Every couple of years, I wake up in the middle of the night with an all-new version of The Big Idea – you know, the one that’s finally going to unlock the Voynich Manuscript’s secrets. These unstoppable small-hours plans are normally formed from the soup of things slooshing around in my head, but arranged in a pincer movement attacking the problem on two fronts (i.e. with the idea of trapping it in the middle).
As an aside, it would be a bit of a shock to me if the Voynich Manuscript’s contents turn out to be something wildly unexpected, like a 200-page Swahili ant-summoning ritual, or a book about various weird vegetables that magically cure diabetes (as if anyone would randomly send emails about that, ho hum). :-/ Similarly, I would find it a big surprise if the writing / enciphering system were to turn out to be something we hadn’t collectively considered at length and in detail already, though in some cunning combination that we hadn’t quite grasped.
More generally, I would summarize my overall position as being that, without much doubt, there is a high probability that we are much closer than we think to the Voynichian chequered flag. Even though there are many nuttier-than-a-fruitcake researchers out there (no, I’m not referring to you, dear reader, that would be quite absurd), a huge amount of excellent research has been done, a very large part of which will almost certainly be correct.
And so, swimming against the pessimistic epistemological tide that seems to prevail these days, my overall judgement is that we shouldn’t – very probably – need to know much more than we already do in order to crack through the Voynich’s walls: just a little more may well do the trick. In fact, it may even be that a single solid fact might be enough to open the floodgates. 🙂
This Week’s Big Idea
And so it was that I woke up at 2am a few nights ago with (inevitably) a new Big Idea for cracking the Voynich. And given that my last post was about the diffusion of vernacular Cisiojanus mnemonics, I guess few readers here will be surprised that the main part of the idea was that the 30-odd labels per zodiac sign might well be the syllables of a vernacular Cisiojanus.
Why vernacular? Well, even though Latin Cisiojani had been known since the 12th century or so, vernacular Cisiojani were novel and unknown even in the mid-fifteenth century, and so one might well be a good candidate for something someone compiling a book of secrets might well want to conceal / hide / obfuscate / encrypt (delete as appropriate).
At the same time, I don’t believe that Voynichese can be enciphered or obfuscated Latin, because the way Voynichese seems abbreviated / truncated seems incompatible with Latin (where endings contain so much of the meaning). But if we are instead looking at a linguistically diffused Cisiojanus (such as Italian or French), it’s perhaps a different kettle of (cray)fish.
In parallel, the Voynich zodiac section offers us numerous more interesting clues to work with: for instance, the three crowned nymphs, of which the red-crowned nymph on the Leo page is arguably the earliest.
I’ve previously proposed that one or more of these crowns might be flagging a feast day with personal significance to the author. (For example, for a Florentine such as Antonio Averlino, the most important day in the calendar was the Festa di San Giovanni, the Feast of St John the Baptist.) As such, we might also look at the Voynich zodiac page for Cancer, which also has a crowned nymph, but where the crown looks to have been added later:
I previously mused whether this Cancer crown might have been a fake, designed to draw attention away from the real crown in Leo, but in retrospect this was a bit too harsh and reductive, even if the codicology is sound. Rather, these two crowns (and indeed the crowned nymph in Libra) may well have had different types of significance, added in separate codicological layers for separate reasons. Even if the idea of Antonio Averlino’s connection to Firenze is too strong for some of you, the connection between Italian Cisiojani and St John the Baptist may still be worth pursuing, as we’ll see next.
Nicola De Nisco’s Cisiojanus
In the same way that Jesus’ birthday is celebrated near the Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year), St John the Baptist’s birthday is celebrated near the Summer Solstice (the longest day). And so it has been widely suggested that both attributed birthdays offered Christian hooks to hang pagan festivals from (and there seems to be no obvious reason in the Bible why John’s birthday should be celebrated then). Hence in many places in Europe (not just Firenze), the Feast of St John the Baptist was a three- or four-day long affair, arguably more akin to a pagan summer festival.
Hence if we suspect that the labelese text in the Voynich’s zodiac section is some kind of vernacular Cisiojanus, there should be plenty of good reasons why we should look for the Feast of St John the Baptist.
For June (which German calendars typically link with Cancer), De Nisco transcribes one 15th century Italian Cisiojanus as follows:
Nic.mar.cel.qui.bo.ni.dat.me.pri.mi.bar.na.an.ton.
