The Voynich Ninja

Morten St George,

Let me give you examples of words finishing by "m" and looking like "z".

It's easy with latin words.

Here are two examples from a dictionary of latin abbreviations (lexicon abbreviaturum)
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(26-11-2018, 08:50 AM)DONJCH Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not only have VMS characters been converted to ASCII, but it is possible to use them on this site.

Thanks. I didn't know that. If you don't mind, please insert a few VMS symbols into the Latin text of your next post so that I can see what it looks like.

I tried to insert a VMS symbol into this post while writing it in my word processor. On the Insert Special Character menu, I was presented with thousands of symbols to insert, but I could not find any VMS symbols among them. Of course, I could have briefly switched to a VMS font but then, I imagine, no one would be able to read it except perhaps for a few people that happened to have that same VMS font installed on their computer.

Before asking Microsoft to include VMS symbols in Windows fonts, it would be helpful to first create a good set of VMS symbols. I saw a font called EVA that has nearly two hundred VMS symbols but it it is surely too cumbersome for practical use: it was utter madness to turn every stray mark and handwriting slip into a separate VMS symbol.

There's another font called Currier Hand A which is excellent using no more than roughly 30 symbols. After adding eight or so Hand B symbols from page 57v and one or two overlooked combos, we could send it off to Microsoft.

(26-11-2018, 02:11 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't know why you keep disagreeing with me on very simple aspects of reading medieval manuscripts. I read them every day. You haven't even learned to recognize the basic letters yet. You need to learn some fundamentals before you start trying to read the text. In the long run it will be more satisfying than making it up as you go along and wasting so much time going down the wrong road.

It's true that I wasn't very good at reading medieval manuscripts a year ago but I'm much better at it now. You've taught me well.

You acknowledge that the handwriting on the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the same as seen on f116v, and everyone agrees that the marginalia on page 116 is a mixture of Latin letters and VMS symbols. Then, why are you so vehemently opposed to the possibility of VMS symbols appearing on page 17?

Did you ever ask yourself why the author decided to put marginalia on the top of page 17 and not on some other page? Are you able to link anything whatsoever in that marginalia with the plant drawing below?

The answer has to be the great big number "17" just to the right of the marginalia. Seventeen is the number of symbols in the transliteration alphabet repeated four times on f57v. Thus, in a debate on whether the characters under the bar are Latin letters or VMS symbols, I'd choose the VMS symbols without question.

Here's your "cm" (under the bar) followed by the two glyphs (from the transliteration alphabet on f57v) that I believe was the author's true intention:



Cryptographic handwriting was extremely rare in the late Middle Ages because virtually everything was written by Roman Catholics who, being in charge of the Inquisition, had no reason to be deceptive or evasive. Thus, you should realize that you might not have as much relevant experience as you think.

Quote:You acknowledge that the handwriting on the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the same as seen on f116v, and everyone agrees that the marginalia on page 116 is a mixture of Latin letters and VMS symbols. Then, why are you so vehemently opposed to the possibility of VMS symbols appearing on page 17?

Huh?

I have no idea what you are talking about.

I'm not opposed to interpreting some of the glyphs at the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as Voynich glyphs. There are two of them, towards the center and right that LOOK like Voynich glyphs.

But the end of luc'm is not a Voynich glyph. It doesn't look like any of the Voynich glyphs, it looks like plain old normal ordinary Latin glyphs. Common ones.

Quote:Cryptographic handwriting was extremely rare in the late Middle Ages because virtually everything was written by Roman Catholics who, being in charge of the Inquisition, had no reason to be deceptive or evasive. Thus, you should realize that you might not have as much relevant experience as you think.

That's not true at all. I constantly come across cryptographic writing in manuscripts. Not only did they frequently use substitution codes (especially one in which only the vowels are substituted), they liked to insert anacrostics into the text as well.

They also liked to hide their names in the text near the end of manuscripts. Monks were supposed to be humble, so in some sects, you weren't allowed to show vanity by signing your work, but after laboring for months or years over a long manuscript, some monks simply couldn't resist, so they would code their names into one of the end paragraphs. Some have been discovered and there are probably many more that haven't been deciphered yet.

Codes were also found in documents with alchemical references.


There was nothing uncommon about ciphers in the Middle Ages. What was rare was difficult ciphers. Most of them were simple substitution codes or first-letter anacrostics. Also rare were manuscripts where there was a lot of cipher text (usually it's just a small amount), but they do exist.

(26-11-2018, 07:26 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Did you ever ask yourself why the author decided to put marginalia on the top of page 17 and not on some other page? Are you able to link anything whatsoever in that marginalia with the plant drawing below?

The answer has to be the great big number "17" just to the right of the marginalia. Seventeen is the number of symbols in the transliteration alphabet repeated four times on f57v. Thus, in a debate on whether the characters under the bar are Latin letters or VMS symbols, I'd choose the VMS symbols without question.

That's the page number. It has been added in a later hand (probably after 1470 and before 1640 based on the number style and type of pen).

The person who created the VMS probably did not assign page numbers or know what they were going to be. That was usually done by later owners who took the leaves to a bindery to have them bound. There's evidence that the manuscript may not have been bound in the order originally intended (especially in the nymphy sections) and my own research shows that the plants may have been re-arranged, as well.

The person who wrote the marginalia used 15th-century script. So the marginalia may have added long before the manuscript was numbered and bound. In the Middle Ages, manuscripts were usually purchased (or given to their patrons) unbound and usually un-numbered, as well, since the creator didn't know how many extra leaves would be added to the beginning and end and in between sections. The binder's assistant or apprentice was probably the one adding the numbers. There is evidence of division of labor in added page numbers.

If you look at the Vatican manuscripts and the St. Gall manuscripts, you will see that many of them were foliated in the same hand, with the same writing implement, in a style that is much later than the original manuscripts (which were all from different time periods). This is not unusual, many manuscripts went unbound for a long time, or were refoliated and rebound. The VMS also shows signs of having been rebound.

(26-11-2018, 07:49 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But the end of luc'm is not a Voynich glyph. It doesn't look like any of the Voynich glyphs, it looks like plain old normal ordinary Latin glyphs. Common ones.

I just fixed the graphic in my last post so please go back to see what I was talking about. Thanks.

Morten, I don't know what to say.



Your example shows a long-cee plus medieval "z" or rotated-m on the left and a Voynich character on the right and the two do not look the same at all.

I can't comprehend how you could think these two shapes are similar. There's no way that the c and Voynich char would be combined to look like that. That's not how they combined letters.

Look at the "z" shape on the left. It has two bumps. The Voynich char on the right does not have two bumps and still wouldn't have two bumps if it were ligatured to the c.

(26-11-2018, 08:08 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Morten, I don't know what to say.



Your example shows a long-cee plus medieval "z" or rotated-m on the left and a Voynich character on the right and the two do not look the same at all.

I can't comprehend how you could think these two shapes are similar. There's no way that the c and Voynich char would be combined to look like that. That's not how they combined letters.

Look at the "z" shape on the left. It has two bumps. The Voynich char on the right does not have two bumps and still wouldn't have two bumps if it were ligatured to the c.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Are you claiming that there is just one character underneath the bar in the marginalia, a rotated m, or two characters, the letter c plus a rotated m? If there are two characters, where does the c end the m begins? It looks like a continuous line from the c to me. Please look at Paris' z above: the z (rotated m) requires a start line. As for the second bump in the glyph, it's there but faint, but more distinct in other instances of that glyph. In the depiction to the right of the c in the marginalia, the interior of this glyph is blurred or colored in.