Voynich Manuscript deciphered

[edyzmedieval]

Partially, that is. For those who don't know, the Voynich Manuscript is an illustrated codex from the 15th century that could not be deciphered even by experienced linguists and codebreakers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript


Professor Stephen Bax from Bedfordshire University made the first steps in deciphering the manuscript. Judging by the illustrations and the words deciphered, the manuscript is centered on exotic plants and stars. :book:

www.beds.ac.uk/news/2014/february/600-year-old-mystery-manuscript-decoded-by-university-of-bedfordshire-professor/ (http://www.beds.ac.uk/news/2014/february/600-year-old-mystery-manuscript-decoded-by-university-of-bedfordshire-professor/)

Thoughts?

[Brandy Blue]

Hate to be a spoilsport, but it looks to me like a lot of effort to interpret a manuscript which is unlikely to prove all that important. Sort of a paradox, really. Its importance lies in the fact that we can't read it.

[CountArach]

Hate to be a spoilsport, but it looks to me like a lot of effort to interpret a manuscript which is unlikely to prove all that important. Sort of a paradox, really. Its importance lies in the fact that we can't read it.

To be fair it is likely the only remaining document of a now-extinct culture and by deciphering it we don't know what sort of revelations we will be able to get. By translating it we can re-create some part of the culture of these people.

It is all about how you define important. To me this is absolutely within the definition of important. More correctly, the interest lies in the fact that we can't read it.

[Tuuvi]

I wonder why we don't have any other examples of the script it was written in, especially when the manuscript was made as recently as the 15th century. It will be interesting to find out what language it was written in and where it came from.

[ReluctantSamurai]

In terms of sheer :dizzy2:, it's astounding that with all the techno-power of today's computers, that the code hasn't been broken. Just dwell on that a moment, folks.....a ciphered text written some 550 years ago still, in 2014 AD, cannot be read~:eek:

On a par with the Pyramid complex of Giza in terms of resistance to it being understood, IMHO.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I wonder why we don't have any other examples of the script it was written in, especially when the manuscript was made as recently as the 15th century.

This is relatively easily explained, I think. We do not have many works predating the printed press, generally, because of a combination of factors. So only cultures with a relatively massive output of original work which is also appreciated by their successors enough to collect and treat these works with care (like the Hellenistic empires) have a tendency to leave behind more than just scraps of reused parchment.

Cultures which have a unique script but only a small number of people able to read and write it would probably not manage to make enough copies of their original work for many of them to outlast the dangers of fire, invaders, resource scarcity and general decay. Cultures which went extinct, doubly so.

[Tellos Athenaios]

In terms of sheer :dizzy2:, it's astounding that with all the techno-power of today's computers, that the code hasn't been broken. Just dwell on that a moment, folks.....a ciphered text written some 550 years ago still, in 2014 AD, cannot be read~:eek:

On a par with the Pyramid complex of Giza in terms of resistance to it being understood, IMHO.

Not really. We don't even know for certain whether or not it was cyphered (encrypted). If the prof is right, it wasn't. It simply uses script which we have not yet managed to decipher (understand); similar to Linear-A.

Imagine that the Chinese had died out in 150 A.D. Now suppose we found a more or less intact copy of the Hanshu. Unfortunately without any Chinese around to translate it for us... how would we decipher it?