Vi.ti.que.mar.pro.ta.si.san.ctus.io.bap.io.do.le.pe.pau
If we add in De Nisco’s corrections in square brackets, plus additional saints’ names courtesy of that most indispensable of publications, The American Ecclsiastical Review (1901), Vol. 24, plus an 1886 French book which gave me St Dorothy of Prussia), we get:
1. Nic — Nicomedes [original document has “Vic”]
2/3. mar.cel — Marcellus / Marcellinus
4. qui — St Quirino, Bishop of Sisak
5/6. bo.ni — Bonifacius
7. dat — ???
8. me — Medardus
9/10. pri.mi — Primus
11/12. bar.na — Barnabas
13/14. an.ton — Sant’Antonio da Padova
15/16. Vi.ti — Vitus
17. que —
18. mar — Marcus et Marcellianus [original document has “Nar”]
19/20/21. pro.ta.si — Protasius (et Gervasius)
22/23/24/25. san.ctus.io.bap — St John the Baptist
26. io — Johannes (et Paulus)
27. do — (if this isn’t St Dorothy of Montau (Prussia), patron saint of the Teutonic Knights (from 1390) whose actual feast day should be 25th June, who was it? Thanks Helmut Winkler for pointing this out.)
28. le — Leo
29. pe — Petrus et Paulus
30. pau — Commemoratio Pauli
The presence of the much-contested St Dorothy of Prussia (a chronically-self-harming widow from near Gdansk, who was adopted in the 20th century by Catholics for Hitler, if you really want to know) gives us a hint not only to the German origins of this particular Cisiojanus, but also an earliest date (1390). Yet the presence of St Quirino perhaps hints at an itinerary via Hungary (the St Quirino with a 4th June feast died in Szombathely, whereas the St Quirino of Rome had an entirely different feast day): while, as De Nisco points out, the presence of the Feast of Sant’Antonio da Padova points very strongly to a Paduan Ciosiojanus adapter.
More importantly, you can see “san.ctus.io.bap” taking up four consecutive syllables in the Cisiojanus, a fragment of (almost-)plain text peeking through the jumble of syllable fragments that make up the rest. Moreover, the next syllable along is also “io” (for the feast of St John and St Paul), which might also be there for the finding.
All of which could offer an excellent crib for the plaintext lurking somewhere beneath Voynich’s labelese: so might we be able to find some echo of this in the Cancer labelese? Even more remarkably, might we be able to line up this phrase’s syllables with the labelese close to the crowned nymph in Cancer?
(As an aside, I hope you can see that this is the kind of connection that not only wakes Voynich researchers up in the night but also stops them from getting back to sleep.)
The “san.ctus.io.bap” Crib
Firstly, I offer up my own EVA transcription of the Voynich Cancer labels:
Outer ring (from 10:00 clockwise, just around from a gap at the left)
ykalairol
olkylaiin
olalsy
or.aiin.am
os.as.sheeen
otosaiin
opoiinoin.al.ain
ypaiin.aloly
oteey.daiin
oeeodaiin
ofsholdy
opoeey.okaiinCentral ring (from 10:00 clockwise)
olfsheoral
or.alkam
ytairal
oeeesaiin
ory
ochey.fydy
ofais.oeeesaly
ykairaiin.airal
okalar
orary
olaiin.olackhyInner ring (from 09:00 clockwise)
oletal
opalal
yfary
osaiisal
ytoar.shar
actho
aral
And then I offer up my thoughts: much as this whole idea got between me and my comfortable bed, I just can’t construct a sensible mapping (even with verbose cipher) between these labels and any of the Cisiojani I’ve seen, whether Latin, Italian, French or whatever.
But then again, I can’t sensibly map these labels to just about anything, language-wise: there’s no structure, or grammar, or variational consistency that offers a way of systematically parsing these labels into a system, let alone reading them. Even the characteristically labelese-like “oletal” / “opalal” / “okalar” / “olalsy” words (I’d perhaps also include “osaiisal”, “otosaiin”, “oeeesaiin” and “ytairal” in this group, and maybe even “ykalairol” and “olkylaiin” too) are only a minority of the thirty labels.
