If you have ever found yourself asking “Where can I found out about XYZ’s moderately-loopy-but-eerily-hard-to-disprove Voynich Manuscript theory?“, then you’ve come to the right place. Here’s very probably the longest list of such theories on the Internet…
- Tim Ackerson is quite sure that the VMs was written in Early Welsh / Old Cornish from the 7th to 8th century AD.
- Zbigniew Banasik claimed that the VMs is written in the Manchu language (summary and links by Jorge Stolfi).
- Robert S. Brumbaugh came to various conclusions about the VMs (many of which hinged on his interpretations of the short number columns on f49r), such as that it was a 16th century cipher, or (later) a 16th century fake of a 15th century cipher. Either way, Brumbaugh thought the alphabet was a lossy number cipher, with each glyph basically standing in for an Arabic numeral. See D’Imperio’s “Elegant Enigma”, section 5.4.
- Dan Burisch claims that the VMs was written down in enciphered Hebrew by Roger Bacon, and that it describes some kind of alien technology from the future for creating DNA with sound. [See this Cipher Mysteries blog entry.]
- Jim Child, an Indo-European linguist who has been studying the VMS since the late 1970s, sees Voynichese as a pronounceable early German language.
- Jim Comegys believes that the VMs was a medical book written in Nahuatl (the language of the Aztec) possibly by Francisco Hernandez, and has written a book describing his claim.
- Erich von Däniken covers the Voynich Manuscript in his (2009) book “History Is Wrong”, linking it with the Book of Enoch and a whole load of other things.
- Karel Dudek tries to argue that the VMs was created by Georg Handsch of Limuz.
- Steve Ekwall posted two webpages on the Voynich as revealed to him by an “Excitant Spirit” in October 2000. Most of it is covered by his main web-page, but there is an additional “Folding KEY 101” page here. Note: some broken links.
- Joseph Martin Feely constructed what he believed to be a partial decipherment of page f78r, but his claimed “clews” and his mangled Latin failed to convince any cryptologist. See Mary D’Imperio’s “Elegant Enigma” [section 5.2] for more, and a fuller account in Kennedy & Churchill pp.109-115.
- James Finn (“Big Jim”)‘s theory that the VMs is written in Hebrew, and warns of a coming end-time.
- William Friedmann proposed that the manuscript is written in an artificial language, not unlike Dalgarno’s Real Character. [see D’Imperio’s “An Elegant Enigma”, sections 6.5, 6.6, 9.3]
- Jacques Guy on the enduring life of his Chinese Hypothesis.
- Beatrice Gwynn from Dublin thinks it’s a sixteenth-century hygiene manual, written in left-right mirrored Middle High German. [Kennedy & Churchill, p.242]
- Wayne Herschel is certain that the star disk on page f68r3 of the Voynich Manuscript is a hidden record of a golden plate with secret writing given to Judas by Jesus Christ.
- George Hoschel Jr thinks that the VMs is a strange kind of recipe book in “Old Latin” (where f80v says “SAVED CRUMBLED DRIED TO HOOPOE KIDNEY”, etc)
- Volkhard Huth concludes that the VMs came from around Germany, and dates it to around 1480-1500.
- Miguel Lahunkun (a notorious Internet poster) claimed to have decrypted the VMs in a Google Groups post.
- Erhard Landmann posted up his theories on the VMs in German here [pdf], and in French here [pdf], and in English here [pdf].
- Leo Levitov‘s Cathar Theory (as summarized & criticized by Dennis Stallings).
- Jody Maat believes that the VMs is readable as a (vaguely polyglot) Old Dutch.
- Claude Martin‘s assertion that the VMs is not only number-encoded (rather like Brumbaugh), but also meaningless.
- Adam D. Morris suspects that the VMs might have something to do with Hieronymus Reusner‘s Pandora (a version of the ‘Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit’).
- William Romaine Newbold sensationally claimed that the VMs was written by Roger Bacon in a multi-layered micrographic cipher, and described using telescopes to view galaxies.
- Ursula Papke has a kind of NLP-like transcendental interpretation of the Voynich glyphs, wherein each glyph gets decomposed into constituent strokes, and the kind of “stroke harmonies” that implicitly make up individual words are interpreted to tell a kind of rising/falling/looping narrative.
- Chris Parry‘s assertion that the VMs is a-pretend-foreign-language-fake.
- Nick Pelling‘s theory that Antonio Averlino was the author of the VMs [book site]
- Rolando Hernandez Rivero posted that the Voynich Manuscript was written in “Old Spanish” (but with bits of Latin and English thrown in).
- Richard Rogers claims that the VMs is an ultra-terse Renaissance drawing language, to describe (presumably) heretical symbols without actually drawing them.
- Gordon Rugg‘s hoax-is-a-possibility theory, which makes use of a modified Cardan Grille to simulate some (but not all) of the oddly-structured nature of the Voynichese text.
- Richard SantaColoma claims that the VMs was probably written by Cornelius Drebbel, or perhaps was a stage prop constructed by Francis (not Roger) Bacon.
- Dirk Schröder has his own Kabbalistic / numerological take on the VMs [in German], which probably won’t prove very convincing to you unless you are already certain of the power of numerology.
- Edith Sherwood believes the VMs was created by a very young Leonardo da Vinci (even though he was left-handed)
- John Stojko‘s vowel-less Ukrainian theory: “Letter to God’s Eye“
- Dr Leonell Strong believed that he had deciphered the two pages of the VMs he had reasonable reproductions of, using a base alphabet local to a section of ciphertext but with an offset cycling through the set [0]135797531474. More recently taken up by long term Voynich researcher Glen Claston, but still doubted by more traditional cryptologists (such as Jim Gillogly). Mentioned in Mary D’Imperio’s “Elegant Enigma” [section 5.3].
- Mark Sullivan thinks that the number column on page f66r holds the key to deciphering the VMs (and that the underlying language is Latin).
- Mandy Tonks asserts that not only was the VMS faked, but that Wilfrid Voynich also hoaxed the Marci letter that he claimed to have found with it.
- Wilfrid Voynich was convinced – apparently even before he read the Marci letter – that it was Roger Bacon who had created the object we now call “The Voynich Manuscript” (but which Voynich himself called “The Roger Bacon Manuscript”).
And finally, Voynich theorists who wish to remain (at least partially) anonymous…
- An anonymous Greek individual has proposed a Jewish Arabic Voynich theory, which claims to map Voynich letters to Hebrew equivalents, to produce an Arabic text.
- “Michael the friend of D” (who is apparently from the Ukraine) suggests that text may be hidden across multiple lines (or if not, Trithemius-style in alternate words).
- Despairing of finding a book publisher, an anonymous German industrial technician has put his/her “De Aqua” Voynich theory up on YouTube.
- Here’s a Spanish “fountain of youth” Voynich theory (also on YouTube), focusing on possible links with Juan Ponce de León.
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Upon viewing the Voynich Book page by page, IMMEDIATLY
understood the language, and why no one in the past times have not deciphered.
This language is ” The Heavenly Language”.
No one has before has understood this language, It is a gift given. Man did not write this, it was penned by man, but the language was given from our heavens.
Know that these plants were in the Garden, Long past.
For Healing and Knowledge purpose. Look and see, understand.
I am missing my development here:
voynich2arabic.wordpress.com
This is indeed a difficult book to break down, I have taken a look at it thoroughly, perhaps because it seems like it is a copy of another book and hence why it is scribed without fault in penmanship, with the exception of a repeated word here and there (which is often the case when someone is copying text from another book). Things that add more to my suspicion that this is a copy are the crude drawings, from someone with no drawing ability trying to re-draw a depiction by someone else as well as some of the drawings appearing somewhat similar to the botanical pharmaceutical portion of the Harleian Manuscripts. Perhaps both had access to the original and decided to “re-write” them by their own conclusions and perceptions. I don’t quite agree with the Manchu suggestion and many others as I had tried those languages. Problem with it lays in that it’s in the stylized writing of the era, almost as a Latin cursiva but with variations of what seem to be some sort of ancient language combination which meant the original writer was adept in linguistics as well as ancient languages. There’s a colophon, and there might be indeed the phonetic form of writing which adds even more difficulty in translation. If indeed some of the researchers suggesting that the writing is ancient Hebrew, because then there seems to be some mix match of Aramaic along with a few ancient Greek letters then that would mean that either it’s a copy of something from somewhere slightly before (or around) 300 BCE Mesopotamia or someone with a good knowledge base of the languages of the era. I don’t agree that this was something someone wrote to make a book seem to have more value, since I myself had made in the past some private journals written in a mix match of ancient languages or made up runes (like Tolkien’s Uruk) so no one could read my journals. But for the invented runs I do have a puzzle (a table or legend) to help break down the alphabet of those fictional runes if I were to give the journal to someone else. Meaning this was something secretive of the time in which only a selected few were meant to read it (ie apprentice). This is just my opinion from a mere observer, nonetheless despite everything it is a beautiful “journal” of sorts.
Mary, I think you are right on many points, or at least they tend to agree with my prejudices. I believe it is in Latin cursive, maybe of the Czech flavor (no Q. W and the incorporation of what I think are “ch”s. I think the language overlaid is not Hebrew but Armenian which has a number of glyphs used in the VM: the 4, the 8 and 9, the mirrored “&”, the tipped “?” the “o” sometimes appearing as “a” and the backward swirly “S”.The key to a decrypt is the 8 and 9 which use letters (Roman e and t respectively) so that 89 becomes et (and). The 4, “mirrored &”, tipped ? are “c”. “f” and “ch” respectively. The herbs are deliberately fanciful and have medical uses embedded in them. They are reasonably well drawn but very poorly tinted and retinted. Orignal ink can be found in every one by careful inspection.I think the substituted ciphers (the c-c combinations and the gallows glyphs) were designed to resemble Arabic. Nick pelling on his pages points out the use of Latin scribal abbreviations for omitted letters and truncations. These abound in the VM. We may never know the purpose of this thing and the extreme care used in copying from some coded plaintext, likely in Latin but with a lot of English, German and Italian may as you indicate be intended for initiates or intimates of the scribes. I don’t think there is a “colophon” or if there were one, it was scraped off. The sentences on the last page were not by either of the scribal hands involved in the creation of the VM. Any normal colophon is in the hand of the vellum maker and scribe, not a sloppy thing like we see in the VM. Best wishes. Tom Spande
Hello! I started to publish my first attempts at translation of the Voynich manuscript on my blog. I would be honored to your review at the work. Best regards
Ruby
Dear all, I think most Voynichers will agree to the following:
1) the end product is Latin but likely a Latin style, loaded with scribal abbreviations, that is older than the early 15C vellum date of the VM.
2)Most think it is a cipher substitution code
3)I doubt personally that many, maybe none, of the plants depicted in the herbal section are accurate depictions of real plants but have been altered to feature likely medicinal uses. Some are totally fanciful with mouse- or beetle- shaped leaves. Leaves are often joined and indicate, I think, the plant’s use for healing breaks in the skin. If green, then fresh leaves are used. If brown, dried leaves can be used. If plant stems join, the leaves or roots can be used as an aid in healing bone breaks. If the roots are untinted, they are not used. Hidden writing is in some roots.
3) Certain glyphs resemble those used in Armenian but have other meanings (my idea, not generally accepted).
4)Two scribes are at work but both seem to use the same abbreviations and cipher substitutions so are likely working from an enciphered plain text. The VM is definitely a copy as has been shown by codicology studies of Nick Pelling and others.
5)the tinting or coloration is of two types: original, very faint in most drawings or done later and perhaps several times by tinters of varying skills. Some water color is used, some crayon and apparently some goache is used. The original was evidently colored ink.
5) The vellum has been fairly precisely dated by C-14/C-12 isotope ratios but the date at which the ink was applied remains uncertain. It likely also originates from the early 15C.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, a “ps” to my last post. One very important point, recognized by most, is that the word lengths in the VM are arbitary but made to resemble real word lengths. Words have been taken apart and put back together in odd ways. There seem no really reliable markers for word endings although my view is that the tipped “?” which is “ch” in Armenian may serve often as the end of a word. The ampersand, “&” occurs here and there but often at the start of a word, sometimes isolated and sometimes at the end of a word. It can mean just the letters “et” but also Latin for “and” or part of “etc”. Its use in Latin, either medieval or renaissance, is a puzzle at the moment.
There are many Tironian notes (Nick first pointed this out) and other scribal abbreviations which complicate life as often the usual indicators like the “overbar” are missing. Cheers, Tom
After a brief study of the VMs, I came to a possibly insignificant conclusion to describe the plant drawings with no real life counterpart. Someone who would go to such great lengths to hide the meaning of the text would also find a way to hide the identity of the botanical plants referenced in the text.
I believe the VM to be nothing more than an early 15th century physician or herbalist going to great depths to hide the secrets of his practice. After all, there was a lot of money to be made by reputable physicians from the noble class during this age. This author in the process just also happened to create an indecipherable text, probably due to his own paranoia of the subject matter becoming public, thus rendering his knowledge unprofitable.
Michael: all fair enough deductions… but the big question is how. Specifically, how that person managed to achieve that before anything as complex as polyalphabetic ciphers were invented. 🙂
nickpelling: I guess that is where my knowledge on the subject of ciphers and cryptology ends. I know very little.
Now I could be very wrong, but would it be so hard to make up your own script and ways of transcoding that would be impossible for anyone to mathematically deduce based on the sheer randomness of the encoding methods?
Say every letter has more than one character, actual spaces are random, deciphered spaces are indicated using a number of encrypted characters. Encoded character order shifts on a set order with the introduction of new sentences on a given page. Letter order for any given word could shift based on position in a sentence. etc. etc. etc.
Could something that complex and thought out really be decoded by a person who knows nothing of the encoding methods? This subject is starting to fascinate me, I think I’m going to read more on it.
Michael: it is indeed possible to tie very complicated (and random-looking) cryptographic knots with a relatively small amount of creative effort. Yet that’s [k]not what we see in the Voynich Manuscript: there, we see a strong patterning system, with even tighter letter-to-letter binding than in English or Latin. There are even strong statistical patterns in places you wouldn’t necessarily expect, like the first letter of a paragraph, two-thirds of the way along the top line of a paragraph, the end of a line, the start of a word, etc.
So, the challenge here isn’t explaining away too much randomness, it’s explaining away too little randomness. Hope this is a help! 🙂
Dear all, In my opinion, the cipher substitution is consistent and constant, i.e. a “backward swirly S” is an S throughout the VM. An important proviso however is that not all those swirly S’s are created equal. For example, some represent embedded scribal abbreviations, a right paren “)” atop a “c” null, at first glance looks like that backward swirly S but is made with two strokes of the pen and indicates truncation follows. Here is the nux of why the decoding of the VM is problematic. I think a consistent system of cipher substitution can be achieved but then another layer of the onion is met and that is the use of invented scribal abbreviations as well as incorporation of known abbreviations, such as the Tironian notation that Nick has commented on. We have layered atop a cipher substitution, the use of deletions and truncations that are indicated by what appear at first glance, simple scribal flourishes but are, I think, embedded macrons. Cheers, Tom S.
I let them know that the code, is based on u8n code used by the kings of the world to communicate secretly, but the bigger problem is that this code behind, I met since I was 7a, there are other codes, that could only be decode, if someone had the table where there are over 784 simulated codes, right, 784 codes, to the left, 784 down codes, and 784 codes up, meaning that there are more than 3136 combinations, but I think just used the code 9, these tables may still be in the hands of some other king, he is satisfied of their ancestors, was the most common form of communication of their reigns and the decisions they had to do, I have a notion , some of the symbols, but these are artificial, and to decode them, must be obtained in order such as decoding, the plants are similar to each other, that we still have, but mostly, these plants seem familiar, are seen in Guatemala, Ecuador. I’m working on artificial remember those codes, I doubt that the words of 2, 3, and more letters, may be giving other codes, indicating that only the codes are fake or artificial, any communication, may do so by writing to rolandohernandezrivero @ gmail.com.
quiero hacerles saber, que el código, está basado en u8n código que usaban los reyes del mundo para comunicarse secretamente, pero el problema mayor, es que detrás de este código, que conocí desde que tenía 7a, hay otros códigos, que solo se podrían decodificar, si alguien tuviera la tabla en donde hay más de 784 códigos simulados, hacia la derecha, 784 códigos, hacia la izquierda, 784 códigos hacia abajo, y 784 códigos hacia arriba, ósea que hay más de 3136 combinaciones, pero, creo que solo usaba el código 9, estas tablas, podrían estar aun, en manos de algún otro rey, que tenga constancia de sus ancestros, era la forma más común de la comunicación de sus reinados y las decisiones que tenían que hacer, creo tener, noción, de algunos de los símbolos, pero estos son artificiales, y para decodificarlos, hay que obtener en su orden dicha forma de decodificarlo, las plantas, tienen parecidos a otras, que aun tenemos, pero mayormente, estas plantas aparentemente familiares, son vistas en Guatemala, Ecuador.
Estoy trabajando en recordar dichos códigos artificiales, dudo, que las palabras, de 2, 3, y más letras, puedan estar dando otros códigos, esto solamente están indicando a los códigos falsos, o artificiales, cualquier comunicación, pueden hacerlo escribiendo a [email protected].
I would have liked to read Ackerson’s ideas, but the link seems long gone.
Landmann says
They believe (through a wrong letter assignment) to read the word “oladabas.” Then they put to the level of the word “olazabel” and deem the VMS to be catalane. “Olazabel” is Basque.
I wonder if that was ever tested more?
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@Nickpelling
Was just looking through comments, and you mentioned that no polyalphabetic ciphers had been invented.
This is untrue, Leon Battista Alberti invented a known polyalphabetic cipher, the Alberti cipher, and was alive in the early half of the 15th century, so it is possible that his ideas had spread among a select few including VM’s author.
TB: Alberti’s work on ciphers is well-known, but if you read his 1467 book De Componendis Cyfris, his invention of a cipher disk was specifically triggered by a conversation he had with his friend Leonardo Dati in Rome in 1465.
There is, to the very best of my knowledge, no flicker of a mention of polyalphabetic ciphers before this date (though, as always, I’d be delighted to hear about any information or evidence to the contrary).
Don’t know about ciphers, but I read recently that Arabic was sometimes written with Hebrew letters, though with numerals written in Coptic style (not Indian).
and so
http://hmmlorientalia.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/syriac-letters-and-coptic-numerals/
Has it ever been considered that what is thought of as a character is actually a whole word? 200 pages is not much space to write a detailed medical book. Compressing words into characters would allow a lot of space saving. This insight offered to me when attempting to decipher Korean code in a programming problem.
In chemistry there would be perhaps the twenty most common words like boil, concentration, titrate, pH, dissolve, temperature, etc along with a method for constructing odd terms. These would correspond to a letter. There needs to be numbers also. If I were a student or teacher of chemistry I would and have made my own shorthand. Try keeping up with university physics lectures and making notes in prose. It is not practical, it’s onerous and wastes precious lab time also.
So when these frequency analyses are done, they seem to be cross-correlated with languages in general, why not specific science books of the time written in deciphered languages?
Why not start by taking a science book often time, finding the most common words like boil and dry and dissolve and make the shorthand. Write out the book in shorthand, do a frequency analysis and then cross correlate that with the manuscript?
You can email me comments to [email protected]
This author suggest that it might have been written by a young Leonardo Da Vinci when he was around 10 years old. That might explain the poor drawings (thet are very childish, and is not hard to thing he invented some of the plants, like any child will do) here ‘s the link : http://www.edithsherwood.com/index.php
Adriana, I don’t think that the drawings of the plants in the VMS are childish, even if difficult to identify. I would not know about a child of 10 years old, who would be able to invent plants, know about astrology and astronomy in detail, would depict nude women in baths and invent a script that no one could read. Not even Leonardo da Vinci.
By the way, the origin of the VMS seems to me much older than is indicated by carbon dating. Probably 12th-13th century, when various towns and regions in Italy had yet their own scripts. The carbon dating pertains to the present VMS binding, not to its predecessor(s), so called libellae with various contents.
http://ambushprinting.com/voynich-book/
The link above is the Voynich Manuscript reproduction for sale. handmade and full size including the fold-outs.
Patrick David: thanks for leaving three basically identical comments linking to what is presumably your own printing company. But… are you aware of the other Voynich Manuscript reproductions already out there? I know of at least three (French, Russian, Czech), all selling for roughly a fifth of what you’re charging for yours.
Nick, I’m curious to know where you can find those book. I have really looked everywhere for reproduction and couldn’t find any? I just figured since I wanted a real authentic reproduction others would too. The price I know is a lot, but since I sold a few i should be Cutting that in half soon.
I would buy one if the price was halved Patrick.
I had some luck relating the peripheral words to numbers.relating to the calculation of pi. (22/7)
I used g= “=”
v= “-”
a= “+”
e= “x”
0=”total”
G=3
& or 8=2
?=5
double loop=10
aGoe8e8g0
3(+)(x) 2×2=total
6 + 5 x2 =22
Has anyone pondered the possibility of it originating from another dimension? We cannot identify the pigments used in the ink, the plants used in the drawings, or the language. What if this text is from another dimension in the sense that someone actually somehow traveled to this alternate dimension and brought this text back or composed this text during his travels in said alternate dimension?
Just a thought.
This manuscript is of Martian origin, the strange astrological interpretations, the plants which don’t seem to exist on this planet. And last and finally a language that cannot be deciphered by humanity, or any “earthling” because the language and the writing system did not originate on our planet. Considering an advanced language beyond our own may be impossible to decipher even given thousands of years without access to this language in any other form. This book which seems to be drawn on parchments from earth, by an earthlings hand, may in fact shed light on the fact that advanced beings from Mars have “abducted” Earths inhabitants and given them tours of their own home planet. I had even heard some theories that suggest Leonardo Da Vinci could have written the book as a child. Perhaps he was the “abducted” taken and taught about another planet and it’s biology with sensitivity to the beings that inhabit the said planet. Could this be why Da Vinci was often interested by flying machines, and designs, if you flew once in a machine you would know it was possible and perhaps even dedicate your own time towards this modern marvel.
The renaissance, an evolution of humanity. I don’t find it hard to believe that an advanced race would attempt to make some kind of contact with people that could be trusted. I believe this book to be a renaissance humans field book from their visitation to Mars, fostered by Martians. Thus the book was required to be written in their language and writing which was also taught to our renaissance human.
“In school do I not learn how to read, and write in our language, and then learn about our planet, the things that inhabit it, and our history using this language?”
I am merely basing this off of what I have researched about mars currently. There is writing on the planet surface that matches the symbolism of the writing found in the manuscript. And almost all of Google Mars is blotched out in red swaths and the only bits of high definition released look like mountains fields, trees, and bushes. So what is NASA really keeping under the covers. I can see my neighbor on Google Earth but they’ve had satellites circling mars for years, and all we get is a little questionable swath of visible land? Think about it.
Dear all, pick up a piece of Indian woodblock-printed fabric, or a Persian tile, or look at some old (i.e. pre-Roman) wall-paintings or even some medieval church wood-carving. The plants are not meant to reproduce botanical specimens whether or not meant to evoke a well-known plant.
What we have in MS Beinecke 408 are not “plants unknown on this planet” but images… and ones that may well evoke a known plant in its more important aspects without conforming to our idea that plant drawings should be specimen drawings. Such does not appear to have been their purpose at all.
Greetings, All,
I have been studying herbs for myself recently. I know that sometimes leaves, stems and roots of a plant are used together, and sometimes singly, due to one part being poisonous and the other parts not. Is it possible that the plants do not represent actual plants, but rather a pictorial combination of a concoction? For example, the leaves of Plant A, the stems of Plant B, and the root of Plant C? There are many remedies that use multiple plants to achieve the desired effect. Perhaps if a non-reader were to use the manuscript as a guide, that person would still know what plants were used in which combination. This was my first thought upon learning of the ‘mixed’ plant pictures and I only offer this possibility as a reasoning for the possible mix and match. This is my first introduction to the VM. Regards.
I have read that there are over 170,000 glyphs in the VM. Having just recently stumbled upon this mystery, I was wondering if anyone has put together a list of the glyphs? It would certainly save time from me going through and creating my own list. Regards.
In f68r2, The diagram contains 59 stars. Ptolemy (Batlamyus) calculated the distance to the moon as 59 times earth’s radius. This diagram may indicate distance between Earth and the Moon???
Perhaps this 59 stars referring to lunar calendar. The average length of the lunar month is 29.5 days.
29.5 x 2: 59 days
Who knows
continue to work…
Have you noticed, the stars drawn different. Some of whom six-pointed, some of seven pointed, some of eigth pointed. I even saw nine cornered. Why not drawn all the same ? Normally, draws everyone the same way. This should be troublesome. Perhaps, this is key the cipher. What do you think about this?
hakan, [email protected]
In respect to everyone’s opinion they are wrong. The voynich manuscript is actual a medicine research book. And it can be proven
Micah: the mechanics of such a proof would be the interesting thing – right now, it’s very difficult to prove even the most basic assertions about the Voynich Manuscript. 😐
I will always maintain that the ‘best’ solution/explanation for the Voynic lies in the area of outsider art. The book was the product of someone with skill s and access to materials but had gone to some other reality in their head. Possibly after being a skilled illuminator in a scriptorium somewhere. If the text is ever deciphered it will be meaningless -other than to the author. Those intrigued by it should visit two galleries in Europe. One on the edge of Lille and the other in Paris. Both are wonderful and crammed with art made by people whose field of reference is way beyond the ‘normal’….
Mary: thanks for dropping by. Outsider art has long been a popular Voynich meta-theory: but as time has gone by, we (Voynich researchers) have come to understand that the Voynich Manuscript was the product both of an ordered mind and (as it has ended up over time) of a disordered page evolution. In those places where we have been able to reconstruct its original (pre-quiration) gathering and bifolio nesting order, we have discovered additional layers of orderliness.
All of which is not sufficient to completely rule out outsider art, but I think they are strong indications that the ‘outsiderness’ of the manuscript is only one of several truths that hold simultaneously.
I have a strange theory, but nobody cares anyway
I am very curious,hakan
Hakan, I take it from what you said that there are no five pointed stars?
If there are no five pointed stars in the VM, but plenty of six, seven, eight and nine pointed stars, then this could be a clue to the provenance of the VM. A lack of five pointed stars would seem to imply a prohibition on their use. I have conducted some searches but I can find no clear evidence of such a prohibition at any time or place. But, the five pointed star has religious meaning, particularly in Christianity and in Islam. I wonder if Islam had a prohibition against five pointed stars in the fifteenth Century?
It happens rare that a author considers his own theory strange.
When you will publish your theory,hakan ?
If five pointed stars are not present in the VM, then, to me at least, this implies a prohibition of some sort. I have not been able to confirm that five pointed stars do not occur in the VM because of a) eye trouble, and b) I am out in the mulga and only have access to an old computer with a poor screen. I did discover that in the fifteenth century the Star of David (Seal or Shield of Solomon) was a five pointed star, not six pointed.
So, maybe the VM has a Jewish provenance?
David C. Rea, you crack me up.
I looked through the online archived version, and I couldn’t find any five pointed stars. I wonder if there aren’t more clues in the illustrations being accidentally ignored by cryptographers?
Hi M. Sox. Firstly, I do not claim to break cipher, even a single word. And my theory is not related all of book. Just a single page concerns me. I could not find but may be someone mentions it was previously. Still do not have any evidence to support my theory. How can I publish my theory under these conditions?…
The Voynich behaves like no known non-fiction book. There does not seem to be any Front Matter., Introduction, Chapters, Back Matter; Appendix or Index. Has anyone found anything to suggest this is not just a part of a large work? Like finding volume G of the Encyclopedia Britannica .
Xplor,
On the contrary, the VMS looks to me a mid 16th c. compilation of different documents (libellae) on different topics, but written in the same script, probably bound together to prevent them of getting lost. Internal relations between the ‘chapters’ have not yet been established, not even in the case of the herbal and apothecary pages nor between the register at the end of the book and the preceding ‘chapters’.
Menno
Lost is what I was thinking. The VM could be a copy of a lost or damaged manuscript written in the Tyrsenian family of languages.
I’m not a linguist but, to me, the images on pages 77-78, if that is the right numbers on the pages, seem to me about making wine. The harvesting and pressing of wine. The depiction of nude women, maybe the author had a dirty mind. Other sections seem to look like a planting and harvesting chart page 86. Out of the 9 sections, the top one is the summer equinox, right one fall equinox, bottom winter and left spring. Bottom left is the early spring thaw, upper left is the first harvest of grapes (dry wines), upper right second harvest (semisweet), bottom right final harvest after the first frost (sweet wines). But then again I might be wrong. Its just my opinion. It looks like a gardening book where the author spoke one language and tried to write in another by using just the phonics.
1 Houghtaling. Without agreeing – or disagreeing – with specifics, I agree that the calendar section (often termed the ‘zodiac’ section) shows close connection to the sort of calendar known as the ‘Works and Days’ where it occurs in the medieval western world. Oddly enough, the closest which I found within a specifically Latin medieval context had been made between the 10th and 12thC AD. Overall, however, their origins lay in the pre-Latin east, and so I’d tend to attribute the ‘calendar’ section’s origin to the north-eastern corner of the Mediterranean and to a period considerably earlier than usually supposed. I cannot see how the Voynich manuscript can reasonably be considered the original creation of any fifteenth century Latin ‘artist-author’ – not even of two or three. By that time, and in that culture, several of the ideas and items pictured in the Vms were unknown. imo
Dear Diane,
It is nice to read, that you call the zodiac section a sort of calender known as ‘Works and Days’. Maybe you remember, that I have called it a calendarium as well and so I identified the two crowned figures as the souls of St. Justina of Padua and St. Parasceva of Rome, both with a martyr’s crown.
I didn’t know that, Menno – the link to your web-page doesn’t seem to work for me and I’m sorry to say I can’t recall seeing it last year.
The examples I used (as I recall) came mostly from early mss now in England, but also various stone-carved sequences, and one especially good one that is a mosaic from Norman Sicily. Also known as ‘Labours of the Months’ they show only the month’s visible constellation with whatever rural or agricultural task was performed in that month.
Saints names routinely appear on the civil-and-religious calendar, since the observances of a day named the day for western Christendom, but this isn’t the type of calendar I mean even if we have some versions in which all this information is combined.
Dear Diane,
Certainly, it is a different type of calendar. You may be aware that f71r/v has been misplaced. It should be f74r/v, (which is now lacking) to get the normal month’s order. So be careful with your interpretation.
Greetings, Menno
Diane,
The www has been mistaken for ww. You find the article (in Dutch) under H. Justina of Padua.
Greetings, Menno
Dear Menno
I realise that the present form of that section does not offer unequivocal support for the instinctive notion of its representing a latin zodiac. However, I should prefer to question that notion and seek to understand the ms as it is, because the errors may lie in our own expectations rather than in the maker(s)’.
However, there may be clear codicological evidence for the re-ordering you propose, as for the excision of a folio which many believe contained two more figures in the series.
As a matter of interest – I had the impression (back in 2009 or so) that when I first mentioned the importance of Isidore’s Etymologies on the Voynich mailing list that I was the first to do so. No doubt this is not so, and just an impression gained from the sort of responses received at the time. If anyone knows about an earlier discussion of his work in this connection, do please give a reference so I can follow it back. Thanks.
Dear Diana, I joined this forum some two years ago, so I don’t know about your earlier contributions. Unfortunately this forum is not indexed, which makes it hard to retrieve older posts.
Greetings, Menno
Nick, Menno and all,
One of my Voynich day-dreams is that some wise persons will host an essay competition, the entrants required to offer (each 48 hours, say) their commentary on each folio in turn from ms Beinecke 408.
In these essays, only comment on the primary evidence is required, the points being given for comprehensiveness and quality:- in observation, commentary, references and presentation of the writer’s discussion of the primary evidence.
– for example: including reference to the codicology, a discussion of pigments and inks on *that* folio, description of the imagery with documented historical comparisons; reference to the observations of other and earlier Voynich researchers.
Footnotes required; wiki articles not to be referenced; quoting any wiki article written by oneself or one’s personal acquaintances to be grounds for disqualification.
Points positively deducted for failure to seek the original source for cited comments on e.g. gallows as Neal keys, or Comegys as proponent of a Nahuatl origin.
Once each folio of the primary document has been analysed and commented upon, only then will the surviving contestants be offered the opportunity to propound a single theory to explain all the observed phenomena.
That’s what a theory does; it explains – or tries to offer an explanation for – all the observed phenomena within the field to which it applies.
Should one wish to propose a theory of Martian authorship and manufacture, then the theory must demonstrate that a Martian would have the knowledge and capacity to prepare parchment in this manner, and wield a pen, stylus or brush. If one wished the theory to include the manuscript’s botanical section, you would also have to show proofs for (a) photosynthesis on Mars or (b) the argument that none of the green-leaved plants in the Voynich are actually photosynthetic.
I think a competition like that would be as likely as cats voluntarily running in flocks… but one can daydream, surely. 🙂
Dear Diane,
In fact a lot of the job you prpose has been done by VIB already, but this needs an update with new observations, ideas, suggestions and such. I don’t know, if VIB is willing to organize this.
Greetings, Menno
What number system was used in the Voynich?
Was it Unary .duodecimal or Babylonian ?
Xplor,
I haven’t found a number system as such. Just compare with the quire numbers on the herbal pages.
Greetings, Menno
Hindu–Arabic numerals were not in use in Italy untill Fibonacci wrote Liber Abaci and then it took the printing press before they caught on.
Dear Menno,
Not sure who or what you mean by “VIB” – must say I’ve never seen any invitation of that sort, where people begin by setting out their analysis of each folio, and only then presuming to explain every aspect of the manuscript in terms of a single coherent historically-viable theory.
Which is not to say such an invitation has never been published, only that I haven’t seen one. I am keen to know more.
Menno
Have now found VIB. Not quite the open and comparative treatment my imagined essay-competition would include, but a jolly useful companion to the older writers’ efforts.
Whoever set up the site deserves many kudos!
Dear Diane, Nick
VIB stands for Voynich Information Browser, a German web site in English. One of the persons working on VIB is Rene Zandbergen, well known on this forum. The information of VIB could be extended to cover your historically-valiable theory or theories. I am curious about Nick’s opinion.
Greetings, Menno
Xplor,
I don’t understand your comment. Fibonacci lived in the 12th century, the Voynich MS is early 15th century. So the Arabic numerals were in use for some centuries.
Greetings, Menno
Liber Abaci was first published in 1202, That would be the 13th century. Books at that time were wtitten by hand. Only 12 copies of Liber Abaci the from the 13th through the 15th centuries are known to be existence, many in the Vatican. If the Voynich has a ten base number system then it would be a copy of a Hindu or Arabic work. The Eva shows it as a 10 baded decinal system. I am not sure of others like Voynich 101. Do you think the education systems at the time the Voynich was written welcomed inovation or did they stick with the tried and true ?
and:In this work the numerals are explained and are used in the usual computations of business. Such a treatise was not destined to be popular, however, because it was too advanced for the mercantile class, and too novel for the conservative university circles.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22599/22599-h/22599-h.htm
Xplor,
I don”t see your conclusion, that the VMS has been copied from Hindu or Arabic work, because it uses the modified Arabic numerals. These modified numerals were used for a long time already in Spain and Italy as far as England. You may find the chronolgy on my website under Voynich.
An other question is, why EVA transcribed numerals into letters, which clearly show the shape of the modified Arabic numerals.
Greetings, Menno
and the ‘mercantile classes’ seem to have been pretty good at arithmetic, as the navigators were at what is effectively geometry and trig.
For the first class of people, you might read that book I’ve been pointing people to for several years – not least for its routine use of ‘Ghibelline merlons’ in practical diagrams.
Zibaldone da Canal is its title, and since I first referred Voynicheros to it (in 2009/10 I think), the number of internet sources for it have multiplied – so no need to dig up a hard copy as I did.
The quire and pages numbers could have been added at any time and may not be original. The same with the washes. In fact I think the whole book shows signs of adulteration.
Xplor,
The quire numbers in the herbal section are in the same hand and ink as the herbal text (early 15th c.), the folio numbers have been added mid 16th c. in different ink and hand.
The present VMS may have been copied from original libellae (c. 1250-1350) as is characterized by designs and washes.
Greetings, Menno
Dear Menno,
You are fortunate in working on the ms in 2014. I assure you that when I gave my opinion in 2009 or so that the manuscript was obviously a compendium, with extracts taken from a number of sources and none original to the fifteenth century … well, the reaction was far from positive, especially among members of the Voynich mailing list of that time. Luckily, Voynich studies does move its Alexandrine length along (despite appearances) and today your expressing the same view will scarcely raise an eyebrow. Congrats all round. 🙂
Menno
I see that even the dates you give agree with those I offered on my first ‘exploratory’ blog for a critical stage in the manuscript’s evolution. Sorry I won’t be in town long enough to read in detail the narrative of your own research and conclusions, but (naturally enough) you seem to me to be on the right track. 😀
Hello Nick, I wonder if you would allow a link to an article I’ve written about an aspect of the Voynich script, or even review it yourself?
I promise I’m not a kook (though sometimes I worry).
Link: https://medium.com/@thingsnorthern/the-equivalence-of-a-and-y-in-the-voynich-script-91886d6cd827
Dear Diane,
Thanks ! I have just now read your blog about f67v2 (your f67v1). I absolutely agree with you that the down left picture does not represent a T-O map. In fact the whole page deals with the phases of the moon, represented by odd faces. The down left picture shows the dark side of the moon taken as a globe like earth with an equator.
Greetings, Menno
Thank you Menno,
Do any of you see the voynich as syllabic writing ? Has anyone used the Kober/Ventris Approach ?
Thing,
I have read your article on the equivalence of a and y. I think you missed the point, that many of the a-sequencies are misreadings of the o-sequences, e.g. in te prefixes al- ol-. You will hardly find a- prefixes, but hundreds of o- and qo- prefixes. You will find -aiin suffixes next to -oiin suffixes, so the equivalence is rather -a- with -o- than -a- with -y-.
A more promising approach would be to take the special signs K, T, P, F and cKh, cTh, cPh and cFh into account and see, which sign precedes these special signs like aK, oK, lK, yK etc.
Greetings, Menno
Xplor,
As far I know there is no syllabic writing involved, but I must admit that I have no idea yet about double ‘vowels’ of the type oe, oo, ee, eo and such.
Greetings, Menno
Menno: when I analyzed a/o letters a fair few years back, my conclusion was that though there was some miscopying at play, there was a strong underlying logic to the direction of that miscopying.
For example (in EVA): though (qa / ak / at / af / ap) pairs were almost certainly miscopied from (qo / ok / ot / of / op) pairs, and (oin / oir / om / etc) clusters were almost certainly miscopied from (ain / air / am / etc) clusters, al / ol / ar / or were genuinely independent digraph pairs that were not simply duplicates of each other.
But I need to read Thing’s paper (so far I’ve only skimmed it briefly, which isn’t nearly good enough) before answering this more substantively.
Hello Nick,
Thanks for your comment. Miscopies do not just pertain to a / o, but also to e / o. These a, o, e and the double vowels have so much similarity, that they can be misread.easily. Similarly I doubt, if iK- should not be read as lK. I am still puzzling the question, what may be the reason that non-prefixed special signs mainly occurr as first words of a paragraph and prefixed special signs mainly occurr within paragraphs and sentences. Do you have an idea about that ?
Greetings, Menno
Menno: as I wrote in Curse, I suspect “qo-” is a free-standing prefix (so “qokedy” should be parsed “qo-k-e-d-y”: I now suspect that “qo-” probably enciphers “lo” = “the”), while “ok-” is a completely different verbose pair (so “okedy” should be parsed “ok-e-d-y”). Similarly, I suspect that “ykedy” should be parsed “yk-e-d-y”, i.e. a [y + gallows] pair is a completely different cipher token to an unpaired gallows token.
Nick, if you combine oK and yK to a new cipher token, other prefixes deserve the same, e.g.
Kal (1x) prefix a; Kal (13x) prefix ch; Kal (1x) prefix solch; Kal (1x) prefix qe; Kal (12x) prefix che; Kal (1x) prefix shee; Kal (4x) prefix she; Kal (1x) prefix dl; Kal (4x) prefix sho; Kal (1x) prefix do; Kal (1x) prefix yo; Kal (138x) prefix o; Kal (191x) prefix qo; Kal (1x) prefix so; Kal (2x) prefix cheo; Kal (9x) prefix cho; Kal (1x) prefix olcho; Kal (1x) prefix r; Kal (1x) prefix dair; Kal (1x) prefix sh; Kal (1x) prefix s; Kal (16x) prefix y; Kal (1x) prefix shey; Kal (23x) prefix -; Kal (3x) prefix chol; Kal (1x) prefix qool; Kal (1x) prefix al; Kal (5x) prefix l; Kal (11x) prefix ol; Kal (1x) prefix shol
and
Kaly (18x) prefix qo; Kaly (1x) prefix cheo; Kaly (1x) prefix ched; Kaly (1x) prefix che; Kaly (1x) prefix dy; Kaly (1x) prefix ol; Kaly (1x) prefix qoe; Kaly (1x) prefix she; Kaly (1x) prefix yqo; Kaly (24x) prefix o; Kaly (2x) prefix ; Kaly (2x) prefix ch; Kaly (2x) prefix cho ; Kaly (6x) prefix y
I wonder, if o should be interpreted as a full stop (.) or slash (/).
Greetings, Menno
Thanks to both of you for taking time to read my article.
Menno, the occurrence of “aiin” sequences and “oiin” sequences suggests that “a” and “o” are the same class of character but not the same character. They occur in the same environments but contrast in meaning, like vowels do, for example. Indeed, “y/a” and “o” are contrastive over almost their whole range, though with quite different frequencies.
As for whether “a” or “o” are errors in any given word, I don’t know how we would be able to judge that at this stage.
Is the Thing seeing inflection in a and y ? Didn’t John Tiltman find the same thing in 1968. Only he used a and o.
Hello xplor, I don’t believe there is inflection between “a” and “y”, but rather that they are the same character (or variants of the same character) which alternate depending on context. Specifically, “a” occurs before “i, l, m, n, r”, and “y” everywhere else, though some exceptions seem to occur.
The main example I give in the article is that “oky” and “okaiin” are the same word but with different endings. Tiltman said the same thing, but believed that they were made up out of “ok-” plus either “-y” or “-aiin”. I believe that “oky” is the root word and “-iin” is a suffix which joins directly to it. Rather than the final “y” being removed, it transforms to “a” due to the influence of the “i” at the beginning of “-iin”.
I hope that makes it clearer.
Thing does your approach lead you to a language ?
Has anyone read “Key to Aggas” by John Matthews Manly ? Is it available online?
Hello xplor, my approach hasn’t yet led me to any specific language. I don’t expect that anything will pop out til a lot more work is done.
I believe that, if my finding is true, it will be useful to most people studying the text of the Voynich manuscript. However, I think that it nudges the possible solution slightly toward being a language rather than a cipher. Only slightly though, and the range of solutions is still pretty wide, both language and cipher.
Thing : We are still waiting for others to confirm or challenge your finings. My focus at this time is on the Bacon cipher in America. That is a search of what MI-8 knew an why they did not persue it. For Herbert Osborn Yardley it offered little reward and he distrusted W. M. Voynich. John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert did retained some intrest but their main work was with Geoffrey Chaucer.
Nick was already covered this. The Voynich could still be a copy of a Roger Bacon work. Who knows?
“Neither the voice of authority nor the weight of reason and argument are as significant as experiments from which come peace to the mind.” Keep up the good work.
xplor: My findings definitely do need confirmation! I thought people would be more interested ruling them in or out. I would love to hear what Nick thinks. I’m already looking to build on the theory and find out some even deeper rules about how “y” works.
As for Roger Bacon, I was dimissive of ideas that the Voynich manuscript could be a copy of his work, but I recently read some observations by Philip Neal. I now think there is some evidence that the manuscript is a copy, but whether from a draft or from an original, who knows.
We celebrate the centennial of the Voynich in America,
“If the manuscript is undecipherable it may be worth all the owners expect to get for it. If the ciphering were known, and I certainly did decipher it, the manuscript would only be another in the history of medicine. It is my firm conviction that some of the material in the manuscript could not be published now, it could even be called a Kinsey report from the 17th century.” “Leonell Strong to David Kahn June 21, 1962” So what would it be worth to the Beineke Library if it were solved ? Maybe the idea is not to solve it. That would explain why William F. Friedman’s work in the first study group was hidden for 5o years until Jim Reeds found it.
Xplor,
I am pretty sure, that public and scientific interest in the VMS will disappear as soon as the text and illustrations are fully understood, but this should not be a reason to stop investigations and leave the VMS as it is. By studying the VMS we learn a lot which may be of help for other projects as well.
Greetings, Menno
Menno
We all take Pleasure in Finding Things Out. What have we learned so far? We can date the time time the animals died. Thing has found a relationship between some letters. That would lead us to a language. What do you think is the most important we now know about the Voynich MS ? Has it been solved and the NSA and GCHQ are keeping it a secret from us ?
Xplor,
Good question. I think every researcher will make his or her own list of findings, even without a proper identification of the yet unknown script, language, illustrations or code system of the VMS. Most imortant is, that we know now that de VMS as such is dated in the beginning of the 15th c. When looking at the herbal section we know that the original herbarium contained some 300p, counting the quires, the first part consistent, the second part scatttered around. So what we regard as the herbal section in fact is a first binding of incomplete older material, which can be dated 1250-1350 as compared to other herbaria, the second binding together with other texts (libellae) dates mid 16th c.
I think no one will doubt the northern Italian or alpine origin because of the swallowtail merlons, dating from the same time. Both the date of the original exts and the geography are clean indicators to look for similar material.
Greetings, Menno
What was the status of women in the 15th century under the Ghibelline’ s ? Are they normally depicted with clothes or was it more like the work of Lucas Cranach the Elder ?
How have computers solved the Voynich?
NSA has used Impossible differential cryptanalysis or was it an Infinite Improbability Drive to solve it ?
Xplor,
Please have a look at the Virgo and the Sagittarius to find the answer. Cranach the Elder has nothing to do with the VMS.
The Voynich texts have not been solved by computers. I am afraid this will not happen either.
Greetings, Menno
It would help to know what Calendar is being used. Can we tell what hemisphere the star drawings came from ? It is too early to use the Gregorian Calendar.
Xplor
Certainly it is the Julian calendar, according to me a Saints-calendar, because the months do not always show 30 days in a row. As far as I can see the calendar reflects the northern hemisphere.
Greetings, Menno
I havn’t found any proof of a rule based calendar. Where is January and February [f75v] ?
When is the winter solstice in the Voynich? If Tycho discovered Cassiopeia how did it get in the Voynich?
Xplor,
The VMS order is wrong: 71r/v should be 75r/v.
Gretings, Menno
If that was possible it still would not explain what happened to January and February.
Xplor,
Nothing happened to January and February. If you put the months in the right order you find the zodiac as we know it today.
Greetings, Menno
Xplor,
I agree with Menno to the extent that there is no way that the present order of those folios represents a zodiac, and it is only by forcing a re-ordering and identifying some of the more dubious as e.g. sheep rather than goat, and vice versa, that the series can be said ever to have been intended as a ‘zodiac’.
On the other hand, some activities do not occur all year, so a partial calendar may have had more practical relevance to the user(s) needs.
In this case, and as textual critics had to learn by experience – it is not always the wisest course to reorder a text to suit a pattern with which one happens to be more familiar.
Better to consider the object as-it-is and seek to understand it.
How can we prove that is not a Coligny calendar ?
Diane, Xplor,
Certainly, it would not be right to adapt a certain text order to a known order and instead to understand the order as it is. I fully agree with that, but in the case of the VMS there is a different situation, because the last part of the VMS is a mess as you can see at the last part of the herbal section obviously scattered around. Similarly the zodiac, which ends with two lost pages (75r/v), whereas the light aries and the light taurus do not suit the months indicated and look like duplicates with the dark aries (or capricorn) and the dark taurus. It is so obvious, that a reconstruction in this particular case is feasible.
Greetings, Menno
Is there some need to show that the Voynich manuscript can’t possibly be Gallo-Roman Celtic?
Or is the notion about a link to the old Coligny calendar in stone tied in some obscure way to Kircher’s documented connections with Avignon and Lyons – and presumably that notable pharmacist of Lyons who first introduced the scented rush to England etc.?
– sorry if these references seem enigmatic to anyone. All treated in my blog at one stage or another –
Menno – re your suggestion that the ‘German website in English’ could be ‘extended’ to include my own work – frankly, I think my conclusions run so counter to the usual ones that their inclusion on that site would be inappropriate – beyond, perhaps, a link to my own sites.
My work can fairly be called marginal (if not marginalised) because it never had much to do with the written part of the text. Indeed, if you look through Nick’s post, all the theories relate to Voynichese – and no mention of my name among such as Stokjo, Rugg, Sherwood, and Herschel. They offered ideas about the language and/or script and/or imagined ‘author’ but my investigation was of the imagery and the materials used for the fifteenth-century manuscript.
Dear Diane,
I understand your position, but the main problem might be, that the comments on your blog are on the topic level, mainly art. I have not found yet an outline of your theory about the VMS as an umbrella for your topics, including language and script.
Greetings, Menno
Menno – each to his last.
I have not the qualifications, practical experience nor (to be honest) level of interest to involve myself in discussions of Voynichese, so there would be little point in my commenting on that portion of the manuscript.
While I accept that it is a common fashion to first plot out some preferred historical storyline, and then try to fit the primary evidence into that mould, reading the efforts of others who follow that method cause me much the same pain as reading of Cinderella’s sisters to wear her shoe.
What I’ve done is more traditional and somewhat more scientific in approach, namely to research the evidence offered by the primary document, locate its historical and cultural context (or, more exactly, strata), and then see how this ties in with evidence provided by such scientific analyses as we have to date.
Only then, sitting back and considering the implications of those findings, was I able to form an idea of the whole which approached the level of a theory. It must be incomplete, of course, until the written bits are better understood, but as far as the other elements go: inks, parchment, imagery, meaning/content and so on… it seems pretty solid by now. After about 5 years work or so!
My conclusions – or my evolved ‘theory’ – has been enunciated here at least once, and in my own blogs: both the one which documents the process of research, and the other which sets out the results in a more orderly way.
Not sure what you mean by ‘thematic’; I worked my way through the manuscript, folio by folio, section by section before addressing more particular themes such as the possible sense of that phrase used by Barsch: ‘thesauros Artis medicae Egyptiacos, or whether an inscription which Nick Pelling thought might read ‘Simon S..’ might also refer to that Simon who wrote a pharmaceutical thesaurus which is cited by Roger Bacon.
Evidence first, theory (if any) absolutely last is my own preferred method.
Light and dark was the year of a Celt. Samhain was the holiday that separated the change between light days and winter dark days. We call it Halloween. Does this holiday show up in the Voynich? Many of the Celtic holidays were taken up by the Christians. What we call ground hog day was the change from dark days to light days that section is missing from the V.M.
If I can intrude on your kindness again, Nick, may I post a link to my latest article? It’s about the possibility that final <y> is expressed as a null when in a middle position. In short, <okey> is to <okedy> as <okeo> is to <okeody>
Link: https://medium.com/@thingsnorthern/the-existence-of-y-deletion-in-the-voynich-manuscript-6fb511d6e497
in page 68r3, the figure contains 59 star in 4 sections. (16 stars, 18 stars, 14 stars and 11 stars)(16+18+14+11=59). in page 68r2, also contains 59 stars. 59 is a prime number. if, someone was tried to make fragmentation to prime number 59. but 16, 18, 14, 11 numbers are not coralation. anything, i ltried, but i do not found.
and in page 68r3, contains 59 stars and 7 stars. 7 stars are generally thought to be pleiades. is it could, seven sorrows of mother Mary? So, some source says, rosary of the seven pains of the Virgin Mary has 59 grains.(7 and 59 like picture). 59 grains are something standart, fixed? i do not know. because i do not know more about Christianty. in page 68r3, at the center there is a face. so,this may be mother of Iesus Christi’ s face?(mother Mary, Meryem).
p.s: i am so sorry, if i make a religious error.
page 68r1 contain 29 stars (mansions of luna, like pleiades). 29 is a prime number. if add sun? and moon? in this diagram; 29+2 = 31 also prime.
page 68r2 contains 59 stars. 59 is a prime number too. if add sun? and moon? in this diagram; 59+2 = 61 again prime
and this two diagram (p68r1 and p68r2) are not divided any section.
for example; page 67v1 contain 39 stars and this diagram divided 17 section by rays. because 39 is not prime.
heavily prime, is not it?
Virgin Mary? I’d think it’s Moon rather…
The VMS, if one considers it as a part of European tradition (which is not proved, but it is likely), is strange in the respect that it does not appear to contain any explicit visual reference to Christianity. No Cross, no Jesus, no martyrs, no eschatology there. Although some argue that there are Popes there, but again those painted persons are not manifesting themselves as Popes.
This suggests that it’s perhaps not an “opus” but rather one’s “notes” to oneself, some portions like this “astro” section perhaps having been just reproduced from other MS’s that the author happened to read. In that case one would not bother himself with allusions to Christianity, given, of course, that those were not required from the practical point of view – but we don’t know what the author’s “profession” was.
There is one cross. A woman at the top of 79v is holding one. Though otherwise you are quite right.
” it does not appear to contain any explicit visual reference to Christianity”. Yes, Anton, it is true, because it is a cipher text.
i do not claim my idea is true. it is only an idea. I’m just saying my one of opinion. yes, it is true, i have no evidence. do have anyone? Why do you think it is Moon?
Thing:
Yes, indeed, I’ve been missing that, thanks! I wonder what’s the ring that the woman below is holding?!..
hakan:
Surely, from the cipher text we have yet recognized nothing; I meant specifically visual reference – drawings, markings, illustrations…
Regarding the “Moon”, the consideration is straightforward. I note that the drawings which are placed on f68r and adjacent pages contain Sun – its rays leave no room for another hypothesis in its respect, I think. Then, on each page Sun is depicted either dominating the field, or accompanied by another object of a similar shape and “rank”, but without rays. By way of association, which is most probable if not the Moon?! In many (if not in any) traditions the Moon is surely “second most important” luminary after the Sun, so it’s natural to suppose Moon in the object of this rank and position in the drawings. The crescent which some of the “Moons” have onto them is also suggestive.
Anton: I don’t know about the ring, though other similar items appear on other pages. Indeed, a study of what the men and women in the book are holding might be interesting.
The ‘cross’ is simply an object that has a similar (but *not* identical) form to the Christians’ cross. Lack of Christian forms, Latin Christian worldview and so forth is so obvious a feature of the manuscript’s imagery, that only a very set determination on some contrary theory can explain the continued (and continuing) refusal to recognise the fact.
I wrote on the topic of that approximately cross-shaped form some time ago, and since it is a current item, I’ll try to find and repost the offering from ‘Findings’ if you like.
– done.
The post from ‘Findings’ – in 2010 – reposted now on the voynichimagery wordpress blog. Cheers.
Thing and Anton:
You got me thinking of this section. How does the usage of the Christian cross in f79v even fit in context (whatever it is)?
As to objects. The only one I’m sure about is with the figure on the left of f80r, in the vertical middle of the page. That’s a pair of forceps. Hints at surgery but not sure if that reading is historically accurate. Note that one on left is striking forcep guy in the eye (I had more observations but I’ll leave them for now).
Bottom left of f79r is maybe a section of pipe that this figure is constructing?
A lot are just vague plant parts, e.g. f76v left, f80r bottom left, f80v right middle. Figure at right of middle pool in f84r is pulling whole plant out of red bucket. Maybe explains other objects like f80v top left? Maybe relates to entries in herbal section?
The rest (e.g. 75r top pool stake thing) appear to be tools of some sort.
On f83r for a change the figures are directly holding up the shafts of the pipes; on the left one holds a star on a string like in zodiac section.
Excluding pipes I think the only recurring held objects are the star (lots of times), the ring (three times) and whatever’s at top right of f80v (two times).
Brian, I think the important thing is to discover a context within which all these curious emblems occur and within (say) a couple of centuries of each other. I admit it wasn’t easy, even for someone with some years spent in that sort of work. As it happened, I was fortunate that we have enough examples extant to make a fairly reasonable argument for the Hellenistic era (which continues, in cultural terms, to the early centuries AD in the eastern sphere where Roman armies never ventured). The thing you see as forceps appears at that time as a ritual object, the same time that we see the former situla devolved into a kind of bezel/ring. Both appear in these ‘bathy-‘ folios and are (imo) allusions to certain asterisms, marking the wayfinder’s routes. But the evidence from which I came to that view, and the reasoning behind it, took some years to present online so I shan’t attempt to persuade anyone in a blog-post. 🙂
Dear Diane,
Did you ever consider the idea, that the balneological pages may form a description of ‘how to get pregnant’ ?
I happen to know, that in the middleages such baths were used for this purpose rather than for beauty or health reasons.
Menno
Diane:
Thank you for the reference to your post about that cross. The “lump” is a good observation, and to me this seems the only consideration against this object being the “crux ordinaria”. A budded cross would be fine, but a “partially budded” cross is something strange indeed. Of course we could attribute that for the slip of the pen, but as some other pages (e.g. f2r or f28v) show, micro-scale sometimes definitively matters in the VM, so we should be careful in here.
However, I can not agree with the main message of your article (if I understood this message correctly). Yes, it’s rather obvious that this picture was not intended to depict “a woman holding a Latin cross”, at least within the framework of the Christian tradition. But that would not mean that the VM is something not of the Christian world.
First, I think we should be very careful in considering these figures as “women”, and, generally “people”, these “vessels” – as “baths” or “pools”, et cetera. These well may be some “spirits” or, generally, allegories. Suppose this is an allegory of some spirit commanding a certain aspect of vitality, and the cross stands for the protection from evil influences. Or suppose this figure does not hold the cross, but it rather estranges from the cross, declines the cross, which is meant to underscore some grave consequences of that.
Second, I think that the fact that there is no Christian imagery in the VM can in no way disprove its European origin. The subject(s) of the VM and/or the nature thereof may simply have not required incorporation of any specific allusions to Christianity. The VM may be just a handbook of some specific professional knowledge.
Please excuse me if I did not understand your point correctly, but If your argumentation is that the VM is something not European, then the major weak point of it is that why then would its author write at least some of his marginalia specifically in German language.
Anton: “at least some of his marginalia in German language”… I suspect that you are mistaken here, or perhaps relying on an assertion that is far weaker than you believe. Is this your opinion, or someone else’s claim?
Dear all, what do you think about my prime number theory
Nick:
Yes this is my opinion, but it is not unfounded or based on my own “findings” solely. Each assertion taken by itself may be not that persuasive and/or may be ambiguous, but taken together they do form a non-contradictory picture.
First there are color codes which have long been discussed.
Second there is the “lab” thing corroborated by the adjacent imagery.
Third, there is the “mel” thing – this is the weak point though, it’s a) emendated and b) being a short word, is not clearly corroborated by the adjacent imagery. This may or may not be German.
Fourth, besides “lab”, there is some stuff in f116v which has previously been interpreted as possibly German. I think that it fits the context of f116v, but I’ve been busy (or lazy) to blogpost it, and yet need to previously check this guess with some German speaker.
Maybe I put it in a bit assertive way, so one is quite welcome to call it an “opinion”, but yes personally I think that the above points are suggestive – unless and until, of course, some more adequate interpretation is introduced (which would be more than welcome).
Diane: Historical/cultural context is all fine but I have a feeling that a lot of the meaning is very personal. How do you interpret the violence against forcep guy? I’ve got your blog bookmarked but haven’t had the time to read it. Maybe some day.
Menno: Could be anything really. As for historical baths, note that a few figures look like they are showering. Is there any interesting history for that?
Anton: Maybe the “knob” is related to the one on the ring? I thought it was a clear gem but that’s probably my modern eyes being reminded of a wedding ring.
Allegory was my thought. The Hygromanteia explains the medicinal properties of plants with star-spirits that imbue their powers into moisture. This struck me as being thematically similar to the Voynich Manuscript’s illustrations. Maybe the “balneo” section is showing the zodiac spirits in the water of the plant parts? Diane you may be pleased to know that the Hygromanteia is Byzantine in origin 🙂
Nick: I think he is referring to the rennet bag thing he found tucked away on the last page. btw did you see my e-mail about David Jackson’s word analysis? (I have collected some large natural language text samples if you want to do your own comparisons)
Menno and Anton,
Thank you so much for the reply – it’s nice to have people say they’ve paused to consider my observations.
Menno – I try not to form opinions until after investigating the primary evidence/document in depth. I like the forensic approach, rather than playing ‘chase my hypothesis’ 🙂
In comparing the VMS imagery with the forms of Latin (Christian) Europe, and more importantly with its world-view as expressed in manuscripts made there before the mid-fifteenth century, I was at first puzzled, and then enlightened, by the Voynich manuscript’s resounding lack of reference to the most ingrained and reflexive western Latin ideas about the world, its social structures and so forth.
Compare with any medieval illuminated manuscript, and you too may notice that unlike them, the Vms contains little of war ( perhaps one small vignette, if that); there is nothing of hunts, of kings, of the male hierarchy, of objects as sign of social weight, of Christian proverbs and allusions and so forth… and so forth.
It is a perfectly consistent and resounding silence.
About the manuscript as an object – yes, I do expect that one day we’ll be sure about where it was manufactured, and that place will prove to be in England or the western Mediterranean, northern Italy etc. Even Germany’s not entirely impossible, I suppose.
However, it is hardly remarkable to point out that the place or time where a manuscript is manufactured is no necessary indication of where and when the manuscript’s content was first enunciated. If it were otherwise, one might argue that manufacture of a Psalter in thirteenth century France proved that the Psalms were first composed by a thirteenth-century Frenchman!
I have always found it curious that those who are interested in the Voynich manuscript have so very rarely paused to distinguish between the thing as made object, and the matter in it as content.
But investigating the imagery to determine when and where it might first have been enunciated, I did in fact find that nexus for the bathy- images: the ‘cross with lump’ has its equivalent in close proximity – in both time and place – tp representation of the situla-as-ring, to use of the aegis/parasol imagery, and an object which appears to modern western eyes as resembling a pair of surgeon’s forceps.
I’d date the origin of the ‘bathy-‘ section’s imagery pretty confidently to not later than the 1stC AD.
Other sections yield different results, as one might expect given their clear distinctions in matter and style.
I believe that Voynich research has circled endlessly for a century not least because it began with two premises which were never thought through: 1) that assumption of coeval construction and first enunciation of content; 2) an assumption that both object and content would be a product of western Latin Christian culture.
A number of informed voices have said otherwise, over the past century, but the passion of amateurs devoted to their personal hypotheses has fairly regularly drowned out those voices, distorted their message, or simply marginalised the person speaking.
In the end, it’s just one manuscript of many, and the world offers more important and more pressing problems for the attention of rational persons. I have no desire to win the cardboard cup for ‘most plausible’ and I doubt there is any more tangible reward for simply understanding and appreciating this rare and rather marvellous work.
I might add that the imagery is so perfectly done, and so complete, that I should think it perfectly possible that the pictorial and the written text(s) are wholly independent.
hakan: Unfortunately numerological[sp] analyses are very prone to biases and are rarely taken seriously. For example you’d be amazed at the sheer number of people that have ever been linked to the number 666 (symbol of the Antichrist in Christian eschatology) through some mental gymnastics. If you could find prime numbers everywhere in the manuscript it would be interesting though. While you’re at it, maybe the coefficients of Pascal’s Triangle? 😉
Anton:
I’ve been spending some time looking at the colour annotations, and indeed the other “letters hidden in plants” (as opposed to what is normally classified as “marginalia”).
Some of them are written in German, especially “rot” “pur/por” and the “g” for “grun”, and there is the parallel of MS Vicenza 362 for these.
There is another set of single Latin letters, written in a different hand, and these make absolutely no sense as German colour instructions.
Whether the German colour instructions are contemporary with the production of the manuscript’s text and/or images is another matter entirely. The history of the illumination of the manuscript is also pretty complex.
So yes, there is plenty of evidence that the manuscript spent some of its early life either in a place where German was spoken, or at least that it belonged to someone whose mother tongue was German. But the rest of the marginalia are fairly polyglot – Occitan/Catalan month names? – and I would be careful in making any assumptions about the text or production of the manuscript on this basis.
SirHubert
Am I correct in thinking that the theory these letters are German, and that the separate glyphs should be interpreted as ‘rot’ that look like a “t”, an “o” and then a “v” or “r” is a theory first offered by Rene Zandbergen? I remain doubtful about the assumptions here, but as a matter of form would like to ensure proper credit given if I mention it.
PS If anyone else is sure about whose idea it was – do please chip in!
Sir Hubert:
As I wrote above, taken individually, the colour codes perhaps would not be a strong point of evidence towards the “German” assumption – not because we are not certain that those are colour codes indeed, but because we are not certain that they are in German language, due to their “abbreviated” appearance.
However, there are other marginalia that suggest German language – there is the “lab” (rennet-bag) strongly supported by the adjacent imagery. There are also less-developed things, like some hints in f66r (although I don’t believe in “mussdel”), and the very ending of the VM (although I don’t believe in “goat’s milk” neither).
Taken together, this begins to form a more substantiated picture, and what’s important – it’s a positive one (“this is something that fits into German language”) versus the negative approach (“we don’t know what it is, let’s neglect this”).
You are right that there are marginalia that don’t fit into German language – like “mallior allor” or “michiton oladabas”. But why would all marginalia be necessarily in the same language? They need not be.
The point is that one should either reject the idea that some of the marginalia are German, or accept it. In the former case, the researcher should provide some solid arguments – and ideally an alternative reading which fits better than the German one. In the latter case (i.e. if we admit that some of the marginalia ARE German), the question arises why would the author use the German language – especially for the purely “auxiliary” marks which the colour codes are.
I would note though that the language of the author and the origin of the VM are not necessarily the same thing. E.g., suppose German was the mother tongue of the author – but this does not mean that the VM was written in Germany. The author may have been a missionary, a traveller, a refugee, a vagrant etc.
Neither does the language of the marginalia tell us much of the language hidden behind the script. E.g., the script may well be enciphered Latin (or whatever you like).
The only point of the German marginalia is that it links the author and the German language together. But that’s an important point in itself. One can not simply ignore this.
As to the months’ names (“Aberil” etc.), I believe they are agreed to be a later addition and I don’t consider them. I consider only marginalia introduced by the author himself. The colour codes are in some cases painted over, so I think there is little doubt in their being “contemporary”.
Anton: your ‘lab’ = rennet and bulbous drawing = stomach (?) identification claim is certainly intriguing, but it’s a long way from a pure demonstration of fact, and a very long way from a proof that any of the marginalia are systematically in German. The problem with f116v is that we don’t yet have any systematic language claim that makes proper sense, without hugely optimistic polyglot leaps of faith: while my own viewpoint (that there seems to be evidence of emendation to all the marginalia) is more of a commentary on the limits of trying to read f116v than a ‘reading’ of it as such.
Diane:
Actually, you shouldn’t be looking for a single European author here.
Reuben Ogburn used to have a website which listed those letters of which he was aware, but you now need to use the Wayback Machine to find it. He names Philip Neal as an authority for suggesting ‘the identifications of ‘g’ / green and ‘rot’ / red, and Gabriel Landini as the first to read another instance of ‘rot’ in the red-coloured root of f7r. Ogburn does also identify ‘pur’ / purple in f9v and f32r without mentioning who, if anyone, had previously found these letters or suggested the interpretations. The version of Ogburn’s site I found was from 2004.
Rene Zandbergen, as far as I know, was the first to find the parallel with MS Vicenza 362, in (I think) 2010. If you look up “letters hidden in plants” on Nick’s site this is discussed in some detail.
Anton:
I think your post is eminently sensible. I myself am not sufficiently confident that one can tell which, if any, of the marginalia or hidden letters can be securely attributed to the people who wrote the text and images. But I think it’s difficult to argue away the ‘g’ and ‘rot’ as being German colour indications given that we have an almost direct fifteenth-century parallel for these terms being used in this manner. I would just point out that a hypothetical manuscript written in Constantinople in 1440 and brought to southern Germany/northern Italy for illumination might well have the same marks.
SirHubert: the two Cipher Mysteries pages I can remember writing on “letters hidden in voynich plants” are –
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2010/02/27/letters-hidden-in-voynich-plants
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2011/11/10/letters-hidden-in-voynich-plants-yet-again
I concluded at the time that the two specific letter-groups Rene suspected might be “rot” probably weren’t: but that because there seemed to be a fairly consistent use of the same “open-top p” letter shape, these were probably added by the same person etc.
Nick: yes, those are the two threads.
With respect, I don’t agree with you on the issue of ‘rot’ which I think is pretty clear in at least two places. It’s unfortunate that Ogburn gives the colour-word in the blue-painted flower in f9v as ‘rot’ when it’s clearly ‘pur’, which makes far more sense. I’m not sure if this Ogburn’s slip or whether Gabriel Landini, whom Ogburn cites here, misread it originally.
And of course you yourself read the very clear ‘rot’ on f4r as part of an elaborate cryptogram giving Averlino’s name. I will respectfully disagree with that also, although the rest of your Averlino hypothesis certainly doesn’t stand or fall by that detail. (And, actually, you do have an F and L in that folio if you want to make ‘Filarete…’ but I think that’s coincidence!)
Sorry – when I say “very clear ‘rot'” I mean that the word is very clearly legible on scans of that folio – it’s not in any way meant as a criticism of anyone who wishes to read it differently.
SirHubert: re-reading Reuben Ogburn’s page just now, it’s clear that I did miss one instance, so this is probably an issue to which I should return before very long. =:-o
Regarding f9v and f32r, my idea is that those indeed are marked for purple, but that’s represented not by “pur”, but by “p v” = “purper-var” (MHD for “purpurfarbig”).
The three-letter word in f9v is surely not “rot”, but it neither looks like “pur”. I’d say it’s rather “por”, which in the context of colour-coding is enigmatic.
Anton: I agree that the three-letter word in f9v does look like ‘por’ in some versions. The colour is caked so thickly that it’s difficult to tell. If you enhance the image by removing the colour, it looks more like ‘por’. But if you enhance it by strengthening the colour of the ink itself, in my opinion it looks more like ‘pur’.
Brian:
yes, there is no statistical significance of the few datas
Well, let disregard the prime numbers.
i said page 68r2 contain 59 stars. and page 68r3 contain 59 stars in 4 sections
*(1): 16
**(2): 18
***(3): 14
****(4): 11
sum of those: 59 as page 68r2
author, have divided the number of stars on the first page (68r2) to four sections on the page68r3.there must be a meaning. but what? calendar, time, number of stars in a constellation, a biblical verse, coordinates or even
I read por too, and it is not as enigmatic as you think, it should stand for mhd. porfir, porphyr-, purpurfarben
SirHubert: Are you referring to the uppercase color codes (as opposed to lowercase for German) F,J,B? i.e. French fauve, jaune, blanc – Latin color names don’t match here.
Sir Hubert,
Thanks for the background. Also, your saying one shouldn’t look for a ‘single European author’ makes me positively nostalgic.
Menno –
Belated thanks for your comment of October 20th, which I failed to see. I prefer for the sake of a general readership always to use the pagination published by the holding library – and since scans are reasonably expected to read left to right, I use that system – hence 67v-1, not the mailing list custom of calling it 67v-2.
I have seen no other analysis of that folio, and your announcement that the corner motif is being taken “as a matter of fact” to represent the moon must be based on some pretty interesting work. Whose?
Speaking of folio 9v – apart from those larger glyphs that are mentioned above, what have others made (if anything) of a line of much smaller glyphs appearing on the second flower from the top, on the left, the left-hand petal? Heavily overpainted, it shows itself on enlargement to be classic ‘micrography’ of the medieval sort. But in what alphabet or abjad do people think it written?
hakan: Intuitively the star maps are just star maps relating to astrology. If that’s just a cover and the numbers encode something, well it could be anything.
Division into four is to be expected (four seasons, four ages of man, cardinal directions, etc. in European tradition) and appears quite often in the manuscript.
Your idea of linking f68r2 and f68r3 reminds me of something I thought while looking at the “balneo” section. The elements on different pages may be the exact same thing, but at different stages in a narrative, or shown from a different perspective. For example instead of thinking of the balneo section as containing a large number of “nymphs”, it may be the same set drawn (assuming their identities matter) over and over in an ordered story. No I don’t have a story in mind, it’s just another way of looking at it, and seeing the stars as being redrawn into new categories is an interesting example of that sort of interpretation.
However I’m not sure what to think of the folios you propose. The figure of 59 stars for f68r2 seems to include the slightly smaller ones on the outside. These go in a circle with no informative arrangement or labels, which suggests to me that they are only for decoration. Then again, not many stars are arranged or labelled informatively anyway. Any other correlations?
What did strike me when I saw f68r3 was how well constructed it was compared to other folios. The circles are done with a compass, the lines are done with a ruler and the angles of the sectors are (almost) geometrically perfect. The author certainly spent special effort on this particular content.
Helmut: I thought of ‘porphyr’ too, but my German isn’t good enough to know whether that could be used as a colour.
Brian: yes, and you can add a capital L to that too. Are those your own suggestions? I’ve not seen them discussed anywhere else on a Voynich site. But are there instances, as with ‘rot’, of these letters being used in this way? I can’t help noting that all the places in the VMS where these letters are used are still uncoloured (although that’s not a fatal objection) in the circumstances.
Diane: cheer up, and have another read of Death of the Author 🙂
SirHubert
Thank you. 🙂
It has been pouring with rain in this part of the desert, so I’ve had too much spare time this past few days. I expect we’ll be back to it soon, though.
Diane:
“it shows itself on enlargement to be classic ‘micrography’ of the medieval sort.”
If we’re looking at the same flower – the one with ‘pur/por’ in the top petal, then I’d say that’s just how the colour has dried. If you look at the lower right petal of the same flower you get more or less the same pattern at the edge of the patch of blue.
And as a general point, if you’ll forgive my mentioning it, the term ‘alphabet’ is fine to include consonental alphabets as well as those with vowels. The term ‘abjad’ is actually confusing, and I’ve hardly ever seen it used as a general linguistic term.
Diane: When that small writing is digitally enhanced it appears to be the “pur” we are talking about. The larger glyphs just repeat that.
SirHubert: Where is the L? Yes those are my own suggestions. Not sure what you’re asking. I don’t know of any other manuscripts with those labels, if that’s what you mean. The J isn’t uncoloured. I figured the F went with the (fauve coloured) bulb next to it which is too small to write a label in. Lastly blanc for uncoloured would make sense (sort of :P)
I have also seen “sil” for silber and “b” for braun but these are highly uncertain so don’t quote me on that.
sir hubert – pophyr can be used as a term for the colour as well as for the the stone itself
Sorry to refer to my own blog, but there’s a convenient enlargement there with the micrographic string highlighted.
Post is dated 23rd June 2013 at http://voynichimagery.wordpress.com
sorry: ‘micrographic string’ is more or less slang. I should have said ‘string of micrographic characters’.
I agree with SirHubert that there’s nothing in the “middle” petal, it’s just structural.
Helmut:
“Porphyr” is not found in Lexer, although it’s there in e.g. DWB by the brothers Grimm. Is that OK? Perhaps it is, because XV century is technically not MHD, it’s rather FNHD?!
More strange is what’s the point to encode the colour twice in the same flower but in two different ways – “por” and “p v”? A natural assumption is that one of these is NOT a colour code. But “p v” is met in other places, while “por” is not. I previously thought that this is “pol” (which could make some sense), but with new scans it’s evident that the last letter is not an “l”.
BTW, if we are discussing micro-writings, I wonder if the “get” thing in f1r has been previously discussed in any way? I wrote about that some time ago: http://athenaea.net/index.php?id=56
(Since then the library issued better scans, so some considerations in my post are now invalid, but this “get”-shaped something is still there).
Also, in f67r there seems to be a sign behind the blue at 2 o’clock – like Pisces without a cross strike, or perhaps it was meant to be Aquarius. I was lazy to write about that, just recalled this in connection with the above discussion.
Anton: The repetition of color codes is indeed strange. Even stranger is the tiny Voynichese phrase inside a leaf (forgot the folio).
I’m afraid I can’t see your “get” on f1r or the thing on f67r (even after enhancing). On the topic of hidden things, what do you think of the stuff at the top of f1r? Like that big “diagonal line and hook” thing or “eagle”. Or the erased plant part at the top right of f17r that has been colored in already.
Back to f9v, around the flower in question, does anybody else see Voynichese “l” between the large petal and the one to its right?
Brian:
The green arrow here points straight to the letter “g” of the supposed “get” (or whatever it is): http://athenaea.net/images/12.jpg
For f67r, here I marked with the red circle the place where you should look for it: http://athenaea.net/images/13.jpg
If you play with color filtering, you’ll see that it’s hardly structural, it’s rather in the same ink as in which the lines are drawn. As I look at it know in the new scan, it even appears like letters “ge” (Gemini?) If we treat twelve o’clock as Aries, then 2 o’clock is the proper place for Gemini, and 11 o’clock would be Pisces then – it’s exactly where the arrow is drawn, which may stand for the beginning of the circle (vernal equinox). Although it’s all quite indecisive. Why mark specifically Gemini?
Regarding f1r, I’ve no idea on those elements. I can make only a general note that the 1st page of anything (especially if that anything is not covered yet) is a common place to accumulate (re)marks that are not initially intended to be there – blots, accidental notes, lazy drawings etc. The “get” thing (if it’s really there) is surely of this nature. The “de Tepenecz” stuff also falls to this category, by the way 🙂
The partly erased plant in f17r is notable, cause it necessarily attracts the attention of one who is pondering over “mallior allor”, but I think there’s nothing uncommon in that – the author began to draw, but then dropped the idea in favor of another flower.
In f9v I think this is not a Voynichese “l”, but just an accidental element of the flower, if I’m looking at the right place (to the right of “por”). There’s a Voynichese “y” (or a Latin “g”) to the right of the rightmost flower though.
Anton:
f1r – If you follow your green guide further right, you see the end of the formation more clearly, it’s a bendy rectangle. I think the “g” you see is the other end which is curved and has a little flick. Looks just like the bendy rectangles in the diagonal-and-hook thing at the top.
f67r – I see there might be something but it’s so small and indistinct that I can’t read it as “ge” or anything you propose. If I stare at it for long enough, I can see either a mustache or a Space Invader. With the amount of heavy paint over the top it’s ultimately an exercise in pareidolia.
