This Bizarre Book Was Written In A Secret Language That Linguists Still Can't Crack
By
Muk Khatri in
Amazing
On 6th October 2015
Do you remember not being able to read as a kid? I remember staring at picture books and trying to figure out a narrative based on the illustrations, mystified by every image I encountered. Now imagine being in that state, but also on acid.
That's essentially what it's like reading Luigi Serafini's 1981 work Codex Seraphinianus. It's an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world. The images are bizarre enough, but it's the text that has linguists baffled to this day.
#1 The illustrations look like they're the product of an ancient acid trip.
#2 Serafini claims that the book has no real meaning.
That doesn't stop readers from trying to figure it out.
#3 Pictures like this are reminiscent of the ones you can find in old encyclopedias.
#4 All of the illustrations in this 360-page book were drawn by Serafini himself.
#5 In addition to strange creatures, the book also contains diagrams of bizarre machines that do nothing.
#6 It looks like a children's book...until you see stuff like this.
#7 The lettering system appears to follow the Western convention of being read from left to right.
That being said, no one has any idea what the text says.
#8 The cryptic numbering system was finally solved by a man named Allan C. Wechsler, but most of the mysteries contained within the Codex remain unsolved.
