Computational linguistics reveals secret fellowship

Code language of secret society from the 18th century, who kept the Freemasons under surveillance, has been broken by computer technology and computational linguistics. Researcher from the project visits CBS

28/12/2011

They kept the Freemasons under surveillance and had secret rituals. The German fellowship, the "Oculist Order" was revealed when Swedish and American researchers in 2011 succeeded in decoding the abstract signs and symbols of the more than 250 year old book "The Copiale Cipher".

The technology of the decoding

Beáta Megyesi, Associate Professor from Uppsala University, has taken part in translating the document. In January, she will visit CBS and give a lecture about the decoding of the book. She will reveal how computer technology was used to crack the code language of the 105 page long book.

The researchers succeeded in deciphering signs and symbols by means of computational linguistics, in which statistical techniques like those who are known from machine translations are used.

The secret fellowships of Europe

The book was found in East Berlin after the Cold War ended. It was written by members of the secret fellowship, the Oculist Order, and describes their rituals as well as the Freemasons, who the people of the Oculist Order were spying on.

It provides brand new knowledge of unprecedented forms of freemasonry, and the book is expected to shed new light on some of the secret societies that were very widespread in the 18th century.

The presentation focuses on the technology behind the translation and takes place on Tuesday 24 January 2012 from 15:00 to 16:00 at CBS.

Sidst opdateret: Sekretariat for Ledelse og Kommunikation // 03/01/2012