Lisbon Woman Owns Indecipherable Book

Viviane Dyer bought a weird book at a Farmington Falls auction in 1968. She's had it examined by academics and theologians, and no one can figure out what language it's written in.

"Rest milady!" wrote A. Baillargeon, in a 1983 response to Dyer. His letter was postmarked from the Vatican. "This semantic usage is impenetrable to all but long-bearded (Indians) who have toiled a lifetime in deciphering these languages."

Baillargeon told Dyer an archivist identified the flowing lettering as an obscure Indian dialect. Since his response, however, other scholars have said it's derivative of ancient Greek or perhaps a Slavic tongue.

Pere Raymond Giguere, a Dominican priest in Montreal, analyzed the text in 1980. His correspondence included conclusions the text is possibly Russian, but with the additional possibility of African origin.

Giguere's experts, to no avail, analyzed the book against 576 languages in which the British and French Bible Societies publish, he wrote. Its symbols seem to be derived mostly from Latin characters, the experts said, but with an apparent alphabet of 31 unique letters, as opposed to Latin's 26. [Source]