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logicmanPatrick

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It is an ancient manuscript ...
« on: July 29, 2017, 03:03:20 PM »
It is an ancient manuscript
  that stumpeth two or three ...

Nothing whatsoever to do with the Arctic but -

Neven: comments are not being accepted at the moment in my blog: some sort of bug.  Would you be so kind as to permit me to link here for anyone who wishes to comment.

After around 10 years of research, programming, and linguistic analysis I have concluded that the Voynich Manuscript was written in medieval colloquial Latin.

Anyone interested in language studies or cryptography ?

http://www.science20.com/patrick_lockerby/the_keys_to_the_voynich_manuscript-225224

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Neven

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #1 on: July 29, 2017, 10:48:39 PM »
Neven: comments are not being accepted at the moment in my blog: some sort of bug.  Would you be so kind as to permit me to link here for anyone who wishes to comment.

That's a rhetorical question, Patrick.  :)
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

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oren

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #2 on: July 29, 2017, 11:43:08 PM »
I must say, having never heard of this manuscript and its mystery, that the whole subject is quite interesting, and your analysis quite amazing...

logicmanPatrick

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2017, 12:09:42 AM »
Neven: comments are not being accepted at the moment in my blog: some sort of bug.  Would you be so kind as to permit me to link here for anyone who wishes to comment.

That's a rhetorical question, Patrick.  :)

LOL

I discern your drift.  :-)
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logicmanPatrick

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2017, 12:13:06 AM »
I must say, having never heard of this manuscript and its mystery, that the whole subject is quite interesting, and your analysis quite amazing...

Amazing?    Would that be amazing 1 or amazing 1.1 ?  :-)
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oren

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2017, 12:28:22 AM »
I must say, having never heard of this manuscript and its mystery, that the whole subject is quite interesting, and your analysis quite amazing...

Amazing?    Would that be amazing 1 or amazing 1.1 ?  :-)
Lol, actually 1.1, very impressive, though I am in no position to validate the results.

logicmanPatrick

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2017, 12:47:29 AM »
I must say, having never heard of this manuscript and its mystery, that the whole subject is quite interesting, and your analysis quite amazing...

Amazing?    Would that be amazing 1 or amazing 1.1 ?  :-)
Lol, actually 1.1, very impressive, though I am in no position to validate the results.

Well, I rely heavily on dictionaries because my Latin is limited to
veni vidi vice
romani ite domum, q.v. 
q.e.d.
w.t.f.
et ceteris

But see my sig - which translates as "if you can read this you are over-educated".

----------------------------------

I've been looking again at the so-called maps folio - hires image here.

It will take a while to translate it all, but here are some advance snippets of my thoughts, to be blogged soon.

Since the manuscript is now, if my translations are anywhere near accurate, herbal-bath themed, perhaps the 'map' is not a map.

Map > plan > scheme > schematic

Perhaps the 'map' is a sketch, schematic or layout of the parts of proposed public baths.

Does the linked image show, bottom right, a canopy for a bath-house?
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AbruptSLR

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2017, 04:28:30 AM »
Since the manuscript is now, if my translations are anywhere near accurate, herbal-bath themed, perhaps the 'map' is not a map.

Map > plan > scheme > schematic

Perhaps the 'map' is a sketch, schematic or layout of the parts of proposed public baths.

Does the linked image show, bottom right, a canopy for a bath-house?

It looks like the illustrations likely show an invention to efficiently supply clean water to communal Jewish baths called mikvah:

Title: “Author of mysterious Voynich manuscript was Italian Jew, says scholar”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/05/author-of-mysterious-voynich-manuscript-was-italian-jew-says-scholar

Extract: “The scholar draws evidence for his theory of the author’s identity from a range of illustrations in the manuscript, particularly a section in which naked women are depicted bathing in green pools supplied by intestinal-like pipes.

The doctor, whose work includes editing the spiritual diaries of the Tudor mystic John Dee, believes the illustrations show communal Jewish baths called mikvah, which are still used in Orthodox Judaism to clean women after childbirth or menstruation.