The top-left circle marker reminds me of a thought I once had; excuse the detour. Nick, you said the word next to the circle marker on f57v was an overflowing word. But (I think) the author has not made an overflow mistake anywhere else. This is the first appearance of the circle marker in the manuscript, so I think it more likely that the word is a deliberate “start” label to introduce the idea that these markers stand for the start of a circular sequence.
Back to f67r – 12 (like 7 and 4) could be so many things in this context.
f17r – The strange thing to me is how it has already been colored. Are bits painted as they are drawn? Did a separate painter try to color this in?
f9v – Yes that “y” is why I looked for other letters around the other flowers.
Brian: a magic circle reproduced by Richard Kieckhefer has an almost identical overflow word by a circle of text. It’s nice, you’d like it. 🙂
Nick: Not sure how to take that comment, but I’m looking at that circle. Interesting parallel, are you suggesting a direct connection? Could be a precedent but I don’t think it discounts a “start” label completely; the Voynich Manuscript author is so careful with layouts everywhere.
Brian: to answer your earlier question: basically, yes. There is one set of letters and abbreviations written in a distinctive “lower-case” hand, including the “rot” and “pur” (and I do think “por” is meant to be “pur”), and another written in a very different “capital letters” hand. The lower-case abbreviations seem to me to be very plausibly interpreted as German colour abbreviations, given that Rene has found another contemporary manuscript which uses the same colour codes. The capital letters I’m not sure about. Your suggestion that they’re French colour abbreviations is not impossible, but would be much stronger if we had a parallel.
There are also several other letters and abbreviations which are different again. At least some of those may be copied over from an original, and at least some of those may possibly be written in a non-European script. Which would be quite interesting, wouldn’t it?
Brian: oh, and I love your comment “If I stare at it for long enough, I can see either a mustache or a Space Invader.” If only we knew a games designer…maybe they could combine the two?
SirHubert: Unfortunately I’m not in a position to find other manuscripts to act as a parallel. Nor would I be able to explain why color codes would be in two languages. Where is the “L” you mentioned?
Any pointers to the other letters and abbreviations? I know of the “ij”, the “a,b,c…” sequence in the corners of the cosmo/astro section and whatever’s in the middle of the flower in f28v, but can’t recall any others off the top of my head.
The problem with all those might-be-somethings is that we are judging by scans only, and surely with vain effort in half of the cases. Direct visual examination would quickly decide upon those, because you can look at different angles and with good light. But, of course, if everyone goes there to resolve his own guesses, the book will soon deteriorate, they won’t allow that.
Maybe the community should work out a reasonable list of things to check, and then some major researcher experienced in dealing with ancient manuscripts goes there to run this checklist.
Anton: Not that I know anything about the subject, but fancy scientific X-ray scan stuff would be good. I recall some high-tech technique used to “see” a draft Mona Lisa under the current one.
Hmm “the community”. Reminds me of that Kickstarter idea a few years back. You could try but there are fundamental flaws in the communication structure of the online community (same goes for a lot of things, but that’s a story for another day).
Talking of folio 57v, I rather think that directly (nor nearly directly) behind each of the figures is inscribed a symbol for “cardinal point” or something of that nature. In the second-from-outer ring, behind the crop-haired – or dreadlocked – head, you see a glyph formed as it were a bent arm with hand upraised and a small ‘9’ above the ‘forearm’. However, around the same band, behind each of the other three, there is what I take to be a more rapidly written version of the same. Hence my suggestion of it meaning ‘cardinal point’ rather than anything more specific.
The sign is certainly an unusual glyph, but I believe I have seen something like the less cursive version in another textual source.
If this of any interest for the linguists or cryptographers, I’ll try to dig out more information.
Diane: Interesting but the one at the West position doesn’t align with the figure like the others do. Still, I would love to see what you have found.
On the general note of hidden colour codes and the like, I think we are asymptotically approaching the limit of things we can usefully notice and discuss in the manuscript’s content as it is. It has been my belief that the only way real progress can continue is with an expansion to the information base we have to work with. For example further scientific testing/imaging, finding missing pages, finding other manuscripts with unambiguous parallels, finding other historical mentions and so on. Otherwise it’ll just be tiny increments of observations (most of which are duplications of previous efforts) that will finally peter out in the 2020’s at the latest.
Possible exception is statistical studies, but it’s ultimately a gamble whether one will find a genuinely useful pattern.
Brian: it’s a question of knowing where to focus your efforts. There isn’t a publicly available list of these ‘hidden letters’, for example. I don’t have the expertise to interpret them, but thanks to two insomniac daughters I do have the time to look at the manuscript carefully and list what I see. And then, hopefully, someone better qualified can build on that.
And lots of people are currently working on the other areas you mention, and others too. Lots of interesting things have emerged in the last twenty or thirty years. Nil desperandum, and all that.
SirHubert: Such a list does exist. Two of them in fact. Well, they did exist but disappeared like so many other webpages. For the building and working I assume you’re referring to the mailing list?
I don’t dispute the talents and efforts of the community. But with the loose connections between sites and many of them eventually going offline, I find that so many are unaware of previous work (e.g. you and the hidden letter list, not that I’m blaming you) and end up duplicating it. That has to be considered.
Don’t think I’m despairing, giving up or blaming anyone. I’m just making the (subjective) observation that the rate of (real) discovery has been slowing down and pondering about the ultimate cause of that.
Brian: you presumably mean Reuben Ogburn’s for one. Which is the other?
SirHubert: Yes. The other was by Glen Claston.
Brian:
I think that for the “real progress” we just need greater involvement of academia. E,g. please have a look at the article “VM408 folio86v ‘The Rosette Map’: Elements of a Mappa mundi and a map of the Elements” by Wastl and Feger (if you haven’t yet). Excellent article, that.
Although f86v almost manifests itself as the awkward map of the world with Jerusalem in its center, there turn to be so many features – like Nile, antipodes or elements – which amateur enthusiasts (e.g. like me) would never be able to interpret (however long we painfully google), just because it’s specifically professional knowledge and specifically professional research.
So I think that in the absence of great funding, only greater interest on the part of academic researchers will move this stone.
Anton: unfortunately, I suspect you’re completely wrong about academic researchers. Academics seem to fare no better (and often a lot worse) than amateur Voynich researchers, simply because there are so many different pits for them to fall into. The Voynich Manuscript offers a tempting swamp for PhDs and the superbright to leap into, from which they can use their power of rhetoric to convince themselves (and sometimes others) that they’ve made a sound judgment call: but they almost never have.
The real lacuna in the study of the Voynich Manuscript is a convincing conceptual framework to collaboratively work within that stands some chance of getting results. It’s something that I’ve been working on all year: I plan to post about it soon, so please don’t abandon all hope just yet. 🙂
Nick:
I spent some time amongst academic researchers in the past, so I’ll assume I’m not *completely* wrong about them. 🙂 What I mean is not “we urgently need a guy with a degree” (I hold one, but sadly it’s not in relative studies), but we need wider academic input (from multiple disciplines, of course) and more systematic effort.
I think I guess whom you are hinting at, but I need to say it was the boom raised by him that even actually introduced the VM to many people – (me included, previously I only heard of it once or twice without much interest). And the absence of result or the wrong way taken in a particular case does not mean that we don’t need the activity.
Anton and Nick: It’s all of those problems and more. Anton, from my blog you’ve probably seen my rant about the transcription. I’ve got plenty more where that came from…
I partially agree with Nick about academics. They have more potential skill but they’re not an automatic benefit, they need collaboration and direction. Academics blindly entering the field and running in circles are no better than amateurs doing the same thing, especially if they let their egos get the better of them.
Nick I’m not sure what you’re talking about there but I look forward to seeing it.
Dear Anton,
I’m naturally curious about these persons who see folio 86v as a map of the world, since it was never thought so until I explained it in detail, with cross-references to appropriate documents and imagery.
Indeed, for all the many visitors who’ve read those posts – covering the map stage by stage and setting the unusual form in its geographical and historical context etc. etc., I don’t think one has expressed themselves convinced. On the contrary, Rene Zandbergen, Rich Santacoloma, and all that mailing list crowd were quite determined that nothing in it suggested a worldmap at all, let alone a western style moralised schematic east-facing ‘mappamundi’ of the Latin sort.
So this is wonderful indeed. I shall see whether or not a copy is to be had over here. It will be fun to compare our interpretations.
I’ve had a look at the paper, Anton.
Thanks.
Diane:
Regarding the map. What I expressed reflected my own trail of thought (once more I should excuse that I sometimes put it in a bit assertive way – because what seems evident to one may not seem the same to others).
To make it clear, the chain was approximately thus.
There are drawings identified as the T-O map in the VM -> The T-O map is also present in one of the corners of f86v -> from the “European” segment of the T-O map the adjacent circle does emerge which thus is likely to represent Europe -> thus is it is likely that the whole f86v is a “zoomed view” of the “T-O world” – > hence one of the two folio corners adjacent to “Europe” should be Africa -> a tower to the right resembling the lighthouse suggests Alexandria, and thus Africa is probably this one. Next, it has long been suggested that the central element of the map with all those temples represents Jerusalem, and indeed Wikipedia says that it was common to place Jerusalem to the center of such maps. This strengthened my view of the whole f86v as the map of the world. Without specific knowledge, though, this was my stopping point – e.g. I had no idea of Constantinople, antipodes (I thought that both other corners stand for Asia together), elements (I thought that those intermediate circles were some kinds of “connectors” like seas) etc. When shortly afterwards I read that article, it approved my general view, while providing those additional considerations.
I was never subscribed to the VM mailing list and thus I am not aware of those previous discussions and if there are solid arguments towards this NOT being a map of the world, but again, ceteris paribus the map is I think the first that would come to one’s mind looking at f86v. If you say that it was by no means so for the past research, then perhaps this illustrates the effect of a “clean start”.
I won’t stand for *all* suggestions of that article as a matter of fact (for example there is a wall in f86v leading to that supposed “antipodes” continent – why should a wall lead to a continent? On the contrary, there is a famous great wall in China). But again, notwithstanding the details, the general picture looks to me natural, reasonable, and consistent.
Professional academics, like professional anythings, are normally better at what they do than amateurs. It doesn’t automatically follow – the difference is simply that professional academics do what they do for a living while amateurs don’t (and therefore normally do something else instead).
The problem here is that there is no single academic discipline into which the Voynich manuscript fits. So in this case, it may well be that an amateur who’s studied it for years will know more about this particular object.
To exemplify this, I’m afraid I’m going to invoke Stephen Bax, who simply stated that he was using Edith Sherwood’s plant identifications, without any further explanation. You can get away with that, sort-of, if you’re quoting a well-known and generally accepted standard reference, but Edith Sherwood’s blog does not fall into that category. Her article starts “It would normally be regarded as a distinct handicap when viewing the botanical drawings in the VM, never to have seen a medieval herbal or botanical manuscript…” and in my opinion that’s a pretty shaky foundation for Bax to use. If Bax thinks that Sherwood’s identifications are right, that’s fine, but I’d like to have that confirmed by an expert in mediaeval herbals or botanical manuscripts, please.
Hi Anton, I liked Wastl and Feger’s paper too, but similarly found some shortcomings. I’ve written my thoughts about it, which you may find interesting:
https://medium.com/@thingsnorthern/thoughts-upon-the-voynich-rosettes-2b78d7d698dd
Thing:
Thanks for the link to your post. I haven’t heard about that volcano idea of SantaColoma and Tattrie before. I find this likely to be a volcano indeed. It’s slightly strange why it’s so big compared to the supposed Europe as a whole, but maybe it’s been personally significant to the author or something. If it be a volcano, then its internal structure gives us a hint of how would author depict mountains in general.
I don’t think your idea to swap Africa and “antipodes” is good – not because the “Nile” is not uncertain (it is), but because this idea contradicts the T-O picture. If the author did not believe in the T-O picture of the world, he would not have included T-O diagrams into the VM. On the other hand, if he believed in the T-O, then why would his large map contradict that worldview?
Anton,
I think the mountain is big because–like the other three attachments to the circles–it is designed to depict the elements rather than be part of the map.
Also, the presence of T-O maps elsewhere in the manuscript should not stop the Rosettes being seen as a different kind of map. The T-O tradition was coming to an end by this time, and the creator was clearly innovating here. We must bear in mind that the possible T-O maps elsewhere in the Voyncih manuscript have only three parts, not four. Simply by adding a fourth–whether the anitpodes or some western continent–the writer was moving beyond them.
But the T-O is not only somewhere, it’s directly in that folio as well!
I don’t have a feel that the VM author was innovating in any way in his MS. Who were innovating at the time were Gutenberg and Ulugh Beg, not he. (This is just a subjective feeling which of course can not be checked until the script is understood).
Thing: Your proposal agrees more with the idea of the suns being East and West. The original paper take those to mean the equator but I’m not really sure where they got that from.
Their Lighthouse of Alexandria idea is strange as they take the yellow top to mean “fire”, but all the towers have yellow tops. Equating the “bridges” to isthmuses is also strange since there are vaguely architectural connections between all of the circles, though some old maps did have Africa and Asia connected to Terra Australis.
Your identification of the drawings from the circles to the centre being elements is pretty convincing. But here you say that they are not directly part of the map, and on your site suggest they could be Mount Ararat and Nile. What’s to stop the volcano from being something in particular?
As for WestVinIceAntilAtlanEtcLand being associated with air, a brief check of world wind current maps shows that the Atlantic coast of Europe has West-to-East winds (i.e. towards Jerusalem).
But how do you interpret what they call the Lighthouse and Constantinople in your layout? Note the lack of anything like the Pillars of Hercules.
The mention of Atlantis being “swallowed up” and the teeth made me laugh. Would this pun work with the original Greek text?
Anton: If we take the map as a four-way world map then it would necessarily contradict the T/O map.
The idea of the manuscript’s having an “author” is no more than an idea, and not exactly a fair assumption for a manuscript produced in the first decades of the fifteenth century. Content that has evolved over time, but is brought together in a copy – in this case presumably one produced around 1438-40 or so – will show the effect of that transition. So in this case, the basis of the worldmap (as I explained) refers to a much earlier period, with two phases of addition most evident, these being dated (as I see it) to about the twelfth century, and then the latest additions to about the end of the fourteenth.
So there’s no difficulty in seeing allusion to the old idea of the tripartite earth being added to an earlier, and very different habit in representing the world.
What is more difficult to simply explain away is the fact that the attitude to representing the world, and the particular stylistics are absolutely incompatible with the “all-European” theory. I defy anyone to produce a Latin work made earlier than 1440 in which coastlines’ characters are depicted according to a systematic patternation.
In addition, to depict the world as a square, and locate its quarters at the diagonals, and then represent each of the four regions (not continents) using its own culture’s visual “shorthand” is a thing I’ve never seen in medieval European art.
The bottom line, of course, is that the folio is a *picture* and pictures have to be considered by reference to their technical aspects too.
Apart from the objects depicted, one has to be able to
Diane: Does this feature in any culture? I’m aware that the Chinese viewed the world as a square, but that’s it.
If it is what we think it is, I wouldn’t call it a map per se. Maybe more like an abstract diagram that mainly represents something esoteric and metaphysical, and just happens to also feature places shoehorned into the conventions of the outer diagram.
Also Diane do you agree with the depiction of Constantinople? If so does it suggest pre- or post-conquest?
In any case I’m reminded of the thingy at the bottom left of f67v2 (four circles in the T/O). That could be a reproduction of the four corner circles in the rosettes superimposed over the T/O, which suggests the layout proposed in the original paper but with two corners in Asia (as was usual) instead of Asia and Terra Incognita Australis.
Now for more baseless speculation, the pipes in top-left could be Sirocco from Africa, the fountain in the bottom-left could be the Indian Ocean and the “teeth” in top-left could be crescents (you can see some separated).
Hi Brian, I think that the “elemntal” depictions may well belong to the continents in question, but their position and size should not be indicative of anything. Whether they all represent named examples, I don’t know.
As for the “swallowed up” pun. I admit that it doesn’t work in Greek. Really the Atlantis suggestions was thrown in for fun. If that circle does depict a western continent I expect Antillia to be the likeliest candidate.
Brian,
When I began the analysis of this folio, it was considered almost as unreadable as the written sections. No-one had suggested it a world-map, but I reached that conclusion after some initial study.
I have never thought it reasonable to merely “imagine” or freely associate ideas in order to explain the meaning of pictures – no more than it would be to rely on imagination to interpret for a third person the meaning of another’s spoken words when the language was unknown to that third person.
Learning a new visual language and vocabulary requires quite a bit of work, as learning a spoken language does.
Something of that sequential process, with a selection from the mass of comparative imagery I investigated, are offered along with my conclusions in posts I made to voynichimagery dot wordpress dot com.
Referring others to that blog is more efficient, I think, than trying to recap the whole thing here, which (apart from anything else) uses up Nick’s bandwidth.
If you read the posts, I hope you will comment, too.
Thing: If it’s a western continent I think it’s not Antillia or it would have a clear reference to the seven cities. Found this about Vinland on Wikipedia: “The name was explained in both texts as referring to the savage inhabitants’ ability to tie the wind up in knotted cords, which they sold to sailors who could then undo a knot whenever they needed a good wind”. Could that be the link you’re looking for?
Though with the ball-and-stick connection I mentioned in a previous comment, I’m inclined to think of the suns as equator, top-left as Africa, top-right as Europe, bottom-left as Asia below equator and bottom-right as Asia above equator. Although we now know that the vast majority of Asia is in the Northern Hemisphere, look at the 1475 Rudimentum Novitiorum (https://commons dot wikimedia dot org slash wiki slash File:1475_Rudimentum_Novitorum_Lucas_brandis dot jpg ) to see how they could be divided. The author balances the two Asian sectors equally, for example with Persia and some of the Holy Land in the “south”. Note the mashing up of times (Biblical places mixed with contemporary), the Garden of Eden in the east, and imprecise locations (Vinland in Europe? Cyprus/Cipr9 north of Rome?), where the most important thing is which places belong to which quadrant.
Antipodes just doesn’t fit with an expanded T/O map; in that model antipodes would be the other side of the map and not represented.
Brian: to pick you up on your earlier point, you are of course right that the wheel gets invented fairly frequently in Voynich research and with varying degrees of success. (“You’re so clever, you tell us what colour it should be!”). But there’s nothing wrong with people repeating work done by others to improve their own familiarity with the manuscript, both contents and as a physical object. It’s a bit like a student being translating Homer – of course others have done it before and doubtless better, but it’s a great way to learn. And, personally speaking, that’s why I’ve been looking page by page for “hidden letters” – it’s a reason to look carefully at every part of every page. I’m not expecting to find anything new or exciting, although for what it’s worth Ogburn’s list is incomplete, but I’ve learned a lot by doing so.
The biggest problem, in my opinion, remains peer review, so that those of us working outside our fields of expertise can have some confidence that the work of others is generally considered sound. Nick does a pretty good job of being a one-man de facto peer review here, but it’s asking a lot for one person to do this to everyone’s satisfaction while also maintaining an open and tolerant blog.
SirHubert: I’m sure it’s good as a learning/stimulation/communication experience, that’s why I was discussing it too. But there’s a difference between this and the problematic “reinventing of the wheel” I was talking about. We are well aware of what we’re doing and why, and of other/previous efforts. We have the information so we have the genuine choice.
But others don’t have the luxury of that knowledge and repeat efforts fully expecting an innovation. That in itself isn’t too bad (hey, they learned something too) but if it was more accessible they could read it and perhaps choose to use their skills more efficiently in something not looked at before. When you multiply that many times you have a systematic problem.
As for peer review, that’s another problem, yes. Among many…
Brian,
Could you elaborate on the “we” here?
“We are well aware of what we’re doing and why, and of other/previous efforts”.
If you are aware of previous work that is directly relevant to the sort of ideas you are floating, could others also be made aware of these, so that they too can compare your ideas with those.
As example, one might consider Nick’s posts about “hidden letters” which allows a reader to follow in sequence from the first person’s notice of them, through various speculations about them, to the present state of opinion(s).
Have you considered a similarly objective approach to the position you and your collaborators occupy?
Diane: By “we” I meant the commenters on this blog participating in discussion. Clever folk. Not “me and my crack team” if that’s what you were thinking.
Unfortunately I don’t remember exact sources for the info, it’s just in my memory. I’ll think about that.
Considered, yes, but no time yet for those sorts of posts, and a lot of my musings here are on the side. My main focus right now is on a different aspect which will be on my website. Though “objective” is not a term that sits well with the study of this manuscript haha.
Anton, Thing: Thanks for your kind remarks and view on our manuscript. First of all, we are not the Voynich academics you think we are. I can claim an academic background in Molecular Biology, one of the areas clearly not in multisdisciplinary Voynich-land. We are doing our research in our spare time like many others – this paper of ours took some considerable time to get together and we welcomed your positive feedback. For the manuscript ( which we wanted to put to proper peer-review and a journal) we finally decided against it and made it open access so everyone can find & read it (lots of things happening right now in that area: Open Access & Citizen Scholars, but I digress).
Thing et al: I had not much time to read through your blog – very interesting. I will respond thoroughly after this weekend, however, I believe our theories do not contradict at all! I haven’t seen a comment by you about the climate resulting of the positioning of elements and continents. Would be interesting to have your view on it. As I said, I will respond soon – lots of time constraints right now.
Dear Brian,
Interesting your saying that “objective” is not a term that sits well with this manuscript. It is true, and the reason for its being true is something that puzzles me more than the manuscript itself – or to be more exact, the manuscript’s imagery.
When you think that we have so many thousands of manuscripts on parchment and other media, all made before 1438, and that about those items there are written perfectly lucid and objective comments – altogether I daresay commentaries occupy more shelf-space than the manuscripts – then why on earth do people constantly behave as if the only way to provenance and describe this manuscript was by consultation with airy sprites and wistful imaginings.
I sometimes imagine the scene if a ‘Voynichero’ were to walk into the hallowed halls of some other rare books collection and engage in the same sort of ‘hypothesis-making’ about any of those manuscripts. Raised eyebrows, and offers of an escort to the door would be the least of it – or so I imagine. 🙂
Diane: To answer the question, the mystery of the manuscript makes it easier and more fun to make wild and imaginative speculations rather than do the research. Good inspiration for writing a story but of course not so useful for actual investigation. As for the nationalist “theories”, well their motivation is obvious.
I’m imagining the scene now. Ecstatic screams of “Eureka! Da Vinci was an Atlantean!” followed by chuckles and facepalms. 😀
😀
thanks for that, Brian
“The codex belonged to Emperor Rudolph II of Germany (Holy Roman Emperor, 1576-1612), who purchased it for 600 gold ducats and believed that it was the work of Roger Bacon. It is very likely that Emperor Rudolph acquired the manuscript from the English astrologer John Dee (1527-1608). Dee apparently owned the manuscript along with a number of other Roger Bacon manuscripts. In addition, Dee stated that he had 630 ducats in October 1586, and his son noted that Dee, while in Bohemia, owned “a booke…containing nothing butt Hieroglyphicks, which booke his father bestowed much time upon: but I could not heare that hee could make it out.” Emperor Rudolph seems to have given the manuscript to Jacobus Horcicky de Tepenecz (d. 1622), an exchange based on the inscription visible only with ultraviolet light on folio 1r which reads: “Jacobi de Tepenecz.” Johannes Marcus Marci of Cronland presented the book to Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680) in 1666.”
Looks like Yale employ airy sprites in the Beinecke Library.
TH Ing: I really enjoyed your blogpost with the review of my previously published manuscript concerning the Rosette map and the depiction of continents, classical elements and their interaction (climate). I now had time to look at it in more detail – very interesting details and if we could agree on distinguishing classical ( c-Elements as I call them) from earthly visible ones (e-Elements) then our theories agree in many instances.
I copy here the the link followed by the final paragraph ( I don’t want to annoy others here and waste time)
For those interested in my response, here the paper/link: Wastl, Juergen (2014): Elements matter: The context and perception of classical and cosmological elements versus earthly and physical matter in the Rosette Map. figshare.
http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1270516
here the summary:
‘TH Ings theory improves and develops further the existing theory, if one agrees and accepts the distinction between classical Elements and earthly Elements (physical matter) as proposed in this manuscript. TH Ing provides further proof and visual identification for physical Elements (e-Earth in Asia and independent confirmation of e-Fire for Europe) fitting into the climate model as previously postulated. TH Ing’s theory on its own can’t be combined though with the climate and classical Elements theory of Wastl and Feger, partly due to a lack of meaning for the cardinal circles and different geographical allocations.
Furthermore, even without the topics addressed in this response ( in particular the positioning of Africa and the Antipodes and the positioning and identification of the River Nile) both have much common ground. It will be interesting to follow up on these in further discussions.
Cor – brings back memories.
Juergen: you’ve obviously put a lot of effort into this project, and the link you make between the specific representation of Paradise on the 1203 map and the similar shape on the Voynich rosette page is definitely the high point of your original paper.
My ‘takeaway’ is rather different, though: if the shape is a representation of Paradise in the manner of the Beatus map, then it is one to which extra (curved internal) lines have been added apparently to obscure the overall visual meaning. Which points to at least two stages of construction (i.e. writing, and then obfuscation), which matches what we see elsewhere (e.g. on the reverse side of the same hexfolio). But this also suggests that we should be suspicious of everything we see on the page: that the original alpha state of the rosettes may well have been far simpler, but that the way they all ended up was far more distracting to the eye.
All of which is to say that I now distrust the overall impression this page gives, and will therefore be treating it far more warily than before. Thanks! 😉
Nick: Thanks for your feedback and your point of view (sic). Until now I didn’t see it that way. Keeping an open mind (once someone is deeply immersed in the matter) is something one shouldn’t ignore or forget.
You clearly provide some food for thought – questions that immediately come to my mind;
– What was the first propose? (if the second or last was to mislead the viewer/reader)
– Where is the border between the two (or more) stages?
Re your comment on the effort I spent: It took some time and effort (whatever somebody is willing to spend on a topic like this – I guess there are many hooked Voynichistas).
The ‘paradise’ connection was actually the first one that brought me to that folio (2012, after reading your book). Thereafter in chronological order followed the Nile (5 branches – I blame my Latin teacher) and Heavenly Jerusalem leading to the elements via Ether. I thoroughly enjoyed the voyage (so far) and actually learned a lot about medieval philosophy and classical elements in that process. If I can contribute either positively or negatively (by exclusion) a small step to advance the understanding then even better.
Just for interest’s sake: I see that in 2010, Julian Bunn included a post on roughly this sort of topic – makes a good read.
His blog is called ‘Computational Attacks on the Voynich Manuscript’; the post entitled ‘T-O’ maps and the moon (27/03/2010).
Cheers
Joris Hoefnagel was a painter of plants and was in Rudolf’s court before the time that name was written on the manuscript. If it was Rudolf’s, it would be natural for him to see it, and maybe re-make the pictures for the emperor’s taste. Hoefnagel had also been in France and Spain and England, so maybe even met John Dee some time?
Dr. Diego Amancio bigger computers.
My name is Sukhwant Singh and for the past couple of months I have extensively researched in depth on MS-408 better known as the Voynich manuscript.
I hope, my explanation will lead to resolving the Voynich manuscript once and for all.
The origins of the VM ( Voynich Manuscript ) lies in 6000 miles east from its current location. The place is in North Eastern Sindh region which is a part of Pakistan right now. The explanation in the VM is copied from an even older original book written in “Brahmi” language about ( 300-400 B.C ). The knowledge and editions of the books were passed through generations of merchants( Known as Mahajan’s with Vedic knowledge ) in ancient Indus valley civilization which also gave the name “Sindhustan”, the Sindh region in particular which was divided into India and Pakistan in 1947.
The book is divided into 4 parts as mentioned by the author( details below ) written in early 15th century as that’s the time period when Khojki was more prominent.
The book was taken by the “Holy” man from town to town and based on the knowledge he had( He was the go to guy and first person to approach in case of issues, either injury or some depression, bad dreams, marriage and business, Hex etc. ) , and the facts he collected from the inhabitants/customer. This man would then recommend to-do things. The book also deals with what kind of women she is based on the type of hair she has, what type of clothes she wears, what to expect from the second wife of the husband etc. What to do if someone has Hex on you and how to figure it out and recommendations for getting rid of the Hex.
The book is not written for others to read and is usually passed within the family from Father to Son or someone more capable whom the Mahajan has taught and guided himself.
Some background…..
When the Arab conquered the Sindh region in about early 700 ADs and moved more towards the east they started eliminating learned Sindhi scholars and Holy men, who enjoyed rich merchant heritage and were established in the region. With passage of time, “Urdu” language was forced in the region and subsequently became an official language and in current times known as Sindhi language (Descendant language of Landa script) which is currently written in Urdu script.
In early 15th century Khojki language was used by many to write prayer hyms and guidance songs. The extended use of this script and the underlining Landa script also indicate that the author didn’t revise his book into the periods urdu language but made it’s knowledge more hidden by superimposing Khwaja Khoji Vowel marks on top of Brahmi languages ( K, Ki, Ku, Kuu, Kay, Kaay, Ku, Kho, KHU, KHUU Gutturals ( Guttural).
Brahmi language is considered as the main language based on which current northern India languages are based on. It itself is part of Indo-European set of language whose base is Sanskrit in general. This timeline spans 1000’s of years from the period of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.
This VM manuscript is a very important book and will be another key to bind “Roma” people in Europe with their Sindh region ancestry. Most likely this book was taken along with the movement of Sindh’s migrant population 100’s of years ago( as slaves by Arab rulers ) and was preserved in good condition because the knowledge it would provide and likely the person owning it wanted to one day use it to establish the same respect the merchants of the Sindh region held. “Roma” migration from Sindh region resulted in scores of people being moved as slaves into Turkey and then current Europe.
There has been plenty of scientific tests conducted on the origins of Roma people. The book landed from a Roma person into the hands of Italian rulers as the poor Roma people faced many atrocities in Europe and many times were eliminated by the countries in which they tried to make their settlements.
The main issue to decipher the VM had to do with the place where it ended first and then later in America. Considering the “Nasal” phonetic words particular to “Landa” language (Ancestor language of Khudabadi, Mahajani, Gurmukhi, Khojki, Sindhi languages) are not spoken in Europe and for that matter in America.
English does not have these sounds at all. So for that matter it becomes next to impossible to decipher it and all the false theories it has generated, including its origins.
In America, it being predominantly English speaking world it adds to the problem where from ages researchers started emphasizing that the VM is some sort of minuscule Roman language or some false code system( It is not ).
That miscategorization has hindered the deciphering of the language for such a long time.
I have deciphered the alphabet to what I think it is( As I originally belong to Punjab region and I am aware of the cursive writings from the region as well as phonetics ).
The alphabet contains 4 different character set from languages spoken in same way but written in different form. There was no consistency of a set language in the region.
The merchants/judicial holy Sindhu men started using 3,4 languages mix in order to hide the contents( depending on the knowledge of the person and area he traveled ). This was done to protect business know-how and maintain superiority at that time. The languages used by the merchants of North western Multan and Sindh were “Multani” and “Landa/Khudabadi/Mahajani” apart from other regional dialects and written words. It was what the Sindhu Mahajan’s( Merchants ) used to do. This kind of book and knowledge was in demand as people relied on auspicious moon cycles and it was part of daily life and it is still in many parts of the world.
Day and night are divided into 15 “Mahurats” or auspicious times, Year is divided in 12 months based on astrological signs ( Not January February etc.. ) The day and night each were divided into 8 parts each based on Sanskrit astrology ( pages 67v and 69v clearly depicts the division of 8 parts segments around the sun and moon )
The times, days, years were not depicted as in Roman date forms, nor did they had the same timeline of 24 hours. This book is thus written with calculating moon cycles and the positions of 9 planets and the Vedic astrological knowledge is gathered from the original Brahmi book ( 300-400 BC or even earlier ).
Some details of which are recorded in India’s archaeological preservations.
The characters are also intermingled from dialects in the region but they sound and mean the same example
CH, TA, JJH, K, KH are written in mixed scripts, which makes it difficult.
The Brahmi scipts usage from which the MS 408 book was copied adds to more complexity, but the words used are common short 2-3 characters found in recent Devanagari language. This book probably had 1-2 readers( at that time, Mahajan himself and probably his son or someone else he took along on his business in various towns There were other people who had similar books but probably not as detailed as this one. Holy men were killed by Arab rulers and their books were burned so that Arab rule could be established in force and almost everyone follow one language, which was Urdu ( like Persian script ). This book most likely was hidden by the author and usually people like him belonged to higher castes who had good people connections as they were respected for their knowledge and guidance. The so called lower caste people were made slave labor and soldiers to fight in wars. It is likely that this book’s author was killed and as this book was hidden was later picked by someone else and taken along as an important document to be used later. The problem occurred to decipher it at that time too, so the Roma person kept for generations hidden in the belongings until it ended in front of some Italian king’s subject.
The languages used in MS 408 are ( Yes, there are multiple languages, but their pronunciations are almost same ).
Landa, Khojki and Brahmi are used throughout the book.
1. Landa ( Which later became Sindhi, Khudabadi, Khojki )
2. Brahmi ( 300- 400 B.C ) Which gives a reason to believe that MS-408 is copied from an original book
3. Multani
4. Mahajani
5. Khojki
6. Gurmukhi which is also a descendent of Landa script ( Words which cuts at the end and sounds individual standing separately ). Gurmukhi usage is very minimal, which tells that the book was written prior to the era in which the Gurmukhi was main stream in Punjab region around 1430 AD.
The last page 116V is written by someone else other than the original writer as it contains characters from Sarada and JaunSari scripts from mountainous region of Southwestern Kashmir as those few lines are similar to later on what became Kashmiri Dialect and scripted language.
First paragraph from 1r goes like this.
“Many 100’s of years desire tradition and as requested by the cultivator from his pouring knowledge in under increasing guidance
To accomplish it this promise of the interrogation of field subjects and about those manner for eating about their power learning from oneself condition about
under ongoing sufferings about stuck in those conditions which has already affected them learning from them in self-help either called for taking care during taking care or
When called by the messenger one about trees provided information in parts and about desire….”
Voynich Manuscript belonged to a Roma Sindh person and is in Landa Khojki scripts
New kid to the VM here. I saw a comment in this thread from a couple of years ago from Thomas Spande who thought the text was loaded with scribal abbreviations. I think it’s more than just loaded with them. Rather than the language being a cipher, I think all the characters may be scribal abbreviation characters. I have matched around 15 of the simpler characters so far, all of which were in use in Europe/UK in the 1400’s, using online paleography texts and examples. Some of the more complex characters are compound characters made up of two or three abbreviations.
oh…. how do I post a picture to show examples?
Is anyone else aware of any work along the same lines?
OK… so, using abbreviation symbols, and vowels, for the spiral writing at the top right of 86v…. it’s a bit rough… but I get .. [word] appears [bright?] shining to the [word] equator and ecliptic[word] the sun constant [hours?] is constant to [or against] Aries.
… the transliteration was… [word] apares [?]lla coruscar(es) el [word] ecuador en eclipticas estar o sol constantes orar o sol estar ares contrares [or perhaps constances].
xenon -the proprietor here has first take; otherwise do leave a comment on my blog. I’ll be happy to carry a post there for you.
voynichimagery dot wordpress dot com
Consider the possibility that the crowned woman in the ‘October’ Zodiac represents a real historical monarch. She is there, presumably, because she was born in October. She must have reigned somewhere between 1400-1450 according to carbon dates.
A queen who fits all of this is Elizabeth of Luxembourg the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund 1 who was born on 7 October and was the regent from 1437 to 1439.
(which may precisely date the manuscript).
Depictions of her in the art of the time show her wearing a crown just like the one in the drawing.
This puts the manuscript somewhere in the Holy Roman Empire of the time, which is a big chunk of Europe but mainly more central and eastern.
It may be worth looking for other real queens who fit the criteria as I have not scanned all of Europe.
I think that all of the ‘stars’ are just stylised non-specific flowers.
The preponderance of ‘o’ at the beginning of labels indicates that it is not a real letter at least in these cases, but perhaps some kind of copula.
I have just started looking into this and must avoid spending too much time on it!
Jimbo: you’re starting in a pretty decent kind of direction – I don’t know if anyone has systematically compared the crowns on the zodiac nymphs with real fifteenth century crowns (such as the Holy Crown of Hungary, etc), but I’ll try to put up a page inciting someone to do so. 🙂
As for word-initial EVA o- : I’d go further and say that whatever ‘o’ is, it is not a real letter. But then again, I’d probably say the same thing about EVA ‘a’, EVA ‘i’, EVA ‘n’, EVA ‘r’ etc if you were to ask. 😉
Nick,
I have seen this done. I think maybe Ellie Velinska?
Someone else compared them to crowns on the calendar of saints, which sounds more medieval.
I have looked up the crowns of Hungary and they do bear a strong resemblance to the one depicted.
There are crowns with crosses on top in Poland and other places (France, England etc) so its not exceptional.
Other candidate queens – Mary of Anjou born 14 October 1404 and Catherine of Valois born 27 October 1401 (maybe that is Saggitarius).
Nick: the Holy Crown of Hungary is so distinctive with its bent cross on top, that no one could wish for a more obvious give away sign. BTW I am still changing my allegiance daily. Currently I am fervent dianese. 🙂
Jimbo: a huge number of words in the VM begin with EVA o (over 20%). Given that the labels in question may be predominantly nouns, singular, feminine, or indeed share some specific trait, could be reflected in the initial character. When you have a list of alike things, sometimes their names are also alike.
Most Roman forenames for women ended in -a, and many of those for men ended in -us, when in the nominative case. Japanese female names often end in -ko.
There are also phonological process which can insert sounds at the beginning of words in certain situations. Utterance initial (as individual labels may be) could be one such environment.
There may also be a process which deletes whatever sound EVA o stands for when it is initial, but which is only found in running text. Hence it is more common in labels where such a condition does not apply.
Although some patterns may seem unbelievable, hypothetical explanations at least show they are possible. Dismissing them narrows the evidence we have open to us.
Emma May Smith: to be precise, dismissing hypothetical explanations (particularly very low probability ones) doesn’t narrow the evidence we have open to us – rather, it narrows the range of (low probability) explanations we feel we need to invest our time into evaluating in further depth.
EMS: I should perhaps give a specific example. There is now so much specifically fifteenth century evidence about the Voynich Manuscript’s first few years of existence that I personally feel it is utterly safe not to consider 20th, 17th, and even 16th century forgery narratives about it.
Yes, I completely accept that there is a possibility that some forger or hoaxer with near-superhuman powers could have been able to produce a Baudrillardian simulacrum in the style of the Voynich Manuscript that somehow manages to mimic all the behaviour and history it presents. But I also completely accept that there is a possibility that I am a programmatic version of me typing this from within a gigantic simulation of reality. And in neither case do I really judge that the probability of that possibility to be anything apart from dwindlingly minute. 🙂
Nick, I would not regard the arguments for a non 1400s date as even hypothetical, for they do not explain the evidence available. Even so, you are quite right that we can dismiss extremely low probability hypotheses.
Yet EVA o and the linguistic/cipher arguments around it (and the script as a whole) are not in this class.
The eternal encryption theory.
Did anyone think of this alternative theory? Besides the meaningless glossolalia and meaningless fake language creation theories, there is a possibility of permanent, unbreakable encryption of meaningful information, too. I would term this the eternal encryption theory.
To describe it with an analogy, the eternal encryption is like closing shut a keyless padlock for good. And whatever is locked by this one-way working padlock, cannot be accessed by anyone ever, not even the person who locked it shut.
The simplest example for this is mixing up randomly the letters of the originally meaningful plain text. I don’t know why anyone would want eternally to encrypt and so to hide from even himself a meaningful text for good. But I don’t need to demonstrate any possible reason for it. This act can be performed, however crazy and purposeless it may seem.
Rugg’s process need not come from tabulated random syllables. It may come from tabulated syllables of meaningful text, orderly set in rows, columns or diagonals etc. in the table then read with randomly placed random templates.
Rugg’s premise that the Voynich script is language like but meaningless, need not imply that it is not an encrypted meaningful material or simply not an encryption. I hope I demonstrated it that it can be an encryption of a meaningful text, even that which may have lost its meaning forever in the course of encrypting.
Perhaps I am the first person in the entire world who thought of the concept of eternal encryption. But I do not promote it as my theory. I just spotted a possible niche in the market for others.
What I’d say more seriously instead is that I have noticed, Rugg’s process may be applied to orderly tabulated syllables of meaningful text, too. And so he unintentionally though, but equally proved the possibility of encryption through his method, and not only of the creation of language-y gobbledygook from random syllables.
In which case, the Voynich script should also be attacked with tries of reverse tabulating the syllables into rows, columns, diagonals etc. via various templates. I do not claim that I am the first owner of this idea, and very possibly I am not the first, anyway.
Could the Voynich be part of a greater work and what we see is something like a glossary ?
I presume that somebody has already pointed this out, but, regarding the Zodiac series –
f70r – 29 ladies
F70v – 15 ladies plus f71r – 15 ladies. Total 30.
f71v – 15 + 15 =30 and 30 again and 30 again.
f72r – 30 ladies and 30 again
f73r – 30 ladies.
f73v – 30 ladies
f75v – 30 ladies
So, is the author drawing a lady for each day (even though there were some months with 31 days back then).
If so, what could be the purpose of enumerating this very non-secret fact?
On some folios ladies have been added to the top as if the author had not planned his spacing in the intended rings and had to make an ad hoc reparation.
This makes it look like the document is a hurriedly drawn draft for a final document that may never have been produced (or maybe a final version was never intended).
Jimbo: Upon one czech collegue’s passionate insistance on the VMS being czech, I cursorily researched this possibility, which is quite plausible, though not on the sparse evidence he presents.
Among his claims is that the crowned lady is Barbara of Cilli. I looked up and there indeed is a strong resemblance of her crown on this picture.
Jimbo: the link failed to go through, so the picture is this:
File:Meister der Chronik des Konzils von Konstanz 001-cropped.jpg
I considered Barbara of Cilli also. She is a possibility and it’s a pity that history has forgotten her birthday. I fact, it’s remarkable how many birth dates or even years of birth are forgotten from these times – even for queens.
I also thought that the Zodiacs might list name days but that doesn’t pan out that well. Anyway, modern name days may be different to 15th century name days.
Apparently it’s a custom in Hungary to give women flowers on their name days. How old is that custom, though?
Jimbo:
There have been a discussion recently in the comments here and also in the blog of David Jackson upon that subject of the ladies composition, you may be able to google it out; I still believe that the “folk calendar” direction is well worth further investigation.
Jimbo: The name days custom may come from the saints’ days, so it is maybe saints’ names that are written into the zodiacs…?
Thomas: the same problem exists if name days or saint days are postulated. That is – the text uses a limited character set which is repeated in a different order over and over. If it were a list of names I would expect the use of a greater range of characters. That’s what I meant when I said that it doesn’t pan out.
If the text is a list of names it is not a simple letter substitution in any language.
So, even if if am on the right track (or if anybody else’s hypothesis is on the right track), it still comes down to proving it, and that comes down to cracking it. That’s the dead end for everybody.
My theory, to account for the bizarre way in which the course of Voynich studies moves, is that there are perhaps two or three people in the world with a genuine interest in the manuscript.
The rest are interested only in having a turn at adding one more piece to the growing house of cards, one predicated on absolute determination that the work WILL be an object interpretable entirely by the corpus of European Christian Latin traditions. And very conservative limits maintained, even there. What we have ended up with its a virtual-reality manuscript, and a ‘course of research’ reads like the diary of a role-playing game’s MC.
Its a collective delusion that the manuscript reflects, in any way, the habits, texts, or imagery of medieval Christian European society. Not really such a great game, but if you won’t play you’d better leave.
Diane: I’d heartily oppose the suggestion that there is any kind of organized thought pattern permeating the Voynich research ‘cloud’, whether that’s an assumption of Christian European society, fifteenth century origins, or whatever. If anything, quite the opposite seems to be true.
f116v marginalia, as well as the color codes in herbal pages strongly suggest at least *some* relation to the “medieval European society”. I don’t know how it is possible to close eyes upon this fact.
Anton: Voynich research eyes (and indeed cipher mystery research eyes in general) typically seem to have very powerful (and well-exercised) closing muscles. 😉
Anton,
I wouldn’t dispute that the manuscript, as artefact, was manufactured i.e. produced in the early fifteenth century and probably in northern Italy.
Where an artefact is made may, or may not, tell you anything about the content, its origins, age or nature.
In this case, and reviewing the past century and more of Voynich studies, I see the “all Latin European” paradigm taken as a first position, and then later evidence hunted to support it. I consider what has happened to anyone, amateur scholar or otherwise, who has attempted to get through to people that the content doesn’t agree with that fixed idea. For example, independently Edith Sherwood and I (and perhaps others) all came to the common conclusion that one folio represents types of banana plant.
I showed pretty conclusively that Latin European botanists had no clue as to what a banana plant looked like – and the culture in Europe did not deign to consult such lesser beings as merchants or seamen. Even when Poggio Bracciolini tried to learn about foreign plants, he was unable to do so – no technical terms in common.
So this, in the normal way, would be taken as a fairly convincing bit of evidence for the work’s not being entirely the product of a Latin European auteur. Nope. Whole thing was glossed (or sneered) over.
Same when Stolfi found the probable language Jurchen. Argument not adressed or formally opposed. Ad hominems until he left.
Wiart and Mazar wrote a short article mentioning just two folios – came to the same view as I had. The botanical section doesn’t show European species. (I’d explained a lot more, and identified about 20, I think – but again.. ).
That’s why I think the present state of things is just a fantasy-game. Scholarship looks at, weighs, accepts and acknowledges things which change one’s way of seeing the manuscript.
I’m exasperated, but I continue. I do think that there are two or three people in the world genuinely interested in this fascinating manuscript. I agree with the earliest of the European experts in medieval manuscripts in thinking that it is a really valuable piece of history.
Diane: I think it misleading to say that Jorge Stolfi identified a “probable language”. Given that he didn’t identify a single letter (and I don’t believe he ever claimed to do so), his interest was more in using statistics to identify deep structural features and similarities between languages (which may or may not be causally connected). Even after this long-ish period of time (i.e. between when he was active and now), this line of enquiry has failed to yield any further insight, despite a good number of people taking his results seriously and trying to develop them. Again, I’d define that as almost the opposite of “ad hominem”s.
And as for researchers who cherrypick a limited number of herbal drawings without coming to any systematic conclusion about the rest of the herbal drawings, they seem to me to be inviting pareidolia to their research party with open arms. At the least, please accept that all herbal section identifications so far have been contentious because they only offer explanations for a subset (sometimes a tiny subset!) of the drawings, and are Wittgensteinily mute about the rest.
Diane:
Yes, I understand what you mean, and in fact the notion of distinguishing the content from the artefact is certainly reasonable, and should be included among the starting points of research. I agreed with that more than once.
You point that the hypothesis of “European artefact with European content” meets certain obstacles. That is true.
But the hypothesis of “European artefact with non-European content” meets certain obstacles as well. To name one of those: the main content of the VMS is the text in the unknown script. But the last line of f116v winds two words of the unknown script into some European text. Even if one does not agree that “so nim gas mich” is a coherent phrase in FNHD (Frühneuhochdeutsch), and even if “valden ubren” (or whatever it is) still lacks appropriate explanation, one would hardly deny that the Latin alphabet is used in this line of f116v. Thus Voynichese and Latin are used together in a single line. So either the creator of the “non-European” content was aware of the Latin alphabet (and for some reason suddenly chose it together with Voynichese to express his thoughts), or the creator of the content was a Latin European himself. In either case there is a clear relation of the content creator (not of the artefact creator!) to the European world – be that his belonging to the latter or simply some cultural relation or mediation.
To assert that the *content* is *totally* unrelated to the European world is not correct.
Just to point out that ‘Musa’ (banana plant) appears in illustrated MS herbals of the 14th and 15th Century:
BN Lat. 6823 fol. 105v,
Casanatense 459 fol. 165v,
Sloane 4016 fol. 63r.
Rene,
Thanks for mentioning this – you make it clear that I wasn’t clear. I didn’t mean that there was no knowledge of a plant, usually called something like “the tree of wisdom” etc.
What I meant to emphasise is that European botany had no idea of what the plant looked like, yet the picture in the VMS is just fantastic, and shows very clear knowledge of every aspect of the plant’s development.
The same ignorance is often seen in European medieval sources, where they draw something-or-other and give it the name of a plant in their written sources.
Offhand, I think the first mention of the banana in any Latin Christian work occurs in a Mozarbic text of the ninth or tenth century.
So, no my point wasn’t that you get a picture labelled with the term used for bananas, but that you don’t get a picture of the banana plant.
By the way, there’s a lovely image of Aldrovandi’s banana online. I expect you know Pinterest?
Anton,
I don’t know that the problem is a problem with the “argument” – an argument can be developed which sounds perfectly plausible and has complete internal consistency – but which is still dead wrong. Usually because there is a fundamental flaw in the initial, and unquestioned premises.
I think that is largely what has happened. I had never seen, before I began work myself on this manuscript, any time *whatever* when someone sat down and asked the really most basic questions, such as, “Is the content of this manuscript contemporary with the date of manufacture?”.
It is quite mind-boggling to realise just how many of the usual steps one takes in provenancing a manuscript have *never* been taken, the most fundamental questions never asked, and by about 2000, the presumptions – of European origin, of authorship and of first enunciation of content as contemporaneous etc. were not just ingrained, but formed the whole basis from which any work was done. Even to raise these most elementary question was (in c.2010) to risk being considered irrelevant because “everybody knew” this that and the other… but none of it ever established, not even by basic, initial comparative study.
It’s astounding. As if the Chinese found a text written in Latin and decided that because it was found on Chinese land, made with Chinese paper therefore no alternative could be countenanced except that the written text was some form of Chinese!
– not that I’m saying the text is Chinese. Just an analogy.
Rene
correction – that image isn’t available to the public – sorry. There is another of Aldrovandi’s online, showing the Indian mastic (or mastich) plant, Calamacorus.
I think this is quite relevant, otherwise I would have refrained from commenting.
One wouldn’t want to fall into the trap of believing that a 15th C drawing (in particular in the Voynich MS) should be an accurate (photographic) representation of any object.
I wonder if the supposed banana plant in the Voynich MS is on f13 (recto). I remember getting a very excited call from Andreas Sulzer in 2008, in preparation for the (in)famous documentary, saying that someone identified this as a banana plant. Therefore, the MS could not be very old.
This is of course wrong on several counts, the most fundamental problem being, that, just because something in the MS ‘looks like’ something we know, it must represent it.
(The other being that banana plants have been gradually introduced in S.Europe since the 9th C. or so).
The Scorpio in the zodiac looks like a lizard.
A small selection of the containers in the pharmaceutical section look like old microscopes or opera glasses.
The Aries in the zodiac looks like a goat.
etc, etc,
In summary, even if f13 (recto) really shows a banana plant, this would not be anything too surprising. However, a reknowned herbal expert clearly told me that this drawing is not a credible 15th C representation of a banana plant.
Either way, there is nothing that would allow one to draw any conclusion whatsoever.
Rene,
One expert (me) has told everyone, and explained in detail that the plant has been represented according to non-European conventions. Various botanists have also identified that folio as a banana plant.
I absolutely agree with your anonymous person that the plant is not depicted in accordance with 15thC *European* custom. And that is precisely my point.
Failing to include there the modifiers “Latin” and “European” perfectly demonstrates my point about the ingrained habit in Voynich studies of beginning from a presumption that the content of this manuscript will be entirely a product of the Latin European milieu, in art as in corpus of knowledge.
I don’t know how to put this any more simply. The iconography, in style and in content (e.g. its way of representing the banana-group, and the fact that it does) are among the myriad indications that that “Latin & European” presumption is inappropriate.
The alternative to Latin Europe is not the Americas, nor did the world east of Suez magically appear ex nihilo upon da Gama’s rounding the Horn.
It is quite a struggle to get through to amateurs fed the heroic tales of nineteenth century European triumphs that the world east of Suez had a very vibrant life and lines of trade into the Mediterranean long before da Gama was born.
I would appreciate your help in the endeavour.
Rene,
I must also protest the line of argument implicit in your saying that imagery cannot be interpreted correctly unless it is of the ‘photographic likeness’ sort. To be frank, that is a nonsensical position. Even in medieval Europe a great proportion of imagery is abstracted, stylised, allegorised and represented in other that the rather mundane literalist style.
If your argument held, then the greater part of our art-histories would have to be torn out and burned, representing other than ‘correct’ forms.
Diane: I cannot see a difference between the forms of the wooden crosses on sale in churches and the form of the schematic line-drawn cross on f79v.
I understand that you do not find anything in the imagery of the VMS that is related to Christianity, and so you argue that this depicted cross is not a Latin or Christian cross, because its form is not of the Latin or Christian cross.
To me, a naive observer, it is of the same form. And when I see something like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then for me it is a duck.
Despite however, I do not argue that the first enunciation of the VMS cannot be of a culture that is independent of Christianity. I only argue that the actual imagery, through supposed European copying of an earlier, original work, employs such Christian elements as crosses. And, maybe it employs such in a manner that is corrupting the purity of the original enunciation.
Again, I am also aware that the crown with the cross on top of it may be a later addition or alteration to the imagery, as others have suggested that already. So the cross on f79v may be later addition too, if I may suggest it, though without any firm foundation. Who knows?
But I play my role as the devil’s advocate not in the slam-bang style. If it was the issue of an image of a swastika in a medieval manuscript, I would certainly not be butting in if you argued with elementarily ignorant folks, that it had nothing to do with the much later Nazi imagery because of the context and difference in eras.
But, returning to the cross, I need enlightenment. What sort of hand size cross-shaped objects, practical or symbolic, existed independently of Christianity or of the roman instrument of punishment and execution, in other cultures?
I intend to be serious, but allow me frivolity too. A cross shaped box of oriental chopsticks (fitting lengthwise) and toothpicks (across)? 🙂
Thomas:
The main problem with the supposed cross in f79v is that it is strangely “lumped”. However, there are some other resemblances of the Christian cross, such as that on the crown or those on objects looking like orbs.
The cross is one of the most ancient symbols and dates back to primeval society. My “Great Soviet Encyclopedia” says that it has its prototype in the ancient primitive tool for producing fire.
Thomas, let me untangle the back-to-front bit of argument first.
The person who asked me to look at this manuscript supposed, as everyone did, that it was a product of medieval Latin Europe. On that basis, I expected to offer an opinion after a day or so. Nothing in the manuscript reflected any known tradition in medieval Christian art – including the herbal tradition, I might say.
I then spent a couple more weeks puzzling over that discrepancy, and trying to find the seminal paper in which the supposed Latin European provenance had been established. I found that this first, fundamental stage had simply never occurred. No-one had studied the manuscript, looked at a wide range of comparative evidence, and then after weighing it all come to that conclusion. Wilfrid Voynich just asserted that the date and place of manufacture were those of initial enunciation for the matter contained. Thereafter people worked hard – some very hard indeed – to produce plausible excuses for that first, inexcusable error.
To discover where the matter *had* come from – and in the process realising that the whole was extracted from at least four or five earlier sources – took a fair while. About 18 months in all.
And my conclusion was that nothing in the imagery required a date for first enunciation much later than the third century AD, though there were signs of addition and ‘modernisation’ all of which could have been completed before the end of the fourteenth century. In other words, everything in the manuscript copies earlier material.
I found nothing in the imagery to support the theory of Latin Christian origin. As I explained when treating the cruciform object, there is no parallel in Christian imagery for a religious icon, and specifically a cross being held in this way at arm’s length by a naked female. It is quite unheard of, contrary not only to the norms of Latin iconography but contrary to the whole tenor of western Latin custom.
I don’t doubt that when you look at that object you do not think to compare it with anything but a Christian cross, but that is quite a different thing from saying that the person who drew that object was in the same position as yourself. In any case, it isn’t a Roman style cross. Its form, with the addition to one side of the cross-bar is rather closer to certain forms of measuring device used in the older Mediterranean, and of which we have some examples extant from Egypt.
Perhaps you’d care to read the short essay (a.k.a. blogpost) in which I explained all this several years ago. Save my wasting too much of your time, and Nick’s bandwidth here.
… there is no parallel in Christian imagery for a religious icon, and specifically a cross being held in this way at arm’s length by a naked female … Mateo Cerezo, De boetvaardige Maria Magdalena, Rijksmuseum NL, http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/en/items/RIJK01xxCOLONxxSK-C-1347
Precisely – as I explained all those years ago, the nearest parallel is Magdalen, and she is not shown:
* with a cross (that is not a cross, but a crucifix. The difference is whether or not a figure is attached)
* naked – she is not naked. The magdalen is usually clothed in some way. As indeed she is in that picture
* holding the cross at arms’ length. Which she is not doing.
What you have shown *is* a typical image of western Christian art. A *partly unclothed* female who stands before a crucifix **which she does not touch**.
One constant difficulty, I find, is that people who have a sense that the manuscript *must* be a product of western Latin thought, cannot see that the elements forming a picture have equal weight. One cannot say “oh well, the clothes don’t count as a difference…. the form for the cross is quite different, but that doesn’t count… she isn’t naked.. but that doesn’t count…”. Discard all those elements and you discard those by which western custom allowed a person to distinguish an image of Magdalene from that of St. Theresa, or either from any number of other figures who are shown praying before a crucifix.
You might as well argue that there’s no distinction, really been an apple and an orange and that to insist on the difference is just quibbling because they’re obviously both sort-of reddish and more-or-less round and both fruit.
and Helmut – just as a point of form. It is usual to compare a given work with ones produced before it was made, or nearly contemporary with it. If you couldn’t find anything comparable until almost three hundred years later, I do understand. I’ve been down that road, too.
Anton,
That people have to try so very hard to find anything at all to support a theory of Latin Christian origin for the content is proof enough of the opposite.
Find me an exception to the rule that western Latin manuscripts proclaim their religious and political attitudes in every image (not diagram) and every folio.
Diane: what do you mean by “image (not diagram)”? Are you trying to exclude herbals / books of machines / zibaldone etc?
Diane: I accept it that you had found nothing in the imagery that could support the theory of Latin Christian origin. In fact I am sympathetic to your very learned view that the subject matter in the VMS must originate from an early, non-Christian background.
Having said that, the depicted cruciform object in question may still come from the Christian conditioned mindset of a later, possible European copier living in a Christian milieu, who may have introduced this device, thus possibly carelessly polluting the pure original spiritual or practical subject matter. We have no proof either way.
When I look at the detail of the drawn cruciform object, I cannot see its thickness, so it may or may not be of a sheet of material. But the draughtsman may not cared to show a thickness, just as seemingly he did not care about the life like depiction of the proportion of human body parts.
The lumped quality of the cross is not entirely clear for me. Is this adjective referring to the casual, maybe so perceivable as disrespectful way, it seems to be held by the lady? Today, Christians wear cross earrings in their ears, or I see a devout woman going to church with a chain around her forehead, with a cross pendant in front. Are these crosses lumped too?
Now, with less shallow understanding, though I could have looked up if I was not that lazy, I see that of course this object could be many other things than Latin or Christian cross with its certain symbolic meaning.
If not fire maker or measuring instrument or even a tool for drawing ellipses, then it could be even something that no written document depicts or explains in the history of mankind. Except maybe the VMS itself. And alas, we have no proof either way.
For if we have no proof that the crown with the cross was added later, then we must still consider it that it was drawn at the time of the manufacture of the VMS. And if it was, should not we argue that the cross shaped device on the crown also is not a Christian or Latin cross, because the general imagery does not support a European Christian origin theory for the manuscript?
I repeatedly stress it that I in no way pursue that theory. I only uphold my belief in a possibility of the presumed European copier of Christian background introducing the discussed symbolic device somehow freely and carelessly, and so bringing in an irrelevant or contaminant element into the original and pure enunciation of the mysterious ideas in the Voynich.
Then, even one more aspect can exist. If I was a painter, an artist, I could have a concept for a work with a mysterious, abstract message that could be interpreted differently and subjectively by many individuals. With a touch of my frivol side again, I’d paint a naked man lieing on a waterboard, while a group of men, holding high an un-lumped cruciform object, pour water on his face
If this painting survived six hundred years, future art experts, trying to understand its meaning, could argue that this cross has nothing to do with Christian ideas, because it does not look like any known example of Christian imagery. Of course I could have said that in a secret note on the back of the canvas. But, if I did not say, what that cross is doing there…?
The question can be deeply abstract, let us admit.
I am sorry for my free lateral, vertical and longitudinal thinking. I have still not a clue… 😀
For me this is all much ado about nothing. I can’t remember anyone ever saying that this is a Christian Latin (or v.v.) MS. Proclaiming that this is not a Christian MS is like kicking in an open door. The lack of any certain religious imagery has been continuously recorded for decades.
What always surprised me is why that should even be a problem. The Voynich MS is (as far as can be judged from the illustrations) a philosphical miscellany with a large emphasis on herbal medicine. Herbal MSs aren’t exactly known for their religious contents. Neither are astronomical MSs. So, there really isn’t anything unusual.
If the Voynich MS has any dedication to any religion in its text, we’ll only know if someone ever produces an interpretation of it. A generally accepted one, I should say.
Nick,
Thanks for the question. I exclude diagrams such as astronomical diagrams or that on fol.57v as a general thing, because when that sort of drawing is made, it tends so often to be identical whether in a Latin manuscript, a north African, Syrian, Persian, Indian or Armenian manuscript.
In practice, there are distinctions quite apart from the language of inscription – such as whether vegetable or mineral pigments predominate, and the type of parchment etc.etc. but they do not “proclaim their religious and political attitudes” to nearly the same extent as other forms of imagery do. It’s the same today, of course, an engineer’s diagram could come from anywhere if you discount the inscriptions.
Contrast that with the figure of a king on a throne – it will invariably announce its attitude to kingship, to clothing, to religious allegiance and so on. The Vms crowns tell us little more than that at some stage people who knew the look of European crowns had reason to inscribe a couple or three. But we knew that. 🙂
oh, sorry – that sounds awfully dismissive. I think the crowns are telling details, but they could be telling of all sorts of things – just by way of ‘f’rinstance’ – what if they relate the stones appropriate for a given crown to the stars believed to rule over that stone? Maybe the crown is there just as a memory-jog: sapphire in the such-and-such crown as example of this star’s virtue and so forth?
This is how it goes… a list of all the historically sensible possibilities, then endless labour finding which (if any at all) are compatible with everything else gained so far.
Nick – about the crowns. If I were you, which I ain’t, I’d haul out an old astrolabe and see if there were any correspondence between crown’s posited land and the equivalent celestial llongitude – just saying.
Thomas,
Coming to understand the information offered by imagery in a manuscript such as this is rather like the process of working out a three-dimensional jigsaw, one with a thousand pieces or so. Given your natural inclination to “lateral, vertical and longitudinal thinking” I’d say you’ve got a good start. Now all you need is about ten years’ worth of solid reading and study, and ten years is nothing in Voynich research – you may yet be first past the post. Good luck.
Diane:
I’m not an expert in western Latin manuscripts (nor even in Russian manuscripts), so I even won’t attempt to answer your question 🙂
But I would like to point two important (in my opinion) circumstances.
First: to prove (or disprove) certain supposed cultural origins of the VMS, the latter is usually compared with other manuscripts, with the aim of finding respective parallels (or their absence). But this implies that the VMS is the same sort of thing – some more or less accomplished “work” or collection of works. Yet it is completely unknown in advance whether the VMS is really this.
Suppose it is instead a notebook of a wandering medicine man, not intended to be used by anyone except himself. A completely practical thing, in which there is no place for Magdalene et alii, just because it has nothing to do with Magdalene et alii.
Second: one should not omit from consideration those parts of medieval tradition which probably did not find their way into *visual* imagery of medieval manuscripts. For example, the medieval carnival culture. This is a suggestion; I may be mistaken here.
After all, the dispute between “Latin” and “non-Latin” is a bit “dispute for the sake of dispute”. I really don’t see its scientific importance. In Russian we say: “to decant from empty into the unfilled”, which is somewhat like the English “to mill the wind”. Let ones follow the Latin trail, while others follow the non-Latin one. What’s the harm in that? On the contrary, it’s ever more effective when science works through different hypotheses in parallel.
Let us not forget that neither those who stand for “Latin” nor those who stand for “non-Latin” could yet approach the ultimate goal (i.e. deciphering of the “unknown script”).
We all sit “engaged in guessing,
but no syllable expressing”. 🙂
If the topic of heraldry can be considered in the investigation of the first three VMs Zodiac pages, then at least some questions can be raised about apparent interpretations and the credibility of the images. Are there some some heraldic influences present?
Here is the problem. Those who are slightly to moderately familiar with heraldry will either fail to discover anything of relevance, or they will pick up on certain difficulties and irregularities to be found in the illustrations. And these problematic issues will then seem to indicate that the author was not a person well-acquainted with heraldry and further investigation lacks relevance.
Only with the discovery of the radial illusion of f71r and the recognition of the positional construction of the obscure papelonny pun can the extent of the authors heraldic knowledge be adequately gauged.
The illustration of f71r, according to heraldic identification, is a representation of a certain historical situation in the Roman Catholic Church circa 1250 CE. But for reasons of the author’s choosing, it is not patently displayed, but diminished, tucked away and disguised in a complex construction which also contains multiple confirmations of the intended identities.
Anton,
This is taking us ever-further from the post’s topic, isn’t it? The dominant culture in Europe is described as the “Latin” because that was the formal language of education and diplomacy etc., just as Arabic was in Islam or Greek in Byzantine territories. Other languages and minorities existed within each area, of course.
Methods helpful in isolating a language or solving a cipher may not be so much help when attempting to identify and understand imagery. An image (to simplify, a bit) is composed composed of certain elements which do or don’t combine in a given tradition, and within that, in a certain region, and in that within a given draughtsman’s work. But artists pick up ideas across cultural boundaries, which adds another element to the whole.
To be able even to recognise whether a given image belongs in a given tradition (e.g. a specific image for the sun) is not so dependent on logical thinking as on the depth of background which enables the reader to recognise which details are determining ones, and which peripheral. It also takes some natural facility, as maths does, and a lack in that facility is remarkably common among people who are very good at analytical logic. Paradoxically, the sort of person most likely to be interested in the manuscript is least likely to be talented in analysing imagery. I’ve certainly got minimal interest in, or talent for, solving cipher puzzles. Just the way it goes.
I suppose in a way you could say that the mental process of eliminating possibilities is like linear maths, where iconographic analysis is more like non-linear maths.
Anton,
even a travelling carnival man had a first language, and was exposed to particular iconographic traditions, which would inform his idea of how one drew a picture of the sun.
The problem in Voynich studies, as I see it, is that our attitude to making pictures says that they should be entirely WYSIWYG or else that it is incomprehensible in the last analysis to anyone save the maker.
I have had people become quite annoyed when I tried to explain that this isn’t how things were for most of human history. The VMS imagery isn’t WYSIWYG though so many people think it can be understood just by looking at it, but neither it is incomprehensible or ‘personal art’. Its roots are in ideas, attitudes, customs in drawings and actual written texts, but to ‘get’ the image, those things have to be in the reader’s tool-box. Simple as that.
Anton,
I should add that those unable to address the evidence have, in the past, often resorted to pooh-pooh noises, evading the clearly non-Latin nature of the imagery – that is, its natural “language” by muttering that such distinction is ‘irrelevant’ and ‘quibbling’.
I’m sure that was not your intention. You will see that to correctly identify the culture and background which produces this imagery is likely to help those working on the written part of the text.
Further, if (as is the case) the imagery indicates that the work(s) proper context was a widely-extended east-west trade in certain specific goods – as it does – then that should help others to look within appropriate vocabularies and languages.
To suppose that it doesn’t matter if people continue to limit their comparisons to the corpus of Latin manuscripts is not appropriate in this case, and certainly to suppose so might be called an amateur’s error; no informed analyst would begin from such an assumption with so enigmatic a work.
Comparing an image in a manuscript only to manuscripts in a preferred tradition has had a most unfortunate effect in Voynich studies, now, for decades. Almost all the work which linguists have done from assertions about the supposedly European content of the imagery has been wasted, in my opinion.
Among the great number of errors one might mention was the development of an idea of German origin for the work on the basis of such inaccurate ideas as that the ‘wolkenband’ or again the standing archer figures were in some sense proof for that origin. In fact, the ‘wolkenband’ is proof of Asian influence on western imagery, and the standing archer enters Christian Latin iconography through France, and before that came from a very narrow region within Palestine. Errors of this sort have led the linguists and cryptanalysts on long wild-goose chases for decades. To better identify the imagery’s roots and cultural “language” is not, I hope, merely milling the wind.
Diane: You are right and I am not wrong either. I keep an open mind, while I take your word for all the evidence that you have found through years of thorough work. Evidence, which you believe to be excluding.
I don’t want to defend the possibly misguided Latin theorists, and I am certainly not one of them. I just try to think aloud and relate my thoughts here.
In imagery, or in other ways of expression, there are innovators who break with tradition. There were the Beatles who styled mop heads. No popular music group members had mop heads before. Yet, despite this unusual feature, we cannot state that they were pop musicians whose art must have grew out of some unknown, distant culture, and without the slightest influence of the general popular music of the era. Because mop heads were nowhere to be seen up until their appearing.
Or, take Picasso’s Guernica. Apart from his unrealistic figure painting, this work of his is nothing like the then known usual paintings, religious or worldly. On it, a soldier appears to have the stigmata of Christ on his hand. But, is it not just a bullet wound…? For it cannot be stigmata as no other known art work depicted such in this manner.
I thought of the wrongs and persecutions by the Christian church, and I thought, what if six hundred years ago already there were critics or humorists, free spirits, who blew a raspberry. While I hope the Voynich has no such irreverent topic, the possible Christian influenced background should not be discounted with a final decree.
Look at, and analyze, some imagery on house walls in Ireland, in total isolation of any knowledge or guessing in your mind. You see a man in black balaclava holding a machine gun.
Then you must conclude that there cannot be a Christian connection whatsoever, for no such Christian imagery was encountered on house walls before. Generally, crosses or little Virgin Mary statues in niches were on Christian influenced house walls, but no large paintings of violent men.
Until we know the content of the writing in the VMS, we just simply cannot know for sure its sources and influences in its creation. Of course, it is helpful to take all the evidence gleaned from its imagery, to lead us to deciphering the content. I know it looks like a diabolical circle.
Sorry, Anton, I believed in rennet bag for a day, but…
I was trying to see how a rennet bag is used in sausage making or generally how it looks when stuffed with minced meat or the like. I tried to figure out the top closing, and why those gathered folds seem to be there.
I also entertained myself with thoughts of cheese making, ewes’ cheese of course, and milk, perhaps bathing in milk, all those ladies in the Voynich, for beautiful white skin.
Then, all of a sudden, like in a curious optical illusion picture, I could see a foot. Somehow, those folds looked like toes, and I counted exactly five. Moreover, the big toe looks bigger than the rest.
I can see the foot as viewed from the heel and so the sole is visible, as though even the ball of the foot were also expressed with a faint line. And its continuation seems downwards, the ankle and the leg.
I know it goes from sublime to ridiculous, but it is not all. The word “lab” suddenly took another meaning. It means foot or leg in Hungarian!
Before people say, hey, hold it there, I myself am very aware of the national nuttiness where every Tom, Dick and Harry of all nations of the world claiming the Voynich is of their culture.
I could not care less whose culture it comes from, but I hold myself responsible to disseminate this discovery, however erroneous it may be.
And anyway, somwhere elswhere it was mentioned that hungarian is unlikely, as for the language of the Voynich. Still, it is the michitonian page that is not the proper Voynichian, but debated as this or that, even polyglot it may be.
In the course of my further speculating, I remembered a possible pregnancy or child birth relevance of the VMS. Somebody somewhere mentioned that the prone, distorted bellied lady on another page may have a breech position baby, where we know the foot and leg will be born first.
Well, the belly of this lady too, is somewhat similarly misshapen, if not that pronouncedly.
Since I am not an obstetrician (thank God), I have no realistic picture in my mind of such birth. So I tried to look at the top “lab” figure, to discern a foot and leg emerging from the birth canal.
However, it cannot make full sense. What is the heart shape feature on the leg? And, how, if that it meant to be, the scrotum gets out, and how it seems to have already the testes descended into it?
Dear friends, I have heard of another theory, a phallic one because the apparent scrotal shape, but I just don’t know. Currently this foot and breech birth is on my mind. Please come and shoot me down. I just speak my mind.
Thomas: why on earth would I want to shoot you down when you’re obviously gaining so much enjoyment from this? 😉
http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/23400000/Moe-Howard-three-stooges-23436760-444-516.jpg
Anton: I envy you for your Great Soviet Encyclopedia, though I would not have a place now where to put it. In the pre-Internet era I surrounded myself with such heavy tomes of reference books myself.
Speaking of russian language, and this idea could be very relevant to the Voynich, I employ a coded note for the PIN numbers of my bank cards. Russian, with Hungarian transcription, backwards.
Something like this: eritesc mezsov avd niyga. If anyone finds it in England, where I live, I don’t think he will know, and my money stays safe. 🙂
Maybe the Voynich guy, he wrote backwards in similar obfuscation with languages and pronounciations, who knows?
Now, I know it is cranky, but I have looked at the michitonian text and tried reading it as anagrams.
“Valden ubrey” can be twisted out to read “buy lavender”. Yeah, a note by the scribe for himself not forgetting the stuff against the moths when he next goes shopping.
And never mind the possible “levendula” (?) or whatever is the true medieval form of the name of that plant, just speak 20th c. English. 😀
More seriously, or rather, less unseriously, “oladabas” can be rearranged to “oldasaba” which, again, is Hungarian for “into its solution” or “into its solving”.
Here, the root of the word is “old” = “solve” (a task, a problem), “dissolve” (a substance in a solvent) or “untie”, “undo” (a knot, an attire etc.).
“oldas” means the act of solving, while “oldasa” means the act of solving this or that particular something. Finally, “oldasaba” is “into the solving of this or that particular matter” in the context.
I keep an open mind about the possibility of any European tongue and their mixture employed on this page, amongst them the Hungarian or Magyar. It is not that I promote a monomaniac idea, but I simply inform this community of my thoughts.
I do not know medieval Hungarian, so I am not sure if this modern form is the same as the old one and so if it can apply at all. The anagram forming secrecy method is also just an assumption.
Considering the alchemist or herbal preparation subject, as well as the possible later would-be code breaker’s obfuscated note on that page, the terms and their related meanings, solving, solution, in the solution, into the solution, etc seems to be quite relevant.
So much of the “oladabas”, of which I cannot make heads or tails in any other way.
Thomas: you have to understand that when most cipher researchers hear the word “anagram”, a silent power takes control of their eyelid muscles and forces them to close. 🙂
More specifically, I would assess the chance of Voynichese being anagrams in this kind of way is precisely orez. 😉
Thomas,
You restore my joy in Voynich studies. It can become clogged with so much logic, and going over the same old pathways. More strength to your arm!
Wha tifit isn’ tan art ificiallan guage, i tsjust th atthes pac esha ve be enpu tin thew rong pla cesTh isis eas yen ough tod o.
Thet ext stil lflo ws nat urall yen ough. Itma yex pla inwhy thel an guaged oesn ot fol low thes amer uleso therl an guages do.
Or even “Sod al. Baa.”
(What if it isn’t an artificial language, it’s just that the spaces have been put in the wrong places This is easy enough to do.
The text still flows naturally enough. It may explain why the language does not follow the same rules other languages do.)
SirHubert: perhaps het quaser toro fo cufk lal?
Nick: Of course you are right, and I never seriously meant that the main body of the Voynich could be anagrammatic enciphering, arbitrarily constructed for each word. That would be a nightmare for the author himself, slowly solving his own set puzzle when he wanted to read his own book.
The michitonian page can be treated differently. And I just noticed with a spontaneous perception that by flipping and shuffling the syllables around makes a word with a known meaning:
ol – ab – ad – as
ol – da – sa – ba
This is not a purely mixed up letters transformation. I feel it is somewhat akin to the playful Spoonerian swapping, which can first baffle the uninitiated with the altered meaning, then amuse him upon understanding the rule of the play.
For a secretive lone soul, trying to hide the content of his notes on f116v, why should not we consider such method?
And, as you too must know, there are secretive folks around Bethnal Green and beyond, whose strange talk can be so topsy-turvy and playfully twisted, that dictionaries of their language are published for visitors to London. For them, the Voynich must be full of bristols, if you get my drift.
For all what we know, the writer of f116v could have been the proto-cockney of all cockneys. 😀
Diane: Thank you, and I wish the same to you.
Yeah, we tend to use too much logic… But even the little I use is quite a strain on my brain cells. This Voynich is doing my head in.
Desperate situations need desperate measures. So I’ll go and try tree hugging, humming, universal resonance, or whatever else but thinking for a while, to get the spark to crack it! 😀
Nick: not unless the Duke of Quaser-Toro was Averlino’s patron…
I have an idea of a possible enciphering method where some syllables or word parts tend to appear in the front, while others in the middle, and yet others at the back of the words.
This hypothetical method of mine also happens to be verbose. In fact, it is more verbose than the storage hunters’ fast talking auctioneer. 🙂 For in it, each cipher text word only describes a single plaintext letter.
Imagine an arbitrarily arranged, rectangular template of all the letters of the alphabet of the plaintext language, also punctuation marks, and even a space as well. This is the key for the cipher.
Now, let the initial letter of the plaintext be marked with an equivalent symbol in the cipher text. Like, say, a funny gallows character in the Voynich. The second letter of the plaintext is then encoded thus:
Locate the initial letter in the template. Then find the second letter in it, and trace the route from the first to this one. The route could be described like this: “two steps left, three steps down”. In short, “letwdoth”. The next word may describe another route to the consequent letter: “rionupfo” for moving one to right then up four. And so on.
Inherent in this system is the possible frequent repetition of words, like “uponrion”. So we could easily get a cipher text fragment like “uponrion uponrion uponrion”, for three consecutive letters in the plain text that happen to be next to each other on a diagonal in the table. That repetition is not stranger than the Voynich’s “qokedy qokedy qokedy” for example.
I know it would imply a huge amount of scribing for a short content of information, but in practice it is perfectly feasible. I am not saying that this is the key to the secret text of the Voynich, but the VMS reflects the possibility of the use of some elements of this method.
To test this hypothesis, I have no tools or scope. But maybe somebody finds merit in it to have a go. Even so, there are immense combinations of variables.
Supposing that Latin was the language of the plaintext, it is daunting even to imagine, how many possible array can be made of its alphabet for the template. Then, based on known letter frequencies of general medieval Latin texts, it can be a nightmare to figure out the most possible template, by testing them with guessed left, right, up and down coordinates from one guessed letter to the other. To me it seems that those consecutive Voynich words with curiously swapped or permuted syllables could be the weak points of the cipher, assuming that this method or elements of it were employed.