All of which isn’t to imply (as Richard SantaColoma is wont to say) that ‘this can only be a hoax’ (*sigh*), but rather that I think we’re missing something really big here, a rational connecting principle that would give these kind of labels a mutual structure and explanatory context that our theoretical crossbow bolts are flying a mile both over and past. For example, what is the way that we see “es” (411) much more than “er” (28), or “ir” (724) much more than “is” (62) really telling us? Why is almost every single instance of “ssh” not only at the start of a word, but also either at the start of a line or immediately to the right of an illustration in the text?
I’m terribly sorry to tell you this Nick but you cannot apply a 1901 liturgical calendar to the situation in early 15thC northern Italy. It is true that some important feast days probably remained where they were, but one has to know which ones, and which local saints were included for a given area, and also what figures replaced older ones with the canonisation of new saints – not all of whom were given a formal day, either.
Plus, you have to adjust for the ‘lost days’ when the calendar was adjusted, not to mention needing to know exactly which town or diocese you’re talking about.
Comparative calendars are a headache, and liturgical calendars even more so as I discovered when trying to work through this in about 2011. I even asked Dana Scott’s help at one stage before giving it up. Just a line of investigation and not worth the time needed, especially when we have no idea of where the material was first composed.
I’d also thought of looking into Bede’s works on time and ‘De natura rerum’ and ‘De Temporibus’ but apart from noting that he knew the old Roman calendar had only ten months (beginning with March and omitting Numa’s January and February) etc. I went no further. In 2011, I still had to include posts explaining that there had been regular contact between Latin Europe and Egypt for much of the medieval period.
Still, I agree that we progress; I shouldn’t have to do that these days and perhaps with so much material from the Vatican library online, you’ll be able to get a genuine Italian breviary or something for just the right period. Good luck.
According to the Gospel of Luke, John the Baptist is exactly six months older than Jesus and Dorothea of Montau‘s memorial day is 25 June.
The real problem in your argument is that in a cisiojanus the language cannot be determined, it is actually always ‚Latin‘ and you can only determine the origin from the local holy festivals which are mentioned, there is no ‚vernacular‘ Cisiojanus, from the initial syllables which make up a c. one cannot deduce a language
A pretty neat mini disertatation Nick, but it’s going to get you into trouble with the VM purists me thinks. Your Cancer pincer movement seems to be flawed by an unforseen calender conversion error, to which your protagonistic nemisis Lady Di Di correctly claims prior notice of in 2011. I’m not suggesting that you dice the weaker left claw, just prepare for the inevitable Aussie yabbie trap counter pincer ploy and try to get over Tony Averlino once and for all; He sadly seems to have all the attributes of dud truck..Speaking of Rich Santa Coloma, I can’t seem to reach him and we must all sincerely trust that he hasn’t fallen on his sword, like some of the others who have gone to Gowings.
Helmut Winkler: in fact, there were both (traditional Latin) syllabic Cisiojani (typically adapted for local areas such as the Italian one referred to by De Nisco) and non-traditional word-based Cisiojanus-style mnemonic verses, such as the French one circa 1500 discussed by Erik Drigsdahl, e.g. for June:
So I should have been clearer about this in the post, thanks for the correction.
And yes, you are right that Dorothy of Montau’s memorial day is 25th June (she died on 25th June 1394), so I shall have to work out afresh who “do” (on the 27th June) refers to, thanks for that too.
Nick, while it’s an interesting idea to pursue, the problem I have with this idea is: why on God’s green Earth would someone feel they needed to encrypt that content? Now, if it was a heretical liturgical calendar…
Karl: oddly enough, my understanding is that Cisiojani didn’t spread widely outside of Germany/Prussia/Poland until the end of the 15th century, so could very well have been some kind of novelty in the general timeframe we have for the Voynich Manuscript. For what it’s worth, my preference would be to leave “enciphered heresy” to novelists and conspiracy theorists, God bless ’em all.
Apparently “do” refers to the feast of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (Septem Dormientium Martyrum):
http://www.digitalniknihovna.cz/mzk/view/uuid:0e1ee810-9be6-11e8-9b22-5ef3fc9ae867?page=uuid:61a5fe20-9c08-11e8-830e-005056825209
Possibly June 27 could be St. Deodatus, Bishop of Nola, Italy, whose feast day is June 27 and whose relics are in Benevento.
