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The Voynich Manuscript Transcription Systems
In probable chronological order:
- FSG (for First Study Group). Invented by William Friedman
and his collaborators for the purpose of transcribing the Voynich
manuscript into computer-readable form. And in those days
(mid-forties) that was... punch cards and paper tapes!
- Currier. Invented by Captain Prescott Currier, to whom we owe the
discovery that the Voynich Manuscript is written in at least two
different "languages", each recognizable by its statistical
properties, and its calligraphy. That means that the Voynich
Manuscript is the work of at least two authors, or perhaps a
single author suffering from a split personality. Currier uses
all 26 letters and 10 digits, and is more difficult to learn and
to remember than other systems, because some very rare letters
(represented by two or more characters in other systems) are
represented by a single character in Currier.
- Bennett. The transcription system used in
William Ralph Bennett Jnr.'s
Scientific and engineering problem-solving with the
computer (Prentice-Hall, 1976).
- Frogguy. Invented by Jacques Guy, this system uses a mix
of lower-case letters and of numerals such that Voynich text
transcribed into it looks very much like the original Voynich. In
fact, it looks so much like it that, once learnt, Frogguy is
almost impossible to forget. The basic system, that is. There are
several extensions to it, allowing you to represent Voynich letters
or groups of letters with increasing accuracy.
- EVA (European Voynich Alphabet). The brainchild of
Gabriel Landini and René Zandbergen, I believe, with some
input from various members of the Voynich interest group. EVA is
much like Frogguy: it is easy to learn, easy to remember, but
it uses only letters, not numerals, in order to be pronounceable.
As a result, it no longer looks much like the original Voynich.
For instance, EVA writes edy what Frogguy writes
c89 for the very common Voynich letter group which looks
like c89.
There are more transcription schemes, but those are the only ones that
you are likely to see used on the Web. They are summarized in
this table.
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