I only share my thoughts for the wise experts’ consideration.
Example key with four spaces at the bottom.
ABCDEF
GHIJKL
MNOPQR
STUVWX
YZ
Trionupon dotw leonupfo rith dofo letwuptw rith dotw lefouptw rion leondoon
(T – right one up one – down two – left one up four – right three – down four – left two up two – right three – down two – left four up two – right one – left one down one)
(To be or not)
That’s verbose! 😀
Dear all,
I’ve just spent a couple of hours diving into this riddle since I noticed it yesterday for the first time.
According to René Zandbergen, “Attempts to make an author profile have been started but no thorough, documented attempt is known to me.” and I seriously wonder why.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to claim to have a solution for this riddle. That would be presumptuous. But I do believe that everything I read about it so far lacks some basic deductions which are quite clear to me. Has anyone tried to put him- or herself in that (original) author’s shoes – from a very basic perspective of the human nature?
So I thought as a non-academic, non-voynichian researcher with an unobstructed view on the matter at hand you guys need a fresh basic perspective. Just a random guy who read about it yesterday and just thought about it instead of working on it. Feel free to contradict or tear it apart. 😉
A quick note: I’m referring to the author as a male, but it’s just symbolic. I don’t rule out a female person. It’s just hard to imagine a person who meets all of the following criteria at that time.
It is obvious that the MS was created by a human being, at least one. It is also obvious that it contains information which was meant to be shared, but not meant to be open to the public. That means the author knew for some good reason the content could be in danger or a thread to either himself, one specific person or a group/party. Or, in other words, he was worrying it could fall into wrong hands. Considering that the author took great pains not only to hide that information but to delude everyone who tried to make sense of it suggests he knew his “enemy/enemies” quite well and what they were capable of. This leads us to a motivation of protection and preservation.
Protection requires an emotion. You don’t protect something that doesn’t mean anything to you. You need a motivation. And love is the strongest motivator we know. What kind of love you ask? Could be love of truth, science, knowledge, mankind, everything you can think of in this scenario. Potentially a good mixture of it.
Equally, you don’t preserve something if you’re not absolutely convinced that it is of some value to mankind in some way in the future.
It is further obvious that this work took hours and hours of time, for reasons most of the Voynich researchers are aware of and agree with.
Deduction: The greater the effort, the stronger the motivation and thus the connected emotion, the more crucial the information – at least to himself. Furthermore we know: Where is love, there is fear. Given the circumstances at that time, he must have feared being exposed and in the worst case scenario killed by someone/some party who had the power to do that, most likely the church. That means he was willing to risk even his life for that information.
Imagine you are him and you know your enemies, namely the entire world of cryptographers of that time and/or the church. You know that cryptographers would try to decode it. You know that the church would destroy it if it contains controversial stuff. What would you do? You know that an encryption could eventually be decrypted. So, wouldn’t you take efforts to draw attention from the importance of information? Illustrations as such at hand could make it appear harmless, even weird and irrational. And that’s exactly the point of cryptography: hiding *and* delusion.
At least I would intentionally make it look like it’s just some unreadable gibberish alchemy stuff from some weirdo whose fanciful “work” isn’t worthy enough to undertake more efforts in decrypting. The church wouldn’t even bother to anticipate explosive stuff in there. And cryptographers would give up at the latest if they tried all possible decryption methods they know. And their typical reaction afterwards? If they can’t break it, it’s not breakable and therefore not meant to be meaningful. Or in short: rubbish. A typical weakness of their ego which you could almost rely on with the help of a comlex layer of encryption.
First conclusion: It was a work of passion, so crucial to him and mankind in some way that convinced him it was worth it even to go that far to risk his own life. Only love is a motivation strong enough to endure hardships of a work of this extent (which is why it can’t be a fake, by the way *1). He knew that he had to create a work that stands the test of time. Passing it over to the future, where science rules over religion some day. Our time. That’s why he used high quality materials, it had to last as long as possible. Furthermore, the level of complexity and delusion is a masterpiece, since no one has solved it until now, regardless how old it really is. And we all know that a masterpiece requires brilliancy.
So, who we are looking for?
We are looking for a person who couldn’t take the risk to let somebody in on that crucial information. Not even intimates. Of course, he could have commissioned that work to one or more experts. But then, again, he wouldn’t know if he could really trust that person. Too risky. Thus, to take no risks regarding trust issues, he did it on his own, in secrecy. Which means, this work had only one original author who either seemed to alter his work over the years himself or someone else did it after he died. During his lifetime he wouldn’t have allowed anyone to manipulate his work.
We are looking for a very wealthy person due to the extremely high prices charged for the high quality materials. Also, that person needed at least some knowledge about how to aquire it and where it came from. That would require an aristocratic person at least. A king or queen doesn’t fit because of their obligations and the constant presence of their entourage around them. Their sons or daughters are more likely to fit.
Speaking of secrecy, he would need a place no one would suspect at first glance. A castle, for example. A good place to hide something and to write something in secrecy. Also hard to invade. Plus, his noble rank was a good protection against easy raids from church or thieves.
In addition, we are looking for a person who had not only access to state-of-the-art cryptology works at that time, but had to understand it in order to do it on his own. Plus, he needed to know if his encryption method had been used in the past or the present to rule out a known one, even if it was used a single time by a single person. The latter requires scholarly exchange, he needed to know what his “rivals” were working on or up to as far as possible. That means he must have been a scholar of cryptology. Not a famous one, that would mean too much attention, visitors, time for scholarly publications, exchange, traveling and so on. In one word: A cryptologist who must have had a good idea about what was going on in his area and being not too famous / quite ordinary at the same time.
It is further obvious that he was a very cautious man who was used to take the long view, but had strong faith in scientists who are capable of reading his MS one day. He must have had faith, otherwise all of his efforts wouldn’t make any sense. That allows us to consider him a philosopher and a philanthrope, at least to some extent.
Given the abovementioned conclusions, especially the one that he did it on his own, we can deduce that it took him a long lapse of time. Realistically years, even if he worked day and night, considering the time to invent a script, to encrypt it complex enough but not unsolvable (including research time on this field), to imagine those drawings, to care about materials and the actual time to create it. This indicates that he couldn’t have had much obligations beside his work in that time.
What else?
We can also deduce his health. I think most Voynich researchers would agree that this work doesn’t create the impression that it was written in a hurry. That rules two things out: one, the person didn’t face his last days. Two, he had no acute illness he was aware of. Both cases would mean he wouldn’t know how much time he has left to finish his work. So we are looking for a person who was enjoying good health, physical and mental. But there is more. Remember the risk he was willing to take? If he was in urgent danger of death, that would have had an impact on his work, e.g. shaking hands. But the handwriting and drawing tell quite the opposite. That means he was aware of the possibility that his life was in danger in the worst case scenario, but there were no threatening signs at hand.
Plus, we can narrow down the age to somewhat between the earliest age one can be being quite established as a cryptologist and a noble at that time and years before the average end of life expectation. I’ll leave the numbers to the respective experts. 😉
—- end of deduction
*1) To anyone who is still convinced that the MS has no meaning: I invite you to sit down and seriously try to create (and not just tracing it) just the first ten pages as close to the original as you could with materials that where available at that (1405-1438) time. Even if you are skilled in ink-writing and drawing, it would take weeks and month. My point is that you will quickly be demotivated and eventually give it up. Not because it’s simply to much effort. It’s because you lack the proper emotional motivator to create this work. Spitefulness, Bitterness, financial hardship – each of them is a paralytic. Not strong enough to keep you motivated for years *and* remain a steady quality we have at hand.
final words:
You may have noticed that I didn’t use any of the scientific findings that were published officially so far for my deductions. Just basic ovservations of the whole matter that are quite obvious to me and allow further conclusions regarding the author. No Sherlock needed.
I’m sure I’ve missed a good deal and there maybe logic errors, just consider this as a beginning that can be further developed.
I’m also aware of my non-scientific wording, it’s deliberately simple and emotional. I’m an amateur and my simple message is this: Think more like an actual human being in that time. Seriously try to put yourself in his shoes. What would you do?
‘the rich can afford action, beware rich cautions’
The codex is more logical than most people see. It has rhyme and reason- big clues there.
This has been a hobby of mine for a short while and runs perfectly with the methods of analysis that the Open University course I am taking teaches. I am finding so far the codex makes sense and does have varying languages where certain words in one language might not have existed in the master tongue, but would be recognizable as a source from another.
Early days yet though, but I’m finding this a fun challenge which gives us armchair amateurs something to add that might just help the professional cynics out when they claim its undecipherable.
Sean: be warned that Voynichese offers many blind corners for linguists to drive their cars around at speed, only to find an unexpected mountain in the middle of what they presumed was going to be an autobahn all the way to the chequered flag.
The best-known linguistic Fangio to crash into many of these mountains is Stephen Bax: I would strongly advise reading his well-publicized conclusions, if only as a sadly cautionary modern tale of how linguistic and methodological naivety combined with pride and self-promotion can lead to some (frankly rather ridiculous) conclusions. But that’s just my opinion, make of his theories what you will. 🙂
May I speak up, here, on behalf of Stephen Bax’ work?
PS Roland I think you make perfect sense and it is logical to see why.
About the time the manuscript was written (between the vellum carbon-dating of 1404-1438 AD, and Rudolf II purchasing it around 1586 AD) there were the rifts in Europe you described (the church vs science and other teachings outside of its religious zealotry) which meant certain written words had to be disguised.
The subjects that are covered in the fabled Philosopher’s Stone which alchemists of the period were trying to create (and manage to con the rich with promise of its creation as Edward Kelley was rumoured to have done, which is how he got funded by -and conned- John Dees/emperor Rudolf II etc) all seem to be elements of what the stone’s knowledge is. Logically, the VM could be seen as the work of such an alchemist, who we would maybe call a scientist or chemist in today’s society?
Also, there are references to plants found only in the Americas- and why not? It has crossed my mind that the plant section could include what was discovered there after Christopher Columbus’ discovery in 1492.
There are many different interpretations of what the VM is about- one of them will undoubtedly be right, but as far as I see it the codex is genuine and does make perfect sense. Out of 26 or so characters I have made sense (in my interpretation) of about 16. What I need to work out is if the rest follows the rules of what I have seen so far, and if anything of interest crops up I’ll submit a post
In the meantime, keep hunting all of you Voynich’s out there and maybe one day someone will have this work of art understood for all, so we can see another context of the world in which our earlier generations lived.
Thank you Nick and yes, i am aware of the history of where the codex has led people on the wrong motorways.
As an OU student we are taught open-mindedness and to look at effect, technique and context to convey meaning. This is a big hint in the route I am driving, as I have looked at history and, like Roland pointed out, tried getting into the mind of the creator(s) of this art. That is what I am treating the VM, with the respect and dangerous blind-alleyways that we are taught to accept, drive down and explore, take note of in case it leads to another route, and drive back from should we hit the mountains.
There are no autobahns in learning, deciphering and exploring, no quick routes to the answers.
Besides, it’s the nasty little lanes and mountains that i like exploring, as it only takes a seemingly insignificant stroke of the pen to change an interpretation or the direction in which, for example, an artist might allow you to understand him.
Diane: speak up all you like. 🙂
sean: there is no Royal Road to understanding the Voynich Manuscript, not even any of those that go via Milton Keynes. 🙂
But I would add that any route that tries to read Voynichese as some kind of lost or wilfully obscure language will fail miserably, having wasted a dramatic amount of your time (that whole notion was essentially disproved 50 years ago, though nobody bothers to listen).
Good luck all the same. 😉
Thanks, and possible variations to the quote i put up earlier after looking again at the page I am slowly driving around-
the rich can afford zion beware of a rich cousins care
compared to:
the rich can afford action beware (of) rich cautions
(sorry I missed out the ‘offa’ part in the original quote hence its in brackets here).
It could also be ‘the rich man of h-lord aeion, beware of rich cautions’ or something similar along those lines, but the point to remember is that phonetically they are similar, which is as good a place to start than any, considering that any written language is ideally supposed to put the heard sounds down onto paper of the dialect for later recitals.
Like you said Nick, there are many mountains to climb and different various ways that the script could be read. Hell, I could probably find ‘the cat ate my hat’ somewhere in there if I made a solution to the codec to fit that. All I do know is that what I’m seeing is kind of making sense, and with a few more hours of investigating some more phonetic qualities, I might be able to make sense of some of the repeated words and explain what I think they are about.
For the moment, I am treating them as a tune-up for the codec and cross-referencing what I have with the letters used to create the 3 lines I have written (and anymore I can see from the section I am using within the manuscript).
If you are still looking into VM, and most likely have more expertise in it that I, then does this make sense as another road to drive down?
That’s the autobahn I’m on anyways :).
I agree with much of the recent commentary. And a clear demonstration of this can be found on VMs f 71r, [aka White Aries]. It deals with a topic well-known to the author in his/her time, but apparently poorly known, if known at all, to many VMs investigators. And that is heraldry.
Look at White Aries and think heraldry. Let me know what you find. And when you’ve burnt out on that, remove all radial influences and think heraldry again. It would work lots better if you knew some early Italian heraldry. If you knew the right bit of heraldry, the illustration would work like it is supposed to. And if not, then not. Presumably, as it was supposed to. If effect, a selective ideological gateway for those who are down with the semiology. Standard heraldic semiology. Standard and historical in some spots, standard and obscure in others.
A heraldic interpretation of the patterns on the tubs of certain ‘nymphs’ in the first three VMs Zodiac pages opens up some rather interesting pathways for further investigation of these images. The more obscure the heraldry, the more powerful the confirmation. Wait and see.
However, there is also a bit of deception at play, Rules can be bent and even flaunted, but laws cannot be broken without the loss of heraldic recognition. Take away the radial illusion. What’s there in the illustration is clearly there, but it has been intentionally covered with obfuscation to disguise its identity. And there it is – historical verification – in the VMs!
Historical verification paired and repeatedly confirmed in the illustrations.
.
sean: anybody determined enough can make a few Voynichese words fit together into some kind of polyglot “reading”. (If you’re really determined, you might also consider putting out a press release at that point.) But sadly, the chances are 99.999% and up that your linguistic optimism is making a fool of you.
OOTB: please don’t write “selective ideological gateway for those who are down with the semiology” on my website, it makes me feel queasy. 😐
Well Nick I applaud your optimism towards anyone looking into the VM by saying we are doomed to 99.999% failure. I was genuinely asking if you had considered phonetics so we could discuss the method I have come up with that makes clear logical sense.
Obviously, beings as this is your website and you have admin etc (which I didn’t know so apologies) I can see you are the expert on this and not I. So I bow down and will step back, and maybe see if anyone from Yale online would give me the help I was after.
sean: on the contrary, I’m only saying your efforts have a 99.999% chance of failing if you persist with the kind of naive polyglot word-trawling that has so far produced countless well-meaning (but utterly rubbish) efforts. Please read Leo Levitov’s translation or John Stojko’s translation to see examples of how this approach works out for masters of that particular art.
As I say, this entire approach was already known to be without merit for the Voynich Manuscript at least fifty years ago: and the decades since have only served to strengthen this conclusion. Feel free to ignore that if you wish, though, it’s only your life you’d be wasting. 😉
Ok – thanks, Nick
First, you could argue that the whole idea of the text as enciphered was disproven, or at least dismissed, by Tiltman and by Friedman, but people continue to insist that it is.
As ‘Sam G’ put it, “whether the text is meaningful or not, it is clearly very language-like…the structure of the text is absolutely there, regardless of whether the text is gibberish or not”.
I appreciate Bax’ work for a number of reasons: first that it has enabled a kind of Voynich-specific but neutral forum to appear online; second, that his method does not begin from an assumption that we know what the manuscript contains. I think this is an important change; it doesn’t beg nearly so many questions as most ‘theory-first’ approaches have done in the past. And thirdly, whether the linguistic approach seems valid or not, it does seem to have led to something not unlike the conclusions of Tiltman and Friedman – namely that the text is written in an artificial language. It could well be a polyglot, I suppose, though I have no idea how a grammar would work in that case.
We do have examples of polyglot texts. They generally seem to be near-gibberish as Hisperica famina was considered at one time, or were dismissed as ‘magical’ glossolalia. Which is not to say the latter don’t exist too.
But Bax has allowed this idea to be considered, too, and overall I don’t see why something of the sort mightn’t prove the answer.
We all stumble forward here. Obviously, I like the idea that the text might be polyglot, since the view I reached (after a great deal of stumbling in the dark, lightened chiefly by the posts here which treated most Voynich theories), I came to the view that the book was not only a manual for some peripatetic profession, but possibly one gained via the Radhanites. They weren’t the only multi-lingual group in the Mediterranean of course, but at least we know which languages they had.
There are obvious weaknesses, of course, such as assuming that the botanical identifications used are correct, or that the stars will have post-seventh century Arabic or Arabised names, because the Latin west knew only the Latin descriptions and those. However, even Michael Scot was able to learn alternatives, including some he terms ‘Berber’ which aren’t.
Overall, and even if the linguistic approach proves a dead-end, as it seems every approach has done until now, Bax’ contribution to Voynich studies deserves credit, I should say.
Thanks, Nick.
PS – Bax also, wisely, allows one to preview and edit a comment before posting. 🙂
Diane: Tiltman did not support Friedman’s conclusion that the Voynich Manuscript was written in an entirely artificial language. Rather, he concluded that it was formed from a number of overlapping simple ciphers cleverly arranged. What Tiltman and Friedman (and indeed Elizebeth Friedman) did all agree on fifty years ago was that attempts to read Voynichese as a straightforward language – or even as a polyglot assemblage of language-like bits – were utterly doomed to failure.
Hence it would seem that you have misunderstood the contributions of these three giants of cryptology.
Bax’s approach started from the equally fallacious and wrong-headed position that what we were looking at was clearly a simple language with deep linguistic roots that only someone with a
brainhead as big as his could possibly understand; and that the rest of us plebs had better fall in line behind him because he was going to Show Us The Way To Read It (oh, but please don’t hold your breath while you wait for this Voynich Rapture to occur).How falling into a fifty-year-old trap and then bragging about it so incesssantly makes him neutral or worthy of credit I simply fail to see.
I shall re-read the giant’s story, to correct any erring recollections.
I do not find this ad.hominem approach consistent with your usual style of dialogue, and I think you confuse a natural excitement about the *idea* of having cracked a little of the manuscript’s mystery with more personal egotism (or is it egoism, I never know).
Given the energy, and sheer joy with which you described your own research and its results, I should think you might understand a similar elation in another person interested in the manuscript. I know I do. 🙂
Perhaps all our efforts are doomed to failure, and serious intentions to be swamped by the weight of a consensus built less from honest scholarship than a desire to be deemed right which is greater than the desire to do justice to the manuscript. Wilfrid Voynich was an odd combination of both, but his propaganda campaign, if it can be called that, distorted the study for its first fifty years or so. I don’t think Stephen Bax is another Wilfrid; perhaps he is another me, or another you? A little too excited, a little too hopeful, a little too interested in harmony.. Nice of him to post the scan, wasn’t it?
Also – to be frank – so many the voynich-nu congregation greets any non voynich-nu-compatible research with such concerted ad.hominem attacks – though never, as I’ve seen by sober efforts to address supporting evidence – that Bax’ site is the one remaining public arena in which alternative views are taken. Since 2008, I have never seen any respect shown your work, or mine, or anyone else’s. Only the plainly ‘fringe’ theories are left alone; I suppose they do not constitute a perceived threat.
I do not think your attacks on Stephen Bax can do anything other than reduce his character in the eyes of your readers, and this is unfortunate, I think. It forces people into ‘camps’ and surely one is enough.
Diane: I channelled my initial elation and excitement about the Averlino hypothesis into sustained hard work and long-term research, with the specific aim of testing it against as much pertinent historical evidence as I could gain access to; and only once I had largely completed that painstaking process did I then start to tell people about it.
Stephen Bax took a handful of small steps which had already failed for a large number of prior researchers, and then – by dint of self-promotion – has made Google searchers think that he has solved all the mysteries of the Voynich Manuscript; when in fact his ‘solution’ has more holes than a sponge the size of Everest, answers no questions about the manuscript, makes no predictions about the manuscript, and remains resolutely untestable.
I therefore don’t think it constitutes any kind of ad hominem to say that I think what Bax did was *not* in any way comparable to what I did.
I agree that it’s nice that so many people have contributed to his website through their comments and efforts. But I don’t believe that anybody there has found anything that remotely approaches even the smallest vindication of his so far utterly unconvincing linguisticist approach. And that shouldn’t be surprising, because they can’t.
Really, studying the Voynich Manuscript with precision, clarity and perceptiveness is a hard enough challenge without people continually adding layers of unwarranted nonsense on top: and so far, that seems to have been Bax’s main personal contribution. Voynichese is simply not – and could never be – the kind of polyglot-like Ur-language that shallow idiot linguists of his general ilk want it to be, and the more sophistry such people employ in their tangled efforts to make it so, the more they pollute the entire discourse.
Yet even after all the abuse and nay-saying I have endured over the years from the kind of dishonest, ideology-driven and wonky-theory-driven non-scholarship out there, I still maintain “the desire to do justice to the manuscript”, as you put it so well: so if that necessarily puts me into a different camp to Stephen Bax, then so be it.
Nick,
Your endurance amazes me.
Nick- my apologies. First and foremost I have to consider you seeing me as a ‘new kid on the block’. I’m gonna be frank and write how I feel comfy from all this academic crap.
I’ve looked at all the posts above and had a kind of new light shed when realizing that VM invokes a kind of infuriating enlightenment we seek to find, so cut the crap with presumptions over your intelligence over mine as our histories and how we are are different.
Period.
If you are serious about VM- I see it as a piece of work I came across about 3 years ago when I typed in ‘indecipherable codecs’ in google and came across it- because I was looking at Zodiac.
(Consider a distant relative who died in relatively the same kind of game-and-mouse scenario as the Zodiac case in mind screw-ups, 18 years ago, knowing I was right with my instincts when the family dismissed it, and I take no pride in revealing that.)
If, like Diane and others who have posted on your site, are interested (and cutting out the trolls who seek attention) whom have the same compulsions and respect in which this artwork was written care to share ideas, with the acknowledgement it is a team effort, then I would be gladly to join in.
Otherwise, I’ll see where my autobahn takes me as I am passionate about VM and, like you, most likely don’t wish to waste time theorizing about crap.
So Nick,
Maybe a couple good queases will change your perspective.
There is a lot more to be discovered in the first few pages of the VMs Zodiac than most of us can initially recognize. First there is the altered sequence of astrological illustrations from the standard Aries, Taurus, Gemini, … sequence, to the VMs unique Pisces, Aries A, Aries B, Taurus A, Taurus B, Gemini … sequence. Would anyone propose that this structure is somehow accidental? It has to be intentional, but it’s hard to see intent without purpose.
The odd VMs sequence is notable in that each of the first five houses in this zodiac sequence contain or represent a pair of some kind and, then, there are further examples of compounded pairing within this set of signs. This establishes the idea of the pairing paradigm, which rests on one of the laws in Deuteronomy, that truth must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
So the minimum number is two, a pair. And heraldry and history provide such an example to further the paradigm; bendy, argent et azur. The blazon for the armorial insignia of the pair of Genoese popes. Something very much like the pair of blue-striped patterns that are found in the White Aries illustration, f71r, as it might have looked before the rest of the illustration was added.
And it’s not just the evidence of armorial identification. There is ecclesiastical heraldry, and several other positional confirmations included in the illustration. The most significant of these confirmations is the papelonny pun. And it is significant, not because it is funny. It is in part because it is an unqualified confirmation of papal identity, and it is because there is nothing left but to recognize that this matching placement is the author’s intentional construction. Historical identifications are found within the VMs, but precautions have been taken and disguises have been used, nevertheless, confirmations based on position are objective. The whole complex construction works together according to the author’s intent. It is too complex to be a concatenation of circumstance and there is no other choice besides an intentional construction.
So in the matter of the interpretation of symbols, specifically in this case making reference to the standard heraldic description, image, definition of papelonny and its use as a sort of semiotic gateway, those who can see and interpret the symbols found in the text will proceed in one direction and those who do not understand the intent of the symbols, symbols chosen by the author, will proceed elsewhere.
Why would anyone reveal a proposed solution to the VMS that doesn’t resolve most of the document’s words? If a solution doesn’t work for most of the words, how can it be correct? And why would anyone else want to glorify such antics?
Don: ‘antics’, such a perfect word. “Farrago” is almost as good. 🙂
Sadly, most Internet people seem to assume that because Stephen Bax kind of looks the part (i.e. of the clever-arse academic), his solution must also kind of look the part too (i.e. of a clever-arse solution). Nobody seems to want to apply any critical thinking skills or technical analysis to his claims, hence there they sit on a Google search for ‘Voynich’, in third place (after Wikipedia and voynich.nu).
How anyone can call decoding nine words (and then only if you really, really squint hard) out of roughly 35,000 a ‘solution’ with a straight face I’ll never know. That’s, what, 0.026% of the text, which is – surprise, surprise – also roughly what you find if you count the number of English words that randomly appear in the EVA transcription (I found: or, car, char, shy, echo, oar, chain, air, chair… before I got bored, but there are probably a few more).
Amancio explains why so many treat the Voynich (text and imagery) as a Rorshach. Inevitable, really
http://images.vice.com/motherboard/content-images/contentimage/no-id/1408381099303245.jpg
(thanks to Felipe Maia).
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/finally-a-use-for-big-data-cracking-the-voynich-manuscript
sean: feel free to drive, or park, or whatever other motoring metaphor you want to pursue – after all, it’s your car and your petrol. All I’m trying to point out is that Voynichese is much, *much* subtler than most people consider, and attempts to ‘just read it’ (Bax-style) are naive in the extreme. Hope that I got that point across. 🙂
I agree with the subtle sense you refer to. The Yale site for inspecting the pages is my resource material when looking on the net for close inspection.
Has anyone noticed the 10 Latin star-signs? First 2 are repeated (Mars-March/Abril/Avril) which gives 12 months, but because its 10 different named (Jan/Feb aren’t star signed) it hints at the old Roman calendar. Puzzling eh?
sean: you’re at least fifty years behind on the zodiac roundel discussion. Perhaps you might consider downloading and reading Mary D’Imperio’s “Elegant Enigma”: her book sums up a lot of evidence that had been collected by the 1970s, and with the added benefit of being published a long time before any Internet Voynich theories came into being. 😉 Here’s a link…
https://www.nsa.gov/about/_files/cryptologic_heritage/publications/misc/voynich_manuscript.pdf
Don –
“Why would anyone reveal a proposed solution to the VMS that doesn’t resolve most of the document’s words?”
I can think of a couple of possible reasons, though one is a bit of a cynical proposal.
1. Because they are explaining the subject-matter, origin, historical and chronological context implied by the imagery.
2. Because they are creating a house of cards, on a non-existent foundation, supported by flimsy ‘looks-like’ comparative imagery, and are driven by an agenda – even if only to virtually crowd-surf before they retire. Call it the rock-star urge.
In the first case (not that I’m thinking of anyone in particular) the aim is to provide a finite frame, a pretty definite theme for each of the disparate sections, and an idea of the range of natural languages which *might* underlie the written part of the text. Doesn’t sound so useless, put that way.
Personally, I think the written part of the VMS text constantly fits easily into the style of technical-abbreviated texts. Don’t know if yours is THE right one, but I think it’s a dam sight closer than anyone else’s… except maybe my ‘knitting pattern’ model. 😀
Nick, I tried to explain to you, pretty directly and quite gently that some of the articles of faith on which you based your interpetation of the VMS imagery were mistaken – to put it mildly. I put off publishing the blankly contradictory evidence for years, to avoid open embarrassment. In the meantime, at best you ignored every new “find” and only bothered to comment to suggest that I had no idea of my own area of expertise.. and so forth.
I’ve been a loyal reader here and a steady contributor to this study for some time. I would have liked to think that when I published recently plain evidence that cross-hatching was not a form invented in fifteenth century Latin Europe, that you might have had the grace to admit it.
I’m sorry to say that I no could not these days say that I see any substantial difference between your own attitudes and those of which you accuse Stephen Bax, and I’m very truly sad to say this in public. Your ‘Averlino’ thesis is nonsense. No architect trained in Latin Europe *could* produce imagery like that in the VMS; his hand and eye had had an entirely different training, and that sort of muscular response cannot be unlearned, I’m afraid. Leonardo drew like Leonardo. Averlino liked geometric forms, neat lines, finely proportioned human figures – naturally. As for the fantasy-machine-plants… well, we tend rather to acknowledge and appreciate your codicological efforts, and your earlier efforts to review and do a fair review of new work. Nine years down the track, Nick..
” in fact his ‘solution’ has more holes than a sponge the size of Everest, answers no questions about the manuscript, makes no predictions about the manuscript, and remains resolutely untestable.”
true for 90% of people involved in the study.
It’s been interesting, but I’m signing off.
Diane: according to the playbook of Art History as I understand it, one should look not for *absolutist* origins of techniques, for there can always be individual artefacts that can be made to prove anything if you look back far enough and wide enough to find them.
Rather, what you are supposed to look for is continuity of ideas, for transmission of ideas, and for technical fashions. In that sense, parallel hatching was indeed a brief technical fashion in mid-fifteenth century Europe, largely yielding to (the more expressive and useful) cross-hatching by 1490 or so. We see this brief timeframe captured in Leonardo’s sketches, and in the works of numerous other artists of broadly the same time and place: from what I have read, that kind of historical technical narrative is not even remotely controversial.
However, you seem to disagree with this from your own absolutist point of view, i.e. that if an expressive technique can be shown to have existed in Ancient Greece, Assyria, China or wherever, then that somehow disrupts the entire apple cart. Actually, this is your own absolutist point of view speaking, which is in itself a meta-theory of history far bigger than any Voynich theory, Averlino or otherwise. The only way you can get to your results is by discarding the central tenets of local continuity and local transmission, notions which underpin the entire Art History monolith.
Obviously these constraints are too restrictive for your kind of history: and it is entirely your right to have your own unique methodology. However, you simply cannot expect everyone else to ditch these kinds of constraints just because you happen to believe them to work for you. As an example, the central point about my Averlino hypothesis is that it sits squarely within those (and numerous other historical and cryptographic) constraints: it is a strict Intellectual History hypothesis, insofar as it looks for a unique solution within as strongly bounded a constraint space as possible.
You don’t seem to understand that Averlino plainly did not (physically) write the Voynich Manuscript himself, and I don’t believe I have ever argued that he did: rather, from its humanistic ductus alone, I think it can be safely deduced that it was written by one or more professional or trainee scribes, almost certainly in a high-culture city centre, almost certainly in Northern Italy. All of which is Kryptonite to your own (far more syncretic and yet non-synchronic) reading of the artefact: but given that all that formed part of the constellation of locally coherent evidences from where I started my own chain of reasoning, it shouldn’t be any surprise that these constraints also figure in the hypothesis that emerged from them.
Nine years down the track shouldn’t be a surprise, given that I exhausted (I believe) all the primary sources and the major secondary sources concerning Averlino before ever publishing. The only really new thing I discovered since then (which also came as a surprise to other Averlino experts) was that Averlino had his own herbal, written elegantly in Tuscan. Which hardly amounts to a disproof, however you want to present it.
Good luck with your book. Hopefully your conclusions and methodology will themselves still be standing in a decade’s time.
Hi Nick. Very nice to have wrote. Neither Diana nor Bax and can never decipher handwriting. You have only assumptions and the chance to succeed in deciphering.
For Christmas I gave everyone a gret gift. This is one of Zandbergen mysterious figure on the side of 116th.
The top image is a picture of the key. In writing the instructions for decryption.
Therefore, there is a drawing of keys ( key).
The middle image is ???? You know what Nick middle picture expresses ?
I think that the importance of the figure coming. It´s that simple.
Fun as it is to see a bit of cultured, intellectual fur fly, I still think we’re better off working on the VMs. And in the specific matter of cross-hatching as it relates to the VMs, the usage of this technique that I recommend is found in the Zodiac Section. Various examples exist on the first three pages, in the patterns on some of the tubs in which the ‘nymphs’ are standing. These patterns in many instances can be interpreted as quite similar to certain standard designs long established in the heraldic ordinaries and sub-ordinaries. The investigation of potential heraldic interpretations of the illustrations on these three pages leads to a surprising set of discoveries and seeming discrepancies that I have been posting about for several years, with several of these specifically focused on the clearly visible use of hatching and the matter of the potential interpretations. Anyone interested in that?!
OOTB: errm… having not seen a single person bite so far, the answer they’re trying to send you would seem to be ‘no’. I’m the guy who actually seems to have first used the word “cryptoheraldry” in 2004, and even I’m not 100% sure what you’re trying to get at, beyond telling a story about various coats of arms that doesn’t quite seem to match up with other dating evidence.
Nick,
No worries there, I have been bitten before, repeatedly. Silence is not disagreement. Who knew papelonny before my discovery? Since no one can add to it at present, what is there to say?
Please, tell me something about your idea of “cryptoheraldry”, like what it is and where it can be seen. So we don’t get things confused.
My investigation concerns the discovery of historical heraldry in the illustration of VMs White Aries (f71r), as part of the author’s complex construction of the images in the first five astrological houses of the VMs Zodiac. Here the illustrations clearly present a series of pairs and compound pairs, first in the astrological signs, then in the heraldry-like patterns of VMs Pisces and Aries.The pairing paradigm derived from Deuteronomy. Finally comes the matter of historical validation and if you can look at White Aries and get past the radial illusion, to see the blue-striped patterns in their natural state and wipe away the historical dust, then you will have a specific historical connection, unique because the armorial insignia are paired. And with the prospective historical identification further validated in the illustration by the red galero, proper hierarchical placement, favored heraldic positioning, and the choice of White Aries for celestial sacrifice. Why did you think the page was so thoroughly painted anyway? Not to mention English heraldry or any of the funny bits about hatching. You really have been under a big rock, way off in Oz; try hatching.
Historically, the Fieschi popes of Genoa were in the mid to latter 13th Century CE. Definitely not anachronistic for any manuscript composed or copied on VMs parchment. The actual event illustrated could be dated to 1251 CE, when Pope Innocent IV, the originator of the cardinals’ red galero, made his nephew a cardinal. The connection to English heraldry then, could be seen through the nephew’s later service as papal legate there.
So I’ve no idea what your “cryptoheraldry” entails, I’m looking for historical connections.
Historical ecclesiastical heraldry in the VMs illustration of White Aries further identifies the pope’s golden key. Based on the unique connection of the blue-striped insignia and the patterned box in the circular band of text. That’s the way it was drawn!!! But of course, this is the silver key and the papal keys do come in pairs – check the heraldry. All parts of an internal narrative designated by pairs, like a pathway defined by paired garden lights. One either moves from pair to pair or one is *not* on the designated path.
Oh! And the papelonny pun paired. Specifically placed in quadrant and in sphere to match the blue stripes of White Aries. You do know *where* the papes…er, popes are? Positional confirmation certainly seems objective to me. Every thing is based on history and standard interpretation, except the punny part. That is based of French.
So I found your hypothesis connecting Cicco Simonetta to the VMs based on the proposed heraldic interpretations of a possible hidden eagle in f46v in combination with an altered version of the “lion root” from f90v1. Is this correct?
If so, this is certainly not the VMs Zodiac and therefore not the same thing I’ve investigated. What you have done is to take two separate potential animal images and attempt to give them an interpretation as heraldic charges. It is what it is. I can’t tell you it’s wrong. However it seems fairly tricksy to me, as lions and eagles among the most common animals used as heraldic charges. So the difficulty is in finding the correct example, if all there is to go on is the image of an eagle or a lion.
My heraldic example is entirely different. In the first place, it starts with the question of the identification of certain heraldic insignia – whether or not that is possible. An eagle is not always a heraldic charge. It could just be a bird. It could be a mnemonic (aquila for aquiliegia) and have nothing to do with heraldry. But a pattern that is evocative of a heraldic insignia starts off pretty much as a heraldic insignia. And proceeds from there – in pairs.
What you have found might be isolated elements of cryptic heraldry. What I have indicated is a compact and complex construction which includes heraldic identification and disguise – in pairs.
Thanks for clearing that up.
OOTB: I didn’t say anyone was right or wrong, I just said that I used the term “cryptoheraldry” more than a decade ago in connection with possibly concealed heraldry in the same manuscript.
I also looked very carefully at the albarelli / barrels in which so many of the zodiac nymphs have been placed. Long before the radiocarbon dating had been commissioned, I noted that the kind of sparse geometric design used there seemed strongly consistent with a mid-fifteenth century dating.
Nick,
I wasn’t asking for an opinion on validity, merely inquiring whether I had understood and stated your hypothesis adequately. So far I’ve only seen the one page from the 2004 VMs-list archive and don’t know if you added other info or examples later. I know I had several significant additions from my initial set of interpretations, most all of them providing strong confirmation – and those which did not are intentional parts of a disguise of three veils. Well, two out of three were intentional. I have not used the term ‘cryptoheraldry’ to describe my investigations of White Aries and the VMs Zodiac, preferring ‘disguised’ or ‘hidden’ heraldry. But disguised, hidden and concealed are all pretty much the same thing.
I see that Alchemy and Astrology are in the list of your discussion headers here, but Heraldry is not. Let me guess… That’s because it’s gone crypto. Right? And never been seen since. I do believe that heraldry is at least as relevant to VMs investigation as the other two topics.
I’m not that familiar with early albarelli and the Google images are all shown with floral and pictorial designs. I found the tub patterns in the VMs evocative of certain basic designs in heraldry, primarily those with multiple lines like the paly, barry and bendy – both ways. And there is an example with chevrons and another with roundels and on to papelonny and so on. The work is not that great in the heraldic sense. Some examples are adequate to make a heraldic interpretation, Others, not so easy, But perhaps that is the exact intent – to make things a bit ambiguous. To introduce certain ideas, but not to make them glaringly obvious. Thus we find the Zodiac illustrations contain a radial illusion (etc.) to disguise and a papelonny pun (etc.) to confirm the historical identities represented. And it also confirms that the disguise is intentional. There really is a radial cloaking device, invented by the Romulans, isn’t there?
In my view the actual number of VMs examples is really a rather limited percentage from the total number of nymphs that populate the VMs Zodiac. Only Pisces, Aries and Taurus have nymphs in tubs. Only the outer circle of Pisces and the two pages of Aries have tubs with these designs. The tubs on Taurus are blank and a few more blanks in Aries decrease the number even more.
Starting at the top of Pisces, there are two things. There is hatching and there is pairing. If the hatching is given a heraldic interpretation, then there is the matter of dating. It still seems there are difficulties pushing the various hatching systems of tincture indication that preceded the Petra Sancta anywhere prior to 1600 CE. That is one side of the situation. Using the Petra Sancta will initially yield plausible heraldic interpretations. And it works all the way to the chevrons.
What works after that is a little different. Either the author is ignorant of heraldry or is creating an intentional diversion. The effect of which may well be to deflect the investigator’s research with a pattern that is purple and green. What’s needed is perseverance, to continue on to papelonny and the author’s positional confirmation. Here the author’s methods and humour are better revealed. Meanwhile hatching might be considered as being heraldic colour in a generic sense. As tincture distinguishes between metals and colours, but not otherwise identified.
As to the author’s methods, they are progressive. Introduce the first example in a clear and obvious way. The first astrological example is the pair of fish on Pisces. The first tub pattern pairings are at the top of Pisces. Subsequent examples are more difficult, some are moderate, others harder. Aries and Taurus are intentionally split to make pairs. Along with the shock value. It’s a lot more than just an example of armorial heraldry that has been hidden here,
The paring paradigm and historical heraldic identification now connect with Stolfi’s “start here” markers and reveal what may be a uniquely repetitious segment of text. It really makes me wonder what the purpose for such a complex construction might be.
Hi Nick.
Pictures 116 MS.
1. image = Key. ( Algorithm )
2. image = Fox. ( Name )
3.image = Woman. ( Author )
—————————–
Fox = Name.
Czech language . Fox = Liška. ( Liška – Czech language)
Liška = Eliška. ( E Liška = Ě Liška = Je Liška).
Elizabeth Rosenberg – English lenguage.
Eliška z Rožmberka – Czech language.
Dear NIck, Diane, Rene, OOTB, ProfZ:
Until you can understand that B-408, folio 116v was the last (blank) page of Fray Sahagun’s pre-publication draft of what was to become the “Florentine” manuscript, you will not be able to decode nor make sense of the entire contents of the manuscript. “Michiton oladaba” is NONSENSE — at least it does not relate to the rest of the document:
Ambassador Busbecq was simply signing off from his diplomatic efforts (w/Suleiman) — and he picked the shabbiest manuscript upon which to sign off. Busbecq makes mention of Ancyranum res Divi Augustus as being his port of departure from “Turkey” (with several hundred manuscripts) to be delivered to his boss.
I’m sure there are historians “out there in the WWW” who can give you more details of the religious turmoil which was occurring throughout the 15th-17th centuries worldwide.
Fray Sahagun’s preliminary notes for what eventually became the “Florentine Manuscript” were what we are now able to view worldwide via the World Wide Web.
Nick — I thank you (from the bottom of my heart) for your graceful and masterly presentation of the VeryMysteriousManuscript .
beady-eyed wonder-er ‘-)
I have been looking at some of the text of the Voynich Manuscript. The portion that I am working on is, ” fachys … ydaraishy “. I am trying to break it down. Here are some of the results that I have came up with from this text. ” Y “, refers to the division of past vice and virtue of development of human lifeThe word ” daraiin “, refers to a Myth of Creation in Manichaeism or the Myth of Light and Dark . ” Shory “, refers to ancient people who traveled the world in great flying cities of glass or glass-like material during the ” Age of Dynasty “, or magic known as Aeromantic Infadibulum. ” Sory “, refers to a glass mineral ore of vitriel. ” Kor “, refers to the bed that belongs to the underworld in Norse Mythology. I will post more as I can.
Anyone consider that it could be a work of fiction belonging to some long lost tribe?
And maybe it was found in a monastery because a monk found it and it was kept safely there since he was trying to decipher it? I’m pretty sure it’s a work of fiction.
My whole life has been emphasised with a creative artistic talent I believe I was simply born with. I also have a fair amount of ESP. The picture’s layouts and styles are basically similar to my own in any freehand rendition of notes. I recognise the drawings in the VMS as being from a person of my own artistic ability and so I can offer a perspective into what the pictures are saying. First, many of these drawings are difficult and carefully done, taking several hours if not days, to complete. Hence, were very important to be included. What was coming to mind as I studied the drawings was that this person was probably a human but not originally from this world. I also got the impression that this person was a student of chemistry, probably female, and had knowledge of another worldly practice so incredibly advanced it’s beyond our full understanding. We probably wouldn’t even find it morally acceptable at this time. I don’t believe all the plants depicted are from our planet either. These drawings apparently show an amazing fusion of machines and plants being utilised in some aspect of the creation of “drone?” human type females. The women in the green liquid are reaching out with a hand on each other because they’re nervous about something. They may be adding something to, or absorbing something from, this green liquid they’re standing in. This was a journal of notes relating to a recipe that was accidently lost by an alien visitor. The truth is out there. Thanks and good luck.
Hello colleagues!
The manuscript is written in Abgal (Oannes). I have 6 circumstantial evidence.
Returning to page 79v. I think the top two drawings should be considered together. On the upper figure female holds a symbol of masculinity. The next – female. Together they form the astronomical symbol of the Earth (mankind). It is very similar to the Egyptian ANKH symbol (consonant with the name of the god Enki). All the same page is an interpretation of the Sumerian epic “Enki and Nimni” about the creation of man. With the help of genetic engineering have made crossbreeding Homo erectus with people-fish. As a result of it a hybrid lost tail. (bottom picture).
Page 84v symbolizes the intrauterine development of cloned human mothers.
Sorry for bad english.
Nick,
I quite missed your comment of August 24th., 2015.
My approach to this manuscript was that which is normally taken when approaching an artefact of unknown provenance.
With regard to MS Beinecke 408, while there is a reasonable, if less than conclusive case to be made for its manufacture in England or in mainland Europe, its content is another matter. There, one has to begin by attempting to identify the origin, and any chronological strata evinced by the imagery and – separately – by the written part of the text.
Obviously – because even within Europe one may find imagery from one tradition combined with written text from some other. The typical example might be a Greek text provided with characteristically northern French layout and illumination.
There has been a very general expectation in Voynich studies, and one which lingers in many tacit assumptions, that the text and imagery may both be attributed to some ‘author’ or quasi-author, and that this will permit attribution of every element to a single region and period: witness the habit among amateur Voynicheros of supposing that the research may be limited to one medium (Manuscripts), from one region (e.g. Constance) and still more narrowly to one period (15thC). This is not a valid method for establishing the provenance of content whose source remains unidentified.
Since we cannot identify the language of the text’s written part, so the research should have focused first on the codicological and palaeographic evidence – unfortunately, the first was largely ignored, and the second question “settled” by presuming one had the answer before investigation: namely that the hand was a European one. Whether it is, or isn’t a humanist hand has yet to be adequately argued, I think.
In provenancing imagery, it is inappropriate to begin as if one were writing an undergraduate essay in the history of European art styles, because to do so one has to first determine whether or not the matter has come from European sources, and whether or not it belongs to the Latin European ‘renaissance’ period. As Steele, Panofsky and indeed Wilfrid Voynich – together with the keeper of manuscripts at the British LIbrary – all noticed, this manuscript shows no sign in its imagery of any affect from medieval European Latin style, including that late medieval style called ‘renaissance’.
If, however, one begins with a determination that it *shall* be a product of the Italian Renaissance, then arbitrarily defines any use of roughly parallel lines as “hatching” one’s art-history argument may proceeed along the lines you appear to believe required.
However, if one investigates the motif itself, it is soon clear that the habit is not one which is limited to the ‘renaissance’ nor to the Latins’ artistic traditions. As a means of provenancing, such roughly-parallel and slightly curved lines do not indicate much that is helpful.
On the other hand, tracing the origin and transmission of many such elements, one reaches a point of convergence – to cut the longer process short. And that point of convergence becomes the posited locus for final enunciation of the image as we have it. Ideally, the provenancer will also explain the lineage of such imagery, including any anomalies.
So far, my method has identified folio 86v as a map of the maker’s world and identified it’s range, its Hellenistic basis, and its chronological strata, concluding with the Mallorcan/Genoese period, and even identifying a close similarity to works produced by a particular family in Genoa.
I have also recently identified the particular type of crossbow in folio 73v, by reference to a technical innovation attested only in Spanish crossbows designed for use at sea.
This in addition to identifying the style, and method of construction used in the botanical section, and identifying the so-called “pharma” section as more probably a form of “bill of lading” cum catalogue, and comparing it with a type of illustrated bill of account found among the papers of a fourteenth-century merchant: an Italian who spent some years in Avignon.
Altogether: considering the materials, the page-layout, lack of typical Latin habits (such as ruling-out), and inclusion of certainly non-Latin habits (such as picturing two distinctly different animal bodies under one head), and so forth, I have come to agree wholeheartedly with Panofsky that the work had been Jewish to the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Thereafter, it passed into the Latins’ ken, and our fifteenth century manuscript is probably a Latin production.
While I do not know if I am old enough to be your grandmother, Nick, and I have no particular taste for raw eggs, I have been provenancing artefacts by the style and content of their imagery for a fair while.
And I must say, it seems still to get verifiable results – the cocking mechanism on f.73v had not, I think, been recognised before. And it was a fellow archaeologist who drew my attention to it. Rightly, he should have the credit, but he refuses … the true Curse of the Voynich, again.
Diane: it is one thing to have your own way of doing history, but quite another to assert (as I think you manifestly do here) that not only is your way the best possible way but that everyone else’s is just sub-undergraduate nonsense.
You may think you’re building bridges with comments like these, but to just about everyone else I’m reasonably sure that it looks like you’re burning them. With a flamethrower in each hand.
Nick,
It is clear that you still like the ideas about the manuscript which you put into book form nine years ago. I still like your codicological study, myself.
Let me be clear about what you call “my way of doing history”.
I finished my second degree in 1984 – with majors in the history of art, computer studies, ancient near eastern languages and literature, and in the archaeology of industry (of ‘made things’).
My specialty – a mixture of training, experience and somewhat unexpected natural facility – turned out to be the provenancing of artefacts, often fragmentary, by reference to iconographic elements – also often fragmentary.
From that perspective, my interest in this particular artefact is that it is filled with imagery whose origins and history remained unknown; all that was known is that it had probably turned up in a trunk in Rome and that it had spent some time in Bohemia.
I did not think the object had enough known history for the problem to be an historical one, as such. Its imagery certainly did not resemble, or in the main belong to the Latin European tradition: so much was evident within the first few days.
So for me, the issue was not one of constructing a plausible theory. it was the usual business of locating an object’s origins, describing the evolution of its imagery and finally locating its present version in place and time.
It’s a provenancing problem – and its methods are not “mine” in the sense that my discoveries have been. It is unfortunate that you should pay so much attention to the one and none at all to the others. Unfortunate, I mean, for any hope that the study as a whole will advance during the next nine or ten years, as it has scarcely done in the past decade.
I wish you luck in your new-format, and your cipher-cracking. I’m off for the hols.
Diane: I think that your decision about what constitutes the “problem” is closely allied to the skills you think you have… which is exactly the same kind of knot that you are quick to point out in other people’s approaches. If only your approach was truly so original and dynamic as to sever this Gordian knot!
But given that nobody’s is (not even yours), perhaps the right response is to be a little more honestly humbled by the difficulties that this extraordinarily frustrating artefact presents, rather than being bombastic about how our conclusions about it clearly prove the profundity and efficacy of our skills.
Nick, Whether ‘building bridges’ or ‘burning bridges’, Diane’s contributions to your discussion pages can be viewed as the result of much research and comparative dialogue. Occasionally, one does have to ‘beat one’s own drum’ so to speak. So, if any one of us (who contribute to your various fascinating ‘puzzles) is not able to create a blog which can be ‘replied’ to (because of constant attacks by hackers), what is a person to do?
Perhaps Diane might be able to keep her posts more in-line with your discussions, if she were to keep her contributions short and relative to your post, and cite her references, so others can follow-up.
I remember several years ago (when I was ‘duking it out’ with Elmar Vogt and Rich Santa Coloma, (and Diane) on Elmar’s page: We all sorta ‘threw up our hands”, and bid adieu, and proceeded in our different pursuits. Fun!
ps: I’m a fine one to talk, eh?
🙂
Dear colleague Diana. D.
Your constntly write. You have some education. So it is a bad fellow. I also have a very good education. And not to brag. Research Voynich. It takes more sense. I think it wants more confused. And it certainly can. I’ts also important to control the substitution. You keep writing about a crossbow. For us kids when they look at the picture. So even a small child says . This is a crossbow. It does have to be seen even by the blind. Also, I have to write. Large parchment map of the world does not ( not !!)
There are many images. Wheels, no rosettes. ( there writes author). It needs to understand. And what is important, so it is important to read what is written there. When you are able to read what is written there. So you will know you are writing Jokes. I’m sorry. But the manuscript is beyond your capabilities.
Champollione.
It’s very bad for the quality of this forum if so underrated is what writes Diana, which are much more valuable than rubbish boyfriend “Champollion”.
Champollione,
You are perfectly right, I have fallen into bad habits in describing the map on f.86v as a world-map. I should of course say that it is a map of eastern traders’ routes and regions.
bdid1dr
A short, accurate and cogent criticism. I accept it with gratitude.
Diana —
I have not talked with you in a long time, and I just noticed these comments on here. Would you be able to send me a line sometime? I am quite interested in your latest research, if you have some time.
Gregori Gregori. You ,,chlope,, one. I must once again raise eyebrows.
Champollione.
Ps. You. Also write crap.
Lady Diane. Important, read what is written in the manuscript. Big parchment has multiple meanings. As you surely know. So Baroque unifies ( unites) everything. Everything is in one. Meaning a large parchment. It not that what you write.
Meaning 3 top wheels. ( rosetes).
1 left, – mine where Silver was mined. The mine belongs to the Rosenbergs. ( can be traced in the archive). To the righ ( rightward ). It is drawn. The lower half of the body. In order to see it. So you have rotate the image. The symbol is drawn there. A person stands on its mine.
Omit the central round. ( middle wheel). A combined body. It is there to see. Cout ( suit) and lace. Then rotate. Right rosette. A connecting head. The right rosette is drawn castle. This is called Rosenberg. Rose Hill. The owner’s name Rosenberg. The castle was not much left. ( many wars). Today there is only a tower Jacobin. The rosette is also drawn fish. AAnd those of you waving, waving. He has a big smile. ( and teeth). One eye is done as an entrance to the castle. Owner named eye. Eye Rosenberg. ( Voko , Oko. Rožmberg). The symbol fish. Rosenberg cultivated fish. He founded many and many ponds.
This is the meaning of the top row of images. Author manuscript was good. Read the text is very dificult. The author used a very complicated encryption.
Michal V. understand. And why has the logo. Cat and mouse.
Author manuscript with potential, the reader is playing cat and mouse. According to what is written on the cover letter. ( voynich letter Yale). Michal and his wife knew the key. The key is in fact written on the cover of the letter. It is the same as on the side of 116 MS.
So you know the key. A language. And you can start reading the manucript. Describes Czech history.
Champallion.
Adam,
Apologies for the silence. I’m afraid your address and many others were lost in the bushfires.
I can be reached at the email address in the sidebar at
https://voynichimagery.wordpress.com
I propose three additional arguments.
2. From the Sumerian myths known that God ENKI using Abgal- sages taught men Writing, irrigation, agriculture, Herbal Therapy.
3. Many botanists see in Figures plant signs of hybrids and the site of inoculation. In the myth “Enki and Ninhursag” goddess mother actually engaged in of genetic engineering of plants and hybridization.
4.You know that in a deserted place on the shore of the Caspian Sea on the wet sand met fresh lettering of the symbols of the manuscript? As though the author emerged from the water and returned in to the sea.
Two more “tangible” arguments I can explain only by using the drawings.
For this look at https://vk.com/id304788998 .
What is it? Trash, accidental coincidence or regularity?
On my page I published a new proof of the correctness of my method of decoding. What unites these nine pictures of plants? Again the accidental coincidence?
Book of Revelation (John of Patmos) ;
1-16, In his right hand he held seven stars….
Voynich Manuscript page 68 r 3 ;
The seven stars (Pleiades?) are attached to the right side of (face of moon?)
Voynich page 68 r 3, may be referring to the Book of Revelation ?
But, i can not see double-edged sword and face of moon does not look bright.
Dear Mr. Pelling,
From what I understand, Elizebeth Friedman and others have stated that the Voynich Manuscript is not a single substitution alphabetic cipher.
Do you think there are still any reasons for believing that the VMS might be written in a single substitution alphabetic cipher?
If not, if it is an alphabetic substitution cipher at all, it must have had an intermediate operation performed on the glyphs/letters before being written down. I believe Captain Currier said something to that effect.
Are there any generally accepted ideas on what the intermediate operation might be?
Is there a list of individual beliefs about what the operation might be?
Is there any mathematical or statistical proof for such an operation?
If it is not a substitution cipher of some sort, is there a list of other possible alternatives off things it might be (such as my codes and tables ideas)?
I know you have a long list of people with theories (in my humble opinion missing at least one person). Is there any easy way to classify their ideas as to simple substitution cipher, complex substitution cipher or other? Can the classifications be further subdivided?
Do any of the proponents of these ideas offer any mathematical, statistical or written proof that they might be on the right track similar to the results my Voynich Lite consistently gives for the most common 505 Voynich words, those found at least ten times each in the VMS and accounting for about one half of the words in the manuscript?
If they don’t, or won’t or can’t, why do you think that is?
It seems to me that you personally don’t find the Voynich Lite results significant. Is this supposition on my part correct? Do you even think they are real, consistent and correct results? (If you would like to comment, I’d prefer facts, reasons or complaints about the results which I have shown to be real and factual, not hearing your opinions about other things, please – or questions about other stuff you think you need answered or why your expectation of this or that other thing hasn’t yet been met.)
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
Don: the list of Voynich theories / theorists is at least a hundred theories short of a full asylumful… but writing them up is such a depressing task I tend to find myself reorganizing the contents of my sock drawer in preference. That, or really giving my teeth a good floss. For an hour or two.
Lots of people still want Voynichese to have been written in a simple language, and what people want is what they get. Or at least, few people have gone home from the Voynich party disappointed. Of course, Voynichese isn’t a simple language, but given that isn’t how Dan Brown would write it, who really cares?
There are no generally accepted ideas about what the intermediate operations (and I use the plural form most deliberately) could, should, would, must or might be. Back in 2006 I spent a chapter of Curse outlining a fair few of these, but I found that I had to get used to the faint ‘pffft’ sound of falling on deaf ears.
I hope I’ve made it entirely clear to you before now that your Voynich Lite is an interesting take on Voynichese: but because it reduces one giant mystery into a different kind of quandary, it will continue to remain a hard sell for some time yet, I think. The equation goes like this: people want theories that not only can be tested, but that also make predictions about the subject – consistency with the data doesn’t necessarily make a given model interesting. Hence you seem to have concentrated on the testing part of this equation, but not so much on the prediction part: so from the outside, it as yet doesn’t look like much of a theory.
Which is not to try to put you off (Heaven forfend such a thing!), but rather to get you to raise your game. 🙂
Dear Mr. Pelling,
In my attempt to show how to deconstruct the 505 most common words in the VMS into component parts similar to the idea of Professor Stolfi’s prefix-midfix-suffix ideas, I use 104 Group I codes and 33 other codes to deconstruct 505 words into component parts.
The method seems to be successful 503 out of 505 times.
I use the same method and the same sequence for each word and have explained each step.
I have given written proof of my work and the results.
I wonder what the chances are mathematically of being able to do that with any other method of understanding the ideas behind the Voynich words?
The other two words could be successfully deconstructed also if I would add one additional code. Without adding the additional code, my success rate is still way over 99%.
To me, that sounds significant.
Do you not think my showing how the words can be constructed or deconstructed by adding or removing a limited number of codes in the same way, every time, is significant for understanding the VMS words? Just the fact that it can be done seems significant to me.
I’m sorry if I seem argumentative. I’m only trying to understand your attitude. (I’m not being snide here, really – I’m truly puzzled).
I didn’t deconstruct just a handful of words, cherry-picked because they fit the pattern.
It was a whole lot more. They weren’t cherry-picked. They represent about half of the words in the VMS. That’s a pretty representative sample in my mind.
If accurate and accepted, the results of Voynich Lite will probably blow a whole lot of the ideas of others about the construction of the Voynich Manuscript’s words out of the water, won’t they?
I don’t know if anyone has checked my work to see if it is accurate and gives true results. (It’s like an open book test when all the answers are written in the back of the book.) It shouldn’t be too hard to check.
I think the results of Voynich Lite show reality, not wishful thinking or skillful management of the glyphs to meet my own ideas or theory’s requirements.
It’s hard to argue with reality.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
Dear Mr. Pelling,
Please remember that Voynich Lite is only a distillation of my much more encompassing ideas. It is only meant to work almost all the time for those 505 words, not because that is what I wanted, but because that is what is in the 505 Voynich words themselves and what my work has revealed.
And all my idea is is a more refined version of Professor Stolfi’s idea. I just show that he was right.
I only distilled my other ideas down into Voynich Lite and its results because I thought it would be easier to understand if I gave the proof along with the results for a truly representative but limited group of probably accurately spelled Voynich words, not one-time only words with smudges or unclear glyphs (that people might argue about).
But it sure does make the resulting codes contained within the words hard to explain or understand if for those who don’t also adopt my other ideas.
And those ideas almost give gibberish. Unless it is a personal herbal or recipe book of a doctor or master apothecary and not meant for any eyes but his/her own (as I envision). Then, perhaps, more meaning might be coaxed from it.
Or maybe someone else will come up with a better reason for the words to be able to be divided up into coded sections so regularly. I wish her/him well.
But the words can be divvied up according to the method, tables and sequence I use, almost each and every one in the VMS. And there are probably reasons for the few exceptions that I just haven’t figured out yet.
I don’t hold much hope for scribal error unless it was done on purpose. I don’t think error is the reason for many anomalies. The VMS may have been penciled before inking – have you read anything about this possibility as being the reason for few erasures? I thought I detected a place or two where a glyph was not fully inked but don’t remember where – just a pencil stroke or something similar for each.
How’s the telescope thing going?
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
Don: the word “model” is problematic because it gets used in two quite different senses: (1) as an expression of an abstract theory of behaviour that you then validate against experimental data (i.e. a theoretical model), and (2) as a reflected, condensed version of a body of (often pre-existing) data (i.e. as an empirical model).
Your Voynich Lite is (without any shadow of a doubt) an empirical model, fitted closely to the Voynichese corpus. It has not a flicker of theory to it (and that’s OK): but you repeatedly compare it with theoretical models (such as Stolfi’s crust-mantle-core paradigm), which are trying to do something quite different and for utterly different reasons.
By comparing Voynichese to Stolfi’s crust-mantle-core theoretical model, we learn a lot about how Voynichese breaks the kind of simple-minded rules linguists would like to impose upon it. Yet this is not for nothing: we genuinely learn from the process. For all its numerical shortcomings, crust-mantle-core has helped bring numerous issues implicit in Voynichese’s odd behaviour to the foreground in what I would consider a fruitful way: we are better off for Stolfi’s having tried crust-mantle-core out than if he had not proposed it.
At the same time, this is emphatically not true of empirical models (such as Voynich Lite): their consistency with the data doesn’t bring us closer to the underlying features driving Voynichese. They do not help us learn about Voynichese.
It comes down to this: unless they are extraordinarily parsimonious (and 130+ component parts to create 503 words in a 505-word dictionary is far from parsimonious), empirical models tell us far less than theoretical models, because we do not learn anything from trying them out. Ultimately, the “success metric” of a good model is not how numerically good a fit it provides, but how much we learn from it.
Don: …but Stolfi’s crust-mantle-core wasn’t right, and that was largely the point of it – to demonstrate that Voynichese doesn’t follow any simple theoretical word-production / word-generation process by building a simple one and trying it out.
Dear Mr. Pelling,
I’ll give up after this one last try to bring you over to the Dark Side…
On page 24 of Table X at:
http://fumblydiddles.com/table_x_-_decoding_of_professor_stolfis_vms_concordances_most_common_words
starts a somewhat alphabetized and ordered list of decodings of the 505 words according to my deconstruction ideas and my proposed solutions for each of the code meanings. These decodings are explained in the first 23 pages of Table X.
I use each and every glyph as it appears in each of the 505 Voynich most common words.
Please look down the list starting on page 24 for a few pages or all of the pages. Granted that some of the Group/Table I attributions have been changed to other herbs since the page was decoded, don’t the proposed meanings seem to show an amazing continuity?
How can I do this?
How do I use every glyph in the order shown in the VMS to do it?
Does this list seem wrong or illogical for some major reason? Are the meanings totally unrelated to each other? Do you see any gaping holes in my proposed solution (or Voynich Lite)?
Most of them are even common English medicinal herbs being used in fairly close approximations of the dosages I’ve been able to find being recommended.
Don’t you wish you could do this sort of thing with the Voynich words?
Remember, these are still the same 505 most common VMS words. Nothing’s changed.
Oh! One thing has changed. I do show the proposed meanings for about half the words in the VMS. (I don’t fool around when I start showing proposed meanings, do I?)
Now, I don’t expect anyone to make the huge jump from the perceived deconstruction idea to this much more uncertain proposed reading of the 505 words. But, the word meanings in the second part of Table X sure look reasonable and understandable and repeatable and consistent and all the other things one would expect from a successful decoding/translation, don’t they?
They just don’t seem to make sentences, only recipes.
Have you ever seen such loopy ideas about the VMS that held together on closer examination like mine seem to do?
If you come over to the Dark Side soon, the name Nick Skywalker is still available. : )
I have your lightsaber (really an old flashlight) ready for you.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
Dear Mr. Pelling,
I don’t know why you keep mentioning the crust-mantle-core idea over and over in reference to my ideas. I have not consciously mentioned it as the forerunner of my ideas. Why do you keep bringing it up?
If you look at my submissions to you, I think you will notice I have usually said the prefix-midfix-suffix idea was the one I adopted and adapted. I didn’t much like the crust-mantle-core idea, either. I don’t know why you keep insisting I am likening anything to it – I’m not, and haven’t. Are you doing it on purpose?
I think I’ve pretty much proven the prefix-midfix-suffix idea works, unless you have evidence to the contrary?
The theory does seem to provably work, contrary to your only saying it doesn’t.
It really works.
I HAVE duplicated the “simple theoretical word-production / word-generation process” used by the author of the VMS and shown it works. That’s what Voynich Lite is a proof of. What part of it don’t you think works? The other 2 out of 505 words?
That’s pretty nit-picky. Especially for something that may be explainable for those two words – just not yet because it hasn’t been worked out.
How’s the telescope thing going?
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
Dear Mr. Pelling,
The second part of Table X is listed below (for those who won’t look at others’ sites) . Listed are the proposed ingredient dosages, somewhat alphabetized by herb names found in the 505 most common Voynich words.
The number of different herbs shown is the reason for 103 of the 137 codes needed to deconstruct the 505 most common words. The other 34 codes take care of everything else.
One abbreviation is not yet ID’d, (1) grain (possibly some sort of speedwell?)
[NickP: I removed 608 lines of stuff here that Don had cut-and-pasted from his previously linked site. 608 lines!]
The first thing I noticed is how many of the most commonly used dosages seem to be for a small core group of herbs – ones that would have been found in any decent apothecary shop in Fifteenth Century England (or elsewhere on the continent, probably).
I was surprised how many of the above herbs had quantities of both 1 and 2 grains and also about several showing the specific combination range of 1, 5 and 8 minims of maceration (often with other larger quantities in the range also) – and remember, this list only shows the most commonly used herbal ingredient dosages of the herbs shown.
Also notice the seeming duplication of some dosages measured in tinctures caused by the way the VMS words are structured, some with understood (minims of tincture) or (tincture). This is also noted (predicted) elsewhere in Fumblydiddles, I think, or was at one time.
Please remember these decodings of the words were done almost two years ago. Some of the individual codes of Table I herbs have changed attributions to other herbs since then. I think this is the main class of changes to these decodings that have needed to be made since then.
Justification of how these words were decoded is found in the first part of Table X at my fumblydiddles.com site.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
Don: there is precious little genuine Netiquette out there, but pasting 600+ lines of repetitive text into a comments box definitely sits on the wrong side of the line. You has already given a link to your “Table X”, so that was completely superfluous, and please don’t do it again.
Firstly, your model: all the while you cannot tell the difference in category between empirical models (e.g. yours) and theoretical models (e.g. Stolfi’s), you will continue to waste your time, my time, and the time of anyone else unfortunate enough to be subscribed to updates to this page. At some point very soon my moderation will stop being so moderate, because you’re stretching my – normally highly elastic – patience.
Secondly, your Table X: you propose that Voynichese is almost entirely formed of an artificial apothecaries’ language. You have decoded the assignments between individual letters and common medicinal herbs of the era based not on any existing text or tradition, but on the letters you yourself have assigned to Voynichese glyphs: and you have then interpreted those letters as the initial letter of English words a herbalist might plausibly use, e.g. EVA ‘yp’ ==> “hz” ==> “Hairy zizyphus”. (Though the earliest mention of zizyphus/ziziphus I found was from
15211502 so I suspect its herbal history is post-Columbine, while I’m not sure anyone apart from you has ever proposed that the phrase “hairy zizyphus” might be meaningful in some way).Your translation for line #1 of f2r runs (one expanded word per line):
* [unknown word] (1) grain
* hairy zizyphus stem / aerial parts / tincture 8 (minims)
* avens maceration (1) minim
* Roman sage maceration 8 (minims)
* /
* hairy zizyphus maceration (1) minim
* woundwort (1) drachm
But… do you not consider it somewhat improbable and strange that you translate the most common word in Voynichese – EVA ‘daiin’, 886 occurrences in the transcription you’re using – “1 minim’s measure of macerated avens” (i.e. geum urbanum)?
While wood avens was indeed used in the 15th and 16th century to drive away evil spirits etc (even Paracelsus approved of it), if you add up all the instance counts of the words you claim to see its presence in (daiin 886, dar 338, dy 278, al 270, dal 264, dain 182, dol 115, dam 96, dor 62, d 36, dchy 29, aiir 23, ary 21, daiir 20, dl 20, dan 16, do 14, doiin 11) you find that it occurs at least 2681 times right through the Voynichese corpus (i.e. not just in the Herbal and Herbal B sections, but everywhere else as well), and doubtless many more times besides, if your decryptions are anything to go by.
At the same time, you can see no word in Voynichese for ‘the’ or ‘and’: for you, therefore, the entire text is therefore just one long string of many thousands of English herbal remedies written in an ultra-compact artificial shorthand.
Now that I have summarised your theory and given it the oxygen you so obviously craved for it, can you please stop posting about it?
Dear Mr. Pelling,
I am sorry about the 600 line rule or whatever it is. I didn’t know you had such constraints nor can I find them published on your site.
I am an old man with no knowledge of Netiquette. Can you tell me where I can find these Netiquette rules you refer to, please?
Since you have asked me not to further post about my theory, I cannot answer your questions. Nor will I attempt to post about my ideas in the future on your site.
It is your site. You get to make the rules. You get to choose what you publish on your site.
I wish you’d post the rules somewhere.so I (and maybe others) can comply without being admonished for screwing up.
I obey your wishes and bow to your strictures.
I’ll ask again – how’s the telescope thing coming? Since I was the one that sent you the image, I am interested in what you make of it.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
Don: ah, now you’re trying to post about not posting about your theory. Which is, as any fule kno, still posting about your theory. Your coat is in the cupboard by the door. Try not to wake the neighbours.
The telescope thing is coming on slowly. I reckon it’ll cost me about £3000 to do enough ancillary research to be able to publish it for nothing. So I’m trying to do it slowly, so I don’t notice my family starving so quickly. 😉
Good day!
My name is Nikolai.
To a question about the key to the Voynich manuscript.
Today, I have to add on this matter following.
The manuscript was written no letters, and signs for the letters of the alphabet of one of the ancient languages. Moreover, in the text there are 2 more levels of encryption to virtually eliminate the possibility of computer-assisted translation, even after replacing the signs letters.
I pick up the key by which the first section I was able to read the following words: hemp, hemp clothing; food, food (sheet of 20 numbering on the Internet); cleaned (intestines), knowledge may wish to drink a sugary drink (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to think (sheet 107); drink; six; flourishing; growing; rich; peas; sweet drink nectar and others. It is only a short word, mark 2-3. To translate words consisting of more than 2.3 characters is necessary to know this ancient language.
If you are interested, I am ready to send more detailed information, including scans of pages indicating the translated words.
Sincerely, Nicholas.
Dear all,
Has anyone looked into Sukhwant Singh? I see he’s posted here.
Curious about why no one comments about his work.
I have been trying to find out more about him (search engine, hence here).
I don’t think he’s a nut job. Far as I can tell, he’s one of the few that actually make sense. To me, as least. . .
It takes some time to get past the verbosity and into the “meat” of the matter (yeah, I need to get out more) but he really seems plausible.
He also has a fascinating take on the “Mystery of Oak Island”.
jr
Jamie: if I thought Sukhwant Singh’s claims had any significant merit to them, I would post about them. Unfortunately, the number of Voynich theories has recently expanded far beyond my abilities to blog about them, beyond saying “the probability that his claims are correct is significantly smaller than 1%”.
@nickpelling
Eat words much?
Jamie: not on this occasion. 🙂
Following is not a rhetorical question, but an honest one to which I have not yet found the answer.
I wonder if any Indian MS would ever be written on parchment made of the skin of a young cow.
As far as I know, parchment was never used in India or for Indian mss., I have never seen one, but that is nothing I would bet on. Before the introduction of paper, birch bark and palm leaves were common writing materials, there are big collections in e.g. Berlin and München and I suppose in the other big European and U.S. collections as well. Cp. http://www.orientalthane.com/arts/news_2008_03_21.htm, as far as my limited knowlege goes, this paper seems more or less reliable.
Hi Nick,
Looking at a page from an early fifteenth-century Latin manuscript recently (Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College MS 36/114) I got the shock of my Voynich-life.
Heaven forfend, I seen unwittingly to have incubated a theory – if anyone could be bothered doing so, I’d be glad to have it removed.
It goes like this: that the text of the Voynich manuscript is written in what should be Latin, but very bad Latin and badly-written in terms of Latin form and orthography – written by people who were superb copyists and scribes but for whom Latin was a foreign or very new language.
It gets worse. But in my defense I will mention that Philip Neal has said that the text conforms in some ways to Latin, and that another Voynich researcher once said that the text’s ductus was less like writing than like “drawings of writing” – no that wasn’t Julian, and I cannot re-discover who said it.
The ‘gets worse’ bit is that the theory envisages the bad-Latin text in the Voynich botanical section as being filled with scatterings of non-Latin words (in this situation, I’d posit one of the regional Spanish or Occitan dialects), and an underlying text in one of the more rotten Latin versions of Nicholas of Damascus’ book about plants, long but wrongly believed (e.g. by Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, both of whom used it) to be by Aristotle.
Bacon tells a nice story of working from his copy, lecturing to students who fell about laughing because he took one word as being transliterated from Arabic, when all the time it was colloquial Spanish – like his students.
So there it is.
If any of your readers would care to investigate, prove it impossible and so cure me of this first infection from theory-disease, I’d be immensely glad.
I’ve posted a couple of comparative examples between the Cambridge ms and Beinecke MS 408, f.38v in a post called ‘An early 15thC copy of a 13thC text: Thomas of Cantimpre. Posted 9th May 2016.
Diane: as I’m sure you know, what makes most Voynich theories rotten to their core is that they have no genuine supporting evidence beyond “What I tell you three times is true“.
* What evidence can you point to that led you to suggest that the text underlying the Voynich’s botanical section (Herbal A? Herbal B? Pharma?) is in any way connected to or derived from “Nicholas of Damascus’ book about plants”?
* What evidence can you point to that led you to suggest the text is “bad Latin” and/or scavenged “Spanish or Occitan dialects” beyond merely superficial scribal letter shaping similarities (which would almost certainly be true of almost all European scribes of that time writing text in any language or cipher)? Specifically, what Voynichese words can you point to that lead to that view?
That’s the stuff!
🙂
PS see remainder of ‘Tuscany Herbal’ posts. Already written. Interrupted by two latest, but the next is due to go up in a couple of days. By the end the germ of this theory-disease will be pretty obvious. It has to do with the raft of herbals produced in the Veneto, quality of their Latin, their sources, and a simultaneous influx of new settlers from the Occitan-speaking regions into the aforesaid region. Takes a while to set out: hence number of posts.
Please continue with the cure, though. You know of my theory-allegry. 🙂
Diane: OK (I suppose)… but then why “Nicholas of Damascus’ book about plants” rather than any of the 500+ other books on plants from that general time frame?
And – apart from the presence of Occitan-like zodiac month-names, which seem to have been added in an ugly hand by a later owner – why must it have anything to do with Occitan?
For a number of reasons, but I guess the first and shortest point is that it was a text used in Latin translation by both roger and albert, both of whom studied in Paris, and in Bacon’s case, the text was probably one of the Toledo school’s.
Many other items involved but it’s taken me four of my essay-length blog-posts to present all of it, even in brief, so I hope you’ll excuse my not trying to summarise all of them here.
Dear Diane, Nick, et al., I suspect I am not the first to try a vowel frequency analysis and am moving along the well worn path, cautioned against by BD. Here are the results for a folio by the looser writing scribe, f22v: In 16 lines, “o” occurs 54 times, “a” occurs 24 times (of which “amt” occurs 16 times; the linked “cc” occurs 29 times. The other forms of “cc” occur from 1 to 9 times.
The tighter writing scribe on f24r: In 20 lines, vowel “o” occurs 71 times; “a” occurs 39 times, of which “amt” occurs 9 times and “ant” once; The linked “cc” occurs 24 times with other forms of c, comprising “c”, “cc” “linked cc” with a gallows bisecting them, and a linked “cc” under a diacritical, either “o” or “)” when grouped,, total 10-14 occurrences.
The great predominance of “o” does not fit Latin, nor Italian (so my interest in Commissario Montalbano is no help there). Nor any other common language I have tested. For one brief moment I hoped Italian would fit the bill and maybe even provide an end letter that could be used to delineate words. However “a, e, and i” are more common in Italian than is “o”; For Latin, “e”>”a”roughly = “u”>> “o”. I have gone further East, looking at Tamil, Urdu, Sinhala, but none work so far. English is also a miss with “a” and “e” both more frequent than “o” but “e” and “o” are close. Armenian [I thought you’d never ask!] is rich in “a” but from what I can tell, “o” is a close second, referred to as “abundant”. I plan to study a few more folios of each scribe and try an assignment for the linked cc, (a tentative guess at the moment is “e”). If I am deep into a well worn path, will someone put me out of my misery!!. Cheers, Tom
Tom: all credit to you for recognizing that accounting for ‘o’ is a bigger problem than almost everyone seems to realize. Ultimately, I suspect the letter ‘o’ is that rock that just about every linguistic account of Voynichese will find itself cracked upon.
There are two questions that spring to mind regarding the Voynich manuscript. First, what other enciphered documents are known from the period of the VM, and, second, why were these documents enciphered?
The only reasons that I can think of why documents were enciphered in the period of the VM are:
1) to hide heretical religious material.
2) To hide alchemical material such as transmutation. There were civil laws against transmutation in England between the reigns of Henry iv and Henty vi (ie. Within the period of the radiocarbon dating of the VM velum).
3) To hide “secret” information such as trade secrets or other material.
