Here’s a 2009 Voynich theory for me to add to the big list, courtesy of George Hoschel Jr (of California?). George uploaded his solution as a jpeg’ed scan of his transliteration notes (1) followed by four annotated versions of parts of f80v (2, 3, 4, 5): the basic idea is that Voynichese enciphers what he calls “Old Latin”.
Just so you know, George reads Voynichese as a combination of simple letters (a = EVA a , e = EVA e, o/u = EVA o, m = EVA iii, n = EVA ii, z = EVA q, etc) with a lot of plausible-looking specific abbreviations (er = EVA ch, fr = EVA sh, eri = EVA sh [but with the plume offset to the right], eric = EVA she [which George reads as short for ericius, “hedgehog”], and so forth).
Put it all together, and you get a translation of f80v that reads like:
WINE STRONG DRY TO MAGPIE
SAVED CRUMBLED DRIED TO HOOPOE KIDNEY
TO BOILED KIDNEY FRIED / IN
GOAT VEGETABLE BREAD USING
USING HEDGEHOG KIDNEY TO BREAD
In some ways, to me this reads like “Ready Steady Cook” as directed by Tim Burton – “right, teams, you have 30 minutes to produce a restaurant-quality meal using only hoopoe kidney, goat, vegetables, bread, and strong wine.” Feel free to interpret this in quite a different way!
I find this translation vaguely reminiscent of the witches’ recipe in Macbeth, with its eye of newt and wool of bat and so on.
But now I’m wondering how can you “bread” something with a kidney, even a hedgehog one. And if “goat vegetable bread” is a list of ingredients or a kind of bread, perhaps with goat cheese and veggies in it. Oh well, I’m off to have something more edible for dinner.
There sure is a lot of instances of the word “goat” on that page 😉
It’s too bad that people spend so much time trying to read something that’s not there, instead of working on breaking the actual cipher…
Recipes with hedgehogs. I have a very distinct feeling of deja vu and wonder
if this theory wasn’t already ‘out’ before 2009…
Cheers, René
To put it in perspective – George Hoschel Jr has also solved the Dorabella cipher – you’ll fund his solution here –
http://unsolvedproblems.org/S02.jpg
Bah
I think someone needs to decipher Hoschel’s decipherments.
This gave me the best laugh I’ve had in weeks! Thanks to all involved. 🙂
I will be cooking this recipe at the weekend and will report back on its effects as a spermicide….
As a friend of mine once said, “it takes more than a bunch of pricks to make a hedgehog”
Marke