He believes the drawings were of an invention designed by the mysterious author that aimed to ensure an efficient supply of clean water to a mikvah. “I think there is no other explanation for what they are: it is either rank fantasy by the author – which doesn’t really fit with the medical, herbal and cosmological sections of the manuscript – or it is a mikvah,” he said.

He admitted his theory will have to be rigorously tested by other scholars, but added that he felt “85% certain” he was right. Skinner, who is an expert in medieval esoteric manuscripts, said he was now searching European Jewish books from the period for similar language, codes, scripts or linguistic patterns to those in the Voynich.”
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logicmanPatrick

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #8 on: July 30, 2017, 05:15:13 AM »
Since the manuscript is now, if my translations are anywhere near accurate, herbal-bath themed, perhaps the 'map' is not a map.

Map > plan > scheme > schematic

Perhaps the 'map' is a sketch, schematic or layout of the parts of proposed public baths.

Does the linked image show, bottom right, a canopy for a bath-house?

It looks like the illustrations likely show an invention to efficiently supply clean water to communal Jewish baths called mikvah:

Title: “Author of mysterious Voynich manuscript was Italian Jew, says scholar”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/05/author-of-mysterious-voynich-manuscript-was-italian-jew-says-scholar

Extract: “The scholar draws evidence for his theory of the author’s identity from a range of illustrations in the manuscript, particularly a section in which naked women are depicted bathing in green pools supplied by intestinal-like pipes.

The doctor, whose work includes editing the spiritual diaries of the Tudor mystic John Dee, believes the illustrations show communal Jewish baths called mikvah, which are still used in Orthodox Judaism to clean women after childbirth or menstruation.

He believes the drawings were of an invention designed by the mysterious author that aimed to ensure an efficient supply of clean water to a mikvah. “I think there is no other explanation for what they are: it is either rank fantasy by the author – which doesn’t really fit with the medical, herbal and cosmological sections of the manuscript – or it is a mikvah,” he said.

He admitted his theory will have to be rigorously tested by other scholars, but added that he felt “85% certain” he was right. Skinner, who is an expert in medieval esoteric manuscripts, said he was now searching European Jewish books from the period for similar language, codes, scripts or linguistic patterns to those in the Voynich.”

That "Jewish author" story has been reported around the planet.  Some of Skinner's assertions were rebutted in a Guardian comment by C Cohen.

""The pictures show only nude women and no men." = FALSE. Look again.
“The only place you see women like that bathing together in Europe at that time was in the purification baths that have been used by Orthodox Jews for the last 2,000 years.” = FALSE. According to this, sauna, spa, and banya simply never existed.
“I think there is no other explanation for what they are.” = FALSE. The biggest mistake of nearly every scholar: tunnel vision.
"The unusual design, Skinner believes, is a Ghibelline fortification found only in castles in northern Italy in the 15th century." = FALSE. Swallowtail crenellations can be found as far north as the Kremlin and as far east as the Khanate of Kazan.
“There are no saints or crosses, not even in the cosmological sections.” = FALSE. Please explain within a Hebrew context the woman holding a cross and the women's faces in the center of most of the star charts."

I have found no words suggestive of a Jewish connection.  There are hundreds of instances of words which have to do with herbs, wild (of herbs), water, baths, health.

Below the image of a woman with a cross is an image of a woman with a large ring.  In islamic baths this was the symbol of a jew.  The author could have been christian, moslem, pagan, vegan: we know not.  However, if the 'map' is a design and if the cross and ring are significant, the design may have been aimed at the building of a hammam.

Many thanks for your thoughts.  I miss being able to respond to comments in my blog.  (Thinks: 'must get it sorted'.)
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logicmanPatrick

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #9 on: August 02, 2017, 01:08:08 PM »
I still can't respond to comments in my blog.  :'(

I have now machine transcripted the whole manuscript - beta version.
I'm modifying the program to incorporate some refinements to the algorithm.  Transcription v1.0 is in the pipeline.

