The Voynich Ninja

(28-09-2018, 05:52 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You're proposing a system of abbreviation that not only is not indicated on this page, but which was foreign to medieval scribes.

I have modified my essay as follows:

"In case there remains any doubt that the marginalia refers to a Nostradamus prophecy, the author gives us still another clue:



These two words, part of the Germanic misdirection, immediately follow the pox leber in the first line of f116v. Note the dot above and just to the right of the p but there is nothing here that looks like an i. Later, we are going to encounter a capital P with a lower dot to the right of it, taken as a signal to transition the capital P into a small p. Here, we must assume the opposite, a signal to transition the small p into a capital P. Note that German is a language that capitalizes its nouns.

Earlier, we saw that the marginalia abia (in the third line of f116v) could be either a truncation of the Spanish abierta or a truncation of the Spanish habia. With a precedent for truncation at hand, we can also view umer untpfer as a truncation:

u(nter) mer unt(er) Pfer(d)

Unter is the German word for under, mer is the French word for sea as seen in the Nostradamus publication, and Pferd is the German word for horse: under sea under horse, that is, a seahorse. In mythology, seahorses pulled the chariot of Neptune whereupon they come to symbolize the carrying of a cargo across the sea.

By free city of the great sea Saline,
That carries encore the stone to the stomach,

Thus, the seahorse carries the stone across the sea Saline to reach the stomach of our prophecy."

***

As you can see, per your indications, I make no mention of abbreviations.

(03-10-2018, 11:09 AM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(28-09-2018, 05:52 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You're proposing a system of abbreviation that not only is not indicated on this page, but which was foreign to medieval scribes.

I have modified my essay as follows:

"In case there remains any doubt that the marginalia refers to a Nostradamus prophecy, the author gives us still another clue:



These two words, part of the Germanic misdirection, immediately follow the pox leber in the first line of f116v. Note the dot above and just to the right of the p but there is nothing here that looks like an i. Later, we are going to encounter a capital P with a lower dot to the right of it, taken as a signal to transition the capital P into a small p. Here, we must assume the opposite, a signal to transition the small p into a capital P. Note that German is a language that capitalizes its nouns.

A dot to turn something from capital to lowercase and vice versa? I've looked at thousands of medieval manuscripts and I have never seen such a thing.

It may be true that modern German capitalizes nouns, but it was not at all typical of medieval German. In fact, frequently they didn't capitalize sentences either and punctuation was often missing as well. Capitalization was not standardized and some manuscripts only used it for the names of people or saints and some only used capitals at the beginning of paragraphs.

I doubt if you can find a single example of a period being used to lowercase or uppercase a letter in a medieval manuscript.

(03-10-2018, 12:03 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A dot to turn something from capital to lowercase and vice versa? I've looked at thousands of medieval manuscripts and I have never seen such a thing.

It may be true that modern German capitalizes nouns, but it was not at all typical of medieval German. In fact, frequently they didn't capitalize sentences either and punctuation was often missing as well. Capitalization was not standardized and some manuscripts only used it for the names of people or saints and some only used capitals at the beginning of paragraphs.

I doubt if you can find a single example of a period being used to lowercase or uppercase a letter in a medieval manuscript.

Part of the problem seems to be an enormous disparity in time: I am claiming that the marginalia was written around the year 1600 and you seem to be thinking in terms of the year 1400. As I can see in the Fama Fraternitatis, written shortly after 1600, German did in fact capitalize its nouns at that time.

It is abundantly clear that the author of the marginalia did not want to be understood by the masses and, I’m sure, by the Inquisition in particular. He therefore employs various techniques for deception and disguise including truncated words and, apparently, the use of dots to change the case of letters. The fact that we find two instances of case reversal via dots, in opposite directions, makes it credible that he did this.

(03-10-2018, 01:33 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Part of the problem seems to be an enormous disparity in time: I am claiming that the marginalia was written around the year 1600 and you seem to be thinking in terms of the year 1400. As I can see in the Fama Fraternitatis, written shortly after 1600, German did in fact capitalize its nouns at that time.

You don't appear to have any knowledge of paleography.

This style of handwriting had long since been replaced by humanist-style hands (or hybrids of humanist and Gothic handwriting) by 1600. The marginalia is written in a style common to the 15th century and very uncommon in the year 1600. By the 1500s scholars were rejecting Gothic as ugly and difficult to read (both of which are true) and were modifying their writing. Children were taught a different style.

The new writing that gradually replaced Gothic cursive was inspired in part by Italian handwriting, which was cleaner and more readable than northern Gothic styles.

In fact, the marginalia shows small signs of the 14th century as well. It's possible whoever wrote it was born and learned to write at the end of the 14th century. Either that, or the writer may have lived in a less urban area where the changes occurred more slowly but... this style of writing was almost completely obsolete by 1600.


The quire numbers are also in the old style of writing that had almost disappeared by the early 16th century and mostly disappeared by the mid-16th century.

(03-10-2018, 02:44 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You don't appear to have any knowledge of paleography.

This style of handwriting had long since been replaced by humanist-style hands (or hybrids of humanist and Gothic handwriting) by 1600. The marginalia is written in a style common to the 15th century and very uncommon in the year 1600. By the 1500s scholars were rejecting Gothic as ugly and difficult to read (both of which are true) and were modifying their writing. Children were taught a different style.

The new writing that gradually replaced Gothic cursive was inspired in part by Italian handwriting, which was cleaner and more readable than northern Gothic styles.

In fact, the marginalia shows small signs of the 14th century as well. It's possible whoever wrote it was born and learned to write at the end of the 14th century. Either that, or the writer may have lived in a less urban area where the changes occurred more slowly but... this style of writing was almost completely obsolete by 1600.

