I’ve just got back from holiday, and I’m very sorry to say that there’s a whole heap here of cipher stuff waiting to be written about. 2014 has seen a yeast-like explosion in Voynich theories: Torsten Timm, R. Sale, a Russian engineer and the whole Nahuatl thing (never mind Stephen Bax’s nine little words)… plus at least ten more Voynich theories and a fair few Voynich novels to cover. All in all, I’m something like twenty posts behind where I want to be: so apologies to all. 🙁
As the years crawl by, though, I have to say that I increasingly find almost all cipher mystery theories unhelpful at best, and tiringly time-wasting at worst. Historical speculation is fun for faux-historical novelists, or as a 10pm pub game for academics: but pretty much every time I’ve seen it applied to an unbroken historical cipher (particularly the Voynich Manuscript), it turns out badly for everyone. By squinting at Voynichese in a certain way, it may indeed resemble (say) a kind of demented cross between Latinized Occitan and mirrored Middle German: but how exactly does that help us decrypt it? Does Theory X make even a single prediction about how the oddly-behaving Voynichese ‘language’ works, or what any of the Voynich Manuscript’s inscrutably unfathomable pictures are all about?
And yet I find Voynich theorists now increasingly try to goad me, to try to get me to fight back against their theories, so that they can lock intellectual horns with me in some kind of sad parody of Roman arena sport. (Stephen Bax managed to pull this sad trick off to such a ridiculous and annoying degree that I ended up deleting every single one of his foolish comments, plumbing a depth even beyond the sweariest of Tamam Trolls.) In fact, I’ve been told that some Voynich theorists now see having a flat-out Cipher Mysteries rebuttal as a rite of passage, a badge to be worn with pride. It’s not a proper Voynich theory until Nick’s shredded it a little, etc etc.
And so the question arises: for whose benefit do I write these supposedly-blood-soaked reviews of Voynich theories? Certainly not for the people who propose them, because I don’t believe that any Voynich theorist takes a blind bit of notice of what I say. And from the fawning media coverage that Stephen Bax continues to receive for his Voynich non-theory (which, as ever, remains several sandwiches and a basket short of a picnic), I’d say that few journalists take much notice either. And it’s not for SEO reasons either – if page hits were that important to me, wouldn’t I be blogging about lolcats and making Minecraft videos, hmmm?
When John Matthews Manly demolished William Romaine Newbold’s foolishly optimistic Voynich theory, his main motivation was to stop Newbold’s imaginative “decryption” from trashing the history of the Middle Ages. More recently, John Stojko’s ridiculous “proto-Ukrainian” ‘decryption’ of the Voynich Manuscript has been used by some Ukrainian nationalists to try to support their cause, in a country assembled from random jigsaw-like pieces during the 20th century, a country that is arguably suffering more than most right now. Have such people actually read any of it? I mean…
[f18r] 1. What slanted Oko is doing now? Perhaps Ora’s people you are snatching. I was, I am fighting and told the truth. Oko you are fighting mischievously (evil manner). Ask this. Are you asking religion for your clan?
2. We renewed the information (news) and told to the world. He wrote and I am writing. You broke this slanted eye of God. Oko Bozia (Baby God) answered.
3. In believe she is holy and you should believe and welcome our religion and Miss. The holy told in slanted way. Is that the evil that will be victorious?
4. In religion we decide for Ora and Ora will welcome the renovation. What a news you and Bozia told.
5. That in religion I will believe in god’s emptiness. Empty (vain) is your calling, we caught (snatched) and carted away.
6. What I am writing you should believe. Perhaps now that what you are calling you will relinquish, Oko is fighting, Oko is victorious and Oko was.
7. In one religion only one is gods. For what reason Kosa (slant) is telling us? Oko is calling slanted, praise the God’s Oko.