The Voynich Manuscript In Latin

Strange, but the professor who claimed to have decoded 10 words hit the news big-time, as did the person who claimed that the author of the VM was a Jew.  By now, my justifiable claim to have 'cracked the code' should be in the news.  The automation of the transcription demonstrates a high level of objectivety.  To put it another way: subjective views of what individual page or paragraphs mean are not amenable to automated transcription. 

A comment which I can only respond to here:
Quote
"It is galimatias - this is not Latin text "  Tom Smith

My response:
It is not gobbledegook - it is a beta version of a computer transcription of the Voynich glyphs into Latin.

If it was gobbledegook it would show random words on random topics.  In fact, the beta transcription used with the images and a little judgement shows many words connected with the art of the apothecary.

Using Google Translate and the judicious insertion of spaces, a randomly chosen snippet, from map ring E, reveals words which are relevant to medieval medicine:
olive, bronze, healthy eating, women, water, wild, you have this, you're in water, in a wild, food .

Anyone is free to drop a snippet into Google Translate.  Even without insertion of spaces, any paragraph-sized snippet should contain real Latin words which Google can translate (but maybe not accurately).  Caveat Googleor!
« Last Edit: August 02, 2017, 01:13:23 PM by logicmanPatrick »
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TerryM

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #10 on: August 05, 2017, 11:15:58 PM »
Patrick
I had no idea that your interests were so varied.
No insights into the Voynich document, but I wonder if you've ever looked into the Cree Syllabary, supposedly invented by James Evans, even though he always required a Cree as well as an Ojibwa interpreter himself.
I've always questioned the official story, concluding that the Cree had been using the system long before missionaries, or fur traders, reached their lands.
Most of the Cree themselves now believe that the wonder of the written word was gifted to them by this missionary, but the fact that the vowels aren't in proper order was my first clue to it being an aboriginal invention.
Terry

logicmanPatrick

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #11 on: August 06, 2017, 02:53:21 AM »
TerryM - I have only browsed the topic of New World languages.  Apart from Mr. Webster's strange subversion of my mother tongue, that is.  I'm with that Johnson bloke.  ;D

Given that most writing in Cree was, until 20th century, Christianity oriented I would say that it truly was invented by a missionary.

As to the order of vowels, there isn't one, really.  The consonants carry inherent vowels.

An example of how to write your own code.  Use any symbols for letters, perhaps a simple Caesar cypher.  The rotation indicates which of four vowels is inherent in the consonant.  Use 4 vowels for 'lossy compression' or add 'u' , 'y' and 'w' to make it lossless, but more readily decrypted.

Obviously, for English you need 26 letters, but this snippet shows the general idea.

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TerryM

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #12 on: August 08, 2017, 04:52:51 AM »
Did you happen to notice that in your own example as you rotated each consonant in a clockwise direction, the vowel sounds progressed just as they do in our familiar anglicized alphabet?
This is what I would expect of an English speaker, which the good Evans certainly was. The Cree Syllabary on the other hand shows no such consistency, and it was this that first roused my suspicions.


James Evans undoubtedly was the first to print using the Syllabary, and I feel this is the reason for the religious bent of all of the early Cree books. This was no small feat as he modified a Hudson's Bay fur press and carved his own type, later having a proper printing press delivered to him in the wilderness


I came across a story that claimed one of the missionaries had punished a parishioner for cheating, instead of memorizing the lords prayer he'd been carving marks onto birch bark using a fingernail to"aid his memory". Unfortunately all my bookmarks disappeared with my former computer and I haven't been able to relocate the URL. At this time I don't remember if Evans was the missionary in question, or even if it was a missionary of his particular branch of the faith.


Extremely high rates of literacy are claimed very shortly after the printed books were presented to various communities. This could be expected if they were already familiar with the system.


While you or I might simply tell someone that we've known how to read for some time, the relationship between the whites and the Cree was not one of equals, especially when the whites saw themselves as emissaries of the one true god.