John,
re ” Aussie yabbie trap counter pincer ploy”. For one researcher to use what (little) they know to help another avoid previously discovered pitfalls is hardly a ‘ploy’ and while I differ from Nick in my opinions, there is – or should be – nothing personal implied. As you know, I refer regularly to Nick’s posts and constantly commend his ethical approach to using or citing research done by others. Any perception of hostility on my part is an illusion – which I can only wish had not be conjured up.
I think it can very well be a hoax, but not a modern one of course.
In many respects, the book looks ‘just like the real thing’, but cannot be quite pinpointed.
I tend to agree that we are not really that far away from the final ‘click’ that puts everything in place.
It’s too structured. All labels start with ‘o’, ‘a’ or ‘y’. There is also the repeated presence of ‘aiin’. It would be an unimaginative code-breaker who couldn’t conceive some patterns behind it. Maybe the solution is to simple to be accepted.
I wonder how I can incorporate the visible differences into this theory.
We see men and women, most of whom are female.
We see them in clothes and naked.
They also stand in pots or baskets.
What kind of saints is that?
I also have trouble with the name day.
Why do months have more saints and others less? What about the missing months? Why April and May twice ?
Sure I see the forceps technique, but this rather with a forceps birth……..sorry.
I think it is very hard to say if we are close to a solution or not. I am prepared to believe a solution could emerge over the next year. I am also prepared to believe that it could be 40 years before a solution emerges.
I think it is a question of optimism versus pessimism. I guess I like others fall on the optimism side, but that is probably more a question of temperament than facts; if it will be 40 years before a solution appears I will probably give up now.
I think if someones stumbles upon one of Nick’s block paradigms or generates an equivalent crib then the solution could appear any moment. However it is also the case that such a block-paradigm or crib could prove very elusive indeed, which I think is a function of the degree of originality and creativity of the author. I doubt there are so many block-paradigms and it is conceivable that there may not be any. I am now pretty convinced that the 9 rosette foldout has and had no direct parallel documents, so that while I believe there is a very small block-paradigm in the top right corner I think that is as much as one will really find on this page.
Overall, I think things will change probably due to the finding of a specific document or documents. To large extent we are dependent on what is lurking in the archives, which of course we do not know.
As an example if my identification of authorship is correct I could be very close to finding a document which will enable me to unlock the cipher. However even if it is correct it could prove very difficult to do so. I just can’t say until it is already a fait accompli.
I don’t believe the “cipher” will be cracked without the assistance of more documentary evidence, so I am inclined to the view that AI or any other attacks on the text will fail unless a crib or other insights to the cipher become available.
Given what I have said I think we cannot be at all certain the solution will come anytime soon. Nevertheless it is clear progress is being made it is merely a question of how much more is needed. In many ways we also probably had as much reason to believe we were close 10 or 20 years ago given what we knew then.
With hindsight we will be best placed to look back and work out what were to crucial steps that lead to the solution and how that process occurred, but for now I think there are still to many unknowns to say where we really stand.
Hooray ! Finally the thinking returns to the correct time period. You didn’t need to know how to read and rite to sing a song.
Mark,
This may strike you as a quasi-religious view, but it’s the result of too-many years experience:
Every artefact, in its every aspect, speaks of its history and culture/s of origin.
With a manuscript this means that the answers are embodied in materials, binding, thread and stations, palette, script/s, and imagery quite apart from anything in the written part of the text.
Learning to ‘hear’ the primary object’s own testimony doesn’t need hypothesising or immense labour to persuade others to believe – so much as willingness to (as it were) spend time on the appropriate language-lessons – and I don’t mean primarily the script.
It comes down to what the researcher’s aim is: to study a six-hundred year old manuscript in order to ‘hear it’ rightly, or to be imagined the bright spark who ‘cracked it’.
What keeps happening – it seems to me – is like the classic colonial attitude: supposing all things can ‘really’ speak the way we expect – our own language of ideas – and are just being difficult; or to suppose if we shout (an hypothesis) at the thing loudly enough and long enough it will miraculously make sense to us.
Just consider … every day of the week, manuscripts are dated and placed correctly without resort to destructive methods like radiocarbon dating.
Our cities are filled with museums and galleries and auction-houses which accurately date and locate pictures for which no accompanying text exists at all.
So why should anyone presume the manuscript’s origins and the pictures’ meaning inaccessible without access to the written part of the text?
Since 1912, as I see it, the fundamental problem has been that: fundamental.
