Abstract
Eminent cryptologists, including William Friedman (1891–1969), who broke the Japanese “Purple” cipher, have been unable to decipher the symbolic writing of the Voynich Codex. Furthermore, recent analyses have demonstrated that the manuscript is not a hoax and that a real language is involved. The assumption that the basic language is Latin remains unproven. Friedman had concluded that the language of the Voynich Codex must be a synthetic language. Various decipherments of the symbols are presented and applied to labels associated with 64 apothecary jars in the Pharmaceutical section. All appear to be untranslated, with the exception of the Tucker and Talbert decipherment, which was based on botanical evidence.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Literature Cited
Ackerson, T. 2012. Cited in Dragoni (2012).
Amancio, D.R., W.G. Altmann, E. Rybski, O.N. Oliveira Jr., and L. da F. Costa. 2013. Probing the statistical properties of unknown texts: Application to the Voynich manuscript. PLoS/ONE 8 (7): e67310. https://doi.org/10.1371/jounakl.pone.0067310.
Bax, S. 2014. A proposed partial decoding of the Voynich script. www.stephenbax.net Version January 2014.
Brumbaugh, R.S. 1978. The most mysterious manuscript. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press.
Burisch, D. 2012. Cited in Dragoni (2012).
Casanova, A. 1999. Méthodes d’analyse du langage crypté: Une contribution à l’étude du manuscript du Voynich. Docteur thesis. Université Paris.
Child, J.R. 1976/2002. The Voynich Manuscript revisited. National Security Agency/Central Security Service, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. DOCID: 636899.
———. 2007. Again, the Voynich Manuscript. Unpubl. pdf. http://web.archive.org/web/20090616205410/http://voynichmanuscript.net/voynichpaper.pdf. 3 Feb 2017.
Comegys, J.C. 2001. Keys for the Voynich Scholar: Necessary clues for the decipherment and reading of the world’s most mysterious manuscript which is a medical text in Nahuatl attributable to Francisco Hernández and his Aztec Ticiti collaborators. J.C. Comegys, Madera, CA. Library of Congress MLCM 2006/02284 (R) FT MEADE.
Comegys, J.D. 2013. The Voynich Manuscript: Aztec herbal from New Spain. voynichms.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/VMSAztecHerbal-JDComegys.pdf. Accessed 5 June 2017.
Currier, P. 1970–1976, Voynich MS transcription alphabet. Plans for computer studies: transcribed text of Herbal A and B material: Notes and Observations. Unpublished communication to John H. Tiltman and M. D’Imperio, Damariscotta, Maine. Cited in D’Imperio.
D’Imperio, M.E. 1978. The Voynich manuscript: An elegant enigma. In National Security Agency/central security Service. Meade: Fort George G.
Dakin, K. 1981. The characteristics of a Nahuatl lingua franca, 55–67. In: Nahuatl studies in memory of Fernando Horcasitas, ed. Frances Karttunen. Texas Linguistic Forum 18.
De Alarcón, H.R. 1987. Treatise on the heathen superstitions that today live among the Indians native to This New Spain, 1629. Trans. & ed. J.R. Andrews and R. Hassig. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Dragoni, L. 2012. Il manoscritto Voynich: Un po’ di chiarezza sul libro più misterioso del mondo. Unpubl. pdf. http://www.cropfiles.it/altrimisteri/Voynich.pdf. 1 Sept 2014.
Feely, J.M. 1943. Roger Bacon’s cipher: The right key found. New York: Rochester.
Feng, R. 2016. 141: Cracking the Voynich manuscript code (2nd thesis draft). In School of electrical and electronic engineering. Adelaide: Ther University of Adelaide.
Finn, J.E. 2004. Pandora’s hope: Humanity’s call to adventure. Baltimore: PublishAmerica.
Friedman, E.S. 1962. ‘The most mysterious ms’ still an enigma. The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959–1963), August 5.