8. In believe her holiness is asking for freedom. Kosa has the freedom. You were slants and now you are taking Oko.
9. You are saying but you were idlers. You were alone but you are writing and talking.
10. Oko is fighting for one religion. You told this. Do you won’t this God’s Oko?
11. Where do you wont in Steppe? Tell and write. Kosa should ask for freedom in religion.
12. Every one was vain in the marked place. God’s Oko and (she) holy one is writing this emptiness.
13. Vain believers are wishing one religion. You are vain therefore you are taking Oko that was.
14. Write this to Pontia and wish him.
But actually I’m not that high-minded. Ultimately, the real reason I review Voynich theories is that I feel outraged for the original cipher-makers, whose lives and works get hijacked and rewritten in such obviously stupid and pointless appropriations. To me this is a form of theft (i.e. credit/reputation being stolen, the kind of thing Pamela O. Long describes some Romans as being preoccupied with), albeit one that many people nowadays seem lazily content to go along with. If you do, well… that’s your choice, but please understand that it’s really, really not mine.
Egad, is the Ukrainian cause so desperate as to appropriate “Letters to God’s Eye”? Even they aren’t *that* bad off.
The only remark I ever got from a real Ukrainian (in Lviv) was that it’s “bullshit – sorry to use a work like that.”
I certainly feel for you as you try to separate the gold from the dross. The people panning for gold in Alaska had it a lot easier than you.
Well, I certainly enjoy reading your posts! You’re doing great work, Nick, and you deserve recognition. I’m glad theres still somewhere sane I can go to set my mind straight when all these crazy theories get my head spinning. I’ve been in a Voynich-hiatus for a few years but I ran in to Bax’ AMA on Reddit and a whole new fire started burning in me. I hope to keep it going this time, get up to date and learn enough to figure a way to start contributing.
Dennis: 🙂
Christopher: despite all the Voynich theory brouhaha in 2014 so far, there’s actually nothing much new under the Voynich sun… yet. But that should all change later this year! I’ll be posting on the new stuff as soon as I have solid details to share.
Christopher: perhaps I should add that one really good (but as-yet-unmade) contribution would be to work out a comprehensive disproof of the widely-held assumption that Voynichese is a natural language.
I’d say that at least 60% of rubbish Voynich theories (e.g. Bax) proceed forwards from this assumption, but there are plenty of weak reasons to think it is wrong e.g. even though nearly all rubbish Voynich theories assume that ‘o’ and ‘a’ are vowels, vowel-finding programmes tested on numerous real-world languages disagree, etc.
Well, Nick, how does one decrypt something that isn’t encrypted? How does one go about contributing intelligible and intelligent views of any particular subject WITHOUT engaging in argumentation? Honest, I’m not being snide!
😉
bdid1dr: if there is a way to prove or to disprove that a given mysterious text is written in a language, or to prove or to disprove that it is written in a cipher, then I’d be very interested to hear about it. 🙂
It would be nice to have someone just decrypt the VM and tell us what it says. Everything else now just seems a very tedious waste of time.
When I started analyzing solution claims for the Zodiac ciphers, it was because I was frustrated that many people could intuitively tell that the claims were without merit, but could not specifically demonstrate why. It’s hard for a lay person to see what’s wrong with the claims without showing some kind of demonstration that is fairly easy to follow. Especially since math gets involved, which turns a lot of people off. So I took it upon myself to prove, mainly to myself, why exactly the claims were broken.
In the end, none of the claims have any merit. Most fall in the category of “coincidence generators” wherein words and names of interest appear, but are not by design. But all this analysis is not fruitless, because it sharpens the ability to separate bullshit from reality. It also reveals how people approach and promote their beliefs. Science is all about testing ideas. Maybe along the way, your readers will pick up this skill from you. You are doing a good thing by showing them the way.
simonheath: unfortunately, that has proved far more difficult to do than to say. 🙁
But if we could prove some things beyond all doubt (e.g. that it is a cipher rather than a language, etc), we should be able to significantly reduce the noise level in the Voynich research echo chamber. 🙂
Dave: I try, but time will tell as to whether it makes much overall difference.
As to “coincidence generators”… I’ve seen a few Zodiac Killer coincidence claims (though probably less than 1% of what you’ve seen), and they strike me as the same kind of clutching at thin straws that a lot of Voynich theorists do. The big difference being that the Voynich Manuscript has so many odd drawings that these coincidental straws tend to be art history coincidences or botanical coincidences. But the overall approach seems the same. 🙂
Curses. Your book was well-titled, Nick. 🙂 I look forward to hearing your new theories. Interesting question raised by bdid1dr and you about proof. But also doubt. This thing seems to inspire the same kind of rage and vision that the “divine” does. (“the slanted eye of God?”). I doubt, along with you, that Voynichese is language as we know it, its characters consistent phonemes, and its sentences have never seemed “language-like” to me. I think you (and others?) make a good case for that so please persevere and ignore the asses. Proof is always harder than doubt, which is why we stubbornly go for it, I guess, when plausibility is the closest we can come to it for the time-being. It’s this artifact that has swallowed its key but left tantalizing traces. I know what I find plausible about it and what I don’t.