It’s the first premises, and the assumptions, and expectations and presumptions that are the problem. Too few, as yet, study this manuscript. They study ways to have others believe their own notions of what their own imagination/hypothesis has led them to think it ‘must be’.
But I daresay this will be interpreted by some as inflammatory so I’d best stop.
@Mark
It does not matter if it’s optimism or pessimism, in the end only the facts count where help will continue.
Here there is faith against knowledge, and I believe in the end the knowledge wins.
One thing you can believe, the “cipher” is not the problem either. The problem is with the language.
What I know today, and what I have learned through the many contributions, I have to say, somehow, many are right in terms of the language. But you have to see it first where the problem lies.
The curse is in the success. With great probability they were many hits while decrypting. But then it just did not work out. Why ?
If that happens, I have a Problem.
Latin, French, Spanish, Italian on a place. And I do not even know what dialect, and can not even find a reasonable dictionary. Even there, I still have 600 years of language development without reverence text. there is the problem ware.
Ladinisch ist eine neulateinische Sprache. Entstanden ist sie durch die Romanisierung der Alpen. Die rätische Bevölkerung übernahm das (Volks)Latein; unter Einfluss von Eigenheiten der eigenen Sprache (Syntax, Phonetik, Wortschatz) entwickelte sich die Sprache zum Ladinischen (=Rätoromanischen).
Die ladinische Sprache ist die direkte Weiterführung des gegen Ende des römischen Reiches in den Alpen gesprochenen Volkslateins.
Der Untergang des Rätischen in den Alpen ist vergleichbar mit dem Untergang des Gallischen in Frankreich.
Die Rätoromanen und die Rumänen sind die einzigen, die in ihrer Bezeichnung das Wort “Rom” tragen; die Bewohner des Inntales und der Dolomiten nennen sich gar “Ladiner”, also Lateiner.
Eine Frühform des Ladinischen dürfte, wie auch die anderen neulateinischen Sprachen, rund um das 8./9. Jahrhundert entstanden sein.
Die Sprache liegt ungefähr in der Mitte zwischen Französisch und Italienisch. Mit dem Rätoromanischen nahe verwandt sich auch Okzitanisch oder Katalanisch.
Peter: I can agree that “It does not matter if it’s optimism or pessimism, in the end only the facts count where help will continue. Here there is faith against knowledge, and I believe in the end the knowledge wins.”
Everything else you wrote English and German I can not agree with.
Diane: I would not say quasi-religious though it does sound a little mystical. What you have said sounds interesting, but rather non-specific.
Mark, it does not matter if you agree or not, but that’s the facts.
I did not just invent that, everything was carefully put together.
Otherwise I would not write it for sure, and so far I have received no criticism that something was wrong.
Actually, I didn’t want to write more about the language and the encryption yet. But I think it is necessary to point out the problems or to bring back to mind what it is about and in what time you are.
I do it simply times with an example:
I have here a link from a battle chronicle. As chance would have it, that it is written in Old High German 1443, and hits about my dialect. About 60-80 km around Zurich.
I don’t have it easy to read it either. Someone who can speak German but is further away will have even more trouble reading and understanding it.
For someone who can’t read German, you are welcome to try it with an electronic translator. He will only be successful with single words.
Just like in the VM, you see a lot of short words, short and equal characters.
There are a lot of words where you actually write together today, and some separated.
Once he writes a word with P, later the same with B. Once he wrote something out, then he takes an abbreviation.
How can you make an English translation if you don’t know German and don’t understand it?
Now imagine the whole thing encoded.
Now I still have a language, which contains different expressions of different languages. To crack that you need another way. The best would be a miracle.
https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg314/0464/Image
Now I have another language that contains different expressions from different languages. To crack that you need another way. Best would be a miracle.
Who thinks it is stupid if 3 identical words occur in a row, because I have to disappoint there unfortunately. It even makes sense if you think about it.
There are words that have a multiple meaning.
I am now writing in German because the translator may be working wrongly, or it may be misunderstood.
Example:
Das Wort ” 8a///) ” hat eine dreifach Bedeutung.
1. alle, alles
2, ganz, ganzes
3. zusammen
Wie schreibe ich als deutsch sprechender wenn ich nur ein Wort in Latein kenne.
