Before I begin: I just stumbled upon a bot-generated webpage that claimed to be “A discussion of the geography, accuracy and geometric salesman relating to the 14C farrago of the Voynich“. Who’d have thought random text could be so splendidly insightful?
Irena Hanzíková
Anyway… might Irena Hanzíková be our Voynich theorist of the day? A recent piece in Novinky.cz (the highest-traffic Czech news-site, and the online face of Czech newspaper Právo) has a nice picture of her:
The Voynich Manuscript is, she says, nothing less than “o knihu života” (the book of life), and that “Obsah bude pro všechny překvapením” (the content will surprise us all).
But the article does (thankfully) give us a short snippet of her transcription / decryption of folio 49 (it doesn’t say recto or verso) to keep us going while she gets the rest countersigned by a notary: apparently it says “Vedle cti doutná zlomyslnost, prospěch má sestru zradu, cílem je poznat svět, přesto svítit do tmy” (and, in case you hadn’t guessed, it is written in Old Czech).
Giuseppe Bianchi
Of course, Hanzíková has plenty of competition: such as Giuseppe Bianchi, a surveyor from Arquata Scrivia in North-West Italy, whose April 2016 article in La Stampa describes his wondrous Voynich microwriting theory.
He believes the key to understanding the Voynich lies in f1r (the first page) and f116v (the last page), because the whole manuscript is sort of an experiment in “proto-typography” – forming letters with (terrifically tiny) stencils, where each stencil is equivalent to a particular code. Here’s how the second word of the (in)famous “michiton oladabas” breaks down into stencil presses, which is (I have to say) a lot like an odd cross between William Romaine Newbold’s supposed microwriting and the Phaistos Disk’s shape-stamping:
There’s plenty more on YouTube, if microstamping Voynich theories are your bag.
Glen Russum
Enthusiastic smoker Glen Russum has his own Voynich theory to fill his YouTube video with (for example)
I want for Yous to do most of the paying Sam Can Not
be doing it without Help o what I am saying to Help
I think I am wanting all 8 to Pay His and Hers, and
she also. Not I, Sam They I’m Not going to Pay-
not so- not for all 8 of Us! Have Mercy! Please woMen
Do not be so cruelly cruel. …. (do) Care
The first YouTube commenter calls this “Just ridiculous“: but having seen plenty of genuinely ridiculous Voynich theories, I’d be hard-pressed to say whether this has even managed to attain ridiculousness yet. I guess you’ll have to make up your own mind.
Volder Z
“Volder Z”, by way of comparison, is trying to carve out the perilously narrow linguistic furrow most famously ploughed by Stephen Bax’s ard. Volder takes some bits out of Bax’s box while discarding others; rules out most European languages; then moves to his own brand of “modified Syriac” (i.e. start with Syriac but twiddle with ~50% of each indiviudal letter, even though Syriac was written right-to-left *sigh*); and tries to logically deduce the gallows pronunciation in terms of aspirative plosives.
Of course, there are the inevitable problems (he thinks that EVA “i”, “v” and “q” don’t have sounds), and Volder has an entire second video (which I lost the will to watch after only a few minutes, but perhaps you will fare better). But the short version [spoiler alert] is that he thinks it is a super-early Romany language.
There’s a kind of relentless Mormon logic to Volder’s entire linguistic edifice that Bax utterly shares: that just because you can apply a certain frame of reference to a thing, not only should you do it, but that doing so guarantees you a good result.
And the rest…
I could go on (e.g. Karin Marie Olt, who was shown the solution by twins “Lisa and Leonardo” in her dream, now has a Facebook page and has published her own book, etc), but that’s not really the point.
For me, the single biggest reason why I haven’t covered these kinds of Voynich theories here for such a long time is that they – and even stuff like the bot text I started this page with – all merge into a single thing for me.
The way I see the Voynich Manuscript – as a series of micro-stories, all told by the manuscript’s internal evidence, but not as yet gelling into a complete macro-story – is so diametrically opposite to these Voynich theorists that it’s hard to bridge the gap between them. Asking which is the Voynich theorist of the day, week, month, year or decade would be missing the point: I don’t really want any of them, sorry. 🙁
Nick
omg – Iphigenia in Taurus!
Hello Nick,
two years ago you wrote that you will discuss my paper in detail some day (see http://ciphermysteries.com/2014/08/15/voynichs-infuriating-liminality). May I ask when this day will come?
Regards,
Torsten
Torsten: I’m sorry to have to say this, but the inability to want to explore the vast middle ground between what you observe and what you interpret from those observations that you seem to project so strongly is something that has put me off doing so. I’ll try to overcome that before too long.
This Glen Russum who thinks the manuscript is about some guy named Sam – he actually got so excited talking about his solution that he forgot to smoke his sigarette which slowly burned up throughout the video.
Probably the first time Voynich research is good for someone’s health…
Not even ridiculous? Ahh, Nick, you are a hard man indeed.
In other news, the VM was featured in yesterday’s JStor Daily e-mail (motivated by the upcoming $8000 edition of the VM), along with a (more thoughtful) piece on issues raised by “Arrival,” an alien-first-contact film (to be released in November) in which the main character is … a linguist. The trailer isn’t bad, actually, as these things go.
