1.0 Introduction

The Rohonc Codex is an enigmatic illustrated manuscript of uncertain origin, written in an undeciphered script and in a language that remains unknown to this day. It surfaced in Hungary during the early nineteenth century and has since perplexed linguists, historians, and cryptographers alike. The manuscript, now preserved in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, consists of approximately 448 pages of handmade paper and features nearly ninety intricate miniatures. These illustrations depict a mixture of Christian, military, and civic scenes, ranging from crucifixion imagery and processions to battles and coronations, suggesting that the book was conceived with a coherent thematic intent, even if its exact message remains concealed.

Unlike the Voynich Manuscript, which has gained international fame, the Rohonc Codex remains comparatively obscure, often referred to as “Europe’s forgotten mystery.” Its script comprises nearly two hundred distinct symbols, written from right to left, and exhibits structural patterns that resemble natural language but correspond to no known alphabet. Numerous attempts to decipher it have been undertaken over the past two centuries, yet none have achieved consensus or reproducible success. Early efforts in the nineteenth century by Hungarian scholars such as Sándor Huszti (1840) treated it as a potential relic of ancient Hungarian or even Sumerian writing, while twentieth-century analyses by István Fehér (1970) and later Miklós Simon (2009) explored possibilities ranging from a constructed language to a devotional Christian code.

The manuscript’s origin remains a matter of heated debate. Some researchers have proposed that it could be a religious or apocryphal text composed for a specific sect or monastic community, given the Christian iconography and hierarchical depictions in the miniatures. Others, however, regard it as a complex hoax or literary curiosity, possibly created in the eighteenth century for private amusement or as an intellectual challenge, in an age when cipher writing was fashionable among scholars and secret societies. Yet recent structural analyses of the text, including symbol frequency and positional distribution studies, indicate that it may follow consistent linguistic rules rather than random invention, raising the possibility that the codex encodes a genuine language or ciphered message (Simon, 2009; Fehér, 1970).

Despite more than two centuries of inquiry, no one has definitively identified the codex’s author, the meaning of its text, or even the language family to which it might belong. Each hypothesis—from religious manuscript to lost language or deliberate forgery—opens a different interpretive pathway into its mystery. This thesis aims to present a comprehensive study of the Rohonc Codex by reviewing its discovery and historical background, analysing its physical and textual composition, surveying major theories of interpretation, and assessing the scientific investigations and ongoing research that continue to seek answers to one of Europe’s most enduring manuscript enigmas.

This PDF contains image-only scans of every page of the original The Rohonc Codex. No transcription, translation, or commentary is included. Source: Real-ms.mtak.hu  

2.0 Background

Source: Patrimonio, Real-ms.mtak.hu  

The Rohonc Codex is a compact handwritten manuscript consisting of 448 pages, each measuring approximately 12 × 10 centimetres (4.7 × 3.9 inches). Despite its small dimensions, it is unusually thick and densely filled with mysterious writing. Each page contains roughly nine to fourteen lines of text, composed in an unknown script that has baffled scholars for nearly two centuries. The text is carefully justified to the right margin, strongly suggesting that it was written from right to left, the reverse of most European languages (Láng, 2010). The writing system comprises an estimated 800 distinct symbols—an extraordinarily large inventory compared with known alphabets or syllabaries. Many of these symbols appear only once or a few times throughout the manuscript, while others recur in structured clusters (Tokai & Király, 2018). This vast diversity implies that the system may not be alphabetic; rather, it could represent a syllabary (where symbols denote syllables) or even a logographic script (where symbols convey entire words or concepts).

Some scholars have likened the script’s density and repetition patterns to East Asian writing systems, such as Chinese, where characters represent meaning rather than sound. However, unlike Chinese ideograms, the Rohonc symbols do not display overt pictorial logic or derivation. Another striking feature is the absence of spaces or punctuation separating words, giving the text a continuous flow that complicates attempts at linguistic segmentation. This continuity, combined with the extraordinary number of symbols, has often been cited by sceptics as evidence of a hoax. Yet detailed analyses of symbol sequences—such as those conducted by Miklós Locsmándi (1996) and later by Levente Zoltán Király (2011)—reveal consistent internal patterns and statistical regularities inconsistent with random scribbling. These findings indicate that the codex was written with deliberate structure and that its content likely follows coherent grammatical or logical rules, even if the underlying language remains unknown (Láng, 2010; Király, 2011).

Roughly eighty-seven of the pages—almost one-fifth of the entire volume—contain illustrations that accompany or punctuate the text. These pen-and-ink drawings are executed in a simple, almost rustic style reminiscent of medieval woodcut art. The imagery encompasses religious, military, and domestic scenes, often combined on a single page in a narrative sequence (Tokai, 2010). Many illustrations are unmistakably Christian in theme: several depict the Crucifixion (complete with the Latin inscription INRI), the Nativity, and various scenes identifiable as Biblical events. Figures resembling angels, saints, and clergy appear throughout. Intriguingly, other pages introduce non-Christian symbols—crescents (commonly associated with Islam), solar wheels or swastika motifs (linked to ancient European and Indo-European symbolism), and banners suggesting a mixture of faiths. One notable battle scene shows soldiers carrying flags—some marked with crosses, others with crescents—apparently symbolising a clash between Christian and Islamic forces.

