In a recent blog post, anthropologist and linguist Magnus Pharao Hansen takes on the Voynich Nahuatl monster constructed by Tucker, Talbert and Janick. Having written a dissertation “Nahuatl Nation” on “the political roles of the Nahuatl language in Mexico and beyond” in 2016, Hansen sounds like someone well equipped for this particular battle. So what does he think?
Hansen helpfully lists the main problems as he sees them, starting with the quality of the actual scholarship supporting the venture:
The most nefarious problem is that it is pseudo-rigorous – that is it, it works hard to give the appearance of being rigorous scholarship while in fact it is not at all. They cite lots of serious scholarship, and mostly they cite it correctly, but nevertheless all the citations are used only for circumstantial evidence. As soon as we look at the concrete examples and the readings they are unsupported by this evidence and rests on pure speculation – often uninformed speculation.
But this is just peanuts to space, as Douglas Adams once wrote. For Hansen, the hugest problem is simply that T/T/J’s supposed Nahuatl readings make no sense to him whatsoever:
For me the best problem, best because it is so solid that it clearly invalidates the entire endeavor, is the fact that none of the proposed readings are valid – hardly a single one of the proposed words actually read like a bona fide Nahuatl word.
Many of them are completely alien to Nahua phonological structure. And to be honest I am surprised that the scholars haven’t found it to be odd that a few of the letters are so frequent that they appear in almost all words – for example more than half of the proposed plant names (and names of the nude ladies they call “nymphs”) start with the letter that they read as /a/ – that would be very odd in a natural language, unless the a was a very frequent grammatical prefix (which it isn’t in Nahuatl).
Even so, Hansen pursues the logical thread through to the end by trying to use the supposed ‘key’ supplied in T/T/J’s 2018 book to turn Voynich text into proper Nahuatl, to see where this led. And he ended up no less disappointed by what he found there:
Finally, as I read the example it bothered me that there is a certain repetitiveness in the deciphered text, the same letters seem to occur very frequently in combinations with specific other letters. This is not usually the case for natural languages – but very frequent in something like glossolalia of the baby-speech “lalala balala malalaba”- type.
So, there you have it. There isn’t anything in Tucker, Talbert and Janick’s oeuvre that actually links Voynichese to Nahuatl in any workable way. Next!
Nick: You stun me. Who would have thought the Voynich was not Central American in origin?
This does raise a question though, my understanding is that their area of expertise is plant biology and that they were convinced the plants in the Voynich were Central American in origin and so their whole theory spun out of that. Now this business of plant identification seems to have plagued Voynich research.
More To Come…
Nick: It seems that this business of plant identification is a thorny problem, no pun intended. As far as I can tell there is no clear consensus on what any of the plants are. On the face of it I would find this surprising.
More to come…
Even if the plants could be correctly identified, it still doesn’t necessarily support a New World (or Old World) theory. Many plants are circumboreal, and for each one that isn’t, there is almost always one that looks just like it in the New or Old world.
As for M.P. Hansen’s take on the language, I’m glad this is finally being looked at in a critical way.
There are too many people willing to accept “scholarship” based on credentials alone. No one is a true Voynich “scholar” because it requires so many different areas of expertise. The best we can do is try to conduct (and to encourage) good scholarly practices and to approach it from as many angles as possible.
Thanks, Nick. Nothing we didn’t already know there, but it’s nice to see some specialist critique on T/T/J from a new corner. And Hansen makes a correct assessment of the quality of their scholarship.
After I saw when he wrote that in his blog (25.12.2018), I can only shake my head. There are people who do not learn anything.
Then I better keep to the statement of a certain Prof. because at least the continent is right.
@ J.K. Petersen
Nicely, because it’s true.
“No one is a true Voynich “scholar” because it requires so many different areas of expertise.”
Nick: Why do you think we have this problem?
We know that the drawings of plants in “alchemical herbals” from that time are not direct representations of reality. However what scope is there realistically for making direct identifications with real world plants purely on the basis of appearance?
What scope is there for making identications by comparing drawings of plants with those of other herbals of that time? Is it common for representations of the same plant to vary a lot between one alchemical herbal and the next at that time and so in what respect is the Voynich outside of the norm with its problematic plant representations?
Was the author just a poor illustrator?
More to come…
I don’t get the impression that the Voynich=Nahuatl book recently published by Springer is having any great impact. The (justified and correct) protests against the theories presented in this book, that one may read in the collective Voynich MS blogs, have, unfortunately, even less impact. Janick and Tucker would be equally justified in pointing out that these collective blogs present equally unrealistic views of the Voynich MS (i.e. in their collectivity). Of course they don’t, because they can simply ignore all of it.
It is therefore a bit of a pity that this very useful critical analysis on the linguistic aspect of the book is also “only” a blog post. It is not clear to me how much impact this will make.
In any case, what he writes feels right, i.e. it matches the expectation.
Tut tut tut…my dear Nicholas…… confining the entire argument against Tucker’s’ hypothesis on Nahuatl readings when he himself emphasizes the likelihood or possibility that it might have been one of the numerous other native languages of that area, including extinct ones.
And the “refutation” and rather abject peremptory dismissal fails to notice the fact that Dr. Tucker is, first of all (ahem) , a BOTANIST, and a good one. His book “Encyclopedia of Herbs” is quite good.. His readings of some captions to herbal illustrations actually DO reference actual Nahuatl names of plants. Somehow, the Nahuatl linguist fails to even notice that contrarian fact
And while cozily reinforcing your own theory of European origin at every opportunity, how can you ignore his numerous points in previous articles, as well as in the book itself that show flora, fauna and a fish with explicit or predominant MesoAmerican locale ? Oh dear, that must be circumstantial.
And, even if one disagrees with the overall theme of the book, whose title “UNRAVELING THE VOYNICH CODEX” was, somehow, not mentioned, I find the graphics of the book spectacular – simply pencil in your own readings or ideas.
The “ho hum” another failed idea simply does not work here and deserves far more broad analyses.
Even if I postpone the timeline for 100 years, ignore everything else, lean on the plants and a fish, it still remains ……
European calendar
European architecture
European clothes
Eurasian zodiac
blonde hair
German text
Latin characters (abbreviation)
I do not need to underpin the place of origin Europe, there is simply nothing else.
