The Voynich manuscript has been one of humanity's greatest mysteries since it was discovered in 1912. Over the past 100 years, cryptographers, code breakers, and language experts have tried to decode the manuscript. I have known about the manuscript since it was a very popular topic on the Discovery and History channels.
A family in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, may be getting close to decoding the manuscript. Ahmet Ardiç and his two sons Alp Erkan Ardiç and Ozan Ardiç, who call themselves Ata Team Alberta (ATA), claim that rather than ciphertext, the manuscript is phonemic orthography of Old Turkic. They have translated some pages and over 30% of the manuscript. Their research paper is awaiting peer review and publication at John Hopkins University.
Exciting stuff. If the manuscript is phonemic, wouldn't it be hilarious if the mystery of the 600-year-old manuscript turns out to be a writer who didn't know how to spell?
The video below shows the Turkish family explaining its processes and its translations of the Voynich manuscript:
