Something is ‘liminal’ if it sits right on a kind of perceptual boundary: so it is surely the Voynich Manuscript’s liminality – that is, its apparent inability to be included in or excluded from any category or pigeonhole – that makes it such an infuriating object to study. Why can’t we prove or disprove that it is a language, a cipher, a shorthand, indeed an anything? Why, centuries after it was constructed by person or persons unknown for reasons unknown, are we still unable to drag any part of it kicking and screaming into the light of certainty?
Yet a recent email here from BC helps demonstrate the difficulties we face when we try to do this. He (very reasonably) asks:
“What do you think best explains the lack of repeated sequences? (i.e. there are almost no repetitions of any group of 3+ consecutive words). I would think that disproves the hypothesis of a pure natural language already.”
It’s a fair point (and I’d add that it works equally well as a disproof for both “pure natural language” and simple substitution ciphers, which are almost exactly the same thing). Moreover, many of the repeats that you do find within the Voynichese corpus are qokedy/qokeedy blocks, words which combine a small information content with a strong affinity for sitting next to one another (as I recall, but please correct me if I’m wrong) such that trivial repeats of these are statistically almost certain to be found somewhere in the text.
Yet conversely, it could be argued that if a pair of instances were to be found where a longer non-trivial block is repeated, that would surely throw a statistical spanner of improbability into that reasoning’s smoothly rotating spokes, in much the same way that the statistical improbability of the Gillogly strings militate strongly against most non-DOI-based readings of Beale Paper B1.
And so it is with all that in mind that Torsten Timm points – in his interesting and challenging paper that I will discuss in more detail another day – to a particularly intriguing (nearly-)repeating sequence pair, both halves of which are on page f84r:-
<f84r.P.3> shedy qokedy qokeedy qokedy chedy okain chey
<f84r.P.10> shedy qokedy qokeedy qokeedy chedy raiin chey
This is surely as close to a “Gillogly sequence” as we get in Voynichese. In fact, this to me is very much as if we are looking through a gap in the confounding clouds, insofar as it seems that the same (or at least very similar) plaintext sequence is being processed in two slightly different ways by the same system to yield two extremely close Voynichese sequences.
But yet the almost complete absence of any other reasonable-length sequence pairs throughout the Voynich Manuscript’s hundreds of pages speaks loudly against the idea that what we are looking at is either a natural language or just about any straightforward cipher. So this pair is arguably most useful as a demonstration of how weak many of our current proofs and disproofs are.
As a consequence, my current answer (to “What do you think best explains the lack of repeated sequences?”) would be that the Voynichese text seems to have been consciously constructed in such a way to avoid including non-trivial repeating sequences (i.e. I don’t really include “qokedy/qokeedy” sequences in this).
But this comes with a caveat: that this “Timm pair” is then probably the keenest example we have of a slip-up in the generally excellent execution of a tricky system specifically designed to avoid including non-trivial phrase repetitions (and which almost completely managed to succeed in this ambitious aim).
Yet because it contains three trivial consecutive qokedy/qokeedy words, it plainly suffers from the weakness that it existence might just be a statistical coincidence, of the kind of Dave Oranchak sees suggested so often for Zodiac Killer cipher patterns. Hence its inherent liminality: we just can’t tell for sure whether it’s a break in the system or a freak occurrence fooling us into thinking it’s a break in the system.
…unless you happen to know of any other “Timm pair”-like sequences that are even more solid?
I feel honored to be featured on your website, thank you Nick 🙂
My current answer to that question is about the same as yours – that the text is designed to obfuscate repeating sequences – with caveats.
As for more “Timm pairs”, Job identified some with a computer script in some previous comment on your site. His findings are in fact what led me to ask the question. Same and similar sequences may exist, but they are at least an order of magnitude less frequent then in other natural language texts.
I suppose if you had a book written like the Jack the Ripper letters or YouTube comments, you could get a text arising from natural language but with a similar lack of perfectly repeating sequences. I’ll make a note to compare the latter against the VMS in my statistical investigations.
The liminality is the most curious and difficult aspect of the VMS. It doesn’t truly match any “thing” we know of. I hypothesized that if the text was a cipher, the liminality could in fact be the main paradigm. This would be similar to steganography (it relies on perceptual trickery rather than straightforward encryption complexity), yet also its complete opposite. In stego, the text avoids decryption because it is designed to be invisible and therefore *nothing*. In this, perhaps it is designed to be incredibly obvious but resemble *everything* at once (code, natural language, shorthand, etc.), so nobody knows where to start. If the author was intending to disperse our attention and effort onto fruitless paths, they certainly did a good job.
I’ve looked for long similar sequences as well, but allowing only a single character difference between each word pair.
The largest such sequences contain six words (Timm’s fifth word varies by three characters, so it’s excluded here):
f81v P1 W75 [ol, cheky, ol, shedy, qokedy, qokedy]
f75v P17 W2 [or, chesy, sol, shey, qokeey, qotedy]
------------------------------------------
f107v P14 W11 [aiin, chey, qol, aiin, al, chedy]
f77v P9 W26 [aiiin, chedy, qol, daiin, sal, chedy]
------------------------------------------
f75r P0 W39 [r, ain, ol, ol, sheedy, qokeey]
f103r P16 W10 [lr, ain, l, ol, sheed, qokeey]
The following are all similar sequences containing five words (excluding the ones above):
f84r P16 W32 [qokedy, chedy, teedy, qokeedy, qokeedy]
f111r P1 W153 [qokeey, chey, teey, qokeedy, qokeedy]
------------------------------------------
f105v P1 W13 [dar, aiin, al, dar, ar]
f55v P0 W18 [ear, aiin, ol, kar, am]
------------------------------------------
f77r P6 W53 [shedy, qokeedy, qotedy, qokeedy, shedy]
f77r P6 W110 [shedy, qokeedy, qokedy, qokeey, chedy]
------------------------------------------
f84v P2 W52 [dal, shedy, qokedy, shedy, dain]
f116r P3 W2 [dar, shedy, qokeedy, shdy, rain]
------------------------------------------
f82v P4 W34 [chedy, qokey, qokedy, qokol, chedy]
f111v P0 W49 [chedy, qokeey, qokeedy, qokeol, shedy]
------------------------------------------
f76v P5 W16 [qokain, chey, r, al, r]
f104v P9 W16 [qokaiin, cheey, or, ol, ar]
------------------------------------------
f108r P9 W3 [qokeedy, qokoy, qotedy, otedy, qokedy]
f84v P1 W30 [okeedy, qokey, qokedy, okedy, qokeedy]
------------------------------------------
f112v P3 W12 [qoteedy, qokey, chedy, qokeey, qokeey]
f108r P15 W14 [qokeedy, qokeo, lchedy, qokey, qokeey]
------------------------------------------
f76v P5 W34 [sol, shedy, qoky, daiin, shedy]
f80v P4 W15 [ol, chedy, qoky, daiin, lshedy]
------------------------------------------
f76v P1 W14 [qokeey, qokedy, oteedy, shedy, qokedy]
f84v P1 W60 [qokees, qokedy, otedy, shedy, qokedy]
------------------------------------------
f77r P6 W110 [shedy, qokeedy, qokedy, qokeey, chedy]
f84r P14 W27 [shedy, qokedy, qokeedy, qokeedy, chedy]
------------------------------------------
f105r P4 W12 [ol, r, aiin, okeedy, olkeeody]
f112v P0 W22 [or, ar, aiiin, okeey, lkeeody]
------------------------------------------
f75r P2 W10 [qokeey, lshedy, qol, chedy, qokain]
f80r P13 W12 [qokeey, shedy, qol, shedy, qokaiin]
------------------------------------------
f75r P0 W114 [keedy, qokedy, qokedy, qokedy, qokedy]
f84v P1 W30 [okeedy, qokey, qokedy, okedy, qokeedy]
------------------------------------------
f75r P0 W111 [shedy, qoky, pchedy, keedy, qokedy]
f78r P0 W45 [shedy, qoky, schedy, keedy, qokedy]
------------------------------------------
f42r P4 W32 [chol, chol, chal, shol, chol]
f42r P4 W34 [chal, shol, chol, chol, shol]
------------------------------------------
f102v1 P6 W32 [cheey, ykeey, kor, shey, qokey]
f102v2 P22 W61 [cheey, okeey, sor, chey, okey]
------------------------------------------
f84r P12 W27 [shedy, qokedy, qokeedy, qokedy, chedy]
f77r P6 W110 [shedy, qokeedy, qokedy, qokeey, chedy]
f84r P14 W27 [shedy, qokedy, qokeedy, qokeedy, chedy]
This excludes sequences overlapping paragraph boundaries, as well as single character sequences (such as those in f57v).
PX is paragraph X (0 based) and WY is word Y (0 based).
bc
You write: ‘Same and similar sequences may exist, but they are at least an order of magnitude less frequent then in other natural language texts.”. Please let us know, what natural language texts you have studied to come to this observation/conclusion.
Menno
The problem with the Voynich manuscript, is that this liminality isn’t restricted in a couple or more cryptanalytic phases observed in it, but, literally, in every possible aspect a cryptanalyst can judge it by.
If there were two or three points of ambuiguity, one could certainly try to work his way in examining finite cases, but alas we know so disappointingly little about it that all cryptanalytic attacks or linguistic approaches can be equally wrong or right.