The falsehood that the Vikings forgot an Eskimo on a botany trip in Italy is greater than that it has anything to do with South America!
Selbst wenn ich die Zeitlinie um 100 Jahre verschiebe, alles andere ingnoriere, mich auf die Pflanzen und einen Fisch stütze, bleiben immernoch……
europäischer Kalender
europäische Architektur
europäische Kleidung
eurasische Sternzeichen
blonde Haare
deutscher Text
lateinische Zeichen ( Kürzel )
Ich brauche den Ursprungsort Europa nicht zu untermauern, es ist einfach nichts anderes da.
Die wahrschindlichkeit das die Wikinger einen Eskimo auf einer Botanikreise in Italien vergessen haben ist grösser, als das es irgend etwas mit Südamerika zu tun hat !
Peter: To be totally fair and above board, South America, as a region, distance wise, has as much to do with the Aztecs and their Nahuatl peoples, as would your own beloved country and its former colony of German South West Africa for instance. OK you won’t find too many pangolins in Mexico, but I don’t know that there would have been so many in Germany around 1421 either, certainly not the VM variety with it’s arse about scales. Comment?
Nick and ants.
Of course, the handwriting is not nahuatl. 🙂
Because it is written in Czech language ! ( Peter ) 🙂
It’s Christmas. So I’ll give you a present.
Last Nick wrote. What about 5 tubes. Left on rosettes.
5 tubes means the letter : E, H, N. ( Jewish substitution number 5 ).
Word : oRaRoe.
The word is read from the right and left. And it has the same meaning. You will always read the word : 5 zrar oe. ( substituce = e zrak on ).
Eliška writes here : I’m a eye . ( zrak. oko = Czech language ).
( oko = zrak = eye – it has same meaning ).
Number 5 shows you a jewish substitution.
An important ancestor of the genus was the Eye ( Oko ). Woko of Rosenberg ).
Months in the circle shows you 3 births. Eliška had 3 sons.
Jewish substitution : 2 = B,R,K. 7 = O,Z. 1 = A,I,J,Q,Y. 5 = E,H,N.
5 zrak oe . = 5.7.2.1.2.7.5. ( the word is read from the right and left. And it has the same meaning !! ).
James P wrote: “…And the “refutation” and rather abject peremptory dismissal fails to notice the fact that Dr. Tucker is, first of all (ahem) , a BOTANIST, and a good one….”
Tucker actually defers to Hugh O’Neill’s plant identifications. Here is a quote :
“It has generally been considered to be an early fifteenth century European work based on the carbon dating of the vellum; however, identification of New World plants by Hugh O’Neill and animals infers a sixteenth century Mexican origin, i.e., a palimpsest.” Arthur Tucker (ResearchGate, August 2018)
The mention of “palimpsest” in this context is a non sequitur. I’m not aware of any evidence that the VMS is a palimpsest and even if it were, that would not indicate New World origin unless one could identify the underlying content.
Why would a botanist defer to O’Neill? There are a number of possible reasons (some of which I’m too polite to suggest), but one might be that these are not modern drawings. Just as it takes time to learn medieval Latin and medieval script, it takes time to learn and interpret medieval plant iconography.
@Peter
Yes European !! You are quite correct !! But that is quite OK since Tucker clearly and in detail indicates that the possible author(s) of the Voynich were most likely students and/or members of a Christian college run by SPANIARDS who are Europeans !! It is uncertain if any Eskimo made it that far south but some people will go out of their way for a good Tortilla !!
Ja Europäisch !! Aber das ist in Ordnung, da Tucker klar und ausführlich darauf hinweist, dass die möglichen Autoren des Voynich höchstwahrscheinlich Studenten und / oder Mitglieder eines christlichen Colleges waren, das von SPANIARDS, die Europäer sind, geleitet wird !! Es ist ungewiss, ob es einen Eskimo so weit nach Süden geschafft hat, aber einige Leute werden sich für eine gute Tortilla stark machen !!
Nick: As I have said before I question the value of accurate plant identifications as I wonder how much further forward it will take us. It seems that correlating specific Voynich text with different plant names is hard, so even if we have the right name we may still have a problem.
It would seem that it is likely that the correct plant identifications will give us some kind of geographical marker, but if the plants are fairly standard and generic this might not be much of a marker.
In the context of my own research I would wonder if some of the plants were alpine in origin.
Nick: So how did Tucker, Talbert and Janick get the plant identifications so wrong?
I haven’t evaluated these guys academic qualifications in details, but I get the strong impression that collectively they are very well qualified in plant identification and herbs. It seems to me that the rest of their theory has little relationship to their academic qualifications.
So, can we ever expect to get the plant identifications right?
Hansen’s blog post strikes me as authoritative and convincing, particularly the observations contrasting the internal structure of Nahuatl words with Voynichese ‘words’. I am far more impressed by the views of a linguist who knows something about botany than those of a trio of botanists who know a bit about languages. Thanks for drawing attention to this, Nick.
I fully agree with Philip that the blog post comes over as sound and convincing. I strongly suspect that the two main authors: Janick and Tucker, have negligible knowledge about Nahuatl, but apparently there is a contribution in their book from someone who does have this. I have not read that, and in any case, I don’t have any knowledge in the matter myself to fully understand the pro’s and con’s, beyond judging what is sound.
Since the other aspects of the theory (a much too late origin of the book, invalid identification of plants and animals) are not credible, this rejection of Nahuatl as the base language is very easy to agree with.
@Rene and @Phillip
Re: Their consensus that the Hansen blog post was…”sound”.
So was Newton’s theory of gravitation until Einstein came along,
so was Thompson’s insistence that the Mayan glyphs could not possibly have any phonetic values , so were theories of Linear B until that iconoclastic outsider, Ventris arrived to them….”unsound”.
Nahuatl syntax and semantics violated by Tucker’s hypothesis ?
Ah !! But there’s Otomi, Chichimecan, many other candidates often with syntax and semantics radically different than Nahuatl…is the blog post “sound” about ruling them out ??
Surely if we are to crack the Voynich mystery, we must eschew superficiality and the constant danger of excessive regard for supercilious attitudes.
