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Post by lois on Feb 15, 2012 14:43:15 GMT -6
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Post by lois on Feb 15, 2012 14:45:07 GMT -6
I meant to put this video on first.
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Post by satansrini on Feb 17, 2012 8:57:56 GMT -6
What the skeptics generally try to prove with the Voynich script is - "It is an extremely well planned, executed and an elaborate hoax".
I remember reading about this long time ago. Though I don't remember when. Thanks lois for posting this thread. Because of this I suddenly remember it even exists!!!
I wonder if the Ancient Astronaut theorists have included this as one of their evidences/proofs to support their case.......
I personally believe there is something to this. Other worldly?? - there are great chances.
Regards, Srinivas
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Post by lois on Feb 17, 2012 11:56:47 GMT -6
What the skeptics generally try to prove with the Voynich script is - "It is an extremely well planned, executed and an elaborate hoax". I remember reading about this long time ago. Though I don't remember when. Thanks lois for posting this thread. Because of this I suddenly remember it even exists!!! I wonder if the Ancient Astronaut theorists have included this as one of their evidences/proofs to support their case....... I personally believe there is something to this. Other worldly?? - there are great chances. Regards, Srinivas Thank you Srinivas.. I guessed it may be a hoax, as I have never heard of it . Just found it on the web. Now I don't even remember where I found it. ;D I guess on u tube. I'm always on there as everyone can tell.. ;D I thought the video was amazing, and had to find out more about it from other members. Thanks for your input. Lois
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Post by skywalker on Feb 17, 2012 21:54:59 GMT -6
What happened to the post I made on this thread? Was it abducted??
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Post by skywalker on Feb 17, 2012 22:11:45 GMT -6
I swear I posted something here but I guess not. Maybe whatever attacked my computer attacked my brain also.Who knows? Anyway, what I was going to say earlier is that I have read a little bit about the Voynich book. Nobody really has any idea what it is or why it is written the way it is. In addition to lots of drawings and descriptions of plants and stuff it also shows some that don't even exist...or at least don't exist anymore. Why would it show those if they were never real? Or were they and we just don't know about them now?
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Post by lois on Feb 17, 2012 23:38:55 GMT -6
sky that is something to think about. I don't know what all is in this book. Only what this man shows you here . I will have to read up on it now.
things vanish here and on facebook both for me. lol
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Post by lois on Feb 17, 2012 23:51:05 GMT -6
This man does not make sense. He keeps talking about the light ink and dark ink. If you dip your quill into a inkwell it does not last long and begins to fade out on the paper. . He is a birdbrain.
I have a million questions here. What is the paper made of for one thing? It is late and I will have to carry on tomorrow with this.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2012 14:47:59 GMT -6
Hmm... I dunno what language it is either, it's definitely not Germanic...
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Post by skywalker on Feb 18, 2012 22:10:24 GMT -6
Nobody can decipher the language. that is one of the great mysteries about the book. It is written in what appears to be just gibberish and nonsense...but why would anybody take the time to write an entire book in a meaningless language?
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Post by lois on Feb 19, 2012 0:33:26 GMT -6
Nobody can decipher the language. that is one of the great mysteries about the book. It is written in what appears to be just gibberish and nonsense...but why would anybody take the time to write an entire book in a meaningless language? ;D Maybe he knew we would understand at some time in his future. He had to or it would of been for nothing.