What really frustrates me the most, is the fact that we have a ton of written material, a whole book really. Humanity struggling with a Dorabella or a 30 character Zodiac one, can be understandable, but for me it is inconceivable to consider that with that many sentences and all that innumerable amount of people having attacked the manuscript all these years, we are purely theorizing, with not even a single absolutely solid and rigid step forward. I’m guessing it simply can’t stand unsolved for another 20 years. If it does, I will certainly join the gibberish-hype train!
Menno – I based that observation on the findings in Job’s comment. Not the one here, but another one where he does some quantification and has some good diagrams. The effect is even stronger when considering perfectly matching sequences.
I haven’t done my own comparison with natural language texts but plan to do so in the future. Do you have any suggestions or concerns?
Kaizokugari, Not even theorizing, just hypothesizing.
Just to point out the need to be clear whether you’re analysing word structure or sentence structure.
If you used dice and a dictionary to generate a sequence of a thousand English words, you’d get nonsense. But it would be English language nonsense. If you enciphered those words using a monoalphabetic substitution cipher you’d find no tell-tale sentence structure and wouldn’t be able to spot prepositions or conjunctions, for example. But you could crack it very simply through letter frequency analysis.
Personally, I’d be cautious about using the lack of exactly repeated phrases in Voynichese to make any inferences about the language. It’s interesting and must mean something, but I would be wondering if this might be distorted by abbreviations, contractions, words that mean “ditto” or similar, and maybe even the omission of short or obvious words. I’m old enough to remember telegrams…
My own view is that word structure is a better line of attack, and if you can find me a natural language that fits as tightly-constructed a pattern as Stolfi and others have suggested for Voynichese, I’ll eat my Linear B dictionary.
Nick & friends: There are many repetitious syllables (mostly used in the botanical/pharmaceutical/recipes sections of B-408) which are discussing the TRI-nomial classifications of species. When qokeedy doesn’t work for you, try looking at those seemingly double ‘e’ combinations as either c-c, c-e, or e-c. When the two “c”s are extended and connected by a long bar, and which may have a curlicue above the bar, an abbreviation is being indicated, and the reader must determine the abbreviated word from the context of “the rest of the story”. The rest of the story is ‘in the eye of the beholder”. Fun! It works for me (25 folios, and counting). A really good example is ‘cro-c-os’. One can even extend the word crocus to include another botanical item (not in B-408) by adding ‘m-ia’ for : crocosmia
🙂
bc
O, sure I have. Please try a Latin text e.g. Plinius, not a living natural language, but a dead one, which has been use widely in scientific communications in the 15th century. You probably find out, that Latin behaves very much like Voynichese.
Menno
Sir Hubert,
I do agree. Please read my comment on bc. To identify the language used for Voynichese one should leave the path of letter substitution and compare wor structure on the morpheme level. Here the Latin word structure comes very close to Voynichese.
Menno
SirHubert – I plan to analyze the text from multiple angles, word structure included. I’m just starting with repeated sequences because it’s much easier to compute and compare.
I’m well aware that texts based on natural language can be distorted. I’ve brainstormed three possibilities for a significantly low amount of repeated sequences (assuming it’s true for now):
1. Wild disparity in the underlying information, especially if it is a list instead of normal paragraphs. For this I will compare with a few lists of random or disparate items at the word, sentence and paragraph levels (e.g. your English dictionary idea).
2. Wild irregularities in how the information is written. For this I will compare with a large collection of YouTube comments, which are based on natural language but have notoriously bad spelling and grammar.
3. Willful obfuscation.
Any other possibilities?
Menno, Thanks for the suggestion.
Nick and friends, the word liminal is very easy to write using the “Voynich” alphabet: lmnl. The word subliminal is almost as easy: ?Plmnl (questionmark represents “S”. P is b or p). The pair of uprights which have loops on both poles are ell or L. “Fish hooks” with either one barb or two barbs represent M and N.
SBLMNL No qoqeedy needed. Nick; you can give your brain a rest (especially if you rmmPr that the backward-facing S is actually R, and that the dotless questionmark is S).
I’m somewhat bright-eyed this morning. A little lame after five hours of Greek festival dancing, but breathing more easily post-pneumothorax of last year.
🙂
The reasons for the current blockage are simple. We don’t know the language or alternative writing system. We can’t evaluate the proper phonetic, numerical or other interpretations of the VMs symbols. And while there are lots of statistical analyses, this combination appears sufficient to stop any meaningful interpretation. Assuming there is a meaningful interpretation to be found, that is.
The thing about liminality is that certain boundaries, that are assumed to be fixed, can sometimes be moved. An optical illusion that was seen in only one way, can be discovered to have some other manifestation. If the blue-striped patterns of White Aries lose their radial orientation, an alternative interpretation arises, and further investigation of this possibility reveals a number of independent, on the page confirmations of this pending identification.
Suppose the VMs is not a simple puzzle to be solved, but a series of puzzles to be solved in sequence. And the first of these is the Genoese Gambit. If you can’t see the second puzzle without solving the first, what do you do if you can’t see the first? How do you recognize what you’ve never seen before? Stolfi saw the illustrations, used some of the same descriptive terms as heraldry does, and he didn’t recognize any heraldry. Of course, the author was being deceptive intentionally. It was meant to be difficult. And why do these confirmations exist in the illustration?
Nick & Friends: Two books I’ve been reading simultaneously: (I’ll follow with authors’ names and details) and how they might relate to Mr. Voynich’s manuscript, and its eventual home in Yale’s archives:
1–“Turn Right at Machu Picchu” Mark Adams (some humor)
2–“Lords of Sipan – Sidney D. Kirkpatrick
Both books make more than a few references to Hiram Bingham and his extended family. Both books discuss pre-Columbian/Spanish ruinous invasion of South America. Some discussion in both books of the trade/sale of stolen goods and manuscripts/maps. Hiram Bingham III apparently was publishing right up to his death. I couldn’t find a mention of the date of his passing.
Both books are lively and entertaining; also just plain good and relaxed reading.
Maybe we’ll see some movies/DVD’s: ‘All About The Mysterious Manuscript Called Voynich’ . Some day soon?
🙂
Move that limen, will ya?
It is simply natural to view the encircling figures from a radial perspective, because that is how they were situated, But it is also true that the heraldic interpretation of the blue and white patterns changes if the images are isolated and allowed to revert to a page-based orientation. In this view both patterns are somewhat similar to the heraldic image of the bendy. Bendé, argent et azur. And if that don’t get the early Catholic heraldry going for you, then nothing will. Literally, nothing will. That reader will not see the references to the historical events these images on White Aries contain. It’s proven.
There has been a sort of ‘seek and ye shall find’ argument used to contradict the potential identification of this armorial insignia. This proposition suggests that, given any armorial insignia that fits the general set of patterns used by heraldry, this example can then be matched to someone anywhere, and this is what makes the identification. While this may seem superficially plausible, the assumption is invalid and incorrect. It is invalid because heraldry does not allow all color combinations to be used and because some valid potential combinations are not found. And while it appears to be correct in as far as pointing out the various possibilities, and in this case multiple historical possibilities, it only holds this value when the initial example is a singleton. The VMs has two examples. Where does history require a pair? Jacks or better! How about popes?
The VMs representations are not precisely drawn. The images show somewhat altered representations that may (or may not) appear to be evocative of certain historical information. So besides being evocative with the blue stripes, what else shows that this potential evocation has further substantiation?
1) the red galero was granted to the cardinals as a sign of office by Pope Innocent IV [Sinibaldo Fieschi] – ecclesiastical heraldry.
Armorial and ecclesiastical heraldry, evocative or not, converge to result in a unique historical situation.
Innocent IV made his nephew a cardinal in 1251.
The white galeros are Premonstratensians.
I can’t tell you how long I looked for representative groups or individuals who habitually wore a pizza on their head, as this was one outstanding, suggested interpretation of the VMs drawing.
2) the precisely placed papelonny pun – It’s absolutely heraldic!
And on the historical side, the papelonny connects to the French King Louis IX and Louis IX connects with Innocent IV.
3) the proper hierarchical placement of pope and cardinal in the celestial spheres of White Aries.
4) the most favored heraldic placement in the upper right quadrant – according to the heraldic perspective.
5) the choice to place this whole heraldic construction on the White Aries page rather than some other page, because only the white animal is suitable for celestial sacrifice. And this is both religious and celestial.
These positional confirmations are not subject to evocative interpretation. Position is position, objectively.
6) a long, involved example involving the historic rolls of English heraldry and the fact that Ottobouno Fieschi, the nephew, was for a time the papal legate to England.
These are the author’s confirmations that the apparent evocation is the actual, intended identification. The overall complexity of the construction further supports the position that this is intentional on the author’s part and the recognition of the Genoese Gambit is a necessary early step toward understanding what is needed to solve the VMs.
Move it, move it!
@ ootb: I get it! Comprende!
Check out the babes in the barrels — all waving banners.
bdid1dr
That is when they aren’t holding stars on strings.
bd
Several months ago, I observed and commented on the babes in the bath-house. One was holding a fleur d’ lys, and the other was holding a pomegranate.
