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Ancient Cryptography » Ancient Texts » Voynich Manuscript » Lets look at the Voynich

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Aaron

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #40 on: August 03, 2010, 05:21:50 PM »
Haha, I like your self portrait! And I know I did that kind of check with the Dorabella cipher when I was playing around with it... it was tricky to figure out which direction it was written in.

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #41 on: October 12, 2010, 02:37:16 PM »
It's about time I made another post - looking back I ain't half written some rubbish on this 'cipher'-
anyways it's not upside down - I hope to show the basics of his method soon -
I couldn't see the wood for the trees as the saying goes.

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #42 on: October 16, 2010, 03:40:06 AM »
Not being happy with my last attempt I decided to go back to basics – looking at EVA k,t,sh,ch,c being roman numerals again & thinking the preceding Eva o & qo could possibly mean a zero & two zeros were added to the number before it was converted to roman numerals thus explaining the absence of X,V & I– or possibly  column markers - i.e. In Trithemius’s book found here –
http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/fb-128/start.htm?image=00378
on  images 00378 to 00421 the numbers on the right run from 1 to 1,056 and the column markers  1, 2 & 3 could be replaced with blank, o & qo – thinking vaguely along these lines and trying to find some pattern in all this madness ended with me looking at a hand written sheet replicated below - (in which I had listed EVA n, r & m as a single stroke, it not being clear to me whether they are different or not)  –
EVA y / o, qo / (k,t,p,f) sh, ch, c / o d s a ii (n,r,m) l y - which I’d marked down  basically thus – (as best I can display on the keyboard here - the ? is for EVA cKh, cTh, cPh & cFh)

Multiplier?                               prefix/suffix?
Column?   roman numerals     characters   separator ?
       1000 500 200 100 ?
9| O 40 | M C^C C-C C  ? | o 8 s a \\ o \ l | 9
9|      |                |   8   a \\   \   |        daiin  863
9|      |                | o              l |        ol     543
9|      |      C-C C     |    8             | 9      chedy  501
9|      |                |       a \\   \   |        aiin   466
9|      |  C^C     C     |   8              | 9      shedy  426
9|      |      C-C       | o              l |        chol   396
9|      |                | o            \   |        or     370
9|      |                |       a      \   |        ar     351
9|      |      C-C C     |                  | 9      chey   344
9|      |                |   8   a      \   |        dar    317   
9|   40 | M        CC    |                  | 9      qokeey 308

etc. etc.

 Now this is very regular and the 100 most frequent VM groups will fit in here with only a few exceptions, beyond that you have to start splitting some of them (this is reasonable if you assume the space was omitted to conceal some of the 1 & 2 letter groups etc.), but unreasonable if the roman numeral are connected with the letters in some codebook way ......
Anyways having typed the first 1,000 highest frequency groups into a spreadsheet – I sat back to take a break .....


Have you spotted it yet?


To be continued.......

Aaron

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #43 on: October 16, 2010, 04:40:39 PM »
I'm not quite seeing it yet but I'm glad you're trying a different tactic. :) Looking forward to the continuation.

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #44 on: October 17, 2010, 03:55:01 AM »
AAron - this bit -

o 8 s a \\ o \ l


to be contd...

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #45 on: October 18, 2010, 04:18:40 AM »
The string of characters 
o 8 s a \\ o \ l
reversed
l \ o \\ a s 8 o
l i o n a r d o

& it’s the correct spelling (Da Vinci wrote his first name with an i not an e) – is he using his own name as a keyword?
he’s been proposed as a possible author of the VM, but then so have Dee, Bacon, Shakespeare et al.
I was going to post this and say the solution must come from this table somehow but got to thinking I was falling in to the same trap as everyone else who’s tried to solve this cipher – I’ve said all along this is going to be the simplest of ciphers because of the sheer volume of it – the utter impracticality of using tables like those in Trithemiu’s polygraphia in an MS of this length is ridiculous, absurd, I’m just not having it.
So is it just chance it says Lionardo – of course it may not, there are just a few other possible arrangements i.e. the o8sa\\ol\ - or -  soda\\ol  but not many – but I thought there must be a reason for this striking coincidence ....