Terry

logicmanPatrick

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #13 on: August 28, 2017, 07:24:44 PM »
Terry: sorry to be so slow to reply.

"Did you happen to notice that in your own example as you rotated each consonant in a clockwise direction, the vowel sounds progressed just as they do in our familiar anglicized alphabet?
This is what I would expect of an English speaker..."

As a natural speaker of the mother tongue of Perfidious Albion, I automatically generated the vowel sequence which was drummed into my brain at a very early age - even before I learned the word 'vowel'.   ;D

You make a very good point about what literacy means to different people.  It's just the same prejudice in the case of spoken language.  There are many references in records to  travellers coming across strange people who "communicated in grunts".  Later linguists would show that these "grunts" were in fact languages as sophisticated as those of the early explorers.  It's a case of, if all you have is one language, everything else sounds like gibberish.

Speaking of gibberish:

blatant plug - I just finished some statistical analyses which point strongly to the Voynich manuscript having been written in Latin.

Patterns of Latin in the Voynich Manuscript
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logicmanPatrick

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #14 on: August 30, 2017, 02:40:07 PM »
There are still bugs on science20.com, but I can now respond to comments.

If any of you have the least grasp of Latin please do leave a constructive / destructive / thermonuclear comment.


Patterns of Latin in the Voynich Manuscript

btw - I just srumbled upon this comparison of the Voynich manuscript to -

Trump!

Trump v Voynich

Ellie Velinska's comment is a beaut!

VMS researcher in Trump talk would sound something like this:

Quote
The Voynich manuscript is the greatest most fabulous manuscript. All other manuscripts are overrated. The solution is easy – peanuts! My solution is great – world class – beautiful. I will not tell you the solution – I like to be unpredictable. All other failing theories are fake news. Losers! We have to build a wall to stop the Aztec theories from invading the field. The Yale book is the first step in making the Voynich manuscript great again

It was either the keyboard or my brain that srumbled.  Stumbled, even.  ;D
« Last Edit: August 30, 2017, 02:46:20 PM by logicmanPatrick »
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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #15 on: August 30, 2017, 06:47:30 PM »
Patrick,
about your saying (on your blog) that "words are often concatenated German style, but not to such an extreme"..

by sheer co-incidence I recently posted a clip from a medieval manuscript with the aim of making much the same point: modern assumptions about standard orthography, regular word spacing and writing characters in full are all anachronistic to various degrees according to where, when and for whom a text was written.

The post was just a picture...

https://voynichimagery.wordpress.com/2017/08/21/space-breathing-tropes-for-the-use-of/

and another one about the extent to which texts habitually used abbreviations.. to the point where in effect, the abbreviated form WAS the written form of the word.  I think that may also explain the 'qo'... but actually the written part of this text isn't my area, so I try not to speculate.

https://voynichimagery.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/statistics2.jpg


If those examples are useful for you to cite, do feel free.

My voynichimagery blog includes two of your sayings now... or is it three.. in the separate page called 'Well said'.  I've just added the unattributed quote about first-born.

PS - I'll oppose the 'bathing ladies' theory in its usual, entirely literal form, until the written text has been translated, and the translation itself says so. :)


TerryM

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #16 on: August 30, 2017, 07:37:02 PM »
Patrick
I've absolutely no knowledge of Latin, so no help there.
Would the ampersand in English be the equivalent of what you are suggesting?


Terry


Re. my speculations about the Cree Syllabary.


I spent an hour or two with a gent who is a past head of the OAS - (Ontario Archaeological Society) a few weekends ago and presented my case for it being an indigenous product. He suggested that looking at native signatures on early contact treaties might strengthen my argument. A very interesting suggestion, and one I will pursue.
The OAS is having their yearly symposium in November and I'll see what I can dig up by then.



logicmanPatrick

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #17 on: August 31, 2017, 08:04:40 PM »
Patrick,
about your saying (on your blog) that "words are often concatenated German style, but not to such an extreme"..

by sheer co-incidence I recently posted a clip from a medieval manuscript with the aim of making much the same point: modern assumptions about standard orthography, regular word spacing and writing characters in full are all anachronistic to various degrees according to where, when and for whom a text was written.

