To render the Voynich MS text into a computer-readable form is called 'transliteration'.

Historically, this has been called 'transcription' but the two processes are not the same.

Take the letter from Marci to Kircher (1665). We have access to a graphical image of this letter, which is written in a known language (Latin) and a known alphabet. It can be (and has been) transcribed.

Other hand written manuscripts are more difficult to read, use abbreviations and omit characters. They can still be transcribed, but there is a set of conventions for resolving the abbreviations and omissions.

With the Voynich MS it is very different. We cannot read it and it is not Latin. The best one can do is to try to identify the individual forms, and render them in electronic form as consistently as possible. This process, which is also applied to texts in known non-Latin alphabets, is called transliteration.

This has been done many times for the Voynich MS, and different people/groups have come up with different results.
The 'easy' interpretation is that these people defined tables from the Voynich glyphs to alphanumeric characters, but the more complete and correct interpretation is that the decision rules have been different in all cases.

In the 'easy' interpretation they can be easily translated between each other back and forth, but in the more accurate interpretation this is not possible without loss of information.

This can be exemplified with the case of the character d.

It looks like an eight, so FSG transliterated it as 8, so did Currier, in Eva it is 'd' and in v101 it is again 8.
However, v101 (and also Eva) recognise several different forms. The main forms are transliterated as 6, 7, or 8.
In Eva there is the high-Ascii code &152; but this is hardly used in the LZ or ZL files.

The problem is not whether one uses 8 or 'd', but where one draws the limit.

I highlighted this last sentence, because I get the impression that even experienced Voynich MS researchers do not fully grasp this idea.

It is immaterial whether one transliterates e as 'e' or 'c'.
It is immaterial whether one transliterates Sh as 'sh' or 'Sh'.

Coming back to the title of this post, it is very tempting to map 'expectations' of the meaning of some glyphs to the way they are transliterated.
Even if we think that e  looks like a 'c', it does not mean that this is what it is supposed to represent. In fact, that is extremely unlikely, but that is subjective and can be ignored for now. What should be clear to Voynich researchers is that just mapping Voynich symbols to plain text characters in some language will not work.

If I wanted to write a paper about molecular biology, I better have a relevant degree and I better know the relevant recent publications on this topic.

The same is true for physical geodesy, history of astronomy or pediatric cardiology.
And many other subjects.

You simply cannot expect to publish anything in an area in which you cannot demonstrate prior knowledge.

This is obviously different with the Voynich MS.
New publications (almost always outside the academic world) appear at an amazing rate, and it is exceptional if they demonstrate any attempt from the author(s) to get themselves even basically familiar with the topic.

This is nothing new. I have seen this for 10-15 years now. In the earlier days, people would actually use the excuse that they did this, in order not to be biased and to have an independent view, but nowadays this is simply passed over.

There are a lot of clever people interested in the text statistics of the MS, but how can they be made to look at earlier research, and take lessons from that?

Babylonian Goal Years

The following was inspired by an entry on Nick's site
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He has argued that the 7 planets of traditional astronomy/astrology are represented by the diagrams in Q9/Q!0.

These diagrams are, respectively
1 f68v2
2 f68v1 Sun
3 f67r1 Moon
4 f69r  Mercury (46 fold radial symmetry)
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6 f70r1
7 f70 r2

He identifies 2 as Sun and 3 as Moon.
He further notes that 4 has 46 fold radial symmetry and notes that this exactly fits the Babylonian Goal Year number for Mercury.

I thought I would find out a bit more about Babylonian Goal Years and see whether any other features in the diagrams may fit. I am certain that Nick has probably already tried this but still, I thought to report the initial results here.

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"The prediction of planetary phenomena using periods is based upon the assumption that after a certain number of years, a particular phenomenon will occur again on about the same day in the Babylonian calendar."

There are two types of planetary phenomena and thus two values of the Goal Year:
Synodic - planet in relation to Sun as seen from the earth
Sidereal - planet in relation to fixed stars

Tables of small corrections were made to allow for variations in the calendar.

Without further ado, the values for Goal Year are:
Synodic
Jupiter 71 Venus 8 Mercury 46 Saturn 59 Mars 79 Luna 18
Sidereal Jupiter 83 Mars 47 Luna 19

Jumping right in we note that #1 f68v2 has 8 fold symmetry and could be assigned to Venus. This order makes some kind of sense by grouping the inner planets together.

#5 to 8 are not so easy as the symmetry is 28x, 9x and 16x respectively.

Undeterred I counted some of the other features and found the number of folds in the ?wolkenband surrounding the centre of #6, f701r1 is 58.