Have you found any heraldic symbology from the women’s side of the families?
bd
Greetings bd,
So actually the focus is on the patterns drawn on the barrels as they are found in the VMs zodiac. Barrels are found from Pisces through Taurus, but there are no patterns from Taurus. In the outer ring of Pisces the patterns on the tubs, in some cases, are similar to the geometric designs used as heraldic ordinaries, such as the paly, bendy, barry, roundels, chevrons and papelonny. And similarly again in Dark Aries. As to what might be waiving about……….is it Lady Bertilak’s girdle?
White Aries contains some of the so-called nymph figures that are the least feminine in their appearance. [And also one of the better examples wearing a pale green dress.] However, if there is a question of how to recognize someone in these drawings, it is not by facial appearance, Heraldry is a standard method to recognize identity appropriate to the early 1400s and beyond – either way.
The specific examples of armorial and ecclesiastical heraldry found on White Aries are at least evocative of a unique historical situation and two known historical persons. And if they are not seen as evocative, then what’s with the redundant positional confirmations? Not to mention the perfectly positioned papelonny pun.
The set of patterns in armorial insignia that I am considering is limited to the first thee VMs zodiac pages. That is not to say that various other items (as opposed to patterns), that are symbolic in their own right and thus also used in heraldry, are not to be found on other pages of the text. Could they be relevant to White Aries?
Women’s heraldry certainly exists, if you mean in the VMs, then nothing specific. The use of heraldry in the VMs is very limited and focused. It is also intentionally disguised by radial orientation and other factors. The obfuscated appearance and the multiple confirmations cannot be a random match to historical events. The whole thing has to be an intentional construction. The author is up to something and also trying to hide it. The patterned boxes and the circular bands of text seem to point the way.
O*O*T*B
Building on the observation that there are no five pointed stars depicted in the VM, I note that heraldic true stars apparently have six or more points. So, maybe the absence of five pointed stars does point to a heraldic influence in the VM? I also note that Germanic heraldry did not use five pointed stars at all.
Wikimedia Commons: WikiProject Heraldry. Stars in heraldry.
“… traditionally in heraldry, a pentagram was not a star, but rather a “mullet” or heraldic spur-wheel, while a heraldic star (or “estoile”) generally had at least six rays (often wavy).”
@bdev: ‘heraldic spur-wheel’ — the spur which would be attached to the heel of a horse-man’s boot?
Several months ago, on one of Nick’s other discussion pages, I mentioned the appearance of ‘stars and stripes” appearing in many murals and works of art commissioned by one family who had several sons, over several generations, who were HR Cardinals — Brandini?
Ellie V. has also commented on ‘stars’ on her blog.
The Gregorian University’s latest discovery of several hundred manuscripts (which was televised) showed many manuscripts containing stars. The televised presentation gave the viewers only a momentary glimpse of the conservators work-in-progress. Fascinating none-the-less!
B Deveson,
There certainly may be something in the VMs that is commensurate with a certain medieval point of view that includes various heraldic terms and practices. In other words, you might want to say, there are no mullets on strings in the VMs, but hang on a moment
.
There is a problem here with the terminology, following a reference to the website Atlas at Heraldica dot* com, According to the various language equivalents, mullet is the English term for the five pointed version of a star, but in German it is Stern, in French it is étoile, in Italian it is stella, etc. All meaning star,
Then for the six-pointed version, it is simply a mullet of six points, with all other languages similarly stating the number of parts on the star. So that doesn’t help much.
Perhaps the situation in the VMs reflects something more basic, a sort of cultural standard in which heraldry is merely one of the disciplines included. The number five has long had certain image problems – the devil and the pentagram, stemming from the Pythagoreans, the existence of irrational numbers, (a black mustache on Sesame Street) etc. Honestly now, do you really want to start putting five-pointed stars in heaven?
In the VMs, I guess not.
So perhaps this absence of five-pointed stars is something that points less toward England and English heraldry, where the mullet was used, and more toward a North Italian or South German sort of perspective. This seems somewhat speculative, though it may be applicable. We’ve already got the swallow-tailed merlons.
Nick and y’all: I just returned from another look at B-408 f-1r. My earlier efforts at translating (or at least understanding the text) were focused on the lines of the nearly obscure script. Today I revisited f-1r — because I vaguely remembered some nearly faded script on the right margin. Oh well, I’m somewhat mortified at what I found: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q…….in a hand completely different from the mystery script. I had missed it because I was making note of the various rips, tears, and mended areas. Check it out for yourselves, if you haven’t already noticed it. Huh!
🙁
ps: I’ll be even more disgruntled if it should turn out that Paula Zyatz has been aware of this alpha-notation all along!
Brief correction to reference to “Brandini”: Aldobrandini
bdid1dr: The Latin alphabet on the right margin of f1r is a thing discovered long ago. Most probably it was added by some reader who tried to decipher VMS as a substitution cipher.
Out*of*the*Blue: Is the absence of the pentagram in a mid-15 century MS an outstanding thing? If I understand correctly, popularization of the pentagram in European tradition is mainly connected with Agrippa (at least Wikipedia says so), which is somewhat later.
Problematic but maybe interesting to Nick: page 23 of Kirkpatrick’s book “Lords of Sipan”: ‘Walter Mondragon, the departmental chief of police of Lambayeque, had issued orders that Alva, in his joint capacity as inspector general of archaeology and director of the Bruning Museum, present himself at police headquarters to examine the seized items at once’.
Apparently, at that time, Professor Alva was also issued a gun and permission to use it. The excerpt I’ve just provided is just one small item in a fascinating tale called “Lords of Sipan — A True Story of the Inca Tombs, Archaeology, and Crime”. Much more stories of US Marshals’ involvement and raids in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara (California). Especially Santa Barbara because its very wealthy and influential ‘patrons of the arts and crafts –whether galleries or museums.
Read and enjoy, mostly because of Professor Walter Alva’s efforts to keep South American grave goods, archives, works of manufacture, writing, and art in the country where they were found.
🙂
bdid1dr: I think it is absolutely heartening that you believe you have “discovered” the Latin lettering on f1r. Looking more at those letters would be “beating a dead horse” by now. The ink has been professionally analyzed – it’s not the same ink as from the text and drawings. It was added later, by another owner – not by the author. Check out the 8 page.pdf “detailed chemical analysis of the Voynich Manuscript” found on the main page for the VMS on the Beinecke website.
Hi Anton,
My comments above were an attempt to reply to B. Deveson’s question about the absence of five-pointed stars in the VMs and any possible implications relevant to heraldry. I’ve been looking at armorial and ecclesiastical heraldry as they appear to be represented in VMs White Aries, not at any hypothetical situations involving any five-pointed stars or pentagrams, which are not in the VMs, so I may have been a bit too general.
I should probably do some serious research in medieval numerology before I shoot of my mouth too much, but I seem to recall that there were ‘good’ and ‘bad’ numbers. And five was one of the bad numbers, reputedly stemming in part from the Pythagorean situation. And this was something that would have carried on through to the VMs and those times (potentially) subsequent to it. There is no 5 on Typus Arithmetica,
The fact that the literary records regrading the popularity of the pentagram are somewhat anachronistic to the actual parchment dates doesn’t absolutely contradict the time of VMs composition. The matter of dating the composition of the manuscript, as contrasted to the dates of the parchment, is much contested and still inconclusive.
Looking at the patterns on the barrels in the outer ring of VMs Pisces, the alternate spaces are often differentiated by a graphic technique known as hatching – the series of closely-spaced, short lines that are perpendicular to the primary lines they connect. A lot of discussion has taken place on the topic of hatching in art history. In heraldry, the standardized use of hatching, the Petra Sancta, is dated to circa 1630. Prior to standardization, examples go back to the late 1500s. But still, well after the parchment dates.
The VMs examples are also problematic because the hatching is perpendicular to the stripe. It is ALWAYS perpendicular to the stripe. This presents certain problems using the standard interpretation All palys are all blue-striped. All barrys are red. And the chevrons would be green on one side and purple on the other. And that is the equivalent of a heraldic joke, a non sequitur, something that does not exist, even though it could. It may even be an intentional joke. If you’ve seen the precisely placed papelonny pun,in the VMs, it’s like a joke, almost. And it has to be intentionally constructed, same as the chevrons.
I like the work of Torsten Timm Higgledy piggledy is great and so is hocus-pocus . I think evey thing is okey dokey.
xplor: Torsten’s an okey dokey blokey. 🙂
OOTB:
Hey I’m still curious about this alleged papelonny pun. I see that the page locations for papelonny on dark aries and pisces correspond to the page locations for the two only people with red hats on the white aries page.
I thought it was pretty interesting.
But what is the pun? Something to do with the name for the hat?
In re ‘latin’ alphabet on the right margin of B-408: Mostly I’m outraged that ‘someone’ at a much later date would try to translate individual lines by writing an alphabetical line reference rather than just numbering each line. Unless, of course, the original scribe(s) did it in order to prevent repetitious and or duplicate phrases; which happened anyway. Take a look at the many phrases throughout the mss which are tediously repetitive (regardless of the instructions being given on that first page/folio).
My latest observation, herein, is made from personal experience: I am hearing impaired, yet I was forced into taking Business Ed shorthand dictation and transcription. Anybody else ‘out there’ who has experienced the same experience of being arbitrarily denied into programs of ‘higher learning’ or for example, pre-med doctoral education?