My apologies if these matters have been dealt with previously
Byron: there are two known enciphered books of secrets from the fifteenth century, both made by Giovanni da Fontana, and both containing technical secrets. But the next book-length cipher we know about was the Rohonc Codex (apparently from the sixteenth century), which is certainly religious but may or may not be heretical (nobody knows). And alchemical textx are hard enough to understand in plaintext without being encrypted as well! Regardless, we don’t have a large enough sample to reliably infer anything from. 😐
Oddly, I would predict that (proportionately) more fifteenth century letters were encrypted than twenty-first century emails. There’s a long line of papers called “Why Johnny [Still] [Still] Can’t Encrypt” that bemoan the continued low take-up of encryption. 🙂
Nick, et al., Two key references on letter frequency, including vowels are: “Letter Frequency” in Wiki where a handy table is included with 14 languages are included. In none is “o” found to be the most common vowel. Another key reference is “Letter Frequency.org” where Russian pops up with “o” as the most common vowel. This is a fantastically curious site, with all kinds of oddnesses, like most common first letter, most common second, etc. and most common 2,3,4… letter words. For all who care about words and then some. By additional digging around, it looks like old Czech might fit the bill IF we combine the vowel with the companion having a diacritical mark. Then we have o+o’=8.7%; a+a’=8.4; i+i’=7.5 etc. Close but no cigar as “o” isn’t just the most common vowel in the VM but overwhelmingly so. About the date that the VM vellum was prepared, Jan Hus was reforming the language by discarding diacriticals and attempting to reform the RC church by making communion available for all. He was called in for a consult with church authorities who grabbed him and burned him at the stake. Thus endeth the lesson. Cheers, Tom
ps. A goofy exercise in wasting time was the creation of “Gadsby” a novel where “e’ is not used, followed by the “Brown corpus”where all the omitted words of Gadsby. Then a and o frequencies are approximately the same at 12% This exercise is described in the deliberately misspelled ” prooffreader.com. Fun I guess if you have oiled all your door hinges and have alphabetized all your canned goods!
Dear all, The mother of word frequency tables is: cryptogram.org. BD will be delighted that it has a table for “Nahuatl” (“o” does not predominate, however). Each table samples over 10,000 sources and Czech data is slightly more favorable to “o” (now 9.4%) “e” and “a” come in at 6.2 % and 6.0 % respectively. Marshallese has a 12.9% occurrence of its favorite vowel: “o”. We stand ready for Faroese should the need arise. Modern Greek puts “o” at 12.2%, ahead of alpha at 11.7% . Interestingly (or I should say, interesting to linguists) is that the second most frequently occurring letter in Czech is “n”, so I will check out that inverted gamma that I think might be it.
All for the moment, Cheers, Tom
“But the next book-length cipher we know about was the Rohonc Codex (apparently from the sixteenth century), which is certainly religious but may or may not be heretical (nobody knows).”
Even allowing for brevity, pretty much all of that’s questionable. I appreciate that you can’t be expected to go through all the ifs and buts and maybes, but the authenticity of the Rohonc Codex as a piece of sixteenth century (?) writing is highly questionable. Fontana’s work is a different matter entirely, and I don’t think it’s appropriate to bracket them together in this way.
I mentioned this before when you discussed what is, chronologically speaking, the next example of an enciphered book here:
http://ciphermysteries.com/2016/02/08/johannes-van-heecks-cipher-manuscript
so my apologies for repeating myself 🙁
SirHubert: well… as an historical artefact, there are numerous different opinions about the Rohonc Codex. But the only significant fact we have is that the Venetian paper it was written on dates to the 1530s. Which is why I said “apparently from the sixteenth century”, which I don’t really think should be hugely objectionable to anyone. As to the content, too, when I say that the images are “certainly religious”, I wouldn’t expect any major objections – drawings of Jesus et al would surely qualify. Yet as far as the Rohonc cipher / shorthand / language itself goes, you’re on much stronger ground: but this margin is far too small to host that level of debate.
…unless you have access to a far more definitive and reliable source of information on the Rohonc Codex than I do?
Dear all, I have come to the unhappy, but inescapable conclusion that the assumed vowel “o” is not a vowel at all. It has just too high an occurrence in the VM text to fit the use as a vowel in every language, new or old, that I have examined.
Here’s my latest thinking: I invite disputation.
The glyph “o” in the VM text is 1) a placeholder or null or 2) not a vowel but rather a CONSONANT.
There is one language that I am aware of that fits: that language is Hangul, used in southern China and the Koreas, both North and South. In Hangul, “o” is a consonant and at the start of a syllable is a null, at the end of a word it is “ng” in the Romanized transliteration. If “ng”, it seems likely to me that it will be preceded by an “i” in the final Romanized or Latinized translation of the VM. I have looked at what VM glyph(s) precedes it, In most cases it is a linked “cc”, that may be an “i”. Actually Hangul was finalized in 1446 but since it is considered to have derived from Phags-pa script by most (but not all linguists), it could have been used in a prototype language to overlap with both Marco Polo’s trip and the Voynich scribes. It does incorporate “o” both as a null and as the consonant dipthong, “ng”. Incidentally Hangul is based upon yin/yang ideas where “_” is earth (yin) and “[” is heaven (yang) with the combination, as inverted ‘T”, is “o”. The key vowels are all “T”s,, facing four directions. Here the real vowel for “o” is a square box-like “o”.
I need to complete another four folios to prove the huge frequency of “o” holds for both scribes. If this holds up, then I think we are led to the conclusion that the VM text is a mix of languages, one of which is Hangul. Hangul, incidentally uses “cc” for “tt” in a Romaized/Latinized transliteration.
Another problem arises and that is what appears to be the linked “cc” separated with either a single-stemmed or double-stemmed gallows (*). At the moment I think it is not a separate glyph as proposed by some but rather a scribal abbreviation for “linked cc-*-linked cc” such as might be used in an English word like “liking”. The hybrid glyph also frequently precedes the Hangul “o”. The analysis I plan is what is the frequency of * within the linked “cc” compared with * by itself.
Hats off to Nick for his hosting our posts on newer and greater server!!!
Cheers, Tom
Nick: no, that’s not the only significant fact. It is also a fact that there is no provenance for the Rohonc Codex earlier than 1838, and it’s also a fact that the Battyhany Library from which it allegedly came also contained blank sixteenth century codices. It is also the case that nineteenth century scientific opinion condemned the object as a forgery. Yes, I know that’s opinion, and I personally find Lang’s arguments for rehabilitating it fairly persuasive, but as things stand it’s a debatable object. Unlike the works by Fontana and van Heeck, and so I personally don’t think it can be included alongside them without qualification.
I’ll also quote Lang directly: We do know that its illustrations concern mostly Christ’s life, crucifixion, and resurrection. However, we do not really know whether the content of the codex is actually religious.
Sorry if I’m making an unnecessarily big deal of it all. I’m just trying to be accurate and helpful, believe it or not 🙂
SirHubert: from where I’m sitting, the paper dating is indeed the only significant fact – the lack of provenance is an absence of a fact rather than a fact, and the presence of “blank sixteenth century codices” is a SantaColomaesque explanatory mechanism, i.e. very far from primary evidence. Look, Benedek Lang is a properly smart guy (there’s plenty to like in Unlocked Books etc etc), and as far as the Rohonc Codex goes, he has his reasons and his core argument: but all the same, I’m still seeing far more holes than actual socks.
So my position remains that unless you happen to completely buy in to the whole constructed language decryption business (which I personally find a stretch), we’re very short of Rohoncian evidence indeed. 😐
Nick, I hate to disagree with you, but respectfully, no.
It is a fact that there is no provenance before 1838. End of. It’s not an argument from silence, not least because I’m not making an argument from it, whatever others may have done. It’s just a fact.
The Rohonc Codex can’t be identified in the 1770 Battyhany library catalogue (working from memory). Of course this doesn’t mean it’s fake. It just means that we can’t find it there.
Neither does the fact that there were blank sixteenth century paper codices in the Battyhany library mean that the Rohonc Codex is necessarily a fake made in the nineteenth century using old paper. Of course it doesn’t. I don’t claim it did. But the fact that the library from which the thing allegedly came did contain blank codices which could have been used to make such a fake does make that more of a possibility.
It’s not like the arguments that the Voynich might have been written on vellum which had been lying around randomly for 150 years. Yes, it theoretically might, but there is not a shred of evidence to support it. I agree with you completely about Santa Coloma and others in this respect.
I agree about the constructed language bit though 🙂
So I guess my point is: if you think this is an authentic sixteenth century ciphertext, can you please give some evidence as to why we should disregard what Hungarian scholars concluded at the time? If not, that’s fine – but just mention in passing that the Rohonc’s status remains controversial. That’s all I’m getting at.
Anyway. I’m boring myself 🙂 Back to work…
SirHubert: if absence of provenance before a certain date in the mid-nineteenth century was a major issue, I’d guess that half the things sold at auction as being pre-1800 would fail the same test miserably. A full provenance is a nice-to-have attribute, but its presence is in no practical way a necessary precondition for an object’s being genuinely old: just because the Voynich Manuscript’s external provenance seems not to extend beyond 1600 does not constitute supporting evidence that John Dee faked it etc (thank goodness), and I don’t see what would make the Rohonc Codex any exception to that rule.
So while I’d agree that absence of pre-1838 provenance is unhelpful, it’s still very much an absence of a fact rather than a fact per se.
As to whether or not I “think this is an authentic sixteenth century ciphertext”, that’s a very different question: my answer, for what it’s worth, is that I think the Rohonc Codex seems more like an improvised personal religious shorthand rather than an obviously cryptographic object or a quasi-patriotic fake. But that would take several large posts to express – and let’s face it, it took Lang a whole book. 🙂
Finally: as the years have rolled by, my opinion of almost everything that gets written about unbroken codes and ciphers (whether by Hungarian scholars or not) has gradually lowered to the point where I regard the vast majority of it as sub-Wikipediaesque nonsense. So I’d say that the poverty of evidence makes the Rohonc Codex’s status not so much “controversial” as just “annoyingly vague”. 🙂
Speaking of extra O’s.. you do know Finnish (and Scandinavian languages) have basically two? O and ö/ø/œ.
Finnish, specifically, with the limited letter use, agglutinative structure, and strict vowel harmony rules.. can get extra strange. It’s not a part of the Indo-European language group, it’s been spoken probably since the last ice age.. although actually written Finnish has only existed since 1500s.
In Finnish, sentences like “Kokko. Kokoo koko kokko” are perfectly sensible.. for native speakers. (Kokko (name). Construct the entire bonfire). Or another classic “hae lakkaa satamasta, kun lakkaa satamasta” (get varnish from the harbor, once it stops raining). Even if it looks like repetition, the words are in no way related. It’s just how it plays out sometimes.
I’m obviously not saying the cleartext is Finnish, just that many of the “that’s impossible” claims about linguistic structure kinda seem odd when your brain is wired for Finnish. Just a thought.
Hi all. Here is my solution for VMS.
The initial name of Voynich manuscript is the “Book of Dunstan”,
authors – John Dee, Edward Kelly.
Period of writing – 1583 -1587 (or 1588). Manuscript was written on old (probably previously used) parchment.
Language: English (XVI century), modified English (imitation of X century)
The description of coding method is published in pre-print depository:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1604/1604.04149.pdf
For the text of last manuscript page decoding (proof of authorship) see pages 56-73
Nick,
May I ask if it is, or might be, technically feasible to add a ‘search’ which will bring up results from the comments as well as (or independent of) the main posts?
Trying to find an old conversation about the ‘hidden letters’ and one comment by SirHubert that I wanted to re-read prompts me to ask this again.
Diane: if you search Google with site:ciphermysteries.com as part of your search query, that should do the trick. 🙂
Nick,
Many thanks indeed.
In case this has not been suggested yet, Diane’s word from Cantimpre’s ms is “nichilominus” in line 9:
“vermes reptantes nichilominus inde coapta”
https://books.google.it/books?id=muPFHOiArEEC&lpg=PA12&vq=nichilominus&pg=PA12
Marco: thanks very much for that, though I suspect anyone looking for any kind of consensus-based reading of f116v any time soon is perhaps being a tiny bit over-optimistic. 😉
Marco –
Thanks for that. Perhaps you’d care to make the same comment under the post at voynichimagery, for the benefit of my readers.
I refer so often to Nick’s book and this blog that I expect most will know it, but they may not see your comment here.
The post is
https://voynichimagery.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/an-early-15thc-copy-of-a-13thc-text-thomas-of-cantimpre/
and if my spam-much is its usual hyperactive self, then do send comments as emails and I’ll repost in your name.
High function autism written down, so the language is unique to whoever wrote it?
Andrew Lohr: no, sorry, the suggestion that the Voynich Manuscript was conceived and written by a single individual (whether autistic or not) seems to be inconsistent with the palaeography. Just so you know.
Good day!
My name is Nikolai.
To a question about the key to the Voynich manuscript.
Today, I have to add on this matter following.
The manuscript was written no letters, and signs for the letters of the alphabet of one of the ancient languages. Moreover, in the text there are 2 more levels of encryption to virtually eliminate the possibility of computer-assisted translation, even after replacing the signs letters.
I pick up the key by which the first section I was able to read the following words: hemp, hemp clothing; food, food (sheet of 20 numbering on the Internet); cleaned (intestines), knowledge may wish to drink a sugary drink (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to think (sheet 107); drink; six; flourishing; growing; rich; peas; sweet drink nectar and others. It is only a short word, mark 2-3. To translate words consisting of more than 2.3 characters is necessary to know this ancient language.
If you are interested, I am ready to send more detailed information, including scans of pages indicating the translated words.
Sincerely, Nikolai.
Hi Nick, following our emails of earlier today, I am resubmitting my posting for your review, this time with the web addresses disguised. I saw your reply to Andrew Lohr, 9/12/16 (below), where you stated that the possibility of the VM author being autistic “seems to be inconsistent with the palaeography.” I’d really appreciate it if you could expand on that a little bit for me.
________________________________________
All the theories and discourses as to the meaning of the Voynich manuscript are quagmired in differing degrees of complexity – and what happens when they are found insufficient? They are made even more complex. Is it possible that the true explanation for the production of the manuscript is so utterly simple that is has been overlooked? I am a newcomer to the VM, but I would like to offer the following explanation for consideration by those far more knowledgeable about it than myself:
The Voynich manuscript is not a hoax, it’s not a secret language, it’s not a cipher, it’s not a code. None of the drawings represent real objects or bear any relationship whatsoever to the text, and It will never be translated because it has no meaning at all. If you go back in time and ask the author what the book is about, she will tell you, “I haven’t the slightest idea.” Ask her why she’s writing it, and you’ll get your answer, “Because the spirits told me to.”
It’s automatic writing! Produced by an author and possible polyglot with a genius-level dose of the savant syndrome in the field of languages. Thus she is able to peacefully write and draw her book while offering no interference to the apparently slumbering aspects of her mind that formulate the strange characters of her “alphabet,” and string them into meaningless “words” that follow the basic rules of language composition. A field of which she has little or no consciousness knowledge.
Here are some early clues I found when reviewing the various VM sites: There are almost no corrections (typical savant). The drawings are badly done. (Her savant skills are confined only to writing!) The changes in handwriting that have been observed in the VM might occur naturally for a savant as she expresses different aspects of herself. Note, for example, that savant musicians can play as many as 22 instruments (1). The folio and quire numbers are wrong, the binding’s a mess, and some of the bifolios may even be upside-down. (She doesn’t care about any of that – she only cares about writing her symbols – that’s her one big special thing.)
Note, however, that that the writing of literature is not a normal savant skill. Thus the author is following directions from a supposed external source as she patiently constructs her book symbol by symbol. Other than the drawings, only the symbols matter to her. Thus there is no message and nothing to decipher.
_____________________________
(1). Treffert DA (2009). “The savant syndrome: an extraordinary condition. A synopsis: past, present, future”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 364 (1522): 1351–7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677584/
Note 1: So far I have only found two references to the idea that the author was autistic. In the first, Klaus Schmeh, writing for the Skeptical Enquirer, states,
“Another theory, which I consider plausible, posits that the Voynich author was a mentally ill person (for example, someone suffering from autism); it is quite common for mentally ill people to create art. As far as I know, this hypothetical origin of the Voynich manuscript has never been researched by an expert.”
Voynich Manuscript: The Book Nobody Can Read, Klaus Schmeh, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER Volume 35.1, January/February 2011. http://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_voynich_manuscript_the_book_nobody_can_read
The second reference can be found at Voynich Theories – Cipher Mysteries. Here, Andrew Lohr makes a cryptic Comment dated 9/12/16.
“High function autism written down, so the language is unique to whoever wrote it?”
To which Nick Pelling, the site owner replies:
“Andrew Lohr: no, sorry, the suggestion that the Voynich Manuscript was conceived and written by a single individual (whether autistic or not) seems to be inconsistent with the palaeography. Just so you know.”
http://ciphermysteries.com/the-voynich-manuscript/voynich-theories
Note 2: I may have to revisit my assumption that the VM author was a lady because male savants outnumber females by 6:1 (1).
Neville,
You are not alone in trying to relieve your bewilderment by inventing the figure of an “author” to whom may be ascribed such qualities and flaws as absolve the viewer of any responsibility for their inability to understand anything in this manuscript, but though a common means for being able to feel not-so-stupid, it is essentially just the grown-up’s version of “it’s-not-my-fault, because Dolly-did-it”.
In 2009, Nick wrote:
““I believe that an essentially forensic approach is our only real hope of making progress.”
Worth remembering.
Hi O”Donovanon,
Thank you for your input regarding my ideas as to the origin of the VM. As I have said, I am a beginner in this and have much to learn. My theory is based on a working proposition that the VM is being over analyzed, and that this may have led to simple explanations for its origin being disregarded. If my ideas are convincingly falsified, then that will end my interest in the VM, because I am not a historian nor a cryptologist nor a linguist, and would have nothing more to contribute to the VM’s analysis.
I do, however, believe I have shown that my theory is consistent with some of the data. I suppose that can be said for almost any theory, at least in the theorist’s own mind! However, It is my hope that I have shown that my thematic concept as to origin merits further examination.
Thank you again for your interest.
Neville, Diane interest is shallow and selective as the whim of a teenage girl – do not count on any concrete.
Hello Neville,
Your post was addressed to Nick, but I hope you’ll forgive my commenting. One major difficulty with this idea is that it seems that at least two different writers were involved in producing the manuscript, so it’s hard to view it as one individual’s piece of automatic or writing.
Neville: many people have proposed that the author of the Voynich may possibly have produced the manuscript as what one might call a “subconscious stream”, i.e. one where the manuscript’s text production follows rules and embodies internal logic the author was not consciously aware of. There are many different examples of this in the ‘psycho-linguistic’ literature, whether madness, religious glossolalia, or (supposedly) channelled past lives / spirits / aliens, such as found in the famous case of Hélène Smith.
For the Voynich Manuscript, all these and more have been suggested as (as you suggest) hopefully simplifying explanations, with the idea being that in that case there would be no need for conscious logic or complicated rule-making apparatus or methodology to be wheeled in: the confounding demon of the unconscious would therefore more than suffice.
Personally, I don’t buy into any of this for a second: and for a whole load of very specific reasons. For a start, Prescott Currier famously speculated that the Voynich Manuscript may have been written by as many as ten different scribes – though I think this number will probably prove to be a little high, it’s practically impossible to pull it to below two. And for two, I think there is solid evidence that copying errors pervade the text, something that wouldn’t obviously be the case if it was the work of a Lone Penman, let’s say.
The main reason that these theories don’t work for me is that heavy reliance on conscious structuring that Voynichese appears to have. Not only rigid letter-to-letter adjacency rules, but also letter-positioning rules, page- / line- / paragraph-positioning rules, and indeed meta-rules (such as Neal keys, both horizontal and vertical). To me, these speak all very loudly (almost deafeningly so) of a consciously structured core language or cipher, one that was further consciously evolved.
In short, Voynichese gives every sign to me of being hyperrational, not irrational: and so I struggle to understand theories about the manuscript’s language that start by writing off that rationality.
Hello, SirHubert,
Regarding at least the appearance of multiple authors, I didn’t put this in my theory, but I mentioned it to Nick at a later time. People who believe they are channeling, may believe they are channeling multiple entities. Oral channelers often change their voices to suit the age, sex, and general character of the different supposed entities.
I think it reasonable to suppose that a language savant who believes he/she is channeling multiple entities may change their writing style in a similar way to suite the supposed character of the entities.
Gregory,
Oh come now, I’m sure she’s as sweet as the sugar-plum fairy!
Neville
Nick,
Thank you for your review. I would like to give it some thought and respond at a later time.
Neville
Neville
More like umeboshi, I’d say. 🙂
Hi expert. ( Word experts ). 🙂
I can any expert. Me explain, why the manuscript drawn boat, which has a Jewish Star ? ( David Star ). 🙂 ( Expert – Zandbergen + Pelling).
So show off. And show me what you slumbers. I’m curious.
Hi expert . World expert. ( Renne + Nick ).
Gentlemen, a very simple question. 🙂
Why is the manuscript ( MS-408). Drawing ship. Carrying a Jewish star.
Why ?? ( A ship carrying Jewish star ). Why ?? 🙂
I think it would be union, should understand each studied expert.
( academic, linguist and cryptograpers ).
What page has the ship with a Jewish Star?
What is a “Jewish star” ?
Academic Diane.
You do not know how it looks Jewish star ?
Well, I’II write it. The character of the Jewish King David. 🙂
They are two triangles. The highlight of each other. ( the highlight of the opposed ). Also, it has become Israel’s flag.
Prof. I bet that this is about folio 11r.
Hi. Nick and Renne.
He does not know ? 🙂
Why is the Jewish star painted manuscript ?
There are two options.
First :
Monk Nahuati Aztec collaborated with the Israeli Mossad.
Second :
The manuscript is written and encrypted = Cabalistic numerological gematria system.
What is according to experts correctly ??
Dear ladies and gentlemen!
András Horváth (53) I’m from Hungary and I would like to announce to you that after 12 years of research work first and alone in the world managed to decipher the Voynich manuscript full text and graphics together.
in book form edition of the publication, and deciphered the code works (copyright) looking for an investor.
contact information: [email protected]
Horváth András: can you tell us what approach you used to solve the Voynich Manuscript’s mysteries?
Nick,
I just found something that seems very interesting if the VM really contains coded information, and I’m wondering if you’re aware of it.
A commenter on the VoynichImagery site has pointed out that the first written page (1v) of the VM looks for all the world like quotations with the quoted person’s name written neatly with right-hand justification. Unfortunately, there’s only five quotes – if such they are.
The person running the site says he has no knowledge of anyone noting this before.
In case it helps.
Neville: the first page of the Voynich Manuscript is called “f1r” (‘r’ for ‘recto’); it has four left-justified paragraphs; the right-justified extra sections are called ‘titles’ (which is what John Grove called them well over a decade ago); and there are as many speculative explanations for what these ‘titles’ are as there are grains of sand in the Sahara. See: http://voynichms.tripod.com/Index.htm
Nick,
Thanks for the input. 1v was the notation provided by the Yale University, Benecke Rare Book site, where you can see every page in thumbnail and blow them up seemingly as much as you like.
Neville: recto is the front side, verso is the reverse side, simple as that. The page with four paragraphs and right-justified additions at the end of them is f1r.
Horváth András: though I’m happy to hear you talk about your Voynich theory, I’ve deleted the other four copies of this comment that you posted on Cipher Mysteries – a single thread should be plenty. 🙂
A response to Nick Pelling’s review (1), of my theory as to savant authorship of the Voynich manuscript, and some further suggestions.
A BASIC CONCERN AS TO SAVANT AUTHORSHIP
Nick expressed concerns that the need for such things as letter adjacency and positioning rules, and similar complex requirements, could not be accounted for by savant authorship. He wrote
“To me these speak all very loudly (almost deafeningly so) of a consciously structured core language or cipher, one that was further consciously evolved . . . and so I struggle to understand how theories about the manuscript’s language can start by writing off that rationality.”
Unfortunately, this is a slipup that escaped Nick’s editing pen, for it is not applicable to the matter. If the VM was written by a savant, then the core language was written with intelligence – and considerable intelligence at that, and likewise the structure was formed with rationality. The only quibble is that savants appear to do their work at a level beneath their conscious awareness. So while Nick makes a natural assumption that the action requires consciousness, we need only substitute the word intelligence, and we are both on the same page.
ABILITY OF SAVANTS TO PRODUCE THE VM
As regards the ability or otherwise of a savant to develop either a real language-code, or a language-mimicking manuscript, we have all heard the legendary tales of what savants can accomplish, so I will present just two examples.
Kim Peek read 12,000 books, taking about an hour for each. He was reliably reported to be able to recall their contents with considerable accuracy.
Daniel Tammet speaks ten languages. He was challenged to learn one of them (Icelandic), in a week, and did so, according to the judgement of Icelandic referees.
With this in mind, I cannot but believe that anyone with similar remarkable abilities would be more than capable of producing a language-mimicking manuscript, or a coded readable-manuscript similar to the VM. This in no way implies that my theory is correct of course, I wish only to show that it merits consideration. I am now researching savant abilities in the hope of finding further evidence for or against savant authorship.
THE PROBLEM OF MULTIPLE AUTHORS
Nick was concerned that savant authorship was inconsistent with the current belief that the VM had anything from two to ten authors.
My theory assumes a savant author who believed he was channeling an external source. People who believe they are channeling, may believe they are channeling multiple entities. Oral channelers often change their voices to suit the age, sex, and general character of the different supposed entities.
I think it reasonable to suppose that a language savant who believes he is channeling multiple entities may, in like fashion, change his writing style to suite the supposed character of any given entity. The change could be both in the appearance of the writing as well as the style. Spread with a broad enough brush, this idea might conveniently cover just about any variations found in the VM, but see the last section for practical considerations.
It should be noted that savants do not normally have literary skills. This is why I believe the driving force in the production of the VM may have been the author’s belief that he was channeling external entities. His only job was to write the symbols and draw the drawings, confident that the spirits would eventually explain everything.
DOES THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT CONTAIN READABLE MATERIAL?
If the VM is decodable, then we need to clearly understand how it is possible that after one hundred years of strenuous effort, now bolstered by the ever-growing data-crunching capabilities of our computers, no one can make an uncontested claim to have transcribed one single word of the manuscript.
Virtually all codes and unknown languages yield to code breaking eventually, given that there is sufficient material to work with (2). Consider the remarkable cracking of the Nazi enigma code, with its mind-wiping 10^114 possible combinations, also the Japanese purple code. Then remember it was all done without computers until the British purpose-built the first of the modern period.
There is, perhaps is just one way that someone in the medieval period could produce a VM coded deeply enough to defy modern code-breaking capabilities, hire a language savant! That way, they don’t have to be channeling spooks.
Other than that, It seems to me that it is time to take a closer look at the idea that the VM has not been translated because there is nothing to translate. If it was faked using templates, perhaps sufficient number crunching could reverse-engineer the VM and reveal the choices made. If it was produced in a more random way, known human idiosyncrasies in choice-making decisions have a certain predictive factor, however slight. No doubt attempts have already been made in these directions, and it’s beyond anything I have to offer.
HOW CAN THE THEORY OF SAVANT AUTHORSHIP BE TESTED?
This, at least, is very simple. Ask the savants! Ask those who are professionally involved with the treatment and study of savants. Ask the families (with due delicacy, and probably via caregivers).
Suitable savant candidates with skills in the right field might like to try their hand at producing something similar to the VM on a small scale, or discuss how they would go about doing so. If the savant theory is correct then their efforts might produce coding or writing patterns that are identifiably savantic, just as chess engines produce long-term move patterns that are identifiably different from those of human players. Any such distinctive savant writing or coding patterns could then be searched for in the VM to see if there is a match.
On a simpler note, any savants who seem to have the necessary skills to produce a VM-type manuscript, could be asked to see if they can readily produce different writing styles, thus testing the idea that handwriting variations can explain the appearance of multiple VM authorship.
I hope to reach out to people in the savant world to see if anyone would be interested in cooperating in this kind of a project. I’d be glad to hear from anyone who feels like mucking in on a Did The Savants Do It Third-Degree Shakedown, or who have special knowledge of, or experience with, savants.
Let’s put a fresh set of wheels under the VM and see if new approaches such as this can finally resolve the mystery of the Big V.
__________________________________
(1). Nick Pelling, nickpelling on Voynich Theories, October 29, 2016.
(2). The Wikipedia article on Undeciphered Writing Systems lists the following eight items under the heading MEDIEVAL AND LATER SCRIPTS. Bypassing the VM, it seems the only item that one would think ought to have been translated but hasn’t, is the Tujia Script. This, in my opinion, shows how rare it is for an important writing system to escape translation, and must thus add to the suspicion that the VM has no real content.
Alekanovo inscription. (Exists only on a small clay pot.)
Issyk writing. (Exists only on a single cup.)
Khitan scripts – Khitan. (The writing system of now extinct para-Mongolian people. Only ~50 samples of it seem to exist. Yet It is described as “not fully translated,” so there has been some success.)
Tujia script. (An ancient form of the modern Tujia language spoken in south-central China. Exists in untranslated ancient books.)
Singapore stone. (Exists only on a piece of sandstone.)
Sanskrit. (Seems to be here because no written samples exist of an early form of the modern Sanskrit.)
Rongorongo Rapa Nui. (aka Easter Island. Only a few samples exist. May not even be true writing.)
Voynich manuscript. (Described as a possible hoax.)
Nick
Got you! Sorry to be so slow (re the numbering system).
Neville: savants have looked at the Voynich Manuscript, and they can make no sense of it either. So I strongly suspect you’re wasting your time, sorry.
Neville: I should also add that your cryptographic arguments don’t hold any water – the Enigma was only solvable because the Poles and the British knew exactly how the basic system worked. In the case of the Voynich Manuscript (which isn’t exactly a matter of life or death), we still don’t know how its basic system works: in which case it doesn’t matter how much computing power (or indeed eyeballs) you throw at it.
Nick,
I’m familiar with the full history of the enigma decoding, but I believe all decoders get a break or find a weakness somewhere, it always seems to be a part of the game, so I didn’t think the enigma breaks worth mentioning. After all, they’d probably still be working on it today if they really had to tackle that 10^114 possible combinations with no other leads!
I would appreciate it if you could provide me with a source for your comment on savants examining the VM. All my searches for savant connections came up blank except for the Skeptical Enquirer.
I’d like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to present my ideas on your site. I thought of putting it in the ms, and perhaps I should have, because maybe you don’t get thanked very much for all your time and efforts . . ..
Nick, could I trouble you with one question, which I’m sure would be of interest to others?
If I was to buy one book on the VM, your own being out of print, could you make a recommendation? I can, of course, find facsimiles of the pages anywhere, so I just want the best history and summation of theories.
Neville: first off, my book “The Curse of the Voynich” is still very much in print, both at Amazon…
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Curse-Voynich-History-Mysterious-Manuscript/dp/0955316006
…and at Compelling Press (where you can also get your copy signed by me, which is nice)…
http://compellingpress.com/voynich/
A decade on, what I think remains good about the book is that it is a well-formed (and sustained) art-historical argument that builds on contemporary sources and primary evidence wherever possible, and doesn’t seek to torture that evidence to get it to do its bidding. If only there were more books like it. 😐
But “Curse” aside, the starting point for most people should still (even after all these years) be Mary D’Imperio’s (1978) “An Elegnt Enigma”, which is now freely downloadable courtesy of the NSA:
https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic-heritage/historical-figures-publications/publications/misc/assets/files/voynich_manuscript.pdf
For a more journalistic (but still basically OK) take on the Voynich, you might also consider Kennedy & Churchill’s (2006) “The Voynich Manuscript: The Mysterious Code That Has Defied Interpretation for Centuries”: there are a whole load of copies on bookfinder.com for under a fiver (including postage), if you look through the various versions on offer.
All the same, the best current source for the history of the Voynich Manuscript is Rene Zandbergen’s http://www.voynich.nu/ site.
Nick, Thanks for such a detailed reply. I thought your book was out of print because you said something about it ‘Dropping to the bottom of the Voynich forest floor’, and I had an idea you were doing something new with it.
By the way, you could check out my Stonehenge Starship there. You’ve got a great cover and I wondered if you did it yourself. (Compelling Press is a great name, by the way). I did my own cover in PS and SketchUp, but I’m still finding blood on the floor from the many times when it wasn’t coming out quite right.
I don’t have too many fivers in the sunny state of California, but the free download sounds good. I hope to get to your book later.
Nick and Renne.
It is clear and obvious that you don’t know much manuscript. (408)
When you do not know. That is is drawn ( picture) a Jewish star. And that is a mistake.
Therefore, you are stationary for a long time. About twenty years.
Think about your research.
When you do not know why the manuscript ( draw) drawn a Jewish star, so you have no chance to succeed in research. Efforts have, bud it is a very little success.
hi Josef ,
can you plz tell me what page is the jewish star ? i may have an answer for you . thank you . im doing a research which is more (logic) . thank you .
Hi ??? 🙂
Jewish star . = . It is drawn on a large parchment. 🙂
Josef can help us and send the picture i will be grateful if u can show us where exactly . thank u .
Ok. Az .
Certainly help. Helping very much like all academics. 🙂
Jewish star is drawn. In the circle ( rosettes ), which is at the bottom. middle.
To make it easy to see. You need to Beinecke Library ( Ms – 408 ). A parchment ( picture ) to enlarge.
And my blog.
That circle (rosettes ) in drawn at a position of 11 hours. 🙂
Jozef ,
got it
hi Josef ,
i found the star , but it is not a jewish star it looks like other stars just mayb the ink a bit spread over and became like that ..
hi Az. Ok.
It is very good to see. When the stars really look. So you will see six-pointed. Star sits on top of ship. The ship is several characters. Dashes and dots.
Two line mean number two ( 2 ).
The dot is number one ( 1 ).
( 2 = b,r,k ). ( 1 = a,i,j,q,y )
On the ship written word – Ra.
The ship is carrying spelling. Jewish Star shows numerological system. The author of the manuscript shows you the way to write.
Now try to think for ants.
The ship carrying Ra. It’s very simple. I wonder which one you on a puzzle ( qviz) will. Who among you solve it ?
Hi Josef ,
what you mean is the author could be a jewish . but i donot think is hebrew or the book deals with no prophecy or religious matters . even we see the christian cross or the jewish stars or other symbols .. my questions for the reasearchers are:
1- why got pages disappeared from the book?
2- what are pages about?
3-why Redolf 2 bought it very expensive ?
4- why the author wrote it this why so noone can read it ?
5- why the book contains events which differs from any other scientist book ?
so many questions are involved here .
the Voynich manuscript is like a small baby when he cries you do not know whether he wants to sleep or want milk or a toy…just need to do or give to keep him quiet . the book needs you more than you need it . , guys donot go so far away , hold the lost baby and take care of him first instead of wasting time looking for the parents …
Hi Az. And ants.
First, I return to my question. This is a ship and a Jewish star ( Ra ).
Because the manuscript is written and encrypted in the Czech language. But I will try. We ship and a star. That means a few letters.
Ship + Ra ( star ). You make one word. 🙂
Shipra. !!
( I do not know English pronunciation. But when I use the Czech language. And I use substitution . Number 8 = p,f.)
Czech language = šifra. English language = cipher.
The author of the manuscript to you. Ships and Jewish star the encryption method and the method of registration. Encryption manuscript is therefore based on numerological system.
Because I have translated hundreds of pages of manuscript, so I know. Because it’s well written. The author writes that uses Jewish numerolocical system.
You ask, is the author of the Jew ? Of course. Even here at the time of the Middle Ages were a lot of Jews.
You ask, them used Hebrew ? No. Hebrew not used It. Used the old Czech language. The manuscript describes Czech history.
1,2. This is today hardly anyone finds out.
3. Nowhere is it not proven that Rudolf II, bought manuscript 408.
4. Manuscript not read it for everyone. The manuscript is not a religion nor science. It’s not even a herbarium. He describes the Czech history.
hi Jozef ,
Im not a specialist in languages nor a cryptographer or codebreaker… just want to tell you if im not wrong : word (cipher) came from Arabic SIFER صفر which means number zero .later the word meaning became numbers ( chiffres in French ) like 0123456789 . decifer in french dechiffrer which has the same meaning of decode find the key numbers .. we are in front of a book that deals with script and illustrations ; if you translated the pages ,do the numerical system say something? say Czeck history ,will you construct a phrase and pronounce it ? some researchers found words but can not apply the same letters on other words and if so ,those words were not matched with the drawings . i appreciate your work and your findings are interesting . i hope Nick does not spare ys his views and sorry for my English …
Hi Az.
For us it is more encrypted books. The word ” Šifra ” = Cipher in the English language. The author of the manuscript uses cabalistic numerolog. system of numbers. Where each letter has a numeric value.
Between the English language and Czech language it makes a big difference.
Therefore, it is difficult to explain it to you. So I use the example. Image and letters ( characters ). It is important to know what the characters mean. This is the alphabet. What is important is the beginning of the manuscript where the author shows you. According to the notice period ( time ). And you will also find important names. etc.
Then you find out what is written on other sites and you will get an overall picture. Then find out what it says on the last page of the manuscript and know the extent, that is the time. That is the history of manuscript which he writes. From to. The manuscript is written a very complicated and encrypted. As I also wrote. So the author of the manuscript, he plays with you like a cat with a mause. And your task is to find the author ( discover ).
The key is written on several pages of the manuscript. That you saw him. So you have to read the manuscript.
1/. The author uses deceptive characters.
2/. For specified character. Must deliver several characters.
3/. Shift letters. The beginning of the word, is not is where you see it.
I’ll try to explain this on a large parchment.
I will ask. You see the large parchment cats ? You see fish ? You see a human figure, holding in his hand a cat ?
I could write to you and explain what the great parchment is and what is expressed. And I continue to know that you are seeing.
Nick. and sorry for my Englich. And ant sorry for my English. ( Google translator ).
??
contact me : [email protected]
hi Jozef ,
my theory is a bit different from yours . since i can read words and phrases from the voynich i can also apply alphabets on other words which is more reasonable than stephen partial decoding and have proofs with pictures and events from history . i think my theory will change some concepts . im doing research once i finich it i will reveal it . im keen to know about yours too . this a a video i lunched last year anyone want to know more can contact me : [email protected]
AZBO VMS TALKS BOOK :
the lost section in the Voynich manuscript (pages lost) pages contain venemous animales reptiles : snakes , scorpions , spiders and the most tremendous recipes which purposly removed for their easy understanding ….
anyone want to know about how to read Voynich manuscript plz let email address to receive first findings about this mysterious book .
I don’t know what language the Voynich Manuscript may have been written in, but I believe that the “letters” represent sounds. (This is what I call a “soundscript”.)
Nick, annoyances aside, do you hold the view that the condition of some of the nymphs is the result of another illustrative hand?
Petebowes: my belief is that at least some (and possibly as many as all) of the nymph drawings were added in multiple stages or layers, but I don’t as yet have a view as to why this was the case, or how many people contributed to that. My hope is that one day a proper codicological analysis (so as to better understand the component layers) will be carried out so we can make genuine progress with this.
When you say ‘added to’ do you mean in any particular aspect?
Petebowes: plenty of different ways – the mysterious added breasts, the added crowns, the barrels, the overlaid water nymphs (in Q13), etc etc.
Has anyone ever attempted to strip the nymphs (no humour intended) of their additions to see what they might have looked like in their original form? Not a hard ask these times, I’m sure.
petebowes: lots of times, but without better imaging the answers will probably continue to elude us.
http://ciphermysteries.com/2015/06/29/the-voynich-manuscripts-three-crowns
So,, are we are looking at a possible misrepresentation of the author’s intentions?
Petebowes: who knows? Until we can separate out the layers, we can’t reliably tell which is which: which is a good starting point only for unhelpful speculation.
Who knows? I’ll settle for that.
One last thing, do we know for certain that Rudolph II wasn’t able to have the manuscript understood before he gave it over to the Jesuits?
Petebowes: we don’t know if Rudolf II ever had it (we have one letter claiming he did, but nothing else whatsoever) or what he did with it (though it seems certain that it was for a while owned by Rudolf’s Imperial Distiller) (who distilled water, not alcohol, as far as we can tell).
Thanks for your time.
Nick, old veteran, it looks like everyone agrees more than one hand contributed to the manuscript’s illustrations, does the same apply to whoever coloured them , in your opinion?
The Voynich manuscript is not written with letters and characters denoting letters of the alphabet one of the ancient languages. Moreover, in the text there are 2 levels of encryption. I picked up the key, which in the first section I could read the following words: hemp, wearing hemp; food, food (sheet 20 at the numbering on the Internet); to clean (gut), knowledge, perhaps the desire, to drink, sweet beverage (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to believe (sheet 107); to drink; six; flourishing; increasing; intense; peas; sweet drink, nectar, etc. Is just the short words, 2-3 sign. To translate words with more than 2-3 characters requires knowledge of this ancient language. The fact that some signs correspond to two letters. Thus, for example, a word consisting of three characters can fit up to six letters of which three. In the end, you need six characters to define the semantic word of three letters. Of course, without knowledge of this language make it very difficult even with a dictionary.
If you are interested, I am ready to send more detailed information, including scans of pages showing the translated words.
Nicholas.
Nick,
May I register here, where Menno’s comment appears, an acknowledgement and apology for omitting to say in my own blog etc. that he mentioned St.Giustina (Justina) of Padua before I came to do so? I’ll add a note to the blog-posts etc. themselves, of course.
It is amazing to think that there are so many distinct and different theories. I wonder if any 2 people have come with the same or a similar theory independently.
Of course 2 people with the same theory can come under “great minds think alike” or “fools seldom differ”(though I’m not sure if that is applicable here”
Hey, folks: Rudolph II was not interested in the “zoo” (giraffe and horse). Nor was he particularly interested in any food item which required a lot of chewing. He was most interested in the works of art being produced during his lifetime. His favorite was his portrait (all of his favorite fruits and vegetables — including a ‘crown’) .
bd
Mark: people have reinvented Voynich theories countless times. The sight of one or both of them then furiously denouncing the other as a plagiarist is not much fun to watch. 🙁
Hello.
Maybe the pictures are there to distract you. Especially the women, aye. ^^
This may sound crazy but how about this story:
Maybe VMS is the transcription of a previously transcribed copy of encrypted text found at Temple Mount during the Crusades and kept by the Knights Templar (Templar from template) where the decryption method/device, urim and thurim, was separately safeguarded by the freemasons (Mason from Masorah) who kept charge of the secret to deciphering the template (template of solomon) that had been found at Temple Mount in Jerusalem; a template that at the time of the Crusades might have been earnestly believed by the Crusaders to be the original source text for the Bible which had been encrypted by the original writers via a one-way encryption as a security measure to prevent tampering/addition of new text to the source (as future leaders would only inherit the decryption key and lack the encryption) and also to provide future leaders a definitive means of verifying the fidelity of future transcriptions of the text with the original source. Or maybe its not a one-way encryption, I’m just supposing they were really good at counting.
So maybe the Crusaders thought that being intended as a secret, it was important to keep their findings a secret to protect that secret (being idiots as they were). Subsequently, the order in charge of keeping the template were to be Templars while the order in charge of decryption and verificity, the urim, thurim and Masorah were to be the new Masons. Problem was that one day the Templars got caught with their pants down and their top officers got burnt at the stake all of a sudden before they could make the arrangements for their secret to be passed on ; with the surviving junior templar members having no idea what the whole order was about to begin with (except that it was secret and important) ; and so during the liquidation of Templar assets VMS was one of the more recently made Templar’s contingencies and which managed to escape detection with it being labelled under medicine instead of heresy. With research that looked original, and knowing the Templars had been to all sorts of places, the investigators might have reasoned that the encrypted text was just italian or something but definitely held valuable information they could use. Otherwise chances are they’d have burnt it just to be on the safe side along with all the other gobblydook they found; hence nothing else that might have looked like the text in VMS survived including the original encrypted templates. And also by virtue of its role, the Templars necessarily couldn’t produce more than one VMS or they run the risk of having them compared and found to be identical. Moreover it’s unlikely the Templars knew the method of encryption themselves anyway.
Probably whoever transcribed the VMS had no idea what he was actually copying out, only that it was essential to get it very precisely correct (being the word of God and all). But the instructions given to him might have mentioned that the illustrations don’t matter nearly as much; they were only required to be made to look original (which the diligent scribe drew without understanding why, and so quite unwisely made EVERY picture and plant look original; had the scribe been the one to come up Ruth the ploy, there should have been a lot more subtlety and effort at making it look more believable. It is possible that the scribe may have been Jewish, in keeping with the biblical tradition; whoever drew the pictures was just coming up with stuff influenced by his own creativity and subconscious however it seems clear that he wasn’t used to drawing and certainly didn’t improve very much in all the time it took to put together the VMS; that along with the fact that pictures connect between pages give the impression that all the drawings were done in a single sitting with a slight sense of recklessness as if it represented someone with the understanding that he was allowed leeway to be creative.. something he wasn’t really good at. Some attempt is made to tie successive doodles together in some form of progressive order such as with green water turning blue. The scribe probably referenced, unimaginatively, existing illustrations of plants to come up with original ones be believed might have been believable to botanists for the fact. He added zodiac signs and familiar looking things as might appear in a modern academic work, probably because that was part of his instructions too. Ultimately while the pictures may have been poorly conceived, he may have seen his real job as copying out the text accurately; the poor planning of the page layout also suggests that the text and illustration were concieved separately and had a different focus with the transcriber not aware of the intention behind writing gobblydook around illustrations and accepting the resultant chaos as not really his business to care, he’s confused about the whole thing to begin with.) (had the scribe/artist (maybe even separate people) intended this what they were doing as a hoax, the VMS would probably have been much more deliberately assembled. I can only imagine that the finished product, VMS, had returned to the client not entirely how he had hoped. But it happens all the time doesn’t it, so he might just have lived with it.)
After the liquidation of Templar assets, the VMS probably travelled discreetely between various experts who weren’t told its origin and who subsequently took their time trying to figure out what they were looking at wasn’t actually relevant to their field since nobody even knew cryptology was even a thing and were probably trying to translate a foreign language. Eventually it became forgotten that it was ever under suspicion of heresy and in moving from one dead man’s bookshelf to another eventually made its way to Rudolf ii.
So yeah. Maybe the original language is biblical hebrew. Assuming the original text wasn’t a hoax that fooled the Crusaders of my story to begin with. Maybe Joseph of Arimathea wrote the original text. He’s probably good at counting, arithmetic etc. And buried it at Temple Mount expecting somebody to find it one day and link it to the Old Testament somehow. Maybe the Holy Grail was simply the original template for the Bible. Maybe it was an arithmetic system to read encrypted gobblydook. ah, Holy Grail was probably just a metaphor for the Bible. I mean to drink of it grants you immortality. So it’s probably just a cryptic way of saying if you read the Bible, get saved, you get to go to heaven? Or that sipping it’s wisdom makes you a good person somehow and you are remembeed for your good deeds for all time presumably. The grail being filled with drops of Jesus’s blood; well some bibles have their jesus text in red right. I basically see the blood of Christ like these were a compilation of his lifeworks. Like the phrase blood, sweat and tears. Basically his labours as a human rights campaigner, Biblical reformer and resistance leader that toppled an oppressive authoritarian regime under the Romans. Mm. Though I think Joseph probably just meant that he captured Christ’s dying words on his notepad and not literal blood in a literal cup. Basically that he was there at the very end, so has like a first hand account of Christ which became the original new Testament maybe. Like he has Christ’s last will and Testament and maybe came up with or understood the original enciphering methods somehow and so could write a new template. Anyway, it’s not likely that the VMS is the Holy Grail, but could be a copy of by a scribe who didn’t really know what he was transcribing. The stars on the left margin at the end of the book, some red. Maybe those indicate the drops of blood caught by Joseph? I. e. the last pearls of wisdom from the saviour during his final moments?? Well. Maybe a document of similar encryption to the VMS was instrumental in reinterpreting the Bible for the KJV authorised in 1604, of which somebody in England knew how to solve or at least had access to a decrypted text? if so then theres probably some trace of it that exists in some form or other in England – Glastonbury abbey or Templar location not yet thoroughly scoured. All this assuming the VMS has anything to do with anything religious at all. The only indicator it has any religious significance at all is the fact that it consciously avoids looking like anything religious. Pages of the book are missing and the cover has been changed. Maybe the last few pages of text were hastily added having been copied to pure text since the original pages they were on might have had religious symbols. I think there’s a good case for there being apparent miscommunication between the client and the scribe. Either this or it is simply that the scribe underestimated how many pages of dumb looking doodles he’d need to fit in all the text and after reaching the end of pages with pre-prepared illustrations (perhaps prepared by a separate person) just carried on like a fax machine regardless until he reached the end of his script. Maybe he was in a hurry/panicking. Maybe he was hiding out, fleeing persecution, and was afraid of getting caught any minute. Maybe the VMS author was a spy! Maybe the book was meant to be smuggled across borders by where if frisked it would look like n ordinary research journal written in a foreign language, of which the person carrying would pretend to be a foreigner. Maybe along the way to his destination he was murdered and had his belongings stolen and sold to a merchant. But what order or organisation would have used such advanced methods of encryption? If it was purposefully encrypted it must have been meant for somebody in he universe to read its content.. who? Why would anybody with the skill of concocting a devious hoax on this level only produce one book?? A single expression of his talent and ability and make nothing else like it?? And further: not be vain enough to take credit for such an elaborate hoax??
(btw urim and thurim are the hebrew words in Yale’s crest. everyone looking at the manuscript in recent times would have seen the Yale insert at the start of the book. Maybe that’s part of the reason why at least some of us subconsciously think like there’s an obvious solution. just a mental association with something we read in the Bible in the past that we aren’t consciously thinking of.)
Anyways, thabks for reading.
Gab: if I said it sounded likely, it would be a lie. But thanks for posting anyway.
If we have ever been to the theories, I have also one, which has miraculously.
This is the star map, where the “Taurus” is located.
Under the “Taurus”, a string is added. From decent playing, I’ve come across something interesting.
Translated to Google, I’ve come across the words, (Place of the Gods).
I did not think of anything else.
Afterwards I made a second comparison with the Pons translator.
The result, (place of the wise).
It is interesting when I take the 7 stars of Taurus. Since I get with Google search the …..Seven_Sages_of_Greece
Looking for something I come to the ….
List_of_Greek_mythological_figures
On this attempt, I can imagine the names of the stars on the cards, dealing with figures of the Grichian mytology.
But just, it’s just a theory.
@Nick
Unfortunately it did not accept the direct link to Wiki.
Peter: links get rejected because of spammers flooding blogs. If you want to include a link, replace the : and the final . with spaces, and I’ll reassemble the link when I moderate your comment. Easy! 🙂
@Nick
Thanks Nick for the hint, I’ll remember it.
If the people really want to know more can yes synonymous with Google search.
Question: How is the translation of German-English with Google at all for English speakers? Is this acceptable?
If I sometimes read the English text, it is not always like I think.
Peter: Google Translate from German to English is normally OK enough, if your thoughts are clear in the first place. 🙂
@Nick
Have not found any article about the zodiac signs, so I blotch it times here.
Theory:
I think the zodiac dragon (November) was drawn on purpose, and not because he did not know what a scorpion looks like.
Introduction: The scorpion was very common in Northern Italy, and that to the southern alps. Why should not someone in Italy know what a scorpion looks like, whoever has him in the apartment. Unfortunately not in english wiki.
Euscorpius_italicus
https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euscorpius_italicus
For me it is another hint, especially to the question, whence comes the VM.
@Nick
Hi I’m Tom O’Neil
I want to apologize for my manic behavior regarding the voynich manuscript. I’m investigating the underlying code of the VMS and still believe its Latin, but it uses some sort of algorithm which allows the letters to float. What I’m trying convey is that a vowel can shift and be a consonant in a different length word. What type of cipher would allow for longer words to change values of the same glyph for a latin letter?
Tom: not really interested, sorry. 🙁
Voynichers: Petr Chelcicky, circa. late 15th mid 16th cent. horticulturalist, pacifist, preacher and writer from the Chelcice region in Sth. Bohemia; An anti Papist Hussite Jesus freak who was characterised by his humanist, non aggression and communal co existence teachings, originally proposed by his mentor? Jan Huss. I found him thanks to our Misca, apparently on an SM related inquiry way out west in Riverland Victoria and to my minds eye he would seem to satisfy many of the Voynich author credentials. His formal education was said to have been a little on the lean side although he was a quick learner and got a reasonable handle on the classical languages of his time including rudimentary Latin. He seems to have been fairly prolific in his religious writings, taken presumably from the old Hebrew Torah testiment and whilst Wikipedia does not stipulate the specific language, we might hope that there is some that bares similarity to the VM script. There is a sample that appears Greek to me, as it well to an unqualified person; but anyhow take a squiz at the chap and either give him a run or else send him on his way
Voynichers: I got his birth details wrong. Think he was born between 1375 & 1390? and died about 1450 or thereabouts which would be consistent with the velum carb. tests. Sorry about the glitch.
There is a key to cipher the Voynich manuscript.
The key to the cipher manuscript placed in the manuscript. It is placed throughout the text. Part of the key hints is placed on the sheet 14. With her help was able to translate a few dozen words that are completely relevant to the theme sections.
The Voynich manuscript is not written with letters. It is written in signs. Characters replace the letters of the alphabet one of the ancient language. Moreover, in the text there are 2 levels of encryption. I figured out the key by which the first section could read the following words: hemp, wearing hemp; food, food (sheet 20 at the numbering on the Internet); to clean (gut), knowledge, perhaps the desire, to drink, sweet beverage (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to believe (sheet 107); to drink; six; flourishing; increasing; intense; peas; sweet drink, nectar, etc. Is just the short words, 2-3 sign. To translate words with more than 2-3 characters requires knowledge of this ancient language. The fact that some symbols represent two letters. In the end, the word consisting of three characters can fit up to six letters. Three letters are superfluous. In the end, you need six characters to define the semantic word of three letters. Of course, without knowledge of this language make it very difficult even with a dictionary.
If you are interested, I am ready to send more detailed information, including scans of pages showing the translated words.
And most important. In the manuscript there is information about “the Holy Grail”.
Nikolai.
About Voynich Theories – I’ve been looking for the first sprout of the old ‘Voynich- Templar’ theory. Without access to Santacoloma’s old mailing list, the history of Vms research is badly distorted, but the earliest example I find in your blog, Nick, dates to 2008-9 when there seems to have been a rash of ‘Templar-Voynich’ fictions. But does anyone know who first seriously proposed or researched it? It would be so much easier to read what led them to that idea than to have to do the slog again.
Most of the nymphs have blonde or at least fair coloured hair, and most have rosy cheeks. Don’t look like Italian/Indian/Mediterranean. They look like English or Scandinavian.
Peteb: For an admitted minnow, you’ve just gone and done what no dedicated unintuitive Voynich geeko has been able to achieve since the Manuscript was conceived, way back whenever; I kid you not. Whether by design or nay, you seem to have hit on the key to the not so complicated solution, which I just so happened to report on some time back, to very little acclaim I might add. Just go back over your last post (metaphoric), to that bleeding bucket lady and remember my previous advice, re nuances, that seem to have served you so well in the interim. PS: FUBL is living proof.
I’m backing Janick and Tucker regarding the Nahuatl Theory! Coincidentally f68r1 which I discovered with the voynich vord, “otol” label points to the Crux constellation in the Southern Hemisphere. There are four or five glyph’s like the bird glyph which is Nahuatl.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/ask7kj/map_laid_out_for_folio_68r1_constellations/
Tom: Conceded that crux would have been known to some of those Nahuatl speaking peoples back in the day, most likely further down south around Puabla. As for Europe, Polemy claimed it was easy to track Crux across its southern course from Rome in his day, as big and shiny as the scales on a pangolin no less. But alas no longer, and it would not have been seen in the night skies by folks up around Venice or even Milano by the fifteenth century. So it would appear that you could be on a winner with Janick & Trucker and when you’re on a good thing stick with it as the saying goes!…
Weird, that none took under consideration Enki or one of other annunaki`s.
They certainly had a life on their planet. If it is not coming from their planet It might be then taiamat/earth, it could be written hundreds of thousends years ago before many cataclysms happened on earth and none of these plants left.
treo: Guess you meant ‘anunnaki’ and ‘tiamat’ which is just as weird, for you ancient Samarians don’t seem to spell any better than we earthly mortals. At least Enki won’t be offended.
@Bneil
The Voynich nymphs in my opinion could be French aswell.
@JKP
I do not know how to explain it in English, so in German.
Ich habe gelesen was Du auf Ninja geschrieben hast. Damit Du keinen falschen Weg einschlägst.
„öch“ bedeutet „euch„ , ist alemanisch und kommt oft in der Region Bern vor. Wörter wie „“oich, öich, öch“ ist „euch“ In Zürich schreibt man „eu“, gesprochen wird es „oi“
„ze“ ( isch ze das ?) Ist sie das ? Hier steht „ze“ für (she). So ist „oisä, eusa, üsää „ ( unser ).
So ist „i o, ig o,“ ( ich auch ), Zürich ( iich au ).
Die Schweiz hat 120 Dialekte in 4 Sprachen. Der alemanische Sprachraum, möglicherweise an die 200 Dialekte, mit Bayern und Oesterreich.
Peter, yes, I’ve been looking at it some more (and reading through the rest of it, which is unfortunately short) and have changed my mind about some of the words.
I’m very aware that there are many dialects. The border changed many times in the area, and thus also the official languages. I struggle when trying to read some of the manuscripts, like those from the Swiss-Italian border (especially the ones in Romansch).
Before I finished school, I had a Swiss house-mate for a few months, and I was surprised at how different his Swiss-German was from regular German in both vocabulary and pronunciation. I never asked him what part of Switzerland he was from.
@JKP
I looked at the word “portas” again. I also went through all the other options.
“portas” noun feminine A-declination accusative plural of porta “the gates”
“portad” noun feminine A-Declension ablative singular of porta “through the gate”
“portas” verb A-conjugation 2nd person singular presentable indicative active “you carry”
“you bring”
“you carry on”
“you carry away”
All other attempts do not make sense. What it really means will probably only explain the rest of the estate.
Any thoughts on Gladyseva?
https://www.academia.edu/38608097/The_Voynich_manuscript_is_decoded_by_Alisa_Gladyseva
Paul Ferguson: any idea why Gladyseva has (apparently) only uploaded the abstract of her 700-page text to academia.edu?
The figures are not “nymphs”. They are women. EVA aiin represents Latin fem. noun ‘anus’, means a ‘woman’, esp. an older woman or matron. The Latin masc. noun ‘anus’ = ‘ring’ is irrelevant. Also, the ‘stars’ on many pages are plants represented by stylised flowers. The images on f68 r1,2,3 are to do with the ancient belief going back at least to Pliny the Elder that the moon influences plant growth.
These are not wild guesses. I continue to write computer programs to extract statistically meaningful data from the VM.
I have a blog in progress on the ancient idea of what might be called ‘luniculture’. My most recent blog, on contextual dependency of VM symbols is here –
https://www.science20.com/the_chatter_box
I am deciphering the manuscript of Voynich and got positive results.
There is a key to cipher the Voynich manuscript.
The key to the cipher manuscript placed in the manuscript. It is placed throughout the text. Part of the key hints is placed on the sheet 14. With her help was able to translate a few dozen words that are completely relevant to the theme sections.
The Voynich manuscript is not written with letters. It is written in signs. Characters replace the letters of the alphabet one of the ancient language. Moreover, in the text there are 2 levels of encryption. I figured out the key by which the first section could read the following words: hemp, wearing hemp; food, food (sheet 20 at the numbering on the Internet); to clean (gut), knowledge, perhaps the desire, to drink, sweet beverage (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to believe (sheet 107); to drink; six; flourishing; increasing; intense; peas; sweet drink, nectar, etc. Is just the short words, 2-3 sign. To translate words with more than 2-3 characters requires knowledge of this ancient language. The fact that some symbols represent two letters. In the end, the word consisting of three characters can fit up to six letters. Three letters are superfluous. In the end, you need six characters to define the semantic word of three letters. Of course, without knowledge of this language make it very difficult even with a dictionary.
And most important. In the manuscript there is information about “the Holy Grail”.
If you are interested in this topic, I am ready to provide detailed information.
Nikolai.
Nick spake: “Paul Ferguson: any idea why Gladyseva has (apparently) only uploaded the abstract of her 700-page text to academia.edu?”
Ah, yes. I have been wondering as well.
When I first saw the abstracts I had a gut feeling that maybe she doesn’t have as much as she is claiming and the very flimsy abstracts were uploaded to buy time and generate publicity.
I could be wrong, but we’ll see… maybe… if she ever releases anything.
It’s pretty ridiculous for her to accuse Cheshire of plagiarism when none of her research has been released yet, so I think that may have been done for publicity as well (unless she wears a tin hat and sees conspiracies everywhere, but I didn’t see any tin foil in the pictures).
In defence of Gladyseva,
It’s not at all uncommon for a scholar to upload nothing to academia.edu
but a bare notice, or a little more – as abstract- or as little as a ‘Table of Contents.’
Absolutely for the individual scholar’s discretion what they wish to offer a wider and now quite general public.
I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve received a full paper only after it was safely in print perhaps two years later, or had it only by asking if the scholar would be so kind as to upload it, and a few times it seemed best to be formally introduced by someone from the same field and make the request by letter.
With all the usual promises made.
Some online requests go unanswered, true, it’s nothing to do with paranoia or being mean to the general public.
Some haven’t time; others think the paper unsuited to that outlet.
Many scholars also have reservations about the system which academia.edu introduced a few years ago and without so much as asking the opinion of contributors. I won’t elaborate on that.
Since I’ve never met Gladyseva I can’t say why she decided as she did, but can’t see much benefit to the study, to my work, or her good name in speculations of that sort.
Diane, I’m not referring to the minimal abstract as paranoia, I’m referring to her exchanges with Gerard Cheshire.
She is accusing him of plagiarizing her solution but since there’s no indication that they know each other or have met (based on what they’ve been saying to one another on the Web), then he couldn’t have plagiarized it because he hasn’t seen it. If it were on the Web elsewhere, it’s likely someone on the forum would have found it.
JKP
Plagiarism is endemic in Voynich studies: greed and unknowingness the cause in roughly 50-50 proportion at a guess.
So there’s nothing about a person’s saying their work was plagiarised to justify categorising them as mentally ill. Bit harsh. Nor, as you rightly say have we grounds to form any opinion on the matter, since the full range of necessary evidence isn’t available.
Were I engaged with the written part of the text, or impressed with Cheshire’s work I might wish more particulars were available but as it is I can only sympathise in theory with Gladyseva. Over my lifetime (almost at the biblical limit) I’ve had two books so plagiarised as a result of sharing the researh-results with persons only met ‘virtually’ that in total I’ve had stolen altogther the equivalent of four years’ time spent writing up and another dozen or so in doing the actual research. It’s not the royalties, but the rudeness of the plagiarist who seems to think one’s labours should by rights contribute to his or her welfare. We speak of intellectual ‘feasts’ but the plagiarist walks in, does not even nod in the direction of the host, stuffs his face with everything in sight, and then walks off sneering at the company and pretending he bought the goodies all on his own.
So if that’s the case … my sympathies to the plagiarised no matter what the work may have been worth in objective terms.
I just published a book on Amazon KDP with the title, “Voynich Morse Code Stenography Cipher”, which focuses on a unique cipher I created via Morse Code Stenography. It should be available in a couple days. Here is the preface and a couple images. The book is roughly 50 pages long and describes my methodology, why the fraud case, history, provenance and Andromeda. The language of the Voynich is Italian.
For those who wish to know what the most common word in the voynich is
daiin from eva:
The italian word is: sta
meaning; be, stay, stand
… – .-
Preface
This subject regarding the Voynich Manuscript (VMS) has plagued my mind since 2008 when I first discovered it online. I have tried so many options with figuring out what language and cipher is at the heart of its inner workings. Likewise, I admit I have published several books about its content and honestly I stated that I believed I had solved the VMS. Deep down, I began to feel more had to be done by me because the cipher I produced could not be replicated by others. Also at the time I really believed that the VMS’s text was created in the 15th Century. However, I have come full circle and this cipher which I created has found evidence to the contrary of the texts time of creation; furthermore I have found its provenance with it. The angst I have felt over the years of feelings of failure have been sidelined by this unique way of decoding the text.
Forward, on how I came up with the idea to use Morse code as a stenography cipher; I began thinking out of the box by scanning pictures of the actual text and then turning them into .wav files, so that a Morse code decoder program could pick out the text. This idea was done out of the thought that the VMS was produced by alien beings and I know this is funny! After focusing and totally realizing I was wrong about that method, it did shed light on my invention of the cipher to decode the VMS.
As it turned out my thoughts then zeroed in to what if Wilfrid Voynich has hoaxed us all by actually using stenography and the encoding was Morse code. What is odd about the pictures in the VMS is there are a few anomalies regarding time and origin of some of the images for Europe in the 15th century. Take for instance f68v3 as it appears to be the Andromeda galaxy and no telescopes were around to observe this. Then there is the sunflower on page f33v which was in the America’s at the time. Furthermore, on page f80v a Pangolin is evident which is from Asia. In addition, f33v a root resembles the microscopic structure of a marine organism. Then there’s the jigsaw puzzle root on f27v and jigsaw puzzles came out in 1760 by John Spilsbury a London engraver. The image of 69r resembles Carter’s diatom. Lastly the art work is sloppy!
With all the research that has been put into figuring out if the VMS is actually a language and not gibberish; the research algorithms have suggested it is a language but what language? My cipher has pinned down Italian as its language. Let’s take a look at what I have to offer and here as an explanation why I think this way
Thomas…..unfortunately you are not right. You work hard like an ant, but of course still wrong. I’m sorry. No , I can commend you. You need to work more. So far your research is very bad.
Good luck. Perhaps next time.
( no morse !!! no italy !!! no andromeda !!! no ufo !!! )
Tom, what language is it going to be next month? What do we have so far… Welsh numerology? Latin? Middle English? Italian Morse code… and next?
You even have the [insert choice of word here] to sell books with contradictory theories at the same time.
Well JKP,
This book regarding Morse code as Stenography Cipher makes more sense than any other way to decode the VMS. I just decoded the pregnant figure extended on a VMS glyph from f42v. Just because my previous attempts were made they don’t discount the proof here in the picture. I’m sorry I know you wanted to be one with the crack. But I beat you to it!
Joseph thanks for the complement, as the ant is one of the strongest animals with fortitude. Perhaps this image will change your mind about my research. 🙂
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/cz1t8j/folio_42v_fetale_e_a/
I’m not talking about your previous “attempts”, Tom. We all adjust our thinking as new information comes in. I’m talking about the fact that you change your story and continue to sell other theories you admit to be wrong without any sense of responsibility for taking your buyers’ money.
What you are doing doesn’t look like research to me. It looks like a single-minded commitment to commercial gain.
Thomas …..You’re not right again. I’ll show you what it means. 🙂
First word – Poco.
That means in the old Czech language – the eye.
Manuscript is a Jewish substitution. So the character P. It is also the letter F.
So the word is read – Foco. ( english – eye ).
At the same time is read – 8 oco . ( english – 8 eye ).
Jewish substitution F,P = 8.
And who was born as 8 child ??? Well, Eliška ( Elizabeth of Rosenberg ).
And you can see enough eyes there !!!
So you’re not right again. Work more.
Thomas….. Foco ( Voko ), ( Eye ), Voko of Rosenberg.
A very important ancestor of the Rosenbergs.
A very important noble family.
The first was the king.
And the other was Rosenberg.
Hello Josef
Poco is Spanish or Italian and means little or small.
A swallow does not make a summer. 🙂
After really focusing in on the meaning for otol and looking at the hidden word in the circle of the pipe. I was astonished to see that the author was actually giving something away to us as decoders. If one looks at it for a while knowing the scribe was working in a tiny space, he wa relating AriA to us which translates to “air”.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d09wxc/folio_77r_otol_represents_aria_translates_to_air/
Sorbus AriA plant f102v2 otol found AriA plant in f30v
The facts are in otol is AriA!
Looks like the facts are slamming us right in logical hemisphere of our minds! AriA is associated to Mars from Ares the God of war from Greek Mythology, which the Romans inherited as Mars the God of War. Yet AriA in Italian translates to air in English as it follows the theme of an empty otol pipe in f77r. So I just looked up AriA as keywords ( vegetation, plant). The plant leaf in f102v2 which looks like its cut in half has the serrated edges.
https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Ares.html
https://pladias.cz/en/taxon/pictures/Sorbus%20aria%20agg.
http://www.voynichese.com/#/exa:shed-:crimson/exa:ched-:royal-blue/f30v/all:otol/200
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f30v/0.772/0.588/0.80
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f102v2/0.567/0.149/3.70
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d0ky3c/sorbus_aria_plant_f102v2_otol_found_aria_plant_in/
Michal Wojnicz Business Card From Rich SantoColoma Proto57 site
I feel this is important, which contains further evidence to methods I use regarding the encoding of the Voynich Manuscript. I’m extremely happy to have found this file of Michal Wojnicz’s Cat Mouse business Card. Here is the link
https://proto57.wordpress.com/
As you can see I have decoded his full name using Morse Code. If this does not shock you I don’t know what will. This is evidence of Michal Wojnicz’s fraud pointer to the VMS. Here are the Images.
— .. -.-. …. .- .-.. ……. .– — .— -. .. -.-. –..
Michal Wojnicz
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d0oiu0/michal_wojnicz_business_card_from_rich/
‘otol’ transcribed as abbreviated Latin becomes o + le + o + qu. The whole is oleoque, meaning: for oil. The whole VM is about the use of herbal preparations, especially oils, for use in baths. Generally ‘oto-‘ transcribes a ‘oleo-‘ and ‘oko’ as ‘olio’, as in ‘folio’. Also, ‘ota’ = ‘olea’ and ‘oka’ = ‘olia’. However, occasionally ‘k’ is used where ‘t’ is to be expected and vice versa. As is so often the case before the uniformity which arose from printing: spelling variations abound.
In passing: I am heavily engaged in litigation but for which I would be transcribing and translating much more of the VM.
Peter M…..hi.
I hope you can count well. How many eyes are drawn there ??
Let me show you important thing . 🙂
The reverse word : Poco.
Oco P. ( P,F, = 8 ) = Oco 8. ( eye 8 ). ( auge 8 ).
How many eyes are there ?? ( folio 42 v ..diskuz Thomas O’Nill ).
I hope you understand.
Hi Josef
Yes, surely I can count, you too? I see 9 eyes, but one seems to be closed.
It can not be the plant either, since it is probably the “Siebenstern”. In English “seven star”.
If I now take the 9 and the 7, I pull the cutting value so I’m actually on 8.
Maybe you are right with your 8 🙂
‘cutting value’ from Schnittwert = average.
Well here is the translation from f2v using my methods.
Translation of f2v 1st paragraph
This is the first paragraph! Here is the font list from Rene’s Z’s site.
https://www.wordreference.com/
http://www.voynich.nu/transcr.html#Eva
hoom 1co g1oy oKam o 8an 1oy 8az 3k9 h1o
-. -.– — .–. …. .- ……. .- -.-. –.- ..- . ……. -.-. — .. ……. . ……. -.. — – — ……. — .. . – . .-. ……. -.. — — .- – . ……. — .- -.. .-. . ……. .- – .-. .. — ……. .–. . .-. ……. – .-. . — .- ..
Nympha Acque coi e doto mieter domate madre atrio strema tremai
Water Nymph with endowment and reap heart control mother for fatigue shiver,
h19 3o 3oe 4ok1o eocccs 4ok9 1oy 8am ok19 1oy
– . .-. .-. . — ……. .–. . .-. ……. -.. .. .-. .- — — ……. – . … .- ……. ..- — — .-. . ……. — .- -.. .-. . ……. — .-. – — ……. – . … – .- .. ……. — .- -.. .-. .
terreo per strema diramo tesa umore Madre orto testai, Madre
ashen fatigue, issue tense mood, Mother, vegetable-garden try, Mother
e39 1oe 1o89 1o8an 1K9 8am 3o 1oeo 1coy 1o8
… — .-. –. . ……. ..-. .-. .- ……. — — .-. … .. ……. .-. . … – .- — — — ……. .. -. -.-. . .-. – — ……. — .-. – — ……. . .-. .-. .- .. ……. . … – .. — .- ……. .-. — … .- – —
Sorge fra morsi. Restammo incerto orto per errai estima. Rosato
Rise to bite. Remain uncertain, garden by wrong estimate. Pink
Folio 2v from the Voynich Manuscript
https://www.newsweek.com/water-lily-seeds-snack-1294139
http://datalunch.com/voynich/examples/evafont.html
“In addition to being tasty, water lily seeds are rich in nutrients. They’re also free of the kinds of sugars and saturated fats found in most chips and cookies, making them a great snack for kids or dieters who want a guilt-free pick-me-up.
Bohana’s Himalayan Pink Salt seeds contain just 110 calories a bag, with 20g of carbohydrates and 3g of fat, making them pretty diet-friendly. Popped water lily seeds are high in fiber, which helps your digestive system keep moving and your cholesterol levels lower. The seeds also contain potassium, which aids in regulating blood pressure and heart rhythm. They’re also a good option for people with restrictive diets—AshaPops’s seeds are free of corn, gluten, grain, nuts, dairy and GMOs, as well as being vegan and paleo.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d2qz27/translation_of_f2v_1st_paragraph/
Thomas O’Neil: seeds. Tasty.
You know that your water lily seeds look like chickpeas?
Tom, why did you link to EVA, when you are not using the EVA transliteration system? Your text significantly diverges from it.
Hi JKP,
I’m working very hard right now to translate f1r from vms vords to Morse to Italian no easy feet, yet it is producing a narrative.
I have made a few mistakes for the f2v and the eva is from Renz’s site as it just represents the glyphs. I was using word and the formatting changed sorry about that. My cipher should expect erroneous errors in the beginning stages. I sort of rushed this out. But I will refine it.
You can find an update of my cipher at Voynichman:
http://voynichman.freeforums.net/thread/39/voynich-morse-code-stenography-cipher
The process goes like this:
1) The glyphs from a vord are which are summed up to the associated Morse code sigals in my cipher I produced as dots and dashes. For instance eva (oe = 3 dots and 2 dashes so the Italian word is equal to, “ce -.-. .” which translates to “there, here or us” in English
2) Take the sum of the Morse code and look for meanings from Italian words. This is tricky, but you will only find a small amount of Italian words per vord unless their size is longer, but its better than a substitution cipher which I no longer believe it to be. Here is the code in python for translating Morse to any language. Yes the code has a built in anagram solver. Yes you need to cherry pick Italian words to the narrative albeit if a 1000 programmers and would decoders used this process some of the output would be the same, but I don’t know the stats. As it stands its all about the input from the totals of dots and dashes. I don’t know how many runs humans could do to get similar sentences. This is better suited for hard coded computers to run grammerly Italian computations from Morse code arrangements using my python code.
3) I envision the VMS to have for vords like “9” to be set like this( .- or – .) in the VMS for analysis among all the vords representation as code. That is equal to (a, or te). Then let the computer process the document and see if it outputs a high quality transcription to the Italian language as it runs through all the possible narratives.
print(“Author Thomas O’Neil, copyright ver 0.1,VMS Italian Steganongraphy Morse Code to Anagrams, August 8, 2019″)
# Python program to implement Morse Code Translator
”’
VARIABLE KEY
‘cipher’ -> ‘stores the morse translated form of the english string’
‘decipher’ -> ‘stores the english translated form of the morse string’
‘citext’ -> ‘stores morse code of a single character’
‘i’ -> ‘keeps count of the spaces between morse characters’
‘message’ -> ‘stores the string to be encoded or decoded’
”’
# Dictionary representing the morse code chart
MORSE_CODE_DICT = { ‘A’:’.-‘, ‘B’:’-…’,
‘C’:’-.-.’, ‘D’:’-..’, ‘E’:’.’,
‘F’:’..-.’, ‘G’:’–.’, ‘H’:’….’,
‘I’:’..’, ‘J’:’.—‘, ‘K’:’-.-‘,
‘L’:’.-..’, ‘M’:’–‘, ‘N’:’-.’,
‘O’:’—‘, ‘P’:’.–.’, ‘Q’:’–.-‘,
‘R’:’.-.’, ‘S’:’…’, ‘T’:’-‘,
‘U’:’..-‘, ‘V’:’…-‘, ‘W’:’.–‘,
‘X’:’-..-‘, ‘Y’:’-.–‘, ‘Z’:’–..’,
‘1’:’.—-‘, ‘2’:’..—‘, ‘3’:’…–‘,
‘4’:’….-‘, ‘5’:’…..’, ‘6’:’-….’,
‘7’:’–…’, ‘8’:’—..’, ‘9’:’—-.’,
‘0’:’—–‘, ‘, ‘:’–..–‘, ‘.’:’.-.-.-‘,
‘?’:’..–..’, ‘/’:’-..-.’, ‘-‘:’-….-‘,
‘(‘:’-.–.’, ‘)’:’-.–.-‘,}
# Function to encrypt the string
# according to the morse code chart
def encrypt(message):
cipher = ”
for letter in message:
if letter != ‘ ‘:
# Looks up the dictionary and adds the
# correspponding morse code
# along with a space to separate
# morse codes for different characters
cipher += MORSE_CODE_DICT[letter] + ‘ ‘
else:
# 1 space indicates different characters
# and 2 indicates different words
cipher += ‘ ‘
return cipher
# Function to decrypt the string
# from morse to english
def decrypt(message):
# extra space added at the end to access the
# last morse code
message += ‘ ‘
decipher = ”
citext = ”
for letter in message:
# checks for space
if (letter != ‘ ‘):
# counter to keep track of space
i = 0
# storing morse code of a single character
citext += letter
# in case of space
else:
# if i = 1 that indicates a new character
i += 1
# if i = 2 that indicates a new word
if i == 2 :
# adding space to separate words
decipher += ‘ ‘
else:
# accessing the keys using their values (reverse of encryption)
decipher += list(MORSE_CODE_DICT.keys())[list(MORSE_CODE_DICT
.values()).index(citext)]
citext = ”
return decipher
def anagrams(word):
“”” Generate all of the anagrams of a word. “””
if len(word) < 2:
yield word
else:
for z, letter in enumerate(word):
if not letter in word[:z]: #avoid duplicating earlier words
for j in anagrams(word[:z]+word[z+1:]):
yield j+letter
# Hard-coded driver function to run the program
while True:
def main():
message = input ("Type in Morse Code to output anagrams!: ")
result = decrypt(message)
print (result)
return result # return result
for i in anagrams(main()):
print (i)
# Executes the main function
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
I just posted the new cipher 8:15 Pacific California time and updated f77r along with daiin to the correct Italian word as “orto” meaning garden. Expect some possible additions to it in the future. Maybe edits too so download it if you like or do a ctrl print screen.
Tom, it’s very easy to code Python or Perl or any other programming language to convert ASCII to Morse.
That’s really not what is important. What matters is the logic behind the method, the consistency of its application, the degree to which subjective interpretation is inserted, and the quality of the output (in terms of believability, rationality, or whatever standards one applies to the purported linguistic content).
JKP,
By the way the program I wrote converts Morse Code to anagrams of any language.