just need to make/copy/scan /upload a few images now and all will be revealed ..........



tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #46 on: October 18, 2010, 04:01:32 PM »
The part sentence in the following diag. is from MS270 an early 16thc. Italian herbal – I copied a couple of pages
from it about a year ago simply because the ‘4o’ looked exactly like EVA ‘qo’ – this is a bit from a paragraph that
accompanies the herb Illotris (my dictionary and I think it says it’s a prophylactic for Christians against bonfires!)
I use the word CREPATO from it now just as an example to show what I believe the VM is and why nobody has
been able to read it.

A/1. Is how Leonardo Da Vinci would write it & A/2. His mirror writing of it – note how every letter of it is reversed,
even the connected CR and TO
In B/2 the word is not mirrored but written backwards with the connected CR & TO remaining unaltered
C/ & D/ shows it in a more readable manner



What I am proposing is that D/ is the precursor to C/

And in the VM groups like EVA ‘qokedy’ it should be read as ‘oqkedy’ which read backwards is ‘ydekqo’ which says
something like ‘idellto’ (note - this is a very young child spelling a word as it sounds in a Tuscany dialect so this will
be something for the Professors to work out)
The second most common group in the VM is ‘ol’ reversed ‘lo’ – my dictionary says ‘the’ – well knock me over with
a feather!!
I’m saving ‘daiin’ till my next post – it’s a killer
Third most common ‘chedy’ – the ‘ch’ is connected so reversed it should be ‘ydech’ this will be a word sounding
like ‘idere’ probably modern spelling ‘ideare’?
At number 46 we have ‘lchedy’  - almost the same as the previous group – this must surely be (l’idere) two words
combined (l+idere) so he writes the words in order, the first not being reversible then the second which is.
The same applies to any other VM word beginning with the letter L
Not being able to read, speak or even know the Italian pronunciation of letters let alone words it’s time to hand over
to the experts – but in the top 50 most common VM words obviously reversing EVA ‘al’ = la / EVA ‘s’ = e(essere) /
EVA ‘dy’ = id / EVA ‘y’ = i / ; all common Italian words as one would expect
EVA ‘or’ & ‘ar’ I don’t understand – think the character transcribed as EVA ‘r’ is an initial way of writing T so they
become ‘to’ & ‘ta’ – possibly an old form of ‘tu’??
EVA ‘dal’ I think is ‘da+l’ but it doesn’t quite fit the method proposed, (d+la) would but d’la is French isn’t? (brain cells
are dying at an alarming rate) 

Before I forget, Da Vinci’s notebooks have a right aligned margin, yet the VM is left aligned – the reason must be that at
this early stage he was writing across the page left to right but reverse writing the individual words

To be continued ........

Aaron

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #47 on: October 18, 2010, 04:06:42 PM »
Ah, so it *is* backwards... in a way. :) I like the young Leonardo da Vinci theory.

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #48 on: October 19, 2010, 04:59:08 AM »
Some time ago after looking at other 16th c. herbals I came to the conclusion the VM was by a child (a few reasons are given in a much earlier post)
In the recent grid shown where I was erroneously thinking about Roman numerals and letters and seeing something like Lionardo pop up as a possible keyword –
if it isn’t a keyword how does it get in there? – the order of those letters only comes about because the preponderance of ‘daiin’, ‘aiin’ and ‘ol’ in the text –
but I got to thinking what ‘daiin’ could possibly be -

what is the most important thing to a child – what does he know better than anything else?