Wir stehen ” alles ganz zusammen ” und singen ein Lied 🙂
Rene: A hoax is a hoax, whether created yesterday or a half a milenium ago. Now with new clarity you might take the lead and navigate around most of the many judgemental errors and at least make something better from the Voynich disaster, rather than allow the deception to go on its merry way unchecked and continue to be a trap for fools. Recall with satisfaction the many positives such as the successful dating of ‘tested’ parchment samples which might yet prove helpful in identifying the culprits and their little creation, a Godsend for future researchers of suspect antiquerian works. . It takes some guts to finally bite the bullet and admit that mistakes were made in an honest endeavour, which shouldn’t translate to despair or the need to fall on one’s sword, metaphorically speaking of course. Mistake in believing the Voynich Manuscript’s authenticity, based on flawed logic as seems likely, then by bringing it out into the so called intellectual domain as a means of garnering moral support, was no doubt well intended. Sadly it resulted in some opportunists seeing a chance for own ingrandisment, jumping aboard the self serving bandwagon; whilst others with jealous motives, set about to trip you up as a means of achieving satisfaction by creating chaos and obstruction. Now its up to good folk, prepared to admit grave errors in perception and, for some, an unjustified belief in their own intellectual superiority, to step up to the plate. Beseach forgiveness then set about turning defeat into something more akin to surviving Wilfrids failed Voynich deception.
Hi Nick. Maybe you should first find out why there are two crayfish.
John Sanders, I am afraid I can’t follow you at all.
Suffice it to say that a modern hoax is a completely different thing from a genuine old MS that does not include ‘real scoence of its day’.
All questions people are asking about the MS remain valid in this second case:
where was it done?
when?
by whom?
why?
how?
Diane: so, everyone else since 1912 has fallen prey to some fundamental error which only you happen to be immune to? Whatevs.
As an aside I was thinking of how we classify the Germanic influences on the Voynich manuscript that people other than myself have investigated.
I have always found it confusing what we mean by “German”. Of course we have our modern idea of “Germany”, but as we know the state of Germany is a relatively modern construction. And “Germanic” people were distributed far and wide. In the East as far as the river Volga, I believe. And of course the English that I type now is a Germanic language, though technically a “West Germanic” language (Norwegian and Swedish I believe are classified as “North Germanic” languages.) Now English has taken quite a bit of vocabulary from French (and Nordic languages), but its grammar and structure remain Germanic. (An observation is that, in fact, American English is less influenced by French and so arguably more Germanic than English English. I think this is because the earliest colonists to the Americas were poorer than the richer French speaking classes in England.) Apparently the language that English is closest to is that of Friesland in the Netherlands.
It is also with noting that the Lombards in Northern Italy, who much of my research focuses around, were a Germanic people. I have also found it intriguing the way many different countries seem to have different words for “German”. The Germans say “Deutsche”, the French say “Allemand”, the Italians say “Tedesco”, the Polish say “Niemiecki”, the Danish say “Tysk”. On the face of it these all seem like completely different words, whereas everybody has essentially the same word for the “French”. My guess is that these all refer to Germanic tribes neighbouring these regions and so are different.
So what is the point of all this? Well Koen has suggested links between the Voynich and Alsace. Though Alsace is now part of France, Alsatian is a dialect of German. So associating the Voynich with the German speaking or Germanic world seems confusing to me as I don’t know where we mean by that. I guess we are talking about West Germany, but not in the sense of the former country; we hardly want to associate the Voynich with Germans on the river Volga. So how do we describe and where precisely can we say these “Germanic” influences on the Voynich come from?
@Mark
It is not as hard as it seems.
Do you know what makes English in his language?
Do you know what Anglo-Saxons are?
The Angles are actually a Viking people from Denmark. The Saxons are still in Germany today. these are the two places where the Romans had influence. The next to the first existing Celtic. What is still audible in Walles today, and well preserved in Ireland. In addition there are the tribes from the north, Norway and Sweden.
In the 400-500th century, all this has left its mark after departure of the Romans
@Mark
You’re writing something about Alsace.
You can actually find out yourself.
With Napoleon, new order in Europe, if not for long, Alsace belongs to France. 1870 German-French war, Alsace goes to Germany. 1918, 1 WW, Alsace goes to France.
2WW. Alsace goes to Germany, if only 4 years.
1945, goes back to France.
But do you know that it is bilingual?
The author of the VM, he could certainly write in two languages if he wants.
