I’ve recently had some nice correspondence with Rafał Miazga, an independent Polish researcher who, having deftly avoided getting trapped by the perils of Voynich Manuscript research, instead travelled deep down the Rohonc Codex rabbit-hole. He has posted up a (substantial) paper on academia.edu outlining both his research and his interesting (yet tentative) conclusions, which I think are well worth reading. I also thought it would be worth using this post to summarise my very high-level view of the state of play of Rohonc Codex research, plus why I think Rafał’s paper is particularly interesting.
Kiraly and Tokai
After many years of only stumbling advances, Rohonc Codex research is now broadly dominated by the work of two researchers, Lev Kiraly and Gábor Tokai. Even though Kiraly and Tokai haven’t fully published their research, there seems little doubt (even from Benedek Lang) that they are heading in the right direction with the meaning they are extracting from sets of Rohonc Codex words.
And yet their results remain highly bemusing, incomplete, and unsatisfactory. For them, Rohonc Codex words have no obvious declination or conjugation (so are more like English than Latin), and largely lack structure (many passages are more like repetitive babble than structured text).
Overall, I think it’s fair to say that K & T are trying to solve the puzzle of the Rohonc Codex from the details upwards, i.e. as a pure linguistic / syntax / grammar puzzle. But right from the start, it seems to me that they’ve been tangled in ‘word weeds’: like the Voynich Manuscript, the Rohonc Codex presents many repetitive babble-like features (though admittedly not quite at the same level), and K & T seem to be perpetually stalled by these.
Ultimately, they need the Rohonc Codex’s text to be a pure language for their methodology to work, but looking in from the outside I find it hard not to conclude that the two don’t quite fit as well as they’d like. I’ve thought from pretty much Day One that they’re missing some kind of higher-level hypothesis: they know how it works, but they can’t quite say what it is. For them, the Rohonc Codex remains an isolate, i.e. “an individual socially withdrawn or removed from society” (Merriam-Webster), and so they struggle to draw parallels or connections with other languages, other historical artefacts, or other histories.
Enter Rafał Miazga
What Rafał Miazga did is compile his own transcription, and then draw his own low-level conclusions which were largely parallel to Kiraly and Tokai (though there are many overlaps, they’re far from identical). What they do seem to me to broadly share is that the Rohonc Codex is both a religious mess (i.e. one that doesn’t quite match ‘proper’ Bible stories) and a linguistic mess. On balance, I think it’s fair to say that Rafał’s word-level account of the Rohonc Codex isn’t at all far from what Kiraly and Tokai put forward.
But here’s the big difference: Rafał also has an idea of what he strongly suspects the Rohonc Codex is – which is (probably summarising too boldly and quickly) a book written down by a profoundly deaf monk in an idiosyncratic language. That is, the Rohonc Codex is (in some way) a sign-language transcription, with a large code-book (nomenclatura) of specific signs.
This is a very bold idea, and one that I think Rafał should be commended for, as well as encouraged to explore further. Well done Rafał, keep going!
Nick’s thoughts
In some ways, what Rafał has achieved could well be a kind of Rohonc Codex “plot point” (i.e. that pivots the narrative and spins the story off into a new direction), in that it suggests other histories to look at.
For example, monks who had taken a vow of silence (Trappist, but also Cistercian and Benedictine) had their own monastic sign languages. There are plenty of websites where these are mentioned or discussed: I believe that there is a decent (if dispersed) literature on these. There are even YouTube videos where monastic sign languages are mentioned:
The primary historical question for me is therefore whether there are any other examples of transcribed monastic sign languages mentioned in the literature. I’ve suggested this to Rafał and I’m sure he will be looking for these. There are certainly partial word-lists out there, but might there be other texts?
More generally, I suggested to Rafał that he might think about looking at the Protestant Reformation in Hungary. This was a hugely complicated time for Christianity, where Catholicism, Protestantism and Unitarianism were all prominent players, with many Diets trying to broker accommodations (both religious and political) between them. This tangled picture seems to me to be mirrored by the Rohonc Codex’s own tangled religious tropes: so perhaps its author was a profoundly deaf monk whose religious rug had been pulled from under him by the Protestant Reformation?
In many ways, what a hypothesis like Rafał’s offers isn’t necessarily complete answers, but rather a way of looking at historical sources with new eyes. With luck, this might prove to be the start of a fresh chapter for the Rohonc Codex. Fingers crossed!
Nick. Codex Rohonc. It’s not complicated. There is a picture on the last page. And that’s the key.
I don’t understand how scientists can research Rohonc for a hundred years. Although more scientists were working on it. Like, for example, two Czechs. The father and son were named Jiřeček. Scientists make a mystery out of every fart. Scientists need to think more. Then it will surely be ok.
Comrades and friends and scientists. Codex Rohonc is not that complicated. As it is written everywhere. Of course, it takes more thinking. So the scientist should think more. And then he will surely discover that this little book is not a big mystery. A scientist should identify the signs correctly. If the scientist didn’t know what the signs were. So of course his research will be wrong. So far according to what I have read about Rohonc. So I can write here that the research is wrong.
A smart scientist should work on the codex. And that’s why I’ll help you too.
On the back of the codex there is a picture: Where it is: Jewish star (6 points).
2. Anchor.
3. Commas. ( 20 dashes. ) = IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII.
4. Letters = T,Y,L.
And that’s the key.
A scientist who examines the Rohonci text. He should find out why there are 20 commas. (lines) Next to the anchor. It’s important. And what is the main thing. It will show scientists how the author thought.
Nick, interesting stuff. I am clearly the latecomer on this. I bought the Lang book a few months ago. I will take a look at what I always do, history of ownership, framework of the period it entered world consciousness and what were possible connections to other mysteries. Could it be related somehow to the Vms? There is not as much to latch on picture wise with this, as with the Voynich. More or less just two magi like characters interacting and saying something like “great sir, I humbly offer you this gift”, and the other saying ” great sir, I am flattered and in return, I offer you this”. Could that be actually what they are? Magi?
Rohonc Codex. Here the scientist should rather think about Austria. The codex has little to do with Hungary. The scholar should focus on the Habsburgs. ( Burgenlad. Rechnitz ).
Nick or anyone who has thought this question through..
There’s a current ‘meme’ doing the rounds at the moment along the lines that “the Rohonc Codex has many points in common with the Voynich manuscript” or something of that sort. Apart from Nick’s mention of babble-like sequences I can find nothing to support that meme. Has anyone – such as Lang – actually presented an argument for it?
Diane,
He does mention the Voynich manuscript with the similar idea that both the Rohonc and the VMs are so far out that they can’t really be determined to be a) A forgery, b) a code c) an artificial language, d) etc etc.
However, looking into his work, he compares something referred to as the “Gelle Prayer Book” as relating to the Rohonc, although the the former more likely to be a hoax written in “Hungarian runes”. Curiously in the “Table of characters” of that work he has provided a facsimile of, what looks to this researcher as a lot like EVA “T” both upper and lower case, except transliterated as “u”. ” Ye old” gallows character seems to have emerged in another document. Likely someone will tell.me I’m wrong on this, but that’s what I see.
Nick,
Something provoked me and I thought I would say both the Rohonc (and the VM):are more likely to be non establishment works. Thought I would clarify that as now I see your basic point was something other.