Benedek Láng - The Rohonc Code: Tracing a Historical Riddle

THE ROHONC CODE

THE ROHONC CODE

Tracing a Historical Riddle

Benedek Lng

Translated by Benedek Lng,
Teodra Kirly, and Nick Palmer

THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
UNIVERSITY PARK , PENNSYLVANIA

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lang, Benedek, 1974 author, translator. | Kiraly, Teodora, translator. | Palmer, Nick (Translator), translator.

Title: The Rohonc code : tracing a historical riddle / Benedek Lang ; translated by Benedek Lang, Teodora Kiraly, and Nick Palmer.

Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary: An investigation into the history of ciphers, codebreaking, and artificial languages that focuses on the Rohonc Codex, a four-hundred-year-old manuscript written entirely in cipherProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021001997 | ISBN 9780271090207 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Rohonci kodex. | CryptographyHungary. | Ciphers.

Classification: LCC Z103.4.H86 L3613 2021 | DDC 652/.809439dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001997

Parts of this book have appeared in print in the following publications: Why Dont We Decipher an Outdated Cipher System? The Codex of Rohonc, Cryptologia34 (2010): 11544; Peoples Secrets: Towards a Social History of Early Modern Cryptography, Sixteenth Century Journal45, no. 2 (2014): 291308; Invented Middle Ages in Nineteenth-Century Hungary: The Forgeries of Smuel Literti Nemes, in Manufacturing a Past for the Present: Forgery and Authenticity in Medievalist Texts and Objects in Nineteenth-Century Europe, ed. Patrick Geary and Klaniczay Gbor (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 12943; and Real Life Cryptology: Ciphers and Secrets in Early Modern Hungary(Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 3149.

Copyright 2021 Benedek Lng
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 168021003

The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of University Presses.

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ANSI Z 39.481992.

CONTENTS

FIGURES

TABLE

I would like to thank the following scholars, friends, and scholar-friends for their help: Balzs Ablonczy, Gbor Almsi, Pter Bany, Craig Bauer, Dra Bobory, Gergely Buzs, Elonka Dunin, Claire Fanger, Eduard Frunzeanu, Ott Gecser, Levente Zoltn Kirly, Gbor Klaniczay, Jzsef Laszlovszky, Beta Megyesi, Istvn Monok, Jnos Nmeth, Joe Nickell, Veronika Novk, Nick Pelling, Jolanta Rzegocka, Dra Sallay, Klaus Schmeh, Gza Szentmrtoni Szab, Gbor Tokai, Lszl Ulicska; members of the Department of Philosophy and History of Science at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics Mrta Fehr, Tihamr Margitay, Viktor Binzberger, Jnos Tancs, and Gbor Zempln; my parents, Zsuzsanna Lng and Csaba Lng; and finally my wife, Mrta Tarnai, who learned much more about the Rohonc Codex than she originally wished to.

I am furthermore grateful to the Maison des Sciences de lHomme in Paris, where I was able to concentrate exclusively on the codex thanks to a Mellon Fellowship; to the Hungarian National grant OTKA K 101544; and to the Swedish Research Council, grant 201806074, DECRYPT, Decryption of Historical Manuscripts, which supported the final stages of this work.

Finally, I thank Richrd Rados, director of the Jaffa Publishing House, which published an earlier, Hungarian version of this book.

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