And of course, the author(s) of the Voynich, when they weren’t high on an Ayahuasca trip, and if they were indeed natives of Mexico, almost certainly spoke Spanish and most likely Latin.
LOTS of European influence, yet…the authors may very well have NOT been Europeans. Is this so impossible to theorize ??
Jim Pannozzi: my list of three basic Voynich / Nahuatl questions…
* would it be correct to say that the ‘tl’ shape in Nahuatl represents a ‘click’ sound?
* would it be correct to say that the ‘click’ sound was almost always used at the end of Nahuatl words (errrm… the clue’s in the name)?
* how does that square with the indisputable fact that the frequent Voynichese glyph (EVA ‘t’) that Nahuatl theorists think looks like ‘tl’ almost never appears at the ends of words?
Even from this, it seems pretty obvious that Voynichese cannot be straightforward Nahuatl, or even Nahuatl with a load of Taino / Spanish loanwords, in the way T/T/J repeatedly assert must be true. Instead, you get immediately driven to the position that, for the Voynich Manuscript to have a New World origin, it must be an entirely different language written using some kind of Nahuatl/Spanish orthography, only nobody can recognize that Popoloca (‘unknown to the Nahuatl’) language at all.
Which – unless I’m missing something *really* obvious – would seem to mean that for Voynichese to be Nahuatl, it has to be something completely different from Nahuatl. So… it’s not really the most fully formed of theories as yet.
This is not about plants, which are not important.
This is about the timeline.
Carbon Dating (1400-1440) and Discovery of America (1480-1500).
Ergo.
These are cornerstones of research. If you can handle this anything is possible.
Hier geht es nicht um Pflanzen, welche es sind ist noch nicht einmal wichtig.
Hier geht es um die Zeitlinie.
Carbon Datierung ( 1400-1440 ) und Entdeckung von Amerika ( 1480-1500 ).
Ergo.
Das sind Eckpfeiler der Forschung. Wenn sie diese umgehen ist alles möglich.
@Josef
Again, it is not the language where I criticize but the timeline.
Eliska is only 1466 bored. Children from about 1480. Since you have broken the time line already by 50 years.
This means that you are also attacking the result of the C14 dating.
Although there is enough reference material and that was certainly not the first measurement.
And further on, the birthplace of Krumau lies in German-speaking Bohemia. A stone’s throw from today’s Austria.
However, the family chronicle of the Rosenbergs was only translated from German into Czech in 1629.
Why should Eliska write Czech?
@Nick
You are correct, one of the first things I noticed was that large number of Nahuatl words, including Nahuatl (!!) which end in “TL” and the dearth of such endings in the Voynich. This is one of several hurdles that the hypothesis must overcome.
Let us not forget, however, that Tucker identified several plants whose Voynich captions did end in “TL” and which seem to identify actual Aztec employed herbs.
Why they would use one language in the one word caption to some pictures and not in the text, I have no idea.
The other possibility, of course, is the numerous other native language possibilities some of whose syntax and semantics differ radically from Nahuatl.
(Remember Basque, and Turkish in the European/Wesstern Asia context).
We are agreed on some major European influence, fine. Now let us keep entirely open mind on the employed language, and yes, that includes Czech !!
🙂 !!
PS I saw an interesting thread a while back, mentioning an Armenian physician of the 1400’s who ended up in Ottoman Turkey as a physician to the Sultan or whatever the top dude is called. His name was Amirdovlat of Amasia and major book was “Useless for the Ignorant”, a compendium of herbal remedies and plants. I find this book in Russian but was googling for it in either Armenian or Latin – especially Latin and with my meager googling skills, struck out. If anyone knows of links to this book in other languages, please post it. Ottoman Turkish would be OK to, I’m studying it right now.
Thanks
YACVP (Yet another crazy Voynich person) James
Peter think. At the beginning of the manuscript . Folio 1v.
Eliška writes :
The green leaf is 14. And the golden leaves are 6 and 6.
And that’s the date of my birth.
__________________________________________
The characters on the green leaf are = J and T. ( J.T.)
Jewish substitution : 1 = A,I,J,Q,Y. 4 = D,M,T.
The date i 1466.
Greg college at Arizona University is doing a bad test !!
( test C 14 can not be exactly for a year !! )
Peter: I’m sure you’re familiar with the other VM which was submitted to carbon dating at the same Arizona testing facility and failed the test of time. Whilst it shared a similar date range to our own beloved volume, the ink tests done in the lab nextdoor were seen to be a little in the the pale, and some plastic film on the parchment seemed suspicious too. When Beneike displayed it in Connecticut this year, which I did mention for copy (not worth Nick’s effort to post), they made no refutable claims for it’s historical authenticity. Yes I refer you to the oft touted first mappa mundi of the Americas, the fake Vinland map circa. 1957.
Specification . 🙂
Eliška not write : Gold leaflets – 12 !
But he writes clearly and clearly : Gold leaflets – six and six.
( in the old Czech language ).
If the botanical images in the Voynich manuscript were an herbarium (i.e. a collection of pressed plants) then the input from qualified botanists would be more obviously useful. As it is, the basic error continues that an image can be presumed an effort at literal representation of whatever element in it is deemed by a viewer to be the most relevant, and thus arbitrarily defined – backwards – by whatever impression the image might evoke in a given viewer.
An assumption of intended literalism, (and a pre-emptive assumption that any plant-picture must relate to the ‘herbal’ genre has rarely been subjected to an assessment as informed and balanced assessment as that we now have for the ‘Nahuatl’ idea. I wonder most that Hansen should have bothered; but I’m immensely glad that he did.
@Joseph
Of course, I think. Sometimes too much.
It’s easy to say the university has delivered a poor C14 result.
For all samples?
The tolerance of plus / minus 2% was kept. The parchment dispensers said goodbye to this world around 1416, and the atomic clock is running.
Although I have not counted the different symbols, but it may be about 50.
Your code key works with 8 characters, what do the other 40 do?
Apart from the fact that with your key every word in which language can be translated.
Therefore your theory does not last for me.
@James
Let’s leave the time window. Suppose that it was really students from a college. They come from Europe to South America.