The coexistence of such diverse religious motifs implies that the codex may have been created in a multi-faith or frontier context, such as the Ottoman–Habsburg borderlands of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, where Christian, Muslim, and local pagan traditions intermingled (Tokai, 2010; Láng, 2011). This context aligns with modern interpretations of the book as a Catholic devotional work or breviary adapted for a culturally mixed audience. Some miniatures also depict siege towers, armoured knights, and courtly processions, suggesting historical or allegorical dimensions beyond purely spiritual content.

The precise relationship between the images and the text remains unclear. Early scholars assumed that the illustrations merely served as decorative vignettes, but more recent research by Gábor Tokai and Levente Zoltán Király has revealed points of correspondence between textual sequences and imagery. For instance, they identified recurring symbol clusters that coincide with Gospel references and inscriptions linked to the Four Evangelists, as well as numerals interpreted as chapter markers or biblical dates (Tokai & Király, 2018). Such findings imply that the images are integral to the manuscript’s meaning rather than ornamental additions.

In summary, the Rohonc Codex presents a complex interplay between undeciphered text and symbolic imagery. Its mixture of Christian and possibly non-Christian iconography, the extreme density and variety of its script, and its apparent internal order all point to a work of deliberate design rather than random invention. Whether it represents a ciphered devotional manuscript, an encoded chronicle, or an elaborate intellectual exercise remains uncertain; yet its physical and visual features strongly suggest a text constructed with purpose—a message encrypted and awaiting understanding. 

4.0 Theory and interpretation

Given its mysterious nature, the Rohonc Codex has inspired a range of theories about its origin and meaning. Scholars and enthusiasts have proposed everything from genuine historical document to elaborate hoax. Broadly, the hypotheses can be grouped into four categories:

(a) it encodes a known religious text or theology (“Religious theory”),

(b) it’s written in a lost or unidentified language (“Lost Language theory”),

(c) it’s a deliberate hoax or forgery with no real meaning, and

(d) it’s a meaningful text written in a constructed language or cipher. Each theory has its proponents and challenges, as outlined below.

4.1 Religious Theory

Source: Patrimonio

One of the most widely supported interpretations views the Rohonc Codex as a religious manuscript possibly a prayer book, biblical commentary, or devotional anthology written in an unknown script or cipher. Several forms of evidence lend weight to this perspective.

Foremost are the Christian illustrations that appear throughout the manuscript: scenes of the Crucifixion inscribed INRI, the Nativity, depictions of saints, angels, and clerical figures. These images strongly imply that the text is connected to Christian scripture or liturgical practice. The presence of diverse symbols including the cross, crescent, and sun-wheel motifs may indicate a narrative set in a religiously mixed society, such as sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Eastern Europe, where Christian, Muslim, and pre-Christian traditions coexisted (Láng 2010). Even the earliest cataloguers appear to have recognised a devotional character: a 1743 inventory entry from the Batthyány library describes a book of “Hungarian prayers,” which many historians believe referred to the Rohonc Codex (Fehér 1970).

More direct indications come from later attempts at decipherment that have yielded religious-sounding results. In 1996, Attila Nyíri working from a speculative “Sumerian–Magyar” hypothesis claimed to extract a liturgical passage reading, “Your God has come. The Lord flies… There are the holy angels.” Although his linguistic method was unsound and his translation unverified, the religious tone of the output was notable. Likewise, Mahesh Kumar Singh’s 2004 experiment, which treated the script as a variant of Brahmi, produced what appeared to be an apocryphal gospel retelling episodes from the life of Jesus. Singh’s interpretation is now regarded as unsubstantiated, yet it again reinforced the perception that the text’s subject matter is theological rather than secular.

The most compelling support for the religious theory arises from the detailed work of Gábor Tokai and Levente Zoltán Király between 2010 and 2018. Their analyses identified structural elements corresponding to biblical texts, including repeated references to the four Evangelists, apparent chapter numbers, and a section that seems to narrate the Passion of Christ. In their 2018 study, Tokai and Király concluded that the codex “by character is an ordinary Catholic reader or breviary,” comprising paraphrased New Testament passages principally from the Gospels together with apocryphal legends such as the story of Seth at the Gates of Paradise and Marian prayers (Tokai & Király 2018). They interpret the work as a compilation of Christian texts, possibly designed for private devotion or encoded to preserve spiritual writings in a time or place of tension.

