Diane O'Donovan has a new blog that I was not aware of until very recently (Nick Pelling alluded to it on his blog).
In it, she wrote:
"I’ve recently seen it asserted, with no evidence offered and my request for directions to the original argument refused with some vigour, that someone has argued a case for considering inscription of the German (and only the German) marginalia so closely contemporary with the rest of the work that we should believe the whole manuscript to be, in some sense, a product of German culture."
She did not identify who wrote (or said) this and I've never seen anyone assert this (nor have I seen anyone refuse directions to an argument "with some vigour").
Has anyone else seen a recent assertion that "the inscription of the German... marginalia" means "we should believe the whole manuscript to be... a product of German culture"?
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I'm fairly certain that an argument like this was used with some regularity around the time I started VM research like 3 years ago. Bur that's not recent, and I can't recall the who, where and why of it.
Anyway it would be a weird conclusion since the month names are in French. So I believe perceived German in the marginalia can only be used as a supplementary argument, not a main one.
It has been argued (certainly by me, and without much doubt by numerous others) that most of the marginalia were originally by the same hand (though not the zodiac hand). There is also a weak case (from the 'p' in 'pm9') that the early quire numbers were by this same hand.
It has further been argued by others (but not by me) that the apparent presence of Voynichese in the You are not allowed to view links.
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I don't know of anyone arguing for a German origin from the apparent German fragments in the marginalia. To look for am underlying language for f116v, it could perhaps be argued that you should start from the "ahia + maria" fragment, which I don't believe is to be found in anyone's German dictionary. :-)
Philip Neal once pointed out that the (supposed) German fragments in You are not allowed to view links.
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Hi JKP,
I've just visited the link you posted but I guess the post has been changed: the part you quote no longer appears.
This person is in the habit of misrepresenting and misquoting others, and has been banned from almost every voynich platform for trolling, so in any case I wouldn't worry about her nonsense too much.
Thank you, Koen, Nick and VViews.
The statement didn't ring true for me in terms of what I've read on the forum or on blogs, but there are gaps in my knowledge of what was said in the more distant past and your comments have helped fill in some of the holes.
The "German culture" is perhaps something more or less vague, but I think it can be spoken of "in some sense".
For me, the main argument in favour of that would be not the alleged contemporariness (is that the right word?) of the inscription (which may prove true on the ground of paleography), but just the plain fact that the German text incorporates Voynichese in a seamless way. This just means that the person who knew Voynichese used to use German in his everyday life to the extent that he favoured it for his marginalia.
So either German was his everyday language, or he was massively involved in working with German texts. Like, oftentimes I leave marginalia in English when I work with English texts (technical documentation, for example).
This blatant fact is too often just somehow strangely overlooked.
VViews, please abstain from language like "someone's nonsense", that's not welcome as per our policy: You are not allowed to view links.
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[quote="Anton" pid='24999' dateline='1551437396']
The "German culture" is perhaps something more or less vague, but I think it can be spoken of "in some sense".
For me, the main argument in favour of that would be not the alleged contemporariness (is that the right word?) of the inscription (which may prove true on the ground of paleography), but just the plain fact that the German text incorporates Voynichese in a seamless way. This just means that the person who knew Voynichese used to use German in his everyday life to the extent that he favoured it for his marginalia.
So either German was his everyday language, or he was massively involved in working with German texts. Like, oftentimes I leave marginalia in English when I work with English texts (technical documentation, for example).
This blatant fact is too often just somehow strangely overlooked.
There is a similar mixture of German and Voynichese on 66r and I would draw the same conclusions
(01-03-2019, 09:26 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Here is the URL:
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Non sequitur, but I like the German cloudband pic posted there (brit lib ms 23435 f3r), reminds me of the double cloudband rosette, except the little circles, here as stars i guess, are on the inside and the facing fish tails are instead facing crescents.
(01-03-2019, 11:49 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The "German culture" is perhaps something more or less vague, but I think it can be spoken of "in some sense".
For me, the main argument in favour of that would be...
[deleted for brevity]
Anton, thank you.
I don't know if this is was what Diane was referring to, but I would much rather hear the original version than to read it as an unattributed reference on a blog.