Voynich: Evidence of Czech Shorthand & Latin Alchemical Compression

[Paul Ferguson]

"The Voynich Manuscript has long stood as one of the greatest undeciphered texts in human history, baffling linguists, cryptographers, and historians for over 600 years.  Despite extensive efforts, no existing language, code, or cipher has been conclusively mapped to its content.  In this paper, we propose a novel hypothesis:  The Voynich Manuscript is written in a compressed shorthand system based on 15th-century Czech scribal traditions, interwoven with Latin root words, and infused with the symbolic language of alchemy, herbal medicine, and astrology.  Drawing from historical evidence of shorthand practices in the Bohemian region during the late medieval period, combined with the widespread use of Latin in scholarly and esoteric texts, we reconstruct a plausible linguistic framework that interprets each glyph in the manuscript as representing entire words or even conceptual phrases.  This interpretation not only bridges linguistic, cultural, and historical contexts, but also provides a consistent rationale for the manuscript's recurring motifs of plants, bathing women, and astrological charts.  If validated, this approach could mark a significant breakthrough in understanding the manuscript and reposition it within the intellectual landscape of 15th-century Bohemia.  The formalization of the shorthand key and cross-referencing with contemporary Czech, Latin, and alchemical manuscripts for validation and further research."

Advocate Anwar M Quereshi
Independent Researcher
Date Written: July 20, 2025


https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?...id=5359060