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Post by satansrini on Feb 19, 2012 6:24:40 GMT -6
I have not gone through the video posted by Lois. But I have known about this Voynich Manuscript atleast since I was 18 or so. I think there was also a programme on the History channel. Let me look it up. I am also viewing those Ancient Astronaut theory documentaries by History channel. Let me see if they discuss. Im sort of guess, somewhere along that like that Tsolukas guy will talk about it and say.. "hooooow did it khome here.. awll of a suddenn... and wheeeeeeeere deed it khome fromm?" with all the freaking excitement in his face ;D ;D For some historical details about the Voynich Manuscript - just go through the wikipedia once: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscriptRegards, Srinivas
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Post by auntym on Apr 6, 2012 13:10:28 GMT -6
ancientvisitors.blogspot.com/2012/04/voynich-manuscript-could-be-ancient.htmlVoynich manuscript could be ancient alien knowledgeANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS - The Voynich manuscript is one of the most mysterious manuscripts in the world. It is named after a book dealer, Wilfrid Voynich, who had it in its posession from 1912. Through carbon dating of the parchment, it has been established that the Voynich manuscript was written in the early 15th century. The mystery of the Voynich manuscript remains, because nobody has been able to decipher it. It is written in what seems to be a phantasy alphabet. The language of the manuscript is unknown. It has over 200 pages (some 100 parchment folios), but some pages seem to be missing as well. The author is unknown. The Voynich manuscript has different sections. There are many illustrations in the manuscript, that indicate what the sections probably describe. Many illustrations are of plants, but plants that are unknown on Earth! It looks like the plants and their use, for example in medicine, are being described. Other sections of the Voynich manuscript are even more intriguing. Unclothed humans (women) are depicted, in some form of bubbles or wombs, with tubes or perhaps umbilical cords attached. In other images, similar human figures appear with drawings of a zodiac. There are geometrical forms in the manuscript as well, that seem to be astronomical or astrological in nature. Some look like crop circles. For ancient astronaut theorists, this is all too familiar to ignore. Let’s consider that the author lived in Europe in the Christian middle ages. Could he (or she) have had some form of knowledge that was unacceptable at the time? The fact that the author could write and draw in the first place means that he must have had an established position in society. What if this person found or acquired some knowledge about ancient aliens, about how humans and other life forms on Earth were created by ‘Gods’ or ancient aliens? He could have devised a code to write in, to avoid any problems. Or is the Voynich manuscript actually written in an ancient, even alien language, that has been forgotten today? In any case, the mystery remains. CONTINUE READING: ancientvisitors.blogspot.com/2012/04/voynich-manuscript-could-be-ancient.html
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Post by skywalker on Apr 6, 2012 21:16:54 GMT -6
Im sort of guess, somewhere along that like that Tsolukas guy will talk about it and say.. "hooooow did it khome here.. awll of a suddenn... and wheeeeeeeere deed it khome fromm?" with all the freaking excitement in his face ;D ;D ;D
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Post by auntym on Feb 22, 2014 15:09:36 GMT -6
www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/21/words-voynich-manuscript-decoded-video_n_4830680.html Mysterious Voynich Manuscript Decoded In New Study (VIDEO)LiveScience | by Megan Gannon Posted: 02/21/2014 A researcher claims he's decoded 10 possible words in the famously unreadable Voynich manuscript, which has eluded interpretation for a century. The book's 250 vellum pages are filled with writings in an unknown alphabet and elaborate drawings depicting a range of subjects from female nudes to medicinal herbs to Zodiac symbols. The medieval text was discovered by an antique book dealer in 1912, and it has been rather stingy in giving up its secrets ever since. Now Stephen Bax, a professor of applied linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire in England, says he's deciphered 14 characters of the script and can read a handful of items in the Voynich text, such as the words for coriander, hellebore and juniper next to drawings of the plants. He says he's also picked out the word for Taurus written beside an illustration of the Pleiades, a star cluster in the constellation Taurus. [Voynich Manuscript: Images of the Unreadable Medieval Book] "I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script," Bax said in a statement. "The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants," Bax added. "I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results." CONTINUE READING: www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/21/words-voynich-manuscript-decoded-video_n_4830680.html Voynich - a provisional, partial decoding of the Voynich scriptStephen Bax Stephen Bax·1 video Published on Feb 2, 2014 This video presents my research into the script and language of the Voynich manuscript in an informal way. Please go to my website - stephenbax.net for the fully argued article about it, and also to give me your feedback and comments.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2014 10:38:08 GMT -6
I don't think that it's so impossible for an older 'dead' language to exist. We don't know that there were not 'other' civilizations on this planet..just because our time line tells us what should be. It's not like we haven't been wrong before LOL
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Post by paulette on Feb 24, 2014 10:36:59 GMT -6
The above video is quite thorough! He has scoured old herbal documents. My ears pricked up at the fact that he believes that the language could be Sumerian or a later Arabic form. Sumer was, according to Sitchin and Gardner, a place of explosive advancement of humankind - from hunter gatherers to architects, established government, schools, currency, etc etc. Sumerian language was in Cuniform - not translated that I know of. If someone had studied in the mystery schools, they may have been transcribing from Sumerian through to Arabic or even Greek.