VM: http://daily.jstor.org/the-voynich-manuscript-crowd-sourcing-an-uncrackable-cipher/
Film: http://daily.jstor.org/is-writing-a-technology-or-a-language-lets-ask-some-aliens/
Jim: faced by the grotesquely wide range of stuff that lands here, I’m short of genuinely applicable words. For instance, is there a word like ‘meh’ but which actually means [slowly shakes head in a tired and defeated way]?
@ Nick: OMG, you must nearly at the end of your rope ! ! Cheer up! Here’s a song which might improve your mood: “The Red Red Robin” …..
Maybe you may be able to find someway to put the “Scrabble” board game online? Do I remember correctly that you used to stop by ‘Gran’s” house. Would the word ‘someway’ be legit” ?
bd (who has an occasional silly ‘flipside’ to her comments)
bdid1dr: SOMEWAY is indeed a valid Scrabble word (if a bit informal for my British tastes), but the Scrabble word of the year is surely BRACONID, that recently helped net the new Scrabble world champion 176 points (plus an extra 5 points because his opponent unsuccessfully challenged it).
A word for ‘a tired and defeated way’ : “Oh _ hit — didit again !
Legit ?
in re ‘michiton oladabas’ : Was Busbecq’s sign-off before boarding a ship (near Ankara). He had also (in “Busbecq’s Letters/correspondence) referred to “Monumentum Augustus” .
bd
Mr. Nickpelling, I am very sad that the solution was not found by yourself, but four stencils are the solution, Newbold was on the right track. I only need 1200 DPI enlargements to decipher voynich text. Otherwise voynich will be a mistery for another century. I don’t ask too much! only one page enlargement! for more details please watch my videos. best regards
giuseppe bianchi
Giuseppe: others now have the links to your videos, let them be the judges (not me).
I like the theory of old Czech. I hope we will soon see the alphabet used and the translation.
@ Nick: Ms Hanzikova does not identify, even if she did consult botanical dictionaries or other sources, the botanical item she is holding up to the photographer.
I’m hoping you might refer her to the ” Turban Ranunculus”
My reference is page 1761 (in Volume 10 of the “New Illustrated Encyclopedia of Gardening (unabridged)” edited by T. H. Everett.
I’m fairly certain that one of Britain’s libraries has the full set of fourteen volumes.
bd
ps: the other botanical item which Ms Hanzikova exhibits is the water LILY, not the water lotus. So, does she provide her translation into Nahuatl/ Latin terminology which appears with every “Voynich botanical specimen?
ll i ll eus
ll o tl eus
bd
ps: Ms Hanzikova may also benefit from some information from Professor Zladovich (who allows me to call him ProfZ.
😉
Or “allowed” me to call him ProfZ — he may have passed away some months past.
bd
Ooh, I’m way off base with the other page Ms Hanzikova was showing: NOT a lily at all. I adjusted my eyeglasses and got a real good look at the “other page”: It is further discussion and other views of the same specimen. The ranunculus species are multi-fold throughout many countries. The ‘turban’ ranunculus is particularly beautiful.
bd
Facepalm?
Ken: facepalm is close, but what I was describing was more like [places elbows on desk, rests head wearily on both hands, exhales wearily, shakes head slowly], which mysteriously doesn’t seem to have a name.
Weltschmerz?
Koen: weltschmerz is also close, but is more about disappointment with the world than with some idiot theorist who believes they are holding the Holy Grail rather than a paper cup with a hole in the base.
We’ll have to coin a new term. Theorieschmerz.
Koen: theoretikerschmerz might be closer…
But Nick (and Koen): Would it pass the Scrabble test? Another thing which irks me is that she apparently doesn’t translate her discovery into classic botanical language which is Latin.
Maybe “my nose is out of joint” — another word for ‘jealousy’ ?
🙂
Yes! This word will make online Voynich discussions so much more efficient.
‘I could not watch more than one minute of that YouTube video. It gave me Theoritikerschmerz.’
Koen: there must be a way of programming the word into the F1 key, surely?
@Nick: F1 key. Took me about 10 minutes to locate the danged key ! I don’t need no F-1 key, Not if it takes 10 minutes to find it !!!!
I imagine other people have another name for that key !
Still on board (key board, that is).
bd
I’ve always wondered if ‘gobbledygook’ (however it has been spelled) is a legitimate Scrabble word.
?
bdid1dr: it’s a real word, although the player who put down the seven letter word ‘GOBBLED’ may have scored higher than the one who added ‘YGOOK’. 🙂
bdid1dr: ‘BLEDY’ is, of course, a word only in South African dictionaries. 🙂
Well, I’ll let you have the ‘last word” !
bd
Fini ?
@Giuseppe BIANCHI
Have you thought of the non-English speakers?
I do not speak English and I prefer a text that I can translate by Google, in addition it’s not sure that I can find 30 minutes to watch a video.
Do you have a blog, please?
I agree that the word “Sam” appears a lot in the Voynich Manuscript. It, however, is not a name. If you use current thought the word is “Tum” and not “Sam.” The word TUM is a Latin word that means “then.” My work on the first page indicates that the word “then” fits syntactically with other words I can decipher.