Why do not I see it? Why do not I see a Mexican pyramid, no statue, no feather ornaments etc.
Is not it true that you would not get the new sign? And not what you already know?
It’s like coming home from vacation, just showing photos from home.
john sanders: you’ll no doubt be pleased to hear that I have a Vinland Map post in preparation (I’m waiting for a response from the Beinecke) – it probably won’t make the cut before the New Year, but it shouldn’t be too far behind, all being well.
D. O’Donovan wrote: “As it is, the basic error continues that an image can be presumed an effort at literal representation of whatever element in it is deemed by a viewer to be the most relevant…”
Many many threads have discussed non-literal interpretations of the plant drawings (including mnemonic and metaphoric possibilities). Clearly, Voynich plant research is not based only on presumptions of literal representation.
Nick and ants.
1. Your entire Eva alphabet is very bad !!
2. alphabet Eva is very bad !!
Mark writes nicely. There is no point in annoyance. Over a manuscript. You are unlucky. That the manuscript is written Czech. But do not despair.
It’s Christmas. And so I’ll give you one more gift.
Nick , central rosette – not Venice. Not Venice !! Not a city !!
3. Central rosette , this is a part of the code !!
4. I’ll show you what the central rosette .
5. This is the meaning of central rosette :
Eliška writes in the manuscript : All letters are numbers !!!
Look at the tower on a left. There are two characters on it = C,C.
Substitution : number 3 = C,G,S,L. ( C = 3 ). ( C + C = 6 ) !! ( 3 + 3 = 6).
There are 6 towers in the rosette.
( characters are also drawn as 2 eyes. Tower on a left ).
Eliška dynasty genus = Vok ( Wok of Rosenberg. Vok z Rožmberka ). English language = Eye of Rosenberg.
In the manuscript, the characters of number 6 are not written. Number 8 is used instead of number 6. !!!
Jewish substitution : 8 = P,F… 6 = U,V,W,X.
Eliška writes : Fěž 6. ( Věž 6 )…. 8 = 6 !!!
Nick central rosette , not Venice. Not a city !! Centeal rosette , this is a part of the code. 8 = 6.
( Věž = Czech language. Tower = English language ).
______________________________________________________________
example : fonetic German , Czech.
Vok = Fok…..Von = Fon.
Vok = Czech language.
Eye = English language.
Can a scientists and an ant understand ???? 🙂
An important thing.
The word ” Věž ” ( Fěž ) has two meanings !
1. Věž 6 = tower.
2. Věž 6 = know 6 ( Fěž 6 ) ( 8 ěz 6 ). ( 8 = 6 ).
John Sanders, again I am not sure what you are trying to say. There is nothing wrong with the radio-carbon dating of the Vinland Map, apart from the fact that it was complicated by fall-out contamination from nuclear detonations.
The results stand, and it was always understood that the map *could* be a late addition on empty pages of an otherwise genuine old book.
There may be some who say that the entire MS that includes the map is a modern fake, but that is almost as unfounded as similar claims for the Voynich MS.
Rene: It’s OK, you’re not the only one confused by my accent… Just what specific nuclear detonations would you be talking about now, and just how would their complications effect the VM2 for an absolute certainty? Being very careful how you respond old chap, or you could just give the game away for VM1 as well..NB: As promised I’ll not use your repetitive expression ‘modern fake’ for fear of giving offence to the all knowing; Suffice to say your own all too frequent use of such a term, or similar, shall serve as a constant reminder to my troth…
Nick. You asked once. What does the folio 52v plant mean ? 🙂
When you look at the picture. You will see there :
8 sixs. ( 8 = 6 ) = ( F = V ).
This is the number 6, it shows the upper character of the number 6.
The characters have the thorns.
Every rose has thorns.
Botany in the manuscript is the trick of the author. Eliška was very handsome. She knew German, Czech, Polish. In the manuscript, she also used several English words. And , of course, several Jewish words.
Example :
Sir. ( means = Pán = Witigo = Vítek ).
Ab. ( means = father ).
John,
the carbon dating results of the Vinland map are described in great detail in a paper that is available on-line:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/EA4E4C305674486B41EAC72299A64E32/S0033822200064651a.pdf/determination_of_the_radiocarbon_age_of_parchment_of_the_vinland_map.pdf
The contamination by radio-active material is likely to have happened during a trans-atlantic flight.
Note that the carbon dating was done *after* the titanium anatase had been found by McCrone.
For the Voynich MS: this was sitting in a safety deposit vault at 5th Avenue during most of this time, and was thereby protected against this.
Rene: Yes, I had axamined the Arizona University report on C14 results some time back, being paricularly mindful of the multi stepped, varying and methodical velum sampling wash proceedures. I am also familiar with the previous ink analysis undertaken by McCone and his submissions (2) along with the work undertaken by Cahill, Olin anors. All seems to be in order to the extent of the date supporting methods so far as my limited knowledge of such proceedures permit my dullish senses to digest. Also most impressive were the checks and ballances, especially with regard to atomic fallout exposure; That is unless one takes into consideration encouraging reviews for similar encouraging results attested to like tests on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Comes to mind vague memories of the VM1’s C14 dating press release of 2009, with it’s most unfortunate accompanying date supportive ink/wash analysis, which perhaps you may have played part in having promptly withdrawn?….It does make one wonder why those eight to ten step parchment cleansing proceedures were not (to my knowledge) undertaken with VM1 fragrants as a precaution against the remote possibility of it them having also been exposed to atomic fallout at some point in six hundred years of traveling to unknown parts. The reported mysterious Siberian detonation of 1908 comes readily to mind, and who knows what others of equal magnitude during the proceeding half milennium or so, that history does not record.
J.K.
I believe I have the honour (though doubtless others will protest) to have run the gauntlet first in explaining the distinction between mnemonic, schematic, stylistic and realistic elements in the botanical imagery and explained that their employment is systematic, in the construction of those images.
The volume of vitriol generated by this you would perhaps not have witnessed, but the hostility had the usual result: the original research ignored but the ‘idea’ taken ad.lib and employed just as randomly. The only sort of botanical imagery already explained by Voynicheros as containing some mnemonic elements were the ‘herbals of the alchemists’. We are talking 2008-11 when I published that part of the research. Next to follow that line, if I recall, was Don Hoffman, and then either Koen or you.
