The Voynich Manuscript

To date, researchers have not been able to fully decipher the unknown language in which the Voynich manuscript, which is around 500 years old, was written.

The Voynich Manuscript is a handwritten record and named after Wilfrid Michael Voynich, who acquired the mysterious manuscript in 1912. It is written in a still unidentified script in an unknown language. In addition to the handwritten notes, the small book contains 303 drawn plants as well as some astrological illustrations of the signs of the zodiac - albeit with some special features.

Numerous researchers have already tried to unravel the Voynich manuscript currently stored at Yale University - so far in vain. Not only the writing and language cannot yet be assigned, the illustrations also pose a mystery. None of the more than 300 plant species described in detail are known, and the recorded signs of the zodiac also show unusual deviations from the norm. The star sign sequence begins with the star sign Pisces, instead of with Aries as was usual back then. In addition, the zodiac signs Aries and Taurus are shown twice, but the zodiac signs Aquarius and Capricorn are missing from the depictions. The two missing zodiac signs are probably on the missing page 74 of the Voynich manuscript, which contains a total of 102 pages.

One of the last examinations of the book took place in January 2014. The botanist Arthur O. Tucker and the computer scientist Rexford H. Talbert are certain that the Voynich manuscript comes from Mexico and is written in the Aztec language Nahuati. As evidence, the two scientists state that 37 of the 303 plants shown are very similar to plant species from Central America - but these are also just speculations. Other scientists believe that the Vaynich manuscript was written in a secret language that has not yet been deciphered.

However, the fact that the Voynich manuscript is a purely fictional record is undoubtedly ruled out. The book contains around 170 individual glyphs and around 000 words. The words have all the phonotactic characteristics of other natural languages. In addition, the word frequency corresponds to Zipf's law and the word entropy is similar to Latin or English with around 35 Shannon per word. Despite the most modern computer calculations, it has not yet been possible to successfully assign the writing, the language, the author or the plant illustrations.

If the Voynich manuscript was actually written in a secret language, it would make deciphering it even more difficult. Perhaps the notes are scientifically collected data on rare plants, an esoteric recipe book, or something else entirely. It remains to be seen whether the contents containing the unknown plant species will ever be deciphered. Until then, the Voynich manuscript will definitely provide plenty of material for speculation in all directions.

The Voynich Manuscript