That night I dreamt I was in a foreign land a long time ago and overheard the following bits of conversation –

  Ã¢â‚¬Å“Linad get dressed” . . . . . “clear those vellums off the table Linady” . . . . . “Linady are you dressed yet” . . . .  Ã¢â‚¬Å“now I said” . . . . “and put those paints away” . . . .
“and those old books back on the shelf” . . . .  Ã¢â‚¬Å“where have you gone now? . . .  Linardy . . . Lionady . . . .Lionardy... Lionardo. . . . ”
“here I am nanny – how do you spell cow?”

Below is a piece of Da Vinci’s notebooks – it says reading right to left –

sicome delli 8 cubi a checo*pogano ilchilindro a b
io ne foilcubo di c d ancora desso cubo c d
io ne faro il chilindro a b Add*uque  



Whats the most important word to perhaps a 9 year old? - My guess is his name – it’s going to appear loads

Now what I need is someone who knows the pronunciation of the Tuscany dialect around 1460!!

 (i.e. my first name is Anthony but I was called Tone or Tony and if I could remember far enough back my first spellings of it may have been Toni)

So is linad a shortened version of Lionardo  - the ‘a’ can have the same sound as ‘ar’ the ‘d’ can be pronounced different ways

To be contd.....
« Last Edit: October 19, 2010, 05:02:55 AM by tonybaloney »

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #49 on: October 19, 2010, 10:03:25 AM »
I'm a silly old fool - I really believed that last post about EVA 'daiin' being his nickname when posting -

but it kept nagging me that EVA 'n' & EVA 'l' where both going to have to be L - so I looked again -

EVA 'n' is actually U and 'daiin' really stands for (di+anu) which reverses as before mentioned

and is simply (di una)

the older Leonardo in his notebooks writes the word 'di' as one single special character!!!!!!!

so EVA 'aiin' is simply 'una'

I'll put that in the actual writing to make it clearer later

bloody fool



tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #50 on: October 25, 2010, 09:05:00 AM »

Believing sinistrality and atypical brain organisation to be the cause of the VM’s script and thus being the
precursor to Leonardo Da Vinci’s mirror writing –

The following shows an attempt at deciphering a few VM words –



i.e.SEDERE – beneath this word I have written it as it would have been written at the time – (note the vowel
that follows the ‘s’ is directly under it & the ‘re’ are connected) – under that is its ‘reversal’ and below that
how it might look if written hastily and carelessly.

In the lower half next to the word CHE - 1. Shows an old way of abbreviating it; 2. Is EVA ‘g’ and 3. EVA ‘sh’;
2. looks very similar to 1. But EVA ‘g’ does not occur that often – whereas EVA ‘sh’ has a very high frequency
and also a slight resemblance to the way ‘che’ was written
Beneath that I give a few examples of showing it to be common words run together.
Whether ‘che e di si’ makes any sense I have no idea?! So may have that one wrong.

All we need do now is to bang the heads of a palaeographer, a Da Vinci scholar & an Italian primary school
teacher together and see what comes out.

Aaron

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #51 on: October 25, 2010, 01:16:40 PM »
Well, at least one of those is easy to find... somehow I think Italian schoolteachers are different in today's world compared to Da Vinci's time, though.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2010, 01:17:00 PM by Aaron »

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #52 on: October 25, 2010, 01:44:20 PM »
Ah - but the children are the same & the schoolteacher knows what is likely to be the first things a
child writes about and what kind of grammar they use.

Aaron

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #53 on: October 25, 2010, 01:45:36 PM »
Very true.

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #54 on: January 22, 2011, 04:46:27 PM »
YABADABADOO....

Just thought I’d break the silence - (he he.. I’ve often felt like shouting that out in the B.L.’s manuscript room)
The Yaba.. is also for the VM cipher – I think I’ve had a breakthrough – should have something worth posting soon  -

so stay tuned for the next exciting episode....

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #55 on: January 25, 2011, 09:23:08 AM »
As they used to say on Blue Peter ‘Here’s one I made earlier’ -



The above could almost be a missing page from the VM – if anyone cares to have a go at deciphering it –
it is the start of a very well known Italian story – the plaintext is Italian and it reads left to right and
top to bottom in the normal fashion.