I smile, anyway, because over some thirty years of working with very powerful employers, I received many accolades for ‘watching their backs’ when it came to written correspondence (spelling, punctuation, grammar). They also sent me to training for computer science (Basic Language) so that I could become a transportation cost analyst. Anybody interested in how much it cost the mailman to take his mule-team to the Bright Angel Lodge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon?
🙂
Over here it’s Okey Dokey Artichokey. But that does not come up in a Google search.
CH:
The papelonny designs, as you’ve seen in Pisces and Dark Aries, are at roughly the 10 – 11 o’clock position. And in the same position on White Aries, in the outer and inner circle of figures, there are those two ‘persons’ with a blue-striped pattern on their tubs. This is a test of the reader’s remembrance, and, if the memory is there, then further investigation reveals that the White Aries illustration does contain the red galero and other related points as previously listed.
The specific historical identification by armorial heraldry is the pair of late 13th C. Fieschi popes, Innocent IV and Adrian V. So given that each ‘papal’ figure is in the same position as the examples of papelonny, it is surely a play on words to notice that the first four letters make the word pape, which is French for pope. Almost like they were being labelled. Certainly something rather unexpected, if one looks to the VMs for a totally randomized absence of relevance. This is just the opposite. It is part of a combination of things, hidden to some extent intentionally and otherwise. And also strongly confirmed by this interlocking group of independent elements innate to the VMs text. Including this pun, which seems strangely obscure and at the same time almost brazen. With the obscurity here due in part to the too frequent omission of papelonny and plumetty from the discussion of the heraldic furs in many of the references that I saw.
OOTB:
Thanks for the explanation!
If the author(s) of the VMS also referred to “papelonny” as “papelonny”, then that really does makes sense. (And if you interpret the heraldry correctly, which I will have to take your word for!)
I’ll assume that papelonny is a medieval term itself, seems to be a borrowing from French into English. It’s far from implausible, I have to admit.
I find it interesting that I didn’t see the papelonny on the barrel at 11 o’clock on the pisces page. I’m seeing at 1 o’clock also (the barrel with EVA “oteody” underneath).
If you look at what I mentioned earlier, these two positions (pisces 1 o’clock, dark aries 10 o’clock) correspond to the two people with the red hats on the white aries page.
Is the pattern I am seeing at 1 o’clock on pisces not papelonny, but a different ones? I’ll admit it’s not just “fish scales”, there seems to be a dot in the center of each “scale”, so to speak.
I think your knowledge of heraldry is a refreshing perspective that I at least personally haven’t seen explored much before.
How to obfuscate heraldry
or
Why VMs heraldry looks like it does, instead of like it should.
Heraldry is a system of identification that relies on colors and patterns. A change in color or pattern is a change of identity. It is difficult to disguise heraldic identity if color and pattern must be maintained.
In VMs White Aries, the radial orientation of the encircling figures is so strongly imbedded in the illustration, that other possible examples of orientation may not even be considered. Nevertheless, in the absence of all other interference, the blue-striped insignia are seen as a pair of heraldic bendys. Apparent orientation is used as an optical illusion. The hidden side of the illusion has a strong historical presence and has been given multiple confirmations in the White Aries illustration. This optical illusion is the primary way in which these historical identifications have been intentionally hidden.
The second method used to hide the identities is a lack of clarity of the insignia images themselves, specifically as the image patterns contain both painted and graphic elements in combination. The interpretation becomes confused. Blue painted stripes between blue graphic stripes. Sloppy painting or another heraldic joke? As far as I can tell, heraldic color designation systems do not mix. The combination of two systems is a illegal operation under heraldic rules. So it’s one or the other. Blue paint goes well with the red galeros and also with the white ones as well. This clarification strengthens the paired identification, which becomes a unique historical event with the addition of the red galero. It is also fairly clear at this point that the author has made certain attempts at deception. A clear and straight forward illustration may have been seen as too obvious. Hence the need for multiple internal confirmations.
The third main factor contributing to obfuscation is the standardization of descriptions that occurs in modern heraldry that involves the counting of parts (or number of stripes) in the basic paly, barry or the bendy patterns and setting the standard at six and so, in this case, three white and three blue stripes alternating. The VMs differs clearly from this standard. However, in the matter of images represented as being prior to this standardization, the number of parts, whether six or eight or even ten would not of necessity determine that this was meant to be identified as a separate entity from another representation that used a different numerical variation. There were several centuries after the VMs parchment dates before the standardized counting of parts started to be used more consistently.
xplor: maybe it’s too hokey for Google. 🙂
Nick and friends, try to imagine carrying on all of these discussions and discoveries with medieval messaging methods. At least various current-day ‘comic book’ and magazine editors seem to do well.
😉
Try to imagine the VMs author using those very same ‘medieval messaging methods’, possibly trying to communicate using certain standard methods of identification, such as heraldry. Unfortunately the modern reader may be somewhat unfamiliar with the exact specifics of this topic, but a medieval reader, particularly one familiar with the history of papal heraldry might not find the specific reference chosen to be all that obscure. Such a history contemporary to the VMs parchment dates might well contain only the insignias of those who had obtained the rights to bear armorial heraldry, as had the Fieschi family, and may well have recorded the Genoese popes at to near the beginning of that history The modern record of papal heraldry has been extensively back-filled, giving all popes an insignia.
The discovery of the armorial pairing and the addition of the red galero not only connect to a unique historical situation, the specific characters in the White Aries illustration [pope and cardinal] are also immediately seen as being represented in their proper hierarchical positions in the celestial spheres. While the identification may have been evocative and perhaps speculative to some extent. The placement of those images objective. What more does it take to make the message clear? The author has included several other objective, positional confirmations all the same.
So how does one escape the infuriating limitations of VMs investigation for dummies? By seeing the signs contained in the text and recognizing the depths of interpretation and identification involved rather than superficially seeing nothing of things that are otherwise unknown, like what is a papelonny. And why has it been placed just there?
@ OOTB: Puns are often dependent on symbolic logic in the brain of the beholder; which is also dependent upon the level of education the beholder has received. Because I was hearing impaired, and couldn’t bear having books read to me, I was taught the alphabet before I was 4 y.o. I was also taught a basic spelling ‘rule’: i before e except after c and for the sound of a as in neighbor and weigh.
Even today (champion speller that I am) I still have to mentally recite that mnemonic. It is especially fun, puns and all, when attempting two or three levels of language such as appear in Boenicke manuscript 408. Sometimes it is the challenges that add to the enjoyment of the translation of that most peculiar document. I’m trying NOT to rain on Nick’s parade! (NO, I am NOT making a ‘pissy’ pun, Nick!) 🙂
Rather a comparison of two words which promote an affinity for puns: papillon (butterfly) and papellony (fur?). So, what would the “Voynich” writer have done (if alive today) with the opera Madame Butterfly?
We also have the word for a horse’s whinney: ‘neigh’ — which is pronounced as if spelled nee-eee-eee-h. Pretty much what I sound like with a head cold/sinus infection — my current condition.
😉
@ bd,
A pun is dependent on having a known referent, something that is remembered. It also requires a means of transmission to the person receiving the message If certain criteria of shock and surprise obtain, it might be a pun considered amusing or disgusting. This one’s heraldic. What did you expect?
Just think, if we didn’t have the proper term for the papelonny pattern and called it fish scales instead, then the man’s name might be Fish, Pike or Trautwein, though in such a case it is more likely to find an armorial insignia with fish pictured on it – as the actual use of papelonny is quite uncommon.
Perhaps this is a pretty pissy pun per se, as puns go. But as far a puns made using heraldry, it’s not that bad and it’s not that unusual to find puns in heraldry. It is, in effect, simple, straight-forward and clear, but at the same time it passes wholly unknown before the eyes of all who do not know the proper heraldic term. Really rather clever considering the limitations The VMs illustration is plain as day. Either you see what it means or you don’t. If you can’t name it, you won’t get it. The reference made in the pun, that is.
Yes, on the linguistic side, papelonny does derive from papillon. For reference see Rice-Davies, it’s on line.
Also regarding coloration in heraldry, the term tincture includes the metals, the colors and the furs.
Metals: gold and silver
Colors (standard): red, blue, green, purple and black.
Furs; ermine and its variations, vair and its variations, and also papelonny and plumetty, which sometimes get missed.
While it might appear to belong with the other basic patterns of heraldry like a paly, bendy, gyrony or bezanty, papelonny is something entirely different.
Pardon my rattling on, but the papelonny investigation is still rather recent. Papelonny is an obscure term in a nearly arcane area of general disinterest, which is heraldry. The reasons for the presence of two papelonny representations and their positioning in the VMs zodiac have been passed over countless times by worthy investigators who simply didn’t know the proper designation for what they were seeing. Yet, when the papelonny pun is popped (or poped), it’s like the White Aries representations of proposed papal heraldry now have labels on them. Could such labels be considered incontrovertible evidence of the Genoese papal identification, now that they are labelled as popes?
It can’t be a coincidence. Coincidences don’t happen in pairs or in the same positions. Those are ultra-coincidences. Otherwise, it’s intentional. In man-made objects, the natural rules of probability simply do not apply.
Heraldry is the door that first opens to reveal an initial look at the tricky inner workings of the VMs. Heraldry is the key that opens that door and the key to VMs heraldry is the papelonny pun. The images are now labelled. Their identity is confirmed by a magic word from a forgotten language, somewhat used in the Middle Ages. That language is heraldry and the author knows it well.
