The Voynich manuscript

I came across this article recently, perhaps it'll be helpful to you guys. My apologies if it restates material you've already covered.

Hi Khalsa,

Thanks for sharing. It's a retelling of the botanists story, though. So, no new vistas as of yet but that's okay. Thanks again.
 
Mal7 said:
Here is another press release on the Voynich manuscript. This one is about the work of Stephen Bax, who is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire. Bax thinks the language is perhaps "Near Eastern or Asiatic", and that he has decoded a few words of it. This might not seem to fit well with the other recent discovery that the plants illustrated in the manuscript are Mexican, but on the other hand don't the written scripts from Easter Island also look Eastern or Asiatic?

Hi Mal7,

Interesting new approach. Thanks for sharing. From the video in the announcement I gathered that the news about the herbalist's deciphering just came in too late for him to be able to incorporate that in his analysis. Nevertheless, to me he seems somewhat idiosyncratic and single minded in his approach. Anyway, this omission underlines the isolation of all these separate disciplines and highlights the lack of, and by that the need for interdisciplinary cooperation (i.e. networking) big time.


https://youtu.be/fpZD_3D8_WQ

Other sources:

_http://stephenbax.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Voynich-a-provisional-partial-decoding-BAX.pdf
_http://www.edithsherwood.com/voynich_botanical_plants/index.php
_http://www.edithsherwood.com/site_map.php

I also found this:

http://stephenbax.net/?page_id=131 said:
I am planning to organise a conference entitled ‘The language of the Voynich manuscript’, to be held in London in June 2014.

Aims: The aim is to get together a range of people who have expertise in the Voynich manuscript, and/or in a range of languages, including Semitic, Turkic and Caucasian languages, to present and debate the latest ideas about the script and language, so as to try to make progress on it. I hope to present further ideas myself about the linguistic elements.

Venue: I am planning a venue in central London, near the British Museum.

Cost: We would have to charge a modest fee to cover costs, but we would hope to make it as accessible as possible

Focus: The focus will be on the script and language, not on other areas of the investigation
 
Over 70 words and names gleaned using a new transcription alphabet indicate constructions of an old Finno-Ugric origin with a substantial amount of Old Norse. In addition, there is a distinct Slavic influence. Some of the pages contain text suggestive of Karelian runic charm songs or Sami joiks in that they are highly alliterative and trochaic.

More here: http://voynichbirths.blogspot.com/2014/12/follow-on-facebook-functiond-s-id-var.html

The pages depict female heliocentric star charts resembling Nordic brooches. They also depict kolovrats, octagrams, sauna/banya, torcs, a seidr staff, a distaff, a drop spindle, ceremonial spoons, the sun cross symbol, intercalary year, red conical roofs, onion domes, plants from the northern hemisphere, a landscape resembling the Ruskeala marble caves, zaftig fair blond women, a Permic-like lizard of the underworld, the pike of Tuonela, and runic glyphs (comparable to those found in Icelandic magic books).

Some visual designs are reminiscent of a Sami shamanic drum, Karelian embroidery, and Vologda lace. The herbal powder receptacles are modified sewing necessaires in the tradition of north European treenware.

All of this points to core elements of north European culture that can be found in Scandinavian, Finno-Ugric, north Germanic, and to some extent Celtic traditions. These belief systems go back thousands of years.
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The Pyat said:
Over 70 words and names gleaned using a new transcription alphabet indicate constructions of an old Finno-Ugric origin with a substantial amount of Old Norse. In addition, there is a distinct Slavic influence. Some of the pages contain text suggestive of Karelian runic charm songs or Sami joiks in that they are highly alliterative and trochaic.

More here: http://voynichbirths.blogspot.com/2014/12/follow-on-facebook-functiond-s-id-var.html

The pages depict female heliocentric star charts resembling Nordic brooches. They also depict kolovrats, octagrams, sauna/banya, torcs, a seidr staff, a distaff, a drop spindle, ceremonial spoons, the sun cross symbol, intercalary year, red conical roofs, onion domes, plants from the northern hemisphere, a landscape resembling the Ruskeala marble caves, zaftig fair blond women, a Permic-like lizard of the underworld, the pike of Tuonela, and runic glyphs (comparable to those found in Icelandic magic books).

Some visual designs are reminiscent of a Sami shamanic drum, Karelian embroidery, and Vologda lace. The herbal powder receptacles are modified sewing necessaires in the tradition of north European treenware.