What kind of cipher is it?

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #56 on: January 26, 2011, 10:44:46 AM »
Forgot to say I'll give the solution next week -
if anyone does manage to solve it - just post the 2 words I accidentaly
omitted from the end of the second paragraph! 

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #57 on: February 03, 2011, 11:06:17 AM »
What kind of cipher is it? – basically ‘simple substitution’ – the 2 missing words ‘fermo mai’


It is the opening lines of the Pinocchio fairy tale & should say  -

*Naso di legno, cuore di stagno, burattino quando diventerai un bimbo come noi?
*Pan di mollica, scansafatica, dove vai? Sono un burattino e non mi (fermo mai).
*Con le mie scarpe di zuppa e pan bagnato il vestitino di carta colorato
*faro i dispetti a chi sara cattivo e saro buono con chi mi dice: *Bravo!

Why would anyone make a cipher like that?

There are usually 3 sorts of ‘simple substitution’- i.e.
 1 substitute letters for letters (eqalgtbqkudb)–
2 numbers for letters (2 18 5 1 11 20 8 18 15 21 7 8 )
3 fancy symbols for letters (+^~%!£$^#?{$) –
any of which can have a few frills added i.e. writing backwards, writing in ‘backslang’, including
nulls, misleading spaces, etc. etc.

What I think makes the VM cipher different is it’s a number cipher that has the numbers written
instead of just writing the actual numerals (they are also written backwards)

i.e. as in no. 2 above (owt neetthgie evif eno nevele ytnewt thgie neetthgie neetfif enoytnewt neves thgie)
or in Italian (eud ottoicid euqnic anu icidnu itnev otto ottoicid icidniuq anuitnev ettes otto)

note the oft recurring ‘icid’ – this I think is EVA ‘chedy’ where the y is some kind of separator & EVA ‘
cheedy’ is ‘iceid’
Is this what gives the VM its repetitive nature & rigid structure order?
Throw in a few frills & abbreviations, etc., write it so small that some of the letters look the same, give
it to someone 500 years later and we’re all stumped.

The following chart shows better what I’m getting at –



The above chart is by no means definitive (half of it is probably wrong and I still have gaps in it) –
consider it a work in progress.......
He probably used a keyword as well – try one in the Pinocchio key & you get a totally different output.
The Pinocchio example was ‘simple substitution’ (a basic trial run for the idea of written numbers) –
I could have made it much more like the VM if I had used alternative substitutes for some of the letters
(consider  una,due, otto, in the above chart) – which would make it a homophonic cipher – I think the
VM author did this but unintentionally!
Before you say what about the ‘labels’, they’re probably just made up words.
You’ve probably spotted the absence of EVA ‘al’ ‘ar’ ‘ol’ ‘or’ ‘dal’  etc. – they may belong in the chart
above somewhere (possible) – they may be nulls (unlikely) – or they may just be simple words not
enciphered ‘la’ ‘lo’ ‘d-la’ (possible)

The Florio dictionary (which is probably about 140 years post the VM) can be found here –

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/florio1598/

Anyways – just thought it worth posting.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2011, 03:38:28 PM by tonybaloney »

Aaron

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #58 on: February 20, 2011, 09:45:34 AM »
Wow! Some of those items in that table are pretty dang close! It's a good thing you found that Florio dictionary.

tonybaloney

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Re: Lets look at the Voynich
« Reply #59 on: March 14, 2011, 04:18:35 PM »
Those who've had the stamina and patience to stay with us for the last couple of years will have noticed
I've been going round in circles trying to solve the Voynich MS - the only thing I was certain of was that
it wouldn't be anywhere near as complicated as thought to be -

"the
penny
has
finally
.
.
.
.
dropped" -

next time I'll show how it was done