What it seems to me is that Stephen Bax is a very established scholar and takes it seriously, rather than as some delusional rambling and/or horax.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2014 10:42:14 GMT -6
I hope he persists.
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Post by skywalker on Feb 26, 2014 20:16:21 GMT -6
I don't think that it's so impossible for an older 'dead' language to exist. We don't know that there were not 'other' civilizations on this planet..just because our time line tells us what should be. It's not like we haven't been wrong before LOL It's very possible that an unknown language could have existed at some time some where. Just look at all of the Native American languages that existed in the Americas...many of which have been wiped off the face of the planet. If it was a language developed by some isolated culture or sect somewhere the people could pretty much have been erased from existence and most of their books and writings taken with them. Or how about some of the obscure languages that exist today that aren't widely known? Like Klingon for instance. Klingon is a fictional language developed for a TV series but there are actually a few die-hard fans (obsessed?) who actually do speak and write it. What would future historians think if they ever found one of their journals yet couldn't connect it to any widely recognizable language. There has to be a way to decipher it. It just has to be figured out.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2014 10:14:15 GMT -6
I agree. Just because we haven't found it...doesn't mean it's not there
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Post by satansrini on May 11, 2014 7:35:15 GMT -6
I don't think that it's so impossible for an older 'dead' language to exist. We don't know that there were not 'other' civilizations on this planet..just because our time line tells us what should be. It's not like we haven't been wrong before LOL Hello Jo How are you doing?! True.. but the thing with Voynich manuscript is, that there is not other reference or anything similar to this language that was found anywhere else in the world. That is it. Therefore.. the most probable situation is that it is a hoax or it does not belong here. Hoax is a much better hypothesis. However why would some jobless guy go thru such pains to write it so someone 500 years later would be intrigued by it? Mankind does not have that kind of potential to look into the future. If it is extraterrestrial.. then I think.. wow! We are either not from here originally or someone is so similar that they too make books, pens and what is more the follow the same methods of knowledge exchange as we do! Edit: Just read what you wrote above - the God argument (thats how I call it. Just because you didn't see, doesn't mean it doesn't exist). Actually the God argument holds true. But the thing is, these kind of things aren't like Big Foots and Yeti to have a mind of their own and be mobile. Manuscripts and books are made by people and are therefore available somewhere or the other. Also they aren't capable of moving on their own. That the manuscript piqued the interest of so many people means extensive research was already carried out and nothing - so far - has been found! Regards, Srinivas
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2014 10:26:09 GMT -6
I tend to believe that our own little world holds more mysteries than we have any clue of. We're an egotistical lot figuring we have all the answers...when in reality we have so very few. I read every day of new tombs being found, new artifacts, knights buried under parking lots and much much more. If a hoax, a tremendous amount of work went into it..and these hoaxters have my admiration.
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Post by auntym on Dec 16, 2015 13:36:00 GMT -6
www.ancient-code.com/the-voynich-manuscript-memoirs-of-a-stranded-alien/12-15-2015 The Voynich Manuscript: Memoirs of a Stranded AlienAncient Code The unexplained Written in an unknown language and containing diagrams of totally unrecognizable plant species and celestial charts, the Voynich manuscript is by far one of the most enigmatic and mysterious manuscripts ever discovered. No one has been able to fully understand or explain this mysterious ancient text and throughout the years, numerous theories have been proposed aiming to explain this ancient text. The Voynich manuscript was introduced to the modern world in 1912 when antique dealer Wilfrid Voynich acquired it. When Wilfred Voynich purchased the mysterious item, a letter accompanied the mysterious manuscript reading the following: “Reverend and Distinguished Sir, Father in Christ:
This book, bequeathed to me by an intimate friend, I destined for you, my very dear Athanasius, as soon as it came into my possession, for I was convinced that it could be read by no one except yourself.
The former owner of this book asked your opinion by letter, copying and sending you a portion of the book from which he believed you would be able to read the remainder, but he at that time refused to send the book itself. To its deciphering he devoted unflagging toil, as is apparent from attempts of his which I send you herewith, and he relinquished hope only with his life. But his toil was in vain, for such Sphinxes as these obey no one but their master, Kircher. Accept now this token, such as it is and long overdue though it be, of my affection for you, and burst through its bars, if there are any, with your wonted success.