But to the point (and do please feel free to address me directly, and by name) – is that if you look at any of the proposed identifications, even now, those who make them take one of three tacks: like Edith Sherwood they pick a detail which they compare with a photograph, assuming the detail ‘is supposed’ look like their selection. Otherwise, they hunt through a presumptive range of herbal-manuscript pictures hoping to find what isn’t there (and which Tiltman said, sixty years ago, wasn’t there), a ‘like-‘ image.
If you care to debate the important issue – which is the degree to which an assumption of literalism is appropriate for treating this manuscript’s imagery, given the unknown date and place of first enunciation, then I’m happy to do that somewhere else. I do get rather tired of the sneering efforts to ‘discredit’ research I shared to assist the manuscript’s study but which most have never tried to read, or test. And, by the way, I do grow a little tired of the way a certain clique likes to create meaningless slurs. Are you aware that in talking of things you know so little about, you have implied that I’m a liar? Not exactly the most intelligent, or helpful sort of response.
And if Nick decides this post is too combative, I don’t mind at all if he edits, or refuses to publish it. Happy New Year.
D. O’Donovan wrote: “We are talking 2008-11 when I published that part of the research.”
Is this one of the articles that is closed to the public? Or is it available? I would appreciate a link not only to the article but also to the “vitriol” you say was aimed at these specific issues.
D. O’Donovan wrote: “The only sort of botanical imagery already explained by Voynicheros as containing some mnemonic elements were the ‘herbals of the alchemists’…. Next to follow that line, if I recall, was Don Hoffman, and then either Koen or you. “
Not to take anything away from Don or Koen, but I wrote this in July 2013 on a blog that is still open for people to verify my statements:
“…I noticed that the leaf margins, and the general shape and arrangement of the leaves, is quite good, making allowances for mnemonic exaggeration…”
Diane: feel free to festoon these mere margins with all the trappings of iconographic wordery you like, decorative baubles and tinsel of cheer to some, one can only hope.
But the stuff about mean-spirited cliques, meaningless slurs, and people implying that you’re somehow a liar? That’s all a bit too Brothers Grimm “stepsisters cutting off their own toes” for me, sorry. Perhaps there’s a morality tale hidden in there for masochistic future historians to tease out from the Internet tea leaves: but I for one can’t see it.
Me, I’m happy for you to carry on doing that funky research-like thing you do and leaving shouty resentful comments here about it, even if I don’t have the faintest idea what just poked your hornet’s nest.
The final tl in Nahuatl is not a click. It is an alveolar fricative according to the following video. (Wikipedia says it is a voiceless alveolar lateral affricative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_lateral_affricate) It is in Spanish, but you can hear the word Nahuatl within the first 30 seconds or listen to the entire not quite 4 minute presentation. It is not difficult to follow, even if you do not speak Spanish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOGVCQmIPVQ
Nick, It is an indisputable fact that the letter you have identified as ‘tl’ appears on the left side of ‘words’. It is also clear that the left margins of the VMs are square and that the ductus flows from right to left. If one were to compare a similar botanical text, say Sahagun’s text on botanical herbs from Book 11 of the Florentine Codex one would arrive at the indisputable fact that tl occurs on the ends of words (the right) about 2/3 of the time and on the left at the beginning of the word about 1/3 of the time. (I’m doing this from memory, if pressed I’ll dig around and find the precise numbers.) Knowing that tl is a fairly common noun ending in Nahuatl one would conclude that this is not a surprise. Finding far more tl-s on the left side of the words in the Voynich manuscript could lead to something *really* obvious that you may have missed that has been said before. Think about it. It will come to you.
Nick, That repetitive “glossolalia” is partly the Aztec style–they liked it that way–and partly what the linguists call “reduplication” Reduplication is usually used to make plurals. There are whole books on it, for instance Haugen (2008) Morphology at the Interfaces: Reduplication and Noun Incorporation in Uto-Aztecan. Here is a striking example from a text on the turkey:
Hititl: tototl, totoli yiti
Cujtlaxcolli: totocujtlaxcolli, totolcujtlaxcolli
Tlatlalilli: tlatlalilonj, tlaquaxiquipili:
cujtlatecomatl, cujtlamatl
Memetlatl: tememetlatl, tlateci, tlacuecho, tlaaxtilia tlaaxooa
Cujtlaxcolli, totolcujtlaxcolli: conexiqujpilli.
Belly: the belly of a bird, of a turkey.
Intestines: a bird’s intestines, a turkey’s intestines
Crop: the depository, the food bag, the refuse jar, the refuse net.
Gizzard: the gizzard grinds, it pulverizes, …
Intestines: a turkey’s intestines; the ovary.
Dibble and Anderson (1963) Florentine Codex, General History of the Things of New Spain, Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, Book 11 – Earthly Things, Second Chapter, Ninth paragraph, p. 56
Although it is very different from English, I think you will agree that Nahuatl is a “natural language”.
Enjoy. And have a prosperous and happy new year.
John
No, that is not part of the “Aztec style”. Reduplication is not a stylistic feature but a part of grammar, and it does not produce that kind of pattern – it simply copies the initial syllable of a word to produce a change in meaning. It would create a very different pattern – namely repetition of the same two syllables within a word. Something that also doesn’t seem that common in the Voynich.
The example you give of repetition from the Florentine codex also does not show anything about “Aztec style” since that kind of repetitive language is unique to the Florentine codex and has to do with Sahagun’s stated purpose of creating the codex as a kind of encyclopedia, dictionary and thesaurus at the same time. That is why the descriptions there tend to repeat the same words in different combinations in order to illustrate the different grammatical forms of the word.
You are right in pointing out that it occurs both at the beginning and at the end of words (and also in the middle). When /tl/ occurs at the end of words it is always in the function as the absolutive suffix that marks most unpossessed nouns – in this position it *always* follows a vowel. When following a stem that ends in a consonant the absolutive suffix usually has the shape -tli. So yes, for nouns and plant names we would expect most of them to end in -tli or -tl. Most of the proposed readings do not. In, Nahuatl, when /tl/ occurs at the beginning of a word it is most often in the form of the prefix tla- which is affixed to transitive nouns to make them intransitive. This pattern should be noticeable in the Voynich – ie. with tl occuring frequently at the end of words or at the very beginning. But it is not.