Nick –
As I see it the reason the study has failed to move since 1912 is less any problem with the manuscript itself than the uncritical adoption of untested and unproven first premises.
You may see the difficulty as due to some other cause, or just not care to think about such issues as methodology.
Thats fine. But please don’t act the toady. Bashing people in public just for a pat on the head really isn’t good for your image, either.
We’ve all been invited to do that sort of thing, you know – softened up by the initial gambit that goes something like this: “it’s obvious that everyone’s an idiot except you and X, so naturally as someone worthy of X’s notice, you will sneer at whomever X wishes you, and lest X’s feelings be hurt we’ll never let a chance go by to boot opponents of our shared vision”
Yeh, sure, Happy New Year. (Whatever did happen to Jacques Guy?)
Diane: please use your own multiple blogs as a stage to play out these kind of internal arguments on, the comment boxes here are simply not a suitable forum.
Diane: Can you let me know where I can find your 9 rosette analysiz?
Mark,
It was published on my blog. Not the first – which was started in 2009, with blogger, but the one at wordpress which ran from 2011 – 2017.
You are always welcome to email me if you like, and we can talk about interesting stuff like the difference between formal and amateur approaches to reading problematic imagery.
Since the time of the late Stephen Bax, a certain Meme-man has been engaged in a campaign to exclude persons or topics which might change either the subjects of discussion or the modes of research or of discourse.
It is now forbidden at Voynich.ninja, as it was at Stephen Bax’, and most recently at Nick’s blog to consider whether or not we might consider more effective methods… in anything… history, analytical approaches to the imagery… organising research aims… anything to do with methods is officially forbidden in centres of popular debate and exchange.
Amazing, when you think about it. But who wants to? 🙂
Diane: there are thousands of very capable historians and researchers using a huge variety of methodologies to try to understand the Voynich Manuscript – and there is precisely one person who keeps telling everyone else that they are all intellectually bankrupt, that they are all trapped by presumptions made more than a century ago, and that they’re idiots for not understanding their collective mistake.
Sorry, but your reading of everyone else is almost exactly as wrongheaded as your Voynich theory. But best of luck with building bridges with everyone else.
Just a side note.
If I look at the last 4-5 years, it doesn’t matter in which blog something was written. More time has been devoted to keeping the different theories going than to following the actual clues.
So many reasons have been sought to question or circumvent the result of the C14 analysis. Instead of rethinking and adapting the countless theories.
Of course one is embittered when one slowly realizes that one’s own work is slowly losing credibility.
On the other hand, someone who is taught about the book is all the more fascinated by it.
In the last year so much new information and hints have come in that you should really rethink your work now. Because the ice is getting thin.
Certainly it is important how much time someone can spend, or wants to pursue a question or statement. But it is also safe if I make a statement that 10 other people try to disprove something, just to protect their own theory.
It becomes bad if not even a history book must open, in order to know that something can not be so correct. It becomes interesting with persons, where the second statement already disproves the first one. And they don’t even notice it.
How do I deal with hints ?
We have now learned that the book comes from the aliens.
It is the answer fax after ET has phoned home. What else should he bring with him.
A few nymphs for research purposes. But there should be 2-3 queens left, because we know that only queens in one state lay eggs.
But he should wash them beforehand so that they don’t bring in any diseases.
Of course he should bring the different plants for the botanical garden.
On page 66 you can clearly see how they are prepared for cold sleep.
The astrological part only explains from which side they will fly to our galaxy. After all it is turning ! ( 200 million years per revolution.)
In the Rossette you can see where they will land. At the top left they wanted to land first, there was Atlantis in former times, but unfortunately it sank down, therefore empty. But the waves are visible.
Who should not believe all this, here still the crushing proof.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2184416418447667&set=gm.1865739116869214&type=3&theater
Clear to see: Pyramid with sun….we know it from the movie “Stargate”.
They will return to the pyramids in a warlike manner.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas.
Diane: Would it be possible to email me or tell me where to download or see your map analysis from your wordpress blog from 2017?
At the moment I am quite interested in seeing different analyses of the 9 rosette page. I daresay I may well have follow up questions for you about your reading of problematic imagery.
Thanks!
Ants scientists . Why are two crayfish drawn ? Who’s guessing , I praise him.