Dr. Raphael, a tutor in the Bohemian language to Ferdinand III, then King of Bohemia, told me the said book belonged to the Emperor Rudolph and that he presented to the bearer who brought him the book 600 ducats. He believed the author was Roger Bacon, the Englishman. On this point I suspend judgement; it is your place to define for us what view we should take thereon, to whose favor and kindness I unreservedly commit myself and remain
At the command of your Reverence,
Joannes Marcus Marci of Cronland
Prague, 19th August, 1666”Ever since its introduction, the strange language of the manuscript has been analyzed by top code breakers of WWI, and WWII, but mysteriously, no one has been able to decipher its contents. According to analysis, the writing in the Voynich manuscript contain around 25 different characters written from left to right. It was determined that the text was written fluently as if the author of the mysterious text knew the language to perfection, as opposed to someone translating the text from a cypher, who would have stopped after writing each character. While the origin of the mysterious ‘book’ remains a mystery, carbon dating analysis of the vellum pages puts their creation between 1404 and 1438. According to the McCrone Research Institute in Chicago, the paints used in the Voynich Manuscript originate from materials which were commonly used during the 1400’s. Now, a revolutionary new theory considers the possibility that the Voynich Manuscript is in face of extraterrestrial origin. Because it contains a language that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet, and given the fact that the ancient manuscript depicts star charts that are unknown to us, the Voynich Manuscript could have been created by a being not from Earth, who during the 1400’s crash-landed on Earth and created the manuscript documenting life on Earth. Knowing that humans did not possess the necessary technology to help the alien visitor return to his planet, it is possible that the Alien visitor decided to chronicle his remaining life on our planet inside the manuscript. While this theory is just another one in the long list that try to explain the Voynich Manuscript, given the fact that we have absolutely no idea what it is, or who wrote it, many people believe that all possibilities should be considered equally. What do you think the Voynich Manuscript is? And is It possible that it was created by a being not from Earth? Since we know so little about it, its only right to consider all options when it comes to items like this. www.ancient-code.com/the-voynich-manuscript-memoirs-of-a-stranded-alien/
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Post by swamprat on Feb 17, 2016 14:59:46 GMT -6
Still unsolved! Historians Can't Figure Out The Language Of This Ancient BookHerbert Collier 2/17/16
History is only remembered as well as it has been recorded, and there is so much of the past that has simply been lost to time. Historians and archaeologists have done what they can to recover, record and analyze fragments of our past, but it is impossible to piece together absolutely everything.
One artifact in particular – a book – has been surrounded by controversy and speculation since it was first discovered in the modern era. Known as the Voynich manuscript, the contents of this manuscript are a complete mystery. It is written in a "language" that no one has ever come across, and its purpose and author are both unknown.
The name Voynich comes from a Polish book dealer, Wilfred Voynich, who first came across the text in 1912.
After purchasing the book, Voynich became obsessed with unraveling its secrets. It has since been studied by cryptographers and historians, as well as American and British code breakers from World War I and World War II to no avail. No one has ever seen anything like it.
Through carbon dating the pages, it has since been estimated that the book was most likely composed sometime during the first half of the 15th century.
The ingredients of the inks and paints used in the book’s creation are consistent with the carbon dating of the pages. Though it is not definitively known where the book came from, researchers have guessed it was created in Europe – possibly in Northern Italy during the time of the Italian Renaissance.
The book spans 240 pages and is presumed to be written from left to right. Some of its pages have gone missing over the centuries, but much of its words and illustrations are still in very good condition.
In respect to the words that are written inside, some have theorized that it is a long-lost language. Others have guessed that it is probably something that was more common, but written in a coded cipher. There is a fair amount of evidence that points in both directions.
Without a way of reading it, it is nearly impossible to determine the exact purpose of the book. The pictures contained within the book are also a large part of the mystery. Because the text cannot be read and used to divide the book into different sections, the images have been used to create the divisions instead.