As for James Panozzi’s comments that I was unfair in rejecting to entertain the possibility of it being another Mesoamerican language I find that to be itself an unreasonable expectation. Janick/Tucker has explicitly based their argument on the identification of the Voynich Character as Nahuatl tl, then on the idea that it was written in the Nahuatl speaking area of Puebla by the Nahuatl speaking friar Toribio Motolinia. Then when they realize their argument is not solid they shift the goal posts and claim it could be another language (only one other Mesoamerican language even has the tl phoneme they have identified in the script). Well, then they should figure out which one and then make the argument. Then, I will refute that argument. But the only proposal for which they actually pose arguments is for it being Nahuatl (with Spanish/Taíno admixture). So that is the only argument I can reasonably be expected to address with counterarguments.
Magnus Pharao Hansen: thank you for your comment, it’s a good help. Oh, and thanks for your post, it was well worth linking to. 😉
@Magnus Pharao Hansen
Well said.
I also do not understand why there just want to rely on an ending.
The suffix “li” or “tli” occurs a hundred times in Switzerland. The best known is probably the “Chuchichäschtli” or ” Chääschuechli ”
” Neuli häts Chätsli unds Müsli ä neus Näschtli kouft, äs isch ä bitzli zchli gsii ”
oder
” WENN HINTER FLIEGEN FLIEGEN FLIEGEN FLIEGEN FLIEGEN FLEGEN NACH ”
There is not one single logical clue to South America.
Over and out !
Peter: Only too true, though I don’t recall any claims made to that effect; Any thoughts on the Central American regions further north which seem to come in for a little attention every so often. Sounds interesting, no?…
john sanders: no.
Nick: Than how about Meso America and points further north?…
@john sanders
The same applies to North-West-East and of course also to Central and South America, as well as all surrounding islands.
john sanders: still no.
If I were Jacques Guy, I could probably carry this reference off, but even at risk of being feather-pillowed, I can’t resist. I’ve just found it and it’s so wonderfully synchronic-ironic.
https://voynichrevisionist.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/friedmans-bookplate-from-george-c.marshall-yardley-1.jpg?w=314&h=533
Peter,
They (we) present information from the general art style, to specific MesoAmerican heritage illustrations, to the ‘unknown’ alphabet and where it may be found, as well as the congruence of “Voynichese” and Nahuatl grammar. The first sthree sorts of evidence are in my little monograph Voynich Manuscript: Aztec Herbal from New Spain at http://voynichms.com. Drs. Janick and Tucker present biological and other evidence. And for what it is worth Mexico and Mesoamerica are in North Americal. I hope this helps.
John
Rene,
Unraveling the Voynich Codex by Drs. Janick and Tucker has not yet been reviewed in either Amazon USA or UK. I noticed several copies on ebay for $13.68, that is 10.76 in pounds sterling not sure what the shipping to UK or Europe would be.
Perhaps you could write the first review. That would be fitting since they cite you as an exemplary scholar whose work can be trusted.
Cheers,
John
Magnus,
So what do you call what Ben Leeming calls “characteristic features of Nahuatl poetics, including couplets, triplets, and parallel structuring, all within the morphological boundaries of individual words” if reduplication is too precise a word for you to be extended beyond the bounds of single words? And do you really want to go on to argue each and every one of the three examples in Launey’s grammar? I’m not the linguist, that is my brother. As for the rest of your arguments about reading the Nahuatl in the Voynich–do you really think it is in plain text? Really? The statistics hardly support that.
Cheers, John
@John
I’m sorry, but with the best of intentions, I can not see any evidence.
As for the art, the VM has nothing at all, something in common with the old American.
Example: Dresdensis Codek
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Dresdensis
In all 4 received roles there is no comparison to the VM.
The plants are all from Central Europe.
Example:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Voynich+Plant&oq=Voynich+Plant&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i61j0l4.4326j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
I already explained that with the endings in the text.
What they cite as evidence is pure self-interpretation.
There is no real indication where this theory supports, but a hundred against it.
Peter – it is not true that “all the plants are from central Europe”. What is true is that people who want to argue that the manuscript’s contents are of central European origin (even though the manuscript isn’t, and neither is the way the plants are depicted), look no-where else for their attempted ‘matches’ – and what they do is not match drawing with drawing but some central European plant to a drawing, usually by ignoring stylistics and ignoring three quarters of what is drawn.
Few seem able to absorb one basic problem with their arguments, namely that their assumption of literalism – or intended literalism – is anachronistic. The history of ‘realistic’ botanical imagery in medieval Europe actually begins with the painters of the Renaissance… but to explain how it evolves from there is too much for a comment, and besides it has all been treated in depth by art historians and some historians of botanical drawing. The usual excuse given is that either the Vms draughtsman was incompetent or devious or mad (or something)… in which case interpreting the drawings as literal is paradoxical, or as an iimplicit argument, that what the draughtsman *meant* to draw and *should* have drawn was the central European plant of that writer’s choice.
When the new world, or the ‘central European’ adherents can show us closely similar *drawings* or at least demonstrate that those of the Vms belong to a specific time, region and culture without resorting to creating straw-man portraits of the draughtsmen, then we may have something worth the attention of linguists and cryptographers. Till then.. vegetables cum grano salis.
James Pannozzi wrote: “…how can you ignore his numerous points in previous articles, as well as in the book itself that show flora, fauna and a fish with explicit or predominant MesoAmerican locale ?”
Their arguments do not hold water.
They have not identified a New World fish. The VMS drawing doesn’t look like the alligator gar. It is more similar to a pike (which is found in both the New and Old World) and to Old World drawings of fish, and the second fish identified by the authors as “alligator gar” does not even vaguely resemble the first fish (Pisces), OR the alligator gar.
The other IDs are similarly flawed.
It’s not that the plants were chosen solely for their looks. There is much more behind it.