You should see the words that the code found in the Cosmology section of f68r3. The Morse Code is consistent for each glyph which formed these words, (Comets and Hally). The vord to the right of the stars which Professor Bax thought was Taurus and many thought was the Pleiades is, “Comets” and just below to the right beneath the string from the vord is “Hally”. The string I theorize represented Voynich’s portrayal for the path of Hall’s Comet.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d3lcu9/hally_found_in_f68r3_next_to_comets/
This is a Voynich Morse code Stegnography Cipher. Even a San Francisco Newspaper from 1910 spell it as Hally.
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SRPD19100517.2.7&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–1
So what’s the odds of this happening?
It is spelled Halley’s comet, and they named it after a guy who lived in the second half of the 17th century.
Are you suggesting the VMS was created in the 1700s or later?
@Thomas
So you think the VM is a fake by Wilfried. V and he immortalized the Haley 1910 on one page, and encrypted it all in a Morse code?
Have I understood that correctly ?
He did more than that have a look:
“The Wojnicz”, found in 68r1 Big Star
This seals the deal for the legitimacy of my cipher and that MS-408 was created by Michal Wojnicz. There is really no system to the madness other than he used Steganography for Morse Code dots and dashes. I just hit on the system he used. The text is in anagram form. All Michal did was count the total of dots and dashes and then quickly randomly used some glyphs associated with dots and dashes to record them on old calfskin.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d47gii/the_wojnicz_found_in_68r1_big_star/
By using anagrams and a dash of subjective interpretation, you can turn a great deal of nonsense text into words.
Only an anagram with a certain pattern or rule-set is going to convince a scholarly community.
@JKP,
A look into possible order of operations for my Voynich Morse Code Steganograhy Cipher.
1) About my system what is reflected in it to the observer is that the total number of dots and dashes must be represented from a vord-morse to an Italian word.
2) The dots and dashes total must be equal an Italian word.
a) So as in eva “a” the count of Morse code dots and dashes equals 1 dot and 1 dash. The Morse code represents ( .- = a or – , = te ). This is a law to my cipher. Yet as you can see there are two words here. A computer with Italian grammar mechanism used in Python would have to sort through all the options forming sentences to derive a narrative. That would be a complex piece of code, but not impossible.
b) As for additional rules I’m looking for them to see if there is any specific indicator for an order of logic to the dots and dashes I have decoded from each specific glyph which spells an Italian word. Remember this is still under a trial testing for order in the VMS Morse code.
c) I have been experimenting so bear with me this is an abstract method of logic. Let’s take a look at “otol” for instance. The word decoded was, “Aria” which translates to “air” in English. So Aria is (.- .-. .. .-) is a total of 3 dashes and 5 dots. Please refer to the actual otol vord in the VMS. Since I cannot represent VMS glyph at Cipher Mysteries I will refer to eva. Let’s check out “otol” as it relates to Morse code and how to process it if there is an order.
Try to find the lowest letter represented by the dots and dashes. Focus order on consonants first
O = . E
T = -.. D
O = . E
L = -.-. C
Then swap C with D because D would be in order as the last letter because of its weight as a 4.
New Order:
E = .
C = -.-.
E = .
D = -..
So now we have E, C, E , D. Next make all vowels from consonant letters going from right to left starting with D. D becomes A. The dot is carried to the left to form an “I” from old letter D leaving an A behind making an E into I. Moving left Since C has to remain R for there is no other Morse Code combo just move a dot to left changing E to A .-
A
R
I
A
Ok let’s try eva for “oe” which should produce ce
E = .
C =-.-.
C
E
Since there is nothing left to form an Italian word. The output is CE for eva “oe”.
You should recognize that the VMS text format is in anagrams, because no frequency attack nor common cipher for the suggested time could produce this structure or arrangement of VMS vords. Computer models have suggested that the VMS is a language.
My youtube explanation: Order of Operations
https://youtu.be/nFtQKCp5mgs
Walt Whitman folio 1r from MS-408
Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819. He was an American poet intrigued with pragmatism, transcendentalism, and realism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoPpChNurTg
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d4uq3x/walt_whitman_folio_1r_from_ms408/
Definitive proof that my cipher is an axiom with Voynich studies
Well the miracle is out, and I’m humbled by what I have accomplished; likewise, in good faith I have passionately conveyed how the Voynich Manuscript was constructed to you all. The Voynich Morse Code Steganography Cipher has actually uncovered “MorseTGM” in the outer ring of folio 57v! TGM by government standards is an abbreviation for Telegram. I have theorized that the female in f57 is holding the ring which represents a dot in Morse code. Have a great day, I’m stunned by this finding.
https://www.abbreviations.com/abbreviation/Telegram
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d5i5gg/definitive_proof_that_my_cipher_is_an_axiom_with/
http://voynichman.freeforums.net/thread/39/voynich-morse-code-steganography-cipher
Nein, das hätte ich nicht gedacht. Ich bin tatsächlich auch fassungslos. Aber leider auf die etwas andere Art und Weise.
Aber ich kann Ihnen sicherlich gratulieren, Sie haben es bei mir auf Platz 1 gebracht.
Glückwunsch !
Was für ein anderer Weg Peter M?
I also have a theory
After the Romans invaded Britain, they improved their rowing technique at Cambridge. As a result, the cruising speed of the Roman galleys increased many times over. This made it possible to trade with South America.
Thus it is proven that the Aztecs acquired finished pyramids in Egypt.
lol,
Peter M,
I have often wondered about the people involved with academia and their methods. Do some types convince themselves to believe a sold lie or is money influencing the lies. I think you cannot handle my conclusions regarding the VMS and well it’s a bit tormenting for the ones who swallowed whole Wojnicz’s bait.
Your pun on logic has no reflection on the results I obtained regarding the VMS structure is modeled on Morse Code.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d5i5gg/definitive_proof_that_my_cipher_is_an_axiom_with/
What findings?
You just write nonsense like you discovered that the VM language is Italian. If all the clues point to northern Italy, they certainly speak Italian.
They ignore the C-14 analysis, they claim W. Voynich wrote in Italian. Normally someone writes a code in his native language, Russian. It would still be possible to write in Polish or English. But certainly not in a language you don’t know.
Also her view of the comet is absolute nonsense, because the VM drawing shows exactly the star constellation from the beginning of spring.
But the biggest bullshit is your method with the morse code.
You translate a glyph into a barcode and then into a letter. This is nothing more than a one-to-one translation with detours. But it doesn’t work that way. A one-to-one code can be cracked in a few hours.
And that was just the short version!
You still have a lot to learn.
Wow;
You are obviously agitated by my findings. I obey what the cipher relates from the glyphs; likewise, its sad so many were fooled by Voynich like you and it’s logical, Peter, something which is far from your mind. The logic in my cipher I guess you refuse to comprehend. Who is her? Its not a one to one cipher. If you notice if you can even read it takes all the glyphs to form a word. It is the sum of the glyphs transferred to Morse code. [TROLLY BULLSHIT REMOVED HERE] Furthermore, take a hard look at the glyphs which I represent as dots and dashes they’re not always a “letter”. Have a good day!
Ros2 spiral of vords next to Castle decrypted:
I have attempted to decode this with so many other systems and now finally a quality translation of Ros2 Castle.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d6oont/ros2_spiral_of_vords_next_to_castle_decrypted/
I don’t know much Italian. I have to really concentrate to read it or translate it, but your decipherment looks like very bad Italian to me.
It seems very forced and artificial, not at all natural to the way people speak or write.
@JKP,
Only my cipher can uncover those words Michal Wojnicz used in the VMS, which does indicate an Italian dictionary. Believe me if you are a language expert. Don’t apply your expertise to the Voynich Manuscript for you will always and forever never understand it from a pure Italian syntax. Likewise, I don’t believe the manuscript was ever to be interpreted in a straight forward manner. It is my complete understanding that Michal was using an English angle to the VMS as to grammar with the Italian language. This also could have been a further method of obfuscation of the vords for the VMS by using a Italian dictionary as a translator.
Perhaps this video about my methodology will shed some light regarding my decryption s
Many of you seem confused or have left negative remarks and a mole hill of criticism regarding Voynichese to Morse code to Italian. Too me this is very sad for Voynich Studies, although I understand critiques regarding my methodology, questions of my sanity and little blurbs of nonsense is sheer idiocy to me.
I’m going to leave you a statement which will stand the test of time.
“No other system will render the Voynich to a meaning and if my system is set aside; a true understanding for all the text will be lost! My system is not a one to one substitution. Yale may not wish this document to be compared to the 20th century like academia out of embarrassment. Wilfrid used an Italian dictionary as his translator to form Italian words cross referenced from Morse code via his odd glyphs! If we are fortunate to meet on the other side in heaven, then the light from this translation shall show the truth to you. If that is even important in the other realm, for that is more about ego. Tom E. O’Neil”
https://youtu.be/MZIpxGtrOGA
@JKP,
Also the subject matter relates to a medieval battle which is obvious. Regardless of the grammar it conveys a clear message of a Castle and battle. I wish I could find a historical reference which relates to this passage.
Tom: I look forward to your next year’s decryption, you keep finding new ways to make linguistic sausages out of the Voynichese meat. 😉
Tom: I think you have to be commended, in a sense, as most Voynich researchers tend to form their own ideas and then squat on the opinion that they have arrived at; it could be argued that I, to some extent, find myself in that position. Anyway, whilst I am happy with my own ideas, for the time being, I think there is a lot to be said for not being afraid to develop new ideas and perspectives. So regardless of how near or far your current or previous theories are from the truth, I think in one sense we can learn from you in embracing new research angles which may contradict what we previously thought to be the case.
@Nick
I will say I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. I believe you like I sincerely wish to no the meaning of the text in Voynich’s Manuscript. This idea and axiom as in a Morse code cipher applied to Voynich’s Manuscript is my conclusion after many failures. The reason I found the key perhaps was my way about going after a voynich decryption all these years. Yes everything else was incorrect yet the Morse code to Voynichese is dead on correct.
Short answer “NO” I am done and I have found the key to the VMS!
@ Mark,
I have to say that this Morse code cipher speaks for itself. Wilfrid was after money plain and simple. I appreciate your remarks for missing what I have to offer to Voynich Studies. It would be a great loss to all and perhaps History, because then I believe MS-408 studies would head into the dark ages of academic suicide were more people will lose their minds to its snake pit design.
So I’m asking if there is anyone with funding to hire a few excellent python programmers which I could work with. I would like to setup some code. We all wish to see a complete translation of MS-408.
Steps
1) We will use my cipher to VMS vords to Italian words like and Italian dictionary translation. And my python code which takes Morse to anagrams and upgrade it so any dot dash input can be arranged into letters then sent to the anagram portion then to an Italian Dictionary!
2) The Italian narrative would not be formal grammar but yes indeed the meat would be Italian linguistic sausage, because as evident in Ros2 Castle spiral translation we can comprehend a “battle at a Castle where it was missing 665 merlons”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZIpxGtrOGA
So to rehash a python code:
Voynich —-> Morse —-> Italian
||
Y
Any Morse dot dash input —> Italian Anagram Engine —> output Italian words like a dictionary translation
Mark, Tom’s “new theories and perspectives” are merely slightly variations on the same subjective manipulations as applied to his theory of the month.
You need to look back through his previous ideas and work out his systems to see this, however, and that can be a bit of a slog.
I don’t deny that Tom is creative, but when you analyze the actual generation of his translation using his methods, it always comes down to the same problems… anagramming, subjective interpretation, misreading some of the glyphs, injection of information that isn’t there. Same old, same old…
@ JKP,
What in the world can you be sure it’s not anagramed! How do you come off with such a bold definitive assertion. Do you know something we don’t and yes what I’m doing is extremely taxing to the mind. I had to fix a couple errors due to miss reads of the glyphs, this is expected. Here is the final result of Ros 2 spiral decryption.
If one generates a dictionary reading from anagrams that maintains a subject matter then yes my method is sound.
Why don’t you try it and see if you can make sense of what Ros 2 is using my cipher to Italian and remember Wilfrid’s translation was from an Italian dictionary with grammatical imperfections.
Use the cipher from the link @ reddit ok and yes refer to my translation if you need to use some words. Try and make it different the world is watching.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d6oont/ros2_spiral_of_vords_next_to_castle_decrypted/
@JKP and Nick Pelling
MIT believes the Voynich Corpus to be in a Anagram format, list Italian a possible candidate!
We then present an approach to decoding anagrammed substitution ciphers, in which the letters within words have been arbitrarily transposed. It obtains the average decryption word accuracy of 93% on a set of 50 ciphertexts in 5 languages.
The properties and the dating of the manuscript imply Latin and Italian as potential candidates.
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/tacl_a_00084
I just want to say to all those people out there that think I’m drinking the koolaid regarding a nutty approach for the text to be in anagrams, they should contact MIT. If they are on to Italian they should check in with my cipher as it lean more to a Polyalphabetic over substitution.
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/tacl_a_00084
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d7hz91/mit_believes_the_voynich_corpus_to_be_in_a/
Thomas O’Neil on September 3, 2019 at 5:21 pm said:
“Perhaps this image will change your mind about my research
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/cz1t8j/folio_42v_fetale_e_a/ ”
Yes, if I had ever thought anything of your research my mind would definitely change to your research being complete nonsense.
The “pregnant woman” is clearly drawn in one line, with loops each containing a dot. In your “method” that would read: dash, dot, dash, dot, dash, dot, dash, dot, dash, dot, dash, dot, dash, dot, dash, dot, dash, dot, dash, dot,
But that would prove a problem making sense in Morse code. So your “solution” is to leave out the dashes wherever you fancy that to construct your target text.
Using your method I found that it actually reads “Thomas cheats”. I leave it to the readers to debunk the remainder of you “decodings”. I value my time.
“Try to do it differently, the world is watching.”
Now you have entered the PI .- sign. But that’s already taken for 9 .- and a .-
Since you still have the words “merlo” and “merlons” The VM words are not even close to similar.
You certainly do not need help. Your theory shoud all alone in the waste.
Tom, I didn’t say the VMS wasn’t anagrammed, that’s an entirely different discussion.
I said YOUR SOLUTIONS (which I have been following in detail from the beginning) always, at the base level, rely on the same set of subjective judgments, even when (on the surface), you come at them from a slightly different point of view (in fact, sometimes all you do is change the language).
Anagramming is one of the techniques you’ve relied upon in several of your “solutions” but you do not use any kind of regular anagram that can be replicated by another researcher, you anagram to suit your own subjective preferences and theory-of-the-month.
Wow Ger,
I’m really hoping someday that people like Renz, Nick Pelling and JKP come over to my side. If you go through all my word translations you will see that the glyphs always use the sum of dots and dashes and are consistent to the Morse Code cipher I produced. The manuscript leans towards a polyalphabetic substitution cipher and yes it certainly is anagrams.
So much jealousy from academia. To you followers who are secretly on my side. This is to be expected from Academia, because they refuse to admit when they are severely wrong about a time period related to a document that was created by a con.
@ Ger,
lol you are being silly, so many nutters, haters and jealous people who want my fame its crazy. Maybe showing the world what the Voynich text is was not worth it! To me I believe I’m saving people from themselves going crazy in the future over this document by shedding light upon it, so yes its worth it.
The pregnant woman hanging on a glyph is pregnant. I followed the path which translated to, “Fetus is in”.
Thomas: “MIT believes the Voynich Corpus to be in a Anagram format, list Italian a possible candidate!”
Pure nonsense. Your link leads to a report by Hauer and Kondrak proposing a method of finding the language assumed to be encoded by a simple substitution cipher. To that purpose they order the letters of each word in both(!) language and code in alphabetical order, i.e. a particular anagram. Comparing statistics on the resulting patterns they found Hebrew to be more likely than the other languages considered. No way the actual code was supposed to be anagrammed.
Their problem is the chosen transliteration of the VM. (35 characters of the Currier alphabet d’Imperio, 1978) What language would pop up using EVA or any possible exotic other way. Afterall no one knows what the units are.
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/tacl_a_00084
In additional to subjective translation, one of the biggest problems with all the claims of specific languages (Latin, Italian, etc.) is that the “translations” do not accord with how people write or talk.
For example, when we meet someone and offer them a drink, in English we say, Hello or Hi, or How do you do, can I offer you a drink? We do not say, “I you greeto, drink yes sit on?”
If you put those words into Google Translate, it will make a valid sentence out of it in other languages because the software is designed to make “best guesses”, but for Tom to claim his translation is Italian when it violates not only many rules of grammar and spelling (even by medieval standards), but also rules of custom in the ways people communicate means something is wrong.
Gerard Cheshire’s “proto-Romance” “translation” suffers from the same flaws.
@ Peter M,
Your comprehension is very poor when it comes to forming an anagram narrative. Simply put you don’t understand in the in the simplist terms how my system works. Of course the VMS vords don’t have to be the same to produce vords where two letters is of, that is 8 bits of Morse Code which form two different letters so the vords would be different.
Wake up and smell the coffee!
@ JKP,
Well you implied something like anagrams is absurd with this quote, “problems… anagrams.
@ JKP how do you come to terms with this vord on the outer edge or rim of the cipher disk for f57v. I started out with the premise the VMS was in Morse code and then I found this tasty morsel later MorseTGM. If you don’t understand TGM is an abbreviation for telegram by government standards. Need I say more?
https://www.abbreviations.com/abbreviation/Telegram
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d5i5gg/definitive_proof_that_my_cipher_is_an_axiom_with/
@Ger it mentions anagrams and Italian as a candidate.
“We then present an approach to decoding anagrammed substitution ciphers, in which the letters within words have been arbitrarily transposed. It obtains the average decryption word accuracy of 93% on a set of 50 ciphertexts in 5 languages.
The properties and the dating of the manuscript imply Latin and Italian as potential candidates.”
I’m ok with that!
@JKP,
I’m beginning to think you people in Academia are so book savvy and lost in a time period that you guys are sort of knuckle heads; who cannot believe himself or herself fooled by Voynich the con artist. Some day believe me @JKP you will have to come to terms with this VMS text translation.
God help me if Renz, Nick, Koen, the Admin at Voynich Ninja and you JKP are on Yale’s Library payroll!
I never use google translate, you should not assume that. I merely use an Italian Dictionary following a very sound method that Voynich albeit did not know Italian very well. I belief he used English as a base to twist Italian grammar to throw us off or he simply needed speed while laying down the text filler in Italian as background.
Wikipedia states the Voynich knew 18 languages albeit not that well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfrid_Voynich
My apologies if I’m becoming a little brash:
Voynich never wished his document to be revealed. Also the anagrams were utilized for speed. All Voynich needed to know was the sum of the Italian words used in Morse code as dots and dashes related to vords in the cipher. Once confirmed as a sum he merely referred to his cipher for speed which by extreme focus I figured out. The reason why you see many, “o’s” and “c’s”, “9’s”, which seem odd in the document were for linguistic design. He designed his system for speed. He never intended to read his Voynichese back to himself. Although after writing such a long document he may have became one with his invented script to actually read it with concentration using the cipher. I don’t believe he was sloppy with the content, I do assume some errors tho, yet few. Yes the grammar for Italian is not Stellar, but it is comprehensible.
Stellar longs to be back at Voynich Ninja if David and Koen will not let me back sigh. Put in good word for me peeps. I still do regret past behavior and if they cannot forgive well the loss is on their shoulders. Please have David or Koen contact me. Maybe they will have some heart. Thank you.
[email protected]
The document should only work in Italian with very few words in English for a translation.
Thomas, you did not understand the least of the Hauer and Kondrak report.
You have only read the abstract from which you cite without knowing what it stands for. Come on, read the whole pdf, ALL of it!
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/tacl_a_00084
On page 82, table 4 they chose quite arbitrarily five languages that are candidates because of where the VM possibly came from, English, Italian, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic. NOT because their (anagram) research showed they were likely. Your quote of “93% on a set of 50 ciphertexts in 5 languages” has nothing to do with the Voynich Manuscript.
On the contrary, their research (page 83) showed Hebrew being more likely than other languages. To which I added my objections. They do NOT even assume the VM being anagrammed, simply because for their specific method that makes no difference at all. They themselves (alphabetically) anagrammed all their texts to apply their method using the resulting PATTERNS only.
Tom: “The pregnant woman hanging on a glyph is pregnant. I followed the path which translated to, “Fetus is in”.”
You did not follow the path AT ALL:
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/cz1t8j/folio_42v_fetale_e_a/
You followed the loop clockwise whereas it clearly goes anti-clockwise. You needed two extra dots for your “F” so you added them arbitrarily from a loop that does not even have one dot in it. You claim to use only horizontal lines but did use a diagonal one. The loop ends in dash-dot, but you change that conveniently to dot-dash. And then claim the resulting gibberish to be Italian.
You do not even stick to your own invented rules. You’re a fraud.
Or rather a troll. Of whom I am not jealous. Goodbye.
Italian and Latin are potential candidates, so are numerous other languages, depending on how you parse the glyphs (are there ligatures? are there abbreviations? is it an abjad?).
Just because they are studying the possibility of anagramming using statistical attacks (which is a perfectly good idea) doesn’t mean YOUR method (which includes subjective anagramming along with other steps) is defensible. You are comparing two different things (statistical analysis versus a claimed solution), regardless of whether the choice of language is the same.
You have also claimed with utmost confidence that the VMS is Welsh, that it’s Middle English, that it’s Latin. In a few months, when your Amazon book sales start to dwindle again, you’ll probably come up with another language.
J.K. Petersen: you’re making several presumptions in your phrase “your Amazon book sales start to dwindle again” which may not be completely accurate. 😉
Wow Back off:
@ Ger
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/cz1t8j/folio_42v_fetale_e_a/
F = ..-. from the steps 1 through 4. This is a special glyph obviously. Ger you have to understand ciphers are like secrets, some hide in plain site, some require algorithms and others are exotic. Voynich fits the exotic type. I will look at Hauer and Kondrak report again.
Ger here is the definition:
cipher1
/ˈsʌɪfə/
Learn to pronounce
noun
1.
a secret or disguised way of writing; a code.
@JKP,
I’m getting tired of you referring to my past mistakes as if that matters regarding other books I published. They took me here.
You still have not answered why the cipher disk on the outer rim of f57v contains the anagram word from my system as in:
MorseTGM
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d5i5gg/definitive_proof_that_my_cipher_is_an_axiom_with/
Currently I’m working on f16r for a decryption. At the moment it has taken me 14 hours to uncover the first 10 words from folio 16r of the Voynich Manuscript. I will publish the entire translation when I’m done at Academia.edu and several other online sources. I plan on using the actual image and also producing a document using the display method for my work like the the Ros 2 Castle folio by snipping tool to jpg.
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f16r/0.496/0.195/3.20
@Nick I love the wink,
Is that encoded. grin 😉
Tom: you clearly have no idea what I’m thinking.
Thomas O’Neil says about his book “Voynich Morse Code Steganography Cipher”:
“I’m getting tired of [people] referring to my past mistakes as if that matters regarding other books I published.”
That is grossly hypocritical as long as he does not unpublish all his previous books, admitted as mistakes. And he did NOT. He is apparently not going for the truth but only for the MONEY.
Let me help him. How to delete. unpublish your books:
https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G4QJH4ENN4FZRFMP
I am eagerly awaiting his next book claiming the VM to be in Esperanto so that he can unpublish this junk on Morse.
.
Yeah, yeah, the theories thing.
There is also the possibility that an Eskimo is stranded in Holland with his kayak. He went on foot across the Alps to study medicine in Milan. But unfortunately he left his notebook at the hotel on the way back.
Even this theory is more likely than a Morse code.
Peter M: careful, you might be igloosing the plot there. 😉
Nick, I’ve recently become an advocate of von Däniken’s theory. The aliens were here looking for an intelligent life. But we don’t have to worry about them coming back, they didn’t find anything here. 🙂
Nick, you know, the Eskimo story isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds.
Historical background:
Historically (before the Reformation) the Diocese of Greenland was known as the Diocese of Garðar. This ancient diocese fell into disuse in the 14th century with the death of Bishop Álfur in 1377. Nonetheless, bishops were still appointed up until 1537, though none of these ever made it to Greenland.
Maybe a returnee really took the liberty of joking and wrote a book in the language of the Inuits.
But that brings me to the question, why is the church building a cathedral on the edge of the world, and so close to North America?
Didn’t you really know that the world goes on?
Didn’t you know that there used to be a Viking settlement there?
That leads me back to the Vinland map.
Nick wrote: “J.K. Petersen: you’re making several presumptions in your phrase “your Amazon book sales start to dwindle again” which may not be completely accurate. “
LOL! I hear ya, Nick, but he did give away a few hints on the status of his books on the forum and I remember thinking at the time, “Sigh… there’s a sucker born every minute.”
I agree with Ger that not unpublishing the ones that the author knows to be at odds with the current theory says something about the underlying motive.
I don’t think one should hold Tom O’Neil statements regarding past mistakes against him. I still feel that being open to changing one’s mind is something to be encouraged. Also I think it seems perfectly reasonable for him not to unpublish his previous work. Do you think it would have been wise for Wittgenstein to unpublish the Tractatus given that his ideas had changed? Previous work may have value even if the author has changed his his/her opinion.(I am not making a direct comparison with Wittgenstein, just giving that as an example).
So I say, let Tom be Tom and pursue his own theories to wherever they take him if he wishes. I don’t think trashing people or their work necessarily always takes Voynich research forward.
Mark,
I can’t agree that people should ‘pursue their theories wherever they take them’.
It would be fine if the aim of Voynich studies were to win a theory-spinning competition with points for the most inventive story in a quasi-historical setting, but when the aim is (supposedly) to better understand and interpret the content of a real, three-dimensional historical volume then theories have to be theories about the relationship between items of solidly observed, relevant and verifiable data – don’t they?
About publishing and unpublishing – I don’t know why Nick made his book o.o.p. but I’m sorry he did.
I withdrew the work I’d published online for many reasons, most to do with its being misused or ‘recycled’ without proper acknowledgements by persons other than the linguists and cryptographers for whose benefit I’d been publishing the material.
i wouldn’t jump to conclusions about why someone withdraws material from general access.
Folio 16r 1st paragraph decryption process achieved!
This was no simple task by a long shot, however I have done it. Wilfrid Voynich discusses his Holy Garden maybe metaphorically as a Kingdom while high and how to plant his marijuana plants or meadow grass. His garden contains Myrtle which aids in pain suppression and poisonous Arum lilies. He also grows pears in his garden. The seeds I believe are placed 1.9 centimeters in the ground.
If you like follow my cipher and see how the sum of dots and dashes equal the Voynich vords as-well as the Italian words. The cipher never changes as it is established as bullet proof.
🙂
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d8vfsw/folio_16r_1st_paragraph_decryption_process/
@Dianne,
This is an indirect ad hominem against me regarding my work with MS-408. Just because you have been confused by the time period as my cipher suggest does not necessitate you to attack me indirectly from Mark genuine comments. I suspect you removed your work out of dissatisfaction with it as it did not meet your perfect standards from which you never find with this arcane document constructed by Wilfrid Voynich himself.
https://www.academia.edu/40436312/Voynich_Manuscript_Decryption_of_f16r
Hi Nick
Yesterday, at National Geographic Germany, once again, your research on the Merano Glass and Fortress in Milan came on.
That was 2012, has it been so long? Time’s running.
Interesting was what you said in the museum about the glass.
Whom the VM author could really afford such glasses, and parchment and paint, he was certainly not from poor parents.
PS: What’s it like to see yourself 7 years younger on TV? 🙂
Mark, if you have not read through the long forum threads on Tom’s previous theories, then I don’t think you can understand what is going on here.
Tom uses the SAME TECHNIQUES for each new language. It doesn’t matter whether it is Middle English, Welsh, Latin, or Morse Code, there’s subjective interpretation and anagramming and several other approaches common to all of them.
He’s not trying to find out the truth about the VMS. Do you honestly believe that the dotted lines in the VMS picture with the “snake” in the roots is Morse Code?
These are not “mistakes” that he is trying to correct. You have to look back at his previous theories to know that. He’s simply changing the language and keeping most of the rest of it the same so he can publish a new book every few months.
By the way, I was thinking about the comment about creativity that was posted earlier…
It’s easier to be creative if one is not bound by the truth.
JKP: I find it hard to believe that Tom is making a lot of money from his books, so if I am correct then, if his goal is to make money, I would have thought there are much more profitable ways that he could easily choose to do so.
Peter: it’s kind of nice to see a younger version of myself on TV, though I am (of course) fitter and buffer now. 😉
Mark: that’s true – AND he’d get his own bucket.
Thomas
“[if] This is an indirect ad hominem against me regarding my work with MS-408…”
– no it wasn’t. It was a few thoughts about implying one reason or another for a person’s withdrawing their work – as Nick has done, and I have done too for our different reasons.
” Just because you have been confused by the time period as my cipher suggest”
I haven’t read your cipher.
” does not necessitate you to attack me indirectly from Mark genuine comments.”
There was no attack on you.
” I suspect you removed your work out of dissatisfaction with it as it did not meet your perfect standards”
No, I removed it for the reasons I said; after several years of trying to explain the principle of documenting sources to certain Voynicheros, I decided to stop feeding the pigeons.
“,,,from which you never find with this arcane document constructed by Wilfrid Voynich himself.”
– no comment.
@ Mark, JKP, and Nick,
JKP,
My cipher is a Variable Polyalphabetic regarding the Morse Code mechanism for translation. The piece of Logic is it must fit the dot dash total for an Italian word equal to the dot dash total of the vord. The variables would be the anagram input portion of the cipher meaning the search for the Italian word at times may bring up other Italian words with the total of dots and dashes. However, if you follow the narrative and mindset of the Author Voynich, wisest choice fits the narrative for that Italian word. He was not concerned with perfect Italian grammar and he knew of many languages not that well. He was concerned with speed as he added up the value of dots and dashes to an Italian word then just inserted as filler to the paragraph he was working on at the time. The reason for the high, (o, c, 9, a) counts are from speed while composing anagrams. No JKP not need to publish again regarding a solution to MS-408. It is accomplished friends.
My goal is the truth JKP regarding MS-408. Gematria and Numerlogy is not the same as anagrams. However the classic but lame book Code unchopped was in Italian anagrams and it was my first publication; as it was a substitution cipher which left out some Gallows, because they were nulls.
Listen carefully JKP, my objective for my books is more about posterity and the community. My income for the past 11 years from Voynich Cipher books sales has been approximately $1000.00 dollars. lol ; that’s about $90.00 per year. So in a way it’s more like a donation for my time and funny but true street pan handlers blow this kind of income away and my bucket is not loaded. I’m testifying that I’m in it for the truth no other way.
Also much of the meat as Nick would put is is online prior to a publication through Academia.edu, forums and youtubes and the bucket is not loaded lol Nick ;. Mark is right I’m keeping past books regarding the VMS available, because future generations may wish to know how I found the solution to MS-408 and look at how mind was trying to solve it. Those books are very important and personal to me, in a way the angst I felt about them helped me arrive at this new understanding of the VMS. I repeat I have solved it in my mind.
I would like to relate something very interesting while I was in the decryption process using the Morse code cipher for f16r. Sometimes I would think to my self Voynich is probably going to use this word as I was following along the narrative. Ironically after trying several others not knowing its dot and dash count I then would try it and it equaled the narrative and the dots and dashes count. Therefore, I know that if my mind thought of word without first targeting it and Wilfrid used it, my system is bullet proof because it does make sense. The words I thought he would use while decoding f16r were lilies, field, plant and brain. The words in Italian are canna, campo, pianta and menti respectively.
To Nick I used to be buff however sitting on my ass decoding has turned me into 270 lbs I guess this is what happens when I’m focused. I’m glad you are buffer now ;
Mark, I didn’t say he was making a lot of money, but he did mention on the forum that he had made money.
What motivates people and the hoped-for result are often two different things, as I’m sure you know, and the amount of money is irrelevant.
The point is that a couple of years ago he had three contradictory theories selling on Amazon at the same time, and further, there is no evolution in thinking in terms of the way Tom is “solving” the VMS, regardless of the same heated defense he gives to each new idea.
I have read every post on the forum that explains his theories in detail from the early days of the forum. If you haven’t done that, then you don’t have enough background to see the persistent logical flaws, the subjective manipulation, and the sameness of his methods.
This “morse code” idea is not new. It is simply the same old thing dressed up in different clothes for commercial purposes.
Tom, I don’t care if you made a lot of money or none at all. It’s the ethics and the subjective manipulation of research data that are at issue.
I don’t care if people make money publishing good research.
But that’s not what you do. You have a template for your relatively short books that you copy and paste and then there’s perhaps 20% “new” in each one, usually only a difference of language, which makes it contradictory to the previous editions that you don’t unpublish.
Imagine if someone wrote a diet book and published it, then found out it wasn’t a healthy diet and published a new diet book (and yet another new one a few months later), but kept selling the old unhealthy diet books KNOWING they were wrong. Do you think that person’s motivation is anything but commercial?
So you say you want fame rather than money. Is that why you keep changing the language (while keeping the same basic template)? Maybe you’re hoping if you get enough books out claiming different languages, you’ll score a bingo even though the logic is wrong. Are you hoping people who don’t bother looking at the logic will say, “Oh wow.”
A broken watch is right twice a day.
I’d like to see you channel some of that energy and creativity into some really good research instead of just trying to fool people.
You haven’t even explained how someone could write a manuscript in Morse code 400 years before it was invented.
@JKP,
It’s sad I have come to the conclusion you have a closed mind. A one way street and you have been sucked in by Voynich’s elaborate hoax like Newbold. I don’t think you understand cipher’s that well, yet you do a great deal of work with paleography and medieval history to no avail for the Voynich manuscript over at your Portal. I do think that you may retain your logic centers in the right hemisphere of your mind suggesting confusion. You may have strong linguistic skills but poor logical awareness when it comes to eloquent ciphers.
The Voynich Community as a whole may suffer from your illness in regards to the Voynich Manuscript, for it is an elaborate and eloquent Morse Code Anagram Cipher. No doubt in my mind to that fact.
@ Voynich Community,
I’m presently in a debate with Lisa Fagin & believe it or not Rich SantoColoma.
My reply to him and not to her yet is very clear so I would like to post it here. It should shed additional light about why I believe so much in this method I developed to solve Voyninch’s Manuscript.
Dear Rich,
You have spent your life investigating the Voynich Manuscript or the better part of it which I feel the same about my investigations; while you focused on providence I focused on the text, yet I’m not quite sure how much time you invested to decode this MS-408. So going on about valuable time I understand and don’t. We are truth seekers and I believe in your work as I understand it, that does not necessitate acceptance too mine. Yet this is a historical and pivotal decision for you here and I sense some angst. Let me clear it up in simple terms and explanations.
First off, vord cutoffs next to images; have you ever noticed that most of the vords do not overlap the images? If upon inspection you notice the glyphs, you can see a correlation to my cipher, where gallows are used or a glyph which represents many dot and dashes is inserted to complete the vord. To me this is comprehensible due to the fact Voynich wished not to mess up the drawings! Secondly, Friedman’s little anagram was figured out like he suspected yet very difficult to do as he stated. This is in, “Elegant Enigma”, 6.5 William Friedman. Thirdly Rich, a minor suggestion and excuse me if I sound presumptuous, the past as far as William Friedman, Newbold and Tilman did not utilize the speed of computers we have today or if some of them even had access to one. Just because they failed does not imply I have! Friedman’s mantra and yours about repeatability is a little sickening don’t you think when it’s in anagrams, however the key with my cipher adds some stability to it.
Simply put I could go on like the vords fail all frequency tests for known languages except there is a variety of vords throughout the text! It behaves like a language which indicates my method, because of different values the glyphs have to represent to obtain Italian words to form a narrative. Also sometimes you will see three vords or four in a row. Being that this cipher is in anagram format with a stable key, however perhaps that particular vord fits say ten Italian words which Wilfrid could string into a coherent sentence yet not perfectly though. He knew Italian albeit he did not know languages that well, but he was known to know a little of about 18 of them.
Every decryption system has failed to produce a narrative except mine. Do you know for a fact that the Voynich Manuscript is not in anagram format? What if it is like my cipher suggests in anagrams? Then can you come up with a better solution? Look closely at what I call the Rosetta stone in the Voynich Manuscript’s Folio 77r section a dead center top for the empty pipe which represents Aria as in Air which some have related as the alchemy section. Look at it under a microscope and you will see the feint letters, “weird square A” and “riA”!
.- .-. .. .- , See my cipher for dots dashes totals to explore (otol).
Furthermore, how do you know if Wilfrid even cared to read back the document at any passage with 100% accuracy? At the time he had no computer to aid him in anagram Italian recovery. He wanted money and fame not to read a document back. I surmise most of it was on his mind all the time and so a decryption for the important vords he knew by heart. The glyphs (o,9,a and c) were for primarily for speed in his cipher whereas the (&) glyph gallows and its brother were for nearing margins and drawings.
What you are looking at? My Morse Code to Voynich vords applied to Italian is a variable cipher. I believe if you cannot accept this possibility and not follow up then you are definitely shutting yourself up to this solution. That is closed minded in IMHO.
Here is a step by step procedure to my method.
a) Sum up the glyphs as dots and dashes from a vord using the cipher which I have provided.
b) Next using the python code I provided input Morse code until the total dots and dashes are used up. This is complicated, press enter to see Italian output or simply use an anagram engine and remember the Italian word has to retain the exact sum of of dots and dashes to the vord!
https://ingesanagram.appspot.com/
c) Retry it if it does not fit a narrative which maybe somewhat disjointed by Academia standards.
End of Rebuttal to Rich
Take care, friend and big thanks for your time.
Tom, I was obsessed with ciphers as a kid. I could crack substitution ciphers in a few minutes when I was in elementary school. Sometimes I could get the more complicated ones in a few days. I was also crazy about puzzles and crossword puzzles and games. I was on the chess team, the math team, the spelling team.
My visual thinking skills are better than my linguistic skills. I have to try to convert pictures in my mind into words, and that is never an easy process for me.
As for logical awareness, I took a masters-level logic course from a brilliant professor (one of the smartest professors I’ve ever come across, scary-smart) and did very well.
So your assessment of me is off-base.
I study palaeography and history because they are interesting. Your insinuation that it goes nowhere VMS-wise is irrelevant. The VMS is simply a focal point for all my varied interests.
If I discover something, it will be great. If I don’t, it is still a fascinating, enlightening journey. I’ve learned a lot more than I ever expected and have met some awesome researchers who impress and inspire—just that alone has made it all worthwhile.
Mark Knowles wrote: “I don’t think one should hold Tom O’Neil statements regarding past mistakes against him.”
Mark, do you believe that Wilfrid Voynich hoaxed the VMS in Italian Morse code with bad grammar deliberately inserted “to throw us off”, as Tom so vehemently asserts?
Tom wrote: “Gematria and Numerlogy is not the same as anagrams.”
Yes, I know. But your basic method is the same.
In your earlier “solution”, you used numerology to
• generate a number for each token,
• add the numbers to create a LIST of words that add up to the same number,
• then cherry-pick a word from the LIST that is most likely to help you create a sentence. <<< This is the important point.
Your Morse-code theory is the same. You use Morse code to
• generate letters for each token,
• then create a LIST of anagrams using the same letters,
• then cherry-pick a word from the LIST that is most likely to help you create a sentence. <<< This is why the methods are essentially the same.
Even with this level of freedom, the sentences are ungrammatical and badly spelled and we are back to the same problem you had with all the previous ideas…
With so many choices of anagrammed words for each token MULTIPLIED by the number of combinations and permutations for each word in the sentence, they are one-way ciphers.
Each person using the system will get a different result (despite what you claim) because each one will choose different anagrams from the list. In fact, your system enables the person to choose a different language like Latin or Spanish and get phrases that are more-or-less similar to yours in terms of being subjectively constructed semi-nonsense phrases.
You're also fudging on some of your "translations" (I'm sure you know this) but I don't expect people to see that unless they actually work through a few lines following your method.
JKP: You say -> “Wilfrid Voynich hoaxed the VMS in Italian Morse code with bad grammar deliberately inserted ,to throw us off'”
The fact that my ideas are quite different from Tom’s has nothing to do with the question of whether he has written a number of books with the aim of making money as you imply.
I don’t agree with many of your ideas, but I have not suggested that you have underhand motives.
JKP: I note you say “I was obsessed with ciphers as a kid. I could crack substitution ciphers in a few minutes when I was in elementary school. Sometimes I could get the more complicated ones in a few days. I was also crazy about puzzles and crossword puzzles and games. I was on the chess team, the math team, the spelling team.”
This sounds familiar.
Mark, you didn’t answer my question.
Do you believe that Wilfried Voynich hoaxed the VMS in nongrammatical Italian Morse code?
As for motives…
Tom said he had a monetary motive on the forum, so I am perfectly within my rights to suggest that is what he is [still] doing. If his tune has changed to doing it for “posterity” then fine, maybe he has changed his mind, people have a right to change their minds… maybe the sales weren’t enough to satisfy his monetary motive, so he’s going for recognition instead.
Mark I wish you would read through the messages on the forum so you have a better understanding of his present theory. It is NOT significantly different from the previous ones. The changes are nothing more than window-dressing.
I know you want to think the best of him, but he is not “correcting” his mistakes. He is re-dressing the same idea in a new language (and I’m quite sure he knows this)—this time it’s Italian that isn’t really Italian, it’s mostly random words that are only sort of-kind of Italian (with no grammar at all).
Next time maybe Czech or Norwegian or Chinese.
He even misrepresented the work of Hauer and Kondrak. Twisting someone else’s findings to make it sound like the results support his “solution” is not research. He doesn’t even seem to understand what they did.
JKP: I am sure that you know very well that I don’t believe that Wilfred Voynich hoaxed the VMS in nongrammatical Italian Morse code. However if I were to condemn everyone who has a different theory to my own then I would be permanently condemning people. It is perfectly plausible and reasonable that his ideas have evolved in some areas and not in others.
I certainly haven’t read what he has written on his monetary motives in the forum, but I think his position now is clear.
@ JKP,
Ok, sounds like you are ok and ciphers is your game. Then if you could please take the first paragraph of folio 16r and produce a somewhat coherent paragraph like I have! However, like you have suggested JKP then use Latin or Spanish applied to my system I have provided as in glyph relations to the dot & dash totals within my cipher. You can post it on Voynich Ninja or reddit for the world to see then inform us all when you have completed the paragraph.
I assert your paragraph will be very incoherent, because the language is in Italian and so your effort will prove that I am right. I feel it will be impossible for you do even obtain a narrative in Latin or Spanish which somewhat resembles language.
Please leave us with each word translated to English. I will go over the work very carefully to make sure the glyph associations add up to the Spanish or Latin words from My Morse code cipher.
Can you take the cipher challenge knowing what you know JKP?
Mark, I am not condemning anyone for having a different idea. I WELCOME different ideas.
The point I have been making in post after post is that it is NOT a different idea. It’s the same one he’s been trotting out for years. The only difference is the language… Welsh numerology, Latin, Middle English, Italian Morse code, all with the same underpinnings. All with the same long list of options for each token from which Tom subjectively CHOOSES whichever one he wants in order to create his ungrammatical badly spelled unconvincing phrases.
One other thing…
Since Tom didn’t credit the author of the Python code he uses to convert ASCII to Morse Code, I thought it would be courteous to acknowledge that it was coded by Palash Nigam.
The convert-to-anagram section was coded by NicholasChris, with refinements by Michael (StackExchange).
For those who don’t understand how Tom’s decipherment system works, here is a summation of his example (croll down to the bottom of his posts on Voynichman to see the original).
———————————————-
1) Take EVA otol
Turn it into Morse code with his system . -.. . -.-. (in Morse code, this is E D E C)
Does E D E C look like Italian? No. So Tom looks for a way to turn it into Italian.
2) Anagram the letters to make E C E D (. -.-. . -..) because according to Tom the letter D has more “weight” and thus should be last.
Is E C E D Italian? No, so Tom needs to change the letters again…
3) Turn the consonants into vowels, starting from the right (without any explanation for why this specific transition is chosen or why the same transition is not used for other words), and reassign the dots and dashes to new letters, thus creating A R I A.
Now we have a word in Italian but the shufflings and substitutions in Step 3 are subjective and not consistent with the way he translated other VMS tokens.
————————————-
Let’s look at another one…
Tom claims on Reddit that 4oPchey on f16r says “marijuana” in Morse code.
He posted this: — .- .-. .. .— ..- .- -. .- (M A R I J U A N A)
Now, if you look at the Morse code, you will notice that the transliteration from Voynichese to Morse code for this word doesn’t follow the same rules as his transliteration from otol to ECED.
In fact, I can’t figure out his process because there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it and he doesn’t explain it.
The number of characters in 4 o P ch e y doesn’t match the number of characters in “marijuana” so clearly some re-assignments have been made. Even if you anagram the letters, how are you going to get three “a” letters out of 4oPchey?
I think Tom needs to explain how he manipulated the Morse code to get from 4 o P ch e y (6 or 7 chars) to M A R I J U A N A (9 chars) since this is a pretty bold claim, especially considering it wasn’t called marijuana in the 15th century, and in the early 20th century it was more commonly spelled marihuana, Maria Juana, Cannabis, or hemp.
On the one hand Tom claims he used a system of decipherment to arrive at his translations, but in the same breath he says, “All Michal [Voynich] did was count the total of dots and dashes and then quickly randomly used some glyphs associated with dots and dashes…”
So Tom O’Neil asserts that Voynich [laboriously] turned ungrammatical Italian [and some English and some Spanish] words into Morse code, then counted the dots and dashes, then RANDOMLY used “some glyphs associated with dots and dashes” to generate Voynichese.
If lambs just won’t keep quiet.
Apart from the fact that you don’t really understand your own system, you must first explain to the experts why the timeline is not relevant, and all the investigations are wrong.
If you can’t, everything else is just empty blah blah.
@JKP
Why do you want to explain anything to Thomas anymore?
If already with VM words the characters change in the order, but his system converts every character into dot and dash, different words alone give the same morse rhythm. Convert an anagram into an anagram via a detour.
But he writes that the same words don’t give the same morse rhythm.
According to all this, he doesn’t know how to proceed anymore, because he has put himself in the corner.
Peter, if you look around the Web, you will see that a lot of people look at Tom’s translations and don’t bother to examine the logic and they BELIEVE the translation without any critical evaluation.
Stephen Bax’s Arabic substitution system was greeted with the same kind of credulity. I saw many posts congratulating him for being a genius even after there was no corroboration for the idea.
So, it’s not even about convincing Tom of anything (clearly nothing has changed since he introduced this approach several years ago). It is about making it easier for people to understand and see the logical flaws.
Tom needs to account for the inconsistencies as a matter or ethics, since he is charging money for his books, but mainly I want readers to understand that his “method” is based on changing anything he wants to change (in numerous different ways, depending on the token) and relying on randomness when it suits him as well, as per his own words.
There is no method. Morse code is just window-dressing, a way to further manipulate the letters to provide more subjective choices. Each word is evaluated in a different way and if they don’t work, he changes them to be what he wants them to be.
It’s snake-oil, but a lot of people apparently don’t know how to recognize snake-oil unless it’s broken down into simple steps. So the previous post shows the steps, which come directly from his posts on Voynichman and Reddit.
@JKP,
By the way in Mexico exactly prior and around 1910 the marijuana was common place.
JKPs reading comprehension is twisted the paper I wrote on order of operations was a trial.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d4i96t/a_look_into_a_possible_order_of_operations_for_my/
The key for Morse Code stabilizes the Italian word which makes it easier to find a anagram Italian word. When one searches for an Italian anagram to fit the narrative it must contain exactly all the dots and dashes from the cipher for the vord.
This system I use is highly different and and far less a one-way cipher. Someone day computers will prove me correct.
Folks Peter does not know what he is writing about. He is simply frustrated that I found a way to translate the Voynich code.
dagga (n.)
“marijuana, Cannabis sativa smoked as a narcotic,” 1660s, from Afrikaans, from Khoisan (Hottentot) dachab. Originally the name of an indigenous plant used as a narcotic, extended to marijuana by 1796.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=marijuana
This is about the signature which I believe Wilfrid used and wrote in folio 1r within his VMS.
https://youtu.be/W4G4enbWJYk
Wilfrid Voynich wrote:
“I should be very much obliged to you if you could give me some information about a man who lived in Bohemia in the 17th century. His name appears on the first leaf of a very important manuscript in my possession, which he apparently owned at some time during the 17th century. As nearly as I can read the name it is Jacobij a Tspenecz or Topenecz, and I am enclosing [a] photograph of it.”
Jacobus Horčický de Tepenec
https://proto57.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/you-say-tspenencz-i-say-topenencz/
@ JKP,
I believe JKP has perhaps invested so much time in the VMS that his hostility is derived from never coming up with a valid explanation for a Voynich text reading.
Quote from JKP!
” I wanted to solve the VMS, not discuss it every day for the rest of my life!”
He seems more or less childish in his replies and although I have never met him, I would think that his age to be in his late 20′ early 30′ yet he is extremely articulate. This maybe an ad hominem on my part so excuse me for that JKP. He has expressed that his main goal is to be the one to offer us all a decryption someday for the VMS at Voynich Ninja. Well now that he has thrown my system under the bus I venture to say he will never understand the VMS at all for the rest of his life, unless changes and discovers I am right.
All one has to do is read his posts at Voynich Ninja and witness his need to be recognized as-well as ego which is through the roof IMHO. When someone throws out an idea which seems applicable to the VMS. I have read so many times a typical reply from JKP is yes I was on to that and then he will try and explain. I have witnessed him change his date on his Voynich Portal so that it shows he was thinking that way before someone else.
Here a user “escape” from Voynich Ninja, mentions that he is using Turkic. Here is a Typical reply from JKP!.
” but I wanted to mention that I’ve come back to Turkic languages a few times.” JKP insinuates here that he was on to that.
So cannot everyone see who the real JKP is, just a boy wondering who will steal his cookies. I don’t know about anyone else, but I think many have had enough of his snide condescending remarks, because he wishes and dreams 24 hours 365 for VMS decryption Fame. Well lol JKP it will never happen you live on the wrong coordinate system!!!!!!!!
ANNOUNCEMENT
———–
Now that Thomas has found the key to the VMs I have to disclose our family secret.
My grandfather was the forger of the Voynich Manuscript!
Yes, it is true, and he made certain it could be proven too.
To prove his authorship he concealed his name several times in the text. His first name GerritJan was hidden 160 times, his last name Hungerink 18 times. The first occurrence of GerritJan is on the front page! It is coded as “cphesaiin” (11 dots 10 dashes) and is the second word after the weirdo steaming cup of coffee. The first occurence of Hungerink (15 dots 8 dashes) is at f6r as “skaiiodar”.
I inherited the rights to the original text. As lawful copyright owner I PROHIBIT Thomas O’Neil to publish his translation.
Grandson Ger Hungerink.
Here is the complete list:
Hungerink: skaiiodar on f6r,
daikam, kdchody, shykeody, ksheodl, otodaram, dolaram, qotaldy, ykairolky, olkshed, darshody, kodshol, soleesos, qokcheol, qokcheol, teedaram, dchodees, dydaim.
GerritJan: cphesaiin on f1r,
chokoishe, qopchy, qopchy, qopchy, fshody, cthodal, tcheodal, shkshy, pchedar, opchedy, sotchdy, shoykcho, pchodar, ctholdy, oltchedy, pchedar, cholkal, shekchey, opshes, chkchod, pcheody, qopchy, opchedy, opchedy, pchedar, solkaiin, opchedy, pochedy, qopchy, qckheol, tcheodal, choldal, opchedy, tolchedy, cphocthy, otykchs, dcholal, ofcheody, otchodal, cholkal, oteoshaly, otolchdy, pchedar, pchedar, opchedy, opchedy, opchedy, opchedy, opchedy, opchedy, opchedy, opchedy, qofchey, opchedy, opchedy, pshdy, opchedy, otchsdy, fshedy, opchedy, solcheol, opchedy, ofshdy, lchedal, solkaiin, tolsheol, tchdarol, opchedy, pchedar, qockhol, sheekchy, opchedy, pchedar, dchefoey, shetam, sheekchy, pchedar, pchedar, opchedy, qopchy, opchedy, opchedy, opchdar, opchdar, qopchy, qopchy, opchedy, cthodal, qockhol, ltcheody, osheokaiin, podchey, opchody, qockhol, pchedar, pcheody, alcheem, qockhol, aiidaiim, qockhol, qockhol, qockhol, kockhos, ykeockhey, opchedy, opchedy, opchedy, qotolaiin, shorchdy, sheekchy, opchedy, pcheody, opchedy, polshor, pchedar, opchedy, shokchey, opchedy, opchedy, cholkal, opchedy, qopchy, opchedy, opchody, fsheda, sheolsho, qopchy, pcheody, opchedy, opchedy, kchekain, opchedy, okcheefy, pochedy, opchedy, pcheedy, pchedey, pchedar, chedkain, opchedy, opchedy, psalar, opchedy, opchedy, opchdar, qopchy, pcheody, cphocthy, sheeodaiin, pcheody, opchedy, opchedy, opchedy, opchedy, opchedy, fshdar, opchedy, fshedy, pchodar.
Ger man I’m starting to realize that you never came here with a full deck of cards. Have you lost your marbles? You should see the Indian lift that fridge and go yachting with the whole family. You know Ger, what worries me is how your mother is going to take this? If you truly are off the you know what then my apologies. I take them too that’s why I’m stable now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdqnm9HL6zA
Ger you are making a mockery out of my code and number 1 your addition is terrible when referring to my cipher. The total for cphesaiin –> only as a reference to voynichese is 6 dots 11 dashes so it is the cipher in real voynichese you go by not eva. GerritJan is 10 dashes and 11 dots total.
Besides Ger, should not your father’s names show up together? GER I’M NOT USING EVA! I’m using voynichese wow Academia cannot even read a cipher. This is loony tunes.
Have fun 😉
Ger please decode this to actual words. Hint 7 dots is a space and this code goes another step deeper that’s all for Alice. If you get to lost in the rabbit hole ask JKP for help, but please try very hard to solve it yourself.
–… ….. —-. ……. —.. .—- ….- ….. ……. –… -…. …– ……. …– -…. .—- ..— ……. –… -…. …– —-. ……. ….- —-. ….. ….-
This is the way my grandfather has encrypted the Voynich Mannuscript while adding his name into it. The key can be found here and is right indeed:
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/d8vfsw/folio_16r_1st_paragraph_decryption_process/
GerritJan = /–././.-./.-./../-/.—/.-/-./
cphesaiin = /……—/./…–/.-/—-/
The first is in Morse the second is the key code.
Both 11 dots 10 dashes.
This proves GerritJan is anagram Morse coded into cphesaiin.
Hungerink = /…./..-/-./–././.-./../-./-.-/
skaiiodar = /…–/….-/.-/-/-/./….-/.-/./
The first is in Morse the second is the key code.
Both 15 dots 8 dashes.
This proves Hungerink is anagram Morse coded into skaiiodar.
Sorry Ger,
me as the real owner of the copyright I must herewith prohibit you to publish such announcements!
My grandfather was a very close friend of yours and the mind behind the forgery. While GerritJan was somewhat naive but always eager to make some money, my Grandfather Quookey had the skills and the methods to make a lot of money out of nothing. With his brackground as a carpenter and of Italo-Turkish-Celtic roots he was a multilingual genius and a very charming man who could easily convince some Italian monks to change a huge bunch of old parchment against a little help with the rotten roof of the monastry.
When he saw the parchment in the corner he instantly knew what to do with it, but he needed someone to realize his fantastic vision, and only his friend GerritJan was the one he trusted to do the job. Your grandfather was the scribe, but mine was the forger of the code and the keeper ot the secret that he never revealed until shortly before he died. As a very wealthy man at the end of his life and with the help of a renowned lawer he knew how to ensure the secret of the forgery to be kept in our family.
As the lawful copyright owner myself I’m planning to publish “Quookey’s Key” next year. Then you will see how important the work of your grandfather really was.
Don’t be sad. Shit happens.
Have a nice weekend!
Andromedan NGG31 found f68v1
Voynich and his pet Newbold gave a Speech on April 20 1921 to the Physicians of Philadelphia. Here is what I found next to and point the to Andromeda. Maybe Wilfrid believed heavily in aliens so he put this down in haste Andromedan NGG31.
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f68v3_f68v2_f68v1/0.495/0.391/5.00
NGG is a common misspelling for NGC.
f68v2 I theorize is the Milky Way and the arm is pointing to the west at NGC or M31.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/da7eyy/andromedan_ngg31_found_f68v1/
Tom, I have noticed that when you can’t explain your own system you revert to character assassination. That’s pretty sad.
By the way, your insinuations of dishonesty on my part are wrong.
Turkic languages have been on my list of “languages of particular interest” right from the beginning. Also included on my list are Portuguese, Catalan, Greek, Bulgarian, Hebrew, and some of the western Indian dialects (along with a few other languages). I have a pretty long list. Turkic languages are of particular interest because of the way the parts are combined from small units (it has more of a VMS “feel” than many other language groups).
So you don’t have to try to convince people that I’m making it up as I go along, because I’m not. There are also numerous languages that are not so high on my list. I still haven’t committed to any language (I’m still not 100% convinced it IS natural language) and I certainly haven’t claimed to have solved it, as you have… numerous times.
Tom, I am not dreaming of fame. That is YOUR dream that you are erroneously projecting on me.
In fact, it occurred to me a few times that if I did solve the VMS maybe I should just pass the solution to someone else. I haven’t decided yet. First I have to solve it. 🙂
I am not motivated by fame. I want to solve the VMS because I love puzzles and I love exploring. I am incessantly curious and I love learning. Those are enough for me.
Fame is not all it’s cracked up to be. Fame garners unwanted attention and unrealistic expectations. I can understand that someone might desire fame because it helps one move up the academic ladder and if that’s the case, they should go for it… why not? I don’t resent people who achieve success through honest means. But I am a business owner, I built my own ladder and I’m at the top of it. I don’t need fame and I don’t need more business either. What I would like is more free time to pursue my hobbies.
Ger – You surprise me. Given that (as I guess) your grandfather lived around the early-mid 1900s. and his manuscript is so unlike anything else known in Europe, I think you should be proud of his creative genius. How can you forge something unlike anything earlier? Its just commonsense to hypothesise he went on tour to Italy, and from that it follows logically that he must have gone to Frascati, and probably been inspired by the gardens there to start speaking in tongues. Not his fault if he was so carried away by his experience (as we’ll hypothesise he did because it’s a commonsense conclusion given he must have left his notebook there). Not his fault that the Jesuit who then picked it up in the garden (as this hypothesis requires, and the waterstains make logical), put it with the library’s old books and sold it soon after to Wilfrid. We know this is true because the Jesuits said they only put names in them ‘for safe-keeping’. Be proud of your ancestor and namesake, Ger. He’s no shame to you.
Thomas,
Cannabis is in many of the medieval herbals. Probably also in the VMS. I blogged that I thought is was Cannabis in 2013. Other people apparently think so, too, so it’s not a unique idea. Obviously I was not disputing an ID of Cannabis.
I was disputing your translation (specifically your method) for two reasons:
1. You SPELLED it in a way that was not common for the early 20th century (I said tis, and also listed the common spellings for the time).
2. You gave NO explanation as to how you got from Voynchese to a supposed translation of “marijuana”.
Number 2 is more important, so SHOW us step-by-step how you converted Voynichese to Morse code and, in particular, how you got from Morse code to “marijuana”.
@Ger
Sorry, but it couldn’t have been your grandfather. I flew back with my time machine and spoke personally with the author. I can also prove it, because I brought him an armadillo.
@Thomas
Why should I be frustrated? Because you have an alleged solution? Hundreds had that before you, but just like you, unfortunately wrong.
Just the idea of creating anagrams in a foreign language with a dictionary is nonsense. But I also don’t stop anyone from taking part in an obstacle course with a rollator.
Thomas, apparently you are the type of person seeing he is losing, who will assassinate the messenger. Don’t publish my grandfathers original text, as proven by the abundant occurrence of his name in the VMs, or my lawyers will find you.
When Dan Burisch’s Voynich theory asserts that a future version of himself encoded his future DNA-manipulating inventions sent back in time for Roger Bacon to encipher in his mysterious manuscript, these kind of made-up Voynich theories clearly stand no chance.
Tom, I should have got my grandfathers key from the attic and not trusted your table.
I had not expected you to randomly switching the order of dots and dashes around. So you are right saying my additions came out differently. Having redone the calculations it follows GerritJan occurring 136 times, the first one being qopchor (11 dots, 10 dashes) on f3r. Hungerink appears 6 times all different, the first being chopchol (15 dots, 8 dashes) on f6r.
qopchor = /—–././…—-/-…./././ = 11 dots, 10 dashes
chopchol = /-…././…—-/-…././..–/ = 15 dots, 8 dashes
You will notice that even while using the wrong key, my grandfathers name appeared many times, which proves his genius. And should give you something to think about 🙂
The 6 different encodings for Hungerink being:
chopchol, pchotchy, choltam, ytoeopchey, otoloaram, opchytch,
The 62 different encodings for GerritJan being:
qopchor, cpharom, otolodal, pchedar, opchedy, sotchdy, pchodar, qekeochor, cholkal, opshes, chkchod, pcheody, kshotol, cheedls, chokeeody, chokeeoky, pochedy, qoetam, sokchol, cheekeody, choldal, chtaldy, opolkeor, sysheos, opodeeol, syshees, otykchs, dcholal, ofcheody, schekol, polshy, olkeshey, otchsdy, lchedal, sheecthey, olchcthy, dchefoey, otedalol, olkeshar, oqotam, opchdar, olpshy, olsheody, darolm, opcharoiin, kolches, podchey, opchody, qotches, qotchos, kaleearol, sosam, olsheedy, cholxy, tsheodl, lfchal, okcheefy, cheykeeed, pcheedy, checthal, pchedey, lkeches,
@ Listen You All,
I was once like all of you, I took the bait and fell Wilfrid’s elaborate hoax. I admit he enciphered the MS-408 with Morse Code. I don’t know how long it will take you people to come out of your slumber with this document, but that’s up to you.
Enjoy this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4G4enbWJYk
I heartily commend Peter M’s comment to Ger.(September 28, 2019 at 6:07 am). 🙂
Tom, I somewhat doubt that you were once like all of us.
I guess you are right JKP I was not that naive!
Voynich Ninja Logo f67r1 decryption Success
The enigmatic Sun from folio 67r1 is now decoded using my cipher. I have designed an intricate database with key valued pairs in python to make it easier for people to find Italian and English words. I may release this for free or password entry if you purchase my book at Amazon. I have not decided yet. The Voynich Dictionary is only partially complete and probably will not be finished until right before Thanksgiving, just in time for Christmas. Voynich made use of normal constellation names in the Voynich Ninja Logo Sun on f67r1.
The database has a secret sauce built into it so I will not give away how it finds words which make it easier to create a narrative and allows for fast paced decryption of the Voynich Manuscript. I will say it is amazing. 🙂
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/dc1l9b/voynich_ninja_logo_f67r1_decryption_success/
Tom: errrm… sounds like cranberry.
Hey Nick,
You must be very happy that you can now read the VMS courtesy of my cipher. 😉
Tom O’Neil wrote: “The database has a secret sauce built into it so I will not give away how it finds words which make it easier to create a narrative and allows for fast paced decryption of the Voynich Manuscript. I will say it is amazing.”
Translation: “I don’t want to reveal that my method doesn’t really work, so I will call it a secret sauce.”
ohhhhh, fairytale lesson again?
While we’re at it, you should call the parents to account at Little Red Riding Hood. Irresponsible! Who sends a little girl with alcohol alone through the forest ?
And the hunter? Cruelty to animals at the highest level. Who fills already stones into a still living animal, and that also still although the wolf stands under nature protection.
Tom – don’t worry. I heartily doubt any of us is like ‘all of us’. And I’m always skeptical about the idea that the study advances by striving to define an “us” because that sort of thing is done by defining a “non-us” – and I fail to see why a manuscript’s study is better served by “us-ness” than by independent thought.
But that’s just me. 🙂
@JKP,
I would never attempt to do data entry for 103,000 Italian words into my Voynich Python Dictionary if I was not completely 100% sure I was dead on for decryption of the Voynich Manuscript. Face it JKP no one stole your cookies. It was a fair competition started by Wilfrid Voynich to see who could decode it.
I have triumphed over serious professional cryptographers, linguists, academia and Art historians. Even the McCrone Analysts must be embarrassed for their assumptions regarding the VMS ink and galls, yet they even could a few hundred years on the calfskin. Simply put Voynich is a Genius Chemist hack.
Tom: I think you may be overegging your secret sauce. 🙂
quote: “I have triumphed over serious professional cryptographers, linguists, academia and Art historians. Even the McCrone Analysts must be embarrassed for their assumptions regarding the VMS ink and galls, yet they even could [read: ‘put’] a few hundred years on the calfskin [read: vellum]. ”
Tom – I was mistaken; you are certainly one of an “us”.. others of the group including Newbold, Levitov, Stojko, Tucker and Janick …
Gladyseva is now sure she that has translated the entire manuscript, too. If someone from voynich.ninja were to do a video interview with you and her together, it would be a vid. I’d certainly watch. What fun to be a roving Voynich reporter, eh?
Theories, theories, theories… After seven years of looking to Voynich manuscript symbols and reading postings and comments in various sites I returned to the one of interesting sources of musings: Robert Firth, his thinkings still are on prof. Stolfi’s site. Curious dream description looks for me the best theory 🙂 We all are trying to find linguistic meaning of manuscript text, but it may not exist. “I feel like no one ever told the truth to me”, as in famous Freddies song. First, I have read words of Captain Currier who mentioned “words” of manuscript text seems more like numbers than words of language. “They are not words!” – one fundamental postulate (IMHO). Second, I “tray standing in the shoes” of Tim Thorsten, author of theory og generated manuscript text. His work lacks only little thing – formulas or device of generation descripton. And third thing – page 116 of manuscript with famous goat and some marginalia. I have read in some science books about lacking of corrections in manuscript, but it seems for me it is not true – at least in 116 there are. After famous “oror sheey” two words are definitely corrected, and primary text of them was similar to “golden ring”, about which was Robert Firth writing. Thanks for reading, sorry for bad English – I am from Eastern Europe.
Hi Nick,
I was wondering if you could do me a big favor. Could you please ask David Jackson if could let me Stellar back at voynichninja.com? As it is I’m very sorry about my past behavior and if you could convey that for me, because I know you carry a huge amount of influence in the Voynich community or perhaps even JkP although I know we have been at odds I just wish you guys would forgive me for the “If I seen you guys in in a Pub I would show you the door” or something in that vein of context.
Tom: I don’t envy the voynich.ninja admins at all, and I wouldn’t think to tell them who they should ban or unban, sorry.
Tom: If all you said was “If I seen you guys in in a Pub I would show you the door” I would have said it wrong to ban you. To be honest, if you are interested in just reading what people have posted that shouldn’t be a problem. And as far as leaving comments I am not sure you would me missing much by not having that option. As far as censorship goes, it is tricky subject, and something I have significant reservations about. I have not been censored on Voynich Ninja and if I had been censored in a way I thought unfair, I would not be back, on principle. I don’t know if they have strict well defined policies on which they base their decisions or if it is at the whim of the censor. Ultimately I think if it is your own blog then you can do what you like whether just or unjust you have no obligation to the commenter, but a forum becomes a little different. I have been banned once, a long time ago, from a political forum and I would argue that that was fundamentally, because my politics are at stark contrast from those running the forum, not because I really said anything inappropriate, though I am sure they would have claimed so. However even with a forum people have no legal obligation to behave fairly. So, Tom, I would not take it personally.
Tom: Anyway I think that if you think you said the wrong thing on the forum then you should apologise anyway. If you don’t then you should not be expected to apologise to get back on the forum. I think it is important to stick to your principles. I would be extremely reluctant to apologise for something when I felt I owed no apology just to ingratiate myself with others. Ultimately if someone unjustly bans you from their forum then it is on their head not yours.
Tom was banned. He apologized, he was let back in. He broke the rules again, was banned, apologized again, and was let back in. He broke the rules a third time (if I remember correctly) and was banned again.
Repeat offender.
I don’t envy the admins either, but to get banned three times on the ninja forum, which is friendlier and more tolerant of diverse opinions than many forums, is pretty unusual.
The word for the weekend.
The Voynich manuscript and the aliens.
Meanwhile there are more and more clues that aliens had a finger in the pie.
Anyone who has seen the film “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” also knows how planets are built. After many years of research it was discovered that Australia was cut out where the Black Sea lies. Possibly for cost reasons. (See maps).
Now it is obvious that the VM manuscript is not a medical treatise, but a list of deficiencies.
It describes, for example, the missing plants and where in the galaxy they have to be placed.
The nymphs are the bathroom furnishings. It is especially long because it is mainly used by women.
So the origin should be clear for everyone.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2371070646448909&set=gm.2320786678031120&type=3&theater&ifg=1
I agree with Nick – an administrator’s task in a Voynich forum is unenviable.
I’ve now seen four forums rise and then die.
The pattern is always the same; a new forum begins with a lively intellectual environment and each member speaking as an individual researcher.
Gradually, the thing seems to separate out – a social hierarchy forms and, at the same time, coalesces into the ‘pack’ of similarly-minded members and the rest, as ‘fringe members’.
The next stage sees ‘the pack’ members constantly ignoring the others and only talking to like-minded individuals. A certain loyalty develops, and this involves joining pack-attack threads against one of the ‘fringe’ until that individual departs.
Some depart from sheer frustration and others from indignation because the settling-out process brings with it de-facto discrimination.
Administrators naturally respond more strongly to objections presented by a number of members than by an individual member.
But in practice this means that the lobby-group can influence the administrator; breaches of the rules by a fellow are dismissed airily; anything at all becomes an issue when posted by a ‘fringe’ member. I’ve seen a full pack-attack launched (not at voynich ninja) on so slender an excuse as the addition of a book-title to the library, while what is manifestly a public libel against a fringe member may be minimised by the number of cronies who assure the administrator they saw nothing objectionable in their mate’s remark. In fact, the victim of the pack-attack is as likely enough to be publicly censured by a lobbied administrator for being ‘not nice’ to the abuser.
So that outsider will leave; and the process then repeats, and repeats, until the last individual as ‘fringe’ memberis gone.
Reduced to a very small group of like-minded mates chatting between themselves about nothing new, the forum’s energy drops. Membership drops.
The close-knit core starts communicating in private emails.
Administrators find there’s scarcely enough to do to be worth their while; they leave – and one of the remaining core members takes on the job, treating as irrelevant all not congenial to the now-majority interest. No really new angles wanted.
And so the forum dies – usually within about four years or so.
It might help if every member had to use nom-de-plume.
I’d certainly remove any ‘blank all comments from “x”‘ option which seems not only rude an stupid but contrary to the spirit of any forum.
I’d also delete ‘personality rankings’ for which I can see no purpose except a subtle intimidation. Certainly the relative rankings I saw today on the voynich.ninja site make no sense to me. No systematic reflection of the person’s length of involvement, quality or originality of their contribution to the study, or their own qualifications and/or research abilities.
It’s not voynich.ninja but all Voynich forums that have this pattern. No fault of the administration. Just something endemic, it seems, in the forum style.
What starts of a democratic, egalitarian, energetic collection of individuals is rapidly transformed into a conservative, self-confident and sometimes rather self-righteous group of club-minded gentleman, suitably deferential to some and most unsuitably rude to others.
Diane: for me, I leave forums when I get openly (and shamelessly) abused and my direct complaints to the admins about that abuse yield basically zero response. Moreover, I have almost no words to describe those ‘special’ occasions when it’s the admins themselves who are dishing out the abuse.
Shame, shame, shame a thousand times over on those kinds of people.
Forums are all fine and dandy, but like everything else, not vital to conducting Voynich research. The one thing I like about the Voynich Ninja site, which is not possible with Nick’s comments, is the ability to post images illustrating what one is talking about. I suppose one advantage with Voynich Ninja is there is probably the opportunity to connect with more people than through Nick’s blog.
But if I was banned from every Voynich forum or blog, it wouldn’t impact by research a lot, I would still be chugging on just in isolation. For me reading what other people have written about the Voynich can on occasions be useful. Also putting my ideas out there is a way to share my research for other readers now or in the future who may be interested.
Ant Tom. ( forums ). Of course, every ant should write very well. Then it will be good. Write as I write. Then it will be fine.
Otherwise, the ninja is also a catastrophe. There is nothing important about a ninja.
So don’t be sad. So you didn’t lose anything important.
Interessanter Artikel.
@ Dianne, JKP, and Nick
I have built a Access database of 103k words in Italian with English translations. I can email it to you guys if you would like the form. You can search by a dash to dot feature exclusively; or if need be a dash only or dot only. Say you would like to search for AriA, simply type in —…… and it will bring back all the dash & dot totals for the words that are assigned that string of dashes and dots. AriA would be in the records. I have set the database up so when you search it lines up all the related searches in a neat column.
This is very convenient for finding the proper narrative which Voynich was conveying. I’m decoding the second paragraph of the Voynich Manuscript and its very accurate and much quicker to find the narrative.
You peeps let me know if you would like the Access database and I will email it to you.
I’m @gmail and my name is tomeoneil
@ Voynich Guru’s
https://python-forum.io/Thread-Voynich-search-engine-in-python-using-dashes-dot-totals-to-find-Italian-words?pid=93676#pid93676
I’m hoping for help here as to the possibility where I can use the access database or spreadsheet to help in generating many narratives in Italian. I would like to use the full potential of my CPU and python code to access the database and bring back as many narratives for Voynich paragraphs. Hence, I could choose the best fit for the narrative. I believe I have to enter every voynich word into another database or python.py file database and then have it output some meaningful sentences. Currently I’m sifting manually through the search results and looking at three words at time from 1st to 3rd Voynich words and then generating a narrative from the Voynich Manuscript which I believe was encoded by Michal Wojnicz. It’s a slow arduous process, but I’m producing sentences for what I believe Michal was writing.
I produced this short sentence from the Voynich Manuscript starting at the second paragraph of f16r on 10/07/2019:
1)Euganei 2)Veneta 3)ha 4)attivo 5)sorgere 6)e 7)tondeggiava 8)nettamente 9)montante 10)e 11)se 12)stata 13)no 14)hectograms 15)drogo.
1). ..- –. .- -. . .. /2) …- . -. . – .- /3) …. .- /4) .- – – .. …- — /5) … — .-. –. . .-. . / 6). /7) – — -. -.. . –. –. .. .- …- .- /8) -. . – – .- — . -. – . /9) — — -. – .- -. – . /10) . /11) … . /12) … – .- – .- /13) -. — /14) …. . -.-. – — –. .-. .- — … /15) -.. .-. — –. —
Eugenean Venetia has active springs and round sharply uphills and in itself was no hectograms drugs.
https://www.euganeanhills.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euganean_Hills
Tom said to Nick: “You must be very happy that you can now read the VMS courtesy of my cipher”.
Actually using that cipher one can read anything one likes. Using that cipher one can “decode” an English Bible into Hardcore Dutch Pornography: the True Words of God.
You won’t need your “hectograms of drugs”.
Ger: did he mention they were Valium?
Thomas, I don’t know what you smoked, but I want that too.
Nick, valium? Yes, he must have been lost in translation.
My grandfather was fond of sex, so actually he wrote his original stories in code producing the VMs, to be read only by the happy few.
To prospective decoders I will give a hint. The word “fck”, with a strategically placed “u”, occurs 555 times in the VMs. Actually he used it 666 times, but these 111 were in the lost pages.
The ORIGINAL decoded stories to which I inherited the copyright will be available on Amazon shortly. It will be very exciting – so wait for the real translation to appear!
|..-.| ..-| -.-.| -.-| has 8 dots and 6 dashes.
Of the 555 occurrences 115 are unique:
okchoy, okchey, potoy, chodar, chtod, cheody, ochody, fchoy, shees, dcheey, chkeey, qoteeeo, chotain, pchy, cheeky, chodey, ypch, ykchor, ytshy, sheal, som, chordy, olshy, alm, chkear, rchedy, shese, sheos, ofchy, rchody, chekey, chedar, cheedy, chekar, tcheain, sholy, cheoky, chls, chpy, oteodar, yshol, choeky, chokey, ochedy, okchar, tchod, keechy, choody, lotal, echedy, kcheey, kchoar, ytalar, fchey, todeeey, chpa, oeteody, ykecho, sosho, oteeody, chokar, ocheky, dorchy, ochoyk, oteeoky, aloees, oteedar, oteofy, topar, chefy, lam, lshey, okeolor, otedeey, oltal, oteeedy, odchey, chetain, eeesal, korchy, rcheky, lolol, kechey, lchs, okechy, opeol, lseeey, chofy, teols, sshor, ssheo, okeeeol, airam, soeees, sachy, chdeey, qocheo, alalor, tolos, cheoraiin, olkeeor, teodeey, porol, chedey, tched, talol, taim, otalair, polor, ycheod, oshso, ykcheo, otchd, iirchal, aralary.
I think we should have a “reverse caption contest” where Tom provides the caption, e.g.:
“Eugenean Venetia has active springs …”
And the contestants provide the drawings.
(The losers get a copy of his book.)
The VM was not written in a narrative style. It is an instruction manual. Sentences such as “crush laurel leaves.” abound. There is nothing on the lines of “the women swooned with delight as they inhaled the heady scent of jasmine.” And there are no capital letters.
As to morse: I’ll be dashed if that’s not the dottiest idea I have seen so far.
Ever since Joseph Martin Feely’s “solution” in 1943, many VM researchers reject the idea that the VM encodes Latin. However, Feely worked from limited information and used a single substitution method.
My solution has converted about 50% of the VM into Latin. The glyphs employ a mixture of classes:
1 single stroke “i” which combine as n, m, v (v can be used as vowel u)
2 single vowels a, e, o
3 consonants with inherent vowels. (e.g. q which always has implied u)
Inherent vowels may appear before or after a consonant, depending on context.
As with English, so with Latin: the meaning of a written word may vary with context. e.g. ‘lines’ may refer to –
drawn figures
filaments as used for fishing
portions of a drug
gun emplacements. (For an example, google “great lines UK”)
The VM contains many instances of context dependency. Most notably, perhaps: the Latin word ‘anus’ never means ‘fundamental orifice’ in the VM – the context demonstrates that by ‘anus’, ‘mature woman’ is intended.
The VM was written in an age when most, if not all literate people could read Latin. Abbreviation, what one may call ‘text compression’ was commonly used as a way to save on costly parchment just as today compression is used to save computer storage space and transmission bandwidth. The reader of Latin was as familiar with abbreviations as we, today, are familiar with acronyms such as ‘UNO’ or ‘NATO’. The VM system is slightly more complex than common abbreviation systems of that era, but would have been easily taught. Once the system is learned, the VM can be read by sight.
