![]() ![]() The same could be said for another the world's great written mysteries, the so-called rongorongo texts from Easter Island. "If it utilises the same or similar syllabic values as Linear B, then its underlying language appears unrelated to any known language." "Using the values associated with Linear B in Linear A mainly produces unintelligible words," concluded classicist Dr Francesco Perono Cacciafoco of the Universita degli Studi di Pisa in 2014. Linear B, cracked the same year Queen Elizabeth was crowned, was clearly based on an earlier script, dubbed Linear A, but that remains stubbornly opaque to this day. Weirdly, though, the process doesn't always work in reverse. Languages evolve, of course, and sometimes an unknown script can be deciphered if its ancestor can be identified. However, there were also many points in common with Hebrew – and that, the researchers suggested, might eventually be the key that unlocks the mystery. ![]() In structure, the language of the Voynich bore many similarities to Esperanto – which was a bit of a surprise, given Esperanto wasn't invented until 1887. The exercise did not result in a coherent translation, but did yield some interesting insights. It has been studied intensively for decades by historians, linguists and cryptologists – including some very smart boffins who successfully cracked codes during two world wars – and still no one has figured out its language, much less its meaning. The Voynich – currently under lock and key at Yale University – is a 240-page, lavishly illustrated book that dates from the early part of the 15th century. Mostly it will be because of the news this week that a Spanish publisher, Siloe, has won the right to reproduce perhaps the most enigmatic book of them all, known as the Voynich manuscript. Interest in undeciphered texts can be expected to spike in coming months, and not just because Brown has a new novel on the way. Or we could end up with a note to remember to buy milk on the way home. If any of the puzzles are ever cracked, we could end up with the seeds of a tale that would make Dan Brown green with envy. And that's the allure of the world's small but fascinating collection of undeciphered texts, which include not only things written in extinct languages but also much more recent documents from Freemasons, spies and, in one case, a serial killer. The Voynich manuscript has defeated the world's finest codebreakers and is now being sold in replica form. ![]()
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