I have read many statements from botanists about the plants, and their opinions on them. Whether doctor or professor, and their opinion. I’ll just say how it is, they were just too lazy to look for and just relied on their title. (I botanist …. I’m pretty.)
I do my work and try to explain it as well as possible.
The plants:
They were in medical use. (maybe not all, but as far as we know today)
They are similar in characteristics. (It does not have to be very accurate, leaves round edges or teeth, flowers round, fringed, goblet or star.)
Other historical drawings.
And most importantly, they all occur in the same region. You can find the hints in the book.
The author was certainly not incompetent. This shows his knowledge of astrology and botany. He also knows the different ways of processing (refining the substances).
It is certainly not a pool party at the Badenixen.
The only one where America can associate with the VM is that it’s in the library there today.
Intransigent intuitive folk will believe what they will, contrary views not even being worthy of intellectual discussion, fit only for scorn, as they will always know better. So the argument goes full circle with no chance of concenus which renders pursuasve discussion useless unfortunately. That‘s just the way that ‘pride and predudice’ works with over educated people and for mine, surely must get us to the ‘Heart of the Matter‘ ie. plain ornery, mule headed stubborness; That all levelling ‘Human Factor‘, according to a smart writer chap I once met briefly in a bar somewhere in Asia. So say what you will about other folks failings and take fair notice from a dyed in the wool ‘dubbo‘ (sorry Di), that if you argue points of contention re period, location, beast or vegetation, you‘re merely pissing in the wind my argumentive fiends.
Peter: Did you not consider for a New York minute, that the VM author(s) might well have orchestrated all of the necessary ingredient proofs like materiels, settings and varieties etc. SIch that gullible folk (like us) might care to confidently nominate for our own known provinence, just so as to be all the more certain of trumping the likes of Piltdown Man for the best prank of 1912. Seems to have worked, considering that Charlie Dawson’s effort only fooled most of the so called experts for a pittiful forty years…
I asked Frances Berdan , co-author of the only textbook on identifying medieval manuscripts that I know of what it would take to definitively identify a manuscript. She replied–I’m paraphrasing here, that the only way to be sure was to read it. Jannick and Tucker are looking at the pictures. They are trained botanists and should be respected for that. Beyond botany they seem to be out of their depth.
There are three mysteries to the Voynich manuscript–the unknown script, the unknown language, and the content. The solution to the second two depends on the first. I have identified the first to the specificity of indicating in what manuscripts it can be found and posting them online. It is yours to engage with or ignore.
dear getter..
I think your comment may have been directed to me, but must admit I can make nothing of it:
“So say what you will about other folks failings and take fair notice from a dyed in the wool ‘dubbo‘ (sorry Di)..”
I don’t know what a ‘dubbo’ might be and, just fyi, no-one who knows me woulid call me ‘Di’. But good luck to you anyway.
“So what do you call what Ben Leeming calls “characteristic features of Nahuatl poetics, including couplets, triplets, and parallel structuring, all within the morphological boundaries of individual words” if reduplication is too precise a word for you to be extended beyond the bounds of single words? And do you really want to go on to argue each and every one of the three examples in Launey’s grammar? I’m not the linguist, that is my brother. As for the rest of your arguments about reading the Nahuatl in the Voynich–do you really think it is in plain text? Really? The statistics hardly support that.”
I don’t need to call that anything else – couplets and triplets and parallel structuring in Nahua stylistics are semantic patterning, saying the same thing twice or thrice *with different words*. That is it does not create any pattern that is visible from simple inspection without actually understanding the words.
I am happy to argue based on actual examples of actual Nahuatl such as it is found for example in Launey’s book – but it is on your shoulders to demonstrate that any of the grammatical elements described by Launey produces any of the repetitive figures found in the Voynich.
Do I think the Voynich is written in plain text? Janick and Tucker are not argueing that the language is somehow encrypted – they are arguing that it is Nahuatl. I am simply showing that their arguments are invalid. It is the job of Voynich scholars to provide better arguments either for it being Nahuatl, for it being another Mesoamerican language, or for it being any particular natural language that is somehow encrypted. Not mine.
Magnus,
I must be perfectly clear here. I am not terribly interested in arguing the validity of Tucker and Janick’s evidence of the Mesoamerican provenance of the Voynich Manuscript. I am interested in proving in a scholarly way the Mesoamerican provenance of the Voynich Manuscript which the Comegys brothers championed and documented long before Tucker and Talbert or Janick.
That is where our interests diverge. My interest is in assessing the scholarly validity of claims and arguments about it being written in Nahuatl. Those claims are not convincing, and as long as those are at the center of the argument about the Voynich having been produced in New Spain then that argument is not convincing either.
I am not an art historian, but I have seen a lot of New Spanish documents and illustrations, and the floral illustrations in the Voynich look very poorly executed compared to known New Spanish herbals, the style of the little bathing ladies look like nothing I have ever seen in a New Spanish document, but like something that I have seen in documents from rennaissance and medieval Europe (for example the little pot bellies).
I have seen nothing to show that the elements of Voynich that resemble colonial Spanish shorthand would have been found only in New Spain and not in Europe at the same time.
But sure, if there were actual arguments that were unconnected to it being Nahuatl that could actually support a claim of it being from colonial New Spain I would be happy to accept it. But all of the arguments I have seen thus far have supposed that it was not only from colonial Mexico, but that it was Nahuatl. And those arguments are unfounded.
Tucker and Jannick are scholars of botany. Jannick is a scholar of the symbology of botany. You say you are interested in scholarly validity of claims of Nahuatl, and yet you are referring to the opinions of botanists. That could be some or all of the problem. You say you are not an art historian. Why not leave it at that? You say you have seen nothing of colonial Spanish shorthand. Why bring it up? Was it mentioned by botanists? If you want a very clear description and identification of the Indigenous style of script from New Spain used in the Voynich Manuscript I will refer you to Vicenta Cortes (1986) La escritura y lo escrito: Paleografia y diplomatica de Espana Y America en los siglos XVI y XVII. She identifies as the courtesan script <> the script used in the Codex Osuna “Pintura del Gobernador, Alcaldes y Regidores de Mexico” You will see the very page she cites with letters used in the Voynich Manuscript indicatred in the appendix to my little monograph dated 2013 that you consulted on Academia.edu. Dr. Cortes makes no mention whatsoever of the Voynich Manuscript. It is her scholarly opinion that the script in Codex Osuna and other texts is a style used by Nahuas to write in Nahuatl. So you seem to be asking for the impossible. If you find her claims unfounded I suggest that it is because you are unfamiliar with her work and that of other Nahuatl scholars whom I quote. I did not invent the connection between the Voynich script and the courtesan hand, I merely document the work of recognized Nahuatl scholars. Before you claim the mantle of expert on such matters for yourself I suggest you familiarize yourself with their work and that of the well known literature on the subject. And no, I am not a scholar of Nahuatl. I am an amateur historian who was taught at an early age to check my footnotes and my facts before I spoke and especially before I wrote.