Taken together, these findings form a persuasive case that religion lies at the core of the Rohonc Codex’s purpose. Should this interpretation prove correct, the manuscript may ultimately reveal not a “lost history” or secret chronicle, but a familiar body of devotional literature rendered in cipher. Its mystery would therefore rest not in what it says, but in how and why it was written in such a hidden form a practice consistent with other coded religious manuscripts known from medieval and early modern Europe. Yet, until complete decipherment is achieved, the religious theory remains an informed hypothesis one increasingly supported by the symbolic and structural evidence.

4.2 Lost Language Theory

Rohonczi Codex (2002) — Viorica Enăchiuc

Published in 2002 by Romanian philologist Viorica Enăchiuc, this volume presents one of the most controversial interpretations of the Rohonc Codex. Enăchiuc proposed that the manuscript is written in a Vulgar Latin dialect of medieval Dacia, describing conflicts between the Vlachs, Hungarians, and Pechenegs during the eleventh or twelfth century. Her translation identifies numerous place names familiar to the Carpathian region and portrays the text as a chronicle of early Romanian history. Although her linguistic method has been widely criticised for inconsistency and lack of verifiable correspondence between symbols and meanings, the work remains significant for drawing renewed attention to the Codex in the early 2000s and inspiring further debate among linguists and historians.

Source: Wikipedia

Another school of thought proposes that the Rohonc Codex is written in a real but now lost or unrecognised language, preserved through an idiosyncratic or extinct writing system. Proponents of this theory argue that the manuscript could represent a genuine linguistic relic perhaps the only surviving document of a regional vernacular that has otherwise vanished from history.

The most prominent modern advocate of this view was the Romanian philologist Viorica Enăchiuc, who in 2002 published a controversial book claiming that the text was written in a “Dacian” dialect of Vulgar Latin essentially an early form of Romanian using a unique alphabet. According to Enăchiuc, the codex was an 11th–12th-century chronicle of the Vlach (Wallachian) people, recording their battles against the Hungarians and Pechenegs. Her interpretation suggested that the manuscript preserved a medieval dialect of immense historical value: a written form of speech otherwise lost to time. However, her methodology and conclusions have been widely rejected by linguists and historians alike. The supposed “translations” she produced lack grammatical coherence, apply inconsistent symbol values, and bear no relation to the manuscript’s religious illustrations (Láng, 2010). While Enăchiuc’s specific proposal has been discredited, her broader hypothesis that the Rohonc Codex might encode a forgotten or isolated language remains a theoretical possibility.

The geographical and cultural history of the Rohonc/Rechnitz region lends some plausibility to this idea. Located along a border zone that repeatedly shifted between Hungarian, Germanic, and Slavic spheres, it was home to a mosaic of dialects and ethnic communities. In such an environment, a local or minority script could easily have disappeared without leaving other written traces. Superficial similarities have been noted between the Rohonc symbols and Old Hungarian rovás (runic) script, which was also written right-to-left and featured angular letter forms. Yet no direct correspondence has been established the Rohonc characters share neither consistent shape nor phonetic sequence with known rovás alphabets (Fehér, 1970). If there is a Hungarian connection, it would have to represent a wholly novel encoding or an otherwise undocumented derivative of runic or Latin systems.

Some writers have extended the speculation beyond Europe, proposing influences from non-European or ancient scripts, such as Meroitic (Nubian) or even Central Asian symbolic traditions. While these claims remain highly conjectural, they illustrate the possibility that the codex’s creator may have been inspired by contact with or distant memory of foreign writing traditions.

The lost-language hypothesis has also been drawn into nationalist narratives. During Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania in the 1970s, “Dacologist” historians promoted the Rohonc Codex as supposed proof of an ancient, literate Dacian civilisation, using it to claim cultural precedence for Romanians in the Carpathian Basin. Conversely, nineteenth-century Hungarian scholars hoped it might represent an early Hungarian religious text, strengthening their own national lineage. These competing appropriations reflect the symbolic power of the manuscript’s undeciphered state: in the absence of a translation, it could be imagined as a relic of any lost people or forgotten tongue.

In conclusion, the lost language theory envisions the Rohonc Codex as a unique linguistic artefact the last surviving monument of a vanished culture. If this interpretation were true, decipherment would rank among the great achievements of modern philology, comparable to the decoding of Egyptian hieroglyphs or the recovery of Hittite. Yet serious obstacles remain. Genuine languages tend to display clear grammatical regularities, recurring functional words, and morphological patterns, whereas the Rohonc text’s vast symbol inventory and lack of word separation defy such analysis. Until its code is broken, scholars cannot entirely rule out that the manuscript records a real, now-forgotten human language, but evidence for that remains tantalisingly inconclusive.