Out*of*the*Blue: coincidences do happen; and if you look at enough coincidences, you will almost certainly find a few what you call “ultra-coincidences”. But historically, can we reliably tell such ultra-coincidences from subtle intention? Personally, I think the answer is occasionally yes, but usually no (unfortunately).
So I suspect the real issue here isn’t about evidence per se, but about differentiating signal from noise in a way that genuinely works. It’s much harder than it sounds.
Menno,
Please try a Latin text e.g. Plinius, not a living natural language, but a dead one, which has been use widely in scientific communications in the 15th century. You probably find out, that Latin behaves very much like Voynichese.
Which properties of Voynichese & Latin are you referring to? The recurrence of word sequences in Latin and Voynichese are clearly different.
The following is a comparison of the set of repeated four-word sequences in Pliny’s Natural History (books 24 – 27) and the VM. The two texts are roughly the same size (VM is 7% shorter) and might even share content, according to this description:
Books 20–27: Plant products as used in medicine;
In the VM there are two repeated 4-character sequences (visible here) excluding the repeating characters in f57v:
f75v:17:51 [ol, shedy, qokedy, qokeedy]
f80r:13:13 [shedy, qol, shedy, qokaiin]
Before moving on to Pliny, I find it plausible that in Voynichese EVA “T” is the same character as “K”, and EVA “P” is the same character as “F”. Since the extra “K” and “F” characters would decrease the number of repeating sequences in the VM, here are the recurring four-word sequences when EVA “T” is replaced with “K” and EVA “P” is replaced with “F”:
f75v:17:51 [ol, shedy, qotedy, qoteedy]
f80r:13:13 [shedy, qol, shedy, qotaiin]
f75r:2:51 [lol, qoteedy, qoteedy, qotedy]
There’s just one more repeated sequence than before…
Anyway, in Pliny’s NH, books 24-27, i count 93 repeated four-character sequences. Here are some of the more popular ones:
[in, vini, albi, cyathis]
[quantum, manus, capiat, in]
[cum, coagulo, vituli, marini]
[in, vini, veteris, cyatho]
[panacis, omnium, generum, radix]
[vettonicae, farina, ex, aqua]
That’s not a small difference. It’s also intriguing, given how repetitive the VM’s text appears to be at a glance.
SirHubert: My own view is that word structure is a better line of attack, and if you can find me a natural language that fits as tightly-constructed a pattern as Stolfi and others have suggested for Voynichese, I’ll eat my Linear B dictionary.
Though I’ve read several researchers’ work on the word structure of Voynichese I’ve seldom heard the word “phonotactics”, or better, “comparative phonotactics”. That’s not to criticize what has been done, but rather highlight what hasn’t. I do agree that it could be a very fruitful line of research.
The very presence of patterning in word structure is something that stands at odds with the theory of a cipher. Indeed, the more complex the word structure the better as far as showing a natural language origin.
Also, because of phonological constraints there is the potential (however slim) of narrowing down what sound the different characters could signify (assuming that they do signify sound at all).
Maybe I should do this instead of talking about it.
Rosebud: to be precise, the more complex the word structure, the less likely that it is a polyalphabetic or mathematical cipher. But there are plenty of combinations of cipher, verbose cipher, and shorthand that Voynichese could be, even with this kind of constraint… basically, it remains a sprawling zone of awkwardness and uncertainty. 😐
Nick & Ootb: The most frequently appearing phrases in the entire B-408 is ‘cae’ or ‘ceae’ or ‘ceas’ or ‘ecas’. Job, please forgive me if I seem contradictory to your valiant efforts. Another aspect of interest is the elaborate “P”, which most often begins PR-a-graphs of PResentations. Quite often the elaborate P can be prefaced, mentally, to form words such as ‘apparent’, ‘specie’, ‘oppression’, ‘explanation’…..
On other of Nick’s discussions (“Brackets”) I’ve mentioned how ‘tl’ and ‘ll’ can be stretched and re-inserted into subsequent syllables to create often-used phrases. I’m hoping that you can run some frequency sequences using the substitution alphabet phraseology I just offered. About the only time you will see ‘qokeedy’ is if you see what looks like a small, straight-legged cipher rather than the large ‘9’. The large ‘9’ is the sound of guh or kuh. The large straight-legged ‘9’ is the sound kw. The tiny ‘9’, which loop extends slightly behind the leg and slightly below the line of script is the syllable for the sound of ‘eks’.
I hope some one of you may be able to kw-ll-fy and or run the frequency on my numerous xplnatlory posts in re the Vms contents?
😉
ps: You won’t find a stand-alone alpha ‘T’. I cn only x-pl-n that the sound of ‘t’ did not stand alone but was ‘trilled’ or ‘tapped’ depending on what the scribe was hearing and how he wrote what he was listening to.
bd
Oh dear me! While I was typing my latest donation, Nick and Rosebud (?) were having a lively discussion. My apologies if I’ve diverted the train of thought or interrupted a very interesting post!
bdid1dr
PS: Look up the many ‘psa…ptyalin’…words which can be found in dictionaries; and which may appear in B-408 here and there. Particularly puzzling?
bd
Rosebud: yes please! A comparative phonotactic study of Voynichese would surely demonstrate that it either does or doesn’t resemble a known natural language. I guess it’s this kind of test that allows Google to tell me that I’m looking at a page in Turkish rather than French.
This site looks a useful place to start:
phonotactics dot anu dot edu dot au
There is so much about Voynichese that “feels” wrong for a natural language, but it would be fantastic to be able to confirm this.
Nick: we’re actually close to Majikthise and Vroomfondel’s dream of rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty than you suggest. You’ve already ruled out several classes of cipher and we might even be able to kill off the natural language chimaera also. And I have a feeling that one or two other papers doing the rounds at the moment should eliminate a few other suspects.
Hi Nick,
Being able to differentiate between signal and noise would certainly be useful in finding a signal of some sort. How could that be done?
All objects of human manufacture are intentional throughout to some degree, either casually or intensely. The problem of coincidence occurs when images in the VMs are compared to things in the real world, with the intent to determine whether any similarities of appearance are intentional or accidental on the part of the author, when it was the author who may well have drawn deliberately ambiguous representations in the first place. A single armorial insignia on its own may have multiple interpretations and thus be inconclusive. However, absent the radial orientation, the bendy pair imposes a much tighter historical constraint. The presence of the red galero reinforces the same historical identification. And the addition of the proper hierarchical placement has them looking right at home. The favored heraldic placement is a bit more obscure in its definition, but as obvious as can be in its illustration. All the historical, heraldic and ecclesiastical visual evidence confirms the same historical identities – the Genoese Popes.
The use of a pun based on an image/term/concept as obscure as papelonny is like sending a signal at a wavelength that the observer cannot pick up – not without a serious upgrade to the receiver. The heraldic signal is there. The message has been sent. Is the heraldic receiver tuned in to obscure puns? Armorial identification? Ecclesiastical tradition? Positional confirmation? Historical verification? Or what? The signal that arises is the result of this combination of elements which interact to produce a singular historical identification involving both recognition and disguise, built to suit the author’s further intentions.
SirHubert, Rosebud,
1. The first question that should be answered is, why anyone would take the trouble to encrypt a book, while its contents are available in plain tekst at each street corner. That tradition says, that voynichese is encrypted is not a good reason at all.
2. I have worked on computational linguistics for a long time. One of my tasks has been to generate a program to save computer space by organizing paradigms (in Russian) of many derivatives like friend, friendly, friendliness, friendlessness,, friendship, friends, unfriend, unfriendly etc. The words have been taken from the Concise Oxford Dictionary. In Russian, Greek and in Latin the situation is even more complex because of different singular, dual en plural cases.This can be done with almost every word.
It might be useful to put voynichese similarly into paradigms of the above type and compare the paradigms. Anyway I found much similarity with Latin word structure on the morpheme level.
Menno
Menno Knul: I don’t believe that the Voynich manuscript is enciphered. It could be, but it could also be written in the plain. I don’t think either side has shown conclusive (or even overwhelming) proof one way or the other.
That said, Nick has intimated that something big may be coming later in the year. Given that he supports the cipher hypothesis, then I may have to eat my words.
At the risk of pre-empting Nick (and please feel free to moderate this if it’s not yet appropriate), you might have a look at Torsten Timm’s article, which Nick has previously mentioned in passing (easy to find if you search for Torsten Timm + Voynich).
His conclusion on page 25 reads:
“…the glyph groups in the VM are not used as words. All features of the VM, especially the weak word order, the existence of the 8am-oe- and 1c89-series, the use of a limited number of prefixes and the connections between similarly spelled glyph groups, speak against such a hypothesis. For a natural language or for a constructed language the words should be used because of their meaning, and relations between words should be expressed by grammatical rules. Since the only relation found for the words within the VM is that similarly spelled words are used near to each other, an unknown natural language or a constructed language can be ruled out”
I’m still trying to digest Timm’s article but his statistical analysis of the text is detailed and interesting. (It’s much better than his work on the Phaistos Disc, imho.)
OOTB: not sure what you’re looking up (or up what you’re looking) if you’re citing Rice-Davies.