That is rich. Now it is I who am accused of being “out of my element”, though I am the only one here (including Tucker, Jannick and yourself) who is actually able to read and understand colonial Nahuatl – the language that is being claimed as . The identification of the letters as “courtesan hand” or whatever other hand is utterly irrelevant if the proposed identification does not lead to actual legible intelligble text in the proposed language – Nahuatl. And it does not.
So even if you have correctly identified the script (which I doubt), you have definitely not identified the language. And no amount of hand waving will turn the gibberish text your, and Tucker and Jannick’s, decipherments produce into Nahuatl.
Now that Janick and Tucker’s second book is out, the question of what Springer is doing to its reputation as a scientific and scholarly publisher must arise once more.
Two such appalling volumes in such a short time. One has to know who the hell are the professional botanists, historians, or linguists who were asked to do the peer review? Whoever they are, I’d be tempted to drum them out of their faculty.
How COULD any competent specialist have failed to recognise the multitude of errors in this book. It’s just astonishing.
Does anyone happen to have heard on the grapevine whether Tucker’s ill-health led the publisher to by-pass the usual scientific standards? I just can’t imagine any scientific publishing house jealous of its reputation not getting competent peer reviewers in the relevant subjects – I mean botany, meso-American languages, comparative codicology (the pair seem to believe the Voynich pages were inscribed somewhere in the Americas). The comments made about pigments are just jaw-dropping. I can’t believe Springer let them pass – it must, surely, know at least one person who knows the basics in that subject.
Really, if there were reviewers appointed, they should be… never used again. And if not… well I’ll be looking at Springer’s list with a more doubtful eye in future.
I think this topic is difficult as there are and have been people with solid academic reputations who have produced theories or failed to produce theories that are and have been generally been viewed as poor. I just think a lot of reviewers are reluctant to put their heads above the parapet to state a clear opinion on Voynich research incase it comes back to bite them. I think there is a tendency to fall back on people’s reputations as a determinant of whether they are right or wrong.
Mark, you don’t have to know anything about the VMS to see HUGE numbers of historical, factual, and technical errors in the Tucker/Janick book.
It doesn’t even look like it’s been copy-edited for basic spelling and fact-checking. Look at what they wrote for the population of Mexico City. Look at all the Linnaean plant names that are spelled wrong (and these are supposedly botanists!). And so much more, and that’s only in half a dozen preview pages!
I feel the way Diane does. I despair that a scholarly publisher with such a good reputation would allow this unprofessional mess into print.
JKP – thanks.
Mark, I don’t consider ‘Voynich research’ the point.
The Voynich manuscript is a physical object – an artefact like any other, made of membrane, fiber, inks and pigments like any other, and the same standards must apply to its discussion as to any other assertions made about an artefact of this class.
J&T have argued that a manuscript which had been scientifically radiocarbon dated to the first decades of the fifteenth century should have its inscription (and, they say, materials) dated to the sixteenth century. That’s a matter of materials science.
And any competent specialist in codicology and its many related fields are able to evaluate the evidence and any argument offered as explanation for debating the previous scientific opinion. In fact, there’s neither evidence nor argument just another bit of Voynich-style kite-flying. J&T speak of the scientific evidence and its evaluation as ‘received wisdom’ – a term normally reserve for common gossip and folklore. That’s not a scientific argument, it’s the usual hypothesis-driven attitude to evidence opposing a bit of wishful thinking/hypothesis. Just a sneer ‘received wisdom’ and then charge on as if the objection has been dealt with.
That might be ok for online chatting about Beinecke ms 408, but its not how a formal dispute of scientific findings proceeds, and that’s the point: Springer’s name is on it, and Springer’s reputation has been as a scientific publisher on whom people can rely in their own work.
I’ve often regretted that McCrone weren’t simply given a brief to provide a full report on the manuscript’s pigments. Having their comment on the full palette and the binding agent(s) alone could tell us more than decades’ guesswork and theory-hunting. Unfortunately, that wasn’t their brief and what we have (pace Beinecke) is not at all the “detailed chemical analysis” which McCrone was well able to provide. Even so, J&T’s comment about the pigments is astonishingly ignorant. I can’t believe they consulted any scientific paper or text, nor consulted any specialist in any related field.
They appear to have hypothesised/imagined that the palette is small, though it isn’t – only the number tested was small. They seem to imagine that all vegetable pigments, as they fade, not only fade but degrade in such a way that what began as e.g. Indian [of India] yellow might become indistinguishable from weld-extracted yellow pigment and both from some unspecified Aztec pigment. More importantly, they seem ignorant of the anomalies within the manuscript’s date range or what it might imply (for example) that the palette includes – or appears to include – no pigment in the range pink-purple. Among other things it suggests avoidance for cultural reasons, or lack of access to the plants that were known as “logwoods”. In either case, it’s important in terms of provenancing content in a manuscript … as any competent scientific reviewer would have surely noticed and pointed out.
If a scientist reviewing the work failed to point out such gaffes, it would not be a friendly act; scholars who correct others are doing a kindness, and we usually thank them for it. No-one want to look a fool before their fellows, whether in botany or in any other science. So who, if anyone, were Springer’s scientific peer-reviewers? Were they botanists, codicologists, historians, technical analysts, experts in historical linguistics?
I can’t comment about typos. I’m a hopeless typist, myself and I daresay not one book in a thousand is without some, at least.
But again – it makes one feel less confident in Springer’s editorial policies overall.