4.3 Hoax / Forgery Theory

Károly Szabó and the Forgery Hypothesis (1866)

In 1866, Hungarian historian Károly Szabó published an essay that marked the first major accusation of forgery concerning the Rohonc Codex. Szabó suggested that the mysterious manuscript was the work of Sámuel Literáti Nemes, a known nineteenth-century forger who had previously produced several falsified “medieval” Hungarian documents. Although Szabó offered no concrete evidence linking Nemes to the codex, his argument drew on the similarity between Nemes’s earlier fabrications and the manuscript’s undecipherable script and unusual religious imagery. The theory quickly gained traction among contemporary scholars, leading many to dismiss the Rohonc Codex as a modern hoax written on older paper. For decades, Szabó’s claim overshadowed alternative interpretations, shaping the codex’s reputation as one of Europe’s most enigmatic forgeries rather than a legitimate historical text.

Source: Wikipedia

From its first appearance, many scholars suspected that the Rohonc Codex might be an elaborate hoax, a deliberately fabricated manuscript created either to deceive or as an intellectual curiosity devoid of real meaning. This interpretation, widely accepted in nineteenth-century Hungary, remains the default position among some sceptics today. Arguments for the hoax theory rest chiefly on the manuscript’s uncertain provenance, the implausible complexity of its script, and the historical context in which it emerged.

Firstly, as noted in the background, the Rohonc Codex entered the record abruptly in 1838, when Count Gusztáv Batthyány donated his library to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. This was precisely the period when antiquarian forgeries flourished in Hungary. The historian Károly Szabó (1866) attributed the manuscript to Sámuel Literáti Nemes, a known fabricator of spurious “ancient Hungarian” documents. Nemes had both the means and motive: he was skilled in calligraphy and paper ageing, and he sought to enhance Hungarian cultural prestige through sensational “discoveries” such as the Wooden Book of Túróc. The Rohonc Codex, with its mysterious writing and religious iconography, could have been intended as a fabricated national treasure, a supposed early Hungarian Bible or chronicle designed to inspire patriotic pride.

While no direct proof links Nemes to the codex, the circumstantial evidence is suggestive. The manuscript surfaced in a region tied to his interests (the Burgenland–Transylvanian frontier) and within his lifetime; several of his known forgeries were exposed shortly before his death in 1842. As a result, later Hungarian academics treated any anomalous manuscript from that milieu with deep suspicion, and by the late nineteenth century most regarded the Rohonc Codex as a likely counterfeit (Fehér 1970).

Secondly, the internal features of the codex seemed to confirm that judgement. Nineteenth-century analyses identified roughly 800 distinct symbols, leading palaeographers to conclude that such a system could not represent any functional language. A forger, they argued, could simply invent hundreds of decorative signs to create the illusion of linguistic complexity. The text’s astonishing neatness, 448 pages with virtually no visible corrections or erasures also appeared unnatural. Genuine lengthy manuscripts, especially in experimental or obscure scripts, inevitably contain slips, rewritings, or marginal adjustments. The absence of these hallmarks suggested that the writer was not conveying content, but rather copying or inventing shapes for appearance’s sake. On these grounds, the Hungarian Academy’s linguistic committee in the 1880s pronounced the codex a forgery written on sixteenth-century paper (Fehér 1970).

Thirdly, the complete failure to decipher the text for over a century reinforced scepticism. By the early twentieth century the prevailing view was that the Rohonc Codex was intentionally meaningless, a sophisticated nineteenth-century artefact produced to mystify or amuse. Many scholars dismissed further research as futile, regarding the book as “a literary prank” (Láng 2010).

However, modern analyses have forced a partial reassessment. While Hungarian academia remains cautious, the discoveries of Gábor Tokai and Levente Zoltán Király (2010–2018) challenge the notion of random scribbling. Their studies identified repeated structural patterns, numbering systems, and symbol sequences apparently aligned with Christian doctrinal themes, including coded references to the four Evangelists and possible calendar years. If the manuscript were a forgery, the forger would have had to design not merely ornamental symbols but an internally coherent pseudo-language spanning hundreds of pages, with recurring syntax and theological structure—an extraordinary effort for a hoax that seems never to have been publicised or sold.

As one recent analysis summarised, the Rohonc Codex exhibits statistical and organisational regularities that “strongly suggest meaning”, traits inconsistent with random or purely decorative writing (Tokai & Király 2018). Consequently, while the forgery theory remains plausible in historical terms, the internal evidence increasingly undermines the claim of total meaninglessness.

In conclusion, the hoax theory cannot yet be dismissed, but if the Rohonc Codex is a forgery, it would represent a masterwork of fabrication unparalleled in European manuscript history. Each new discovery of consistent patterning shifts the balance slightly away from hoax and towards the possibility of a coded or constructed text. Until a definitive decipherment or an authentic confession is produced, the Rohonc Codex will continue to occupy its uneasy place between forgery and genuine mystery, keeping sceptics and hopeful codebreakers perpetually divided.