Read more and look at the STRANGE pictures!: www.wimp.com/historians-cant-figure-out-language-of-ancient-book/
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Post by swamprat on Aug 21, 2016 10:47:38 GMT -6
Tiny Spanish publisher clones world's most mysterious bookPublished: 21 Aug 2016
It’s one of the world’s most mysterious books, a centuries-old manuscript written in an unknown or coded language that no one — not even the best cryptographers — has cracked.
Scholars have spent their lives puzzling over the Voynich Manuscript, whose intriguing mix of elegant writing and drawings of strange plants and naked women has some believing it holds magical powers.
The weathered book is locked away in a vault at Yale University’s Beinecke Library, emerging only occasionally.
But after a ten-year quest for access, Siloe, a small publishing house nestled deep in northern Spain, has secured the right to clone the document — to the delight of its director.
“Touching the Voynich is an experience,” says Juan Jose Garcia, sitting on the top floor of a book museum in the quaint centre of Burgos where Siloe’s office is, a few paved streets away from the city’s famed Gothic cathedral.
“It’s a book that has such an aura of mystery that when you see it for the first time… it fills you with an emotion that is very hard to describe.”
Siloe, which specialises in making facsimiles of old manuscripts, has bought the rights to make 898 exact replicas of the Voynich — so faithful that every stain, hole, sewn-up tear in the parchment will be reproduced.
The company always publishes 898 replicas of each work it clones — a number which is a palindrome, or a figure that reads the same backwards or forwards — after the success of their first facsimile that they made 696 copies of… another palindrome.
The publishing house plans to sell the facsimiles for €7,000 to €8,000 ($7,800 to $8,900) apiece once completed — and close to 300 people have already put in pre-orders.
Raymond Clemens, curator at the Beinecke Library, said Yale decided to have facsimiles done because of the many people who want to consult the fragile manuscript.
“We thought that the facsimile would provide the look and feel of the original for those who were interested,” he said.
“It also enables libraries and museums to have a copy for instructional purposes and we will use the facsimile ourselves to show the manuscript outside of the library to students or others who might be interested.”
The manuscript is named after antiquarian Wilfrid Voynich who bought it around 1912 from a collection of books belonging to the Jesuits in Italy, and eventually propelled it into the public eye.
Theories abound about who wrote it and what it means.
For a long time, it was believed to be the work of 13th century English Franciscan friar Roger Bacon whose interest in alchemy and magic landed him in jail.
But that theory was discarded when the manuscript was carbon dated and found to have originated between 1404 and 1438.
Others point to a young Leonardo da Vinci, someone who wrote in code to escape the Inquisition, an elaborate joke or even an alien who left the book behind when leaving Earth.
Its content is even more mysterious.
The plants drawn have never been identified, the astronomical charts don’t reveal much and neither do the women.
Does the book hold the key to eternal youth? Or is it a mere collection of herbal medicine and recipes?
Scores have tried to decode the Voynich, including top cryptologists such as William Friedman who helped break Japan’s “Purple” cipher during World War II.
But the only person to have made any headway is… Indiana Jones, who in a novel featuring the fictitious archeologist manages to crack it.
Fiction aside, the Beinecke Library gets thousands of emails every month from people claiming to have decoded it, says Rene Zandbergen, a space engineer who runs a recognised blog on the manuscript, which he has consulted several times.
“More than 90 percent of all the access to their digital library is only for the Voynich Manuscript,” he adds.
Only slightly bigger than a paperback, the book contains over 200 pages including several large fold-outs.
It will take Siloe around 18 months to make the first facsimiles, in a painstaking process that started in April when a photographer took detailed snaps of the original in Yale.
Workers at Siloe are currently making mock-ups before they finally set about printing out the pages in a way that makes the script and drawings look like the real deal.
The paper they use — made from a paste developed by the company — has been given a special treatment so it feels like the stiff parchment used to write the Voynich.
Once printed, the pages are put together and made to look older.
All the imperfections are re-created using special tools in a process kept firmly secret by Garcia, who in his spare time has also tried his hand at cryptology.
“We call it the Voynich Challenge,” he says.