De Profumo clamavi…
SirHubert: Torsten Timm’s piece is interesting, but the level of certainty he has in his claims is not backed up by the level of argumentation. Or rather: it’s broadly correlative, but not at all causative. I keep trying to write a post about it and then having to start again in dissatisfaction: but that’s basically because it covers a whole lot of edgy (if not outright liminal) Voynich evidence, and I keep wanting to promote individual lemmas into posts on their own. Oh well. 😐
The real 2014 news about the Voynich is quite different, and I’ll hopefully start to post about that in the next few days.
Nick: I’m not sure what I think of Timm’s arguments about how the text was created, but his observations about the structure or otherwise of word positions and associations seem sound enough. And the more detail that emerges about these, the harder I find it to believe we’re looking at a natural language. How on earth can strings like “qokeedy qokeedy qokeedy qotey qokeey qokeey” be resolved into anything linguistically meaningful? One word repeated three times in succession, followed almost immediately by two further repetitions with one letter different? Sorry…much as I wish this were written in lightly-disguised Arabic or Latin – languages I do actually understand to some extent and might have a chance of translating – I can’t see it. But if others can…
SirHubert: I’ve read Timm’s paper but didn’t think too much of it. It seems like he spends of lot of time speaking about how words are only one character away from another, as though it should be a revelation. The truth is that such a structure happens in a number of languages.
It’s also infuriatingly, however, because he touches on some things which I’ve noticed, but he doesn’t take them any further. He presents them then moves on.
For example, Timm notes that /a/ and /o/ are interchangeable in some places, and that /y/ and /o/ are also interchangeable in some places. Yet he doesn’t seem to have noticed that the distribution of these two characters is complementary and together they make a set as /a,y/. The /a/ character simply occurs before letters with an /i/ stroke (which are /i l m n r/), and /y/ mostly at the beginning and end of words.
He also notes (as Stolfi seems to do) that /ee/ is like /ch/ and /sh/. But he still says that /e/ is also like /ee/ and /eee/. In truth /e/ and /ee/ seem (weird though it may sound) to be different characters, with /e/ being more like /a,y o/*.
This would make /ch sh ee/ a class of similar characters which also have an interesting graphic similarity. Add that to the occurence of /a/ only before characters made with an /i/ stroke, and all the “gallows” characters which act in the same way, and it seems as though we’re looking at a logically constructed alphabet: characters that look alike often act alike.
Odd stuff indeed, but I would rather have 70 pages of discussion on that than the endless tables he does give.
*It seems that /a,y/ and /e/ are also complementary in their distribution to some extent, but there are problems and snags which I can’t understand.
Well, folks, I have not seen one instance of ‘qokeedy’ ennywhere in the Vms-B408. It is a matter of automatically comparing the glyph for “g” with the smaller glyph for ‘x’. It is also a matter of comparing the glyph for ‘ll’ with the glyph ‘tl’. Even the glyphs for ‘o’ and ‘a’ are hard to distinguish, and sometimes require reading the whole phrase. Illuminate and eliminate, for example (xmpl). ‘tl’ is a glyph which has many uses in sentence formations. The word ‘atlas’ is a good xmpl:
‘qua tl e’ is another quality qualifier…..I’m still working on the word ‘ghost’ as in holy ghost rather than the expletive I see appearing in more recent decades: If written in Voynichese, the expression would look something like ‘o-ll-e sh-tl’ . A contradiction of terms if I’ve ever seen one! I try to talk clean!
bd i’d 1dr
The Voynich is a copy of the lost Idaean Dactyls.
SirHubert,
My error; it’s Fox-Davies
A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies.
A very thorough reference, much of which has no relevance for the VMs. It does have papelonny, though.
There are two weak points in Timm’s hypothesis.
First, it is not very consistent with the findings of Montemurro & Zanette expressed in their last year’s paper which indicate that the “subject” of the text varies along the “thematic” sections of the MS.
Second, it falls under the Occam’s razor – it would be very strange to produce random text in a “simple” way and, at the same time, to put such effort into complicated, varying, and seemingly meaningful drawings.
As to the above question of Menno Knul why the text would be encrypted, there are at least four obvious off-the-shelf possibilities, which in the ascending order of probability would be:
1) the VMS was encrypted to hide its contents from the Church;
2) the VMS was a sacred object of some secret community;
3) the VMS was encrypted for the sake of “self-importance” (amusing but rather probable if it be an alchemic book);
4) the VMS was encrypted to hide the information contained therein from professional competitors.
Here’s a word you might like to spell out using the Voynich alphabet: VOICE
Another word: YOU
Another word: WE
One last word: SYLLABLES
bdid1dr
aka:beady-eyed wonder
🙂 Smiling as I write!
Let’s go back to the signal versus noise bit. What is the signal? Intentionally transmitted information, at least for starters.
The papelonny pun can only be seen by those who know the term and what it designates. The reality of its placement is objectively affirmed. How can this be accidental? If it is not intentionally transmitted information, what is it?
Ootb: It IS intentionally transmitted information. The writer is documenting his familial origins, his educational background, his monasterial experience. In addition to that, he kept field notes/journal (using manuscript material available to him throughout his journeys). In later years, he transferred much of his biography, field notes, and translations of Native American history into a huge book of some 200 pages written on ‘a-ma-tl’ (strangler-fig tree bark and/or mulberry tree bark). The fig amatl was darker than mulberry amatl. Occasionally the raw materials were mixed to create a more enduring ‘marbelized’ manuscript material.
Ennyway, I do wish we had more information on Fr. Sahagun and his contemporaries who were proselytizing throughout the South American continent,
BTW, I’ve just found more discussion on Uto-Aztecan forms of language which eventually appeared in the North American Pueblo canyons and even into our north and mid-western Native American dialects.
bd,
If the VMs is seen to contain such information, then the inevitable question is what does it have to tell us. From the perspective of heraldry, it shows that the creator of the White Aries illustration is quite well versed in the topic, and also familiar with specific historical examples where heraldry plays a role. A monastic origin may seem probable though not absolutely necessary. Direct family ties could be a possibility, but historical knowledge alone could easily be sufficient. The recognition of this historical heraldry functions like a ideological gate that opens to a pathway of confirmations and at the same time bars the way of those who cannot see both side of the radial illusion or interpret fish scales in the proper heraldic context.
I not familiar with any book written on tree bark. I basically accept the VMs parchment dates as parchment dates, not as dates of composition. However there is an obvious possibility of multiple generations in the 1400s that are still in the Pre-Columbian era. I don’t support any particular version of VMs provenance.
On the other hand, the use of an optical illusion based on radial orientation and the papelonny pun based on obscure terminology does indicate the the author is not above being deceptive, tricky or rather idiosyncratic . The heraldic images and the two associated characters may simply function as gatekeepers. As clearly as the author has drawn it in White Aries, the blue-striped pattern of the outer figure shares a common side with another quadrangle of a different pattern directly beneath it. With a second rectangular marker just out of reach, these are Stolfi’s “start here” markers for transcription of the circular bands of text. Various types of markers exist in the circular diagrams of the VMs. If the author’s intention was to hide certain segments of written text, yet have them marked and accessible to subsequent readers, then this seems like a potentially plausible way to do it.
While these markers can function on their own, the argument that they are coincidental could only be countered with a working translation of the text. The complex construction of heraldic confirmation is a separate entity physically connected in the text by the author to the next area of investigation in the VMs, the marked bands of text.
@Ootb: Markers and ‘quadrants’. Elsewhere and in B-408, one can encounter a symbol which most viewer-readers have been considering or guessing might represent a T/O marker. So, what if we are seeing/reading the author’s directions to his next item of discussion?
Still 1-dr-ng ! 🙂
When I refer to B-408, I am discussing the material upon which a ‘rough draft’ was being written. When I refer to Latin American dialogues which have been written on tree-bark paper (amatl), the most voluble vocabulary visible is Sahagun’s enormous manuscript/encyclopedia.
So, it is no surprise that his family history, his European origins, his travels to South America, his South American field notes and experiences with the Native South Americans, would first appear on parchment/vellum which was made before his birth.
On other of Nick’s discussions, I mention Busbecq’s signing off (and mention of Ankara) on the last page of B-408 before his return to Europe. Busbecq returned to Europe shortly before the outbreak of the Thirty-years War, which eventually expanded and extended to the Hundred Years War. The rest of the story can probably be found in the archives of the Gregorian University (Papal) archive.
Oh dear me! A novel I am currently reading (by Kevin Gilfoyle) mentions the fact that Pythagorus never wrote one word of his theory. Another interesting discussion (pages 95-96) in Mr. Gilfoyle’s book is the formation of Yale’s debating (and secret) societies; and Crotonia in particular. Before writing this little item, I read Mr. Gilfoyle’s Acknowledgements (and reference material):
Kitty Ferguson: ‘The music of Phythagoras (long subtitle)
John Strohmeyer/Peter Westbrook: ‘Divine Harmony’
Jocelyn Godwin: ‘Harmony of the Spheres’
Finally, but not least, a translation of a fragment from “Life of Pythagoras” (author Nichomachus of Gerasa) translated by Felix Jacoby.