4.4 Constructed Language or Cipher Theory

A fourth and increasingly influential perspective proposes that the Rohonc Codex is neither written in a natural language nor an outright hoax, but rather a deliberately constructed writing system encoding an authentic text. Within this framework, the manuscript could represent a cipher, a shorthand system, or even an artificial language created by its author. In each case, the symbols correspond to real meaning, though not in a transparent alphabetic way.

The Hungarian historian Benedek Láng has examined this hypothesis in detail. In his 2010 study, he argued that the codex may embody an “outdated cipher system” awaiting decryption (Láng 2010). He drew parallels to early-modern practices in which scholars, secret societies, and diplomats devised complex cipher alphabets or private symbolic languages for confidentiality. The Rohonc script could belong to that tradition: an expanded cipher alphabet in which each sign represents a complete word, phrase, or concept a system known as a nomenclator or codebook cipher. Such a method would account for the manuscript’s large symbol inventory (over 700 characters) and its low frequency of repetition, since each sign might stand for an entire term rather than a single letter or sound.

The findings of Gábor Tokai and Levente Zoltán Király in the 2010s have strengthened this interpretation. They concluded that the Rohonc Codex employs a “code system” that deliberately conceals the linguistic structure of its source text. If the underlying language were Latin, Hungarian, or another European tongue, the cipher would mask its alphabetic form and grammatical cues. Their analysis suggests that the symbols may encode content units’ concepts, names, or numbers rather than phonetic values. The discovery of multi-symbol sequences apparently denoting the four Evangelists and recurring numerical clusters resembling dates (for example, the year 1593) supports this view (Tokai & Király 2018). In this sense, the codex could function like an intricate religious codebook, where groups of symbols signify “Christ,” “Kingdom,” “Prayer,” and so forth a principle reminiscent of medieval ciphers that used unique symbols for common sacred words.

An alternative, though related, proposal is that the Rohonc Codex constitutes a constructed language rather than a cipher of an existing one. Its author may have devised an original linguistic system complete with its own grammar and script for private or mystical purposes. Such inventions, though rare, are not unprecedented: in the twelfth century Hildegard of Bingen created her Lingua Ignota, a spiritual lexicon with an accompanying alphabet used for visionary writing. If the Rohonc manuscript were composed in a similar manner, it would indeed have meant, but only to its inventor and to any initiated readers who possessed the key. The text’s internal regularity including apparent headings, lists, and structured sections suggests a coherent, planned design consistent with an artificial linguistic system rather than random ornamentation (Locsmándi 1995).

Supporters of this theory also emphasise the results of statistical analyses, which reveal linguistic-like behaviour in the script. Certain characters occur disproportionately at line endings possibly functioning as punctuation marks or standardised endings while others appear only in specific contexts, implying grammatical or semantic roles. Locsmándi’s observation of a recurring sign that appears to serve as a sentence delimiter reinforces the notion of deliberate textual encoding.

In conclusion, the constructed language or cipher theory regards the Rohonc Codex as a meaningful but encrypted work a text intentionally obscured through a complex symbolic system. This interpretation reconciles the manuscript’s apparent coherence and structure with its undeciphered script. The code may have been known only to its author or to a closed circle, which would explain its isolation and lack of related documents. Among current researchers, this view is increasingly seen as the most plausible hypothesis: that the Rohonc Codex is neither pure fabrication nor straightforward language, but a carefully designed encoded religious manuscript, the solution to which still eludes modern cryptology.

5.0 Scientific Investigations

Over the past two centuries, scholars have applied a wide range of scientific and analytical methods to study the Rohonc Codex. These investigations trace the evolution of manuscript research itself from nineteenth-century paleographic and comparative-linguistic study, through twentieth-century statistical and computational analysis, to twenty-first-century imaging and digital forensics. Together they represent the gradual shift from intuition-based interpretation to data-driven inquiry.

5.1 Nineteenth-Century Pioneers

Portrait of János Jerney (1800–1855)

This nineteenth-century portrait of János Jerney, engraved by Gustav Morelli in 1883, captures the first scholar to examine the Rohonc Codex through a methodical, almost scientific lens. Long before the advent of modern cryptology or linguistic computation, Jerney combined his skills as a historian and philologist to study the manuscript’s material and visual clues. His identification of Venetian watermarks provided the first tangible evidence of the codex’s sixteenth-century paper stock — a discovery that remains a cornerstone in dating the work. Through comparative analysis of scripts ranging from Syriac and Armenian to Burmese, Jerney sought to situate the mysterious symbols within a known linguistic framework, ultimately proposing that the text might represent a ciphered or wholly unknown writing system. Although his conclusions were tentative, Jerney’s disciplined approach laid the groundwork for every later investigation of the codex and marked the beginning of the Rohonc manuscript’s transformation from legend to subject of scholarly study.