“My business partner… says the author of the Voynich could also have been a sadist, as he has us all wrapped up in this mystery.”
t.co/5aNxrxVaBZ
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Post by auntym on Jan 25, 2018 14:58:33 GMT -6
mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/01/ai-reveals-new-clues-in-deciphering-the-voynich-manuscript/ AI Reveals New Clues in Deciphering the Voynich Manuscriptby Brett Tingley / mysteriousuniverse.org/author/bbtingley/January 26, 2018 In some ways, the Voynich Manuscript is one of the most mysterious texts known to historians. The text is filled with fantastic, surreal imagery depicting plants, astronomical drawings, strange creatures, and a variety of dreamlike scenes. The origin of the text is unknown, but radiocarbon dating of the vellum it was written on puts its date of creation somewhere in the early 15th century. The book has changed hands numerous times throughout the centuries, passing from alchemists to rare booksellers and even to the King of Hungary. Today the Voynich manuscript resides in Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The 240-page manuscript is written in an unknown language and script and has so far proven undecipherable even by the world’s most skilled cryptographers. Every year or two, however, someone claims to have deciphered at least part of the manuscript, with most of the clues suggesting it was some type of pharmacopoeia or botany manual. Of course, one could surmise as much just by looking at the pictures. Just this week, however, a pair of Canadian artificial intelligence researchers claims to have developed an AI algorithm capable of deciphering the entire manuscript. Has the mystery of the Voynich manuscript finally been solved? Curiously, many of the plants depicted in the manuscript resemble no known plants or flowers. Known on Earth, anyway.Well, not exactly. But we might be getting close. The University of Alberta’s Greg Kondrak and Bradley Hauer claim to have developed an AI algorithm capable of deducing the language a text was written in with 97% accuracy. According to their algorithm, the Voynich manuscript was likely written in Hebrew and then encrypted using a substitution cipher in which letters are shifted, and the vowels have been removed from words. Kondrak and Hauer’s algorithm found that the first sentence of the text translates as “She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people.” In its analysis of the first 72 words of the manuscript, the algorithm has identified “farmer,” “light,” “air” and “fire” as the four most common words, with “covfefe” coming in a close fifth. I knows gobbledygook when I sees it.While this development is being hailed as a breakthrough in the quest to decipher the Voynich manuscript, the researchers themselves note that their work is far from complete and that hours and hours of human research are still needed to interpret the syntax and meaning behind the words. Will we ever really decipher the Voynich manuscript? What if it was written in gibberish and filled with curious images as a hoax or practical joke? Personally, I find that to be the most likely of all scenarios. And how hilarious would that be, writing a book of nonsense that gets pored over by learned men for centuries? If that’s the case, the author was a comic genius. mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/01/ai-reveals-new-clues-in-deciphering-the-voynich-manuscript/
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Post by auntym on Jun 15, 2018 12:55:43 GMT -6
www.cnn.com/2018/06/15/health/voynich-manuscript-mystery/index.html?utm_term=image&utm_content=2018-06-15T18%3A40%3A07&utm_source=twCNN&utm_medium=social The Voynich manuscript: Will this medieval mystery ever be solved?By Jane Bracher, for CNN / twitter.com/janebracher Fri June 15, 2018 Examining images from the manuscript.A family in Alberta, Canada, believes the manuscript is written in Old Turkic. Father and son Ahmet (R) and Ozan Ardic have been working on decoding the manuscript for three years. They say they have derived an alphabet of 24 base characters and 64 combined characters from it. This medieval manuscript has provoked speculation since it turned up in a bookshop a century ago. Written in an unreadable script, it includes illustrations of plants, women and astrological symbols. The Voynich manuscript has been dated to the middle ages It is written in incomprehensible text and has spawned countless theories as to its meaning and origins (CNN)Naked women in pools of green liquid, strange looking plants, and text written in an unknown alphabet; they can all be found on the delicate parchment pages of a mysterious manuscript from the 15th century. And nobody knows what any of it means. Frayed, browned and in fragile condition, the Voynich manuscript currently resides deep in a basement at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library but digitized copies of it are available for free online. Since it came to light over 100 years ago, many have tried and failed to decode the text -- from US Army cryptographers to ordinary citizens postulating theories in the deepest corners of Reddit. Its author and original title are unknown, and it is named for the collector and bookseller Wilfrid Voynich, who purchased it in 1912. Ever since Voynich showed it off to the world, the incomprehensible text and cryptic illustrations have spurred countless theories about its meaning, origin, and the identity of its author. Some thought it might have been written by Leonardo Da Vinci or maybe even an autistic monk, others felt it might simply be an elaborate prank. So what do we really know about the Voynich manuscript? Why has it captivated the imagination of so many through the decades? And will its mysteries ever be solved? 