Nick, since I’ve joined your discussion pages much more recently than many of your long-time friends, I hope you will forgive me for the many references/posts I have made over this past year. My vision is still failing, and most ‘large print’ editions focus on what we call ‘bust-rippers’ here in the US. So, when I come across a novel such as Mr Kevin Gilfoile has written, “The Thousand”, my heart goes pitty-patter; even if I have to strain with a hand-held magnifying glass one word at a time. Many years ago I was timed at reading 750 words per minute. I’m limping along at about 600 wpm, with magnifying glass in hand.
Hope y’all can enjoy a ‘novel’ perspective on Pythagorean history.
There are all kinds of odd bits to be found in the VMs. The problem is one of interpretation and whether the basis of that interpretation is subjective or objective. And also whether the interpretation stands or falls on its own, or whether there is additional, supporting evidence. If some marker is what you suspect, then what in the VMs further supports that interpretation.
In my investigation of VMs heraldry, the armorial heraldry stands at the beginning, but not on its own. Ecclesiastical heraldry uniquely defines the historical narrative. And this historical interpretation is supported by additional elements, including the papelonny pun. Can there be any serious contention that the whole of this construction exists in this disguised representation for a purpose? The VMs pope’s keys are the keys to further investigation into (rather than about) the VMs.
Besides the two obvious keys in White Aries, a third Zodiac key is in the middle band of VMs Cancer at about 9 o’clock. The keys naturally function as textual markers and easily designate a hidden, written text. Of course two months (and potentially four pages) of the VMs Zodiac are missing and this is potentially problematic. Markers of other types appear in other locations, their relevance is not known. No linguistic investigation is currently taking place here, but VMs heraldry tells me that this is the way to go further into the VMs. The story of the VMs investigation opens with the Genoese Gambit.
Dear Anton,
Thanks for your answer to my question why would anyonde encrypt a book, while its contents are available in normal script and language. Let me say this.
My theory is, that someone at the University of Bologna (1560-1570) gathered left papers from different sources (libellae) about different subjects to prevent them of getting lost. It has been someone, who was not able to read and understand the voynichese text. I suppose that the person in question has been Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576), medical doctor, physician, astrologer, mathematician, cryptographer and inventor. He comes from Pavia and was medical doctor in Miland. Probbaly he was as an inventor fascinated by the contents e.g. the tubes. He was arrested for heresy in 1570. The supposed encrypted voynichese papers may have played a role in the accusations. I think that this has been the moment, the voynichese papers came into the hands of the jesuits and travelled later from Rome to Prague untill they were returned by the Prague University. In my opinion the voynichese texts have been written 1250-1350, but have not been published because the scientific comunity adopted the humanistic script, so that voynichese became obsolete. Certainly, it is a theory, but it fits in time and perspective.
Greetings, Menno
I seem to have heard most items in Menno’s theory expressed in another place by another scholar – though in that case as a series of conclusions drawn from evidence and comparative examples so that the matter deduced was somewhat more transparent, and the sources identifiable – but of course memory does tend to become less reliable with age, so perhaps I mistake myself. Certainly I do not recall any mention, in that earlier case, of Cardan as compiler.
Hi Diane,
I think we discussed Cardano earlier, shortly after I joined this forum (some two years ago). Maybe you remember, that I suggested in the same context the Voynich castle in Bologna, the lower part of it still exists, the upper part demolished by e.g. an earthquake. I mean the Palazzo Re Enso right in the city center, which served as a University building.
Menno
Hallo Diane! As always, I heave a sigh of relief when you appear on Nick’s pages. Yes, I’ve followed your discussions in re Cardan Grille, T/O maps, merlins/merlons (swallowtail or other styles), and Round n’ Round we go (you, Ellie, and me). Your research is meticulous. Maybe this time around, the guys will take another look at some of our contributions to Nick’s discussions.
So far (apparently) Paula Zyatz (sp?) doesn’t seem to have much to contribute to Nick’s blog. Maybe the upcoming display of B-408 will include some conclusions made by the presenters?
🙂
“Timm pair like sequences…..” Nick, maybe your “Brackets” discussion page might be holding some clues to how whole phrases can be made by ‘stretching’ the ll glyph and reinserting it along several sections of a long dialog. The other ‘symbol’ you and many Voynichers have commented on (I will not call it a ‘gallows’) can also be stretched, but not reinserted but rather curved/recurved back and beyond its upright section. Another aspect of that elaborate “P” is that it can extend over a set of several characters before recurving back to and beyond its upright stem. Perhaps a word as ‘peculiar’ as that peculiar glyph can be better illustrated by you, Nick?
🙂
Perpendicularly peculiar?
bd-eyed-won-der
Much of the liminality problem is tied to the failure to find a linguistic solution that is able to interpret the VMs written text. Attempts at decryption are like trying to crack an egg. Failure simply means we need to hit it harder with more sophisticated efforts.
The VMs opens with a language that has not been recognized: the pictorial language of heraldry. Papelonny is proof absolute – proof of the language being used; proof of language unrecognized. There is a guide to parts of a hidden text scattered on various VMs pages. No amount of hitting it harder is ever going to overcome this simple deceptive ploy.
It’s time to move the boundary markers.
Dear Out*of*the*Blue
Confucius said – he really did – that the way out is through the door, and wondered aloud why no-one uses this method.
Much to the point. Forget all the speculations and see what objective evidence exists
(a) date of the object – note the samples taken all come from the upper third of the ms… very, very poor sampling method and not scientific sampling by any stretch of the imagination.
(b) place of parchment’s manufacture. (This simple issue has been much obfuscated by the habitual arse-before-face Voynichero custom of arguing from desired conclusion to primary evidence).
(c) comparable evidence for use of unusual pigments. (I tracked the nearest certain use of similar copper compounds on parchment and on canvas… and guess what. Not Germany or Italy.
(d) resolution of whether the hand is a late imitation of Carolingian / Ottonian-period scripts, or whether an original ‘Humanist’ hand. (The question has not been seriously – by which I mean objectively – considered by any suitably qualified person since the 1930s.)
The question to which these things are relevant is whether the fourteenth century ms is an effort to copy matter gained much earlier.
My own catalogue entry for an auction-house would read:
Fourteenth century ms, probably composed from one or more older texts during the time of Jewish migrations across the known world.
The text has proven impenetrable to date, but the information offered by the parallel pictorial text suggests the whole compilation concerns the routes to the Indies and eastern Asia, their natural produce and, perhaps, some secondary processes of manufacture. One experienced iconographical analyst (yrs truly) is of the opinion that the original compilation was based initially on works composed during the Hellenistic era, only the botanical imagery suggesting additions made over the generations.
Very likely the possession of a single family or trading group until close to the time it was acquired by the chemist and physician who at some time after his ennoblement thought it wise to inscribe his name and conferred title on it.
Cheers
PS Bdid1dr
You are kind!
Diane: I have come to realise that you are infinitely wiser then I am, and that there is nothing except perhaps cricket trivia on which I am competent to comment. Not even beer. So I will wish you the best of luck in finding an appropriate natural language or script to accompany the VMS as you interpret it, but I’m going to leave you, BD and the rest of the crew to get on with it.
Dianne,
Thanks for your reply. I could only add that the heraldic events illustrated are so much earlier than the parchment dates, that the references to historical persons might well be part of a standard curriculum in some monastery somewhere. And rather than being a part of the superficially visual content of the VMs, these obfuscated heraldic depictions belong to something that is more subtle and discreet on the author’s part. And that assessment is based on the presence of the paired Fieschi armorial insignia hidden on White Aries through their inclusion in a radially oriented diagram, along with other intentional and unintended factors. That has all been explained. The papelonny placement pun is a clear demonstration of the author’s intentional creation. Without the proper heraldic terminology, it is impossible to discover the pun.
Hubert,
please don’t. Your comments are so invariably sober and interesting that on the now-rare occasions I happen by, it your name in the side-bar most likely to tempt me to comment.
My research was never meant to continue much beyond the assigned three years – and in face ended about a year ago.
It was never, at any time, meant to address matters of the written part of the manuscript, including whether it was or wasn’t in cipher, or what language might theoretically inform such a cipher.
I view the written part of the work as uninterpretable. Fortunately my areas of interest are far more amenable to scrutiny, viz. parchment (and comparative study of same), binding (what could be seen of it), pigments, and of course that greater proportion of the manuscript’s text which is rendered in imagery. Lineage for this part of the text may prove – I hope it does – an important means to putting the hunt for ‘Voynichese’ within appropriate cultural context and historical lineage.
But it seems the ‘cipher’ question is immensely engrossing for those who consider words as the definition of a book – and since these are the majority among Voynicheros, my dear Hubert, I say with perfect seriousness that if you think it a case of “Diane or Hubert” then I shall vote for the majority’s interest.
Cheers.
Diane, please don’t lose heart with your investigations! Could you (would you?) try to find provenance and family history of Friar Sahagun, besides his very brief discussion of his origins (the town of Sahagun in Spain?). His writings (on PAPER) have been discussed by at least six European Universities — all of which use the same reference to the “original” (parchment) manuscript as being “no longer extant”.
I’m getting more infuriated with the ‘limited’ ‘liminality’ which is being attributed to the so-called “Voynich” manuscript. So, could someone ‘out there’ match the contents of “Voynich/B-408, with the Florentine Codex (both parchment & amatl), with the Badianus, Martin de la Cruz, the libellum Barberini, Diego Cortavilla y Sanabria, Cassiano del Pozzo, Francisco del Stelluti,Charles Upton Clark, Marie Therese Vill. and Lynn Thorndike’s catalogue of the Barberini collection. All of these authors/researchers refer to the paper manuscripts as being copies of the contents of the original parchment/vellum manuscript being “no longer extant”.
