An Open Letter to the Curators and Scholars of Yale Univeristy's Beinecke MS 408: the Cipher "Voynich" Manuscript

The Voynich manuscript is a mysterious 15th century manuscript with awkward images written in unknown script. This paper suggests that the manuscript was written in some form of Medieval Latin language almost without vowels and using substitution cipher and proposes the key to decipher it.

Global Histories: A Student Journal , 2017

Raymond Clemens’ "The Voynich Manuscript" best serves to introduce the reader to one of the greatest mysteries of the medieval European world by placing the very document in the hands of the reader, allowing them to take on the role of the historian and cryptologist that exists within one’s self whenever curiosity is peaked by an unsolvable puzzle. Despite the disappointing nature of the articles within, which contain recent developments and new approaches countable on one hand, the quality of the facsimile provides more than enough historical value, with its otherworldly images and script that have excited and baffled scholars for centuries. It is the job of the Historian to constantly pursue historical context and fact despite a myriad of seemingly indiscernible information, and indeed the Voynich Manuscript with all its mystery personifies this ultimate pursuit of truth, one in which the solution itself is not always as interesting as the problem itself.

International Journal of Research Publication and Reviews Journal , 2024

Despite all the unsuccessful decipherment research methods that others have tried to apply, there was no solution in reading the Voynich manuscript. This research describes recent successful decoding methodology from the very doorway to deciphering the whole Voynich manuscript. In particular, the investigation of background information and detailed analytical studies of the characters of the Voynich manuscript, words that were written in plain way, which have been performed to define the algorithm of the encoded text. It gives emphasis on the importance of this research for its successful decipherment.

Beinecke 408 - Appendices, 2024

Some words and sentences translated and philologically analysed.

A first Trial in my first Translation of a Sentence in the Voynich Manuscript is based on the essay A proposed partial decoding of the Voynich script and the videos Voynich - a provisional, partial decoding of the Voynich script and Professor Stephen Bax Voynich Manuscript Decoded. In his essay Professor Stephen Bax have proposed the systematic identification of a set of proper names in the Voynich text, giving a total of ten words made up of fourteen of the Voynich symbols and clusters. The Voynich Manuscript is not a hoax. It is a meaningful text, encoded in an unknown script. The naming of the constellation Taurus, the plant Centaury, the centaur Chiron and the plant ‘Kaur’ for hellebore, seem to Stephen Bax to be most persuasive. Based on Bax' analysis letter-symbols (on page f1r) I interpreted the Eva-name “ü odar” as “Vader”, respectively “Father”. In the Voynich manuscript the word “Father” probably the divine Father, which eventually refers to a quotation of the prayer “Lord's Prayer”, which is well-documented in all languages and for all available centuries.

Academia Letters, 2021

This article answers frequent inquiry about how the solutions were found for the writing system and language of Medieval manuscript MS408, as described in the peer-reviewed Romance Studies journal paper titled: The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained. (Cheshire, 2019) As finding the solutions was largely intuitive, then explaining how it was done is something of a challenge in and of itself. The first detail is that no effort was invested in researching previous attempts by other scholars, working on the simple logic that they must already have covered all possible combinations of potential letter symbols and languages, given that so many had tried over so many years. It was therefore possible to reason that the solution required an intuitive approach. So, the starting point was to consider the manuscript afresh, with an open mind, unpolluted by the ideas of others or any prior linguistic rules. The metaphorical canvas was left entirely blank to allow complete freedom and flux in ideas and thought experimentation. The methodology was initially straightforward. All manuscript symbols were recorded, by examining every page, until no new symbols could be found. Relative counts of the symbols were then made, by using a couple of pages, in order to get an idea of their likely correspondence with letters in the Italic alphabet, based on the notion that the manuscript was probably southern European, given the visual information provided by the manuscript illustrations, such as the human figures, their clothing and their material culture. It was found that some of the symbols had far higher frequencies of occurrence than others and were therefore likely to be the vowels. They were also diminutive is size, suggesting vowels. However, there were more than five, so it was postulated that they probably represented pronuncial variants that are now distinguished by accents. Thus, it made sense to have two letter 'a' variants and three letter 'e' variants, with letters 'i', 'o' and 'u' as single symbols. It also became apparent that one symbol combined 'ae', which logically represented