'People have lost their families over it'Lisa Fagin Davis, executive director of the Medieval Academy of America and a longtime Voynich scholar, says the first recorded appearance of the manuscript was when it was bought in the late 16th century by Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, who believed it had been written by 13th century British philosopher and alchemist Roger Bacon. It then apparently traveled around Europe, disappearing for 250 years, before eventually being acquired by Voynich. Although Voynich never revealed where he got the manuscript, Davis says that his wife disclosed after his death that he had bought it from Jesuits outside of Rome. In 2011, carbon-dating revealed the parchment dates back to the early 15th century, somewhere between 1404 to 1438. Analysis of the ink confirmed it was consistent with what was used during that period. That dating rules out some of the names postulated as being the author, like Bacon, Da Vinci and Voynich himself. But beyond those facts, the manuscript offers more questions than answers. Some of illustrations in the book resemble known plants, others less so.It's that sense of mystery that has captured the public imagination, and compelled so many to attempt to decipher its meaning. "There are a lot of different approaches that people have taken over the years and a lot of people have given up," said Davis. "And some people have lost their fortunes and families over this manuscript because of their obsession with it. There are people who claim every once in a while to have decoded one word, but nothing else." While the media regularly reports that someone has finally cracked the code, none of the claims have so far stood up to close scrutiny. One recent theory that triggered an entire news cycle was the claim by a professor and grad student at the University of Alberta in Canada that artificial intelligence had finally cracked the code. They claimed the text was originally written in Hebrew, before being encoded, but Davis and others have disputed that idea. Davis said that ultimately, in order for a theory to hold up, it must be vetted, be repeatable by other scholars, and result in something that makes sense. Countless theories, no solutionMany will want to apply those criteria to a new theory, from a family in Canada, who claim to have deciphered the text. Ahmet Ardic -- an electrical engineer by profession, whose lifelong passion has been researching Turkic languages, linguistics and etymological roots -- stumbled upon a copy of the Voynich manuscript online four years ago. Like so many others, he was intrigued and began working on it by himself for a year. He then enlisted his two sons, Ozan and Alp Erkan, to help. The Ardic family have published a video on YouTube explaining their theory. They say they're certain the manuscript is written in a type of Old Turkic dialect or a combination of dialects -- mostly written in phonemic orthography, or language written as it is spoken. Ozan said his family have figured out at least 300 words and is confident there is now sufficient vocabulary to read at least 30% of the manuscript. They say the manuscript contains recipes, details of ointments and even entries on abortion, how to conduct a proper C-section procedure, and disparaging common misconceptions of the time, such as eating more in order to bear a male child. This summer they plan on submitting their research to the academic journal Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Culture. "At this point we're not exactly pushing a theory as much as proving a fact," Ozan, 20, told CNN. "We analyzed this and we wouldn't be presenting this if this wasn't Turkish." Intriguing claims Davis says their claims hold up pretty well so far, although she is eager to hear from an Old Turkic scholar who can vet the family's work. "I don't know the first thing about old Turkish but it's very intriguing," she said. "It certainly fits the known history of the manuscript, it suits the contents. When you put the whole thing together, the contents suggest that the manuscript was produced for medicinal purposes." Whether or not their theory withstands expert analysis, it's unlikely to end our obsession with the document. "I would say the Voynich manuscript stands at the intersection of the middle ages -- which is a topic that is really fascinating to the general public -- and the unsolvable mystery," Davis said. "It's had an incredible journey and right now, in this very moment, it's sitting in a safe in a sub-basement at the Beinecke Library, in the dark, patiently waiting for someone to decipher and uncover its secrets. "It's magical. It really is. There's nothing like it." www.cnn.com/2018/06/15/health/voynich-manuscript-mystery/index.html?utm_term=image&utm_content=2018-06-15T18%3A40%3A07&utm_source=twCNN&utm_medium=social
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