Gibson, D. 2003. The Voynich question: A possible Middle East connection. Unpubl. web page. http://nabatea.net/vconnect.html. 3 Feb 2017.
Guy, J.B.M. 1991. On Levitov’s decipherment of the Voynich manuscript. Cited in Kennedy and Churchill (2006).
Gwynn, B. 2006. Cited in Kennedy and Churchill (2006).
Hoschel, 2012. Cited in Dragoni (2012).
Huth, V. 2012. Cited in Dragoni (2012).
Karttunen, F. 1983. An analytical dictionary of Nahuatl. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Kennedy, G., and R. Churchill. 2006. The Voynich manuscript: the mysterious code that has defied interpretations for centuries. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions. (First published in 2004 by Orion press, London).
Kircher, F., and D. Becker. 2012. Le manuscrit Voynich décodé. Agnières: SARL JMG editions.
Knight, K. 2009. The Voynich Manuscript. MIT. http://www.isi.edu/natural-language/people/voynich.pdf. 1 May 2014.
Landsmann, E. 2008. The Voynich-Manuscript. Unpubl. pdf. http://elifonaot.q32.de/cms/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=de:pub:2007:20071231e:20071231e_dasvoynichmanuskript.pdf. 4 Feb 2017.
Levitov, L.E. 1987. Solution of the Voynich manuscript: A liturgical manual for the Endura rite of the Cathari heresy, the cult of Isis. Laguna Park: Aegean Park Press.
Maat, J. 2012. Cited in Dragoni (2012).
Manly, J.M. 1931. Roger Bacon and the Voynich Ms. Speculum 6: 345–391.
Montemurro, M.A., and D.H. Zanette. 2013. Keywords and co-occurrence patterns in the Voynich Manuscript: An information-theoretic analysis. PLos ONE 8 (6): e66344. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone0066344.
Newbold, W.N., and K.R. Grubb. 1928. Cipher of Roger Bacon. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
O’Neill, H. 1944. Botanical observations on the Voynich MS. Speculum 19: 126.
Packheiser, U. 2013. Das Voynich manuscript. FP Web & Publishing. http://www.utep.de.
Rivero, H. 2012. Cited in Dragoni (2012).
Rugg, G. 2004a. An elegant hoax? A possible solution to the Voynich manuscript. Cryptologia 28: 31–46.
———. 2004b. The mystery of the Voynich manuscript: New analysis of a famously cryptic medieval document suggests that it contains nothing but gibberish. Scientific American 291 (1): 104–109.
Sherwood, E. and E. Sherwood. 2008. The Voynich botanical plants. http://edithsherwood.com/voynich_botanical_plants/index.php. 5 June 2017.
Stojko, J. 1978. Letter to God’s eye: The Voynich manuscript for the first time deciphered and translated into English. Vantage Press. New York.
Stolfi, J. 2006. Cited in Kennedy and Churchill (2006).
Strong, L.C. 1945. Anthony Askham, the author of the Voynich manuscript. Science 191: 608–609.
Sullivan, M. 2012. Cited in Dragoni (2012).
Tucker, A.O., and R.H. Talbert. 2013. A preliminary analysis of the botany, zoology, and mineralogy of the Voynich Manuscript. Herbalgram 100: 70–85.
Vonfelt, S. 2014. The strange resonances of the Voynich manuscript. Unpubl. pdf. http://graphoscopie.free.fr/publications/Voynich_en.pdf. 23 Jan 2017.
Williams, R.L. 1999. A note on the Voynich manuscript. Cryptologia 23: 305–309.
Zandbergen, R. 2004–2017. The Voynich Manuscript. www.voynich.nu/. 6 June 2017.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Janick, J., Tucker, A.O. (2018). Cryptological Analyses, Decoding Symbols, and Decipherment. In: Unraveling the Voynich Codex. Fascinating Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77294-3_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77294-3_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77293-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-77294-3
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)