Perhaps a miss is as good as a mile but on further reading I understand that the way Goal Years were used was to count to the Year BEFORE the event so as to have plenty of time to add in the corrections and be ready in advance.

Please correct me if I have misunderstood this?
So in fact 58 may be a correct Goal Year value for Saturn.

I also went ahead and counted the stars large and small in these diagrams and will report these if anybody is interested.

I thought that one more "hit" and one possible for Nick's theory was perhaps worth reporting and in any case it may be worth looking for matches of these numbers elsewhere in the VMS.

Picking up on things in several recent threads, I'm wondering just how all of this comes together. Does the linguistic side of the VMs have a solution? One that can be recovered from the text in its present condition. Is there language; is there code? Is there sense, or nothing but nonsense? Is there a lot of filler with only a relatively smaller portion of text intended for meaningful interpretation? If the smaller portion is meaningful, how is it found? Where is it found? Any investigation focused on that filler is surely going to find nonsense.

The question has been asked: Is it possible, how is it possible to build a "disguised messaging system" in the 1400s that defies modern interpretation? Nothing but pen and parchment , the No-Tech build. The answer seems to be that this is something practically impossible. The complexity of cipher systems was insufficient at that time. There is the potential problem of a one way cipher. The possibility that meaning has been hidden in a way that is not recoverable.

If complexity is insufficient, then there is trickery. With lots of filler text, the important part may be hidden. Or by using a one way cipher on the majority of text, the key to deciphering may be hidden both physically and by a two way cipher. The main body of written text would be secure, but a solution would be possible. The second cipher would be less problematic than finding the proper segment of text - if all there was consisted of written text. But of course, there are the illustrations and there was trickery used in the illustrations. Lots of trickery in the illustrations. Perhaps trickery in the illustrations is connected to trickery used in the written text.

I think there are at least two painters who worked on the VMS. A sloppy painter and a more careful painter who respected lines a bit more and mixed colors a bit more often.

So, I was wondering, was the painter (or painters) a decision-maker or simply someone who followed instructions?

I have a feeling at least one of the painters (maybe the careful painter) was a decision-maker, not just a production-line worker.

VViews pointed out that a line had been added in the Pisces fish figure in paint (not in the drawing). In most areas, the line connecting the two fish mouths was traditional.


Here's another example. The illustrator did not draw a star for this particular nymph on the Gemini folio. There isn't even a left arm to hold a star. But the painter added one anyway (along with a line):

   

Hello All

My name is Darrin Vallis. I'm a computer and electrical engineer, amateur historian and Voynich researcher. I recently implemented a mathematical method of hypervector analysis comparing Voynich to fifty other languages. My results are shown below. Voynich structure puts it in the Caucasian family of languages.

A quick summary of the method is described in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

You can read complete details of the mathematics and implementation at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Regards
Darrin Vallis

Two factor verification is a recent security innovation.

Two factor verification is used in the VMs in the examples of several illustrations constructed of combined images: the VMs cosmos and the VMs critter (f80v). The combined images are a fusion of two separate sources. The VMs cosmos is a combination of Oresme and Shirakatsi. The critter is a combination of the Golden Fleece and the 1313 Agnus Dei with a thick covering of the Callisto myth to get the reader to see it function in the opposite direction.

The key to two factor verification is to have two independent factors with a maximized amount of separation. In a medieval situation, that would be to make it unlikely that both elements in the combined illustration would be known by the same person, unless that person possessed the same familiarity with these traditional and cultural elements as the person who created these representations. The simple fact is that both parts are essential in order to fully understand the combination. The VMs cosmos is the prime example.

The VMs cosmos is a combination of cosmos from BNF Fr. 565 fol. 23 (aka Oresme) and the Shirakatsi diagram of the Eight Phases of the Moon. The Oresme cosmos provides the structure for the central part of the VMs cosmos and Shirakatsi provides the eight curved spokes and outer wheel. While the structural comparison of the VMs and Oresme illustrations shows a strong similarity, visual comparison reveals obvious differences.

Structural similarities include use of the uncommon, three-part construction consisting of a central, inverted T-O Earth, stars scattered around the earth, and a cosmic boundary composed of a cloud-based pattern containing 43 undulations.

The distinction that shows that the VMs is not a copy of Oresme is immediately apparent in the representation of Earth. The Oresme illustration is a pictorial representation. The VMs marks the three sections by the (apparent) use of written language. The structure is still the same - and at the same time, there is no chance that visual similarity exists. This is the change from one method of communication to another. This is called a code shift. This change is intentional. Anyone copying a pictorial image is going to reproduce a pictorial image.