Source: Wikidata

The earliest sustained efforts to investigate the Rohonc Codex were undertaken by Hungarian scholars in the mid-1800s, long before modern cryptology or computer analysis existed. Their tools were limited to visual inspection, comparison with known scripts, and reasoned inference grounded in historical and linguistic knowledge.

The first serious investigator was János Jerney, who approached the codex with the dual sensibility of a linguist and historian. One of his most valuable contributions was his study of the watermarks embedded in the manuscript’s paper an early example of bibliographic forensics. Jerney identified them as Venetian marks typical of the sixteenth century, implying that the paper stock originated in northern Italy (Fehér 1970). This finding remains an important chronological anchor in codex studies.

Jerney also examined the illustrations, recognising their overtly Biblical and Christian character. From this, he hypothesised that the manuscript might have been produced within a Christian cultural sphere perhaps by a community familiar with Eastern Christian scripts such as Syriac, Armenian, or Coptic. He then conducted a comparative visual analysis of the Rohonc characters against numerous known writing systems, from Arabic and Georgian to Burmese, but found no convincing correspondence (Láng 2010). Concluding that the symbols did not belong to any recognised alphabet, Jerney tentatively proposed that the codex might be a ciphered or entirely unknown script. Although he could not progress further, his methodology was unusually systematic for its time and remains the foundation of all later studies.

Following Jerney, a succession of nineteenth-century Hungarian intellectuals including Ferenc Toldy, Pál Hunfalvy, Josef Jireček, and Bernhard Jülg attempted to identify recurring patterns or linguistic affinities in the text. Some speculated that it might be Hungarian or Latin written in cipher and applied rudimentary frequency analysis in the hope of isolating letters or syllables. None succeeded. The inability of some of Hungary’s most capable linguists men who deciphered other ancient scripts such as Old Turkic runes to make progress underscored how profoundly unfamiliar the Rohonc writing system was (Fehér 1970).

The most comprehensive nineteenth-century study came from Kálmán Némäti in the 1880s. He undertook the first quantitative catalogue of the codex’s symbols, identifying approximately 792 distinct characters and recording their distribution. Némäti transcribed selected pages by assigning arbitrary Latin equivalents to each sign, thereby enabling other researchers to perform sequence analysis. Despite his diligence, Némäti found no meaningful linguistic structure, and his results were overshadowed by the growing academic consensus that the manuscript was a forgery.

That conclusion was formally articulated by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Linguistic Committee in 1886, whose expert report declared the codex inauthentic a forgery written on sixteenth-century paper. The committee’s reasoning was primarily logical and anthropological: they argued that no genuine writer could memorise and consistently reproduce hundreds of unique characters, and they noted the manuscript’s absence of corrections or erasures, which seemed inconsistent with authentic composition. Although this judgement effectively removed the codex from scholarly attention for decades, it did not rest on material proof merely on contemporary reasoning about plausibility.

In summary, nineteenth-century research established the foundations of Rohonc studies: the manuscript’s material origin in Renaissance Italy, its apparently right-to-left script, and its extraordinary symbol diversity. These early investigators lacked the computational tools necessary for deep pattern analysis, yet they formulated the enduring questions that still drive inquiry today: What script is this? What language, if any, lies beneath it? And could it be a forgery? The legacy of those first scholars remains visible in every modern investigation of Europe’s most enigmatic book.

5.2 Twentieth-Century Renewal – Statistics and Signals

After decades of neglect, the latter half of the twentieth century witnessed a renewed wave of interest in the Rohonc Codex, spurred by advances in cryptology, information theory, and computing. Scholars and engineers began to treat the manuscript less as an eccentric curiosity and more as a ciphertext to be analysed, applying quantitative and statistical techniques in place of speculative translation attempts.

The first major step in this modern approach came in 1970 with the work of Ottó Gyürk, a Hungarian engineer who brought a methodical, data-oriented mindset to the problem. Gyürk examined the manuscript’s symbolic patterns and sequence repetitions, reasoning that if certain clusters of symbols appeared regularly, they might correspond to common words or phrases such as et (“and”) or amen. By charting these repetitions across multiple pages, he identified a consistent directional pattern: the text’s internal logic only aligned when read from right to left, suggesting that the script indeed flows in that direction (Fehér 1970; Láng 2010).

Gyürk also observed sequences that appeared to increase systematically, possibly representing numerical values a hypothesis reinforced by recurring clusters that followed additive patterns. He tentatively identified several symbols as potential numerals, indicating the codex might employ a structured numbering system embedded within its prose. His work was significant not for solving the manuscript, but for establishing that it exhibits order and syntax-like repetition, characteristics incompatible with random writing. In short, Gyürk treated the Rohonc Codex as a cipher that could, in principle, be decoded a fundamental conceptual leap beyond the assumptions of nineteenth-century scholars.