All of this points to core elements of north European culture that can be found in Scandinavian, Finno-Ugric, north Germanic, and to some extent Celtic traditions. These belief systems go back thousands of years.

Hi Pyat,

Seeing as this is your first post here, we would appreciate it if you would post a brief intro about yourself in the Newbies section, telling us how you found this forum, how long you've been reading it and/or the SOTT page, whether or not you've read any of Laura's books yet, etc.

Welcome to the Forum. :)
 
voynich scripts

Does anyone knows if the Laura mentioned anything to the C's about the voynichs scripts. Did they say what they are, what language it is and who wrote it?
 
Re: voynich scripts

LIV said:
Does anyone knows if the Laura mentioned anything to the C's about the voynichs scripts. Did they say what they are, what language it is and who wrote it?

Read the session below. :)

https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,28428.msg353847.html#msg353847
 
Today SOTT carries an RT story about a Spanish publisher (Siloe) who is going to publish a facsimile of the manuscript in an edition of 898 copies, to be sold for approx. €7,000 - €8,000 ($7,800 to $8,900) each, and they've already received around 300 pre-orders:

https://www.sott.net/article/325972-Mysterious-unbreakable-Voynich-Manuscript-to-be-reproduced-and-distributed-by-Spanish-publisher
 
Palinurus said:
Today SOTT carries an RT story about a Spanish publisher (Siloe) who is going to publish a facsimile of the manuscript in an edition of 898 copies, to be sold for approx. €7,000 - €8,000 ($7,800 to $8,900) each, and they've already received around 300 pre-orders:

Thanks ...

Quote from: March 18, 1995

Q: (L) [...] Let me ask a couple of quick questions for my kid. She wants to know the source of the Voynich Manuscript.
A: Disinformation.

Q: (L) Who put it together?
A: Various sources.

Q: (L) Why?
A: Monetary gain.

Q: (L) So, somebody just faked up an ancient manuscript to sell it for big bucks?
A: Yes.

:rolleyes:

M.T.
 
Update on the latest development. SOTT carries an article by Eleonora Goldman (Russia Beyond The Headlines) claiming that Russian mathematicians would have cracked the code:

https://www.sott.net/article/348696-Brilliant-Russian-scholars-unlock-secret-of-mysterious-Voynich-manuscript-CIA-NSA-others-tried-and-failed

After conducting a statistical analysis of the text, Russian experts believe it's encrypted in the following way: vowels and spaces are removed from the text. The collection of symbols is united in a new text, bestrewed with spaces beforehand. They estimate that about 60 percent of the text is written in English or German, and the other part in one of the Romance languages - possibly Italian or Spanish, or even Latin.

Alas, no examples of translations are included. So no possibility of comparison or independent assessment for the time being. :rolleyes:
 
Ever since 1912, researchers have attempted to unravel the mystery of the Voynich manuscript, a six-centuries-old document that some believe has magical powers - but now, an expert on medieval manuscripts believes he's found the answer.

Voynich Manuscript Mystery Solved? It's a Female Gynecology Guide, Expert Claims
https://sputniknews.com/art_living/201709081057220426-voynich-manuscript-solved-healing/

For over a century, researchers have been trying to decipher the Voynich manuscript, a 600-year-old document often described as the world's most mysterious medieval text. Now, one British academic claims they have solved the riddle — the peculiar document is in fact a mere health manual for "well-to-do" women wishing to treat gynecological conditions, which identifies various herbal remedies.

Sadly, this disproves Randall Munroe's theory that the Voynich Manuscript is an ancient tabletop RPG Monster Manual. —AD pic.twitter.com/9CEZXB1xnX
— Greater Boston (@InGreaterBoston) September 8, 2017

​The manuscript is full of exotic illustrations of plants, stars, mysterious human figures and mythological animals, as well as many pages written in an unknown language, and has long-baffled scholars, cryptographers and codebreakers alike — several theories and interpretations have abounded over its meaning, although a conclusive interpretation has proven elusive.

Many will likely be disappointed at its mundane explanation.

Nude Women, Healing Plants - Nicholas Gibbs, an expert on medieval medical manuscripts, reached his relatively humdrum resolution after discovering the text is written in Latin ligatures — text developed as a "shortcut" (much like journalist shorthand) in Roman times.