I am still heavily engaged (entangled? ensnared?) in litigation but hope to find time soon to write another article on the VM.
Patrick Lockerby: “My solution has converted about 50% of the VM into Latin.”
Is this a new version, Patrick?
Your original version (or maybe it was version 2, I can’t remember) was less than 1% Latin.
@J.K. Petersen Yes, it’s a new version. My previous transcription key contained errors, such as ‘L’ where ‘T’ would be correct, e.g. ‘ila’ for ‘ita’. The VM itself conatins quite a few spelling errors, as e.g. ‘foleo’ for ‘folio’, ‘olio’ for ‘oleo’. That is why my beta computer program produced so many errors.
My new version is much more accurate. Using my new key I am able to translate the first words of the first paragraph as: “This is a peractum with which you will assuredly perform the art of perfumes.”
The footnote to the first paragraph transcribes as “comes ars avestum”, meaning: “companion (to) master (the) art.”
The art in question is the art of growing, harvesting and using herbs to make scented baths for women. The so-called ‘star maps’ represent herbs in fields which are to be harvested according to lunar phases. Luniculture is an ancient tradition still practiced by some people. ‘Star names’ translate as terms related to agriculture, such as ‘fossa’ – a ditch; ‘cratis’ – harrow; ‘comitamus’ – grow (plants) along with; ‘fossamus’ – dig.
The ‘plumbing’ appears to be a design to economise on water: one bath overflows into another, with the waste water marked as unsafe for bathing, not with a modern skull and crossbones but with picture of a woman being eaten by a fish.
I would prefer to see the actual Latin transliteration, Patrick. I’m sure we all would. A few paragraphs would be enough.
I have completed folio 16r and if anyone is interested you can view it here at voynich reddit. I have found an additional step in the decoding process which increases the speed of translation. I’m currently investigating another vary intricate step which may describe the first letter of each vord in Italian, as to indicate through steganography, where to start in my MS Access database along with the sum of the Morse code. I’m seeing something vary fascinating. To see all the steps go here!
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/dhu4xk/entire_folio_16r_marijuana_completed_2nd_and_3rd/
Strong marijuana targets brains network normal.
Holy man, my kingdom boasts home-grown pears
Myrtle plants, Arum lilies with a fleshy meadow.
Germinate plants, put at 1.9! Aerate field,
plant separately!
Eugenean Venetia has fine springs surrounding
ancient uphills and in itself was
no hectograms drugs. Man if anything
attractive is not here, reap seeds,
put with water from the Moor, note area!
Hemp increased revenue, snorted
daily, given to me smoked! We would attempt
to have worship, repent piously, praising
Exulting, praying , worshiping pious
exultations, baptizing with your Priest.
“The footnote to the first paragraph transcribes as “comes ars avestum”, meaning: ‘companion (to) master (the) art.'”
Footnotes weren’t invented until the mid-16th century. FYI
@Voynich Decoders, Come out and play ay ay! 🙂
Paragraph f68r1 Voynich Manuscript
Well my MS Access database is an excellent resource for me to find the words I need to translate the Voynich Manuscript. I’m succeeding where no man has gone before with the VMS. If you would like the database, just purchase my book; I will know and then send me your email and I will set you up a link to download the MS Access database so you to can decode the Voynich Manuscript. All you do is type in the total dashes and dots and it will bring back the words.
There seems to be a theme with Voynich in some of the paragraphs ending with religious connotations. I’m starting to believe Wilfrid only thought that a Holy person could decode his manuscript.
I’m still debating about giving the database away for free, only if sales picks up.
There’s a heavy presence for Andromeda in the sun of f68r1
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/dk2366/paragraph_f68r1_voynich_manuscript/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/628027000717428/
@ Voynichpeople
How my cipher works?
If you are referring to the voynich glyph’s which I am, than order only appears after summation of the glyph’s, (as in dashes & dots) when an Italian word is formed from them. I’m in the process of making a video regarding my cipher so that it is simple enough for a 6th grader to comprehend. That should ease everyone’s mind.
Try to imagine that the glyphs don’t really exist as a language on their own, they are just an amount of mixed dashes & dots until an Italian word is applied to that vord. The cipher never changes as it is now established as bullet proof!
For example a voynich “ror” is in this current state ..—…— totaling six dashes & five dots. Thus santo could be formed from this set of six dashes & five dots. “Santo” equals … .- -. – — which translates to “Holy”
For instance a Voynich 8 equals —-. or it can be in this order –.– or this order -.— and this is in abstract Morse code not Morse Code at the moment. Yet then since this is only one glyph which does appear on it own it translates to this Morse Code. -. — which equals “no” and its the same for Italian.
Add up the total dashes & dots from the glyph’s and apply it to an Italian word equal to the dashes & dots of that word, or rarely an English word.
Find an Italian word that equals the total of dashes & dots, apply to Italian word.
This is like anagrams however less words are found due to the dash & dot total key!
https://youtu.be/WYHb5h4nQqc
@All
I’m among the camp with excellent researchers who believe the VMS is a modern forgery by Wilfrid. I’m with Rich SantoColoma, Alain Touwaide and Edmond Locard,
More news supporting that the Voynich Manuscript is a forgery:
Alain Touwaide Villa Mondragrone 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70lZNJhvAwQ
Assuming that the author of the MS is a forger, he clearly was an expert of the field, with a deep knowledge of manuscripts and medieval scientific literature. The way in which he reproduced a “iatrosophion” structure, including an index and compound drugs, is sophisticated: the author was likely familiar with the works of Galen.
Following the parallel with Sloane 4016: Voynich used to frequent the British Library. He might have taken sketches of the manuscript there and later reworked the illustrations to create the VMS.”
Tom: Edmond Locard was a criminologist (Locard’s exchange principle, the foundation stone of modern forensic analysis is named after him), but I don’t believe he ever wrote a word about the Voynich manuscript.
Rich SantaColoma has his own ideas about how the Voynich Manuscript was made, but to my eyes he never seems particularly comfortable when other people put forward similar or overlapping ideas. But perhaps there’ll be room in his capacious camp for you, who can tell?
I have read the whole newspaper text again exactly, and even studied.
Now I have to be fair to Prof. Touwaide’s statement. He writes yes, “A forgery from the past”.
I can still understand that someone in the 1600 century wanted to take revenge on other scholars as a kind of fake. In mind, and you don’t understand that now.
Prof. Marina Formica confirms that in her opinion it is a fake, but leaves out a temporal indication.
Interestingly, a lot was said without really saying anything.
@Tom
How do you want to understand and decrypt the VM when ……
Aga Tentakulus: I can understand that some people would like the Voynich Manuscript to be a hoax or a fake, because then the joke would be on all the po-faced Voynich researchers (yes, such as myself) who would then have been revealed to have wasted years of their life on a ludibrium, etc.
However… drawing that kind of macro conclusion from merely one aspect of the (apparently contradictory, and context-less) evidence the Voynich presents is simply not justifiable.
Touwaide, unfortunately, is putting himself in the same academic camp as Janick and Bax (to name but two of many) who try to scale up a partial evidential review into a full-blown conclusion, with disastrous effect.
I predict we will see many more of these “partialist” readings before long. 🙁
When I say fake, I mean modern times. So I ask myself the question, why should anyone do something like that ?
At a time when the whole world is looking at Egyptian, Greek, Roman and the discoveries of the new world. But no one is really interested in the Middle Ages. Money couldn’t have been it, the VM was too inconspicuous for that.
Somebody has to answer this basic question before he comes with alleged evidence.
Nick – please check the link you give for Jim Child’s website.
re Nick on Janick and the “partialist” readings…
Nick correctly identifies what is most certainly a danger, I agree, even though I’m fully in the Janick/Tucker camp and have been for several years. One must take every step in the dark room of an unexplored castle expecting loose masonry and holes in the floor here and there.
SIDE NOTE: in my latest attacks I’m seeking info on Aztec shaman hallucinogenic practices, hoping for a crib. If anyone knows of good books or links on this I’m all ears. I did come across a really great word to search for a crib, the Aztec (Nahuatl) word for Salvia Divinorum is (or may be) “PipilTZINTZINtli” , as good a crib as “the weather today is” or “tower low on water” was for the WW2 codebreakers trying to crack Enigma or Japanese messages. Have not undertaken a search for this yet, eyesight slowing me down. Unfortunately while some of the captions may be Nahuatl (promisingly found by Dr. Tucker), the body of the text is not…hence….Danger Will Robinson, fitting text to one’s theory not allowed !!
Patrick Lockerby,
When you say “lunar phases” do you mean phases of the moon, or the lunar months? If the latter, it might tie in with the old agricultural calendars, in which the weeks were named by stars and asterisms of the lunar path, the manzil. A great deal of work has been done on Arabian agricultural calendars of this type, and though they are not the only ones, the literature on them is easiest of access, beginning from the foundational studies by R.B. Serjeant (collected in a volume published by Variorum). On perfumes, I’d still recommend (as I’ve done for some time), the Brht Samhita, which I’m happy to say has been put up at the internet archive since I began batting on about it when raising the ‘perfume’ possibility in treating the Voynich roots-and-leaves section. Varisco has produced a good deal in recent years on other (often later) versions of the Arabian calendars. If it’s ‘moon phases’ as such, though, I suppose all the above will be of no use to you. 🙂
Tom O’Neill,
It’s really very naughty of you to overlay a description of Touwaide’s qualifications with diagrams and pictures reflecting ideas which have nothing to do with Touwaide. They give the viewer of that youtube video the idea that what they are seeings are excerpts from some Voynich research by Alain Touwaide – an impression which might, in the eyes of some, constitute a public libel.
It would be better to have nothing but a picture of Touwaide, or some nice shots Mondragone. Also – may I ask if you obtained permission from Mondragone and/or the Touwaide and/or the Beinecke staff to reproduce the sound-track?
Aga,
Could you provide details of that newspaper article – thanks.
@ Diane
There were some articles from different newspapers. Some are still linked at Voynich Ninja.
If they still work I don’t know.
https://www.ragusaoggi.it/il-mistero-del-voynich-torna-a-villa-mondragone/
http://web.uniroma2.it/module/name/Content/navpath/HOM/action/showpage/content_id/77014
Diane,
You are so stuck on such a fraud that you cannot even handle that you and many of your colleagues have been fooled.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/ehz0eo/telegraph_icon_found_in_voynich_manuscript/
Tom: somewhat earlier than the telegraph, the sign on f57v you mentioned in your link was once claimed (by Glen Claston in 2003) to be a combination of three shorthand symbols in Shelton’s second shorthand system (“Zeiglographia”, 1650) for “F o G” = “Feare of God”. http://voynich.net/Arch/2003/04/msg00161.html
On the other hand, “Fear of God” (a composite symbol for ‘fg’ on p.35 of Zeiglographia) has no dot or circle in the middle. Moreover, a small circle is the Zeiglographia sign for ‘H’: so if anything, it should actually be a composite sign for “FHG”. Additionally, Shelton’s system signifies vowels by placing the following consonant at an angle relative to the previous consonant. So because the ‘o’ (H) shape is up and to the right of the F, there’s an implicit ‘E’ there: and because the ‘G’ is down and to the right of the ‘H’, there’s an implicit ‘O’ there. So the fully expanded shorthand phrase would seem to be “FEHOG”, which I think is probably nonsense.
But even though this makes little sense and was devised some two centuries too late, I still prefer it to your telegraph theory, sorry. 🙁
To be fair, Shelton’s composite sign for “Fear” (p.42) is an L with a dot above it (one of the tiny number of composite signs with a dot), so I can basically see what GC was talking about. But I still think he was just plain wrong about this, even if I haven’t yet got a better explanation.
I’m pretty sure I’ve posted this on the forum and probably also on my blog, but when you see a staircase shape, or a dash attached to a roof-shape or V-shape with a dot over it, it is frequently a Greek scribal abbreviation.
For example, one of the abbreviations for alpha pi rho (apo) is dash—raised dot—vee (with the dash and the vee being attached).
I paid $2000.00 for this recording of Wilfrid Voynich at a conference in Philadelphia in 1921. My question is did I get burned or did I score. I have been looking for a recording of Wilfrid Voynich for awhile.
https://soundcloud.com/tommy-oneil-265181099/wilfrid-voynich-actual-recording
Tom: it sounds more like a circa-2019 text-to-speech algorithm running on some old text. Hence $0.20 should probably cover it, so I’m not really sure about the rest of your $2000, but it’s surely a good job you’re rolling rich. :-p
It sounds like an audio-book-style recording, perhaps from a transcript.
I very much doubt that Wilfrid Voynich would have had an English accent untainted by his native speech patterns (eastern European accents can always be heard and rarely disappear entirely from the way people talk) and from having to learn other languages in order to carry out his business.
Also, as Nick pointed out, it sounds like a very modern recording. Recording technology was fairly primitive in Wilfrid’s day and has a completely different sound.
Here is a test take some old sheets of Calfskin about ten of them and drop about 2 table spoons of coffee in 1 corner an let it sit. Because it appears that Wilfrid Voynich did not bother to blotch it out. Oh yes don’t forget prior to spilling the coffee like Wilfrid did on f103r to write some voynichese. When it is all dry come back an see if the color is like what we see in the Voynich Manuscript, also remember the two other smaller droplets in your performance. This document is not a 15th century Manuscript. Maybe the test will reveal how it dry’s like in the Voynich.
Also it appear that the Coffee bled through MS-408 onto several other pages. This document is a complete hoax. How could we all miss this? This document is total horse sh#t.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/eisk19/coffee_stain_103r_coffee_did_not_appear_in_europe/
Thomas, you’ve just seen too many movies, and by the way, he takes black tea and not coffee.
Gall ink stains are the same color as coffee stains. The VMS pigments have been tested. They are old.
J.K.P: I can see where you’re coming from and where you stand with such a profound statement ie. “They are old” (VM pigmehts), though not so sure where you’ve been; Could it be a dark tunnel or a mushroom farm per chance?.
John, Tom is promoting the idea that the VMS is a modern hoax and suggesting coffee stains for the brown stains that are probably gall oak stains. The pigments have been tested.
Yes I understand only tiny samples were taken because no one wants to damage the Voynich manuscript, but the pigments that were tested were consistent with the radio-carbon dating and with pigments generally used for manuscripts at the time, which contradicts the idea that the VMS is a modern hoax covered with modern coffee stains (coffee was not yet known in much of the world although they did have it in the Ethiopian region at the time).
About the black tea: I am referring here to the film about Hitler’s diaries. This was about the forgery of the diaries.
To make the paper look old, he used black tea.
Uwe Ochsenknecht as the forger, and Götz George as the buyer.
Tea is used to make items look old. Also heating them in an oven has similar effects.
But the VMS doesn’t look especially “old” in terms of hard use or heavily foxed edges (except the first page). It looks old in terms of how it is bound, the materials that were used, the styles of all the different handwritings, the ink, the pigments, the subject matter, etc…. all of which cannot be achieved with tea.
J.K.P: Saying that the overlay pigments “are age consistent with…carbon dating of the samples etc” in the context put would, in other words only be alluding to the tests not having revealed any inconsistency that was detectable. This due in main to the SA C14 test equipment not being capable of dating such incompatible pigments. During the December 2009 pres conference, Greg was forced to retract on the claim, which of course would seem to pour cold water on any “very old pigment assertions”.
Greg did not attend the December 2009 press conference.
JKP: I also suspect that tea makes builders look older than their years.
Couldn’t possibly be the alcohol, that’s a preservative, right?
McCrone said the pigments are “not inconsistent…” (see pdf linked at Beinecke site__).
Now, this mightn’t sound like much but in terms of a scientific report it is significant. It rules out one of the major signs of pre-1950s forgeries, which is that because they hadn’t the data we now have, the pigments are often wrong – not all of them, but some. On the other hand, it is not an endorsement of the usual theories about place of origin, or even support for the date range. Had McCrone been able, as part of their brief, to provide a full report on the pigments, and been permitted to select their own comparison for the binder (they had to test against mopa-mopa !!), then we’d already know a great deal more than we do about the manuscript. The samples they were told to test were the most ordinary and most widely used, and the sort of thing which McCrone was able to identify on sight. But that’s how it went. I should have liked to know whether the ‘organic material’ they mention in passing mightn’t have been egg-white, originally used to finish the vellum. If so, we’d likely be looking at vellum made with the Aegean island, or in Crete. Perhaps one day..
Rene: So who made the retraction, on whose behalf and on what authority, and don’t say the New Haven tea party!
For black tea:
The film is based on facts. The forger with black tea and iron had trouble delivering the promised diaries where he had promised.
Here is the link.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schtonk!
John Sanders, to be fair, I just wanted to point out that you are making up things as you write.
Rene: And to be as fair as I be; your failure to respond to my last three simple questions concerning the 2009 press disclosures is rather telling and somewhat unbecoming of you. Could it be that you’re still in a state of denial following on from new damning evidence posted re non medieval VM origins. Perhaps you might consider capitulation on the C14 dating errors in favour of continuing your arguments on historical provinence which I’ll be happy to counter with relish.
J.K.P. I’m sure you’re right about coffee being served up in Ethiopia in medieval times, leastwise it’s drinking habit was well established when bibliophile Jim Bruce visuted in the mid 18th centuary to explore the blue Nile source and he raved about it. He was also able to pick up three fair copies of Enoch (1 for King Louis XV and a couple for the BM) for a song, which may be of some passing interest. What we really need to impress upon you and your pals, is that by 1900 there was an awful lot of coffee in Brazil, irrespective of it’s simmilar prevalence in downtown Timbuktu twixt 1404 & ’38 which should prove of no consequence at all.
As an aside to Tom ONeil’s non tongue in cheek coffee stain, it’s relevance is easily evidenced by the attempted ‘Tepencz’ signature obliteration on page f1r which is obviously deliberate rather than an accidental spillage of some brownish liquid. If one requires even more damning testimony of interference with the unwanted reference to Tepencz, go to f1v where the same stain has been used to create a plant tree root ball, quite out of context with all others in the botanical series. The top edge raised outline of the ball near the trunk is used to disguise the letter ‘T’ cross. Followers of Rich SC’s VM 1910 site can study these assertions in some better detail.
John Sanders: …and a Trolly New Year to you too. 🙂
I don’t know why the work of O’Neil is even mentioned anymore. They don’t fit our times anymore.
Auch hier war Hugh O’Neill ein qualifizierter Botaniker, sein Fachgebiet war jedoch die einheimische Flora Kanadas – und in geringerem Maße Alaskas. Nichts in seinen Schriften oder in dem, was andere zu Lebzeiten über ihn sagten, weist auf ein bestimmtes Wissen oder Interesse an mittelalterlicher Geschichte, Kunst oder Manuskripten hin. Er scheint auch nicht auf Pater Dr. Petersen, der ihm wiederholt und deutlich gesagt hatte, dass kein Paläograph O’Neills gute Idee unterstützen könne. O’Neill selbst interessierte sich so wenig für die Frage des historischen Kontexts, dass er die Theorie von “Columbus brachte Sonnenblumen” nicht einmal mit Primärdokumenten in Bezug auf Columbus ‘Reisen vergleichen konnte. Was seine Fähigkeit angeht, die Bilder des Manuskripts zu lesen, nennen wir es naiv.
The same goes for Tucker and Janick. Hey may be specialists in their work, but in Voynich research they are bloody amateurs.
And on the subject of coffee: the Turks lost so much coffee in the attack on Vienna in 1530 that it is probably still enough today.
PM
Wenn jemand jetzt denkt Hugh O’Neill, und Tom O’Neil sind nicht das gleiche. Das weiss ich !
Aber meine Kritik an Tom’s Arbeit würde auch nie durch die Zensur kommen, wenn den Nick eine hätte.
John, I look at manuscript scans every day and often see Ex Libris marks expunged from manuscripts. It’s not at all uncommon. Sometimes it’s a very messy job. Sometimes you can read the previous Ex Lib and other times there’s not enough left to make out what it used to say, but the position of it in the book is frequently the bottom of the first folio, or on the preceding flyleaf, so sometimes one can see what it is by context.
I don’t have an explanation for why people did this, and I don’t know if the VMS signature was expunged for the same reasons as others that I’ve seen, but one possibility is new owners removing the marks of a previous owner.
J.k.Peterson: I’ll take your thoughts on board, most respectfully and see what else I can make of them. There is another aspect to f1r that I find most interesting, but it can wait for another day.
Many thanks Nick, a pleasant surprise and, it goes without saying, a happy and enlightning gnu year to you too.
There is a key to cipher the Voynich manuscript.
The key to the cipher manuscript placed in the manuscript. It is placed throughout the text. Part of the key hints is placed on the sheet 14. With her help was able to translate a few dozen words that are completely relevant to the theme sections.
The Voynich manuscript is not written with letters. It is written in signs. Characters replace the letters of the alphabet one of the ancient language. Moreover, in the text there are 2 levels of encryption. I figured out the key by which the first section could read the following words: hemp, wearing hemp; food, food (sheet 20 at the numbering on the Internet); to clean (gut), knowledge, perhaps the desire, to drink, sweet beverage (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to believe (sheet 107); to drink; six; flourishing; increasing; intense; peas; sweet drink, nectar, etc. Is just the short words, 2-3 sign. To translate words with more than 2-3 characters requires knowledge of this ancient language. The fact that some symbols represent two letters. In the end, the word consisting of three characters can fit up to six letters. Three letters are superfluous. In the end, you need six characters to define the semantic word of three letters. Of course, without knowledge of this language make it very difficult even with a dictionary.
And most important. In the manuscript there is information about “the Holy Grail”.
I’m willing to share information.
Nikolai: just so you know, this is roughly the fifteenth time you have left this message (or something very similar to it) on Cipher Mysteries since 2015. And (speaking for myself, which is all I can do) I didn’t think it sounded very good back in 2015, sorry. 🙁
Nick, this is interesting. I was just thinking the same thing.
It’s like “dinner for two.”
Every New Year’s Eve, on all the TV stations. 🙂
Peter: Dinner for One? Yes, same procedure as every year, indeed. 🙂
@Nikolai
Based on the list of words read, I guess it’s Nikolaj Anichkin?
I read your articles a few years ago. Too bad you never explained your reading method, no bibliographic reference, no “Vedic” dictionary reference used. Moreover, your reading has not progressed for several years, you remained frozen with your ten words.
You’re “willing to share information”, what’s stopping you? D’you have a blog that your readers can comment on?
I advise you to start over from scratch, without forgetting the references this time, and wish you good progress!
Yeah, right ” Dinner for one”
Sorry, ” i give my very best ” 🙂
only for Nick
I mixed,”Ticket for two” and “Dinner for one”
Thanks! I already have a lot of material on this topic. I’m looking for someone who is interested in this material professionally. I have already published the decryption method. If you are interested in this, please let me know by email. The site administrator has my email address
Nikolai, I wanted to make a positive, optimistic and encouraging message, it’s done. You’re free to remain in child’s play.
Rubin, I’m not interested in playing with You.
l’avenir est symbolisé par ces dessins et ces textes sont diversion qui ne veutt rien dire d’autre que le verbe ne vault pas le dessein de la vie.
http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2020/Q1/purdue-horticulture-professor-earns-award-for-illuminating-secrets-of-the-voynich-manuscript.html
Regarding Janick & Tucker’s prize I suppose someone should inform the prize givers that Janick & Tucker’s book is not as meritorious as they believe. I don’t know who normally takes this on, Lisa Fagin Davis, or whether someone else should do this.
Sometimes the knowledge of the VM is like a poker game. Long played, but the result is certain.
Fullhouse !
Who would have thought that ?
2X black and 3x red
I’m limiting this offer to read my book free along with utilizing the database for use involved with decoding the Voynich vords, until people get over the Covid-19 Virus! You can engage yourself into another aspect of the possibility for a reading of the Voynich Manuscript, this is my way of offering a distraction. This is 12 years of my work to find out how to read the Voynich Manuscript. What I found was that the ink as titanium should be very rare in a medieval document. Also many depictions regarding the art, should have no bearing or place within the Voynich Manuscript. I have found provenance within the document as well as the Arthur’s name!
You will find this as my greatest work along with many pictures and a great adventure while reading and even going on to decode the rest of the Manuscript yourself. Good luck 🙂
Before I begin, I have constructed an MS Access database using MS
Office 2010 containing over 100,000 thousand defined Italian words and if
you find some words not defined then go to deepl translator and copy and
paste words. This database eases the burden for finding Italian words
tremendously while decoding. I use this strategy while decoding Italian
words. First I divide the total dash & dot count of the Italian word by 2.5 to get the average word
length of the Italian word.
Next I search through the database by setting it
to ascending, current document, whole field, all and match case. The
average word length helps me identify the likely Italian word. I proceed to
type in either dashes & dots, dashes or just dots to find the Italian words
which may fit the narrative or a label from the Voynich Manuscript.
MSACCES Database
Password for rar file is Michal and Password for Database is Michal
https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1AzIkaYQm43NP2NN4EAzI0kiVC7GseQ8T&export=download
https://frenchvoynich.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/voynich_morse_code_sdownloadable_proof.pdf
https://voynichman.freeforums.net/thread/50/download-voynich-code-steganography-cipher?page=1&scrollTo=130
Come over to the light and stop banging your heads against the Voynich text. I’m being honest you all will never decode it properly if all of you don’t use my method. My success with the system I use is unstoppable.
Here is a great post at reddit/voynich which I explain everything and I offer programs to help you decode the voynich which I posted on a virtual drive.
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/fxxbcr/ms408_is_was_not_composed_between_1404_1438_yale/
Tom: I’m in the small group of people who have actually handled and examined the Voynich Manuscript closely, and I can say unequivocally that there was no coffee odour there at all. So… I’m more than a little skeptical of that part of your claim, sorry. 🙁
I’m additionally in the (even smaller) group of people who were loudly and openly dating it to the 15th century prior to the radiocarbon dating results. The presence of 15th century marginalia there is a bit of a giveaway that it wasn’t made after 1500. But given that I’m such a meanie beanie stickler for facts, I would say that, wouldn’t I?
@Nick
I’m sure all included marginalia is brought to you by the good folks of Michal Voynich Forgers inc. Take some old vellum and spill a splash of coffee on a page, then watch it bleed, because the stain is apparent through folios 102-104.
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f102v1/0.378/0.117/5.00
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f102v2/0.924/0.2/5.00
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f103r/0.747/0.129/5.00
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f103v/0.439/0.099/5.00
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f104r/0.791/0.143/5.00
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f104v/0.29/0.178/5.00
Do you receive a small stipend from Yale to stay in your Academic mouse trap? Oops my cat is a little meanie too. lol :;
Maybe your facts need to be reexamined!
@Nick
To dye or not to dye. The dying VMS shows a lack of authenticity! I wonder if Michal like Folgers on top of hemp and cocaine?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17Z8Hw86f_o
https://soundcloud.com/tommy-oneil-265181099/wilfrid-voynich-actual-recording
Hahahaha
I’m being lectured by Tom O’Neil on the importance of facts.
Hahahaha
Hahahaha
Hahahaha
Hahahaha
Hi Nick – glad to see you’re still about. All the best.
@Thom
You write “Come over to the light”
Don’t you know you’re not supposed to walk into the light.
I don’t want to say goodbye yet, so I’m not going into the light.
And you’re a writer?
I don’t know morse code.
But it doesn’t seem up-to-date.
Maybe it’s smoke signals. Big cloud, little cloud, and all that…
..__.– = need firewater……hiccup
Assuming that the VM text is possibly sounds, this is also not easy to discard.
Morse code is not a modern invention. Besides drums, there are also the smoke signals. In the dark they were signal lights or lamps.
And if you think the Swiss alphorn is a musical instrument, you are wrong.
In the past it was used for communication from mountain to valley.
But I am sure it is not Morse code !
@The Mysteries regarding Ciphers think tank group
Well there is a new Voynich Forum out and its picking off users fast from the Ninjas tentacles. Come sign up and keep it civil. Let the debates begin Oohrah!
This post here will spark your plugs into the Voynich muck.
http://voynich.net/forum/viewtopic.phpf=5&t=15&sid=cbc34df16024fa0f451b97fe7d0ade28
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWb9HRM8wrE
Tom: feel free to enjoy the new forum.
New Forum ? Nice, but …….
Something to read where I have read 3x at other places ?
See the same nonsense again, even if it was written under a different name.
You can see immediately who someone is, even if they use a different name. For that you know each other too long.
Voynich Manuscript Broken by Cryptools 2 1
@ Nick and all
@ To all whom wish to know how to speak Voynich
First off, I wish to thank Rich SantaColoma for showing me a link to what I think is one of the best cryptographic programs out online available for download named Cryptools 2.1 http://www.cryptool.org/en/ . After a week of crashing my head into a wall, I figured out how to automate a decryption for MS-408 utilizing Cryptools 2.1. This was a 16 year effort and it is finished. 😯
Go to this youtube and it has all the links from my google drive to decode the Michal Voynich 1910 hoax manuscript.
https://youtu.be/6wq_702lztU
Tom: I’m sort of impressed by your persistence here. But not by your historical research or your codebreaking. All the same, one-ish out of three is better than a lot of Voynich theorists ever manage, so well done you, I guess.
Your marginalia lack luster approach for the voynich being invented in the 15th century is a persistent echo locked in your mind NIck. Complement not taken you are patronizing me.
Can you provide a list of points here in bullets for why you believe the MS-408 is 15th century document and back it up I doubt it. The calf skin carbon dating does not tell when the text was laid down. Also why do you think its impossible for a modern hand to write those glyphs with a quill? Explain to me if it is possible for a genius like Michal Voynich who was a chemist and known radical revolutionary with a shady background in other forgeries why he could not have manufactured the document alone of with help?
As chemist he could have produced the 15th century like inks for callf skin when $100,000 was rolling around in his mind.
Michals book store was on the demise for funds so he devised just short of an impossible cipher with help or alone with plans on selling it as Bacon Cipher. He forged the Tepeneze signature into fr1 and then there is the Castle lie about where he found it then he said it was found in the Villa.
https://soundcloud.com/tommy-oneil-265181099/wilfrid-voynich-actual-recording
The other terrible Latin letter to Marci was forged too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4G4enbWJYk
https://voynichsignature.wordpress.com/
Tom: you’re right, I am indeed gatekeeper to the secret society of people who get to decide what is true about the Voynich Manuscript.
So, I’ve filled in the V-236(k) form with the details of your theory, and have put it into the system. If they can read it through the cigar fog at their next meeting, I’m sure it will get a fair crack of the whip.
Best of luck!
@Thomas O’Neil
You really have a vivid imagination. But you overlook the history and the possibilities where then were available.
It would be good if you talked to a scholar. Preferably with a professor who is familiar with the Voynich manuscript.
I know someone, the best thing would be for you to talk to Professor J. Zlatoděj
@Nick
Sounda like Illuminati stuff lol, Nick you have not played chess in a while I see Mr. Gate Keeper.
Anyway Nick I had to udpate and make a new vid. The mappings are now perfect to eva1 hand font regarding using decryption software from Cryptools. I’m going to attempt a full translation of folio 66r from Italian to English when I can muster up the energy.
Here is the down load link for the files you need to understand which dashes and dot pertain to an eva voynich font
Also watch my new youtube it show how to input the cvs file remember to install the eva1 font
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va-NLiWbPxE
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uPjeLd359RgOwsvShHy4hUqclTkaKZ2G
Research results 2019
Balance Sheet Voynich Manuscript
A summary of all research achievements in 2019.
A brief summary based on all contributions.
The Voynich Manuscript….
Is a forgery of the American Nahuatl Morse code. Written by a lady named Eliska, in Czech with Indian characters in Persia.
The manuscript found its way to Europe via the Silk Road in the time of Leonardo da Vinci.
It is said that it was copied in the workshop of Diebold Lauber and sold for 600 guldens per piece.
Personal statement:
I didn’t think such groundbreaking achievements were even possible.
Nostradamus
Addendum:
I was urgently informed that visible piping systems in the VM were only patented around 1957. Which clearly indicates a forgery.
Nostradamus
Nostradamus: I have some nice photos of similar pipework embedded in the walls of a famous Milanese hospital built in the 1450s.
But who cares?
Being as funny as a funerary fart in both cases suggests time to call it a day.
I also take into consideration that after the death of Rudolf II in 1612 and the upcoming riots in Prague in 1614, books were removed from libraries.
It would be worth following this trail, as it is a plausible reason why the book has changed location.
Peter: do you have any sources for this?
@Nick
No, I do not have any concrete information about VM regarding outsourcing.
But I do have a reference to moving whole libraries.
History:
I once wrote a joke about a book Maybe Rene can remember it. ” Mother of all crosswords ”
Rene has shortly after 2 more identical drawings ( books posted ).
All books are copies from the monastery in Fulda.
Now I noticed that the collection Basel has a lot of books from the monastery.
Why? The collection describes that the Fulda monastery library was taken to safety because of the 30 year war 1618 – 1648. Some are also in other places in Switzerland.
These dates also fall on the year of death of Rudolf II in 1612 and the riots in Prague in 1614.
But Fulda was not the only one where this was done. Switzerland was rather a quiet zone during the 30-year war.
A library around 1600 represents a considerable fortune. If it did not go to Rudolf’s heirs, where to ?
Even if there are no records when the origin is removed, then perhaps to the recipient. Entry register. In the case of Fulda, Basel did it.
Question where and which libraries would come into question if I consider Prague as sender.
@ Mary D’imperio and all Voynich addicted cipher hacks
Mary was a champion, in my book regarding her analysis of the Voynich Manuscript:
https://frenchvoynich.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/voynich_manuscript-dimperio-1978.pdf
You all have to realize the Astrology 12 section which relate to actualy the Roman Calendar of Name-Day Saints:
Blessed Mother Mary was found in the the Pisces section, her Name-Day was March 25.
https://voynichman.freeforums.net/thread/58/voynich-astrology-roman-calendar-saints
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B5Fr1d0CWw
Tom Oneil: Mary D’Imperio, God bless her, never disputed the possibilty that VM may have been an elaborate hoax, but surmising that if so, it would have taken many years to achieve so to what end gain. Wilfred was introduced to Richard Garnet, administrator of the then British Museum Library by Mary Boole, mother of Lily in the early 90s, and like Dickie had no love for establishment pompous scholars of the day. Wilfred took it upon himself to avail of the facilities, biding his time and was eventually able to gain sufficient knowledge to become what he did, a rich successful purveyor of antiqiterian books, elaborate fakes included. So we can see that Mary’s proposition for a VM hoax would thus be justified according to her own criteria. Amongst numerous clues left deliberately by Freddy for us to see clearly including f80r’s pool nymphs providing the distinctive letters F U B L which of course might easily equate to Fabricated Using British Library.
There is a key to cipher the Voynich manuscript.
The key to the cipher manuscript placed in the manuscript. It is placed throughout the text. Part of the key hints is placed on the sheet 14. With her help was able to translate a few dozen words that are completely relevant to the theme sections.
The Voynich manuscript is not written with letters. It is written in signs. Characters replace the letters of the alphabet one of the ancient language. Moreover, in the text there are 2 levels of encryption. I figured out the key by which the first section could read the following words: hemp, wearing hemp; food, food (sheet 20 at the numbering on the Internet); to clean (gut), knowledge, perhaps the desire, to drink, sweet beverage (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to believe (sheet 107); to drink; six; flourishing; increasing; intense; peas; sweet drink, nectar, etc. Is just the short words, 2-3 sign. To translate words with more than 2-3 characters requires knowledge of this ancient language. The fact that some symbols represent two letters. In the end, the word consisting of three characters can fit up to six letters. Three letters are superfluous. In the end, you need six characters to define the semantic word of three letters. Of course, without knowledge of this language make it very difficult even with a dictionary.
Much attention in the manuscript is paid to the health of women for the purpose of giving birth to healthy offspring.
And most important. In the manuscript there is information about “the Holy Grail”.
I am ready to share information, but only with those who are seriously interested in deciphering the Voynich manuscript.
Nikolai.
It is interesting that all our VM pool scenes identify with the water having a natural greenish hue as opposed to various artificial shades of blue that would the norm to-day. In medieval times and even further back to the era of Egyptian ascendency, those navy blue tones that are fairly well dispersed throughout the VM in a variety of depictions might not have been seen as a social norm. Deep blues not being at all natural were once expensive and hard to procure, so when seen in medieval art it usually identifies with religious dieties or royalty and the upper eschelons of power. Such extravigance was most unlikely to be encountered in a everyday low class health and happiness manual such as ours; unless of course it happened to be a twentieth century imposter.
John please post at:
http://voynich.net/forum/index.php?sid=4d9925ad5796c550be7a647f0b1fd943
Voynich manuscript – a treasury of knowledge
Dealing with such a complicated and thought-provoking field of decryption or decoding what the author meant, in addition to encyclopedic knowledge and a scientific approach to the subject, it is also necessary to have an intuitive ability to combine facts and draw conclusions from these facts.
When it comes to the Voynich Manuscript, the vast majority of researchers focus on trying to decipher the writing code. In my opinion, the text itself is a deliberately used mystification to engage readers in fruitless searches for the manuscript code, just like, for example, centered Nostradamus scattered like puzzles. In my search, I focused on the symbolic meaning of illustration. Therefore, I am asking you for patience – only a larger number of illustrations will confirm my theory that: The manuscript, and more specifically the herbal part is, in my opinion, a peculiar compendium of knowledge about the evolution of life on Earth – from its cosmological aspect, through human evolution (Theory Darwin), up to prehistory, as well as contemporary history. More on my website: https://www.facebook.com/grzegorzzkoszalina/?modal=admin_todo_tour
Greetings.
Grzegorz: it’s an opinion, but perhaps it would make it more persuasive if you were to also point to the things that led you to that opinion. So might I suggest you post up a blog page to describe it, rather than the narrow margins of a comment here?
Nick: I have already mentioned that in my search I focused on the symbolic meaning of illustration. You are certainly familiar with Ron Howard’s film “The Da Vinci Code,” which was based on a novel by Dan Brown. In the initial sequences of this film, his main character Robert Langdon, lectures on semiotics. The subject of interest of this method is the sign, its properties and functions.
Therefore, taking into account the Voynich Manuscript, not as a written text, but as a transmission of some information hidden in drawings in individual folios, I decided to decipher its hidden meaning by means of deduction.
Ok, you can find different meanings in individual drawings, you can treat them differently – by matching more and more different meanings, but what, in my opinion is the most important thing, you should put all this on a time continuum.
Considering the herbal part of the manuscript, other parts do not have this value anymore, all its individual pages accurately correspond to individual events known from our history – human history.
I hope that my post on my website prove it. So far, I’ve posted some initial interpretations – I’m going to post the whole herb part there. When it comes to other parts – using the same method, I hope I successfully decoded the other folios – but that’s another matter.
In sum. I am aware that you and your environment are the most competent to assess whether this method of mine has any sense, and to somehow propagate it.
Nick, hou have probably seen this already. Just to make sure…
https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/hannover_weser-leinegebiet/Voynich-Manuskript-Mittelalter-Code-uebersetzt,voynich108.html
Peter.
Has anyone considered it may be a picture book with drawings of jumbled real letters from different languages as decoration? I wrote this somewhere else here but this is where it belongs….. Supposedly the Voynich Manuscript was possibly written by John Dee and Edward Kelly. If this is True then the language would be something similar to Enochian or one of the many languages alchemists used to write with back then (I think there are 70 languages or so). Im sure this must have been checked before now but you never know. Or maybe its read like Merlins writing….Can only be read while looking at it in a mirror.
October 13, 2020
Avid Student of Voynich Studies for 11 years
https://www.academia.edu/44291127/Tom_ONeil
The Voynich Manuscript is a meaningless text
If the Voynich text was a language than a person would not find very many bigram tokens that are reversed to form words!
My main statement is that the Voynich text is utter rubbish and gibberish which follows a Zipfian Distribution and I understand that.
So if the Voynich is a language than why is this for so many bigram tokens within the Voynich Manuscript?
yk and then reversed to ky
ra and then reversed to ar
ro and then reversed to or
os and then reversed to so
yd and then reversed to dy
do and then reversed to od
che and then reversed to ech
ko and then reversed to ok
et and then reversed to te
Here is some what I call double doubles.
dd
yy
ss
Go look for some more gibberish and you get the point as there could be a couple left in the kitty of rubbish. This is utter proof that the Voynich Manuscript is gibberish, a waste of time, complete nonsense, meaningless garbage where so many intelligent people (maybe not) and Yale has hoaxed us all, whether they know it or not for so many wasted hours that most all of us have spent studying this pail of crap. This friggin VMS text will never decode properly and any claim that it has been accomplished is total bs!
Now that I got that out of the way the gibberish maybe covering up meaningful information believe it or not and I can prove how that is done!
Take for instance this little bit of text which no normal decryption method could unravel or decode it. This little bit is actually a famous poem from a great Poet rendered to gibberish by me. I will tell you about it, the words sometimes are not the same length and the letter order is randomly scrambled by me:
Ytr rormo ler vnburlsie liu vgh dsaut
Ytr oper tybnaill brii lpert aerwer ytld
Voutght doedth enids vgh vordl liu dott rua gtyed
Mihty solser Ytr talml fghpo wqert tergrsdf rorm
Oiurty hi liu gadfwe vgh bssofl pdert
My job for you is quite simple, refer to the Zipf distribution list below for any unknown language tokens and compare them to each known token as in English words until the little paragraph is fulfilled, then you have decoded the paragraph in a nontraditional cipher method. Each unknown token is just to the right of its English word counterpart. This fun task will display a poetic message. This bit is from a famous poem and Poet. Have fun!
the 3 vgh 3
and 3 liu 3
of 3 Ytr 3
Seat 1 pdert 1
blissful 1 bssofl 1
regain 1 gadfwe 1
us 1 hi 1
Restore 1 Oiurty 1
Man 1 rorm 1
greater 1 tergrsdf 1
one 1 wqert 1
till 1 fghpo 1
Eden 1 talml 1
loss 1 solser 1
With 1 Mihty 1
woe 1 gtyed 1
our 1 rua 1
all 1 dott 1
World 1 vordl 1
into 1 enids 1
Death 1 doedth 1
Brought 1 Voutght 1
tast 1 ytld 1
mortal 1 aerwer 1
whose 1 lpert 1
Tree 1 brii 1
Forbidden 1 tybnaill 1
that 1 oper 1
Fruit 1 dsaut 1
Disobedience 1 vnburlsie 1
First 1 ler 1
Mans 1 rormo1
This a voynich fact:
Through astrology and moon phases information has finally been rendered out the Voynich Manuscript so mark down this date in Voynich History:
https://www.academia.edu/44318636/Tom_ONeil
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/jd73zk/battle_of_agincourt/
<<<>>
Hello Nick.
I took your good advice and created my Youtube channel as well as some Facebook pages.
My channel is dedicated to the Voynich Manuscript – the herbal section in particular.
And there is also a tab dedicated to the Nostradamus Almanacs and others. If anyone in you is interested, I invite you.
Below is my channel address and a Voynich manuscript playlist.
Greetings.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8LrN1tt6Xc3LTRgwwsCtaA
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNNZZOSa8w1trMNDRYyvHFoFjcBp6Yk2B
https://www.facebook.com/grzegorzzkoszalina
The Voynich Manuscript, at least visually, is a visual medical journal and the herbal illustrations are a red herring to protect the real illustrations.
I’ve got a good list of observations to back this up not not sure I want to share them here.
Learned friends:: My views be mine alone, alas I stand forlorn. Your views be yours, atone, they’re only fit for scorn. Here endeth the epistle!
Dear john sanders.
Dear John Sanders. You’re alone, so that’s bad. Create a Facebook account and you will definitely have a lot of good friends there. You cannot successfully translate Manuscript 408. Because it is written in the Czech language. But you have the opportunity to apply your knowledge in some other activity. You are certainly a good scientist and I like you a lot too. And so you can count on me on Facebook. Let me know if I don’t miss it and I’ll agree to you fridens. Or how it is written. Friend. Josef Zlatoděj prof.
By simply browsing through the document and trying to see any pattern whatsoever, I tend to agree with Mark Sullivan regarding p66r and with Beatrice Gwynn regarding left-right mirrored style (can’t comment on the language choice though). In my opinion, another major key to deciphering the script would lay withing Astrological pages, especially 67.
Josef Zlatodej Prof, latest theory is that our erstwhile Voynich Ninja colleagues may have experienced a sudden collective brain drain and turned turtle. Or else your true voice of Eliska Hapsberg having unerved them, has driven them to the brink, leaving no alternative but to flee the battlefield or fall on their swords. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that perhaps Greg Hodges of AU may have by now blown the whistle on the C14 farce and, Beinecke are about to pull the rug ala the Vinland Map fiasco to save some face. Just a thought mind.
Stay Passenger, Why Goest By Thou So Fast?
VOY
NICHT
I go (In Spanish)
Not (In German)
Notice the original spelling of the name of the owner of the book is telling?
Michał Habdank-Wojnicz
So which one is it ?
Wojnicz vs. Voynich
You can see how tweaked his name was throughout all of this….it’s clearly not the same so it had to have some kind of meaning.
That spelling IMO was coined by Friedman as he was instrumental in identifying the medieval script used.
There are some letters that were not matched with the same language, and they were later matched in Arabic. The letters BHMNYZ sounded out BE HE MIM NUN YE ZA (S). The Z character was upside down and by flipping it became an S.
It sounded like one of John Dee’s famous chants….BE HE YEZAS? MIM NUN.
So this was somewhat of a group of religious men that were able to encode the numerous designs and plant types they encountered when in a new land, as they were not found throughout Europe, but in the North American Continent, in a place called Acadia.
The name VOYNICH played off of the Shakespearean Tomb and Plaque, which also mentions the words Pylium and Genio
Phylum Genium….a Latin-based classification of plants
Also on this plaque were the words “Leaves Living Art, But Page, To Serve His Witt”
The wheels spin round and depict a sort of animated motion of a celebratory meaning as if described in the book New Atlantis, by Bacon.
This was shown to be also a mixing of herbal remedies and concoctions that were said to bring about healing and rejuvenation.
I was made to be amazed to see anything broken by the theorists but I saw what it really was about. These ciphers were authored by Francis Bacon, after his journeys to Acadia on the Rosicrucian Order of the Helm. They are fairly complex but now the alphabets are known and they can be tested once the patterning has been found to match words in Spanish.
And one of the drawings is that of a cactus called San Pedro or Peruvian Torch….the cure for the ailment we call “Corona”Virus or “Crown” Virus.
@John Sanders. Beinecke pulls a red carpet on a Vinland map. What do they have left? 6oynich is written in Czech. As every turtle found out after my last post. where I showed everyone what is written on the last page 116v. I think it looks like this. Beinecke and US scientists want to be the first. As Donald (475134) said. = America first. But there is one big catch. No scientist from the United States will ever be able to understand the text of the manuscript. So what does this mean? FIRST = 6latode1. :-). 5inja Turtle will also not be first. First = 1osef. No one in the world will do anything about it. Of course I don’t want to brag. Or somehow to elevate above the rest of the scientist. But it’s a clear fact. Viland map is a big crap. I like all scientists who can use their brains well.
Otherwise, just register for Ninja. I also did it by mistake. And the next day. I received a lot of emails from Russian girls. I’m an old scientist. What would I do with those girls? Did he teach them Voynich in the evenings? 🙂 My wife is enough for me.
fre tran.google.
@John Sanders – every Voynich arena goes the same way. It begins with a lot of active and intelligent people. Everyone who disputes the ‘Rudolf owned it and its German’ position is ignored, ostracised, attacked ad.hominem and finally forced out. Then those left are without vitality because there’s nothing new happening. Then that core ‘traditionalist’ lot go. And it dies. I was one of the first two persons involved in the plan to start the new forum that became ‘ninja’. My condition was that membership should be by invitation and the worst few not invited. Didn’t happen. But the real brain-drain isn’t the final stage; it’s what happens earlier as all debate and dissent is quashed and moderators subjected to lobbying. Pity, but there it is.
“Everyone who disputes the ‘Rudolf owned it and its German’ position is ignored, ostracised, attacked ad.hominem and finally forced out”
“all debate and dissent is quashed”
That is definitely not the case at the ninja forum.
Tavi – our experiences have been different.
Just a couple of examples of the opposite: two threads that were censored. The first, a discussion in which three people were trying to discuss Byzantine-era precedents for the central emblems in the calendar was bombarded with endless material from late medieval German books and then deemed ‘off-topic’ (a common euphemism), and another where an invitation to anyone interested to discuss the relative value of various methodologies. As soon as that thread’s title went up members of the ‘German-theory’ crew lobbied the moderator to shut it down and prevent members discussing that topic. And that was done. The ‘blogroll’ was also subject to that kind of lobbying and censorship. It had nothing to do with objective worth or value for the manuscript’s study.
I suppose that the birth of the Ninja forum is something of general Voynich-study-historical interest.
Diane wrote:
“I was one of the first two persons involved in the plan to start the new forum that became ‘ninja’. My condition was that membership should be by invitation and the worst few not invited. Didn’t happen.”
To my best knowledge, that is all true. Fortunately for me, I was specifically invited to join by the “other of the two (initials A.A.)”, so I should be one of the OK guys.
Diane also wrote that:
” Everyone who disputes the ‘Rudolf owned it and its German’ position is ignored, ostracised, attacked ad.hominem and finally forced out.”
and:
“As soon as that thread’s title went up members of the ‘German-theory’ crew lobbied the moderator to shut it down and prevent members discussing that topic.”
Now, interestingly, the criterion that Diane used to define the “worst few” that should not be invited, was (quoting her):
“I agreed to become a founding member of this forum (the first apart from its proposer), on condition that those persons known to do little but push their ‘central European’ story by personal attacks and external PR should not be granted membership here. While the habit continues among prominent if non-researching Voynicheros of answering factual information,or objective observation, with NOTHING of relevance to the issue, but only with ad.hominems this manuscript’s study will continue to be stuck, making no substantial advance beyond where it was in the late 1990s when this rather silly ‘central European’ storyline was first produced and thereafter pushed beyond evidence or objective reason.”
Every forum can decide for itself whether it prefers to discuss the MS itself, or rather the people involved with the MS, and in which manner.
why are you massaging yourself to be the first in the Ninja Club? Diana and Renne Zandbergen. I know Renne and I know what Diana writes. And I can write to you here that neither Renne nor Diana will ever be able to understand the text of the manuscript. Ninja forum is for amateurs and not for scientists. The best Voynich forum is here. Where it is moderated by Nick Pelling. This is my experience. And if someone disagreed. So of course I’m sorry. But yeah, really.
First in any forum? What the hell does that mean? 🙂
Diane, the reasons why your threads were often moderated is because you can’t write a paragraph without implicitly or explicitly insulting and belittling others. I recall that even Nick has once asked you to stop commenting. What is the most likely explanation, that everybody is in a big German conspiracy against you, or that the way you talk about others is not always very decent?
‘voy’ pronounced in Spanish is ‘boy’ and ‘woj’ in Polish is very short ‘v’ like in ‘voyeur’ – I like theories founded on the Babylonian mess of languages. In Wojnich is the etymology of ‘wojna’ – war. So, take it as a war of words from different languages. But, in Voynichese all that fortunately disappears – the confusing w, v, b and h as Auslaut are all 2 glyphs: ‘o’ or one gallows depending on position.
Habdank für die Aufmerksamkeit!
@Prof nobody sane would challenge your exclusive competence reg. page 116v. But I have something from another page, which would even more require your expertise – I promise, this will require the whole man of you…
If there is a German conspiracy at Ninja, I’m afraid it’s been terribly let down by the behaviour of the moderators. I can’t speak about the Byzantine thread, but sadly there are countless theory threads about Voynichese being different languages other than German that inexplicably have not been locked. Members, both old and new, have repeatedly been allowed to espouse views that it may be Greek, Italian, Latin, and had their claims evaluated rather than being banned for this heresy. There’s a 75 page thread that argues there is no language at all in the text, not even German. And I’m ashamed to make the accusation but I believe there were even moderators themselves on the Turkish theory thread saying Turkish was a good candidate, and it doesn’t seem they were confusing it with German.
All in all, very disappointing – I love a good conspiracy. 😀 But in seriousness, I’m presuming from this, and the replies above that there were other reasons for those threads being locked. The ninja forum seems a very welcoming place to me.
Koen,
You may not realise that for almost seven years I observed -and endured – attacks made ‘pack-attack’ style and said nothing, hoping at at some stage attention might be paid to the work produced and the ostensible subject of common interest.
Only when I finally saw another genuinely interested person driven out, one who was thoroughly decent (though I differ from him on many points), I decided seven years was enough.
In the meantime I had seen only adherents of the ‘central European-Rudolf’ storyline engage in these direct and indirect assaults, and it was certainly from that clique that several of the most dishonest ‘memes’ were circulated and are still maintained. You are mistaken about why my (in fact ‘our’) threads were shut down. The first was the thread where you, Sam G. and I tried to talk about non-Latin influence in the month-folios’ central emblems,
The second was one where I simply posted a thread-title, inviting discussion of methodologies.
I won’t list here the specific offenses and offenders against the decencies of debate.
What I will do is challenge you to find a single occasion where, in Rich’s mailing list or in voynich ninja, or in comments to Nick’s blog – at any time since 2008, a member of that theory-clique has engaged with my research, offered specific and objective comment on it, or made *any* but ad.hominem comments evidently fuelled by fantasy alone.
In reviewing the history of this manuscript’s study at Voynich Revisionist, and attempting to identify how, when, where and why it developed at is did, there is a point at which that history has to move into the period which I mark as beginning the ‘theory-wars’ – from when Stolfi’s opinions were met not by civil debate but.. well, .. you look it up.
My observation has been that since that time Voynich-nonsense has proliferated but there has been only one very small, unreasonably influential group which refuses to address objections to their theory and/or to provide solid evidence for their assertions. You guessed it.
Re-read Rene’s comment above. What’s the takeaway?
Think about that too.
If you listen only to a circle, you are encircled. How do you want to break trough to something outside?
And really, don’t ban heresy as you debate a heretical writ (from the medieval perspective) – a German conspirator would say ‘du würdest das Kind mit dem Bade auschütten’.
@Koen I have seen, you started a thread about the interpretation of the rosettes foldout as Revelation. I’m wondering how your Revelation-attempt will be received, as my mid last year was made a non-event at Ninja very soon.
You are right, this foldout is about Revelation. Why do I know this? I know this from the text: from the poem in quatrains around the central rosette, from the text around the other rosettes (of which the first 3 passages I decoded so far) and from the short vords in the middle, which are “inhabitants” of heaven, of the 12 short vords around the wall, which are the tribe names of Israel and the 7 other vords on the opposite side, which are 7 different ways to praise YHWH, from the many other spread short vords, mostly short references to messianic passages of the Hebrew Bible, from the vords above the volcano nearby the swallowtail-battlements rosette saying “how vast is the flood mountain” (it was probably a vision of a underwater volcano…) and the text around it saying about the “waves of chastisement”, creating a connection between the image and the text, etc. etc. And from the text nearby the T-O map, which isn’t a T-O map, but a symbol for Tanach – the text says this.
And, as you go in the right direction, don’t trust too much in the wording of the “enriched” St. John Revelation. E.g. there is nothing about the seven parishes (Ephesus, Pergamon, …) therein, but they were too far away anyway, as the place of this Revelation is not Patmos but a place in the wilderness. In my opinion it’s a version between the Revelation of the ‘New Jerusalem Dead Sea Scroll’ and the St. John’s Revelation, expresses the desire and expectation of an imminent appearance of Messiah and could be a sort of a prototype. Every rosette describes the events after a sequential sound of the trumpet and admonishes the reader urgently to repent as the end times are pending. Here alone you see the difference, as John’s Revelation doesn’t contain these admonishing passages. After 70 CE, since the Messiah didn’t appear in the time of greatest need and the 70 weeks of Daniel must have been recalculated anyway, again there was more time for sin and repentance 😊
@ Darius
Superb news, finally someone managed to decode the secret of the Voynich Manuscript, congratulations. I am only curious what the opinion of prof. Zlatodej, who promotes the theory: The Golden Fish of Eliška from Rožmberk. Taking into account such revelations – I am more inclined to the idea of the professor, whom I greet on the occasion.
https://www.facebook.com/josef.zlatodej/posts/4003569009721858
many researchers wander 5,10,20 years and more. But as it turns out, others will wander like Moses for 40 years. hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, God is here. Messiah sees it. Let’s pray. Amen.
Dear Prof. Josef,
well, we have known each other for many years.
You are absolutely right: I cannot read the text of the Voynich MS.
But that is not because I supposedly do not know Czech.
Enough for now. There are far more interesting things going on.
In fact, it must be a revelation.
I just had one too, after seeing Eliska’s goldfish.
It ended with the words:
“Oh Lord, give them finger paints and make it rain brains”.
@Grzegorz Ostrowski. Greetings to you too. My opinion of a young scientist? Meanwhile, Darius is wandering.
Otherwise, I’ve published enough for every scientist to be able to understand what is written in the manuscript. The problem with scientists is that. That they do not know the meaning of certain symbols. Many of which are in the manuscript. See, for example, the “Fish” symbol. Until the scientist finds out the meaning of the fish symbol, he will still wander. The symbol has nothing to do with Nazareth.
At the last, I showed the scientists what is written at the end of the manuscript. Page 116v.
And when this is written there. 🙂
oko.růže.slav.ac.fon.pza.jej.co.nam.casty.zilo. (Old Czech).
translate to english: eye. roses. glory. how. He. writes. here. what. in our. caste. lived.
In addition, there is a name: Alisa. = Elizabeth.
Everything is written in the old Czech language. But it is encrypted by Jewish substitution. The Rosenberg family were Jews. And so all communication between members of the family was, of course, encrypted.
It is written on many pages of the manuscript: I write in Czech. and or it is written: Czech words.
Any scientist who would like to understand the text of the manuscript. So he must first know the words with which the manuscript is written. He must know Czech and also think German and Polish. Eliška was polka after her mother. (Anna Hlohovská, Piasts). Furthermore, the scientist should know how they were spoken in Upper Austria. Where Eliška also lived at Hardeg Castle.
Appendix, upper right rosette.
There is a “Fish” drawn there, that is Eliška from Rožmberk. The fish laughs nicely at the scientist. And he also waves his hand. And he has 2 blue eyes.
@ Dear Mr. Rene.
You write here that you know Czech. So where is the problem? that you can’t translate the text of the manuscript? Who teaches you Czech? Karpenko or Purš? In order for a colleague to be able to understand the text of the manuscript, you must also know Jewish encryption. Do you know him ? I know that you are also sometimes in Prague. And so, for example, the Prague Rabbi could advise you. Maybe he knows Jewish encryption.
Hello. a lot of interesting things are happening.
Josef: How is it that you always get people’s names wrong? “John Peling”, “Renne”, “Diana”
@Prof it’s Revelation so what it should be about? Dog haircolouring or end times? But the script as whole is about many topics, heavenly & earthly affairs, as you will see (if you like to read). What I don’t understand about the videos accessible on your account, how this pharmacist Martin is connected to Eliška
@Peter if you think, there couldn’t be any progress, so what are you hunting for?
@Rene before starting to read, there is an effortful decoding process, if you never try, you will never get the feeling about right or wrong
@Grzegorz I guess you didn’t read anything from my or Profs papers, am I right? It’s a good basis for a judgment. You are Pole, right? Prof could probably give you his Czech text, you would understand – after all Eliška was polka after her mother…
So, all is about elusive assessments, isn’t it?
@Darius
I never said there was nothing to discover.
I’m not chasing it either. I read, explore and uncover.
I create theories and also discard them again if no confirmation can be found. It is a long and laborious path.
To be honest, your theory is nice, but you won’t find anything to support it here anytime soon. It is up to you to substantiate your theory.
It is the same with your translations into Hebrew. There is no reference to this language. Translations work to a certain extent in every language. The burden of proof is on you. For me it is only a further, or already again considered theory and interpretation.
As for the goldfish, that kind of fantasy is more likely to come from a toddler. I would like to see Joseph discover something through real research at some point.
That there is actually a second person betting on this fish and Eliska, I would rather bet on the same IP_address than on a second fantasist.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
@Mr Knowles. But you are curious. I use the google translator. And how is your research, dear colleague, going? Are you still wandering in Italy?
@ Darius. What pharmacist Martin? where the hell did you read it? that you smoke weed.
@Peter verification of a decryption and interpretation of images – a nice topic. You are an engineer, right? So, somebody who studied physics, electrotechnics, chemistry or so. What is for you a proof or verification of the correctness of a decryption/interpretation? I admit, that the whole resemblance hunt among old scripts and maps, which many people do (like there is a T depicted and there are maps in that form so most probably it’s a map), is something not really serious. And, if something new & unique shows up, they are lost then.
But what could be a strong scientific proof/verification here? In physics it’s simple an experiment, the relativity theory was proven correct by different experiments. But this doesn’t rule out a new experiment will contradict (what by the way happened to the standard model of particle physics now, so they are lost and don’t have any coherent theory in this regard any more). What luck, there are still Voynich theories extant, so they can be tested, rejected, ignored or be a laugh. Ok, in physics a theory makes a prediction about a physical quantity and behaviour of particles etc, which must be matched in an experiment.
My theory makes only this prediction: when I apply my alphabet uniformly to any arbitrary chosen page it will “produce” a semantically coherent text (116v is excluded for collegiality reasons). So, every transliteration/translation is an experiment. Or do you have any more stringent verification idea?
@Prof few weeks ago, you had a link to this mysterious pharmacist on your twitter account but now it wandered away – can be end times are coming and not everything is still explainable. However, I understand now why the hell you get a different plaintext. You use a Czech version of the VMS, the “so-called” T-O map is completely different, so probably the rest too…
@Peter I think I have to clarify my resemblance statement above: graphology to find the hand, comparative examination of the materials, medieval cryptology technics etc. are important, no doubts, but the attempts like to find something, which resembles a Voynich plant and conclude from that to a possible plaintext content, that’s not expedient. In my view and translation, the plant section are sermons and teachings. Not many people concluded that from the plants so far.
@Darius. I never had a reference to a pharmacist on Twitro. No pharmacist wrote the manuscript. I also do not use the Czech version of VM. Everything about the manuscript can be found in Beinecke. There are very nice scans of all the pages of the manuscript.
Otherwise, the Swiss. Peter. He is only a provocateur and not a scientist. An avalanche covered him a few years ago. He had little oxygen. And so a lot of his brain cells died. That excuses him. I like him a lot. The boy provocateur.
@Joseph
For you, truth seems to be a provocation.
The truth is that there were only goldfish in Europe in the 1700s.
It is also not a keyhole, but a abomasum. The drawing describes it pretty accurately. And the word “lab” next to it also confirms it.
There is not a single Czech word, neither your old Czech nor in a new form. There is no Czechis in the VM at all.
Your biggest enemy is the internet. Any idiot can use it today. Only you can’t.
The only sensible thing you have done so far is to jump out of the window. “Defenestration of Prague” and that twice.
That’s where your theories also belong…….thrown out of the window.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Josef: So the Google translator translates “Nick Pelling” to “John Peling” and “Rene” to “Renne”? I worry that you have as much difficulty reading the Voynich manuscript as you have reading peoples’ names.
@ Peter
Don’t be nervous. BTW, when it comes to your statement “There is no Czechis in the VM at all.” – in my opinion, you are very wrong.
You’re right . Peter. You’re an idiot. A provocateur. Jump out the window. 🙂 How many heart attacks did you have? 3. So be careful not to crack the tube.
Kmowles, you will be wandering in Italy for another 20 years. Don’t worry about me writing. Take care of the text of the manuscript. 🙂
@Grzegorz
Then show me where. And I will think about it again.
@Prof at least your T-O map is Czech production, I see Currier-Č vords
@ Peter
I have already written about it on this portal in several entries, however, to shorten the course of your search, below I am giving you an appropriate entry where you will find the address of my Facebook page, and possibly on my YouTube channel. There, if you have enough time and effort, you will find a specific VM folio – which directly relates to the Czechs.
IMHO is: 39R, and to a lesser extent a few others.
https://www.facebook.com/grzegorzzkoszalina
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNNZZOSa8w1trMNDRYyvHFoFjcBp6Yk2B
@Darius. The entire manuscript is written in the Czech language. And it is encrypted by Jewish code. When each character (letter) has its numeric value. Homophonic substitutions. At the beginning of the manuscript. the author of the manuscript shows it to everyone. (Eliška from Rožmberk). page 2r. It’s even drawn there. Number 3. Jewish substitution = C, G, S, L. The flowers are 3. Anyone who would like to understand the text of the manuscript should start working from the beginning of the manuscript. And not from the middle.
@Grzegorz
I have neither time nor interest to watch all these videos. Just show me on which page you read text in Czech.
Also your views “it could be written in Czech” are not interesting here. That is your interpretation. I just want to see the text, otherwise it could be anything.
I can tell you that you will find German and Romansh, but nothing else is there. Otherwise, show it to me.
@all
To say it once and for all, it doesn’t matter what language you think it might be written in.
Yesterday it was Czech, today it is Hebrew. It was already Turkish and Atztec, extraterrestrial and from Atlantis. We’ve even had a Morse alphabeth.
A professor from an Egyptian museum has already tried Hebrew and failed.
Until really comprehensible evidence, applications or proofs can be presented without stretching the imagination too much, it is not worth the paper it is written on.
I am really fed up with watching or listening to such crap all the time. Try doing some real research.
That concludes any discussion from my side for the time being. Thank you.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
@Peter.
I totally agree with you on that. We keep investing too much efforts into finding out what language the Voynich text was written in and what encryption method was used. Even though I do not read or understand French, it does not mean that French is encrypted. I don’t see the Voynich text have used some kind of encryption, but I believe the Voynich text uses some kind of embedded encoding scheme, if there is any. I think we rather focus our efforts more on how to understand the Voynich text than on identifying what language it was written in.
Anyone who says that it translates into anything other than English, is wasting their time.
Not sure how I found this site, I think it found me. Nice to make everyones aquantence. I’ve been studying the Voynich code for almost 4 years. I was putting all my notes and findings into a web page until a few months ago I realized I had enough info for a book. I have a copyright for it but it’s not published yet. I had some technical difficulties when I output it from the web page to a word file. It chopped up my images over different pages. It has about 175 illustrations, roughly 80 pages and 15000 words. I’ve been looking for someone to critique it and indirectly promote it, but i haven’t found the right person yet. It’s sad in a funny way that as soon as someone suggests that they cracked it it seems that they are automatically looked at as just another crackpot.
My goal is to see everyone on the same page and moving in the same direction. Working together see how much more of it we can translate in our lifetimes and reinforce that we are on the right path. My previous statement is not just my opinion but fact that it translates into English.
Robert –
English from which era? I mean is it Anglo-Saxon, or Norman French-English, or Chaucerian, Shakespearean?
Have you compiled a word-list and tested it against contemporary usage and orthography/-ies.
Specialists in manuscript studies are able to pin-point an area in England where a given orthography was common within a surprisingly narrow date-range. They can sometimes even tell you something like ‘the scribe had been educated in Northumberland, but was inscribing this in London between the years x and y.’
You don’t really need a Voynichero to evaluate your ideas; you need a specialist in English language and manuscripts.
Hope you find one.
Going to an academic specialist before a theory has been examined by Voynich experts – or indeed anyone with knowledge of the manuscript – is exactly what harms the reputation of Voynich research in academia! Far too few academics are willing to take Voynich research seriously precisely because it is associated with, to use Robert’s word, “crackpots” pushing their unfounded theories.
If the “True Solution” is ever found, then naturally specialists in that language will be needed to confirm it. But before it reaches that stage, the theory has to pass the test of explaining/being compatible with all the the known strange behaviours of Voynichese.
No recent theory has managed that or even tried. Few even know about these bizarre patterns or behaviours, let alone engage with them. Robert asks why people tend to be seen as “crackpots” when suggesting a theory. It is because of this. They produce unsound theories with unsound methodology with little or no reference to Voynichese behaviours. They tend to be absolutely wedded to their theory and see no possibility they are wrong. Many tend to react to criticism of the theory badly. They take it personally, likely because their solution is now part of their identity, how they are the person to pull the Sword from the Stone, that they are the ones to conquer a manuscript that has defeated the best code breakers and experts for decades. They also tend to be cocooned in this fantasy and have little engagement with or regard for past work done on Voynichese, including their rival theorists.
The advice I’d give Robert to avoid being seen as yet another “crackpot” is to stay away from a specialist in medieval English for the moment and:
1. Be open to the possibility you are wrong
2. Make sure you have read the key literature and latest thinking on Voynichese
3. Draw up a list of what Voynichese behaviour your theory needs to explain
4. Go back to your work and be your own sceptic. Challenge your own methodology. Identify your assumptions; challenge them.
5. Read through critiques of recent theories and ask yourself how your theory differs from the others – are you making the same mistakes that everyone always makes? Repeat steps 3-4.
6. Post or send your theory to Voynich experts, making clear how it explains the various features of Voynichese.
7. Be open to the possibility you are wrong.
When you say you’re being very selective about who critiques your theory, and you seem to see their benefit as “indirectly promoting” your theory….you’re not going in the right direction.
When are you ‘crackpots’ going to come to the realisation that without taking in the pretty accompanying pictures to get the message, so called Voynichese may as well be a compilation of eleventh century Bizantinian Czech and late Neanderthal cave jottings; For all they’re worth to C14 diehards that is.
@Tavi, first, what I see in your post – you are not up-to-date. But let’s be concrete regarding Voynichese, its behaviour, what I call special glyph patterns. These special patterns are in fact these of the plaintext language. At least here, I hope, I’m not alone. E. g. Currier assumed that we can see in the Voynich patterns specifics of the plaintext language, or even of two different languages or dialects. Nick probably will have the same opinion, otherwise, if the Voynich patterns hadn’t any preservative relation to the plaintext patterns, the whole question for Currier-A/B difference wouldn’t make sense.
Imagine now, you investigate a cipher (not VMS) and see crypted lines of 12-13 syllables and same endings, mostly ABBA pattern. Even if you don’t know the text, you could assume, it’s an “Alexandriner” – a poetry style, 12-13 syllables with different cadence, “in use” in Europe from 12th century on.
And these specific patterns of Voynich glyphs are nothing else as a “style”. They are, in my view, a particular style of speech in the plaintext language, in a particular region and time (naturally not the everyday language). We don’t have much to compare from this particular time (in my theory the time is the decade or two before 70 CE), because nearly the whole Jerusalem heritage of that time had been destroyed and burned by the Romans. But we have Flavius Josephus, the earliest Christian epistles in Greek, the “Pauline” epistles, whoever wrote them, and we have one really compelling document with a “style” which astonished me.
In your post is very much about the psychology of people trying to decode VMS… But if you had any concrete, tangible question about Voynichese, special glyphs, patterns etc. I would be glad to answer from my perspective.
And pictures, yes, we could discuss the pictures as well. However, let’s talk about this Voynichese “behaviour” first. What was the most convincing explanation, somebody introduced so far? Was there one at all?
Tavi – I’m afraid I must disagree with you about the reputation of ‘Voynich experts’ in the wider world of academe.
Consider what might have happened had Hugh O’Neill approached a specialist in the history of Columbus’ Voyages, or if Tucker and Janick had first approached a specialist in Nahuatl and related languages.
I don’t accept that there is such a thing as a ‘Voynich specialist’ unless they are specialists in what other people have said about the manuscript.
It is that polite fiction that one may be a ‘Voynich specialist’ without having any formal training, working experience nor any record of publication in such subjects as medieval or other historical studies for a period earlier than 1400, no specialist knowledge or apparent effort to study palaeography, codicology or any medieval languages and dialects, nor even study of European cipher-systems which makes a joke of Voynich studies.
Things are certainly improving, I grant you. But it’s not so very long ago that my mentioning in a Voynich forum the regular contacts between western, Christian Europe and Egypt brought down howls of derision because a majority of those holding a certain Voynich theory imagined that any reference to Egypt must mean one was a pyramidologist.
When the level of relevant background studies is so low, and this manuscript imagined to exist on a plane other than that inhabited by all other manuscripts made between 1400-1438, and reactions to theory-opposing data (even the most commonplace) are met by vituperative and personal (always and only personal) criticism it’s no wonder that most scholars want as little as possible to do with Voynicheros – whether or not deemed ‘experts’.
In thirteen years’ of being interested in Beineke MS 408, colleagues and former colleagues as well as genuinely expert specialists in other disciplines have given me information and insights of great benefit to me and to the study, but since it is only fair to let them know what may follow – after all, it’s their reputation at risk – to point them to various forums, blogs and comments to blogs before asking their permission to name them as the source. None, after seeing such comments, have stopped communicating with me, but very few wanted their names given out to the ‘Voynich community’ at large. A claim of ‘Voynich expertise’ may get things into print, and faces onto screens, but what really counts is the depth and quality of one’s bibliography.
So I repeat – in my opinion if Robert believes he has gained a plain-text in ‘English’ he should first apply a few of the normal, rigorous tests – at the very least to know what ‘brand’ of English he claims it is – and then submit his thesis to a specialist in (what) Old-?, Middle-?, early modern? English.
Unless of course, there’s some specialist in that area presently a member of the ‘Voynich community online’?
Darius, that was the point I was making. If as you say “these special patterns are in fact these of the plaintext language”, that is *precisely* what theorists need to explain through their theory. But most neglect the majority or even all of these patterns, either because they have not even noticed them, or through sheer denial because the patterns make the theory unviable. There’s no point leapfrogging to specialist stage in Medieval Polish-Norwegian/whatever when these basic hurdles aren’t passed.
As to not being up-to-date, I’m pretty sure Lisa Fagin Davies has recently and repeatedly said she hopes her work, and that of Claire Bowern will help counteract the negative impression Voynich research has in academia.
Diane – not sure what you mean. I did not mean to say that “Voynich experts” have a good or bad reputation in academia. But Voynich research seems to have a bad reputation, and people going straight to academics with unfounded theories is part of the problem. It’s not a good idea to waste the time of an academic in XYZ language when the theory is not compatible with the properties of Voynichese and fails to explain them. That is a basic hurdle that should be crossed before any theory is taken seriously, and no theory has ever managed that to the best of my knowledge.
And one does not need to be a Voynich expert/Voynich specialist to point out how a theory falls short of this hurdle, just basic knowledge of its properties/behaviours. I’m not even close to being an expert in the manuscript but I’ve been studying patterns in lines, character positions, as well as A/B behaviours for a while, and I can identify when a theory does not account for them in the slightest. What is the point in wasting the time of an academic when these basics are not even met?
Also – I can tell there is bad blood between you and Voynich researchers in the past (I’m guessing the ninja forum in this particular case) but please don’t hijack my points to settle scores. It’s not relevant to this point, and I’m neither qualified, nor interested in judging what you say about them.
Tavi: ‘rikki tikki’ comes to mind for being significant to the centre left marginal two nymph exchange pic in f80r Seems to resemble Urdu or Hndi to my non academic eye.
There are two types of Voynich MS experts:
– recognized experts
– self-proclaimed experts
There is only one type of academic, and that is one who has an academic title and has made a number of peer-reviewed publications.
Now the few academics who are interested in the Voynich MS will judge the produce from the Voynich MS community not by the criterium whether the proponent is an ‘expert’ (of either type) or whether he/she is an academic.
They will judge it by the quality of the content.
To Robert F.: there are three types of books about the Voynich MS:
1- those that have been published
2- those that are announced and will indeed be published
3- those that are announced but never see the light of day
I have many of the first type, both formal publications, and private initiatives that exist only as a PDF. I hope that yours will be of type 2 rather than type 3.
Thanks for the feedback. I can tell you briefly how it decodes into English and that I believe the manuscript is a demonstration of an empirical system of learning, whereby one must use observation, experimentation, and experience to decode it. There are many clues hidden in plain sight among the pages. For example the heart shaped cutout on the side of page 14, is more than coincidental that Valentines day falls on the 14th of February. The clue being that even the page numbers in this book are significant.
I had some luck physically transforming the symbols.
It’s amazing, they were able to build empathy in to one of the pictures, I looked at. The plant on page 2r, the stem near the roots looks like two knees buckling, as if the weight of the world were on this poor plants shoulders. If you weren’t the kind of person to feel empathy, especially for a plant, then you would have overlooked a major clue. If you remove the weight, then the legs would straighten out. Apply this to some of the symbols, straighten out the curved lines and you will find you created a few letters (A, H, I) (H rotated 90 degrees)
How about the symbol that looks like an “8”. If you place 2 coins on the table in the shape of an “8” and you flip the top coin 90 degrees horizontally so that you’re looking at it on edge, and flip the bottom coin vertically, it makes the letter “T”.
Another example is on page 4f, the flower that sort of looks like a hand with fingers, that sort of point to the upper right corner. If you follow the page number “4” in the upper right corner straight down and zoom in to that flower that’s under it, you will find the letter “F” in the middle of the flower which is a clue that the symbol ‘4’ translates into the letter “F”.
One more, look in the stem near the roots also on page 4, if you look from the side you see this word ( TOP. ) now flip the “O” 90 degrees what word do you get?
Another reiteration for the (H and I) above is in the roots on page 27v, if you could hold the little handle at the bottom and spin it between 0 and 90 degrees.
So I took these letters plus a few more and stumbled across a page that had a lot of these symbols and when I plugged them in started getting words and then experimented with basic substitution for. the unknown symbols and started getting sentences. “MASTOR ACT FORIST FOOD I FOLLOW ON FOOT FOOD HID MIST OVER TOWNS” and a few lines under that “RID NOT FOOD HINT” then the words “FOOD FOOD” continues down the page as if the animal we are chasing is getting away down a path. The rest of the page is unreadable at the moment and it’s either gibberish, intended to be that way or that we are only uncovering the easiest stuff to decode and the the code contains many turns and twists that we havent learned yet.
I also translated coherent stuff off of three other pages. This is a small sample, I have over 80 pages of material in my book, I can explain most of the symbols, what they are and how they work. What I’ve shared here isn’t even the best stuff. The name of my book is “Voynich Unveiled, A Guide To Decoding The Symbols”, One hurdle in assembling this book was in which order to present everything, from the symbols to the examples, if you present info too advanced too soon people will just be confused and reject the whole thing. Just like learning simple math in first grade
Addition and subtraction, if they wrote the pythagorean theorum on the board along with simple addition and subtraction problems, a first grader wouldn’t be able to comprehend it, and would skip over it.
As for Mr. O’Donovan’s question, you might find what your looking for on page 35v in the roots, left side. Think about how you can tell a tree’s age by how many rings it has. Could be a cross section and floating on top of the roots I see the number 1415.
There are a lot of kooky things in this book I have discovered, so this doesn’t surprise me, it’s possible, even probable that it’s true.
