A possible generating algorithm of the Voynich manuscript

2019/05/25 by Torsten Timm, Andreas Schinner · 1 voice · 4 citations
Mathematics · Social Sciences · #Benford’s Law and Fraud Detection #Intelligence, Security, War Strategy #Misinformation and Its Impacts

paper · doi:10.1080/01611194.2019.1596999

openalex publication_date 2019/05/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

In this article, we investigate the structural composition of the Voynich manuscript text, using statistical (network) analysis of word/token similarity. Our results support the so-called “hoax hypothesis,” i.e., interpretation of the text as a set of meaningless strings. Based on this analysis, we present a concrete text-generator algorithm (the “self-citation” process), easily executable without additional tools even by a medieval scribe. The analyzed text sample reproduces some of the statistical key properties of the Voynich manuscript; in particular, both of Zipf’s laws are fulfilled.

Cited by

• The Naibbe cipher: a substitution cipher that encrypts Latin and Italian as Voynich Manuscript-like ciphertext
• Review of The linguistics of the Voynich manuscript by Claire Bowern and Luke Lindemann
• Topic Modeling in the Voynich Manuscript
• Voynich manuscript [wikipedia]

Discussions

• I think we can consider the case of the Voynich manuscript closed since the paper “A possible generating algorithm of the Voynich manuscript” by Timm & Schinner (‘Cryptologia’ 44 (2020)) doi.org/10.10 [bsky, 5 points, 0 comments]

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