  Departing from the postulate that Voynich Manuscript is not a hoax but rather
encodes authentic contents, our article presents an evolutionary algorithm
which aims to find the most optimal mapping between voynichian glyphs and
candidate phonemic values. Core component of the decoding algorithm is a
process of maximization of a fitness function which aims to find most optimal
set of substitution rules allowing to transcribe the part of the manuscript --
which we call the Calendar -- into lists of feminine names. This leads to sets
of character subsitution rules which allow us to consistently transcribe dozens
among three hundred calendar tokens into feminine names: a result far
surpassing both ``popular'' as well as "state of the art" tentatives to crack
the manuscript. What's more, by using name lists stemming from different
languages as potential cribs, our ``adaptive'' method can also be useful in
identification of the language in which the manuscript is written.
  As far as we can currently tell, results of our experiments indicate that the
Calendar part of the manuscript contains names from baltoslavic, balkanic or
hebrew language strata. Two further indications are also given: primo, highest
fitness values were obtained when the crib list contains names with specific
infixes at token's penultimate position as is the case, for example, for slavic
\textbf{feminine diminutives} (i.e. names ending with -ka and not -a). In the
most successful scenario, 240 characters contained in 35 distinct Voynichese
tokens were successfully transcribed. Secundo, in case of crib stemming from
Hebrew language, whole adaptation process converges to significantly better
fitness values when transcribing voynichian tokens whose order of individual
characters have been reversed, and when lists feminine and not masculine names
are used as the crib.

Computation and Language;Information Retrieval