In this paper, we present our comparative statistical-linguistic analyses both on the Voynich manuscript and on the magical Tables of Liber Loagaeth created by Dr. John Dee and his scryer Edward ...Kelly. The intriguing, multilateral statistical matches render the investigated sections of these two documents into the same linguistic universality class. This suggests that most likely the Voynich manuscript carries no rationally comprehensible content, offering also a plausible explanation why the ciphertext was unbreakable so far. These inferences together with its fantastic, yet contemporary credible illustrations render the Voynich manuscript most likely an elaborate hoax. Furthermore, our multi-disciplinary investigations point toward Dr. John Dee's possible involvement with the creation of the Voynich manuscript, possibly relying on the medieval character set of Roger Bacon's manuscripts which he vastly possessed.
The text of the Voynich manuscript exhibits relationships between neighboring words that have not formally been explored. The last and first glyphs of adjacent words show some dependency, and certain ...glyph combinations are more or less likely to occur. The patterns of preferences for glyph combinations demonstrate the existence of higher-level glyph groups. The behavior of the glyph combinations may arise due to changes in a glyph caused by its neighbor.
The text in the Voynich manuscript was analysed with respect to transition frequencies between the various characters within words. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was utilised to visualise the ...relationships graphically, which provided evidence of grouping of characters into two or more classes depending on their transition probabilities to other characters. Based on comparative analysis on texts in known languages, consonant and vowel-classes were suggested. Vowels and consonants were clearly separated in the PCA score plots of the characters in the known languages. The Voynich characters were generally close together in the PCA score plots if the characters looked similar. That is, aggregation based on visual similarity was observed. Furthermore, some other properties of the different characters related to their transition frequencies to other characters were revealed and discussed in terms of their visual layouts, ligatures or accents in the text.
In a previous article, the first author demonstrated that simple materials and techniques could produce meaningless text of comparable complexity to the text in the Voynich Manuscript, at a speed ...which made a hoax a feasible explanation. The table and grille method described in that article also replicated the main qualitative features of the text in the Voynich Manuscript. In this article, the authors demonstrate that the same table and grille method can also replicate the main quantitative statistical features of the text in the Voynich Manuscript, namely a distribution of word frequencies that mimics Zipf's distribution, a symmetrical distribution of word length frequencies, and a non-homogeneous distribution of words and of syllables across a corpus of text produced using this method. The main unusual qualitative and quantitative features of the Voynich Manuscript are therefore explicable as products of a low-technology hoax, with no need to invoke an undiscovered new type of code and/or the presence of meaningful text in the manuscript.
The cryptology literature and other sources mention several dozen books that are entirely or partially encrypted. However, a systematic treatise about this issue has never been made. This article ...aims to close this gap. The author has assembled a list of encrypted books that contains 41 entries, so far. Based on this list, an overview on encrypted books is given. Encrypted books are classified according to criteria like purpose, solved/unsolved, encryption method, and creation time. Numerous open research questions are identified. Finally, it is a goal of this article to ask readers for additional information about the books on the list and for encrypted books that are still missing.
The Voynich manuscript is a handwritten and hand-drawn book probably made in the fifteenth century. It is written in an unknown script nobody has been able to read so far. Considering its age, the ...mysteries surrounding it, and the number of people who have unsuccessfully tried to decipher it, the Voynich manuscript can be rated the most important unsolved cryptogram in the world. On 11 and 12 May 2012, a Voynich manuscript conference named "Voynich 100" took place in Villa Mondragone near Rome, Italy, gathering almost 80 attendants. "Voynich 100" was the second Voynich manuscript conference in history, the first one in more than 35 years, and the first one gathering more than about half a dozen people.
The Voynich manuscript is a substantial document in what appears to be ciphertext, which has resisted decipherment since its appearance around 1600. It has long been suspected that the Voynich ...manuscript is a hoax; however, the linguistic complexity of the manuscript has previously been considered good reason for rejecting the hoax hypothesis. The manuscript also contains many unusual linguistic features, and previous research has failed to produce a plausible mechanism for generating substantial bodies of text with these features.
This article describes how sixteenth century cryptographic techniques can be adapted to generate text similar to that in the Voynich manuscript. This method can be used either to generate gibberish for a hoax, or to encode plaintext in a decodable cipher. Preliminary results suggest that a document the size of the Voynich manuscript could be produced by a single hoaxer in two or three months. It is concluded that the hoax hypothesis is now a plausible explanation for the Voynich manuscript.
"The Pathology of Cryptology" is the title of a chapter in David Kahn's book The Codebreakers. This chapter mainly deals with hidden messages, which amateur scientists claim to have discovered in the ...works of William Shakespeare and in other literary works. The present article picks up this subject and provides it with a theoretic framework under the name of "para-steganography." Moreover, further case studies are added to those given by Kahn, including many examples that only became known after the publication of The Codebreakers. These considerations show that a hidden code can be found almost anywhere, provided that one looks for it in a suitable manner.
In this article, I analyze the Voynich manuscript, using random walk mapping and token/syllable repetition statistics. The results significantly tighten the boundaries for possible interpretations; ...they suggest that the text has been generated by a stochastic process rather than by encoding or encryption of language. In particular, the so-called Chinese theory now appears less convincing.
Cicco Simonetta has been described as an important cryptanalyst (and perhaps the encipherer of the Voynich Manuscript) in consideration of his famous rules for solving medieval ciphers. His work is ...in reality a collection of hints for solving ciphers that were rather old-fashioned at that time. Examples of 15th century ciphers confirm that contemporary cipher clerks were well equipped to defy the tricks described by Simonetta.