So, count the number of possible mis-interpretations of a document which script was unknown to them because the monk who wrote on the parchment/vellum had created alphabet syllables unique to the native South Americans, in order to enable them to write their own histories next to the illustrations.
So, whether the lanquage was Nahuatl (pronounced na ua tl) or Peruviana, or Quatemalan, the “h” was silent. Characters which would use syllables with the sound of R (trill would be spelled ‘tl’). “H” is silent. Hence the word/name “Huari” eventually became “Wari”.
So, today I finish B-408, f-2r (tl-a-x-i-cum officinale) (tl-geus-aes-an-ec-am). Latin: toothed, dentat-us-a-um, teeth: tlantli,
Animals with dent-d’lion (French) “lion’s teeth” are ocelot/tecuani, or puma (miztli).
Yellow flowers, which leaves look like lion’s teeth, bear the common name of dandelion.
Nick, on other pages of your discussions, I’ve mentioned that the endless strings of cae ecaes ecas which appear in every folio of B-408 is probably the monk’s attempt to familiarize the native South Americans with European methods of bi-tri-quadri-nomenclature, depending on the object being portrayed, or the discussion being translated.
🙂
Correction/addendum to my last comment: Several days ago I answered Menno’s query in re one of the peculiar circular diagrams. He had in mind a particular folio. I chose. instead, the very first circular folio which appeared on Boenicke’s search page of B-408. I translated that folio and answered Menno’s query (and provided the information that that very first circular ‘diagram’ was discussing the suitablility of a proposed marriage agreement between two families.
So, not much of the discussion on that diagram added to or validated my many translations of the botanical items. It did, however, validate my syllabification of just about any folio in B-408.
I am now going to work on some of the other non-botanical items in B-408. Quite a while ago, I roughly identified the folio I named the “Nine Rosettes” (folio 86v). I don’t recall seeing any discussion in B-408 which accompanied that illustration. So, can some one of you give me a folio # which discusses the content of the “Nine Rosettes” foldout folio 86v ?
beady-eyed as ever
🙂
Bd –
After spending more than the time first assigned for contextualising this manuscript’s imagery, I moved on to work delayed.
I am satisfied that the imagery does not support any idea of a wholly Latin-educated Christian European authorship, nor that it is likely to have been acquired by Rudolf II, and that its imagery derives from works of antiquity, not the imagination of a medieval Christian.
If I regret anything, it is being unable to say more about the pigments, parchment and binding. However, one cannot work from silence and given the extent to which the object’s material components have been studied, I do not see that much more could be said.
I cannot say why ms Beinecke 408 is treated less seriously (in this regard) than most other fifteenth-century works, but that is the fact of it. In 2014, the situation remains much as it was when Nick Pelling started this blog: we sorely need a comprehensive description of the manuscript qua manuscript: of its parchment(s), pigments and binding(s).
Hi Nick,
I’m bewildered, (or confused, or something) by the claims of a chap whose name is given as Sukhwant Singh to have worked out the system informing the written text.
I think it’s fairly obvious that he thoroughly mined a fair number of posts on my old blog ‘Findings’ – but then that’s what I wrote it for. I wanted to offer linguists and cipher-persons a context within which to work.
Mr. Singh says that the script is essentially a combination of two: one providing the ‘consonants’ – as it were – and the other being used for the ‘vowels’ or equivalent.
This is, of course, the sort of ‘cipher’ which would immediately present itself to any person who had learned classical Hebrew, because words which one does not wish to speak aloud are habitually altered in that way, or by reversing a couple of consonants and/or changing their associated vowels.
It’s all very uncomfortable. I hardly know whether to feel delighted, or obscurely mocked, or to shrug it away as co-incidence. Would you very kindly write a review of his assertions, and let us know if they’re moonshine?
Diane: You’ve just about said it all ! Shrugs aside, are we going to see any of your gentle remarks/reviews of the latest overcooked ‘Bacon’, overquoted “Shakespeare’, underdone, downright raw D’Imperio…….? I sure would like to see some indication of interest or follow-up of my translations of what I’m positive that manuscript B-408 (Boenicke’s number) was part of Bernardino Sahagun’s diary. The diary was begun before Sahagun entered the Franciscan monastery. Upon his arrival (and over some thirty years of ministry) Sahagun made written observations of just about everything in his part of the “New World”.
It breaks my heart to see his works ignored or un-comprehended by modern-day historians, ministers, codiologists, professors of history, linguists, artists, libarians, et al/ et cetera.
I refer you all to Charles C. Mann’s fabulous book:
‘1491 – New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus”;
pages 128,129-30, 145
I haven’t begun yet on Mann’s sequel ‘1493’ except to scan the index. Interesting!
beady
bdid1dr
Surely it is brevity that is the soul of whatsit? To have said it all would be dreary by definition, wouldn’t it?
About your diarist – alas, until I see all your translation published somewhere, then read the reviews, I’ve no opinion except that the parchment is dated to no later than 1438.
Cheers
@Nick: Where did you see gaps in my argumentation?
@Anton:
The paper of Montemurro & Zanette did not mention the fact that the herbal section did contain pages in Currier A and pages in Currier B. With other words, there
is at least one exception for there statement that the “subject” of the text varies along the “thematic” sections of the MS.
Moreover the text generation method described in my paper explains why the “subject” of the text varies during writing.
As far as I know, even after 100 years there is still a discussion about the meaning of the drawings. See for instance the point 7. “plant identifications” in Nicks post “Stephen Bax and the Voynich Manuscript…”
I hope SirHubert is still about, because among any others I’d really like to hear what he thinks of the abbreviations idea that a number of people like Don Hoffman and I think underlies ‘Voynichese’.
I’ll have to use layman’s terms because I have no training in cryptography and what I did in linguistics was done nearly fifty years ago.
So – in August SirHubert said,
‘How on earth can strings like “qokeedy qokeedy qokeedy qotey qokeey qokeey” be resolved into anything linguistically meaningful?’
I’m sure others have cited the “Half a league, half a league, / Half a league onward” so I won’t expand on that part.
The ease with which the text conforms to almost any abbreviated technical style has intrigued me for a while, and recently I’ve wondered whether important markers set *within* words of a basic technical vocabulary mightn’t explain some aspects of Voynichese. I was led to think about it not only by remembering Don Hoffmann’s work, but some description of innately poetic modes in native Arabic and a comment that ancient pharmaceutical recipes were made into verse to prevent errors being made in materials or quantities.
So – what if instead of the ‘half a league, half a league..’ there was written L[eague]1/2on[war]ds, L1/2 onw[ar]ds,L1/2w[estwar]ds. The result would be L*onds, L*onds, L*wds.
My reason for thinking about wayfinding and directions will be pretty obvious to most, I should think.
I guess that the real problem is less that the idea is nonsensical as that any abbreviated language is problematic, and it remains untranslatable until you know the language in which the text was written, so you enter a kind of endless loop until -unless – you find another using the same conventions.
Consistency of explanation, I’d think, is not taken by cryptographers as ‘proof enough’? Come to think of it that was the stumbling block for Don Hoffmann’s explanation, wasn’t it? But would it be useful to consider that those single letters which modify and expand basic forms such as q.k.e.d.y might signify some independently meaningful unit?
.. or am I positing a moon unit? 🙂
Timm and Hermes are picking up the patterning of a joik/chant/charm song (play with the prefix roots and depth symmetry) and calling it gibberish created by an Autokopisten. To the contrary, the Voynich manuscript appears to contain some sort of chanting in the tradition of the joik and the charm rune. Certain characteristics point strongly to this conclusion:
1 – The text appears to be largely trochaic, which is the meter of choice for such purposes.
2 – Like joiks and chant songs, the Voynich text is alliterative and repetitious, playing with sound. Finno-Ugric languages appear to form words by taking a root prefix and varying it at the end. This can be seen also in Estonian and perhaps other Baltic languages.
3 – Several pages depict nothing but women involved in some sort of ritual, dancing and shaking torcs and possibly beating the water, so the potential for chant songs to be included is very high.
Key is possibly fourteen, aligned between the open and the closed.
Nick
I can’t speak about the script and language, but from this point in time, I’d suggest that it isn’t the manuscript which needs to be dragged into the light, but the brains of those who have become so fanatically attached to a theory that they just “ignore” any possible source of information which mightn’t add to their fantasy/theory/proposition.
I know you believe that historians can form, and un-form, and modify hypotheses as constantly useful tools. The history of Voynich research shows that the way theory-making proceeds for most Voynicheros is straight from fantasy, to proposition, to argument, to the extreme of monomania.
As a ‘German’ theorist to explain the map – they can’t. It’s obviously not a German artefact. The response is not to the evidence or argument establishing the map, and explaining its details, historical references etc. but a bit of sky gazing and then… uhh… what if it isn’t a map, but a German sort of diagram?
Point to the bearded sun, or the vessels in the “leaf and root’ section, or any one of a hundred folios’ illustrations and say “explain that” to a theorist… and they can’t. So the response it “nnn.. well on another page there’s a crossbow…”
Theory-madness is the problem Nick.
IMO