Anyone know about the Voynich Manuscript?

I would also like to have a look at the full copy.

Hey Sisonek:

The Summary ("RECIPE" section Number 5 of the VMS at the back of the book looks suspiciously indeed like a "Recipe" or Pharmacological Book in some kind of shorthand (it's written in VMS B shorthand dialect accordig to Currier) apparently listing various combinations of roots and herbs, possibly to steep as teas etc.

The VMS book still looks to me to be an early to mid 15th century medicinal "herbal" specifically designed for medicine taking and sitz bathing for pregnant women (most of the women portrayed in the book, if not all, are between the 6th and the 8th month of pregnancy, notice?)...

Maybe it was meant to be a doctor's "medical guide" to curfe swollen pregnant ankles, or tips to avoid miscarriages or morning sickness etc. to be used at Mediaeval spas where pregnant women went to take sitz baths before their final "confinement" ?

I used the EVA transcription for my copy outs which I then re-translated into Voynichese sigil lettering---and I repeat my theory that [8aiv 8aiiv = EVA dain daiin] is some kind of paragraph separator (punctuation mark) since they generally occur in the close vicinity of VERY RARE or HAPAX words (words that only appear once, like label words/phrases).

I'm not sure how the Chinese punctuated their woodblock type in the 1390s, but Marco Polo certainly could have brought back a couple of Chinese Herbalists with him, and caused some of their printed material to be copied out in North Italian Sigil code, via Brescia-Milan-Venice (which would account for the Chinese appearing symbols on page ONE of the VMS (chinese characters for "heaven" and "winter" respectively) --and might possibly explain the curious Chinese flow of the language according to the computer studies since 1970.

At any rate, the pregnant ladies' hairdo's seem to date from around 1420 and 1430 and are northern Italian (Brescian) in provenance and style )(like the castles) ....which might provide a clue to the origin of this mystery of mysteries...

I wonder what else Marco Polo brought back from China? (besides the idea of paper money and pasta I mean) ...!

Amadeus:

I've seen the computerized studies that suggest voynichese words obey a similar distribution to chinese; if voynichese is in fact written in phonetic chinese -- or actually, if it's a phonetic transcription of any of the sinitic languages -- then that would definitely explain some of the repetitiveness of the text.

In my miscopied-east-asian-script theory I wasn't thinking chinese, though, so much as something like manchu or tibetan; if you look at old manchu script:

homepage.mac.com...

it doesn't look too much like the voynich alphabet, but when you see the way the letters were joined together it's not hard to imagine that someone who didn't know manchu trying to copy a manchu document would wind up accidentally creating the script we see voynichese in; especially if it's a copy of a copy, or a copy of a copy of a copy, then this scenario doesn't seem excessively outlandish. There were a few other phonetic scripts used in the far east at that point, including tibetan, and also miscopied hindi script could easily mutate into voynichese in a couple generations of miscopying.

When I was working on this, I only had a xeroxed copy of a mimeographed copy of the manuscript, which I subsequently wrote all over and platered with post-it notes; since that time I've been a lurker on the vms mailing list, and have considered trying some computer-based experiments with some of the transcriptions out there.

Other thoughts:

I was fotunate to have access to a library with a lot of copies of old english herbals in its rare book archives, and although the format and "general appearance" of the book is similar to a lot of the older herbals, the quality of the drawings is far worse; if you look even at culpepper's herbal -- one of the earliest known english herbals -- the quality of the plant illustrations is both worlds more detailed and more accurate than what's in the voynich manuscript. at the time this suggested to me that if it was an herbal -- or if the plant-related section was an herbal -- then whoever compiled the book probably was not the person who did the research, and may not have been familiar with the plants. I showed my copy to some botanists, and they couldn't really make out what any of the plants were supposed to be, either.

I hadn't heard of the idea that the back "index section" is actually a recipe book; it's pretty reasonable if so, although I'm not sure how the recipes are organized if that's true: you've got pages and pages of just roots, and pages and pages of just leaves, so it might be a listing of "plant part + effect of that part in a poultice/tea".

Also: it wouldn't surprise me if the voynich ms was as many as five smaller pamphlets sewn together and bound as one book; do you have a link or a reference to some discussion of this?

Originally posted by HarmoniusOne
So when people say they have compared these texts to all know alphabets / languages, is it really ALL? Some of the characters remind me of less well know languages like Theban. Perhaps it is an individuals way of preserving information but in a form that could only be shared with those the individual chose to teach the language to. I would love to translate it. There could be some interesting info in it.

The alphabet appears to me to be comprised of stylized English characters :/ I work in the medical research field and I see Voynich manuscripts all the time in the form of M.D.'s handwriting.

Zip

Originally posted by AL77ZZZ
This manuscript has really thrown me for a loop. Does anyone have info on or about this manuscript or the person who wrote it? I have been reviewing pages to see if I could figure out the code. I have been unable to decipher this material. I think if I had some more info about who wrote it or where it came from I could possibly figure it out. I looked and did not see any other threads on this and was hoping someone could help me with this. I have included a link that gives some backround on the manuscript for those of you who are unfamilar with this book. I dont have the link but if you go to the harvard rare book site you can view a ton of pages from the manuscript as well.

Voynich Manuscript Link



Thanks for the help,

Al77zzz

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Iknow what is caligraphie. Look again the 2 lignes--- so nice, no

humain hand can make. Think again. I don't know. Look first little details

after , letres, language ets.ets. Just the scripture???

Remember: Gutemberg invented 'tipographie --(print ) in 1448

and the primitive one (like my english )!! Mysteries. chapo

P.S. Interesting and maybe more---who know ??

I've always found the Voynich Manuscript interesting.

I prefer the theory that the text is a transcription, through a made up alphabet, of an Eastern Asian language and most likely contains information on herbs, astrology or astronomy, etc... or maybe it's an elaborate hoax...

Does anyone have any new info on the manuscript? I've been doing some recent reading about it, but it doesn't seem that there have been any significan new developments regarding the text.

I've always found the Voynich Manuscript interesting.

I prefer the theory that the text is a transcription, through a made up alphabet, of an Eastern Asian language and most likely contains information on herbs, astrology or astronomy, etc... or maybe it's an elaborate hoax...

Does anyone have any new info on the manuscript? I've been doing some recent reading about it, but it doesn't seem that there have been any significant new developments regarding the manuscript.


[edit on 15-12-2007 by zephyrs]

I read about this on some website a few months back. MAYBE ITS ALIEN WRITING

Who knowsss.

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


There have been analysis of the writing using cypto techniques and it appears to follow Zifp's rule and other clues pointing to a human language.

My own guess? A fantasy piece by an earlier forger using a method of randomization, perhaps a cardan grid.