Robert, you say the manuscript is either deliberate gibberish or the system needs more work. From that, it sounds like your biggest challenge will be differentiating your results from that of other theorists. They too claim to identify characters – why is your system better than theirs if yours only produces gibberish? Since your target language is English, I would recommend you start by comparing your theory to Geoffrey Caveney’s Middle English theory on ninja.
Also – is it not generally thought that the folio numbers were added much later?
@Tavi, you wrote:
“If as you say “these special patterns are in fact these of the plaintext language”, that is *precisely* what theorists need to explain through their theory”
This question, I think, isn’t hard to answer. To obliterate the structure and the patterns of the plaintext in the crypted strings completely you would need to apply numerical methods. We have here cryptography 400-450 years before first application of such methods like crypting by means of prime numbers or 500 years before using torsion points of elliptical curves in the crypting process. So, you will perceive the plaintext structure in the code.
Or was your question (what you consider a hurdle) more about why this structure is so abnormal?
Tavi, it’s not that the system needs more work, it’s that there are at least six translations going on at the same time, some words are written backwards, some are palindromes. Different symbols have different characteristics, the effects of one symbol produces an orbital rotation on the word. I only claim to have cracked it, there is still a lot more to be uncovered. But to reveal coherent sentences from four different pages is not likely.
The page numbers in the manuscript were definately not added later.
I could easily show many examples to prove that.
I included the beineke library’s folio numbers so you can see with your own eyes the details I provided. Did you?
I found that understanding the Voynich manuscript presents two challenges among many others.
1. Is identifying the language of the manuscript the MUST-HAVE condition to understand it? I found that it does not have to be because we know that babies can understand their parents before they learn how to write or pronounciate the words. In a sense, we all are like babies to the Voynich language. Babies can hear the words, see things in front of them, memorizes the association of the sounds and things, and eventually notice the differences in the sounds and things and their associations in time. (This is just my saying, no theoretical backing.) I thought that those accumulated and memorized pattern of differences are attributed to their learning ability of the language before knowing its alphabet system. In case of the Voynich manuscript, we can not hear the sounds, but see many drawings/illustrations and written words that we can associate with corresponding drawings. Out of that line of thinking, I came up with the concept of differential abstraction method. For example, there are two different drawings and the captions on them have only one character difference, let’s say, which is ‘A’. When a difference on two drawings is described and summarized in words in any language, it is regarded as the abstraction or differential translation of the Voynich character ‘A’ which was sorted out of two captions. In this way, the differential abstraction method does not need to know the language itself, but can come up with abstracted translation. It is true that the abstracted translation does not guarantee if it is the REAL meaning of the Voynich character(s). This inevitably leads to the second challenge.
2. How to know or guarantee if a given translation method work or not? Until the Voynich language is identified or its alphabet system is understood, no one will be able to answer this question. Nonetheless one viable measure that can be used to test the validity of translation results could be to check if the consistency of the given method can stand with translating a good length of the Voynich text.
I recently posted a blog on Linguist Forum and presented a translation of the first paragraph of Folio 2r.
http://linguistforum.com/linguist's-lounge/voynich-manuscript-comparing-notes/
Robert – if your method cannot produce coherent sentences, why are you so convinced it is right? Loads of other theories have “identified” words in the language they claim it is. The Turkic theories and Slovenian theories claim to have identified around 100 matches. Geoffrey’s theory found many Middle English words, including words written backwards, and at least he made the effort to try to form coherent sentences and explain Voynichese line patterns. Why is your theory better than all your competitors who as far as I can tell have produced just as much or even more results than you?
Are you familiar with the arguments for why the numbering was done later and is potentially wrong? I’ll leave it to someone who knows the folio (and quire) numbering issue better than me to explain, but Nick’s blog entry “Voynich Codicology” could be a good place for you to start. I think there were also some recent posts with suggest reorderings of folios.
@Milton Kim. You write that you are looking forward to some new ideas. You also analyze folio 2r there. I looked at your analysis and I have to tell you it’s not good. Are you able to see a total of 4 letters on foil 2r? They are made at the root, symbolic plants. Every scientist and, for example, an academic. If he has good eyesight. So he should see a total of 4 letters there. These are = C, G, S, L. I’ll ask you this. Why are the letters C, G, S, L at the root of the plant? The plant has a total of 3 flowers.
Every academic and great scientist who can solve this puzzle has the opportunity to find out more. That means encryption. 🙂
Of course, I solved it 10 years ago.
@Zandbergen Rene.
You are writing here about experts. May I ask you who they are?
I know a lot of different experts and academics. Who have wandered like Amundzen in the fog for 20 years or more. Both in the world and in our country.
@Josef Zlatoděj Prof.
Thank you professor for addressing me with a question. I didn’t expect any replay so soon, or any at all. When I see the plant on Folio 2r, I fail to see any words near or around the root. There is the second paragraph above it around the stems though. Could you be more specific what you are referring to?
I read in a very popular Voynich blog, that if a decryption/translation of one sentence would be coherent & convincing, this would suffice for the white smoke. Very modest… What should be else a criterion than the ability for decryption of the whole VMS or at least the whole Currier-A/B part?
Now, having all the perfect and complete theories, I’m wondering what are these two nymphs in the centre left marginal pic in f80r really doing? No need to bother yourself with the whole page, take one line from the middle and you would know, should be a snap – btw, the pic is very accurate…
Tavi, I would expect to see “gibberish” with this style of coding, where it’s like an egg hunt. The easy stuff we are able to decode gives information about the coding method itself.
As an example if I made my own coding scheme and put it into two paragraphs on a page. You are able to decode the first paragraph and it reads “in the second paragraph swap every two letter groups in a row”
Your decoding will look like gibberish in the second paragraph until you apply the instructions given by the first paragraph.
And this is how fluid the VM code is.
Tavi: plainly you’re not into J. R. Kipling (Poet Lauriate UK) or J. H. Beaudelocque (Dr. Gyno. Obst. Fr.) references, more into plain letters than pretty pictures. So how about a bit of both vis. f84r where all the pregnant bathing nymph, by their artistically contrived postulations, reveal clearly in the green pool water displacement letters F U B L = Fine Unlisted Books London…Not to worry, Voynicheros never spotted it either.
Tavi –
Here’s precisely the problem, as I see it.
You reflect a widespread view, among Voynich writers that the product of research must be “a theory” and to that extent I agree completely that Voynicheros are wasting others’ time (including that of people who are led to buy books unworthy of a scholarly press) if they have nothing more than speculations and theoretical narratives, no matter now internally consistent.
What a person has to bring for evaluation is (a) their positive evidence, its range and quality; (b) some evidence that they have already played ‘devil’s advocate’ and done their best to find and take heed of errors, plagiarisms (conscious or not), and other tyro-level mistakes and finally (c) clear evidence that they are aware of, have taken time to study, at least a reasonable proportion of the serious scholarship which exists on most subjects relating to .. manuscript studies, art history, analytical techniques as they apply to materials, scripts, pigments and so on.
My basic position is that we are, all of us, wrong. Wrong entirely, or in part. The whole point of research is to try and be a little less wrong tomorrow than we surely are today. The problem with Voynich studies, since 1912, seems to be that it has seen such a long line of ‘experts’ without relevant expertise and that so many writers today imagine that the point of studying this manuscript is to create a ‘plausible theory’ and if you can get enough people to believe it, the theory becomes near-enough to true.
Many such theories, even some very widely believed, are regarded by relevant specialists as paper-thin, even ridiculous. I know of two publishers who came to regret bitterly turning to some unnamed ‘Voynich expert’ in the mistaken belief that they were competent to peer-review another of the myriad ‘Voynich’ publications – only to find they’d lost face, had a very small readership and would have done better to ask advice from a scholar specialising in the subject forming the core of that ‘plausible’ theoretical narrative. It took one blogpost by Magnus Hansen to demolish a ‘Voynich’ theory over which two professional botanists had laboured for some years. Those authors, like so many Voynicheros, became gripped by unreasonable certainty about a wholly theoretical story-line; failed to maintain awareness that expertise in modern botany can’t be parlayed into ‘Voynich expert’, and worst of all, failed to submit their ‘Nahuatl’ theory to a genuine specialist in that subject. Academics, and non-academics have both rushed into print with rubbish, had it accepted as ‘plausible’ by people who were not specialists either, and then – like Brumbaugh or O’Neill – been realised later to have been… as DIckens might say, ‘Humbug!’
If the researcher’s chief conclusion is that the language is English – forget about theories. Take their *evidence* to a specialist in the history of English language and its evolution, and then sit and *listen*.
@Josef Zlatoděj Prof.
Hello Professor, I’d like to comment on the letters in the roots on folio 2r.
That you see English letters in the roots, relates to my theories on an English translation, but I see a “G” on BOTH sides, possibly an “h” as well
but the clue is not about the letters but about a masculine / feminine transformation. Possibly, simply by moving something from one side of a mid point to the other.
@Milton Kim. Do you see the root of a symbolic plant ??
Do you see Root = letters C, G, S, L ??
When you see the letters C, G, S, L. So you see well.
When you do not see the letters C, G, S, L in the root. So in that case, do something else. It would indicate that you have poor eyesight. And then you will never be able to decipher the text of the manuscript.
Vážení profesor Josef,
for starters, when it comes to ‘experts’, you have been ’embellishing’ the blog of one of them for years now.
Just naming one is sufficient proof that they exist.
With sincere regards (no irony)!
@ to all scientists and academics.
You are like little children. I’ve been showing you how a manuscript is encrypted for many years. And you don’t understand at all. Every scientist and academic. Or a future academic and scientist, he should also use the brain to research manuscript 408. Otherwise they won’t find out. Are you sure you ask why?
Then I’ll write it to you.
At the beginning of the manuscript. On page 2r, the author of the manuscript shows the encryption method to everyone. (for less understanding scientists and academics, I’ll explain).
I will start with the root of a symbolic plant. And therefore its meaning.
Every scientist and academic (who, for example, has 5 universities) and is therefore very well studied and therefore extremely smart. He will concentrate and read what I’m writing.
Root page 2r. It is made of the letters C, G, S, L. Why ?
Very simple!
Every plant has a root. This is the basis of every plant. No plant can arise without a root !!!!
Each word is composed of letters. The letter is the basis of every word. No word can be formed without a letter !!!
Therefore, the root of the symbolic plant on page 2r is made of letters.
Perhaps a scientist who doesn’t currently have a big IQ can understand that.
Second.
The author shows you this at the beginning of the manuscript. Not in the middle or at the end. There’s a big reason for that. Of course, only a good scientist or an academic can understand that. Which also uses the brain in its research. A scientist who does not have the necessary knowledge (even though he studied at 5 universities, for example) and cannot absorb and successfully understand this. He should do some other work. So don’t panic. Of course, it is not a shame and he can still successfully catch up with his teaching.
So why does the author show you this at the beginning of the manuscript?
Because the author shows you how to encrypt. This means the Kabbalistic Numerology System of Gematria. (Jewish cipher).
Does any scientist or academic know the Jewish cipher? If an academic or an excellent scientist does not know the Jewish cipher, he will never be able to decipher the text of the manuscript. (Even if he had 10 universities).
You can tell that this is a Jewish cipher by that root. (2r)
Jewish cipher = each letter has its own numeric value !!
Root 2r = letters C, G, S, L.
(Jewish cipher = 8 numbers contain the whole alphabet).
1 = a, i, j, q, y.
2 = b, r, k.
3 = c, g, s, l.
4 = d, m, t.
5 = e, h, n.
etc.
Next thing is important. Every scientist should see the signs well. that is, the letters in which the manuscript is written. How an academic or scientist will not be able to read characters correctly. So he will never be able to clear the text of the manuscript.
Third. In the text of the manuscript it is written on many of its pages: I write in Czech. And or Czech words.
So in order for a scientist or academic to be able to read the text of the manuscript, he should also know Czech.
Furthermore, the scientist or some excellent academic should know the meaning of the symbols. Unless a scientist or a well-studied academic knows the meaning of symbols, he will never understand the manuscript.
I hope that every scientist and academic can understand this here. And he won’t write, for example, as the scientist (certainly a young scientist) Kim wrote to me.
Professor,
If you were to produce a translation into Czech, I’m sure it could be assessed by a specialist in medieval Czech. For my part if I had an idea about how the text might be enciphered, I’d probably ask Nick’s opinion first, and if he didn’t immediately wipe the floor with the paper, then ask if he thought it worth submitting to Cryptologia.
Just a thought.
@Dear Dr. Rene.
You write here that I’ve been decorating Nick Pelling’s blog for years. I’ll write you why. I decorate it for this reason, because it is the only good and very high quality “BLOG”, on which you can find a lot of very interesting articles. In my opinion, this blog is a “world leader”. There are very few such blogs on the network. Nick’s blog is the best.
Of course, I also know your Blog. You only describe some theories and assumptions there. What could MS – 408 be like? That is not enough. I also know that of course you are a good scientist. But why do you keep emphasizing that the text of the manuscript can only be deciphered by “The Great Scientist or some academic”. That’s bad of you. I don’t mean that ironically. That is a clear fact.
Bragging about a degree or the fact that a scientist is a university graduate is not important at all for deciphering the text of the manuscript.
I have written to everyone several times about what you need to know to successfully decrypt text.
Greetings.
Otherwise, only I can judge whether someone deciphered the text of the manuscript.
Why ? Because I deciphered it a few years ago. (no irony).
@ Colleague Donovan.
I’m an expert on old medieval Czech. That’s why I translated MS-408 many years ago.
Did you read carefully what I wrote to everyone about the last page of the manuscript?
Where the meaning of the manuscript is written. (116v).
@Josef Zlatoděj Prof.
You meant finding letters hidden in the shape or geometry of the root. When I see the root from that perspective, I could find C and L, but not so much of G and S because those letters are not mirror symmetric. I also can make other letters like K, F, E, y, n, m, r, t (maybe). And I didn’t know that Czech uses English alphabet.
BTW, I am an engineer and not that young as you guess.
@Milton Kim. you are an engineer. It is well. So maybe you will find out over time that the letters C, G, S, L are at the root. (number 3 of the Jewish substitution). Look longer at the root. Maybe you need a little rest. Maybe your eyes are tired. I don’t know what to do with it. Let your eyes rest. Then when you’re fit, look at the root again. I think you will succeed. Finally, you will also see 4 letters. I keep my fingers crossed for you.
Most importantly, don’t give up and hold on. Your efforts will certainly be crowned with success.
Otherwise the flowers are 3. This means the number 3 of the Jewish code.
Just for replenishment. As I read here, people think that the Czech language is perhaps Chinese. No no. The Czech language is made up of normal Latin. I.e. Alphabet = A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, CH, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, Ř, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, Ž.
Robert – well, you seemed aggrieved about a prevailing impression that theorists are “crackpots”, and I gave you advice on what you should do to differentiate yourself and your theory from the pack. Up to you if you take it. I can only reiterate that there are many others who have been and still are just as certain as you are that they have cracked it, and they believe they have sufficient evidence as well, including hundreds of words identified, and even sometimes sentences. Certainty is not an advantage when promoting a Voynich language theory.
Diane – The view you ascribe to me is not my own. I do not believe that “the product of research must be a theory”, especially that it is Language XYZ. My own research is intended to be purely observational, although I’m aware the odds are against it staying that way. I have a lot of respect and admiration for those who have been able to study the manuscript for years, even decades, without succumbing to the temptation to view themselves as the next Michael Ventris, which judging by the sheer proliferation of theories seems akin to successfully fighting the pull of gravity.
Also, my replies to Robert should make clear that I see a theory or solution as requiring evidence when it is promoted for evaluation, and that this evidence needs to be of a certain quality. In particular it should be consistent with the known properties of Voynichese and demonstrate a clear methodology, showing that the “solver” has genuinely played devil’s advocate (which I have never seen any sign of). Where we differ, it seems, is that I think i) theories/solutions that manifestly don’t meet this minimum standard (pretty much every one so far) can easily be weeded out by those who have studied the manuscript’s properties ii) going straight to a non-Voynich academic specialist is a waste of their time and iii) it is a key reason why Voynich research has a bad academic reputation, and why so few academics are willing to do Voynich research themselves.
Having said that, I don’t see any prospect for things changing.
For what it’s worth, my view is simply that it is possible (and indeed desirable) to form, test and prove/disprove small theories about how individual aspects of Voynichese work (and that you can do this without falling into the trap of having your view of the Voynich entirely defined by your theory). And if we then collectively keep trying to connect all these small theories together, one day we might well be able to reach an unexpectedly joined-up view of what Voynichese actually is.
It’s all very well for Voynich researchers to try to impress the world by identifying the plaintext language etc (and feel free to do so, knock yourself out, I’m not stopping anyone). Personally, though, I would be 100x more impressed if those same people put the same effort into testing out really small things that move us a centimeter forward solidly, rather than a mile speculatively in a random direction. Oh well.
Of course, I’m not talking about your Voynich theory here, etc etc. *sigh*
Tavi, Thank you for that last post. I appreciate you position now and agree with pretty much everything you’ve said, in general, though when it comes to the manuscript’s written text I have nothing much to say – it’s not my field.
In fact, for the latest theory/solution/commentary on the written text (as against the pictorial-) I generally look to Nick’s review and comments which follow. Talk of cryptography and -cracking methods read to me like so much white noise. Who said ‘from each according to his ability to each according to need’? I’m with him/her.
Tavi, actually I am greatful for the advice and feedback you are giving me, the word “crackpot” I use to not describe all theorists, just the ones that claim stuff without any tangible evidence. So when someone with the actual solution (like me) reaches out to medieval experts, or news media, they don’t respond at all, they don’t even care to see what you have before deciding they’re wasting their time.
That’s what’s annoying me.
And when I had three pages of translations, I felt it wasn’t enough to stand up to mass scrutiny, but when I found stuff on a fourth page, I felt very confident that if this isn’t the right solution, I can’t imagine what would be. Some of the symbols represent something very specific, I don’t think other people are talking about that, what I know is beyond theories. I’ll give you one example.
The symbol that looks like the letter “a”, if you look close it is actually two different characters together, “C\”. These represent a woman’s and man’s private parts, the power of love, or attraction between a man and a woman, and is a stronger force than gravity. It appears at the end of the word “heaven” in a slightly different configuration.
The symbol also appears on page 1, right side, under the 3 crescent moons, you see an “a”, “b”, “c”, “d” one on top of the other, next to the “c” and “d” there are two holes that represent the earth and moon, and just after the moon is heaven. The symbol “C\” appears there reversed.
Any questions?
Hi Robert.
Yeah, I’m interested in gravity, too. That’s good science. You see some holes there. And you write that it is the Earth and the moon. Very interesting. But in the end, it’s not “Black Hole”, for example. This would clearly show us that the author was a good physicist. And he overcame our Albert.
As an avid non believer in most popular tauted Voynichese cryptology solutions in any manner or form, nor as a student of medieval linguistcs save for some trade fifteenth century Porto, I neverleless feel quite honoured and humbled to have had the privilage of being instigator of this particular scholars only threadline mostly based on long lost Czech language texts from the Hess/Chelkicki Moravian period tucked away in Dicky’s British Library circa. 1895…Mighty long sentences in those days too.
@ John.
Petr Chelcický. It’s a pseudonym. His name was Petr Záhora. He was an anarchist at the time and perhaps half a Hussite. His teachings have influenced, for example, Gandi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and others.
It has nothing to do with manuscript 408.
@Nick
How can I directly insert Voynich letters into message reply? If people see them as they are on the manuscript, I think it would be much more efficient to show and exchange thoughts.
Milton Kim: the easiest way is to use EVA – though there are a few (genuine) technical quibbles about how closely it captures the text, it is a stroke transcription alphabet designed primarily to allow Voynich researchers to talk together, despite their (often very) different perceptions of how Voynichese works. If you enclose your EVA fragments in double quotes or angled brackets, I’m sure almost all of the people you want to get your message across to will understand. 😉
i.e. “qokedy qokedy dal qokedy qokedy” or 🙂
For maximum helpfulness, remember to include the folio number and recto/verso side of the manuscript that the Voynichese you’re talking about comes from (e.g. f78r).
@Prof, your posts are a good read. And, naturally, you are expert in Old Czech (not ironically)! What is the real first Czech manuscript? Besides the hoaxes like Dvůr Králové and Zelená Hora and the Czech Voynich…
@Darius. My reading concerns old Czech chronicles. Now I am working on the chronicles of the Czechs. From a Jewish creator who was “COSMAS”.
It would be good for you to read in the chronicle written by “Václav Hájek from Libočany”. That’s a very nice chronicle.
But not to leave from Voynich completely, I don’t think it’s worth to publish and announce anything as “decrypted” which is not at least a fair passage long. I would be impressed to read a “competitor’s” decryption of a whole page (a page with a pic would be magnificent), but unfortunately, I don’t know of any…
However, here I make a small exception – John S. mentioned these two nymphs in the centre left marginal pic in f80r, and I had no idea what these two beauties are doing. So I let my alphabet work and the first word of the line above the blue “river” gave me שָׁאַב sha’ab {sahw-ab’} water-drawing women (participle). To make the story short, the passage is about a well-known biblical tale, but it seems to be a proto-version of what you can find in John 4:13-15 (couldn’t find anything about Samaria etc., but didn’t translate all by far). So, the right nymph is the water-drawing women, keeping still the claw for the vat in her hand, which she uses to draw water from the well. But the water at her legs, is not the water she usually draws, but the ‘living water’. This water will make her never be thirsty again. The water in the well is an allegory of the continuous addiction, bad habit, narrow-mindedness or blindness (in John the women has 5 chaps…and a well is a place to make an acquittance, an ancient dating platform). The ‘living water’ will open her eyes – it’s what the left nymph is doing, she opens the eyes of the sleeping, the other eye is still closed.
Entonces, the story is a request to open the eyes and not to err in blindness likewise. I’ll not present the exact text, because 1. I didn’t decrypt the whole passage and 2. the theory wouldn’t be small enough anymore.
In John it reads: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
@Prof Cosmas is Latin (11th century), isn’t it? But good stories – about Vršovci etc…
Josef Z. Prof: How’s about the 9th century Constantinian bros. from Bizantine, St’s Cyril and Methodius. They spent some time teaching around Prague back in the day from memory; Surely they would have had familiarity with your preferred old Hebrew tainted Czech dialects, probably invented them truth be known. Yeah I agree Huss was a bit of a firebrand apparently.
Darius: thanks for the kind mention of my f80r nymphs that the experts refuse to discuss for fear of blowing their 15th century mindsets to buggery and I don’t blame them. Sad to say you’ve incorrectly identified the scene as being associated with water carrying; actually our lass wearing the see through skirt on the right is a nurse and she holds forth in her right hand a state of the art obstetric device le Compas d’ Epaisse (pelvimiter) patented by Dr. Jean – Louis Baudelocque in 1789. Poor underfed pregnant girl before her, is about to have her exterior pelvic girdle measured to determine whether she might safely deal with natural delivery. Look closely to spot a tiny tab protrusion between your so called ‘vat claw’, which in fact is a gauge which records precise measurement with encirclement of the patient’s hips. From memory, one of our gifted Voynichero experts Peter of Zurich did a full dissertaion on the subject including nice pics in a modern forest setting some time back.
Does anyone have any info on how many pages there are with holel carefully cut through them? So far I have found 17 of them.
Pages 1,2,3,4,10,11,14,15,28,34,36,41,46,50,52,72,102.
Did I miss any?
I think we can all agree on this that nobody would cut holes through pages and mark some of them with many arrows unless they were trying to show us something useful. In my research I have found many things so far.
@John Sanders
I remember your birth forceps very well.
But unfortunately they didn’t exist in 1400. The C14 proves that the VM manuscript is from that time. And other evidence shows that too.
The part she is holding in her hand also looks like a compass, and this already existed.
I didn’t write a dissertation about it, it was just a list of tools that look similar to the part you see in the VM, nothing more.
I can understand that you are still angry because I destroyed your American theory. But actually it wasn’t me, it was the facts that did that. So I’m not sorry either.
That’s just the way things are. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last where this has happened when a theory is put to the test.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
@John Sanders. I wouldn’t drag Cyril and Methodius into the manuscript. But of course it would be good to meet them.
Otherwise, Master Jan Hus was a good man. Although the church didn’t like him very much. Master John was feared by the church like the devil of the cross. But that’s another chapter.
As for that page (f 80r). So, of course, it says about pregnancy and childbirth. Perhaps every scientist and academic should see that from those pictures. Eliška writes it down a lot there. She writes who her mother and father are. And when she was born. How many sisters, etc.
Peter: of course you’re off target as usual, whilst birth forceps have been around almost forever, not so the clever little VM obstetric tool displayed on f80r that I tried by best to familiarise you with once before; of which you still look back on with indignance and disbelief. Yes of course compasses were also around too, still are apparently, same too le compas ‘d epaisse in some remote regions. Not much point in going further as you are plainly incapable of logical progression from that of a self confessed? fifteenth century medieval alchemist …How’s your five ton tree puller performing these days mate?
Every scientist and academic should find out why a water lily is drawn at the beginning of the manuscript. (NYMPHAEA). I still read here, for example. Nymph. Nymph. He stands in the water. Blue or green. Every scientist should wonder why this is so.
The water lily is popularly called: Water rose.
When a scientist or academic can solve it. So he finds out it’s ROSEN BERG. That means the genus of the Rose. Which had a lot of castles and chateaux. Founded by Vítek z Prčice and Planten berga. The Vítkovci family formed the history of our state. The first was the King (Přemyslids). in second place were the Vítkovci. A very important ancestor of the family was WOKO ROSEN BERG. (English = eye rosen berg).
Name VITEK. It originated from the word Witigo, which translates as PAN. (English = Mr.).
Eliška from Rosenberg, for example, writes in her manuscript. I come from Vítek.
old Czech = “SEM SVITKA. substitution S = C. And you will read = CVITKA. That is why there are a lot of flowers in the manuscript. CVITKA = KVITKA = English flowers.
The manuscript is not a herbarium. Every scientist and academic should write it down.
@ Sandes
You just haven’t learned anything over the years and you’re just pissed off. But actually, it’s your own fault if you don’t do your homework.
It just didn’t exist in the 1400s.
If you ignore evidence and proof, that’s what happens. Otherwise I can also believe Erik van Däniken and preastronautics. The VM comes from outer space.
As you say, it’s not worth discussing it any further.
It is what it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstetrical_forceps
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Voynich theories in general.
New researchers should closely examine what they see as clues themselves.
They should also not get angry if others do not pay attention to their theory. And they should not get angry if they are disproved.
Just reconsider where you made the mistakes.
Never simply uphold your theory with empty assertions and a lot of blah-blah. Many good researchers have been through this. Nobody can see and know everything.
You should also know that every theory has been presented in xxx different ways.
It is like Nick wrote somewhere. It’s the little details that have been collected over the years that make up the picture. Those who have been around for a long time know that. But not everything is repeated every time.
It is also a good idea to look at the many discussions first. That way, many questions don’t arise in the first place.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
f80r pic – compass is nice – but, don’t forget to wear the required work cloth before you take the NNW bearing
The compass is a big bullshit. Only a madman could think of that. That’s crazy. Is it like looking for a way and a good direction to the uterus? (!). Maybe when he’s blind or when it’s very dark.
Sure, compass is bullshit.
The translator used “Zirkel” compass as compass, actually he should use circle.
I don’t know why he did that. But apparently (Zirkel) is also compass.
He’s doing it again!
OK, the geometric drawing tool you need to draw circles.
In German ” Zirkel”
Josef Z. Prof. I never stop learning from you. Referring to Eliska’s link to the VM water lily of course, whereas I naturally assumed it was a calling card left by Ethel Voynich nee Boole our other authoress. She had preferred to be known by her middle name Lily from an early age according to our inhouse experts.
Peter & Josef Prof: I’d be looking at an alternative meaning for compass (compas) as in dividers that for many, could well represent my obstetric pelvimiter which in modern maternaty ward vernacular of 19th century France was commonly known as ‘Bouvelocque’s Measure’. Peter (the rock) who’s arguments are as hollow and holey as a Swiss cheese won’t be swayed by my logic of course but, I’m hoping that more intellectually inclined Josef Z. Prof. might finally get on board.
@René
I seem to remember you had transliteration files of the entire VM on your webpage. I’m curious about something, if I gave you a short group of VM code say five or six characters, how easy would it be for you to run it on your software globally, 220 pages, and tell me how many occurances you find and where?
@ John Sanders. Yeah, that’s good too. But it’s not Ethel. Otherwise I can write to you. That it’s a compass or some other tool. For some measurements. What he holds in his hand is = ROH. ( ROHY ). As written in the text. Translated into English = corner. corners.
Friends, it’s not just plain text. The whole manuscript is done as a quiz. (puzzle) and you have to solve it.
Maybe you want to know what the other girl is holding. This is also interesting.
it’s not a compass. It’s a corner. wearing a goat on his head.
The text is written ROH. It’s in Czech.
I don’t know what’s on the f80r is so attractive, but here is some of my thought. Before I start, I would like to give my point of view on the Voynich manuscript and letters. In my personal opinion, the Voynich language is a work of genius and they were created in a best-imaginable way of describing everything of plants. The lives and existence of people represented in the world of Voynich manuscript had been built around and upon plants. In its core does exist the Voynich language. I found every Voynich letter represents each part of a plant.
For example, ‘y’ generally indicates an extremity of plant such as a root hair, an ending point. ‘dy’ can be used for two root hairs. ‘o’ indicates a point where two parts of a plant meets at. ‘ol’ indicates the part of a plant where a stem emerges from the root. ‘k’ indicates a section of stem. ‘oko’ indicates a stem in between two branching points. ‘a’ means ‘a part, divide, cascade’. ‘da’ can be used to indicate flower head and its petal. One is cascaded by the other, or one is stacked on top of the other. When a stem branches in two ways, it can be represented by ‘in’. When a stem branches in three ways, it can be represented by ‘iin’. ‘p’ generally indicates a flower head including the flower, the petal, and the stem. In f2r, ‘q’ was abstracted as a seed, or something fell from a plant. ‘dh’ indicates the whole plant including the flower, stems, leaf, etc. ‘r’ indicates a leaf. ‘s’ indicates a leaf transforming into something like stems. In f80r, on the top, there are 10 words: yoraly, olchdy, {okalo, okolo, okary}, opar, olky, otalshedy, {okan, okar}. The word yoraly starts and ends with ‘y’ and it indicates from the woman on one left edge (one extrimity) to the man on the right edge (another extrimity). The primary skeleton letter in this word group is ‘o’. ‘o’ is the primary context or topic applies to those people illustrated on the top of f80r. The skeleton ‘ok’ means the end of a stem. ‘ok’ of {okalo, okolo, okary} indicates the opening where the sixth woman stands in. ‘ok’ of {okan, okar} indicates the opening where the second woman next to the right edge stands on. In other words, for example, okalo (ok+alo) could mean that ‘alo’ has something to do with happening at ‘ok’.
The dominant skeleton on f80r is ‘qo’. ‘q’ means a seed and ‘o’ indicates a point. Altogether, it could mean ‘where the seed is ~’, or something else. (I could have divided the text on f80r based on the SF model into 13 segments.)
I wish I could present more, but this is all I have got so far.
Refernces:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f80r/0.425/0.111/3.40
https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/Notes/015/pages-html/f80r.html
Stephen Bax and his book of Shadows (& mirrors) has been given rave reviews by newly invited L. Penny on Ninja of all places as a mish mash of various themes. He or She is inviting others who gained inspiration from Stephen’s Bax’s qualified insights into all things Voynich related, might wish to share knowledge gained from the great man. For any SB fans wanting to engage, this would of course need to be supported by Nick Pelling who’s own memories are vivid I’m sure.
John Sanders: who am I to disabuse people of such hopelessly foolish dreams? Let them have their own dream cake and eat it too, I say.
The closest thing to the part is a “Tastenzirkel”, and it belongs to the measuring instruments. There are other similar instruments.
https://de.dreamstime.com/lizenzfreies-stockbild-antikes-tasterzirkel-durchmesser-werkzeug-image35556776
It would be interesting to know the meaning of the instruments in the pictures. It does not matter whether it is a cross, ring, spindle, nail, etc.
The problem was not the birth forceps. This idea is absolutely fine. It is the date that does not fit.
We now have the C14 analysis where the age of origin is given. So the bracket is out of the game, as is Columbus with America.
It was also not the only example where it did not fit. Here followed a number of others.
@Sanders
Many had the same view, I just wrote it to you. Now I am the bad guy, but I don’t care. The only important thing for me is the correctness of the facts.
@John Sanders. The Ninja forum. There is only one good post. And that’s when Koen writes about Gemini. Koen writes that this is a ceremony. Wedding or holiday. Koen is right about that. The foil says about the wedding. And who is a wedding, of course, is also written in the text. And in Czech.
Wedding = Jan II.of Rosen berg + Anna Hlohovská (Glogow) Polish wife. Parents of our clever Elizabeth.
Otherwise, I didn’t find anything good there.
Jacques Le Goff speaks of an ‘oneiric horizon’. When someone can spin such a beautiful phrase, right or wrong they’re ok by me. 🙂
Errm – sorry. I’ve looked for a list of Prof. Bax’s publications but nothing with a title remotely similar to “book of Shadows (& mirrors)”.
Stephen was very early invited to accept advice and ideas from many people, including some no longer with us, but others who are very much with us.
There is also a problem with Bax’ site in that many of the comments – on which Bax would later build in another post – appear to have been wiped. This creates a rather misleading impression of what was, and wasn’t original to Bax.
Since I understand that Bax ‘bequeathed’ management of his site to Rene Zandbergen – though that may be an error – perhaps Rene or whoever is doing that work will find a way to re-instate all the comments? I think it especially unfortunate that Steven Worley’s (*sp) work has been lost, together with all the stimulating conversations which many other people (including me) had with him. It would be quite wrong for anyone who can’t think of original paths to pursue were to just ‘mine’ Bax’s site as a way to get something out under their own name, though perhaps one shouldn’t try guessing the future by patterns observed in the past.
“Since I understand that Bax ‘bequeathed’ management of his site to Rene Zandbergen – though that may be an error –”
It is indeed.
Peter: you’re not as as thick as two roundels of Swiss surely. So here’s your easy solution and you can perform such the task in your sleep which you’ll appreciate. …Dial up ‘pelvimiter’ on Google images and step back to be rewarded with a the miracle of an hundred amazing pics of the instrument seen displayed in f80r mit measure stick and all…..Good lad, saves going round in never ending circles all your life.
Theoretical physicists (Montemurro and Zanette, 2013) from the University of Manchester found recurring semantic patterns in the text and pointed out that a shift in topic can be signified by the introduction of new content-bearing words. In my article, I introduced a term called skeleton which is defined as a content-bearing word and the remaining part of the word is referred to as flesh. For example, with three caption words {okalo, okolo, okary} on the top of f80r, the skeleton is ‘ok’ and the fleshes are {alo, olo, ary}. By definition, skeleton letters or subword repeat themselves in the text. When a skeleton changes, it signifies a shift of topic and I regarded the change of skeleton as a break for new sentence or contextural (I do not sure if this is a legitimate terminology in linguistics) segment. In other words, each segment bears a different context which is defined by the skeleton.
Folio 2r has a drawing of plant and the plant only. From the perspective of context, it can be assumed that the text on f2r was written under a context of a plant. On the contrary, it can be assumed that the text on f80r would have more than one context because there are drawings of a plant as well as people along with it. Some words in the text of f80r should bear the context of plant as well as the context of people. I mean that it is reasonable to expect that there should be words referring to the plant and words dedicated to the people. From this point of view, my question is how the Voynich language switches the context of words between the plant and people in the text without any confusion.
I used the skeleton words as a marker for text segmentation in my article. What if there is more to it? What if the skeleton is used only to refer to the plant, not to people or non-plant object? What if the flesh is used only to refer to people and non-plant object, not to the plant? Whenever I analyzed the text of Voynich manuscript for its segmentation, all skeleton letters or subwords are located at the start of words. When a word bears a skeleton A, it always in the form of AB where B is the flesh. Sometimes the skeleton is located at the end of word. In that case, the very next word should start with the skeleton. For example, when a word has a skeleton A after the flesh B, the next word starts with A. In other words, it is in the form of ‘BA AC’. (I am not sure if there is a pattern of flesh-skeleton-flesh.) If it is true that skeletons always are positioned at the start of words, then it is easy to tell the words of non-plant context from the words of plant context in the text without any confusion.
A word without skeleton refers to non-plant object. A word starting with skeleton refers to the plant. For example, “mind blowing” are two words. Generally speaking, the context of the word ‘mind’ has a narrower scope than the context of the word ‘blowing’. When “mind blowing” is regarded as a single composite word “mindblowing”, “mind” is like the skeleton of Voynich word and “blowing” is the flesh. From this perspective, it can be expected that Zipf’s distribution of Voynich words after all skeletons were separated from their fleshes would be different from the Zipf’s distribution of Voynich words when they were handled together. The Zipf’s distribution of skeletons and fleshes after separation will be different from the typical distribution that we know. I am curious of how they turn out. Is there anyone who is up for it?
Milton Kim: I think you’d need to define the difference between your two categories of words much more rigorously than this to stand a chance of getting anyone interested.
Incidentally, the three words you list at the top of f80r should be more accurately transcribed as “okaly okolo okary”. Moreover, words ending in -o are quite rare (e.g. there’s only 46 in Q13), and there’s normally good reason to suspect (just as here) that “-o” is almost always a scribal slip for “-y” (e.g. there are 3664 -y in Q13). So to a very large degree I would expect these three specific words to have (originally) been “okaly okoly okary”.
Which brings me onto a different point: which is that when I wrote Curse back in 2006, one of the key suggestions I made was that word-final -dy and -y seemed to be behaving like abbreviation symbols (I speculated that -y might be a token for a single discarded syllable, while -dy might be a token for two or more discarded syllables). Which sounds not hugely dissimilar to what you’re suggesting, where -y and -dy are what you call the “flesh”.
But even though this is a pretty well-formed hypothesis about Voynichese, what would a good statistical test for it look like? I’ve been trying (admittedly vaguely) to think of one for 15+ years, and haven’t got anywhere yet. Sadly, I’m far from convinced that Zipf’s Law will be of much assistance here: but perhaps there’s a good answer in there trying to get out. 🙂
@Milton Kim. I’m here. You can see you’re using your brain. So I have to praise you. Which I rarely do. So little ever.
Otherwise, I wrote about it 12 years ago. You need to read the text and find out where the word starts. And where the word ends. (word, space, word space, word, space, word space, word, space). according to you = skeleton, skeleton, skeleton, skeleton. etc. The meat is not there. There is only word, word, word, word word.
@ Finding the book “Shadows” from a dead colleague is quite difficult. In the meantime, it would be enough to take a mirror and light two candles. Ask Stefan directly what his manuscript research looks like when he had to meet Voynich, who works there in the Heavenly Library as a doorman.
Or wait until Charon takes you to the other side of the Styx River.
@Nick:
Thank you for the corrections. I quoted the transcript from this site, https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/Notes/015/pages-html/f80r.html, and didn’t know that some corrections might be needed. As long as they start with ‘ok’, it doesn’t matter because the skeleton and flesh model is based purely on the pattern analysis viewpoint. What Voynich letters are categorized into skeletons and fleshes don’t assume anything more than that. Skeletons are defined as Voynich letter(s) that repeat themselves in the text. Fleshes are Voynich letter(s) attached to skeletons, or standalone word without skeletons in it. I explained the SF model in detail in my article with enough examples and won’t reiterate it here. (I presume that you already know it from the material that I emailed you before.)
Please let me reshape my previous post as follows. Using the method explained in my article, I divided the f80r text except those captions on the top into 13 segments and the first segment S1 consists of 14 words.
[The text in S1 in its original form (as it is, from the reference site)]
pdol fshedy q*polkain octhor okchdy qokeedy qo*cheol ol*oiin y darshey dykshy olotchedy qokai*n qotain
[The text in S1 in a formatted style. (I mean “formatted” by using line breaks and indentations. The purpose of formmating is to align skeletons at the same indentation position.)]
L1: pdol fshedy q*polkain octhor
L2: okchdy
L3: qokeedy
L4: qo*cheol ol*oiin y darshey
L5: dykshy
L6: olotchedy
L7: qokai*n
L8: qotain
At the first indentation depth, the skeleton ‘qo’ can be identified from L1, L3, L4, L7, L8. (I assumed that ‘q*’ in L1 would be ‘qo’.)
At the second indentation depth, two skeletons are identified and they are ‘o-‘ from L1 & 2 and ‘ol’ or ‘olo’ if ‘ol*’ is actually ‘olo’. If not, the skeleton will be just ‘ol’.
At the third indentation depth, one skeleton ‘d’ is identified.
To be honest, I am not confident if a single letter skeleton is a thing or not.
It is also true that there is not enough evidence saying that we should not.
So, I include them anyway.
A single letter skeleton is less sure than multiple letter skeletons.
I hope this ambiguity might be resolved if actual translation was attempted.
I categorize the leading two words ‘pdol fshedy’ as a title to S1 and both words are flesh words without skeleton.
As it can be seen, the categorization of skeleton and flesh is purely theoretical, produced purely based on a pattern match.
There always is chances that it could be turned out wrong eventually.
Until then, I guess we just move on with it.
[Category 1: Skeletons only, 4 in total in S1]
‘qo’, ‘o’, ‘olo’, ‘d’
[Category 2: Fleshes with no skeletons, 2 in total]
L1: pdol fshedy
[Category 3: Fleshes attached to skeletons, 12 in total]
L1: polkain cthor (without ‘qo’ and ‘o’)
L2: kchdy (w/o ‘o’)
L3: keedy (w/o ‘o’)
L4: cheol oiin y arshey (w/o ‘qo’, ‘olo’, ‘d’)
L5: ykshy (w/o ‘d’)
L6: tchedy (w/o ‘olo’)
L7: kai*n (w/o ‘qo’)
L8: tain (w/o ‘qo’)
Regarding Zipf’s distribution, there are many published articles. They are using Voynich words as they are presented in the manuscript.
From the perspective of the pattern analysis and the categorization based on the SF model, if we find the Zipf’s distributions with Voynich words categorized into C1, C2, C3, or combined ones, then the outcome will be different from the one that were published.
From the perspective of contexts, I meant that the skeletons mostly, if it is not always, start words by positioning them in front.
By repeating themselves, it indicates that those words are meant to be handled as references to plants, or plant-related things.
Once those skeletons were excluded, the remaining flesh words can be used in more general circumstances outside the area of plants such as those things that we encounter in daily lives.
This is a purely theoretical example. Let’s assume there is a Voynich word ‘oceo’, or ‘oeho’.
I am not sure which one is the right for the letter that looks like c-c, which I translated it as ‘connect, flow’ in my article.
I picked that word up to implying that it means ‘drink, eat’ because I interpreted it as ‘o(mouth)’-‘c-c(flow)’-‘o(throat)’.
It symbolizes that something flows from one point to the other point in mouth’.
What if a skeleton ‘ok’ was attached to it so that ‘okoceo’ is made?
Should we translate it as ‘a stem drinks (water)’, or as ‘a stem flows (water)’ symbolizing water passing through a stem?
I thinkk choosing the latter will be more reasonable in the context.
This is the point I was trying to make by the switching between the plant context and general context.
@Sanders
It’s great that you found the device name “Pelvimeter”.
Even if a different name is used in medicine than in mechanics, it is still a measuring instrument and not a forceps.
And mentioned by the way:
Description
y 3, 1932- E. J. SQVATKIN 1,356,295
PELVIMETER Filed Oct. 2. 1928 53 29 v 4b INVENTOR.
4 Edward J 50 vazkl’rz.
ATTORNEY.
Patented May 3, 1932 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.
EDWARD J. SOVATKIN, OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, ASSIGNOR TO J. SKLAR MANUFAC- TUBING CO. 1170., OF NEW YORK, N. ‘Y., A CORPORATION OF NEW YORK PELVIMETER Application filed October 2, 1928. Serial No. 309,784.
This invention relates to pelvimeters. More particularly it relates to an instrument for measuring the internal conjugate.
An object of the invention is to provide an instrument of the character described,
which shall measure the true obstetric con jugate directly.
A further object of this invention is to provide an improved instrument of the character described, which may be carried into the patients vagina and manipulated for obtaining the desired measurements without pain or injury to the patient.
On the subject of Voynich theories.
LisaFaginDavis has just presented a conference at Voynich Ninja where everyone can present their theories.
Here you can read about it.
https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-3747-post-49360.html#pid49360
Agasul: for me, the interesting question is what Voynich research would actually be worthwhile – with a few valiant exceptions, most of the stuff I see these days tends to focus on unwittingly revisiting dead-ends from 20+ years ago. But rather than overfill this small margin, I’ll talk about this in a blog post in a few days’ time.
If I have an 80 page book with 180 illustrations of solid evidence showing how the VM translates into the English language, how do i submit an entry that’s only a few pages long? My book might be published as an ebook first, in the next couple months, I contacted someone last week about converting it to an ebook format. How do i summarize 80 plus pages? Anybody?
Robert Funicella: if you can’t summarise the core of your argument in 2-4 pages, it’s probably more speculative than you think it is. 🙁
@Nick
Actually, I don’t know exactly what they want, or what issues it covers.
As I understand it, it’s work from the field, processing with specific programmes concerning AI. Statistics, analysis and so on.
Image processing programmes and decryption programmes. All the new insights that the software offers.
I’m not so sure that everybody can just present their general theories like that.
2-4 sheets of paper are needed for the input. After deciding, you can expand and explain your theories up to 9 pages.
For me, it means that you first get into a selection, and only then can you further represent your views.
I really have to find out more about it first.
Agasul – it’s an internal discussion. Members only, and the forum is limited to medieval European mss – in practice mostly limited to fifteenth-century Italian or German mss, but even if the discussions are limited in scope they’ll be worth reading.
Thanks for sharing.
.
Re conference – I’m interested to see that it will be “double blind peer reviewed”.
It seems to be an internal Voynich ninja Conference. A non member gets the following message:
“All the information you need is here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.”
I’d be delighted to see a list of their intended reviewers. The Beinecke has a superb range of conservators and codicologists who might be among their projected peer reviewers. If Alain Towaide is one of their peer reviewers for papers about the plant-pictures, that would be fine. There are no Voynicheros competent to do a “double blind peer review” of my work, so far as I know.
But as I’m not a member, the question’s by-the-way. 🙂
Pity. I wish Yale had announced the conference; it might have got a wider range of specialist papers. Not that the Beinecke hasn’t wonderful conservators and codicologists. The Yale facsimile edition has a very good ‘Physical Materials’ essay – I wished it had been twice as long with twice as much detail.
It’s not at all limited to ninja members as far as I can see. Here’s another link:
http://www.themedievalacademyblog.org/international-conference-on-the-voynich-manuscript/
@Diane
I don’t think it’s just Ninja internally. It’s called International Conference.
Here is the direct link again.
https://www.um.edu.mt/events/voynich2022
In response to my question, LisaFaginDavis replied as follows:
“Just a clarification about what this is, and what it isn’t. It is meant to showcase the best, new, reliable, evidence-based work. It definitely isn’t a free for all where anyone who wants can present their favorite theories. All submissions will be double-blind peer-reviewed by the Program Committee and outside experts. If you are going to submit a proposal, I suggest that you include the evidence in your proposal…if you don’t, the reviewers will have no way to know if your work is reliable.”
Tavi, Agasul
Thanks so much for passing that on.
The line-up I’d love to see would be external specialists – I mean the sort of specialists any university would hire on the strength of their contributions to their field – such as Touwaide on Byzantine, Islamic and Latin herbal and medical traditions; Beit Arie on whether the manuscript’s codicology has any points in common with Hebrew manuscripts (or not); Kahn on the sadalani in Islam; someone able to talk about the medieval languages and dialects from the Black Sea region. (I’m thinking here of a paper that was written some years ago about inscriptions on a map (actually a carte marine) found in a Franciscan monastery in Dalmatia).
For the cryptographers one might invite a couple of the chaps who’ve been studying the development of cryptography in medieval north Africa, because that went hand-in-hand with education in Hindu-Arabic numerals.
I’d like to see the new scientific matter the Beinecke and LJS might have come up with, and more material aiming to widen researchers’ horizons and let in some fresh air to this study.
What does everyone else think?
Of course then you’d have the problem – who would ‘peer review’ such papers as those?
@Nick, maybe it’s time to share my research with you, see what you think, if you’re interested in seeing it. If you like it, maybe you can write a blog post about me. Lol
Let me know.
Robert Funicella: I kind of gave up reviewing Voynich theories a few years back at the point where Voynich theorists took to wearing my weary blog post dismissals as a badge of ‘honour’. Honestly, that’s exactly how bad it got.
If you really want me to review yours, then I guess I’ll say yes: but be warned that I normally strip things right back to the fundamentals, and if your theory suffers from really basic problems, I’m not going to say otherwise.
@Nick, so I’m in the U. S., in the Boston area. If your not impressed after reviewing my work, you can tell Lisa from the Medieval Academy to come to my house and kick me in the groin. That’s how confident I am. I’ll send you an email and see what’s the best method to get it to you.
Robert Funicella: I’m nickpelling at nickpelling dot com (if you hadn’t already worked that out, it’s not exactly a secret).
@Nick, They say “no news is good news”, just need to know if you were able to access that page.
As for the International Voynich Manuscript Conference, I don’t expect anything of value from this “conference”. In my opinion, its “scientific” assumptions and the evaluation composition are in fact the values which, a priori, disqualify this undertaking. It is a promised scientific conference in a very effective way, which I associate with the title of William Shakespeare’s comedy “Much Ado for Nothing.”
The perceptual abilities of the creators of the ossified Voynich Manuscript decoder theories can be compared to eighty-year-old ballerinas trying to dance in Swan Lake. In my opinion, a better place to present any ideas about the Voynich Manuscript is in an open medium such as Nick’s portal.
@Grzegorz. You wrote it nicely. What Lisa, Rene and two other scientists can find out. When the manuscript is written in the Czech language.
You. Grzegorz. You can also read Polish words in the manuscript. For example, the word: Cora. Or Cor and zesto. (daughters are six). Or a Polish word: Chop. ( Man ).
@Grzegorz. You wrote it nicely. What Lisa, Rene and two other scientists can find out. When the manuscript is written in the Czech language.
You. Grzegorz. You can also read Polish words in the manuscript. For example, the word: Cora. Or : Cor i zesto. (daughters are six). Or a Polish word: Chlop. ( Man ).
Yes, I think here is the right place for unprejudiced evaluations and comments.
Some people concern themselves with the historical context of the VMS – an complex topic. What does my theory say about the VMS historical context? In my opinion, there are two different contexts. The text is ancient with some short medieval additions (comments, explanations, hilarious or derogatory remarks).
The historical context of the images and cryptography is naturally medieval, most likely Italian, the script implemented by means of mediaeval technics and imaginations. The inspiration came from the text, but I don’t believe the origin ancient material included any pictures, not even outlines.
And this: I asked myself, if it’s appropriate and not unfeeling to engross the mind with old scripts in times of a heinous war in Europe. But it’s not helping, if I would follow every news instead. I don’t know how valuable my decryption will be considered in the future. However, now I would like to dedicate it to Ukraine – give them peace soon!
@Grzegorz
Było tych córek i chłopców wielu
ale żaden nie śmiał
kodować jak chciał
przy tym czeskim przyjacielu!
Correct?
Nick, I have an idea that I think should help a little bit of help to anyone interested in unraveling the mystery of the Woynich Manuscript. The principle of probability may be in effect, or perhaps otherwise, the principle of statistics.
I suggest gathering all those willing to present their “theory” – that is, how they translate and understand the Manuscript – set all “theories” in alphabetical order, or by surnames, and then any interested person or an outsider will be able to cast their vote – punt on the given “theory”. Something similar to the Eurovision Song Contest.
The person whose “theory” obtains the most votes, or the most positive percentages, will have the opportunity – or the need to defend his position – of the “theory” in this forum. This idea of mine can be slightly modified – it depends on your creativity.
I think it will spice up your forum a bit, and also eventually bring some “fresh air” into the musty minds of various insiders.
Nick, I have an idea that should help a bit for anyone interested in unraveling the mystery of the Woynich Manuscript. The principle of probability may be in effect, or perhaps otherwise, the principle of statistics.
I propose to gather all those willing to present their “theory” – that is, how they explain and understand the Manuscript – to set all “theories” in alphabetical order, or by surnames, and then any interested person or outsider will be able to cast their vote – point for a given “theory”. Something similar to the Eurovision Song Contest.
The person whose “theory” obtains the most votes, or the most positive percentages, will have the opportunity – or the need to defend his position – of the “theory” in this forum. This idea of mine can be slightly modified – it depends on your creativity.
I think it will spice up your forum a bit, and also eventually bring some “fresh air” into the musty minds of various insiders.
Nick, There is no possibility to make corrections on your forum, therefore you should delete duplicate entries. Of course, the earlier ones.
Please, not the Eurovision Song Contest! After Lena Germany gets here mostly 0 points, always being strongly contested by the Britons for the last place 😊
Grzegorz Ostrowski,
There are thousands of Americans who’d vote it it ‘probable’ that the Rapture is likely to occur soon.
In my proposal I do not mean “thousands of Americans”, but “experts” on the subject like you. Each such “expert” would have one vote – assuming, of course, that you cannot vote for yourself, and let the best proposal win. I wonder if everyone will be brave enough to put their “theory” about the Voynich Manuscript to the judgment of the interested public. I’m not afraid. Moreover, I am sure that what I am proposing is the most probable of all propositions. Some plants, some balneology, some pixels, some letters seen under an electron microscope, some Indian, Czech, Turkish, Voynicheros, EVA, and other miasms of this type are only worth keeping silent.
Grzegorz Ostrowski
I do not claim to be a ‘Voynich expert’ and have made myself quite unpopular for saying that I do not believe anyone is, or can be, reasonably called that.
There are qualified and experienced linguistics people, cryptologists, codicologists, palaeographers and so on, who may find the Voynich manuscript one that interests them, but their area is their area and the Vms just one manuscript.
It is not what a person opines, but the range depth and balance of the information which leads them to form that view which matters. And on that basis one eminent codicologist who has access to the manuscript may agree or debate another but a specialist in linguistics who ‘voted’ for one opinion or the other would know less than either.
I get the uncomfortable feeling that there are Voynicheros who believe in fairies and that if enough people just believe together the manuscript’s contents and history will magically transform themselves into whatever they ‘vote’ for.
Even worse – as if the aim of Voynich studies is to produce some ‘final authoritative opinion’ after which there should be no further discussion and demur be met with shunning,
I say “as if” – for anyone to really have such an aim would be very odd indeed.
But SirHubert said it better, long ago, when explaining the difference between cryptology – which expects one and only one ‘answer’ – and the critical sciences which just don’t work that way.
Dear Diane, what you are writing is pure sophistry – or otherwise, it is a sheer dodge to get away from a particular decision which should be this: That’s all I … Diane O’Donovan proposes regarding the Voynich Manuscript – to the best of my knowledge, it is closest to the truth.
In my opinion, it is necessary to “separate the grain from the chaff” in order to focus on the critical appraisal and falsification of the most likely “theory” of a particular developer. If such a process of “natural” selection does not take place, we will all the time be stuck in this information noise, like in a maze, or in the Augean stables. The number of “theories” about the Voynich Manuscript is enormous. There are such idiocy among her that I am sorry to read them. http://ciphermysteries.com/the-voynich-manuscript/voynich-theories
When it comes to decoding the MV, in my opinion, it will never be achieved by “scientific” methods – “There are qualified and experienced linguistics people, cryptologists, codicologists, palaeographers”, because the “DNA” of the construction of the encryption of the Manuscript itself relies on proper “Interpretation” and not on “Codicological” methods.
The conference is open to anyone, provided your willing to give them 50 euros up front. Your 2 to 4 page summary has to impress them or that’s as far as you go.
Gregor – believe it or not, it’s a rare pleasure to have the chance to discuss and debate this manuscript in a public place.
My criteria are those which apply to any medieval manuscript; I suppose I’m looking at it from outside, whereas you as an active member inside what is sometimes called ‘the Voynich community’ see it in those terms.
I do understand that people who believe the written part of the text is enciphered cannot form a plan to test decryption methods without forming a theoretical model first. Fair enough.
What I’ve tried for thirteen years to understand, as I worked through the manuscript and all the necessary ancillary research – this for a manuscript I expected to be able to write a full report on in a month at most – is why people feel a need to invent theories when they can just begin by asking those basic questions we ask of any manuscript.
Such as – where was the artefact produced? This is a matter for the codicologists and palaeographers. You must know there are tens of thousands of manuscripts all over the world, and especially in great collections and more are acquired, provenanced and dated all the time. Do you think the assessors spend their time day-dreaming historical scenarios or stitching together theories for which there is no solid documentary or scholarly support? I don’t mean phoning or emailing someone who’ll agree with what you suggest: I mean the scholarship that’s out there, building upon previous work to form these fields of study.
I don’t understand why Voynicheros think they matter so much that the manuscript’s age, date, history and meaning should be decided by their small group’s “voting” for one or another of the member’s theories while some use any means to hand to shut up or shut down inconvenient dissenters.
By all means, if you find it fun, create Voynich theories. Why not? It’s a fairly harmless hobby so long as other people are not harassed for not taking that path. It’s a free-to-air digitised manuscript.
And I’d also suggest – with all due respect – that you should leave aside trying to vote into oblivion all previous ideas/theories/opinions until there’s more reason for real certainty about the content’s origin and character than anybody has now.
The example of Stofi’s treatment -simply because he reported the results of his statistical study as indicating a non-European language shows how shameful the means used to quash, silence and expel. Debate points of evidence, inferences taken, and of course don’t wrap yourself in a borrowed Napoleonic cloak and deem yourself too ‘superior’ to treat demur as beneath your notice as some do. But by the same token, I think it’s wise to remember that time may show value in theories or research dismissed more because of the dismisser’s ignorance than flaws in what was dismissed.
Sorry if this sounds like preaching, but you know in thirteen years I’ve never seem much Voynich theory-as-history that survived for any reason save that those who could blow the holes in it that it deserved hadn’t that much interest. What the very best do is come, look… and leave.
I happen to like the manuscript. Think it’s historically more valuable than has been thought, and that it needs more people interested in understanding it than ‘solving’ it.
Go carefully.
Diane, I understand your bitterness, and I would like to tell you that I, too, have had this type of feeling for many years. However, I am writing for a different purpose to tell you that when it comes to the question: … you as an active member inside what is sometimes called ‘the Voynich community … you are very wrong – the opposite is true. I have nothing to do with this socialist, moreover, I consider this community to be a group of maniacal profane people whose personal ambitions for their knowledge and skills about the Voynich Manuscript fly very high above Mount Ewerest.
And another thing: … people who believe the written part of the text is enciphered … here too, if I understand the context of your speech correctly, it’s a bit different. In this case, the opposite is also true. I believe that the entire text of the Voynich Manuscript has been artificially compiled, and the meaning can be compared to the equally senseless babble of a few-month-old child. I wrote more about this in previous posts on this forum.
As for the further content of your post, I do not want to comment on this, but I really liked his conclusion: … Think it’s historically more valuable than has been thought, … to which I subscribe “with both hands”. Greetings.
Here it is very important to remember!
The scientist should stay nice to the ground. And don’t panic. Focus on handwritten text. And find out what our very clever Elizabeth of Rosenberg is writing to you.
When will Alain Touwaide give us his long awaited common sense views on this not so mysterious case and finally put our anxious Voynichero puritans and their much despised, though like thinking confused detractors of an oft claimed higher level of knowledge, both sadly disillusioned imho, where they aught be, back in some dark aged medieval oblivion whence they emerged.
Grzegorz,
For me the issue is rather than people cannot seem to focus on our supposed subject of study, but veer off from investigating and researching one medieval manuscript, the origins and meaning of its text and images, into researching ideas of their own, without much apparent interest in whether those ideas, or their basic premises have any basis in fact or are contemporary with what is known in the twenty-first century rather than in 1921.
About the ‘community’ – I find discussions seem a bit ‘through the looking-glass’ to me. I’m accustomed to spirited and helpful debates about such things as approaches, methodologies, evidence – its depth and quality – and so on. I come from a background where, if another scholar picks up an error or oversight (such as having missed a recent study or article), you say thanks, and feel free to get details of sources and so on to understand how another person has come to form their opinion on some specific matter.
What I’m not used to, and never have become used to, is people who when asked some question pretend to be too important to descend to discussing sources, methods, or their chain of reasoning. I’m not “feeling bitter” – that habit of degrading everything to the level of personalities and emotion is another of the peculiarities of the ‘community’ (as it appears in public) that seems quite odd to me.
I suppose if I have a reaction you could call emotional, it’s a mixture of disgust and disappointment. Disappointment because so many able people, who might have produced many useful insights if they’d remained independent have been drawn into supporting a theoretical framework which wastes their potential. And of course, in a few cases I’d have to say ‘disgust’ because overt intellectual dishonesty (such as plagiarism or manufacturing evidence) disgusts me.
It isn’t bitterness, but sheer matter of fact that while I’ve been contributing what I’m able to the manuscript’s better understanding, now, for thirteen years, I’ve received not a single helpful, technical or historical, criticism. Such criticism is so helpful, but I’ve had to look beyond ‘Voynichworld’ to get it.
There has been one and only one personal criticism from Voynicheros in all that time, but one repeated ad infinitum and it goes a bit like this, “You don’t like my theory/my friend’s theory/me/my friend, so you must have a Byronic nature and for the general good we shall do what we can to deter others from admitting they read what you contribute.”
Funny old world, isn’t it. 🙂
Have fun.
With ‘it’s really hidden Christian doctrine’ storylines proliferating, it seems a pity that of the two most enthusiastic and energetic revivers of this idea, JKPetersen has stopped writing and now Koen Gheuens’ blog seems to have gone from the internet, like Ellie Velinska’s before him.
Soon there’ll be almost no Voynich researcher speaking as independent voices – such a pity. I regret especially, not being able to consult and refer others to some of Koen’s earlier research.
Koen’s blog is still up for me.
Thanks Tavi. No idea what the glitch was, but I my engine couldn’t find it last week.
But for you I wouldn’t have tried again – and today it has come up. Thanks.
This page is starting to slow down, are people running out of ideas or just busy working on papers for the conference.
I saw a few people previously talking about f80r, I’d like to offer another viewpoint on that page. What if in this miniature world these people are responsible for building plants and seeds piece by piece. So their jobs require a lot of precision otherwise genetic defects could happen. Which does occur because people make mistakes. But as a system of checks and balances when someone does make a mistake they are brought to this room and undergo some punishment and retraining. We see a young lady being led in in the upper right corner, her hands possibly shackled behind her back. The upper left there is some retraining going on, and in the middle left the woman is holding her shackles that have just been removed and her boss is pointing and yelling for her to go back to work and be more careful not to make mistakes.
Robert Funicella: go to Wikipedia and put up Dr. Jean Louis Baudelocque, 19th century appointee to the French Court. You’ll see from the insert diagram that the nymph’s shackles look more like an obstetric pelvimiter ‘Baudelocque’s measure’ specifically designed to gauge birth canal viability externally. Patented in 1789 and still used today in some less developed societies, it puts paid to the commonly held belief that VM dates from the early 15th centuary…don’t let on that I told you.
John Sanders: Mums the word. Although that instrument seems longer and has extra pieces for measurement readouts than what the nymph is holding. If you want the date of the VM I think you have to look no farther than the bottom of page 35v. Just like the rings in a tree stump that tell its age, the outer most left side of the roots stand up like the grooves in a phonograph record. You have to look at it from the right distance but the shape of the roots themselves look like they draw the numbers 1415. Which coincides perfectly with the carbon dating.
Robert Funicella: look closer and you’ll spot the protruding measure stick. Note the one in the pick is not the original patent, merely representative of the type. Put up pelvimiter pics on your device and behold a host of varied shapes where you’ll get one close enough to that revealed on f80r. As for growth your root growth rings, give me some time and I’ll give you an honest opinion from my days in the timber business.
John Sanders: after a closer look I agree it is some type of tool and not shackles, but Im not convinced it is a pelvimeter although I read online that one of the 3 positions they use is with the woman upright on her knees. In this case the patient is holding the tool herself in one hand, and with her other hand is holding a triangle cutout in a drapery she is wearing apparently for privacy, open against her leg. The tool could be used for inspecting body cavities. It might be a subliminal message to us that when looking for clues to decode the manuscript you have to look high and low, clues are hiding inside holes looking through pages. I don’t think it changes the time line of the manuscript.
Sign of how jaded Voynicheros have become. There’s a claimed translation being spooled out online. Twenty years ago it would have been the subject of reviews, conversations in forums and informed critiques by linguists, cryptographers and others.
Today, not so much as a raised eyebrow – at least not in public. Rather sad, but since the writer’s chief aim is to make money (who makes money out of Voynich books?), and the general public take silence as consent, I daresay the creators don’t mind the silence at all.
Textual justification for Voynich ‘calendar’ assigning Cancer to July; Scorpius to November etc. – Bede’s ‘De Temporis Ratione’.
e.g. Brit.Lib. Royal MS 13 A 11 f.49
in regard to which
Daniel McCarthy, ‘Bede’s primary source for the Vulgate chronology in his chronicles in De temporibus and De temporum ratione’ in Computus and its Cultural Context in the Latin West, AD 300-1200: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Science of Computus in Ireland and Europe, Galway, 14-16 July, 2006. pp. 159-189,
Cheers
Why would anybody buy one of those books. Lol Unless they showed you a sample of how they cracked it and the book contains useful information about how the translation works. Even if it’s cracked it will still be years before anyone can read a majority of the pages. I’d bet money the translation consists of many rules and many exceptions to those rules. (I also believe the original language is some form of English, with a connection to French, there’s a possible old French tongue twister (at the bottom of the page with the green worms on it). The manuscript could be a spoof on the English language itself with all of its rules and exceptions, ie: I before e except after c)
It gets some of its complexity from symbol placement, where a symbol at the beginning of a word has a different translation than the same symbol at the end of a word. A book someone offers as a guide would be worth a few dollars to anyone wanting to use it to unravel the other untranslated pages.
*De temporum ratione
‘De Temporibus’ is the first, shorter version.
Another successful conference of the Voynich, my favorite paper was the one on tents. I have a question for whoever might have an answer. In the presentation Lisa from the medieval academy gave
she mentioned that the page numbers were added afterwards and that some of the pages moved around. I’m wondering what order that happened in and its legitamcy given that I can find at least 12 occurances where the page numbers seem significant. Two example being the heart shaped cutout on page 14 relating to Valentines day, and on page 78, there are 7 nymphs in the top pool and 8 in the bottom pool. It could be mere cooincidence, but I can show 12 examples of where the page numbers seem to relate to something in the pictures.
Robert Funicella: I’d be surprised if you get many takers for that, because the foliation hand-writing is probably 150+ years later than the actual manuscript itself. 🙁
Nick, interesting, I believe that the page numbers are significant, I could show a dozen examples of items on the pages that seem to be connected directly to the page number they’re on or directing the observer to some clue on another page. 2nd question I sent you an email regarding my research paper I was hoping you could give me your opinion on, do you have time, the short version is only 9 pages.
What I’m interested in knowing is, if pages or choires were moved, removed or swapped could the integrity of the page numbers with their correct pages (original or not) still have been preserved. It would create a Paradox in my own work, otherwise, because I believe that the page numbers are significant and provide clues directly about the translation of the Cipher. Although I could still use the symbol ‘4’ as the letter “F”, and the ‘8’ as the letter “T” without explaining how I figured that out using the page numbers.
I read the group arguments here from back in April on this subject, as well as some details about how the pages are arranged in groups by choires, posted on voynich.nu (description of the voynich ms). It seems to me that for whoever wrote it, if their intent was to use some of the page numbers to point to things in the final product, that they would have carefully planned 12 out the location of specific pages. It seems like page 1 is probably in the correct place by virtue of its weathered look from being so close to an end of the book. Which should mean that the first choire is in the correct place. The 7 and 8 nymphs that appear on page 78 could have been used as a simple means to check the final product. Coincidentally, there are 9 nymphs in the middle of the next page after that. So, if each half of the 12 coincidences are contained within the same choires, choires not containing critical information could have been swapped and if a removed choire is after the last choire that contains critical information then there’s a good chance that the relationship between pages and page numbers are still intact. Next step is to layout the choires and the pages that go with each and then place the coincidences and see where they fall. It’ll be a little time before I can get to this, if anyone would like to study this, I can provide the 12 coincidences.
Robert,
If you mean the page numbers in ‘Arabic’ numerals – that is, which include a naught in the series – then I understand these are believed written in a style appropriate to the sixteenth or seventeenth century.
What Nick sees as quire numbers (that’s quire, not choir), but which might actually be reference numbers, are in Latin numerals (i, ii, iii etc.) and are low on the pages where they appear. These are believed ‘medieval’ if we include the 1400s in the medieval period, as art historians do.
Many see the quires as disordered and presume it is accidental or incidental. For myself, I’m not so sure. I think they may have been re-ordered quite deliberately to suit a purpose different from the exemplar(s) from which the material was copied. I’m perfectly sure the work cannot have been copied from a single exemplar, or written by any single ‘author’ but to explain why I came to that opinion is not practically possible here.
It’s natural – everyone does it at first – to believe that the confusion and bewilderment you feel on coming to what you are led to expect is basically a ‘normal’ medieval European manuscript, and finding nothing remotely familiar except perhaps the emblems in the calendar, to slip into the mistake of presuming it’s unintelligible because someone is hiding the information from you and so looking for hidden ‘clues’ in the pictures, or the numerals and so on.
But it’s worth trying to be analytical about the basic problem, I think. Try to identify the reasons, precisely, that you do find unintelligible. Not what’s “wrong” with the manuscript, but perhaps what’s wrong with the expectations you had, and from that… consider the gaps between the usual story and the artefact. For example, the varying number of bifolios in the quires – how unusual are they for early-fifteenth-century European manuscripts? You’ll find people try to minimise, or just ignore, the long fold-ins’ being unlike anything in a fifteenth-century medieval European manuscript. But to date, I’ve not seen one other manuscript of similar date produced as comparison. You can begin with a question as simple as that – where and when *do* we find quires of such kinds. And don’t be too impressed if you find others inventing reasons – or excuses – for such divergences from the traditionally-assumed norm.
All the best. Excuse the dissertation. 🙂
@Robert Funicella
Perhaps you could leaf through Quire 13, starting at f75r.
Bath, bath, description, and then completely different pictures. Only later do the baths appear again.
I think something went wrong. Now you have to think three-dimensionally and put the picture story back in the right order.
Now the sequence makes sense. Just try it.
@D.N.O’Donovan
Thanks for the correction “quires”‘, I think auto correct had something to do with that.
I was talking about the page numbers or “folio” numbers in the upper right corner of the pages. For example I would associate page 14 with Valentines day because of the heart shaped cutout. Although, some might argue that because the pages moved or numbers were added after, that a connection doesn’t exist. Even the cutout being a naturally occurring defect, doesn’t explain away the extremely straight edge work at the top and bottom of the cutout.
There might be evidence to suggest that some pages might have moved from their original locations but there’s no convincing evidence that it affected the relationship between page numbers and critical information on all the pages.
I think it would be a grave mistake to assume that all of the pages were affected to the point where there is no relationship between any of the page numbers and the pages they reside on.
I’m not a medieval history buff, so I did a search for
“What time period is Arabic numerals.”
This is what Google came back with:
Hindu-Arabic numerals, set of 10 symbols—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0—that represent numbers in the decimal number system. They originated in India in the 6th or 7th century and were introduced to Europe through the writings of Middle Eastern mathematicians, especially al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi, about the 12th century.
If that’s accurate wouldn’t that mean that Arabic numerals were around in the 14th century, maybe not widely used for page numbers in books, but they were available, unless your talking about the font style.
Perhaps if I explain why I believe that English is the original language of the manuscript by showing you how to translate it, then it might make more sense why I believe that the page numbers are so significant.
@Peter M
Thanks, I’ll check that out.
Next, Lets talk about the plausibility of translating the text, into English, for example. Lesson 1, At the conference there was a young man, I think it was Patrick Feaster, he was talking about statistics relating to position numbers. I asked a question about the length of the words, if they skewed the results at all, where the 4th position in a 4 letter word would also be the far right side position and the same position in a 7 letter word would be more to the middle and statistically would yield very different results. Like comparing apples to oranges. The point however is if we looked at the statistics of symbols that appear more often at the beginning or end of a word. One symbol would stand out amongst the rest. The symbol ‘g’ or eva ‘y’, appears mainly at the end of words, sometimes at the beginning of words, and occasionally at both ends of a word. One could draw the conclusion that as part of a natural language encoded or not, to have that many words with the same letter at the end or beginning would be very unnatural, which draws us to our first conclusion that the symbol ‘g’ is most likely a control character of some type and not an actual part of the words. Some possibilities would be the direction the word is to be read in, right side, word is read left to right, left side word is read right to left, and a ‘g’ on both ends the word could be like a palindrome abbreviation that reads in both directions. Another possibility, it could stop the influence of other symbols nearby that might flow into the next word. Almost like gravity that holds it back. Looking at other items in the book such as the sun, the moon, and the Pleiades. I would expect that the translation could involve items moving around emulating the motions of celestial bodies.
Next, let’s look at the 2 symbol group ‘8g’, if we apply what we think we know and remove the ‘g’ we are left with just a single symbol ‘8’. In English a one letter word could be an “A” or an “I”. I believe that the voynich is a self contained puzzle, everything you need to decode it is contained within the pages, there are no missing conversion charts. If we were to manipulate the symbol by treating the upper and lower circles that make up the ‘8’ as if they were coins, and flipped the top coin about a horizontal axis and flipped the bottom coin vertically you would make the letter “T”. Let’s say that’s the general rule for most symbol 8’s. Now, our first exception to that rule is a single ‘8’, what if we flipped both coins vertically we would get a straight line, hence our single letter “I” (eye). And another possibility, take c next to 8, ‘c8’, flip the 8 into a vertical straight line ( cl ), and you could form the letter “d”. But now we introduce a new problem, an order of operations, like in math problems multiplication and division are done first, left to right, then addition and subtraction. So if we had 3 symbols together, ‘cc8’ for example and (through trial and error, we learn that) the order of operations says to combine two c’s first, then the translation might be “OT” and not “Cd”. In the next lesson I’ll show you how to make a few more letters from the symbols by manipulation then we’ll plug them in on a page and you will start to see words forming. Nothing too far fetched yet, right?
Lesson 2, let’s continue making new letters by manipulation.
I mentioned before that the pages are full of clues on how to translate the code.
If you study page 2f, the plant looks like the weight of the world is upon it shoulders, it’s buckling at the knees, whoever created this was able to build empathy into a picture. And if a person didn’t feel empathy especially for a plant, they would have missed out on an major clue. What if we remove that weight so that the plants legs straighten out and apply that technique to some of the symbols. Eva (ch’) would turn into the letter “A” and Eva (ch) could turn into the letter “H”.
Eva (ch) is a little special and I believe someone dedicated one of the pictures to it, looking at the roots on page 27v. It’s very unusual as far as plants go but very appropriate as a clue to deciphering the code. It’s the letter “H” and “I” (eye) 90 degrees apart on a swivel. There are 4 control characters (we’ll talk more about later) that will have an influence on the other symbols, so depending on which control symbol is present in a word will determine whether the “H” is used or the “I”.
We can find another example of Eva (ch) on page 5f, you can see the letter “h” in green at the top of the plant with a heavy line connecting 2 downward facing c’s.
Another simple manipulation is the symbol ‘c’ or Eva (e), this could be used directly as the letter “c” and the letter “S” if copied and rotated 180 degrees. (again depending on the control symbol).
In the next lesson we’ll study the clue “TOP.” in the roots on page 4f, and see why it’s probably related to the red flowers on page 16v.
Robert F.: VMS has nothing to do with Latin alphabets, not the plaintext nor Voynichese… Latin letters are nice in transcriptions/transliterations, because the most people here don’t know anything else and they get confused if the transcription would be made in Cyrillic or Hebrew letters.
Where you are right, is the allegorical meaning of the plants and, if a plant is bent or withered, there is an aspect in the matter pointing to something which burdens and weakens. I described many plants in my docs, alone the 17 plants/items from the folio 102v in the document “the heartwood to be enquired”. You need to click on my name to get there.
You need to see the huge world apart from the West European/American sofa. The world delivers everything to you on a tray, adapted to your perception customs, don’t confuse it with the idea there isn’t anything else.
Darius: The trick to decoding the text is to hopefully end up with clear coherent sentences, if the original language was Hebrew for example, then my attempt to translate it into English should yield no results. If you follow my method of symbol manipulation to the end you will see that I try to relate everything I present to physical evidence directly from the pages. As you will see some of the letters I believe are control characters, others such as the symbol pair (XO) I believe represents the earth and sun and its effect on the surrounding symbols can physically move sections from one end of the word to the other, even the symbol ‘X’ has 2 versions to it, where the word “bottom” would be formed of a certain ‘X’ was present in the word, and the same group of symbols would produce “Follow” if the other version of ‘X’ was present. The text is not simply read from left to right. I looked over your notes on 102v but I’m not sure why you started with that page or how you developed the system to translate it. It seems like you are making complete words from single characters, in a left to right direction. That’s slightly different from what I’m proposing. After I finish explaining the basics of how I believe the symbols work, I’ll show some examples of translation on 4 different pages. For example “Master act forest food I follow on foot food hid mist over towns” and on the same page “Rid not food hint”. In this case, if my translation is correct then what’s on most pages are helpful hints about how the Cipher works. There are different forms of clues, some are sentences, while others are groups of words separated by the word “then”, so hypothetically there would be something like (hat then fat then cat). My mind is open to other possibilities besides English but I feel confident from what I’m seeing is that English is the main language, I also believe there are 1 or 2 references to French also.
I wouldn’t exactly consider myself a coach potato, lol, I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had the opportunity to visit several other countries, my first wife was from Peru, and my current wife is from China, and many years ago I visited England, France, Italy, and Switzerland.
Thanks for taking an interest in my work, my goal is to get everyone on the same page, hopefully anyone who agrees with it, and follows this path can take it to another level and uncover more clues and passages.
Lesson 3, there are 2 clues that can be found in the stem of the plant near the roots on page 4f. Zoom in close, and looking in a normal direction the top letter looks like the letter “T”, but is really 2 pieces, comprised of the symbol ‘2’ or Eva (r) and a horizontal tick mark. If we orient the tick mark 4 different ways; 0 degrees, 45 degrees, 90 degrees, and 135 degrees we can make 4 new letters depending on where we place it around the crooked ‘2’ symbol. “T”(-), “Y”(/), (I)”R”, and (\)”P”, respectively.