The post was just a picture...

https://voynichimagery.wordpress.com/2017/08/21/space-breathing-tropes-for-the-use-of/

and another one about the extent to which texts habitually used abbreviations.. to the point where in effect, the abbreviated form WAS the written form of the word.  I think that may also explain the 'qo'... but actually the written part of this text isn't my area, so I try not to speculate.

https://voynichimagery.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/statistics2.jpg


If those examples are useful for you to cite, do feel free.

My voynichimagery blog includes two of your sayings now... or is it three.. in the separate page called 'Well said'.  I've just added the unattributed quote about first-born.

PS - I'll oppose the 'bathing ladies' theory in its usual, entirely literal form, until the written text has been translated, and the translation itself says so. :)

D.N.  I'm very grateful indeed for your comment.

First things first - the unattributed quote about first-born was unattributed because it was in direct reply to Nick pelling's use of those words in his comment at this link.  Nick is a master with words and humour, as demonstrated by his "Who owns the Voynich" blog, beneath which I made my comment.  I like that you have cited him in your "Well Said" page:

Quote
They may beat us on quantity of madness, but on quality? Never!

Nick Pelling, a comment  in response to others made on his “Alien cipher language” post . (Nov. 19, 2009)

Re: "words are often concatenated German style, but not to such an extreme"..
Mark Twain had much to say about "The Awful German Language"
Quote
There are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech -- not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary -- six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam -- that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses which reinclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it -- after which comes the VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb -- merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out -- the writer shovels in "haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden sein," or words to that effect, and the monument is finished.
Those words could be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the Voynich manuscript.   ;D

Many of the words which I have now transcribed pertain to water, herbs, baths and what might be called plumbing.  For example, EVA orory, bottom right of picture could be oris orum, literally "edge/boundary mouth", or "overflow".  (The image, btw, appears to me to represent a large wooden bathtub such as are depicted in many medieval manuscripts.)



As for the images you have kindly linked, they are ideal to illustrate my next blog, so thanks for the permission.  I shall be certain to credit you.




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logicmanPatrick

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #18 on: August 31, 2017, 08:16:21 PM »
Patrick
I've absolutely no knowledge of Latin, so no help there.
Would the ampersand in English be the equivalent of what you are suggesting?


Terry


Re. my speculations about the Cree Syllabary.


I spent an hour or two with a gent who is a past head of the OAS - (Ontario Archaeological Society) a few weekends ago and presented my case for it being an indigenous product. He suggested that looking at native signatures on early contact treaties might strengthen my argument. A very interesting suggestion, and one I will pursue.
The OAS is having their yearly symposium in November and I'll see what I can dig up by then.

Terry: I wish you every success in your digging up meticulous researches.  You have hit upon an interesting area of study.

As for & = ampersand = and per se and, et cetera, depending on language: yes, it's a breviograph aka breviogram.  As also £, $, % and many others.

See, e.g., Wikepedia percent sign.  Note the reference to "The letter p with its shaft crossed by a horizontal or diagonal strike conventionally stood for per, por, par, or pur in Mediaeval and Renaissance palaeography."



1339 arithmetic text in Rara Arithmetica pg. 437
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vox_mundi

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #19 on: May 15, 2019, 10:17:59 AM »
Bristol Academic Cracks Voynich Code, Solving Century-Old Mystery of Medieval Text 
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-bristol-academic-voynich-code-century-old.html

A University of Bristol academic has succeeded where countless cryptographers, linguistics scholars and computer programs have failed—by cracking the code of the 'world's most mysterious text', the Voynich manuscript.

Although the purpose and meaning of the manuscript had eluded scholars for over a century, it took Research Associate Dr. Gerard Cheshire two weeks, using a combination of lateral thinking and ingenuity, to identify the language and writing system of the famously inscrutable document.