Ampersands (&) arise from Latin ligatures, as they are visual conglomerations of the letters "e" and "t" — "et," the Latin for "and."

Moreover, Gibbs has concluded Voynich was a "crooked book dealer" who deliberately encouraged the "crackpots and conspiracy theories" that have swirled around the text for over a century.

The book's intriguing mix of elegant writing and drawings of strange plants and naked women has some believing it holds magical powers.

Gibbs stated that by studying medieval Latin, it became obvious each character in the Voynich manuscript represented an abbreviated word, not a letter — and when translated, the text outlines standard medical information.

He believes the accompanying images of nude women and healing plants also suggested the text referred to aromatherapy, practised by Greek healer Hippocrates and Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder — and the illustrations of plant remedies, Zodiac charts and instructions on thermal baths indicate whoever wrote the document had a good understanding of medieval medicine.

Baths in particular were a healing remedy practised by Greeks and Romans and throughout the Middle Ages — curing gynecological complaints and other female diseases often involved "taking the waters" by bathing or ingesting.

Nonetheless, despite Gibbs' apparent breakthrough — the culmination of three years' research — he remains unable to fully translate every recipe, as the manuscript is missing its index.

An Enduring Mystery - The 15th century cryptic work is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912. Voynich himself alleged it had been written by Roger Bacon, a 13th century friar and philosopher who concealed his works with code, so the religious establishment couldn't decipher what he'd written — although that theory was jettisoned when the manuscript was carbon dated and found to have originated between 1404 — 1438.

Over time it has attained a mythological reputation, featuring in hit computer game Assassin's Creed, as well as the Indiana Jones novels — Jones decodes the manuscript, and uses it to find the Philosopher's Stone.

Other have suggested it's the work of Leonardo da Vinci as a boy, or secret Cathars, or even the lost tribe of Israel. Some less sober voices have claimed it's the work of aliens, and possesses magical powers.

The text is now held in the Beinecke Library at Yale University.
 
University of Alberta computer scientists claim that the Voynich manuscript was most likely written in Hebrew.

_https://www.ualberta.ca/science/science-news/2018/january/ai-used-to-decipher-ancient-manuscript
Paper (PDF link): _https://transacl.org/ojs/index.php/tacl/article/download/821/174

:shock:
 
And another one bites the dust:

"Proto-Romance": Bristol academic claims to have cracked Voynich manuscript code -- Sott.net

Some snippets:

"It is also no exaggeration to say this work represents one of the most important developments to date in Romance linguistics. The manuscript is written in proto-Romance-ancestral to today's Romance languages including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan and Galician. The language used was ubiquitous in the Mediterranean during the Medieval period, but it was seldom written in official or important documents because Latin was the language of royalty, church and government. As a result, proto-Romance was lost from the record, until now."

Cheshire explains in linguistic terms what makes the manuscript so unusual:

"It uses an extinct language. Its alphabet is a combination of unfamiliar and more familiar symbols. It includes no dedicated punctuation marks, although some letters have symbol variants to indicate punctuation or phonetic accents. All of the letters are in lower case and there are no double consonants. It includes diphthong, triphthongs, quadriphthongs and even quintiphthongs for the abbreviation of phonetic components. It also includes some words and abbreviations in Latin."


From the SOTT comment:
Fagin Davis naturally had strong opinions about this latest dubious claim, too, tweeting, "Sorry, folks, 'proto-Romance language' is not a thing. This is just more aspirational, circular, self-fulfilling nonsense." When Ars [Technica] approached her for comment, she graciously elaborated. And she didn't mince words:
As with most would-be Voynich interpreters, the logic of this proposal is circular and aspirational: he starts with a theory about what a particular series of glyphs might mean, usually because of the word's proximity to an image that he believes he can interpret. He then investigates any number of medieval Romance-language dictionaries until he finds a word that seems to suit his theory. Then he argues that because he has found a Romance-language word that fits his hypothesis, his hypothesis must be right. His "translations" from what is essentially gibberish, an amalgam of multiple languages, are themselves aspirational rather than being actual translations.

In addition, the fundamental underlying argument-that there is such a thing as one 'proto-Romance language'-is completely unsubstantiated and at odds with paleolinguistics. Finally, his association of particular glyphs with particular Latin letters is equally unsubstantiated. His work has never received true peer review, and its publication in this particular journal is no sign of peer confidence.
Ouch.
 
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