With the arrival of personal computing in the 1990s, researcher Miklós Locsmándi advanced Gyürk’s work using digital tools. Locsmándi scanned and digitally encoded sections of the text, assigning each symbol a unique code to enable frequency analysis, substring searches, and pattern mapping. His findings confirmed Gyürk’s right-to-left reading direction and revealed several additional features of potential linguistic significance. For instance, he identified a recurring isolated symbol visually resembling the letter “i” that appeared at regular intervals throughout the text. Locsmándi proposed that this sign may function as a punctuation mark or sentence delimiter, akin to a full stop or comma (Láng 2010).

He also examined diacritical marks dots and small ticks placed above certain symbols which he suspected might modify meaning or phonetic value. Although he found no definitive system governing these marks, their consistent placement suggested deliberate design rather than ornamentation. By testing the statistical distributions of symbol clusters against known languages, Locsmándi was able to exclude Hungarian and Latin as the underlying linguistic bases. The text’s non-random frequency patterns led him to conclude that it was “structured but not transcribed from any known European language.”

Another important contribution came from Levente Zoltán Király, who, before his later breakthroughs in the 2010s, conducted an independent computer-assisted study in the early 2000s. Király focused on layout regularities symbols that repeatedly began lines or paragraphs across multiple pages. He observed recurring initial symbols that might signify chapter headings or invocations, implying that the manuscript was organised into thematic sections. His 2010 report consolidated these findings, supporting the growing consensus that the codex’s structure was methodical and deliberate rather than chaotic or decorative.

Collectively, the twentieth-century investigations transformed the study of the Rohonc Codex. By approaching it as a ciphered system with quantifiable regularities, Gyürk, Locsmándi, and Király demonstrated that the manuscript’s writing obeys consistent internal rules. Their work provided the first empirical evidence that the codex could, in principle, be decoded through mathematical analysis, setting the stage for the computational breakthroughs of the twenty-first century.

5.3 Linguistic and Symbolic Clues

Across nearly two centuries of investigation, scholars have identified a series of linguistic, symbolic, and material clues that continue to shape our understanding of the Rohonc Codex. Though none has yet unlocked its language, these clues collectively portray a manuscript that is internally consistent, intelligently composed, and far too structured to be a meaningless hoax. Each represents a piece of the puzzle that, when assembled, reveals an increasingly coherent picture of the codex’s purpose and intellectual origin.

Throughout history, the written word has evolved from symbolic art to structured language — a journey that mirrors humanity’s search for meaning. The tables below trace this evolution through three key forms of script: polyphonic, logographic, and mixed systems. Polyphonic scripts, like Egyptian hieroglyphs or Akkadian cuneiform, allowed a single sign to carry multiple sounds or meanings, blending speech and symbolism. Logographic systems, such as Sumerian cuneiform and Chinese Han characters, transformed writing into a visual language where each sign represented an entire concept or word. Finally, mixed systems like Japanese Kanji-Kana or modern shorthand combined both principles, achieving a balance between precision and expression. Together, these writing systems reveal how ancient and modern minds alike sought not just to record language, but to encode thought itself — turning sound, meaning, and symbol into one enduring human art form. 

1. Direction of Script
   One of the first decisive observations concerns the direction of writing. Early visual inspection revealed that the text is right-justified, with neat alignment on the right and a ragged left margin a strong indicator that the text reads from right to left. This was later confirmed quantitatively by Ottó Gyürk and other twentieth-century analysts, who observed that recurring patterns and symbol sequences align logically only when read in that direction (Láng 2010). Such right-to-left writing is exceptionally uncommon in European manuscripts, being found chiefly in Hebrew, Arabic, and Old Hungarian “rovás” runes. This choice may suggest cultural exposure to Near-Eastern or Central-Asian script traditions or a deliberate attempt by the author to render the manuscript intentionally obscure, perhaps to protect its contents from casual readers. The decision to reverse conventional directionality already marks the Rohonc Codex as the work of someone both literate and intentionally secretive.

2. Character Repertoire and Writing System
   The codex’s most striking linguistic feature is its immense character inventory approximately 800 unique symbols. For comparison, the Latin alphabet uses 26 letters, Greek 24, and even the complex syllabary of Cherokee only 85 (amusingplanet.com). Such magnitude rules out the possibility of a simple alphabetic system. Instead, it implies that the script operates as a polyphonic or logographic code, where each sign may stand for an entire word, idea, or phrase rather than a single sound. Benedek Láng (2010) suggested that this could represent a “nomenclator-type” cipher essentially a codebook system where each sign replaces a whole concept. Tokai and Király (2018) provided further evidence: they identified specific clusters of symbols that correspond with recurring names or ideas, notably the four Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and found these to be placed near gospel-related illustrations. This observation supports the hypothesis that the script encodes semantic units rather than phonetic ones, an approach consistent with sophisticated encryption techniques of the Renaissance and early modern period.