If you look at the plant on 16v, I believe that the 4 red flowers are representative of these 4 options, and possibly the red color itself is used somewhat throughout the book to represent options (and rules), and similarly the dark blue color in many images is used to represent connectivity. I can show you at least two examples of this, the first is on page 10v. The dark blue flower on the right is touching the group of 5 intertwined leaves, whereas the dark Blue flower on the left is not touching the 3 intertwined leaves. Could it be that because the right side is a larger group of connectivity, it generates a stronger gravitational type pull on the nearby flower?
And on page 3v, if you zoom in close, 3 of the tails on the leaves on right side are connected and 1 is not. That much connectivity is represented by the significantly larger dark blue flower at the top compared to the smaller flower on the left over the 2 leaves who’s tails are not connected.
There’s also a 1 and 3 pattern ( X XXX ) that appears in different forms on several pages throughout the book, we’ll talk more about that later.
For the second clue, if we rotate the entire image 90 degrees clockwise, the 3 letter word looks like the word “TOP.” and if we apply the same technique to the “O” as we did to the symbol ‘8’, treating the circles like “coins” and flip it 90 degrees about a vertical axis then “TOP” becomes “TIP” and that’s what the author is giving us, a tip.
A couple more simple manipulations would be ‘CC’ turning into an “O”, and an “O” being split down the middle, the right side sliding down and turning into an “S”.
The last clue in this lesson is on page 4f.
Here is an example of the page numbers being significant, zoom in close on the flower on the right side directly below the page number ‘4’ and you will see the letter “F”. Later on when we replace the symbols with the letters we have made, you will see substituting the symbol ‘4’ for the letter “F” works very well.
In the next lesson, we’ll be talking about the symbols that people refer to as gallows glyphs. Could they be something else?
Robert: why to start examine something far-fetched (like introducing a special control letters) before a thoroughly examination of concrete languages with concrete ordinary letter-substitution?
Sometimes I hit on the name Stolfi in the posts. I guess, he isn’t active in VMS matters anymore. In the more recent comments of his past posts I see, he suggested to examine languages with very short words. Nobody followed his suggestion or maybe nobody was able to find such a language…
You wrote: “I looked over your notes on 102v but I’m not sure why you started with that page or how you developed the system to translate it”.
Thanks for that. Actually, I didn’t start with 102v. Before 102v I transcribed/translated already a couple of other pages (you see them in the older documents). In fact, I picked up 102v, because in one of Nick’s Voynich blogs the item on the left margin was described as an optical instrument and I was curious, what the text on it is about. And the text was saying it’s a graphical representation of the metamorphosis (the soul is leaving the body behind, the pale vessel down, and rises up towards heaven as a new “astral” body). Once I realised, the translation system can be applied to every section – I wasn’t sure about this at the beginning – it didn’t make a big difference which page to tackle as next. Sure, longer text takes longer than a shorter…
And how I developed it? Is a long story, you will see it from my next docs. But in general, it’s not a good scientifical intuition of people, to think somebody can translate 16 paragraphs without having found the correct key. However, I will verify my findings syntactically (with stats) and semantically and the hunt will be over (at least for rational thinkers)
Darius: Would you not agree that the symbol ‘g’ that appears at the end and beginning of words would be excessive if it were part of the actual words? In any language, encoded or not. Therefore, I conclude that logically it should be something of a special purpose and not a part of the actual words, which then opens the door for a language like English when you have code such as ‘8g’, now the ‘8’ becomes a single letter word. Also, why would you expect that the translation would work in a simple left to right direction, the Manuscript is full of images of sun’s and moons and the Pleiades, and possible astrological references of stars. All of these celestial bodies move, turn, and spin.
There were 2 people at the voynich conference, I don’t have their names handy, but they were talking about other encoded works, some of that time period, and they saw some that had moving components and elaborate coding schemes. On page 84v there’s a group of words in the text that possibly shows one example of how something rotates, there’s 3 words in a row, the first and last have the same 3 symbols, and coincidentally there’s an ‘8’ at the end of the middle word and an ‘OX’ at the beginning of the word. ( 8ox oxNcc8g 8ox ) this is near the end of row 10.
Robert: I see g as an ordinary Aramaic/Hebrew letter י yod. Written as a single letter in “ketiv” it can already have many different meanings:
אֵי ‘ay {ah’ee}
1) where?, whence?
2) which?, how?
אִי ‘iy {ee}
1) not
אִי ‘iy {ee}
1) alas!, woe!
אִי ‘iy {ee}
1) howling beast, jackal
אִי ‘iy {ee}
1) coast, island, shore, region
עִי iy {ee}
1) ruin, heap of ruins
When you put 3-4 short words together, you can create such structures like on 84v. But doesn’t poetry look for rhymes?
Since Reverend Doctors now declare
That clerks and people must prepare
To doubt if Adam ever were;
To hold the flood a local scare;
To argue, though the stolid stare,
That everything had happened ere
The prophets to its happening sware;
…
Only, it happens at the end of the lines, what happens at the beginning of the lines in VMS. Whom to believe, whom to follow, what is a whim and who is a whisk…
Darius
“Whom to believe, whom to follow”. I suggest that you forget about the ‘who’ and focus on the ‘what’. What you choose to accept is, in turn, dependent on the range and balance of evidence a writer presents you with. Why not just follow everyone and decide for yourself whether the range of evidence supports one opinion or conclusion over another?
For mine – believers belong in church. 🙂
“For the second clue, if we rotate the entire image 90 degrees clockwise, the 3 letter word looks like the word “TOP.” and if we apply the same technique to the “O” as we did to the symbol ‘8’, treating the circles like “coins” and flip it 90 degrees about a vertical axis then “TOP” becomes “TIP” and that’s what the author is giving us, a tip.”
Unfortunately, Robert, “tip” was not used with this kind of meaning in English until quite a long time after the manuscript was written.
Diane: what, who, which, whether, why – all candidates for 89. To ask for evidence is legitimate! So, you follow everyone? I see, your ‘who is who’ gallery is impressive. But didn’t you suggest to ask more for ‘what’… 😉
The sign of the letter G is not written in the Manuscript.
What you see Is the character of the letter = q. ( Q ).
Substitution number 1 = a,i,j,q,y.
So the character = q, is read as the letter = a, or = i, or = q, or = j, or = y.
In conjunction with the character 8, it reads Pi, or Pa, or Py, etc. Or as the number 81.
Substitution number 8 = P,F.
So it is also read = Fí, or Fá, or Fy, etc.
I will show you how the word Flower is written. (Czech = cfqMec – manuscript).
(Czech = cfitec. Phonetics. Today’s language = KVITEK. )
The manuscript is a Jewish substitution and so the word = cfqMec. You can read as word = sfatec . (S.V.A.T.E.C) . So the Czech word = S.V.A.T.E.K.
For example, when the author Eliška writes to you that she had a holiday.
( S.V.A.T.E.K) = Holiday English. etc.
And Eliška also writes in the manuscript that her ancestor’s name was = VITEK. (WITYGO). Which in translation means PAN in Czech.
English = Mr.
Vítek from Prčice and Plant en berga. (I have divided the word for you so that everyone can understand it.) Plantenberg is read together.
Every scientist notices the word = PLANT. (And then he will surely recognize why there are many plants painted in the manuscript).
Second important in the family. He was WOK from ROSENBERG.
Which is written in the text of the manuscript = FOC. Or = 8OC.
(WOC stands for VOK). English = eye.
translating the text of the manuscript into English will be very difficult. Because the entire text is written in the old Czech language. Eliška will also write Polish words somewhere. ( CORKA. or PŠONC .) etc. About his mother, who was Polish. For example, he writes = Anna Polca Piasto. (Polish royal family of Piasts). etc.
Diane: who, what, whether, why – simply 89 candidates. To ask for evidence is justified…
Tavi: When I first saw this a few years ago I thought it was possible that whoever wrote the voynich might have coined the phrase “tip” as slang and it took a few years before it made its way into the dictionary. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “tip” originated as a slang term and its etymology is unclear.
However, assuming you’re correct, and you probably are, I found this article on
Todayifoundout.com
One such slang word in this Thieves’ Cant was “tip”, meaning “to give or to share”. The first documented usage of “tip” this way dates back to 1610.
At some point within the next century, this sense of the word spread to being used by non-thieves as referring to money given as a bonus for service rendered, with the first documented instance of this definition popping up in 1706 in the George Farquhar play, The Beaux Stratagem, “Then I, Sir, tips me the Verger with half a Crown…”
As to the ultimate origin of the word “tip” in English, meaning anything, it first popped up in the 13th century meaning “end, point, top”, probably from the Middle Dutch word “tip”, meaning “utmost point or extremity”.
So, TOP=TIP is still correct but from a different perspective, easy to see if one were talking about something like the pyramids or a tent or a pencil or a tall building.
So we’re both correct.
Prof: PŠONC, whatever it means, can’t be even the Old Czech spelling… as in Old Czech Š->SZ (diagraph)
Darius. Also in the text of the manuscript are the words: Kobieta. Or the word: Zona. etc.
Eliška was Polish after her mother’s name.
In the text of the manuscript = Polka = it is written = Poccq. ( substitution = Polca ).
In the text of the manuscript = Žona = it is written = ccona. (substitution = ssona = Shona).
A German does not say Ž. It will always sound like Š. ( phonetics ).
Two consecutive CC characters. (that’s how it was written in the Middle Ages. This is called = sprezky. doubled characters that soften the letter). Today, Czech uses = hook on character = Č, Š, Ť, Ě, Ž, etc.
The word Pšonka = means Pocca = Polca = Polka.
It can also be read = 8 ccona = 8 shona. 8 A woman. And 8 was Eliška. Who was born as 8. To her mother and father. Anna Hlohovska + Jan II, from Rožmberk. And that 14.2.1466. As it is written in the text at the beginning of the manuscript. Where Eliška introduces herself and writes who she is. When was she born and what writing system did she use for her manuscript.
If you don’t find out why Eliška drew herself as a Fish on a large folio. That way you will never understand the handwriting.
Darius. Also in the text of the manuscript are the words: Kobieta. Or the word: Zona. etc.
Eliška was Polish after her mother’s name.
In the text of the manuscript = Polka = it is written = Poccq. ( substitution = Polca ).
In the text of the manuscript = Žona = it is written = ccona. (substitution = ssona = Šona = ).
A German does not say Ž. It will always sound like Š. ( phonetics ).
Two consecutive CC characters. (that’s how it was written in the Middle Ages. This is called = sprezky. doubled characters that soften the letter). Today, Czech uses = hook on character = Č, Š, Ť, Ě, Ž, etc.
The word Pšonka = means Pocca = Polca = Polka.
It can also be read = 8 ccona = 8 ssona = 8 Šona = 8 Žona. 8 A woman. And 8 was Eliška. Who was born as 8. To her mother and father. Anna Hlohovska + Jan II, from Rožmberk. And that 14.2.1466. As it is written in the text at the beginning of the manuscript. Where Eliška introduces herself and writes who she is. When was she born and what writing system did she use for her manuscript.
If you don’t find out why Eliška drew herself as a Fish on a large folio. That way you will never understand the handwriting.
Lesson 4;
When I first started studying the voynich about four years ago, one of the first things that caught my attention was the 4 larger symbols people currently refer to as gallows glyphs. If you place them side by side, Eva t, Eva p, Eva k, Eva f, you will see that they all have similar features. If you compare Eva t, to Eva p, the only thing that changes is the bottom right corner (or leg) , if you compare eva t, to Eva k, the only thing that changes is the upper left corner (or head), and if you compare Eva t, to Eva f, then both the bottom right and upper left change. This yields the binary equivalent;
00, 01, 10, 11, = four unique patterns. If we further study Eva t, you will notice that the upper left corner is different from the upper right corner. On the left is a triangle shape and on the right a circular shape. I stared at this for a while, then the words “ballroom dancing” popped into my head. What if what we are looking at is a stick figure representation, side view, of two people dancing. The man on the left with the triangular head, and the woman on the right with the circular head. Their arms are connected at shoulder height, and they are looking at each other. In the second figurine (Eva p) the woman’s leg or legs are up in the air. This fits in with the “ballroom dancing” theory. In the third figurine, we can see the man’s body on the left, but his head seems to be missing. Can you explain why his head is missing, before I tell you?
I stared at this for a while and then realized that his head is not missing. It’s just turned 90 degrees, and because it’s drawn as a stick figure it appears as a straight thin line. The fourth figurine is a combination of the other two, her legs are up and his head is turned. I refer to them as Dance Figurines. I believe that these four symbols are control characters that interact with their surrounding symbols and that each follow a slightly different set of rules. Also, they each have a baseline translation, starting letter. I noticed for one of the figurines, where the man’s head is turned 90 degrees, it’s rules seem to work in the reverse compared to the other figurines.
Slightly later than the manuscripts birth date there was a dance called “La Volta”, supposedly popular with Queen Elizabeth I. I mention it for reference only, because I know that people will say that that type of dance didn’t exist in that time period. if you Google it, you will find examples of a dance where the woman would be lifted off the ground by her partner and both her legs would be in the air. I believe that whoever chose the dance figurines, their intention was to create four unique patterns and they used their imagination and chose someone’s head turning, and someone’s legs lifting into the air to do it.
I will offer several pages that have dance choreography related material to backup my theory. Page 57v, first page with no flower after 111 pages with images of flowers. Eva 171, looks similar to the symbol in the next to the last circle to the far left of center, then up three symbols. In this symbol, the man appears to be spinning the woman around in a circle three times. Next, if you turn back a page, to 57f, the last two symbols on that page are Eva t, where the man and woman are looking at each other, then the last symbol looks like they’re taking their final bow. On page 15f, in the roots it looks like a silhouette of a person doing a split, or some type of dance jump move. Page 10v, the roots look like the bottom half of a woman with a long feathery dress sitting in a chair. Her head could be drawn on page 10f, bleading thru the back of the page. Page 42v, at the top of the page looks like dance choreography. Page 9f, the leaf on the second branch from the left coming out of the stump, looks like the dance figurines final bow from page 57f. The other leaves on 9f near the left side have moving features within the leaves that resemble a man and a woman.
Page 5v, I refer to this as the top and bottom of the food chain. If there is an insect drawn in the roots, then what’s drawn at the top of the flower (people?) looking at the flowers, top, middle, you can see our figurines in 3 different views, similar to 57f and 9f.
R. I. P. gallows glyphs.
In the next lesson we’ll be looking at the pattern (X XXX) that appears on several pages and in different forms, to demonstrate the value of studying the pictures and not just the text.
Lesson 5:
There is a pattern (XXX X) that appears on at least four pages and in several different forms. Let’s take a look. The first one I want to show you is on page 4f. The leaves on this plant are fairly consistent. With the exception of the top left branch which has 3 leaves bunched together then a space then a single leaf. The pattern (XXX X) is evident. Now, back a page to 3v. Examine the leaves on the right side of the plant, the leaves seem to have some kind of tail, and the tails on 3 of the 4 leaves are connected together while the other leaf’s tail clearly crosses over and is not connected. Again the pattern (XXX X) is evident. It’s interesting that the extra large dark blue flower at the top might be related to the connectivity between the leaves. The next page with this pattern on it is 22v. If you look at the roots, they all have white discs evenly spaced, except for the large root at the bottom, which has the pattern (XXX X).
Next the foldout page 70v, with the fish in the center, if you look closely at the tail of the bottom fish, you can see the same pattern (XXX X). Also worth mentioning, the fin behind its head is folded over 90 degrees compared to the top fish. Clearly these patterns are a clue for our benefit. I’m sure they have something to do with the translation of the symbols. I believe some examples of where they are used could be at the top of page 77f. But more on that later. It also seems clear to me that if anyone presenting solutions to the voynich can’t relate their work directly to parts of the images on the pages then they are probably not on the correct path. Next lesson, more patterns, involving the symbol ‘8’.
Robert,
If I may make a suggestion: have you considered testing your theory by taking some other medieval manuscript – say an early fifteenth-century illuminated copy of the Psalms – and see whether you see links of this kind between its written- and its pictorial text.
Many Voynich theories fail to gain acceptance because they are unable to demonstrate any connection to what is known of customs observed in writing, art, or book-making in the posited time and place.
Just a thought.
D.N.O’Donovan,
I believe the manuscript is self – contained, no need to look anywhere else for clues, except the pages themselves.
Lesson 6;
More patterns, if you study the bottom leaves on page 6f, they have a horizontal line separating them into a top and bottom half, they also have 8 appendages reaching outwards on each half. I believe these leaves represent the symbol ‘8’ in a different form where the two circles are flipped 90 degrees, ( = ), you can also see the formation of 8’s in the roots. These leaves also appear in plants on other pages, also in the same orientation, horizontally. Page 51f has the same horizontally oriented leaves. Also in the roots is another clue, the roots reverse, what starts on the right travels to the left and what starts on the left ends up on the right. I saw one possible example of this at the top of page 77f. If we process the group of symbols ( 8 /cc 8 g ) left to right, where ‘8’ is on both ends. (the first ‘8’ becomes a “T”, the c’s could become both “H” and ‘I”, the connected c’s could also turn into an ‘O’ which when placed before an ‘8’ could roll back a letter “T” to a letter “S”. We would then have ( T HI S). Then the 8’s would reverse and the word would become “SHIT”. That’s a little advanced, we’ll start with easier stuff in the next lesson. On page 19f we can see the same type of horizontal leaves, also with 8 appendages, this time folded downward. The number “8” is drawn within the roots.
At the top, the dark blue flower resembles one of the dance figurines, talked about previously, the man looking at the woman with both of their legs on the ground.
Lastly, on page 28f, the same type of leaves except this time they’re drawn vertically. The roots look like the letter “S” drawn in four different orientations. Do you think there is a connection between the symbol ‘8’, the letter “T” and the letter “S”?
If you flip half of the symbol ‘8’ onto itself you get an “o”. Could slicing it in different directions make the various “S” shapes?
Page 38f, the ‘O”s pointing to the left, form the letter “T” and could indicate that an ‘O’ placed before the symbol ‘8’ (or “T”) could shift the “T” back one letter to an “S”. You can see a possible “S” below with a cut line pointing to it. (If you look at it from the right distance). Page 41v, could be another example of 8’s in the roots that cross over. (The top and bottom of the 8’s are disproportionate. ) Again on page 4v, there’s the reference to ‘8’ in the roots, the leaves look like they form the number “3” both regular and mirrored and the large dark blue flower at the top references the dance figurines. Another example of page numbers being significant on page “8”, (which could reference then symbol ‘8’) the edges of the leaf at the top look like the number “3” both regular and mirrored, and at the bottom, the roots draw the page number “38” which we talked about above, another reference to the letter “T”. And, another “8” in the body on page 35v.
And, possibly again on page 55 (this one is a little more vague, 3 + 5 = 8), the red “8” is covered by the flower.
Next lesson we’ll try our hand at converting some of the text at the top of page 78f, using what we think we know, so far.
If Robert Funicella is still around –
When you say “I believe the manuscript is self–contained, no need to look anywhere else ..”, what you’re saying is much like the “aliens made it” idea.
Any man-made artefact offers evidence of the time and context in which it was made. The same will be true for the Voynich manuscript – as material object and – separately – for its drawings, its written text, its glyphs and any encryption system. It may be the only extant example of an encyption system but Voynich researchers have worked within such very limited, pre-emptive boundaries that we really don’t know if even that is true.
You know the proverb “if you hear hoofbeats running by your door, you should think horse, not zebra”?
That’s about theories. Before you can talk fact, you have to open the door and look around.
I’ve heard no report of any six-month research project testing an Armenian possibility in the archives and collections of the Matenadaran; nor one of similar length spent in the Topkapi Serai.
How many Voynicheros have troubled to hunt even the Vatican libraries for examples of non-Latin scripts on documents dated to before 1440?
The Vms is no nice, ordinary hack. It may not be a zebra either. But to pronounce it a unicorn is surely premature.
D.N.O’Donovan, Still here, Sorry, temporarily bombarded by other projects. My next post will show the text I’ve translated on several pages, and the decoder ring to do it with. It’s not too difficult to follow if you read my other posts. I do believe the book is self contained, some of the symbols translate into English letters by mere physical manipulation. For example the symbol ‘8’ that you flip into the letter “T” or the letter “F” under the page # (or symbol) ‘4’.
The only example I can think of as self contained is the “Rosetta Stone”.
I’m glad to see you’re still here, there hasn’t been much traffic on this site lately.
While looking for how to find silent letters in words.
I thought what if it is more than one story mixed to to look
like a code.
Robert Funicella
You say “my next post…” Do you have a website or blog?
and “glad to see you’re still here” – most of what I’m contribute these days is published is through my blog ‘Voynichrevisionist’.
I’ve been thinking lately about the difficulty of finding and taking notice of recent research by independent scholars. The ninja ‘Blogosphere’ is very restricted in scope and evidently out of date (some listed blogs have been closed for years).
Perhaps we need a kind of ‘Gallery’ site open to any researcher, where they can link/post their latest offerings or provide information about where it can be found.
Which is not to diminish the importance of Nick’s site, which has been a constant beacon in the study now for almost two decades.
Robert
btw
I’ve recently seen, in an old post written by ‘JK Petersen’ a comment that ‘cc’-like forms were used to signify that a ‘q’ was pronounced ‘qu’.
I don’t say that was ‘JK’s original find; like many other Voynich writers he sometimes gets careless about the difference between his original insights and ones he has adopted from someone else’s work.
D.N.O’Donovan, the posts I’m referring to are the 6 lessons I posted here on Nicks site. I do have a webpage that is currently private, I was putting all my notes together, instructions in a step by step method, as to what I believe is how to decode the symbols, it’s a work in progress, but you’re welcome to take a look. If you send me your email address to [email protected], I can add you to be able to view it, hopefully. It’s about 80 pages and has over 130 images. I was also started working on a narrated video, but that’s not ready yet.
From my own research I would say J.K. Petersen missed the mark. You don’t have to look any farther than page 5f, to understand that the 2 connected “cc”’s are the letter “H” or “h” as it appears in green on that page, the c’s are also formed at the bottom of the plant and at the top, where downward facing c’s are connected with a line. (Remember Self-contained, the clues are built into the pictures)
I took a quick look at your blog, it looks good, I’ll study it in more detail later, I saw some reference in the 1st few pages about the top of page 77r. That’s one of pages that I had some success in decoding the labels at the top of that page. Briefly, the top left is “Theresa” or (The Risar). The first nozzle is “Miser”, the translation starts in the middle and revolves around ‘ox’ (sun/earth) so ‘ox’ ends up at the end of the word. The 2nd nozzle is unknown, although the last two characters support the word “fast” possibly easy and difficult translations might be mixed together, the easier ones could be give aways , and other words know only by context. The 3rd nozzle is “Horn”, and I would guess that this series of tubes machine, represents how rain is made and the little people that operate it. I would guess it represents thunder. The 4th nozzle is “Hot”. For the 5th I got “Shit”. The 6th is “Opens”, the ‘s’ spins around to the end. And the last label above the man’s head is “Toms T” or (Toms tea).
Which is interesting that the bottom circle of the ‘8’ is colored in, perhaps a study of the original manuscript will reveal a tea stain in that spot.
Robert,
When you say “I would guess that this series of tubes machine, represents how rain is made and the little people that operate it” you’re not too far from an idea that Nick himself offered in his book of 2006.
I don’t know if any subsequent research (by Nick or anyone else) has since led him to discard that hypothesis.
Am I right in thinking that your method is to first offer a translation and then interpret the drawing according to that translation? It’s an approach time-hallowed within the world of Voynich studies, but not usual beyond those limits.
The problem is that such a method requires assuming that the drawings are infinitely compliant – that is, that reading the word “dog” beside a drawing which the original maker of that image meant for a frog must result in the drawing of a frog magically re-forming to become that of a dog – or whatever other word a posited translation made of the nearby inscription.
Since there have been dozens of proffered translations, and there’s a limit to multivalence and ideas about free expression applicable to images in a six-hundred year old manuscript, the Voynich-style approach is fairly obviously flawed and even a kind of magical thinking.
In the absence of clarity about the written text, I have resorted to the methods considered standard elsewhere when we are presented with problematic images of uncertain provenance and/or first enunciation. One has to try identifying the ‘visual language’ evidenced by forms and stylistic features, and having done that (for which there are objective criteria), to understand what an image would have ‘said’ to persons of that time and cultural environment.
I think there has never yet been an artisan who did not speak the visual language of his/her own time and environment – not even after the draughtsman or painter had become idealised from ‘painter’ to ‘artist’ and modern artists had decided to try inventing entirely new visual languages, so that none but they cold explain what they produced, and gallery-labels started lengthening to compensate. 🙂
The Voynich drawings are far too old to be ‘unique’ in that sense. I believe they can be read using the normal methods for interpreting unlabelled pre-modern works, and analytical studies of that kind are what I’ve been contributing to the best of my ability.
Speaking of abilities; I’m afraid that mine don’t include specialties in comparative historical linguistics, nor cryptology. I think those are the people whose comment on your work would be useful to you.
As an after thought, it’s possible the 2nd nozzle is an abbreviation “Hst” for “Haste”.
I’ve seen other words abbreviated in several places. I remember a movie with Stephen Bax talking about the Pleiades and the word Taurus, and my method could decode this as “Toaros”.
Hi Nick : I have a thought. Woo Hoo. To me, the Voynich manuscript looks like Herbarium handwriting. In that case the plants themselves would be part of the cipher. I know of another site where they have deciphered the letters but not on the Voynich. I can give you the link if you think it would be valuable to you. Thanks.
Lesson 6;
As mentioned previously, I am leaning heavily towards the idea that this codex translates into the English language. I have converted sections on at least 4 different pages. Over the past few months, I went through each of the translated words and attempted to put together a “decoder ring” or translator system based on an order of operations that will work for what I have translated so far. It turned out a little more complex than I was hoping for, but there are consistencies between certain groups of symbols and letters rotating around words, and also some simple conversions such as the symbol ‘8’ consistently translating into the letter “T”. That happens in 20 places between the four pages. Another example is the symbol ’4’ that consistently translates into the letter’F’, in 12 places. Also, there are several words that spin and are associated with either the symbol pairs ‘ox’ or ‘ax’.
The translation pages and lines are, starting with page 78r:
Line 1, “MASTER ACT FORIST FOOD I FOLLOW ON”
Line 2, “FOOT FOOD hid MIST over TOWNS (OWNST) THEn”
Line 3, “FIND ???? ??? ???? …”
Line 5, “????? ???? FOOD FOOD THEN FOOD FOOD ????”
Line 7, “RID NOT FOOD HINT ????? ???? …”
(I used lowercase to denote words that are difficult to prove but fit coherently.)
In the next lesson I’ll show you translated sections on three more pages, 77r, 18v, large foldout.
D.N.O’Donovan, quoting you:
“[…]The problem is that such a method requires assuming that the drawings are infinitely compliant – that is, that reading the word “dog” beside a drawing which the original maker of that image meant for a frog must result in the drawing of a frog magically re-forming to become that of a dog – or whatever other word a posited translation made of the nearby inscription.”
Very much agree. Further: Why go to the trouble in the written portion (assuming MS408 is purposefully veiled in its writing system) and give it all away in the illuminations?
I have done away with certain illustrations as I believe they have been altered. Let me rephrase that: It is all too clear that some imagery has been altered. If we are to lend some credence to Voynich’s provenance claims, that means this MS did come through the Jesuit landscape and prior to that, the Vatican. In the spirit of piety, perhaps a well-meaning man of the cloth has added another layer of (maddening, frustrating) intrigue to this MS. I bring this up because I cannot, find any posts from anyone suggesting alteration. If you have, I hope you will kindly direct my view to such.
@C. Michele,
First – do leave comments under my own blog if you have ‘wordpress’ access. I don’t read everything said at Nick’s blog and it’s just luck I saw yours.
(My blog is called Voynich revisionist).
The key to your questions begins with a question. You say, “…If we are to lend some credence to Voynich’s provenance claims” … such and such follows.
I’d ask (and have asked) whether any credence should be given Wilfrid Voynich’s story. Is there any reason to believe it, or most of it, or any of it?
Thanks to people keen on a central European storyline and biographical research, we do know enough about Hořčický, Baresch and Marci (the three people whose names are the first to be linked to the manuscript), to say that by the seventeenth century it had come to be in that region, and was known to at least a few people connected to one another by the Jesuits’ role in their education and/or up-bringing. But that isn’t evidence that the manuscript had any previous connection to the Jesuit order, whether in Prague, in Rome, or anywhere else. If the ‘600 ducats’ paper delivered at the 2022 zoom conference was no proof of the Rudolfine rumour, it does remind us that manuscripts and books were hawked about, bought and sold and without reference to a person’s religious alignment. In other words, the manuscript whether in bound form, or as a mere text-block, or even as a lot of individual quires could have come from anywhere, and from anyone, to turn up (as Baresch says), uselessly taking up space on shelves in the library of the house he’d come to occupy.
The rumour which Marci relayed, while plainly declining to endorse it, has found no support over the past century from any historical research – not for any of its three assertions (cost 600 ducats, composed by Roger Bacon, owned by Rudolf), so I think all three must be set aside. It’s best to have some reason to believe a thing asserted, don’t you think? So let’s leave the Mnishovsky rumour aside.
So to date we know nothing about the movement of any, most or all, what the present manuscript contains for almost two centuries, from he early fifteenth century (latest c.1430) and the first correspondence with Kircher (1630s).
I’ve written so much here because I think it’s necessary to explain carefully why I have rejected aspects of that legend for the manuscript whose first form was made by the imaginations, assumptions, biases and subjective impressions of Wilfrid and of Newbold – the same ideas having been so uncritically accepted and constantly repeated that today they are constantly mistaken for fact, though never having had any reason for being.
Another assumption that I cannot think correct is that first composition of the present written (‘Voynichese’) text occurred contemporary with first composition of all the manuscript’s content, including the drawings.
I think you are of the opinion that some of the drawings were altered deliberately, but that most are still easily understood (is that right?)
The fact is that the drawings have proven so opaque for so long to so many that the researcher needs to ask not whether they’ve been altered but whether, in fact, assumptions about their origin and date are not mistaken.
I assure you that if you were to find a page from some illustrated medieval manuscript – even so little as a paragraph of writing or a a single isolated illuminated initial, and had the good fortune to live near some such library as that in Istanbul, or London’s British Library (which exists to serve the public), that by the script alone, or that one illuminated initial, the item would be dated and placed within a reasonable time and area (say mid-14thC northern Italy, or 12thC southern France /northern Spain), in a couple of weeks at most.
Why Voynicheros keep expecting theorising to give better answers than the knowledge and scholarship of the wider world is a bit of a mystery in itself.
What I’m trying to say is that, while I agree with you that some of the drawings show evidence of having been formed first in a time and region different from the majority, and have investigated and discussed this issue of chronology and chronological ‘layers’, I think that the reason most of the Voynich drawings have proven so opaque is not that they are “really” products of western Christian Europe’s artistic tradition, altered to make them obscure, but that most look ‘foreign, alien and odd’ to eyes accustomed to Latin art because they originated elsewhere and were copied with varying levels of precision when our present quires were inscribed.
O course it is foolish to imagine (as many Voynicheros have done), that the rest of the world was blank, or that no goods – intellectual or physical – could reach the far west unless some person native to Europe travelled to fetch them, but in this case I have to conclude that it may be so and that in addition to receiving the manuscript itself, Baresch had received some tradition about its backstory. I my opinion, though, his admitted “guess” that the content was all about medicine was mistaken.
The question which fascinates me, but whose research I must leave to people better qualified, is when and where the material first gained its ‘Voynichese’ writing. We know too little about the set of glyphs, apart from the fact that some few find a counterpart in alphabets of the Greco-Latin type.
In the normal way, the first thing a person does when faced with a peculiar script is to ask where it came from, and what evidence exists of any system of writing, ancient or medieval, where the letter (‘glyph’) forms occur. In more than a century, such was the determination to maintain Wilfrid’s legend of an all-western-Christian origin for the manuscript, its text and all its images, that that fundamental question has never been asked – or if asked, determinedly ignored.
The point is that ‘Voynichese’ may have been invented quite late in the history of the content’s transmission; perhaps as late as the early fifteenth-century copying. Or it may not. It may be a poor attempt to emulate the forms of some other and non-Latin script.. or it may not. It may be a concatenation of forms taken from two or more scripts that were still employed before the devastations of the Mongols and of Plague which between them removed as much as a quarter of the world’s population between the mid-twelfth century and the early fifteenth. We don’t know. And it seems no-one competent to investigate such questions finds them as interesting, or as important, as I do.
You say that you have ” have done away with certain illustrations as I believe they have been altered”. May I ask where your work is being presented? I should like to read it, to better understand your reasons.
I should say that while in earlier times the idea we have of renovating art, or buildings, or manuscripts, involved attempting to eliminate or correct matter that had accrued over time, returning it to the way we imagined it had looked on the day it was presented as a finished work, these days we tend to take a different course and regard as part of the object’s story the entire spectrum of occurrences from that ‘birth-day’ to the present time.
To do otherwise with the Voynich manuscript would mean erasing all the German-dialect marginalia and the rude additions made to some of the calendar-figures.. I don’t think you’d find a consistent policy of erasures added to the popularity of your theory. [adds smiley emoticon]
PS
@C. Michele,
If you re-define ‘alterations’ as “affects” you will find this is an issue that has attracted comment from a number of earlier researchers.
Nick spent some time considering and commenting on the disruptive affect of certain events on the order of quires and folios.
If memory serves, it was Jorge Stolfi who commented on the way the changes/alteration/affect of the ‘heavy painter’s’ work, as additions made to the drawings.
As long ago as ten years and more, I drew attention to a number of instances where we see the affect from a late phase in the content’s evolution – such as where a detail on the top of f.79v has been altered so it might more nearly resemble the form of a Latin cross, though it was plainly not meant so in the first instance.
As I said at the time, when explaining my reasons for thinking the majority of drawings had not been first enunciated in medieval Latin (western Christian) Europe, we find such evidence in the present manuscript’s last phase of production – no matter whether we consider that detail from f.79v, or the clumsily painted calendar figures provided in that way with ‘decent’ clothing, or whether we consider the very brief use of a ruler to make some of the bathy- section’s ‘pools’ look like a building. And in every case, the aim is to have the drawings appear less obviously uninfluenced by Latins’ customs in art and ordinary culture. I attribute much of it to the final-stage influence of some Latin ‘overseer’ and suggested that this person’s evident ignorance of the content, an clumsy ‘adjustments’ suggest a member of the religious – it being normal practice to have foreign matter monitored in that way if it was likely to be disseminated to any wider group in Europe.
Nick’s work and comments are reflected in his earlier posts. After years of attempting to educate a small number of Voynicheros about such matters as te difference between an ‘idea’ and the conclusion of research, and about honest book-keeping when it comes to contributions made to this study, I finally realised that the problem was not simple ignorance due to lack of basic training in the critical sciences. I was left with no other way to stop the plagiarism ‘with a twist’ than to close off my posts from the general public. There may be, out there, people with memories long enough to recall my first discussion of the chronological ‘layers’ I discerned in the drawings and their phases of evolution, but then again, perhaps not.
I’ll end by again urging you to think carefully about your approach towards what you call ‘alterations’.
@Diane
Even if you don’t, you want to explain to me that the cross was added later, although the yellow filling was clearly added after the cross.
This means that the yellow (colour tone) in the whole manuscript was applied (much) later.
Nevertheless, the cross was there before the yellow colour. Or am I mistaken?
Good catch Peter M.
Out-of-place artifacts are a big problem with Voynich.
Who over the years has adding to the text?
Peter, I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re asking, or what you mean by ‘the cross’.
If you mean the detail on folio 79v – the object held outstretched – then what we see is that after the basic drawing, including that detail, had already been put down on the page, parts of it were gone over with heavier strokes so that to the casual eye, the object would seem to be a Latin cross. The whole vignette (including the body and the cover) measures about 2.5 cm (1 inch), and it was a century before anyone noticed that the object isn’t a Latin cross – some Voynicheros still can’t see it – the effort at re-definition was pretty successful.
I don’t think that change was made after the early fifteenth century, but as the last stage of in the production of our present, early fifteenth-century, quire.
It suggests that the quires were produced in some kind of workshop, though the quality of work doesn’t indicate an atelier of the kind that turned out commissioned volumes to be worthy of a rich man’s library. I mean- just look at it!!
As to the pigments, they have to be considered part of the fifteenth-century production. We may come to one opinion or another about how true they are to posited exemplars. Reasons for attributing the ‘heavy painter’s work to the last phase of production are those which Nick Pelling explained in his discussion of the manuscript’s codicology, and in fact I’ve relied on Nick’s high standards in such matters, for attributing first notice of the ‘heavy painter’ and his affect to Jorge Stolfi.
In my opinion, we badly need a full account of the manuscript’s palette; there’s no need for destructive tests for that purpose and it’s a pity that the decision over which pigments to test wasn’t left to the experts in conservation and analysis. As it is, the only pigments McCrone was told to identify are ones which any competent conservator could identify at a glance – but we have what we have.
I don’t follow your argument that the yellow pigment was added “much later”- and would be glad to know the reason for your coming to that view.
Perhaps I’ve missed seeing some analysis of that pigment which showed it one not attested so early as the first decades of the fifteenth century. In that case, I’d be glad if you could share the details. I try not to miss studies of that sort.
@Peter M.
Still trying to be clear about your question. I wonder if we don’t have a problem of translation.
Did you mean to say that even if I was reluctant to do so, you would like me to clarify the order for that detail on folio 79v?
Let me first clarify the difference between order of operations in producing a Latin manuscript, and the ‘evolution’ of a pictorial or written text.
The normal, if not absolutely invariable order of operation for a Latin (western Christian European) manuscript was
1. fold the membrane and cut it to produce a number of bifolios.
2. Rule out the bifolios, to prepare for the addition of writing. Mark out boxes to contain the wanted illustrations for that text. (N.B.) first indication this is not a manuscript produced in typical Latin style. No evidence of ruling out; less than half, and those the uppermost, bifolios are the usual quarternions.
3. Scribes insert the written text, usually from a previous copy of the work(s), and may add notes for the pictor/illustrator, in the box or in the margin near it.
4. Illustrator(s) add wanted illustrations – though it is not rare that the cost and labour was avoided, and boxes remain empty.
5. Illuminator adds gilding etc.
The role of ‘overseer’ will be evident in corrections made to the written part of the text and/or in evidence of alterations/corrections made to the drawings.
These production-stages apply to a particular manuscript and though they may be staggered over time (e.g. pre-cut quires not ruled out or written on until later; illustrations inserted some time after the text has been inscribed etc.), in default of specific evidence to the contrary, all are assigned to the same time and place. The manuscript is dated and provenanced accordingly.
That’s quite a different matter from what one might call the ‘evolution’ of a text, or of an image.
For an easy example of how an image evolves, I’ll give one from a work well-known to Voynicheros, the Tacuinum sanitatis. The earlier form of the text is well known from extant copies in Arabic, but Latin copies alter or omit information about plants unobtainable in the west and add different commentary for some which were scarcely known, to explain that the illustrator had to rely on hearsay accounts in making the drawing.
If you compare versions of the illustration for ‘hunting’ in the surviving western copies, you’ll see how the type evolves, to look less and less like an easterner, and more like a European.
What is so interesting about the Voynich drawings – the main reason I responded when first asked to comment on them, and the reason I think it worth the time to research, is that there is so relatively little sign of an interest in changing the drawings to suit Latin attitudes and conventions in art. At the same time, there is evidence of an ‘overseer’ attempting to monitor the production in (at least) the last stages of our present manuscript’s production. There are also instances of post-production additions, such as the German-dialect marginalia and – in my opinion – the diagram on folio 57v which so flouts the conventions governing most drawings in the manuscript that I shouldn’t object to dating its addition to the seventeenth century.
So, returning to the detail in question: we’re speaking of an alteration made during stages of production for the fifteenth-century quire. One might speak of the image’s evolution if we were to find a later copy of the same page in which the object was rendered as no more than a Latin cross or as a weathercock cross, a ship’s mast, a Byzantine cross, or any other object of like form.
But thankfully our task is only to understand what is on the page, not to theorise about what might be. [smiley emoticon]
I’m just saying the order of the drawing is “person, cross, colour yellow”.
The yellow colour is the same as the hair.
Why shouldn’t it be a Latin cross? It is certainly not a cross of the Eastern Roman Church.
If you look at the frescoes and mosaics in Haga Sophia, both crosses were used.
I wouldn’t bet on the fact that it only refers to the West.
It is also called the return of the true cross to Jerusalem. And this is the same for everyone.
Peter – try to clear your thoughts and then take a good close look at that detail.
What you see is a cruciform object, sure, but there are a myriad of things formed in that way, and the object you see has a socket in the right arm, with what appears to me to be a candle or taper rising from it.
Now, you can take my word for it, or duplicate the research for yourself, but there is no object of that kind within the ritual objects of the Latin church and the Orthodox church’s ritual object (as I expect you know) isn’t formed in the same way but has two cross-pieces. So it’s not a religious cross – not a Christian cross – but another type of cruciform object. The question is what, and where and when we find such a form attested… I’ve asked the question and looked into it, found some examples in one place, and other examples in artefacts recovered in archeological digs. So far so good, but then there are all the other factors – the unclothed figure, the form given he ‘awning’, the presence of the margin-motif (sometimes meant as the cloud-band, sometimes the margin between land and sea)… If you go looking for a naked saint holding the crucifix at arm’s length you’ll never find one; the very idea is entirely antithetical to the iconographic tradition and theological position of the medieval Latin church.
The problem is that all theories and impressions emerge from what a person already assumes or imagines. There’s no guarantee that the answers to all problems presented by the manuscript are also to be found there. The past a different country and so on.
Cheers.
@explor
Good to see you.
When you say “Out-of-place artifacts are a big problem with Voynich” doesn’t that assume a great deal – such as that the Voynich details in question have been correctly understood, or that we know the limits on movement of goods and artefacts? I was entranced to learn that an Egyptian sieve was found together with a Gandharan -style Buddha in a remote island in the far north-west, in a Viking grave. The movement of people and of goods is a distinct and fascinating academic discipline.
@Diane
The more you write, the more confused I am.
1. Latin, or the Western Roman cross.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateinisches_Kreuz
2. The Eastern Roman cross is with the tablet (bar above the cross). Normally it says “INRI” inside.
So the symbolism between the two churches is immediately recognisable. Even if both variants are used by both.
3. I see nothing except fingers on both hands and the cross on the left hand.
4. If I have to judge the holding or position of the cross, the posture is quite given. It is the position of the defence.
“Satan give way, or this far and no further”.
Why it is drawn like this would be speculation.
For me, it fulfils all the requirements.
Everything was drawn at about the same time. Latin cross, or the true cross in a defensive posture.
Not much more or less.
Peter M.,
It’s true that we have difficulties communicating. I will take more care.
To be clear – for what I called so casually the ‘eastern Cross’ the formal name is ‘The Patriarchal’ cross.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_cross_variants.
I’m sorry to say your ‘repel satan’ idea doesn’t quite work for me. I can find no example of the western church having naked women perform exorcisms. I understand that task was left to properly-ordained priests.
I think we have different aims. You are trying to find a way to claim that your theory accounts for everything.
I’m trying to understand where, when and among which community each drawing was first made, and what it would have said in that time and place, to those people. For me, certainty is destination; for so many Voynicheros it is where they begin… Wilfrid certain the contents were from 13thC England; O’Neill certain of sixteenth-century Mexico and Spain… Others suppose royal courts of France… So much certainty!
You are quite mistaken that “why it is drawn like this is speculation”. Why a drawing or painting is “drawn like this” is the most basic and most important part of correctly identifying the context from which the image has come. It is how we distinguish medieval German art from medieval Italian art, from medieval Spanish or Byzantine art.
The question you might think about is this:
“There are hundreds of specialists in the history of western Christian manuscript art; there are specialists in dating and provenancing specific items. The manuscript’s drawings have been known to the public for more than a hundred years. So – why are so many Voynicheros still relying on imagination, theorising and force-fitting the drawings to a theory? Is the aim conformity of belief, or a true understanding?
Diane
I can see that opinions differ here and we look at it differently.
So I’ll start from the beginning and go into more detail.
1) I only judge a picture by its original size. I may look at the details when enlarged, but I don’t judge it that way. That’s why it’s a cross and will always remain one.
2 The outstretched hand as such occurs in many cases. With children, don’t get too close. Military / police. A stop sign in one hand and an MP in the other. Simply put, it means stop.
3. with the cross it has a defensive attitude in the picture as it is drawn. Defence, protection or simply defence. You don’t have to be a saint to use the cross as a defence, it’s enough just to slap a cross in the air with your hand. But it’s difficult to draw.
4 I have to consider the surroundings. A cross has a different meaning in a cemetery than in traffic. When children raise their hands at school, they want to say something. When you raise your hand in a vote, it’s not the same, although both voices want to be heard.
5. since I’m pretty sure I’m in a pharmaceutical process in the VM on this site and not on a pilgrimage or any other religious act, I don’t need to look for a comparison with icons (depictions of saints). Completely out of place. I’m not comparing bananas with cucumbers. So I won’t find anything in that direction either, as there is no comparative material.
6 In order to make sense of the picture in this place and in this depiction, I have to speculate. There is nothing comparable.
I’ll give it a try anyway, even if I don’t like doing it like this.
It looks like she’s trying to protect something. Probably the part behind her. But why? If I go further down, I see the ring. It stands for bond or connection. It’s not just a hole, because the stone represents exactly what it should be. In a process, it can sometimes be necessary to prevent air, light, cold, heat, for example, from being added so that the process can take place or a connection can be made. The exact process will probably be in the text.
That’s how I see it.
For the benefit of non-US readers (and US readers who don’t follow a newspaper that would think to cover this): David Kahn, author of _The Codebreakers_ and _Seizing the Enigma_ (as well as many other books/articles/papers) passed away recently. Obits in Washington _Post_ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/02/01/david-kahn-codebreakers-nsa-dead/) and Newsday (https://www.newsday.com/long-island/obituaries/obituary-david-kahn-codebreakers-v3ycrbtm). A number of reminiscences by friends & colleagues at https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/great-neck-ny/david-kahn-11637882.
Kahn wrote lucidly and entertainingly, providing clear explanations of complex technical material for a lay audience. While I’m not sure that _The Codebreakers_ was where I first heard of the Voynich manuscript (I went through a UFO/ancient astronauts phase growing up), I’m fairly confident that it was the first place I saw a photo of the manuscript as well as a summary of its history to date. I suspect the same was true for many others.
@ D.N.O’Donovan
I finally finished my webpage, when you have time check it out, at:
http://www.Voynichunveiled.com
I would like to get some feedback from anyone and everyone before presenting it to a larger audience.
It’s a little lengthy but there’s a lot of pictures.
@Robert Funicella,
Thank you for the invitation, which I’ve taken up.
You ask for comments, so I hope you won’t mind my saying that there are a couple of points where you could be creating a poor impression among longer-term Voynich researchers.
You speak of Roger Bacon as ‘Mr’. His title is actually ‘Friar Bacon’ – because he became a member of the Franciscan religious order.
You speak of ‘600 years’ efforts to decipher Voynichese, that’s inaccurate. We know of one chemist who spent years on it during the 17thC, but we don’t even know whether Kircher spent much time on it, and the next person on record is Prof. Newbold, who was a professor of Philosophy and he worked on it from about the 1910s. To say people have been working on it since the early twentieth century is reasonable, but not that ‘scientists’ have worked on it for 600 years. In any case ‘scientist’ is a meaningless generic. It covers everything from qualifications in geology to a degree in domestic science.
When you say,
“Some scientists might argue that because some of the pages were supposedly moved around in the Voynich’s past…”
This is hardly likely to benefit your reputation, because there can be no longer-term Voynich researcher ignorant of the fact that the person who provided a detailed argument for disarrangement of certain quires and folios is Nick Pelling; that he offered that argument in his book(2006) and there also credited others who had contributed to the discussion earlier. Though Nick’s book is now out of print, his arguments have been reprised more than once in posts to ciphermysteries. Whether Nick would describe himself as ‘a scientist’ I don’t know, but the phrase you use only suggests, to those who know better, that you haven’t actually read the material that you are trying to dismiss so carelessly.
Your reference to Roger Bacon having invented the magnifying glass intrigued me. Could you provide your reference for it?
Best of luck with your research.
Robert Funicella.
So I read what you write about the manuscript. And I am sad to tell you that your work is not good.
I’m going to show you something important. Page 2 Root ( folio 2r ).
The root is the foundation. Plants. ( root = basic ).
The letter is the basis. Words. ( letter = basic ).
The root is made of letters. C, G, S, L.
The author shows you the Jewish substitution.
Substitution number 3 = C,G,S,L.
Flowers are =3 ( meaning, substitution of the number 3 )
Image meaning.
The plant grows from the root.
A word is formed from letters.
In order to understand the text of the manuscript, you must know the Jewish substitution. Otherwise you will never be successful.
And the author shows you the Jewish substitution at the beginning of the manuscript.
So I’m sorry, your work is not good.
and copyright? 🙂 You have to try harder.
@D.N.O’Donovan
I knew I picked the right person to critique my work first. Thank you for that feedback, I hope that you continue reading it to the end.
I took out the Mr. Bacon and replaced it with Roger Bacon.
The 600 years is just a reference from when we think it was created from the carbon dating. No one knows how many people analysed it before the people that we know about.
Roger Bacon as the inventor of the magnifying glass, i looked that up again, if you search google, for “did Roger bacon invent the magnifying glass” it will say yes, and the first mention of its use was in 1268. Then in another post in study.com it says:
Roger Bacon did not invent the magnifying glass, necessarily. Instead, Bacon had read a Latin translation of the Book of Optics written by the Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham in 1021. In accordance with this existing research, Bacon further described the properties of a convex glass that magnifies an image in his thirteenth-century writing.
I’ll have to rework that section.
I heard of the quires and folios being moved around from 2 people, Lisa fagin Davis, who basically said that my solution couldn’t be right because of, and briefly by Nick, although I didn’t know that he had wrote about it in detail, somewhere. In any case it doesn’t make my research wrong necessarily because you could move 100 pages but as long as it wasn’t page 4, my work is still likely correct. It’s also remotely possible it was moved from the wrong place to the right place. I can back up my claim with at least 12 examples where the page numbers are significant. Consider in the time of Galileo he was imprisoned because everyone was sure the sun travelled around the earth. New information replaces old information. I asked Nick to critique my work in the past, but I’m still waiting. I will try to rewrite that section too so it doesn’t offend anyone. Thanks again. Did you get to the part about the gallows glyphs or the word water on the page with the dragon?
Well, you want to know the truth.
Wow, I’m impressed.
I’ve never witnessed the birth of an internet corpse.
@ Josef Zlatoděj Prof.
Thank you professor for your feedback, page 2 has some interesting stuff going on in the roots. Although I don’t see the connection to a Jewish substitution from the info you supplied, I think the roots hold several important clues. Such as the appearance of the buckling of the knees in the plant and a symmetry where by a symbol such as ‘g’ transforms from the right side to the left side from a feminine style with rounded corners to a more rigid letter ‘g’ with straighter masculine features.
Robert Funicella,
Certainly Interesting stuff going on with f1r and flv. Note the attempted rootball Tepenec signature obliteration job and concealment attempt of the crossed T reverse t’other side on a lower branch. from memory.
@Robert,
I suppose it depends how you define a ‘magnifying glass’ but means to magnify text include objects which the Latins called ‘reading stones’. I think it unlikely that Latin monks would bother inventing an object that had been known for centuries by the time Roger Bacon was born.
You might find interesting
https://en.wikipedia org/wiki/Reading_stone
Cheers
Robert F.
It can be seen that you did not understand anything. The author shows you and everyone at the beginning of the manuscript what substitution he used. This is the = Kabbalistic numerology system of gematria.
1. If you don’t know the system and master it perfectly, you have no chance of deciphering the text of the manuscript.
2. The manuscript is written in the Czech language.
3. The root is the base of the plant. Without a root, a plant cannot arise.
4. A letter is the basis of a word. A word cannot be formed without a letter.
5. What is difficult to understand about what I have written here?
6. Root folio 2r. letters = C,G,S,L. This is a series of letters that have the same numerical value. And that number = 3. ( kabbalistic numerological system gemtria ).
7. If you cannot understand this, then you have no chance at all to decipher the text of the manuscript.
I’ll show you the system.
Number 1 = A,I,J,Q,Y.
Number 2 = B,R,K.
Number 3 = C,G,S,L. (it’s in the picture)
Number 4 = D,M,T.
Number 5 = E,H,N.
Number 6 = U,V,W,X.
Number 7 = O,Z.
Number 8 = F,P.
The 8 numbers comprise the entire alphabet.
8. Next. You can’t even read characters. Which are written in the text of the manuscript. So you will never be able to read the handwriting text.
9. So what is important. Read characters well. Know the Czech language. Know the Jewish substitution cipher.
If he doesn’t know what I wrote to you. So you will wander for many years. I guess all those who write here on Nick’s blog are wandering.
10. The handwriting is very simple. But you must know what I wrote to you.
11. When you are able to read the text. That’s how you detect a deceptive sign.
12. On many pages of the manuscript is written: My name is Eliška from Rožmberk and I write in Czech.
13. Translation instructions are written on page 116. Key. There are also three pictures. On one, the author of the manuscript is drawn. Eliška from Rožmberk.
14. And what is important. I’ll bet any scientist that I’m right.
15. No scientist in England, Germany, Australia, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, USA and other countries. He will never be able to decipher the text of the manuscript. And able to understand the meaning of the pictures. As the last 100 years of efforts of various scientists and children show you all.
16. In order to understand a picture in a manuscript, you have to read the text. And not here to write some guesses. Also, a good scientist should be working on the text and not some hardworking kid like that kid from Switzerland. That’s a disaster then. Or as Donovan from Australia writes about some string.
17. The only good scientist who writes here is Nick. Others are trying, but so far they are trying poorly.
@Josef,
You say no-one can understand a picture in a manuscript unless they understand any written text.
You also say you can read the written text.
I wonder if you could provide a translation of the writing on folio 70v-1? It is the folio on which Nick has been concentrating lately.
@Donovan,
I can certainly write it to you. But there is a problem. The words are different than the current speech. It is the dialect in which Eliška wrote. And the translator will not translate that into English. I would have to write it in today’s language.
Folio 70v. On that side of the manuscript it is written about John II. from Rožmberk, who was Eliška’s father. The whole family is also drawn there. That means 6 daughters and 4 sons. The main meaning and significance of the text is that Eliška describes when the father was born and when he died. And how many children did he have? Those fish in the picture have nothing to do with astrology or the zodiac. The meaning of those fish is prosaic. And it expresses death. Eliška writes in the text = R.I.P. (Latin). ( phonetics = R.i.b.= r.y.b.). Fish is pronounced in Czech = R.y.b.). R.I.P. 2 = meaning = Died II. John. (John II of Rožmberk).
The text says that Eliška’s father died of the plague in the Rhineland. It also says when he was born. And that he was born as 3 in order. And that he is buried in the chapel (golden chapel, that means in the Golden Crown. ).
Eliška liked him very much. Furthermore, it is again written in the text that he had 6 daughters and 4 sons. Eliška is like a gramophone, she writes all the time. It keeps repeating itself.
And your string. So you must see the letter = S.
I will write you what the word is = S.l.o.n.a. ( S.l.u.n.c.e = Czech ) English = Sun. That is the meaning of those stars = suns.
At the word = S.l.o.n.a. , it is important to read the text. Because its meaning can change. Na = S.c.o.n.a. ( that means he died, S.k.o.n.a. ) S.k.o.n.a.l = died.
When Eliška writes that someone was born. So he writes = S.l.o.n.a. This means in the current language = S.l.ů.n.a = z. l.ů.n.a. ) English = From the womb.
So it is important to read the whole sentence. And not just one word.
Furthermore, you and others don’t even know where the word begins. And where the word ends. And because the text is written phonetically in the old Czech language, as I have already written to you several times. You will never translate the manuscript. I’m sorry, of course, but that’s the reality.
Diane, what would you gain if someone told you the meaning of these words. You wouldn’t believe it, you can’t make a further assessment because you neither understand the plain text language nor have or dare to have an insight into the codogilogy or statistics… I have already written what the short labels express. They put on the original text, which is reproduced in the longer passages, a kind curse which expresses distancing from this heretic writing through swear and ridicule. The text next to the male nymph indicates his ugly skin rash, the text next to the women to the left literally says “young, fat flesh provisions” And now?
A woman has a womb. Born from the womb. (s.l.ů.n.a.= z.l.ů.n.a.).
S.l.o.n.a. = S.l.ů.n.a. = Z. L.ů.n.a.)
Womb = English. (Czech = L.ů.n.o).
It is very poorly described in the English language. And the translator doesn’t translate everything correctly either.
But I already showed you that recently when I wrote to you about the large parchment. About the rosette that is above. to the left. The upper left rosette is female genitalia. cunt
37 months indicates when Eliška was born.
Eliška describes there that her mother was 37 years old. When did she come out of her pussy.
That is why it is important to read the text. Because in this case the moon (L.U.N.A.) is taken as being born from the mother’s womb. (Czech = z.l.ů.n.a.) English = from the womb.
I think that is another good point of this manuscript, similar to how a baby learns from its mother by observation, learns how to speak long before it can read and write. The pictures in the manuscript hold most of the clues to understanding the decoding method of the text.
So we can be sure, the nymph I mentioned is not Eliska! Probably a kind of rival farm girl the count of Rožmberk used to consult… paying attention to the text
Darius,
The manuscript’s codicology tells us, mainly, about when our present manuscript was made and what happened to the inscribed quires thereafter. It cannot tell us what the written text or the pictorial text contains without creating an hypothetical-fictional story asserting the whole content originated when, and where, the present manuscript was produced. That’s an old idea – one which Wilfrid began – but I have not found much support for it in the drawings.
Now, as regards your claim to have translated much, or all, of the manuscript’s written text, it is true that since comparative historical linguistics and cryptology are not my field, I leave that aspect of Voynich research to others. I admit, sometimes, to wishing that there might be a reciprocal courtesy.
There’s a benefit in the fact that I’m not among those who feel competent to critique your claimed translation – nor any of the … what are we up to.. dozen and more?.. other claimed translations. It means that at least one person among your audience continues neutral.
As for ‘statistics’ – like theories, their value depends on range, depth and quality of both the data-collection method and subsequent interpretation of results. If, for example, the informing language were – I don’t know, say Khazar – it might be entirely overlooked by the Voynich number-crunchers, or omitted because so little evidence of the language remains, or excised from data to be processed because the head-researcher was a Eurocentric fanatic who announced that all but western European languages were ‘unnecessary’. As well as that, you have the difficulties caused when number-crunchers pay absolutely no attention to the historical aspects of historical linguistics, or to what we know of the way scribes rendered unfamiliar languages and dialects. Even more basic is the point which Nick (and doubtless others) have tried vainly to have recognised… that Landini’s EVA transcription, put into machine readable form by Zandbergen, was only created as a means to assist researchers into Voynichese communicate more easily. It’s not evidence that the glyph rendered ‘o’ in EVA was meant for the sound ‘o’. I’ve seen a fair number of statistical exercises nullified by that basic error.
You say – “I have already written what the short labels express. They put on the original text, which is reproduced in the longer passages, a kind curse which expresses distancing from this heretic writing through swear and ridicule. The text next to the male nymph indicates his ugly skin rash, the text next to the women to the left literally says “young, fat flesh provisions”
The second sounds oddly reminiscent of cannibalism, but other than that, I can’t see that someone so very repulsed by the manuscript’s “heretic writing” would have bothered illustrating it in the first place. And if the drawings came first, and the written part of the text added later – perhaps only when our manuscript was made – then it is right to consider the images separately from the inscriptions, wouldn’t you say?
I understand your frustration at having put in hours.. months.. of work on the manuscript, and with the sole aim of assisting those trying to understand it, only to find response underwhelming or made less on the value of your work than on the value the commentator places on his own theory/opinion’/conclusions/mates’ attitudes or his/her own current project. But that’s Voynich studies in the twenty-first century. I blame the founding Fathers – Wilfrid and Friedman. [smiley emoticon]
Darius. You can be sure, boy, just by never translating the manuscript. You write nothing but nonsense about the manuscript.
Otherwise, I can write this to everyone and this is important: When Eliška from Rožmberk writes about her children in the manuscript. Of which there were three in total. Three sons and he also paints them in the manuscript. So the manuscript must have been created after the birth of the third. And the third son was named Julius van Hardegg. Who was born in 1500.
The manuscript could therefore have been created after this date.
Eliška also painted the three sons there.
Scientists and students.
Who would want to look at the children that Anna Hlohovská gave birth to. Wife of John II. from Rožmberk. And how many children did Eliška give birth to. So she looks at folio 70v.
3 sons are painted there. And at the same time Eliška from Rožmberk is painted there. (center of image, small circle).
2 women are painted there. Meaning of two women: Eliška had 2 births.
3 sons: Jan, Oldřich, Julius.
Star meaning : Sun, Star, means birth.
2 sons were born together. They are twins. That’s why they have stars drawn towards each other. (stars together = twins).
Big circle. Children born to Anna Hlohovská. 10 children in total.
6 daughters and 4 sons.
Daughters: Kateřina, Barbora, Markéta, Hedvika, Eliška, Johanka.
Sons: Henry, Wok II., Peter IV., Ulrich III.
The Great Circle. 2 children have stars painted towards them. They are twins. Barbora and Markéta. 2 children and one birth. Year 1460. (stars to each other = twins).
In the text it is written how many children Anna Hlohovská gave birth to. And how many children did Eliška give birth to.
Everything is written in the old Czech language. (in the dialect used by Eliška from Rožmberk). Encrypted with Jewish substitution.
Diane, thanks for the comprehensive answer. Of the many aspects that are addressed here, I would like to single out three. The codicology should provide us with information about the possible encryption method used, the text itself should, in my opinion, be approached neutrally at first and nothing that fits into this time period should be excluded a priori. Creating a hypothetical-fictional story can not be the first step in the decoding process – in my humble opinion. As for ‘statistics’ in our context – I think it is somehow simpler than your requirement on the matter (even if the methods and algorithms applied might be complex)… the statistics should show us, confirm or contradict us, that our mapping choices – glyphs to letters of a plaintext language or vords to words – are among those with the highest probabilities. Statistics give us an indication of where the probability of finding buried treasure is high and where it is not so high. It can also confirm it to us afterwards by saying – yes, you found something because you dug where the probability of finding something was high.
I agree, using EVA as a means of communication is perfectly fine. Problems only arise when you use EVA as a basis for statistical evaluations. If EVA deviates from the basic set of glyphs actually used, then in my opinion these evaluations are mostly worthless, even if there is a deviation in cardinality of just one glyph, since it creates already billions of possible new word compounds. I’ll write a separate post on the third point, which concerns the strange-sounding labeleses.
This wrapping of the actual text with short insulting, ridiculing, sometimes vulgar expressions is indeed a little odd – but only at first glance. The scribes knew that any attempt to decipher the script would begin with these short phrases. It would raise doubts about the correctness of the method and the key among the decoder itself and its client/sponsor. I can remember Nick’s reaction to a post (Nick was still taking part in the discussions at that time) in which I claimed that a labelese on page 83v nearby the “testicles” reads: “two beauties pull out a sprout/stick”. Of course it’s a laugh, the case is closed for such a theory. But in reality, in my opinion, it is a kind of last line of defence against an intruder who already has part of the key. His findings discredit him. This is sophisticated, devious intelligence at work.
A scientist should know where the parents of Eliška from Rožmberk are buried. John II from Rožmberk and Anna Hlohovská. This is the Vyšebrodský Klášter. Founded 1259 – Vok I. of Rožmberk.
link:
https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vy%C5%A1ebrodsk%C3%BD_kl%C3%A1%C5%A1ter
Diane, I don’t claim to have translated the VMS, but at least 15 passages (4 from 1r, 3 from 85v foldout, 2 from 102v + entire pages 11v, 17v, 21v, 5v, 57v + one not yet published) – enough to be able to form an initial judgment about the script. Yes, ‘manual’ translation is laborious – takes time and energy. That’s why I’m going to develop a Large Language Model-based tool for myself and other interested parties that will make the translation process easier. However, this is also time consuming and I have other areas of interest and duties too.
Darius. Alien ( intruder) is a nice word. Don’t develop any tool at all. Because you write nonsense. Otherwise you smart student. The key to the translation of the text is written on the last page of the manuscript. There are 3 pictures drawn.
1. top = Key.
2. goat = c.o.s.l.o. = k.o.u.z.l.o. = magic.
3rd wife = Eliška from Rožmberk. ( on the breast it has a letter mark = E. ).
The entire translation guide is written like magic. Translation instructions are written in the text. And also the meaning of handwriting. And the name Eliška.
The magic is that – the substitution cipher.
Darius. Alien ( intruder) is a nice word. Don’t develop any tool at all. Because you write nonsense. Otherwise you smart student. The key to the translation of the text is written on the last page of the manuscript. There are 3 pictures drawn.
1. top = Key.
2. goat = c.o.s.l.o. = k.o.u.z.l.o. = magic.
3. women = Eliška from Rožmberk. ( on the breast it has a letter mark = E. ).
The entire translation guide is written like magic. Translation instructions are written in the text. And also the meaning of handwriting. And the name Eliška.
The magic is that – the substitution cipher.
Darius,
Re – other areas of interest and duties. Understandable of course – we all have those.
I’m sorry to see you revert to the Friedmans’ ‘Moriarty’ defence; it’s hardly the fault of the long-ago people who could read and wrote ‘Voynichese’ that we struggle to do the same. Trying to re-formulate failure as evidence of moral superiority is always rather sad, but it becomes funny if you try to imagine a cryptographer trying to invent an un-devious – a bluff, hearty, non-deceptive, un-cunning – encryption system. 🙂
Nick Pelling: What ever became of bdid1der I wonder? We could certainly do with her never dull Nahuatl input for a much needed change of pace apropos Voynich Theories dead thread.
@John Sanders
You want some variety in VM theories?
Then take a look at this.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/GNGVet1FPuxn/
Diane, I actually wanted to write ‘subtle’ or ‘refined’ to take out the moral tone of ‘devious’. However, don’t weigh the individual words – you know what is meant.
This is not related to your posts, just a thought: it is clear to me that a serious theory will always be an insult to an entertainment addicted mind – it narrows the outstretched infinite, multidimensional space of irony and mockery about approaches towards an unknown to a banal and dull singularity: the solution.
Peter,
The tone of that video and voice-over is far more like a particular type of extremist right wing American type, one that manages to shift from a childhood American religious fundamentalism to a type of 20-something pseudo-rationalism that we associate with fascism. The result is not a type you’ll will find very often among Australian people, but I’m told it’s very quite common in some sectors of the American military.
@Diane
You may be right, but I don’t know what else to say after this video.
After Harry Potter, it was the book for potions and what does a broom fly with.
After Lord of the Rings, it was the book of elves and fairies. Sacred concoctions of wisdom…. and such.
But this is something very special.
In the end, everyone has more than one screw loose.
Which makes me want to patent it.
“VM, the screw remover with the MS 408 formula and the pop-through effect” also helps with rivets!
I think the Voynich Manuscript from Quire 9 f67r1 to the Quire 14 “Rosettes” page is about Ensoulment. It is the story of pre-born souls before Ensoulment, the process of Ensoulment, life on Earth, the afterlife, and then the big grand finale of Heaven.
I think the star images are souls. I think Quire 9 is pre-born souls in Heaven. I think the first part of Quire 10 is about Gestation.
Starting with f75r of Quire 13 it is talking about conception and pregnancy and about how the soul enters the mother’s body (f82r).
I made some slides and uploaded them to YouTube.
Ensoulment & the Voynich Manuscript, v 1.0 (no audio)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zu014k5nWA
pj – since no-one else will respond..
Are you aware that you seem to be doing little more than adopting an idea of William Romaine Newbold’s? His imagination also suggested a combination of theology with biology.
Secondly, you need to be clear about whether you are suggesting that the stars are regarded as having souls or whether you are suggesting that souls were believed to hang about being stars until they were needed to inhabit a human? In either case, you will need to be specific about which strand of religious or philosophical thought you suppose known to the persons who first created these drawings, and/or to whoever wanted the 15thC copy.
So far as I’m aware, no-one in medieval Europe believed the stars had souls (though I might be mistaken on that point). I seem to recall a Canzone written by the chap Dante called ‘father’ and in which the descending star-soul idea is present, but that seems to be pure metaphor.
Otherwise, you will need to see if you can find evidence for any community, at any time and place, having believed that stars were living beings (i.e. ensouled) and then see whether what is known of their conventions in art is reflected in any of the Voynich drawings. And good luck with that.
Thank you for responding. I do not know William Romaine Newbold. I will check into his ideas.
I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. I’m not saying the stars in the night sky have souls. I’m saying the star-images are souls.
I am saying that the star-images are the way that the artist illustrated a human soul. I’m not talking about the stars up in the night sky at all. I’m talking about Ensoulment in the tradition of the Ancient Greeks that was followed in Europe for many centuries.
What Did St. Thomas Aquinas Believe about “Ensoulment?”
https://www.catholic.com/qa/did-st-thomas-aquinas-believe-ensoulment-occurred-40-or-80-days-after-conception-making-abortion
“Aquinas did say an unborn baby receives a soul 40 or 80 days after conception, depending on gender.”
Professor William Romaine Newbold is ridiculed for claiming to have deciphered Voynichese, but in fact his assertions about the drawings (based chiefly on subjective impressions of the drawings) has had lasting influence even to the present time, though few realise that.
Essential reading –
https://archive.org/details/transactionsofco3431coll/page/430/mode/2up
Donovan. Newbold was good but didn’t solve anything. According to what is written in the letter that is at Yale. So Michal Voynich correctly determined where the manuscript came from. Because in that letter it is written: Czech book. (c.e.s.k.a.k.n.i.h.a.).
The next person to decipher it was me, Josef Zlatoděj. The entire manuscript is written in the Czech language.
When I did a web-search on his name, I remembered him from a talk given by Lisa Fagin Davis, but he was in no way an influence in my case. I looked at the illustrations and saw Ensoulment. I am convinced that most of the non-plant pages in the Voynich Manuscript that have illustrations are about Ensoulment in the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. I know a lot of people are still chasing the stars up in the sky but they are wasting their time.
I say “most of” because I don’t know about Quire 8. I have no idea what Quire 8 is about.
@pj
I’m not saying that you have replicated Newbold’s ideas, only that what sprang to your mind on looking at the drawings is akin to what earlier sprang his, and it’s always good to show there is some precedent, if only because it shows you’ve read a bit, and citing a precedent adds a little more weight to any argument.
The difference between your ideas and his is, I gather, that where Newbold looked to neo-Platonic thought for his explanations, you look to Aristotle and Aquinas.
Since you are claiming to explain the intention behind the Voynich drawings and diagrams, might I suggest that you should see if you can find any copy made of Aristotle’s works, or of Aquinas’ before 1440 AD, in which closely comparable drawings and diagrams occur?
I got the idea after a conversation with a Muslim on the topic of abortion. I was asking about the differences between Christian beliefs and Muslim beliefs.
I have been posting on the ninja board for several weeks. I would like to invite you to join the Ensoulment conversation there. You and the members there can dissect me jointly.
The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter where the idea came from or who came up with it. What matters is if the idea is correct or not.
Hello. My name is Pavel Konnov. I am an engineer by education. Since 2017, I have been translating the Voynich manuscript. In 2023, he published the book volume 1 of the translation of the Voynich manuscript, link Манускрипт Войнича перевод Павла Коннова – купить книгу в интернет магазине, автор Павел Коннов – Ridero. In this book, I have solved the main questions: 1) The language of the manuscript is Charmoutian Russian or its analogue Littorea. 2) The book was written by the Russian tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov. 4)The book presents rituals from the dark forces. 5) Additionally, a story about the contract of humans with vampires. I have a whole YouTube channel with translations of pages of the Voynich manuscript link (8) Tabaziclon Павел Коннов – YouTube, but to translate into English, you need to hire a translator. The book with the translation is also written in Russian. However, I have a scientific article translated into English by a professional translator. The article has been published. If you wish, I will send you this scientific article in the next message.
@Pavel Konnov, that’s interesting, there are at least 3 people on this page claiming to have translated the Voynich, yourself 100% into Charmoutian Russian, Prof. Zlatoděj. translated 100% into the Czech language, and myself, but only a few sentences on only a few pages into the English language. I suppose not all of us can be correct if even one of us is, that means 2 of us are most likely wrong. I watched a little bit of one of your videos, you seem to be able to read the labels casually with ease. I’m curious how your translation works, are the symbols directly readable as a Russian language, or do you have a translation scheme. I had some luck translating most of the first 7 lines at the top of page 78r, and all of the labels around the tubing at the top of page 77r including the names of the two people at the ends at the top.
How did you handle the excessive amount of the symbols that look like the letter ‘g’. In my translation scheme I did not consider them as part of the words rather as a control symbol possibly standing for (gravity). You can see my results at http://www.Voynichunveiled.com . I’d be curious to know what you translated on those 2 pages I mentioned.
pjburkshire
You say “The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter where the idea came from or who came up with it. What matters is if the idea is correct or not.”
Whoever told you that was quite mistaken – whether they were an ignoramus or a plagiarist. One of the main reasons this manuscript’s study is the mess it has become is the ‘meme-law’ that everything said is no more than “an idea”. In matters of history and of iconology, there are such things as conclusions reached from a reasonable range and quality of evidence.
diane: Well spoken; I’ve finally come to the long time coming realisation that you just might know what you’re talking about, that is if you don’t mind that statement coming from your number one detractor. If I dared to come up
with similar thoughts, It wouldn’t stand a hope in hades of getting past the moderator.
“reasonable range and quality of evidence”: not that other areas of knowledge and their theories do not have problems of this kind. The standard model of quantum mechanics e.g. is going through a definite crisis because more and more experiments show results that it cannot explain or that do not correspond to predictions. Quantum physics can at least recognize the greatest nonsense relatively quickly, when mathematical equations are applied incorrectly or the theoretical calculations of the physical constants are completely wrong. In Voynich studies, all nonsense initially passes. But why? Can there even be such criteria here? Criteria that, at first glance, separate nonsense from something that deserves a second look? Yes, there could be such rules… first of all they are those of common sense. When it comes to decoding, one has to ask what a theory actually provided. Has it even decoded anything, a sentence, a passage, a page? If not, then it obviously only has unfounded speculation to offer, and at least no key. But if it has one, then you should ask and check whether the key was used consistently or does it change from sentence to sentence. Then you have to ask whether the key actually delivers narratively coherent and grammatically correct sentences. And… but let’s leave it at the three, how much is left for further analysis? Certainly less than fingers on one hand.
@everyone
I’d like to revisit this concept that because some pages were moved around that that means that the page numbers were added later because they are in sequence and therefore any references to page numbers that would otherwise be seen as clues or hints towards how the code works is arbitrary and coincidental.
Although that train of thought might seem sound on the surface, there are a few scenarios that would invalidate that theory.
What if the pages instead of being moved arbitrarily, were instead moved from the wrong places to the right places, or another possibility is that some of the pages that were moved might have been toward the middle or back end of the book and affected a few of the pages but none of the pages containing hints. And another possibility is that this manuscript was passed down from one generation to the next, perhaps father to son, maybe there were instructions on one of the missing pages to move certain pages into their correct positions. Nobody can rule these scenarios out.
One such page is page 78, there are two pools of women and in one pool there are 7 women and in the other there are 8. That’s a big coincidence for that page to be arbitrarily in the 78th position in the book. Then you add a second coincidence, the heart shaped cutout on page 14r. Why would anyone cutout a clear heart shape on one and only one page also so close to the beginning of the book. Not the middle where you would more expect it to be if it were random. But no, they have to put it on page 14, which represents Valentine’s Day. The items on that page could also be references, what could be Cupids arrows standing up in the vase, meant for flowers or the necklace around the bottom of the vase as a typical gift of jewellery.
I could easily list ten more coincidences.
A good example of how easy it is for the casual observer to be wrong would be if you look at how the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it would be obvious to the casual observer that the earth is a fixed point and the sun is rotating around it.
Although most of us know that’s incorrect and so is, I believe, this argument about some of the page numbers not being solid clues. I believe that’s what this entire book is all about, observation.
Looking closely at page 4r, I came to the conclusion that the page number represents the symbol that looks like the number ‘4’ paired with the letter “F” that appears on the leaf directly below it. Also, the angles of the branches tilting and pointing to the upper right corner where the page number is, as if to say “look over there”.
It also supports my theory of English being the coded language, whereby I substituted a letter “F” for each symbol ‘4’ at the top of page 78r and eventually got the lines “Forest food I follow on foot, food hid mist over towns”. And “Rid not food hint”.
To me that some of the page numbers are used as parts of clues, seems indisputable.
The clues are hiding in plain sight.
“The Voynich Manuscript:The Most Mysterious Manuscript
in the World”In the introduction John Tiltman shows us
the oldest rabbit hole, Dioscarties and de materia medica.
Older than the new testament and used to treat illness for
1500 years. What i want to know is when did the comic book
format start. Was the Voynich the first?
Xplor,
Please define ‘comic book format’.
xplor
If by ‘comic book’ format, you mean the ‘leaf and root’ section, we find a fairly flexible attitude towards drawings’ orientation in comparison with written text in copies of some Islamic works that were based on, but added to, the Dioscoridan corpus. I have also referred to horizonally-organised illustrated invoices from the Datini fond. At the time, Datini was in Avignon, dealing regularly with Spain and north Africa, and forming partnerships with, or having as his company’s agents, both Muslims and Jews. Apart from that, we have some Asian sources that do something of the same. Herbals were often employed as a template for taxation.
If you’d like more details of those sources, do say.
By comic book format I meant Words and Pictures on the
same page. De materia medica was written in Greek words only.
Things were added and changed in translations.
Xplor
Could you clarify? You seem to be saying there was some other kind of format (pictures without words? words without pictures?) for some sort of plant-book (medicinal herbs or others?). Legend has it that Crateuas and Dioscurides were the first to add plant ‘portraits’ – Caesar criticises the practice, but we have an Egyptian papyrus which has image and text together, and even before that, monumental relief carvings … and that’s not counting all the rest of the world before 1438… so it’s difficult to guess what you’re after. sorry.