A Proposal for Reading the Voynich Manuscript, 2019

In this work, we provide a proposal for the transliteration and translation of the text of the Voynich Manuscript. Based upon our findings, the language of the Voynich Manuscript is a Vulgar Latin dialect, likely affected by a contemporary Italian dialect. We also provide evidence regarding the origin of the writing system of this manuscript: it appears to be a late modified subset of a once widespread shorthand known as Tironian Notes. In this work, we provide transliterations and translations of two pages of continuous text, an analysis of the language reflected in the text, and a proposal for the content and purpose of the manuscript: it is a late Medieval manual for medical practices regarding women's health matters. We also provide an epigraphic analysis of the Voynich writing system: orthographic principles of this system, punctuation, and the sound values of the Voynich writing system characters. We also provide a proposal for the location of the authorship of this manuscript, based upon iconographic and linguistic materials: the Veneto region of northern Italy, in the vicinity of the provinces of Verona, Padova, and Vicenza. In this work, we also provide prescriptive materials for future work on the translation of the Voynich Manuscript; namely, that further work on the Voynich Manuscript will require a team of individuals with advanced and specialized knowledge in Vulgar Latin, epigraphy, paleography, late Medieval northern Italian culture, Medieval medical practices, medical botany, and medical practices regarding women's health. -- Tim King PhD, Alessandra Andrisani, Bryce Beasley, and Julian Condo

2024

The following paper reveals that the Voynich Manuscript is a Medieval Latin celestial herbal book of hours to treat patients according to an individual's birth chart, humoral disposition, and illness. It describes that the Son of God provides treatments through garden plants' flowers and seeds. It contains two lists on the first folio: one for instructions and one to list the main sources of these treatments. Additionally, it mentions two important monastic tenants and Christian commandments of being stewards to the earth and its plants and animals. All plants are identified and originate from Ethiopia-Somaliland, Persia/Iran, India, China, the Himalayas (Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma/Myanmar), and other geographical areas of the Far East. The manuscript discusses Venus, the morning and evening star, as responsible for the division of the year and subsequently its role in creating cures. The Pleiades is responsible for the creation of elixirs. Electuaries are produced through four types of oils. Oils are associated with humors. It reveals the equatorial and ecliptics constellations and their plant associations. It names the plant section as the Curatorium and the constellation section as the Codex Constellarum Aster. It mentions the four humors recurrently. The manuscript was written around 1423 by a Swiss German sacristan monk named Clemens Specker, who traveled to the Himalayas, wherein he spent time studying the local plants and cataloging them to be used in medicinal curatives in northeastern Tibet. The healing systems referenced are: Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and Tibetan Sowa Rigpa. Overall, the Voynich Manuscript is a syncretic Christian-Tibetan Buddhist astro-botanical manuscript reflecting both European humoral medicine and Sowa Rigpa.

THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT. CONJECTURES ABOUT THE AUTHORSHIP, 2019

Unraveling the Voynich Codex, by Janick, Jules, Tucker, Arthur reviews the historical, botanical, zoological, and iconographic evidence related to the Voynich Codex, one of the most enigmatic historic texts of all time According to the Authors of the above mentioned book, Plant, animal, and mineral Identifications as well as iconographic evidence indicate that the Voynich Codex is a 16th century work of New Spain. A typographical ligature based on the initials "JGT" in the first botanical image (folio 1v) suggests that artist was Juan Gerson , Tlacuilo , indigenous painter known for the apocalypse paintings in the monastery Asuncion of Our Lady of Tecamachalco . The name "Gasp. Torres "Also included in the first botanical image suggests that the author could be Gaspar de Torres, medical doctor, estate lawyer, master of students at the College of Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco from 1568-1572, and Governor of Cuba in 1580. Iconographic similarities between the paintings of John Gerson and the Voynich Codex, along with a biography of Gaspar de Torres provide additional support for this conjecture. The presupposition that I maintain is that although I support the theory of the above mentioned both authors that indicate that the voynich codex is a 16th century work of New Spain, the typographical ligature of the (folio 1v) is not of Juan Gerson , Tlacuilo , neither of Gaspar Torrres but of Juan de la Fuente and Damian Torres. It seems more an medical treatise addressed to indigenous women (doctors, midwives) and coordinated by medicine doctors that authority to issue printing/reading permits with these ligatures; like Juan de la Fuente and Damian Torres as Protomedicos of New Spain in the 16th century were allowed to do so.

Each human language should be based on the (5) articulation points of the phonemes (lingual, labial, guttural, palatal and dental). Usually these categories are found in PIE-words such as the sky-god DIAUS. The search of the 5-letter keywords, which represent all 5 articulation points should be applicable in the word formulas. After some studies of the various interpretations of the Voynich Manuscript I decided to investigate the 5 categorizations of the symbols in the words. One of the most promising formulas for the deciphering of the etymology may be the word “okshdy” (okShdy) in the formula for Mike Roe's generic word. The word “okShdy” may be the only 5-letter composition in which all Places of articulation are represented. There is only one location in which “okShdy” is spelled as an individual word.