to e and a. It turns out to be a literal translation.
dchdy with d=r, ch=e, y=a is: "rera", not "terra"
(15-06-2026, 10:13 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.i-g-e-r-e - it sounds like the word "inrigat" (to water), but we don't have t, a, n and the second i. Is it a shortened version of the word inrigo?
"igere" does not sound like "inrigat" or "inrigo" in any meaningful sense. "igere" also sounds like "belligerence" without the b, an e, and the l's.
(15-06-2026, 10:13 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.is-n-e/a-s - this is reminiscent of the word ventis (winds), but we are missing one letter.
"isnes" or "isnas" is not reminiscent of "ventis". Even with the v it's a really big stretch.
Has this thread become an AI driven theory thread? -
RE: Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
ololololo > 20-06-2026, 02:08 PM
Thanks @Rafal for giving me this tip. His thread: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
In fact, the numeric cipher has a large number of Voynichese characters.
In his thread, Rafal suggests that the a symbol is not an a, but an ei written too close together. Throughout the manuscript, its spelling is stable and distinct from Latin a, it consists of writing e, and then i close to it on the right. For the type of difference and feature of the symbol a, let's compare it with the Latin a from the inscription on f116v:
The difference is insignificant, but it does occur - in Voynichese a, sometimes there is a gap between part e and part i, and in general it seems that it takes two strokes of the pen to write it. In the example from the word "oladabad" (which is more noticeable in the middle a), the letter is written with one stroke of the pen, and there is no pronounced space or gap between its left and right parts.
Remembering my syllable system, we get the fact that we do not have the syllables ai/al/ar, there are syllables ei, i(n) and the symbols of its group (l, r, m).
It turns out that we can identify the following system of minimal semantic units:
1). Units: i(n), l, r, m
2). Tens: e, s, d, y, ch/sh
3). Vagues: all gallows, x, q, o
4). Syllables: ei, eir, eil, oi, in, ir, iin, ee, eee,
Total: 25 "letters" (there are 26 of them in the Latin alphabet, if U = V, then 25)
Most of the words in Voynichese take the form of a series of "tens and ones". (I doubt that e means the same as C, i.e. a hundred). In this form, it looks like the classic numbering of letters a la A = 1, B = 2, C = 3... The first letters of the alphabet will always appear at the end of the word, and the last ones at the beginning.
The trick of the Voynichese alphabet is that it does not encode all letters as eei (21) or eii (12), but replaces some values with individual characters, making them difficult to calculate.
It's more like a numeric cipher than anything else.
However, this does not give us much. To detect letters in such a way that they may turn out to be (maybe not A = 1 Z = 26, but A = 26 Z = 1). But if we recognize the letters, then the output will definitely not be a perfect translation, but rather a set of letters where we will have to identify the nulls and the "splitting" of the word.
In the meantime, study, study, and only study... -
RE: Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
ololololo > 20-06-2026, 08:55 PM
(17-06-2026, 06:22 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.otol - fire
If I don't try to translate them literally, you can still come to the same conclusion that one of the possible meanings of the word otol is fire. In the prescription section, you will often find words such as okeedy, qokeey, otey, or qoteey (these are not single words or multiple words, but rather a group of similar words, such as otey, oteey, qotedy, qoteey, etc.). If otol is fire, or at least something related to it, then the words of the otey group are related to frying or boiling (or other interactions with fire). -
RE: Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
oshfdk > 20-06-2026, 10:51 PM
(20-06-2026, 08:55 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If I don't try to translate them literally, you can still come to the same conclusion that one of the possible meanings of the word otol is fire. In the prescription section, you will often find words such as okeedy, qokeey, otey, or qoteey (these are not single words or multiple words, but rather a group of similar words, such as otey, oteey, qotedy, qoteey, etc.). If otol is fire, or at least something related to it, then the words of the otey group are related to frying or boiling (or other interactions with fire).
To expand on this idea or related words, even if we use the image context to identify the words and the image itself is indeed of fire, otol could still mean many other things, some of them not even related at all, for example:
hot
heat
burn
pic. 4
stage 2
eternal flame
πῦρ (that is, a borrow word from another language to appear more sophisticated)
etc. Even if the image shows fire, rainbow, rabbit, the Moon, this doesn't guarantee that the label literally spells these words and not something else depending on the nature of the text. -
RE: Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
ololololo > 20-06-2026, 11:07 PM
(20-06-2026, 10:51 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Even if the image shows fire, rainbow, rabbit, the Moon, this doesn't guarantee that the label literally spells these words and not something else depending on the nature of the text.
All right. Such liberties are possible, but they do not take place, and when you write a book about medicine, you rather sign the fire as fire, because you do not need to play the reader. -
RE: Voynichese is a numeric cipher?
oshfdk > 21-06-2026, 08:34 AM
(20-06-2026, 11:07 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Such liberties are possible, but they do not take place, and when you write a book about medicine, you rather sign the fire as fire, because you do not need to play the reader.
I can't agree, if this is a book about medicine and not a kindergarten primer, I'd say it makes little sense to draw fire and label it as "fire". Certainly the reader knows what fire looks like.
In a medical book of the time one example could be a text talking about how humors relate to elements, in which case labelling elements for their corresponding humors would be informative. Then fire would be labelled something like "bile", air as "blood", water as "phlegm", etc.
In reality I don't believe we can expect the fire image to be literally labelled as "fire". It is possible, but it's far far from certain.