“Slanted Oko.” Great name! Sounds like something from I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, by Joanne Greenberg. 🙂
Nick, there’s already enough in D’Imperio and on Rene’s website to give a pretty compelling case against the text being a natural language. But you know better than I do that people won’t necessarily accept boring things like proof or verifiable evidence if they conflict with a pet theory…
SirHubert: I have seen lots of weak disproofs that Voynichese isn’t a language, as well as lots of weak proofs that it is – in some hard to understand manner – enciphered. I could post a list containing plenty of all of these, but hardly anybody would be much wiser for it.
I suppose the itch I’m trying to scratch here is whether we’re now missing a far bigger, “elephant-in-the-room”-style proof or disproof.
Nick, I think some of the work on word and character entropy is pretty good for evidence against natural language. Languages have observable patterns which can be, and have been, analysed statistically, and you can compare these with Voynichese. I’m much less sure about the arguments claiming to show that the text is meaningful but enciphered rather than a hoax or gibberish created according to rules.
@Nick I plan to run a barrage of statistical investigations (also with comparisons to a standard set of plaintexts), then compile them all into a compendium. I hope that in doing so I’ll stumble upon something significant but easily missed. But alas, I have no time for that soon.
A good disproof would be the rigid word structure system. Now, the hard part is just finding something that’s specific and agreed upon. There are a lot out there, but they are typically so loose that they fit just about random string.
I do have my own personal word structure proposal. I think it’s more specific and useful than the others, but have to do some more tests to confirm before I publish it. It’s called the “tweetweety” system – for now that means nothing to you, but in hindsight the name is clear, so consider this my mark in case someone beats me to the publishing 😉
Another disproof (not that I know how to quantify this) could be the lack of sentence structure. Which words function as adjectives, nouns, articles and so on? Nobody knows.
I think that a thorough analysis of the pigments and other materials in the manuscript (such as trapped pollen) would probably suggest a time and a place for the origin of the manuscript. The McCrone report just didn’t do the job.
If we narrow down the place and the time, this information will probably help to winnow away most of the theories.
I believe that hypotheses are only of value if they are potentially falsifiable (ie. Popperian). A hypothesis, that by its nature can not be falsified, is rarely of any value.
B Deveson: I second all of that! But producing a report of that specificity was probably far beyond their brief, and would – as you suggest – probably entail looking at any trapped pollen. Although doubtless that would spawn a whole new generation of pollen apologists and alibe makers. 🙁
Annoyingly, not only are most Voynich hypotheses not falsifiable / testable, they also make no predictions. 🙁
Nick (and his ‘regulars’):
During my translations of Boenicke 408, I’ve noted that there is no phoneme for ‘lt’ but lots of ‘ll’ and almost as frequently ‘tl’. Another phoneme which appears more often than I expected was the ‘x’. The ‘x’ is/was very often confused in the reading because of its resemblance to, but obviously smaller than, the figure 9. This is the best I can do to describe the difference in pronunciation of ‘ceus or geus’ and the pronunciation of ‘ix-tl’. Finally, there is the least frequent character, which usually appears at the end of a discussion: itius or teus or deus or dios.
So, my hunch is that it IS an invented script for the use by the native population who were contributing to a European monk’s encyclopedia of ‘all things great and small’.
🙂
“one really good (but as-yet-unmade) contribution would be to work out a comprehensive disproof of the widely-held assumption that Voynichese is a natural language.”
Oh, I wouldn’t even know where to start! I’m under the impression that plenty of “simpler” computer science has been thrown at this thing for almost a hundred years now with no result. If anything is to come from statistical or mathematical analysis, it will require a savant working at a supercomputer, not me at my PC!
My interest is more generally historical. For example, one thing I would like to do is compile a list of writing systems that was known in early-mid 15th century Italy, and look at that. You can see that any contribution I am able to make right now would be based on fluff and stardust, not real science.