The quire numbers are also in the old style of writing that had almost disappeared by the early 16th century and mostly disappeared by the mid-16th century.

It seems you are dating the marginalia on the basis of handwriting style. My counterargument is as follows: while it is unlikely that someone in the 16th century could adopt a writing style that did not come into vogue until the 20th century, it is certainly possible for someone in the 16th century to adopt a writing style that was in vogue during the 14th or 15th centuries. This would be especially true for someone who, like you, was in regular contact with old manuscripts, and for someone who wanted to disguise his writing and the time of writing by making it look older than what it was.

For my part, I am dating the marginalia strictly on the basis of its thematic content. As I demonstrate in my essay, the marginalia expresses familiarity with a prophecy that was not published until the year 1588. It also expresses familiarity with a botanical book published in the year 1597. Meanwhile, that botanical book expresses familiarity with both the VMS and the theme of its marginalia. This reminds me of something in the field of English literature, where scholars reject claims that a certain person was the author of certain plays on the basis that those plays referred to historical events that occurred after that person had died. With similar logic, the author of the marginalia did not live in the 15th century. He had to have been alive in the late 16th century.

Unfortunately, carbon-dating does not apply to ink as it contains no carbon. Chemical analysis is also of little help because iron gall inks were in common use from the 6th through 19th centuries. We must therefore rely on handwriting style and thematic content. I think thematic content is the stronger argument: handwriting style can be imitated, but knowledge of future publications would be virtually impossible to attain.

Logically, your argument can be extended anytime all the way up to the modern day. Anyone at any point after 1597 could have learnt old handwriting, decided to create the marginalia around the Nostradamus quartet, sourced ancient vellum, etc.
If we extend the logic (including the motive for why based upon the provenance and history of the manuscript as established by Rene Z.), then we end up with Rich SantaColuma's "Voynich faked it for cash in the modern era" theory.

(03-10-2018, 07:28 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Logically, your argument can be extended anytime all the way up to the modern day. Anyone at any point after 1597 could have learnt old handwriting, decided to create the marginalia around the Nostradamus quartet, sourced ancient vellum, etc.
If we extend the logic (including the motive for why based upon the provenance and history of the manuscript as established by Rene Z.), then we end up with Rich SantaColuma's "Voynich faked it for cash in the modern era" theory.

I was thinking the same thing, David.

As soon as someone uses the argument that the VMS mimics old styles of handwriting and that it was written on vellum that had been sitting around for two centuries, it pretty much opens to the door to saying it was created any time up to the present day (and not specifically in 1600).

(04-10-2018, 03:13 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(03-10-2018, 07:28 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Logically, your argument can be extended anytime all the way up to the modern day. Anyone at any point after 1597 could have learnt old handwriting, decided to create the marginalia around the Nostradamus quartet, sourced ancient vellum, etc.
If we extend the logic (including the motive for why based upon the provenance and history of the manuscript as established by Rene Z.), then we end up with Rich SantaColuma's "Voynich faked it for cash in the modern era" theory.

I was thinking the same thing, David.

As soon as someone uses the argument that the VMS mimics old styles of handwriting and that it was written on vellum that had been sitting around for two centuries, it pretty much opens to the door to saying it was created any time up to the present day (and not specifically in 1600).

JKP, your comment implies that you completely misunderstand my theories. I am not claiming that the VMS was written around 1600 on vellum two centuries old. It makes sense that the VMS would have been written soon after the making of the parchment, circa 1420. It is only the marginalia that was written around 1600 with the purpose of explaining how to go about decoding the manuscript.

In general, I view forgery theories as no more credible than theories that the VMS was written by aliens. Indeed, I saw a new alien theory on sci.lang just yesterday. Chances for either forgery or aliens having any validity are zilch. The root cause of forgery and alien theories is the same: the general inability of scholars to say anything sensible and believable regarding the origin and history of the VMS as well as their inability to decode the meaning of its glyphs.

But all that is changing now. With help from the marginalia, it is only a matter of time before someone, perhaps someone from China or Japan, successfully undertakes a second decoding of the VMS whereupon the forgery and alien theories will collapse.

(04-10-2018, 05:40 AM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[quote="-JKP-" pid='22658' dateline='1538619193']


...
JKP, your comment implies that you completely misunderstand my theories. I am not claiming that the VMS was written around 1600 on vellum two centuries old. It makes sense that the VMS would have been written soon after the making of the parchment, circa 1420. It is only the marginalia that was written around 1600 with the purpose of explaining how to go about decoding the manuscript.

...

Morten, that doesn't make any sense. Why would someone trying to EXPLAIN the decoding of the manuscript c. 1600 fake a script-style from the early 15th century?

(04-10-2018, 06:37 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(04-10-2018, 05:40 AM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[quote="-JKP-" pid='22658' dateline='1538619193']
...
JKP, your comment implies that you completely misunderstand my theories. I am not claiming that the VMS was written around 1600 on vellum two centuries old. It makes sense that the VMS would have been written soon after the making of the parchment, circa 1420. It is only the marginalia that was written around 1600 with the purpose of explaining how to go about decoding the manuscript.
...

Morten, that doesn't make any sense. Why would someone trying to EXPLAIN the decoding of the manuscript c. 1600 fake a script-style from the early 15th century?

If the author of the marginalia wanted to remain anonymous (and I'm sure he did), would he write it in a contemporary script of the late 16th century? Suppose Voynich wrote the marginalia. Would he use a 20th-century script?

It is clear that the marginalia was written for people who were familiar with the Nostradamus prophecies (apparently the author wanted it that way) resulting that no one else can make heads or tails of it. And lucky me just happened to be a Nostradamus expert.