The manuscript was carbon dated and found to have originated between 1404 and 1438.
According to their research the first complete sentence reads, ‘She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people.’
‘It’s a kind of strange sentence to start a manuscript but it definitely makes sense’, said Dr Kondrak.
He found more than 80 per cent of the words were in a Hebrew dictionary, but researchers did not know if they made sense together.
After unsuccessfully seeking Hebrew scholars to validate their findings, the scientists turned to Google Translate.
Siloe, which specialises in making facsimiles of old manuscripts, has bought the rights to make 898 exact replicas of the Voynich.
The copies will be so faithful that every stain, hole, sewn-up tear in the parchment will be reproduced.
The company always publishes 898 replicas of each work it clones - a number which is a palindrome, or a figure that reads the same backwards or forwards.
The publishing house plans to sell the clones, also known as facsimiles, for 7,000 to 8,000 euros (£6,030 to £6,891 or $7,800 to $8,900) apiece once completed - and close to 300 people have already put in pre-orders.
There is a comment posted to the article:
It’s a guide to understanding women. No wonder in undecipherable.
What a wonderful company. I’ve always hated that so many wondrous manuscripts are locked away from public view, or situated in locations where I’ll never get to see them. I hope libraries buy many of these reproductions and put them on view.