There are so many things that people have already tried, things I can read about and learn from, rather than attempting to throw myself into the project of either creating a pet hypothesis, or working towards finding evidence for or against an existing hypothesis, be it Nahuatl, Averlino, Aliens or something else.
Christopher,
I would enjoy a list of writing systems known in the early-mid 15th century Italy very much, but please include the writing systems of neighbouring Southern France and the adjacent Alpine region as well, e.g. Tirol. It would be useful to include the writing systems of the 13th and 14th century as well to find out about the development of the scripts.
Menno
Christopher: my previous comment was intended more in the spirit of looking for bigger fish to fry, of trying to join together existing observations within a larger context, of not being afraid to ask a properly big question.
Incidentally, I don’t know if you’ve seen these posts from 2010 where I proposed a link between Savoy handwriting and the text on f116v, but it’s not something I’ve looked at much since, errm, 2010:-
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2010/05/04/savoy-palaeography-was-michiton-originally-nichil
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2010/05/06/voynich-f116v-nichil-update
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2010/05/17/a-little-more-on-savoy
The task of tracking down the precise vagaries of the Voynich Manuscript’s ‘michitonese’ hand is one that is very much incomplete, and one which may well come back to the fore later on this year, all being well. 😉
Nick, I’m hoping you will return to my comments (June 19 & 20 of 2013) on your blog item “David Kahn at the Athenaeum”.
I thought (at that time) you would understand that there is NO michiton o ladaba discussion NOR any ‘nihil obstat’.
Ambassador Busbecq was simply making reference to the “Monumentum Augustus Ancyranum”, which was near Ankara. Ankara is where Busbecq (and some 200 manuscripts Suleiman gifted to him) departed for Vienna. Busbecq chose to use one of the most derelict manuscripts (the “Voynich” aka: Boenicke manuscript 408) to sign off on; and to which he hand-delivered to Vienna just a few months before Suleiman laid siege to Vienna Austria.
Still hanging in here but I am getting wearier/worn down by the apparent lack of understanding or comprehension of what I try to prove here on your pages.
I’m hoping that Ralph and Sir Hubert are following this latest test/proof of the validity of every single folio in B-408. No part of it is encoded — and I don’t give a dang who wrote it. I care only that it can be translated into the language which is most used in centers of education: Latin
I sincerely hope ‘all will be well’ with you for a good while to come!
🙂
bdid1dr,
I enjoyed your contribution very much and agree with you, that Latin would be the most promising solution of the Voynich riddle, not just beacause Latin has been used for learned communication, but also because Latin behaves very much like Voynichese on the morpheme basis of word structure. The learned text may have been codified but not coded.
Menno
The breakthrough for me was B-408’s first item of discussion, folio 1v (even though I had already translated folio 1r and recapped f-1r as being instructions for layout and publication of B-408’s contents.
The very frequent appearance of ‘x’ ‘xi’ and ‘xtl’, plus ‘a-sa-tius’ was enough to identify the terminology as latin for physalis ixocarpus or physalis peruviana.
Line 5 continues the multi-syllabic, very repetitive phraseology which continues the discussion on each side of the stem — right down to the roots.
An interesting thing about the roots: I don’t see indication of the roots of the tomatillo being poisonous. (Compared to the discussion in folio 3v –Aconite, and its roots being poisonous, as well as antagonistic to any other plants nearby in the same garden.)
Truly, Nick, I’m not in ‘poison-pen’ mode today. Over the weekend I was able to visit with my Greek-Cypriot friends and dance the whole day long!
There you go Nick – an attempt to collate all the information available on the VM that’s “out there”, and see if we can deduce what it is:
http://www.davidjackson.info/voynich/2014/08/19/a-logical-consideration-of-the-voynich-manuscript/
And just for fun….
http://www.davidjackson.info/voynich/2014/08/19/a-possible-explanation/
David: that’s a very interesting read. I have to say that the idea of a hoaxer preparing a Voynich volvelle and then giving a couple of scribes a few minutes guidance on how to make up “words” in this completely made-up language and script…it’s got a horrible plausibility to it.