In his peer-reviewed paper, The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained, published in the journal Romance Studies, Cheshire describes how he successfully deciphered the manuscript's codex and, at the same time, revealed the only known example of proto-Romance language.

"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."

... "What it reveals is even more amazing than the myths and fantasies it has generated. For example, the manuscript was compiled by Dominican nuns as a source of reference for Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon, who happens to have been great aunt to Catherine of Aragon. ...



Open Access: Gerard Cheshire, The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained, Romance Studies (2019).
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02639904.2019.1599566?scroll=top&needAccess=true
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Pmt111500

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #20 on: May 15, 2019, 10:30:11 AM »
Quardiphtongs sounds a bit hazardous. I thought this was already solved to be a local variant of Old Turkish from the Balkans during 1500s.

vox_mundi

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #21 on: May 15, 2019, 10:41:01 AM »
 Not Old Turkish - pre Italian
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #22 on: May 15, 2019, 02:07:31 PM »
Nice read, thanks!
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #23 on: May 15, 2019, 09:04:52 PM »
Great thread! I have always been obsessed by the VM, ever since I read Poundstone's book with a chapter on it, along with the Rohonc Codex and the Codex Seraphinianus.
Here is a discussion of the "solution" https://voynich.ninja/thread-2763.html
« Last Edit: May 15, 2019, 09:21:47 PM by Tom_Mazanec »

vox_mundi

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #24 on: May 16, 2019, 12:24:41 AM »
Apparently he hasn't convinced everyone ...

No, Someone Hasn’t Cracked the Code of the Mysterious Voynich Manuscript 
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/no-someone-hasnt-cracked-the-code-of-the-mysterious-voynich-manuscript/

... 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. 
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

kassy

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #25 on: May 16, 2019, 01:53:49 PM »
Ah of course.  ::)

The Old Turkish interpretation seems to be well in the run.
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #26 on: May 16, 2019, 10:36:35 PM »
Skeptoid thinks its a 15th Century hoax:
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4252
and here is Skeptical Inquirer's article:
https://skepticalinquirer.org/2011/01/the_voynich_manuscript_the_book_nobody_can_read/?%2Fsi%2Fshow%2Fthe_voynich_manuscript_the_book_nobody_can_read
This blog holds that it is a 20th Century hoax:
https://proto57.wordpress.com/
Here is access to Zandbergen's work on the VM:
http://www.voynich.nu/
Here is Hurych's volume on the manuscript:
http://hurontaria.baf.cz/CVM/VMcompletea.pdf
Here you can read the Journal of Voynich Studies:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/index.htm
Here's a blog on computational attacks on the VM:
https://voynichattacks.wordpress.com/
Plus Velinska's blog on her work:
http://ellievelinska.blogspot.com/
Elmar Vogt's blog:
https://voynichthoughts.wordpress.com/
or join the Voynich Mail Group:
http://www.voynich.net/

Here you can look at the VM page by page:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AVoynich_Manuscript.pdf&page=1
or https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f1r/0.327/0.465/2.37
or https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_manuscrito07a.htm

and for contrast and completeness, the Codex Seraphinianus:
https://blog.kolesnik.info/pictures/files/Codex_Seraphinianus.pdf
and the Rohonc Codex:
https://ia800400.us.archive.org/2/items/TheRohoncCodex/The%20Rohonc%20Codex.pdf

Of course, googling will give you much more. Also, here is the Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/
BTW, the U of B has retracted the story:
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/may/voynich-manuscript.html

wili

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #27 on: May 17, 2019, 02:42:08 AM »
Not likely a hoax, or it would have to have been a very clever one indeed--since statistical analysis shows some patterns that match up with what would be expected in a natural language.

One odd bit is that there are characters that never occur internally in words. I suspect these are short hand symbols that actually represent morphemes--common prefixes and suffixes in whatever language we are talking about. But who knows?
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

b_lumenkraft

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Re: It is an ancient manuscript ...
« Reply #28 on: May 17, 2019, 05:50:57 AM »