The Voynich Manuscript
A
The starkly modern Beinecke Library at Yale University is home to some of the mostvaluable books in the world: first folios of Shakespeare, Gutenberg Bibles andmanuscripts from the early Middle Ages. Yet the library’s mostcontroversial possession is an unprepossessing vellum manuscript about the sizeof a hardback book, containing 240-odd pages of drawings and text of unknownage and authorship. Catalogued as MS408, the manuscript would attract littleattention were it not for the fact that the drawings hint at esotericknowledge, while the text seems to be some sort of code – one that no-one hasbeen able to break. It’s known to scholars as the Voynich manuscript, after theAmerican book dealer Wilfrid Voynich, who bought the manuscript from a Jesuit collegein Italy in 1912.
B
Over the years, the manuscript has attracted the attention of everyone from amateurdabblers to top codebreakers, all determined to succeed where countless othershave failed. Academic research papers, books and websites are devoted to makingsense of the contents of the manuscript, which are freely available to all.‘Most other mysteries involve secondhand reports,’ says Dr Gordon Rugg of KeeleUniversity, a leading Voynich expert. But this is one that you can see foryourself.
C
It is certainly strange: page after page of drawings of weird plants, astrologicalsymbolism and human figures, accompanied by a script that looks like some formof shorthand. What does it say and what are the drawings about? Voynich himselfbelieved that the manuscript was the work of the 13th century English monkRoger Bacon, famed for his knowledge of alchemy, philosophy and science. In1921 Voynich’s view that Bacon was the writer appeared to win support from thework of William Newbold, Professor of Philosophy at the University ofPennsylvania, who claimed to have found the key to the cipher system used byBacon. According to Newbold, the manuscript proved that Bacon had access to amicroscope centuries before they were supposedly first invented. They claimthat this mediaeval monk had observed living cells created a sensation. It soonbecame clear, however, that Newbold had fallen victim to wishful thinking.Other scholars showed that his ‘decoding’ methods produced a host of possibleinterpretations.
D
The Voynich manuscript has continued to defy the efforts of world-class experts. In1944, a team was assembled to tackle the mystery, led by William Friedman, therenowned American codebreaker. They began with the most basic code breakingtask: analysing the relative frequencies of the characters making up the text,looking for signs of an underlying structure. Yet Friedman’s team soon foundthemselves in deep water. The precise size of the ‘alphabet’ of the Voynichmanuscript was unclear: it’s possible to make out more than 70 distinct symbolsamong the 170,000-character text. Furthermore, Friedman discovered that somewords and phrases appeared more often than expected in a standard language,casting doubt on claims that the manuscript concealed a real language, asencryption typically reduces word frequencies.
E
Friedman concluded that the most plausible resolution of this paradox was that‘Voynichese’ is some sort of specially created artificial language, whose wordsare devised from concepts, rather than linguistics. So, could the Voynichmanuscript be the earliest known example of an artificial language? Friedman’shypothesis commands respect because of the lifetime of crypt analyticalexpertise he brought to bear,’ says Rob Churchill, co-author of the VoynichManuscript, that still leaves a host of questions unanswered, however, such asthe identity of the author and the meaning of the bizarre drawings. ‘It doeslittle to advance our understanding of the manuscript as a whole,’ saysChurchill. Even though Friedman was working more than 60 years ago, hesuspected that major insights would come reality that the device that hadalready transformed code breaking: the computer. In this he was right – itis now the key tool for uncovering clues about the pleasure from manuscript’slanguage.
F
The insights so far have been perplexing. For example, in 2001 another leadingVoynich scholar, Dr Gabriel Landin of Birmingham University in the UK,published the results of his study of the manuscript using a pattern-detectingmethod called spectral analysis. This revealed evidence that the manuscriptcontains genuine words, rather than random nonsense, consistent with theexistence of some underlying natural language. Yet the following year, Voynichexpert Ren Zandbergen of the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, Germany showedthat the entropy of the text (a measure of the rate of transfer of information)was consistent with Friedman’s suspicions that an artificial language had beenused.
G
Many are convinced that the Voynich manuscript isn’t a hoax. For how could a medievalhoaxer create so many telltale signs of a message from random nonsense? Yeteven this has been challenged in new research by Rugg. Using a system,first published by the Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardano in 1150 in whicha specially constructed grille issued to pick out symbols from a table, Ruggfound he could rapidly generate text with many of the basic traits of theVoynich manuscript. Publishing his results in 2004 Rugg stresses that he hadn’tset out to prove the manuscript a hoax. ‘I simply demonstrated that it’sfeasible to hoax something this complex in a few months, he says. Inevitably,others beg to differ. Some scholars, such as Zandbergen, still suspect the texthas genuine meaning, though believe it may never be decipherable. Others, suchas Churchill, have suggested that the sheer weirdness of the illustrations andtext hint at an author who had lost touch with reality.
H
What is clear is that the book-sized manuscript kept under lock and key at YaleUniversity has lost none of its fascination. ‘Many derive great intellectualpleasure from solving puzzles,’ says Rugg. The Voynich manuscript is aschallenging a puzzle as anyone could ask for.
Questions27 – 30
Choose TRUE ifthe statement agrees with the information given in the text, choose FALSE ifthe statement contradicts the information, or choose NOT GIVEN ifthere is no information on this.
27.It is uncertain when the Voynich manuscript was written.
TRUE
FALSE
NOTGIVEN
28.Wilfrid Voynich donated the manuscript to the Beinecke Library.
TRUE
FALSE
NOTGIVEN
29.Interest in the Voynich manuscript extends beyond that of academics and professionalcodebreakers.
TRUE
FALSE
NOTGIVEN
30.The text of the Voynich manuscript contains just under 70 symbols.
TRUE
FALSE
NOTGIVEN
Questions31 – 34
Choose the correct person (A – H) for each statement. You may choose any correctperson more than once.
List ofPeople
A GordonRugg
B RogerBacon
C WilliamNewbold
D WilliamFriedman
E RobChurchill
F GabrielLandini
G RenZandbergen
H GirolamoCardano
31 The number of times that some words occur make it unlikely that the manuscript isbased on an authentic language.
32 Unlike some other similar objects of fascination, people can gain direct access to theVoynich manuscript.
33 The person who wrote the manuscript may not have been entirely sane.
34 It is likely that the author of the manuscript is the same person as suggested byWilfrid Voynich.
Questions35 – 39
Complete the summary. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS in each gap.
Voynich Researchers
William Newbold believed that the author of the Voynich manuscript had been able tolook at cells through a , Other researchers later demonstrated thatthere were flaws in his argument. William Friedman concluded that themanuscript was written in an artificial language that was based on .He couldn’t find out the meaning of this language but he believed thatthe would continue to bring advances in code breaking.
Dr Gabriel Landini used a system known as in his research, and claimsto have demonstrated the presence of genuine words.
Dr Gordon Rugg’s system involved a grille, that made it possible to quickly selectsymbols that appeared in a . Rugg’s conclusion was that the manuscriptlacked genuine meaning.
Questions40
Choosethe correct answer.
40.Thewriter's main aim in this passage to
explainthe mearning of the manuscript.
determinethe true identity of the manuscript\s abthor.
describethe numerous attempts to decode the manuscript
identifywhich research into the manscript has had the most media coverage
