The Voynich Ninja

While researching a related topic, I stumbled across a copy of John Wycliffe's (Tractatus) De Ecclesia (1378) in the original Latin, and the edition happened to include an illustration of the first page of the manuscript of the text. I was struck by the way that certain letters and combinations on this ms page resemble certain Voynich ms characters.

Now I am not saying that Wycliffe had any connection to the Voynich ms, not at all. But I do find it interesting that so many letters in this particular style of Latin ms writing look like certain Voynich ms characters.

The first two attachments are the first part of the Wycliffe ms page. The third attachment is the same Latin text in its printed form.

Take a look at the following letters and combinations on the Wycliffe ms page:

A combination that looks like the Voynich [-iin] ending appears in multiple places on this page. For example, 2nd attachment, 3rd line, middle of the line. The actual word is "ipsam", as found in the middle of line 9 of the printed text. The preceding word in the ms looks like "quo" with a curved line over it, but that represents the actual word "quomodo". The following word, which looks like "pfc?" (hard to read the part after "f"), represents the actual word "perfecte".

In the last line of the 2nd attachment, notice the single symbol by itself in the middle of the line. It looks like Voynich [s]! And guess what, Voynich [s] is the only character that frequently appears as a separate word by itself. In this Wycliffe ms, the symbol is an abbreviation for "est", as found in line 16 of the printed text.

In the next-to-last line of the 2nd attachment, the end of the 2nd word looks like Voynich [r]! This ms word represents the actual word "Christus" in line 15 of the printed text.

There are numerous "figure 8" shaped letters on this ms page that look like Voynich [d].

In the 1st attachment, there are several examples of a letter that looks like Voynich [g]: for example, in the middle of the 3rd line. It is the "d" in the word "quiditate", which looks like "quid" with a small superscript abbreviation after it. Believe it or not, that very short 3rd line of the ms represents all of the following actual words: "materia de quiditate ecclesie, et fi"!

At the top of the 1st attachment, in the "title" text, the word in the middle of the 2nd line somehow reminds me of some of the writing on the very last page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of the Voynich ms.

I could go on with further examples. Suffice it to say, many letters in this Wycliffe Latin ms text look like Voynich ms characters.

I can see the c and cc in ecclisie and ecclesia. I didnt expect the s i hadnt come accross that abbreviation yet. Funny coincidence, just saw his name before i read this, in relation to Jan Hus.

Jan Hus took his writings as a model. Together with Hus, the writings of Wycliffe were condemned at the Council of Constance in 1415. Wyclif himself was dead about 30 years. As a result of the council, his body was exhumed and burned. The ashes were scattered in a river.

As Helmut Winkler wrote You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:

(01-02-2019, 06:31 PM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.the Voynich script is most  likely based on a  late Medieval Gothic cursiva

AFAIK, Helmut is the only user in this forum with a formal training in medieval paleography. This example fits well with what he says.

the s symbol is a ligature of final -e and a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (marking that some letters were omitted mid-word):
ecc[les]ie

in the case of xps it appears to be a -c/macron  ligature (xpc is a standard abbreviation for Christus)

Of course you are the first ones who noticed this  

(18-03-2019, 04:13 AM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.While researching a related topic, I stumbled across a copy of John Wycliffe's (Tractatus) De Ecclesia (1378) in the original Latin, and the edition happened to include an illustration of the first page of the manuscript of the text. I was struck by the way that certain letters and combinations on this ms page resemble certain Voynich ms characters.

This copy (Cod. Pal. Vindob. 1294) was transcribed in 1407, by a Bohemian student (source: Dr. Iohann Loserth, 1886 edition, page xvii). English gothic cursive variants are much less reminiscent of Voynichese glyphs it seems.

It's normal Gothic text, Geoffrey.

I have more than 1,300 samples (more than 40,000 individual glyphs) that I have collected over the last decade, that were chosen specifically because they are similar to VMS text (both the text on 116v and the main text).

Except for a couple of the "gallows" chars and the benched chars and a couple of rare chars (which are more similar to Greek than Latin), all the VMS characters are part of the Latin scribal repertoire. Even k is a normal (and common) Latin abbreviation, as are all the glyphs with tails.


I've tried to blog about this, as I have time, but I've posted less than 1% of what I have. Nevertheless, here are some of the blogs:

Intro to y, c-with-tail, etc.: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Latin cc/er/ec/ce ligature: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Latin "tails" and is it dain or ain: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Greek/Latin pilcrows & capitula symbols: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
The VMS q glyph: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Indic-Arabic numerals commonly used in the Middle Ages: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Indic numerals and Greek benched numerals: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Examples of highly abbreviated Latin text: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
ris/tis/cis VMS m: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Examples of Latin "s": You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Latin chars in diplomatic ciphers, and the [font=Eva]qo[/font] combination in Latin text: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Latin ligatures in the context of the claim of Nahuatl: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Older and newer forms of the "squiggle" abbreviation (Latin abbrev.): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I have much much much more info. I'll post when possible.

.
This is just what I could grab quickly for ONE style of abbreviation (the end-tails). The tail was not an embellishment, it was an abbreviation symbol (like an apostrophe) that represents missing letters. Even though this is a small number of examples, it illustrates how this convention was used in a variety of languages. Most of the examples I grabbed are Latin, German, and French, but this convention was also used in Italian, Czech, Spanish, and English manuscripts:



Take a look at the very first example (upper-left). It includes three kinds of abbreviations, the y symbol at the beginning to represent "con", a curved macron in the middle (represents missing letters, like an apostrophe), and the tail at the end (also missing letters). This is not uncommon, to find two or three abbreviation symbols in a single word.

Thank you to everyone who posted additional information. I was not claiming that I had made some kind of significant discovery or that it was original or novel, it was just a striking similarity that I wanted to share.

JKP (and Helmut, Marco, and nablator), I'm curious, if we can identify pretty much almost every Voynich glyph with some kind of standard medieval Latin ms abbreviation or other symbol -- has anyone simply tried to interpret the Voynich ms by directly transcribing every glyph, combination, and word, into all of the Latin letters and combinations that they would represent, according to the standard rules as you describe them here?

Of course I'm sure someone has tried to do this in some way or another, and I'm sure it doesn't create intelligible text in any normal way. But it could still be an interesting exercise, we might learn something from it, and perhaps the "Latin" version of the text could be the basis for further investigation. Just a thought.

(18-03-2019, 12:52 PM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
has anyone simply tried to interpret the Voynich ms by directly transcribing every glyph, combination, and word, into all of the Latin letters and combinations that they would represent, according to the standard rules as you describe them here?
 ...

Yes, I tried this years ago and I'm sure many others have both before and after me since quite a few Voynich researchers know Latin, and Latin is a required course for a number of disciplines (including palaeography). But even taking into consideration common scribal ligatures and abbreviations, the positionality of the VMS text is not like natural language. The 9 abbreviation occurs much too frequently. What's in between the "prefixes" and "suffixes" is too rigid and repetitious.

The text MIGHT be Latin, but not in any normal way. Or it might be another language (or symbolic code) expressed with mostly-Latin characters.

I have done  a transcription myself (at least parts of the ms.) and I think we can match every glyph with either a letter, a number, an abbr. or a combination. Contrary to what many say, the ms. is readable, it is another question what the meaning of the things we read is. I have an opinion, but there is much to be checked, before I talk about it, some of the older research is difficult to get. And contrary to other opinions, I still think we have a form of abbr. Latin