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Subsitution key on f1r

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• Subsitution key on f1r

• RE: Subsitution key on f1r

  ololololo > 28-09-2026, 04:16 PM

  I came up with a theory based on the assumption that this is an author’s table.
  
  Perhaps this is the original form of the cipher alphabet. The authors could have written it on the first page as a guide, to train their hand to write the symbols they had created beautifully, and... They realized that this symbol is very easy to decipher, and they replaced it with what we now call Voynichese. 
  
  One such change could be the simplification of the alphabet through the introduction of digraphs. For example, the symbol between t and u could be abandoned in favor of ol or ar.
  
  Something resembling a red symbol is located between y and z. Perhaps when the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. page was being encrypted, the authors for some reason left this letter in, but later they abandoned it as well.
  
  This could be a very thin clue, but still, it’s too far‑fetched…

• RE: Subsitution key on f1r

  Jorge_Stolfi > 30-09-2026, 12:54 PM

  (28-09-2026, 04:16 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I came up with a theory based on the assumption that this is an author’s table.  Perhaps this is the original form of the cipher alphabet.

  
  Everybody and their cousin have tried to replace Voynichese glyphs by Latin letters according to that table.  But of course the result does not look remotely like any language.
  
  Any European language, that is.
  
  But what if the result was in fact a phonetic rendition of 15th century Mandarin or Vietnamese?
  
  I would kill myself.
  
  All the best, --stolfi
  
  (Diego de Landa, a Spanish missionary in Yucatan, recorded in his description of the land a "Mayan alphabet" that mapped each glyph to a Latin letter. But people who tried to read the inscriptions using that alphabet got nowhere.  Until the 1980s or so, the "consensus of the experts" -- imposed by a certain Eric Thompson, the Supreme Authority on Mayan writing -- was that Mayan script was a purely ideographic system and the glyphs represented gods.  Only after his death two young guys figured out that the writing was alphabetic of sorts and mostly recorded the sounds of the words.  Thompson's war against the "alphabetic theory" then made sort of sense, because he did not know the Mayan language...
  
  And then it was seen that the Landa alphabet was in fact partially correct, if very incomplete.)

• RE: Subsitution key on f1r

  Koen G > 30-09-2026, 08:27 PM

  Has anyone actually tried seeing how far you can get using these substitutions? Like, try to reverse engineer why probably-Marci chose these substitutions specifically?
  
  
  Something else that's weird: normally, when you see an alphabet shifted one location in a cipher context, that means a simple Caesar cipher, right? But the combination of a Caesar cipher and using Voynichese glyphs would be utterly nonsensical.

• RE: Subsitution key on f1r

  magnesium > 01-10-2026, 01:15 PM

  To chime in here, I agree with previous comments that the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. column of Voynichese glyphs was most likely original to the manuscript, like the column of glyphs seen along the left side of f66r.
  
  Here's my total guess as to what happened. Probably-Marci noticed that there were 23 glyphs in that column—a very alphabet-like number—and then excitedly sought to try mapping those glyphs to letters, first by writing the left column of letters. He then quickly realized that the mapping wouldn't work, so in a last-ditch effort, he adds the right column letters to shift the substitution mapping by 1—only to realize that mapping wouldn't work either.
  
  This is neither here nor there, but I can't help but notice that probably-Marci made no effort on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to test his mappings by writing out plaintext letters above or below the horizontal lines of Voynichese text, the obvious thing to attempt if you're decrypting on the page itself. My guess is, probably-Marci's effort fizzled out almost immediately.

• RE: Subsitution key on f1r

  Mauro > 01-10-2026, 02:21 PM

  A very silly idea, with exactly 100% possibility of being false...  but just for completeness of the hypothesis space: it's a mini-Vigenere cypher, encoding odd characters with the first alphabet and even characters with the second one.

• RE: Subsitution key on f1r

  Bluetoes101 > 01-10-2026, 03:05 PM

  Did Lisa share work on how column 1 and 3 were deemed to be Marci / the same hand? Could someone provide a link if so?
  
  I'm just curious as to me the letters to not look the same. In one "e" is written like a backwards "s" (assume this is the little flourish above "e" we see a lot, but done more crudely) the other it looks like "c", in one "q" looks like "q" but in the other "4" and so on. Smaller differences are certain letters have a little flourish to end the pen stroke, where in the other column they do not seem to. 
  
  I get it's zooming in on tiny letters on damaged material and so on, I'm just interested in seeing Lisa's work on this and improving my own knowledge a bit. 
  
  Some other thoughts, 
  Do we have any reason to assume the rightmost column is the "corrected" one, or "attempt 2" etc? It is the one that is not in line and has a big correction around "h" after all. 
  
  It looks like the worm hole(?) was in place before the columns, judging by the "--------" lines joining column 2 to 3. 
  
  "Why did they start column 3 above the "alphabet"?" Obviously one answer is whoever did it thought the alphabet shifted, but it still left them nothing for "a" - I started wondering if whoever did it took the 2 red characters to be the start of a cipher alphabet or something and carried it on.. it would give them the 2 missing characters for "a" in column 3..
  
  
     

• RE: Subsitution key on f1r

  RadioFM > 01-10-2026, 07:22 PM

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  Here's example of Marci's own purported handwriting:
  
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• RE: Subsitution key on f1r

  RadioFM > 01-10-2026, 08:09 PM

  IMHO I don't think it's Marci's hand, assuming the 12 Sept 1640 letter is his handwriting (correct me if I'm wrong)
  
  The letter has more of a slant. The h doesn't twirl down, but stops at the line level. The f's and b's are noticebly more arced/curved and swish-y in Marci's hand. Marci has an overall preference for curved u, not so angled v, even in initials like uegetabilis
  
     
  
  I don't have access to other JMM's letters, so I wouldn't know whether he himself penned the 1640 letter or someone else did, if he wrote more "elegantly" in this letter for the occasion, if he changed his handwriting over time (many people, including me, do).
  
  If you ask me, I think they jumped the gun a bit. The VMS had many owners over centuries and we only know a handful of them. It could be Marci's just as it could be anyone else. Maybe the zinc response in the multispectral imaging is indeed strong evidence for Marci, but I don't know. To my eyes, the handwriting is different.
  
  It doesn't look like the "mallier aller", "den mus m(d)el", "poxleber" or "valsch vbren" handwriting either for that matter. Nor the months, quires, folio numbering or color annotations.

• RE: Subsitution key on f1r

  exlipsiae > 02-10-2026, 08:30 PM

  (30-09-2026, 08:27 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Has anyone actually tried seeing how far you can get using these substitutions? Like, try to reverse engineer why probably-Marci chose these substitutions specifically?

  
  Well, yes, I mean that is why I opened this thread. I feel like I didn’t get the point across too well?
  The .txt file in the first post contains the entire VMS after applying the substitution. Unfortunately I can’t find any definitive “plain text” messages in there. But as others have pointed out this reverse engineering was never too likely anyway.

• RE: Subsitution key on f1r

  DG97EEB > 02-10-2026, 08:40 PM

  I thought it was written by his secretary so it wouldn't be his hand
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