On folio 1r

[mark097]

Hi,
I'm using Kennedy and Churchill's book "The Voynich Manuscript" page 245.
I had the idea, that the paragraph had a core sentence with filler material.
There are 5 sentences with the average around 42 characters (my count 213)
So I guessed that the core sentence was "An Craic-Saothar of E* Kell'y, Irish poet of Ireland"
An Craic "The chat" and Saothar-" artistic work" in Irish.
The asterik and apostrophe being a way to add plausible deniability to his authorship.
Then to get the 18 letters used in the paragraph, I made the sentence;
F(rancis)( P(once) *' Leon) Draik Ct shy
To get the letter order, I used the total letters in the paragraph over the total in the sentence.
So there are 30 letter A's over 5 letter A's for a rank of 6.
The ranks were, 1,1,1,1,1 1/3,1 3/5, 4, 5 1/2, 6,6,6,6,6,6 1/2, 6 1/2, 9, 91/2, 16.
Sir Francis Drake's ship was "The Golden Hind".to make sense with carat.
Also, I went through the paragraph writing down every pair of letters separated by 6 then 7 letters.
So the first 6 was "a-chysyk-a" etc.
For 6 I got "ayrihrcthaiiachai" using all the letters, I got "Charity"
for7 I got " hyortahariinootaraiy" I got Oh, rainy!
I realize this is probably a coincidence, since it may not relate to the rest of the work!
Thanks for letting me post!

[proto57]

Hi Mark, and welcome to the forum/list.

I like your ideas for various reasons: First of all, whether or not word and character counts, and processing that data, will help with solving the Voynich cipher/code/language, I don't know. But it has not come close, so far. So in my opinion, doing what you are doing is a very valid and promising approach: Just play with the text in a million different ways, over and over, trial and error. Yes it is laborious, and more like alchemy than science... but science has failed us for so long, here, that perhaps the best approach is to just mess around with the text and hope something pops out at us.

The second reason is that you used the paragraph of f1r. I've written on the list, long ago, that I think it would be a good idea to narrow down attempts to the first paragraph of f1r. That would take much of the variability of results out of the attempt... that is, it is hard to compare one person's results from one other paragraph, and another very different attempt from still another, different paragraph, and so on.

Focusing on one paragraph, for everyone, would create a kind of control experiment. If everyone is using the same text to begin with, then the different results, alone, tell us something.


Well one other thing about that: No way of knowing (like anything at all is known????), but I would suspect that the first paragraph of the book would have been done carefully and meticulously, and possibly have less error than later on. It would also, presumably, contain an overview of what the Voynich is meant to be about. Just guesses, but the first paragraphs of most writings attempt to outline the purpose of the work. Some have even mused that that f1r probably contains the author's name.

So keep up the good work, and best of luck.

Rich.

[mark097]

Thanks,

My feeling is that the first paragraph would have a title and signature.
I haven't been successful with the apparent signature at the end, so I thought it could be fake.
I agree with your assessment!
With the covid thing going on, there's lots of time to work on it.

[mark097]

Hi,
I took it a step further and deleted the "charity and oh rainy " letters from 1r.

FCH -YSY - KLA - RAT - AII - NSH - OLS - HOR - CTH -RCS -KOR -SHO -
LDY - SCH - TAK - ACT - INS - REC - TCT - HAR - DAN - SYA - IIS - HEK -
YOY - KAI - INS - HOD - OAR - YES - DRA - SO' - OKE - EYE - RRO - LYC -
THA - *RD - AIN - OTI - NOO - KNS - IYC - HER - TII - NPR - CFH - NDA -RSH -

I'm guessing that the double y's can be a cartouche for royal names like Egyptian.
I think HYSY could be (SH) or South Hampton.
YOY then could be Oxford.
The double Y surrounding the "signature" was lost when I subtracted the letters.
DARSH
Adding letters could be "eDwARd SH" ?
FCHYSYKL
Could be "Feci SH Kelly" ??
I'll quit before I get too silly!
Thanks!

[mark097]

Hi,
Here's another cartouche;
yerroly

I looked up on Wikipedia QE1 and found that one of her nick names was "Gloriana"
So that could be Elizabeth Regina, Gloriana.
However how can you be correct with such a casual code? I feel confident with the cartouches, but anything else would be suspect.

[mark097]

I looked up South Hampton's birth date on Wikipedia and it was 6 Oct, 1573.
So for a possible first sentence I got;
fch-ysy-kla-rat-aii-nsh-ols
I had to add H's the double duty of "what's between the H's are numbers"

Feci (SH) Kalendae Martius II, Annum 1569.

I produced South Hampton on March 2, 1569.

It sound good but how could he be off by 4 years?!

[mark097]

I continued with the same theme but if this is right, it could be a sculptor's abbreviations at best.

c-orth rcs kor sho ldy sch.
3-Hortatiebam uchksor (uxor) hospitie dycere (ducere) heres filius

I would urge you-a wife-in the guise of a guest-to lead (marry) for the purpose of an heir-son.
the 3 would be added to 1569 ?
?!.

[mark097]

Here is a book possibility for the next group of letters. Since there is no "K" in Latin outside of Greek words, I'm going to call them either a "C" or a substitute for the word ending "Que" or "And". Also "U' and "Y" are interchangeable.
The book is "Ars Amatoria", book 2, lines 49-52.
TAK-ACT, INS-REC ,TCT-HAR, DAN-SYA, IIS-HEK.

TraCTabat CERam QUE pINaSque
Haec ARma paraTA
Cui pATer ADUrNdas cAriNiS
HaC nobIs mInoS Effugiendus.

These works designed by the father, the wax and feathers(tablet and quills?)
are the "ships" going
this is how we escape Minos

Once again, I'm not an expert on Latin!

[mark097]

On the negative supposition that it's fake, I thought to generate these words you would need a sentence with all the letters, but it would also need to have pairs of letters.

Faith, hope, charity and shlock

pairs in the text;

fa-ai-th-ho-ph-ec-ch-ar-ri-ty-ya-an-sh-lo-o-k

I haven't given up yet.

[mark097]

Another possibility is that the author was disguising his code with Greek shorthand.

FA CH YS YK AL AR AT AI I

Could be;

Phi, chi, upsy, kappa, beta (?) I-I or pi (?)