
Voynich Manuscript Decrypted by Bristol Academic - omneity
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-bristol-academic-voynich-code-century-old.html
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aestetix
I don't buy it.

The correct way to produce a decryption is to produce a full plaintext
document, along with steps to reproduce it.

It's also worth noting that this is the latest of a long series of claims of
having deciphered it:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript#Deciphermen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript#Decipherment_claims)

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Kalium
The paper itself is here:
[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02639904.2019.1...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02639904.2019.1599566)

From the introduction:

> Past scholarly attempts at solving the writing system are far too numerous
> to mention individually, but none was successful in any way, because every
> attempt simply used the wrong approach

This is rather a strong claim (which I am not equipped to evaluate). The
author goes on to argue that the manuscript can be understood as an example of
a long-hypothesized language with minimal written artifacts.

~~~
bloak
"Published online: 29 Apr 2019", says that page, and the article itself says
"May 15, 2019", but it looks like Gerard Cheshire published his theory in
2017, because here's a plausible-sounding rebuttal from November 2017:

[https://ciphermysteries.com/2017/11/10/gerard-cheshire-
vulga...](https://ciphermysteries.com/2017/11/10/gerard-cheshire-vulgar-latin-
siren-call-polyglot)

~~~
jfengel
And indeed, it was discussed on Hacker News at least once before:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19491517](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19491517)

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crypto-jeronimo
The following excerpts score quite high on my BS meter:

\- "Although the purpose and meaning of the manuscript had eluded scholars for
over a century, it took Research Associate Dr. Gerard Cheshire two weeks,"

\- ""I experienced a series of 'eureka' moments whilst deciphering the code"

These two alone much more to discredit the "preliminary" claims than any of
the remaining arguments in favor of the "discovery".

~~~
pvitz
It amuses me that this passed the editor and the peer review process:

"So, from De Rosa’s manuscript we understand just why manuscript MS408 is so
dominated by female issues, activities and adventures and why so few images of
men appear. The only males in the citadel were the abbot, celibate monks and
young boys, leaving the women and girls sexually and emotionally frustrated,
so they amused and distracted themselves whilst they waited and yearned for
male attention to return. They must have jumped at the chance of an adventure
when the volcano erupted in 1444, as the citadel would have felt like a gilded
cage by then."

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anotheryou
If it agrees with this guy here I'm sold: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-
sW5dOlDxxu0EgdNn2pMaQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-
sW5dOlDxxu0EgdNn2pMaQ)

(he kinda takes off where Stephen Bax left it)

edit: they don't agree I think

edit2: so he cherry-picks from multiple languages to make his theory work? XD