If you want a bit more speculation, I’d just point out that the dating of the parchment fits nicely enough with the fall of the Byzantine empire and, presumably, the appearance in the West of all sorts of manuscripts written in unfamiliar scripts. So, what if the original hoax was perpetrated in the mid-1400s, but then used again to fool another buyer a hundred years later, rebound out of order when the original binding was removed so the illustrations could be tarted up with new colour? I know…pure guesswork…but…
Nick, can you once again give us the date-range for (1) the manufacture of the manuscript’s writing material (vellum/parchment); (2) the application of various inks/dyes/or even lead? Also, has Paula Zyatz published or discussed her recent presentation at the Small Books organization’s forum? (3) Is ReneZ going to be updating his blog or adding new material (soon, I hope)? Can you tell us if Phillip Neal is still alive and maintaining his huge archive?
Am I reduced to deducing much of the descriptive dialogues?
😉
Long ago I gave up on R. Sta.Col. and E. Vogt. Apparently Diane has given up on all of us! Ellie V. still blogs occasionally. In fact, its time for me to drop by on her.
A tout a l’heure!
bdid – as ever
😉
ps to my “Aconite” identification (B-408, f-3v) “Monks-hood”. If any of you are still questioning my ID and discussion, take a look at just one blossom out of the whole stem-ful. I seem to recall that the blossoms were benign but the roots were antagonistic toward any and all nearby garden plants, besides being poisonous if ingested.
@ David J: Humbug! How does that expression go — ‘fool me once’…..’fool me twice’…….” ? Rudolph was a Hapsburg, dysfunctional jaw and all. That doesn’t mean he was easily fooled. Take a look at his fantastic art collection (Kastle Karlstein Museum). That museum also has a replica of his HRE crown.
beady-eyed wonder-r
OK, the timelines might not be perfect, but the Hapsburg physical anomalies were carried through the male line. In more recent history some of the Hapsburg other disorders included hemophilia (which transferred to the Russian Emperor’s son, Alexander). I don’t remember, clearly, if it was the female Hapsburg (Emperor Nicholas’ wife) which carried the gene for hemophilia. So, somewhere in that timeline (pre-Red Army) a mad monk, Rasputin, pretty much had the Russian Czar’s entire family under his influence.
I thought you all might be interested in the recent DNA verification/identification of the bodies of the Czar’s children.
If I remember correctly, they still have not located all of the deceased Emperor’s family.
Trying to stay relevant to B-408. It was Hapsburgs which financed Columbus’ voyages. It was Hapsburgs which appointed various officials/monks to managing and converting the South American natives. It was Hapsburgs who very quickly had their coffers re-filled with South American gold (by the ton).
There are several manuscriptorial treaties available online which bear the “double-headed Eagle” Hapsburg stamp or emblazon.
In re ‘a’ ‘e’ ‘i’ ‘o’ ‘u’ being vowels:
They most certainly and clearly ARE vowels. They are combinatively used to create words such as “eu-o-ll” (vowel) ‘oe’ (we) ‘c-aes-r’ (Caesar).
😉
The syllable ‘aes’ is represented in the Vms by the figure ‘8’.
The consonant “R” appears as a backward-facing S.
The consonant “S” appears as a Cyrillic sibilant capital “C”; which often appears to be a question-mark without a dot.
🙂
My favorite item in B-408 is the large capital P. On numerous other conversations with Nick I have xplnd how the word ‘Prescription’ can be written in abbreviated form by simply writing what looks like a latin capital R with a short hash mark on its diagonal leg. The American drugstore chain, “Rexall”, used it as their logo. That symbol was actually saying ‘prescription’.
I’ve mentioned several times before that one can mentally add to the ‘P’ (front of or following the number of loops and curlicues which appear) to get full words such as ‘appreciate’, ‘repetitive’, ‘appearance’, application, approach, replete, ptyalin, preparation. Most often I’ve seen the
un-elaborated “P” used to indicate the beginning of a paragraph.
Another interesting term for birthday: ‘na-tl’ . Today is my 71st!
🙂
Happy belated birthday!
Nick,
Warm congratulations. You absolutely speak my mind in saying,
Historical speculation is fun for faux-historical novelists, or as a 10pm pub game for academics: but pretty much every time I’ve seen it applied to an unbroken historical cipher (particularly the Voynich Manuscript), it turns out badly for everyone.