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How perfect is Voynichese?
- How perfect is Voynichese?
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RE: How perfect is Voynichese?
Rafal > 07-07-2026, 11:25 PM
Quote:Now let's put these letters in alphabetical order.:
This would be an anagram.
At this moment you are already unable in many cases to reconstruct the original word.
AEDM may come from MADE, DAME, MEAD or EDAM (kind of cheese).
If you add even more arbitrary changes destroying the original word it will be completely beyond recovery.
So the text would be kind of gibberish and your "corrupted cipher" would be in practice the same as gibberish generator.
Would you agree?
And what was the initial question?
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RE: How perfect is Voynichese?
oshfdk > 08-07-2026, 06:07 AM
(07-07-2026, 10:32 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anyway, his knowledge of medicine was impressive, which means he was hardly a dunce.
Even a mediocre artist can take an anatomy book and draw a passable copy of anatomical structures, this doesn't imply any knowledge of medicine. Who knows, maybe imagination was the author's only forte. -
RE: How perfect is Voynichese?
Mauro > 08-07-2026, 09:03 AM
(08-07-2026, 06:07 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(07-07-2026, 10:32 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anyway, his knowledge of medicine was impressive, which means he was hardly a dunce.
Even a mediocre artist can take an anatomy book and draw a passable copy of anatomical structures, this doesn't imply any knowledge of medicine. Who knows, maybe imagination was the author's only forte.
And: provided the 'anatomical' drawings are really anatomical and not something else entirely which, in my guess, looks much more probable. -
RE: How perfect is Voynichese?
ololololo > 08-07-2026, 10:58 AM
(07-07-2026, 11:25 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Yes, you can't solve anagrams in their pure form. But they are more like... a bad cipher, not a "corrupted" one.Quote:Now let's put these letters in alphabetical order.:
This would be an anagram.
At this moment you are already unable in many cases to reconstruct the original word.
AEDM may come from MADE, DAME, MEAD or EDAM (kind of cheese).
If you add even more arbitrary changes destroying the original word it will be completely beyond recovery.
So the text would be kind of gibberish and your "corrupted cipher" would be in practice the same as gibberish generator.
Would you agree?
And what was the initial question? -
RE: How perfect is Voynichese?
ololololo > 08-07-2026, 04:05 PM
(07-07-2026, 11:25 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.AEDM may come from MADE, DAME, MEAD or EDAM (kind of cheese).
By the way, there is a possibility that some VMS words are the same anagrams. Let's take the word chodaiin as an example.
chodaiin is sometimes found in Botany, Pharmacy, Recipes, and also once in Zodiac. On f89r1, there is the word ararchodaiin to the right of the root. It differs only in arar at the beginning (by the way, I believe that these are 2 letters, not 4, i.e. ar-ar). It seems to me that the case of this word is too similar to those examples of anagrams that I have shown. There is a possibility that chodaiin in Zodiac and chodaiin in botany are completely different words, but the ruthless Voynichese turned them into indistinguishable anagrams.
The example of ararchodaiin is also similar to an anagram - when letters are distributed, two identical letters (in our case ar) in the anagram will go in a row (as in the word MORNING - GIMNNOR).
(07-07-2026, 11:25 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.At this moment you are already unable in many cases to reconstruct the original word.
But simple anagrams can be guessed from the context. For example, your example with MADE:
EDAM A EKAC
RYEV AYSTT EDAM
In the first case EDAM = MADE, A EKAC (A CAKE) tells about this.
In the second cade EDAM = EDAM, RYEV AYSTT (VERY TASTY) also tells about this.
Having the context, it will become much easier to guess the problematic anagram, and VMS has it - we have both images and text (most likely, meaningful and coherent). -
RE: How perfect is Voynichese?
oshfdk > 08-07-2026, 04:21 PM
(08-07-2026, 04:05 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But simple anagrams can be guessed from the context. For example, your example with MADE:
EDAM A EKAC
RYEV AYSTT EDAM
In the first case EDAM = MADE, A EKAC (A CAKE) tells about this.
In the second cade EDAM = EDAM, RYEV AYSTT (VERY TASTY) also tells about this.
Having the context, it will become much easier to guess the problematic anagram, and VMS has it - we have both images and text (most likely, meaningful and coherent).
Can you read the following? How quickly? Genuine question, I don't really understand whether reading these anagrams is a skill that can be learned. Please don't spoil it for others, would be nice to collect a few opinions.
CENO OUY AEKM A AEIKMST EENV A EILMPS AEHPRS ACN EGT ADEHRR ADN ADEHRR OT ADER, EEHORVW IHTW EMOS ACEIPRT ABEMY HIST ILLW KORW -
RE: How perfect is Voynichese?
ololololo > 08-07-2026, 04:35 PM
(08-07-2026, 04:21 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Oh... I'll work on it soon, but first we'll wait for others' answers.(08-07-2026, 04:05 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But simple anagrams can be guessed from the context. For example, your example with MADE:
EDAM A EKAC
RYEV AYSTT EDAM
In the first case EDAM = MADE, A EKAC (A CAKE) tells about this.
In the second cade EDAM = EDAM, RYEV AYSTT (VERY TASTY) also tells about this.
Having the context, it will become much easier to guess the problematic anagram, and VMS has it - we have both images and text (most likely, meaningful and coherent).
Can you read the following? How quickly? Genuine question, I don't really understand whether reading these anagrams is a skill that can be learned. Please don't spoil it for others, would be nice to collect a few opinions.
CENO OUY AEKM A AEIKMST EENV A EILMPS AEHPRS ACN EGT ADEHRR ADN ADEHRR OT ADER, EEHORVW IHTW EMOS ACEIPRT ABEMY HIST ILLW KORW
And by the way, speaking of anagrams in Voynichese, I mean something like this -
RE: How perfect is Voynichese?
pfeaster > 08-07-2026, 05:36 PM
(08-07-2026, 04:21 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Can you read the following? How quickly? Genuine question, I don't really understand whether reading these anagrams is a skill that can be learned. Please don't spoil it for others, would be nice to collect a few opinions.
CENO OUY AEKM A AEIKMST EENV A EILMPS AEHPRS ACN EGT ADEHRR ADN ADEHRR OT ADER, EEHORVW IHTW EMOS ACEIPRT ABEMY HIST ILLW KORW
I can read it. Pretty easily, in fact. I didn't time myself, but my impression is that it took me about three times as long as it would have taken me to read non-anagrammed text. -
RE: How perfect is Voynichese?
pfeaster > 08-07-2026, 05:57 PM
(07-07-2026, 06:29 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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).
Here are a couple particularly messed-up examples from the early seventeenth century, with an analysis of what went wrong (only possible because we know what the texts "should" say):
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -
RE: How perfect is Voynichese?
ololololo > 08-07-2026, 08:00 PM
(08-07-2026, 05:57 PM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
This is a great example that perfectly fits my definition of a "broken" cipher. In addition to the errors, I found it difficult to decipher in principle.(07-07-2026, 06:29 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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).
Here are a couple particularly messed-up examples from the early seventeenth century, with an analysis of what went wrong (only possible because we know what the texts "should" say):
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.