Ah! This HN post must have been where I had seen this first. Thanks for the comment.

If it makes you feel better, the vast majority of modern day Japanese speakers cannot read this either.

It is cursive script, and only specialized academics/people with extensive training in calligraphy/etc. would know how to read it.

Interestingly enough this is an area where machine learning has been extremely effective:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.09433

There is a i18n “English” button on top right. Unless you meant something else.

It's mostly pictures and not much text, except for the initial popup you see which is the usual cookie consent prompt (left button = minimum required, right button = agree to all). But looks like British Museum also has this book if you want an English interface:

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1973-0723-...

If you are asking about the text written on the pages themselves, it takes a bit more effort unless you are familiar with archaic script. I can make out some of them as guidelines on how to draw the patterns.

I used google translate.

You can download a full resolution pdf of the book at the original posts’s link, which is much better quality than the one on Wikimedia.

I used safari’s built in translate feature to translate the page from Japanese to English, scroll down for download options.

Could you check the URL ? I think something broke during the copy and paste