Methods of altering visual appearance without changing structure are used in the midsection of stars. Asterisk stars surround the Earth in the Oresme illustration. Polygonal stars encircle the Earth in the VMs. It contrasts the play on word / alternate appearance situation is synonymous Latin words. Meanwhile the apparent visual difference in the appearance of the VMs cosmic boundary is deconflicted through etymology and heraldic tradition, not to mention the 43 undulations.

Likewise the Shirakatsi portion has been visually altered. The curved spokes of the VMs are drawn so they go in the opposite direction. If the 'wheel and curved spokes' were an actual object, then these apparent differences are not different object, but merely different side if the same wheel. Visual alterations, apparently disqualifying differences of appearance can be resolved by seeing things from the other side. While in Shirakatsi, the bands making up the "wheel and spokes' are blank, in the VMs they are filled with written text. Yet another distinctive visual and inconsequential structural difference. The VMs structures are now equivalent to text banners used to provide information in some medieval illustrations where they function like conversation balloons in comic strips, and they are seem as ephemeral.

Not only is two factor verification needed to fully understand these combined VMs illustrations, it is also clear that an uncommon, matching structure makes a strong connection, while visual alterations have been used to maximize the differences of appearance. IMO, the use of visual alteration is intentional obfuscation which serves to disguise the reality of hidden information derived from history and tradition. This clearly implies that the VMs consists of a visual level of disguised appearance (at least in some parts) and a hidden level of structural and traditional reality, which the recovery of relevant tradition has started to reveal.

Let us assume the text next to the body reads der mus del, a German medieval phrase which has been much discussed elsewhere.
What is the symbol above it?

Here is an article by Peter Bakker, a linguist at Aarhus University. Even though his conclusion is a bit "self explaining" ( "The mere fact that it has not been decoded, means that it is not decodable"), I think the article is worth reading as a summary.
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I have been looking at the Voynich for a month or so now and it has drawn me into reading about a lot of esoteric subjects.  I've become particularly swayed by the idea that it incorporates not just medieval astrological material but also medieval magical material in the form of magic circles and incantantations to accompany its medicines or cures.  Which was incredibly common so it's not new but was new to me.  For instance, 57v is very like magic spheres of the time, which drew on the powers ofholy and planetary names to summon spirits or demons.  Moreover the sign of the cross was often used to separate holy names, as we see on the last page. I have observed many other similarities but it poses background rather than the topic of this post.

In the course of the above reading, I came across a sort of magic eightball sphere called the sphere of life and death that physicians would use to divine through onomancy whether a patient would live or die.  The usual practice was to take numbers associated with the patient's name, the moon on which he or she got sick, and the weekday number on which he or she got sick.  Add up and divide by 30 and if thd remainder number fell below a centre line in the table given, the patient would die, if above, the patient would live.

This sphere was so ubiquitous in medical manuscripts of the time it left me wondering why the VMS, if it was a pharmaceutical/medical manual, which I believe it was, didn't have one.

So then I actually looked at the number and letter matches on the sphere for determining the number for a person's name. And the VM began to make a vague sort of sense if it were written in numerical cipher, often with two characters representing one number and translating back to one letter of the Latin alphabet.

There are problems with this method because the sphere numerical systems can differ slightly from one publisned sphere to another.  We also can't at this point be positive what VM character/s represent what number though working backward should work with time and patience.  And lastly, not all numbers are represented on the sphere, and moreover one number might stand for more than one letter.

But it was this last problem that got me somewhat excited because it helps make sense of some anomalies I noticed in the Voynich patterns.  For instance, the letter that looks like a was often folliwed by what JK calls minims.  They did not seem to work properly as numbers.  But in the sphere of life, where a is represented by iii or 3, the number 3 also represents 3 other letters  - most commonly b, f and z (or v\u).

So was the VM character a the number 3 and therefore also an a, and the minims were possibly subsets of 3 to indicate another variable of 3 - a was a, ai was b, aii was f and aiii was z?

There were two other groupings like this.  The number 15 stood for e, i, n and sometimes k.  And the number 6 stood for h, y and one or two more I can't remember - don't have it in front of me.

I had already been looking at the vM c groups as possibly numbers, particularly c as 2 or 5.  If 5, then the c-c with a colophon on top could be 15, representing e, a different colophon i and a different one n.  Something like that anyway!

As for the 6 group, I wondered if this was where the ligatured characters came in.

That's about as far as I've gotten!  But the sphere was a standard, often ubiquitous, feature in many of these manuscripts - it wouldn't be totally fanciful if it was being used as a cipher key with some adjustments. 

Before I go any further working on this, has anyone you guys know of already looked at this?  And do you think it a waste of time or impossible?  You can look up the sphere and info about it just by googling The Sphere of Life and Death.