3. Numerical Sequences and Chronological References
   A crucial breakthrough came when researchers noticed symbol sequences with numerical behaviour clusters that appear to increase sequentially or repeat in a manner consistent with counting. Several such groups have been interpreted as dates written using an Anno Mundi system, with values equivalent to years such as 1590 or 1593 (Tokai & Király 2018). These numerals are often positioned beside religious or narrative scenes, suggesting they may refer to biblical or historical chronology. Numbers provide a rare universal constant across languages; thus, their identification is of immense analytical value. Recognising how these numbers are formed could serve as a partial cipher key, anchoring other symbols within a contextual framework perhaps as chapter markers or verse references, akin to numeration systems found in medieval devotional books.

4. Repetitive Patterns and Structural Organisation
   Another decisive clue is the presence of repetition a hallmark of any genuine written language. Though the Rohonc Codex does not display frequent short-word repetition typical of modern European tongues, it exhibits recurrent long-form clusters that appear in systematic positions, such as at the start of paragraphs or pages. Tokai and Király identified these as chapter or section headers and even uncovered what appears to be a table-of-contents sequence at the beginning of one textual block, each line of which corresponds to a later section in the manuscript (Tokai & Király 2018). This discovery has far-reaching implications: it demonstrates that the codex follows a deliberate internal architecture, reinforcing the impression of an ordered, book-like text rather than random scribbles.

5. Linguistic Markers—Presence and Absence
   Equally revealing are the linguistic patterns that are absent. Miklós Locsmándi’s computer-based analysis found no evidence of Hungarian case endings, despite the codex’s presumed regional origin (Láng 2010). In Hungarian, case suffixes such as -ban or -ben (“in”) appear with high frequency and would create recognisable repeating sequences if the text were Hungarian. Their absence, together with the failure to identify any Latin or Indo-European grammatical markers, suggests either a non-European linguistic origin or a heavily enciphered text in which surface morphology has been masked. The linguistic silence here is almost as meaningful as the symbols themselves: it points to deliberate concealment rather than accidental obscurity.

6. Illustration Correspondences and Textual Anchors
   The manuscript’s illustrations offer vital anchor points for interpreting the code. Several drawings feature partial inscriptions or identifiable motifs, such as the INRI label above the crucifixion scene. By correlating this visual text with the nearby ciphered writing, Gábor Tokai was able to hypothesise how the letters I-N-R-I might correspond to symbols, yielding one of the first tentative direct matches between image and text. Further, Tokai and Király discovered that four distinct symbol groups consistently accompany depictions of the four Gospel authors, suggesting that the codex systematically links iconography with encoded terminology. This integration of image and writing is characteristic of religious or pedagogical manuscripts, where text and illustration reinforce each other’s message. It also implies the author’s intent to preserve theological meaning, albeit in encrypted form.

7. Cross-Religious Symbolism and Cultural Context
   One of the most visually striking aspects of the Rohonc Codex is its cross-religious iconography. Alongside unmistakably Christian imagery appear crescent moons, sun-wheels, and other motifs associated with Islamic or pre-Christian belief systems. This eclectic blend has led several scholars to place the codex’s origin within the multi-faith frontier zones of the late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries possibly the Habsburg–Ottoman borderlands, where Christian, Muslim, and pagan traditions coexisted and interacted. Another interpretation, favoured by some theologians, is that the imagery expresses a syncretic or universalist theology perhaps an attempt by the author to reconcile multiple religious perspectives within a single spiritual framework. Regardless of intent, this symbolic diversity grounds the manuscript in a tangible historical environment, rather than in pure fantasy or forgery.

8. Material and Codicological Evidence
   The codex’s physical characteristics further enrich its story. The paper bears Venetian watermarks dating to the 1530s, establishing a reliable terminus post quem the manuscript cannot have been produced earlier than that decade (Fehér 1970). Its current nineteenth-century binding indicates that it was rebound long after its creation, likely from loose folios, which raises questions about whether the pages are in their original order. Tokai and Király’s digital analysis considered this possibility, identifying potential disruptions in textual flow that might result from earlier mis-binding. The consistency of ink tone and handwriting style suggests a single author or scribe worked continuously, lending further weight to the theory that it represents a coherent authored work rather than a compilation.

Taken together, these linguistic, symbolic, and physical indicators strongly suggest that the Rohonc Codex is a purposefully constructed text, not an arbitrary imitation of writing. Its systematic structure, numerical logic, and visual-textual correspondence imply both intellectual sophistication and devotional intent. While definitive decipherment remains elusive, the convergence of clues across disciplines linguistics, art history, cryptography, and codicology has narrowed the interpretive field dramatically. The emerging consensus among modern scholars is that the codex embodies a meaningful, encoded religious or historical text, crafted by an educated mind in sixteenth-century Central Europe. The challenge that remains is to identify the key to transform these persistent clues into a readable language and finally lift the veil from one of Europe’s most enduring enigmas.