The task is very simple. 🙂
Josef Zlatodej: Elementary Prof. Our clawed and armoured twin crawchies, positioned sbs htt, are strategically inset to give allround protection to exposed, theoretically flawed Voynich flanks ie. cancer zodiac symbolism etc; Primarilly for defence against our circa. 1421 puritanical enemy’s own ever advancing, encirling pincer movement, sent to divide and conquer any undesireable contrary views.
Mark,
The study of that folio forms an unpublished monograph in which the analysis proceeded section by section, with each phase described by cross-reference to historical, geographic, documentary, archaeological and comparative evidence as well as reference to the present state of the studies in historical geography and also nautical history. Such cross-reference and depth is normal method in establishing provenance for difficult items.
Since it is now forbidden to discuss methodology, I cannot say more on that subject.
You should be aware, though, that there existed no earlier analytical study and the state of opinion was as you see it in Nick’s post at the head of these comments. That’s all there was. What appeared from about 18 months later was a series of efforts to imitate the form of analytical discussion, without the persons concerned having any of the requisite background studies.
Many failed even to orient the map correctly, let alone to explain its anomalous system of orientation.
Some simply adopted without explanation or credit given, my definition of (e.g.) a section as referring to the south-east. I have no opinion before it is required by evidence either primary or from the mass of secondary studies which impact on such research.
So the short answer is that I’ll discuss the map with you – Nick can, if he will, pass on my email address – but I won’t be sending the original study. Sorry.
Nick Sanders. Ok. You write as a scientist. But you did not write why two crayfish. So I can not praise you.
Dear colleague Diane. Your manuscript research is not good. You can never understand the big parchment.
Josef Zlatodej: …but Professor, we scientific folk are well aware that only two rak are needed in order to breed a pond full of clawed angry defenders, and furthmore their offspring can hide in waiting whilst keeping the castle moat clear as Bohemian crystal. So when but a mere pair are spotted by over confident advancing papist hoards, eager armoured divisions might be summoned to the call. In a similar manner our one lone Voynich crossbowman, spotted on the castle keep, is paraded in his proud regalia for bluff, there being a full hundred more concealed below the swallow tailed merlon parapets, eager to join battle with the detested God botherers from the south.
Why were 2 cancers selected?
Very easily:
Because for 2 elephants the parchment was too small! 🙂
@ D.N.O’Donovan
You write:
“Since it is now forbidden to discuss methods, I can not say more.”
I do not understand that. What do you mean by that? Or the Google translator is crazy.
A method works, or it does not work. The important thing is the result. And that’s either right or wrong.
But why should it be forbidden to dicute it?
Nostradamus. 🙂
I can commend you. Can you clarify this. So what does the elephant symbol mean . ( Example – elephant Bestiare Aberden ).
And the meaning of 2 crayfish. ( MS 408 ).
Diane: I discuss methodology all the time, some might say ad nauseam, though I personally do think it is very important. In fact I was meaning to reply to a slight methodological disagreement Nick and myself had, but I agree with Nick that the priority is pushing on with my research towards a conclusion. Nevertheless at some point I will address this. I am pretty confident that we both have significant methodological disagreements as we both come from different academic backgrounds. I have been meaning to read E.H.Carr’s book “What is history?” as I think to have a formal methodological basis for this kind of research is valuable. I don’t know if there specific texts on methodology that you rely on or whether you have more of a make it up as you go along approach.
However I was quite keen to see your analysis of the 9 rosette page, but I get the impression that you are no longer willing to make that available to people, which is unfortunate as I have looked at a number of other people’s theories and found it an instructive exercise.
Mark, Nick has said he considers discussion of methodologies ‘inappropriate’ and by a curious co-incidence a guardian of the voynich.ninja forum recently announced any talk about methodologies would be deemed ‘off-topic’.
Smells like lobbyist-induced idiocy but who knows?
As to inventing methods for iconographic analysis – I can’t see much point in doing that; not after having spent so many years acquiring the formal skills and bits of paper and then so many more keeping it all up to date while paid to do that sort of thing. I agreed to contribute to this study because retirement was approaching and I loathe having nothing interesting to do.
Diane: can you please point me to where I said anything remotely like this?
It sounds a lot as though you’re misrepresenting something I’ve said in an entirely different context in order to transform me into the straw man butt of your current voynichrevisionist railing.
Diane: You said: “I AGREED to contribute to this study”. Did someone request that you start researching the Voynich?
Is there a text or texts that illuminates your method of iconographic analysis?