The Voynich Ninja

Since approximately eight months I followed a theory, originally discussed by Prof. Stephen Bax and Derek Vogt, who suggested that Voynichese could be related to Romani or Old Romani and added my own findings, which came from the Basque language, to this.

[font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]After this, I think, the Voynichese could be a relative of the so called "Erromintxela", the Creol of Basque and Kalderash (a Romani dialect).

I´ve therefore did a comparison of the my and their suggested Voynichese sounds with the actual Erromintxela phonetic inventory. And it turns out, that all known Erromintxela sounds would be covered by the Voynich glyphs. Also there are seven more sounds (two accompanied vowels, and five consonants) in the Voynichese, that filled some unusual gaps. As it seems, two of came from the Arabic, two from the Basque, two from the Spanish and one from the Hindi language.[/font]

But there are some irregularities:

[font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Concerning the vowels it´ s possible, that their use is not as straight as for example in English. There seem to be two main vowels, which can be accompanied by consonants, like "al/ar" in Arabic and "el" in Spanish. The consonants can stand in front or behind the vowels. So "ar" could also turn into "ra" depending on the context. As far as I can say for the moment, the connected consonants (n,l,r, and final sch) are all apico- alveolar except the finishing bilabial "m".

If two coronal consonants of the same type are standing on the end of a word, each of them is seemingly followed by a vowel.

The "k" may exist in an initial form and a final form.

Also there two special rules with the "h", as it seems:
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1. If a standard "h" followes "n", "l" or initial "k", or is followed by a closed vowel, it turns into "her" or "har" or "hir" or similar constructions with an "n" if it is standing next to an "n". If a standard "h" followes "p" it turns into "q". If a standard "h" followes "b" it turns into "v".
   

[font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]       2. If an "h" (with an hamza above) followes a Plosive, it aspirates the Plosive (for example "p" turns into "ph").

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[font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]That´s quite strange even to me.[/font]

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[font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]With my findings, in the meantime, I have checked two other theories of Andres Eloy Martinez Rojas (folio 68r3 shows the circular solar eclipse of April 15th, 1409) and Tom E. O'Neil (folio 68r3 shows Halley´s Comet in 1910) and as you can see it turns out, that the eclipse theory seems to be much more likely than the Halley´s Comet theory.

I´ve found eleven stars and a mythological being which were next to the position of the eclipse in 1409: [/font]

[font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]1a.) the dragon of the eclipse, a well known demon in Asian cultures, [/font]
[font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]1b.) the Pleiades and Aldebaran in Taurus[/font]
[font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]2. two stars in Andromeda[/font]
[font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]3. one star in Aries and two in Pisces, [/font]
[font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]4. four stars which today belong to Eridanus, Fornax and Cetus, but could be one constellation in older times, which was maybe called Elephant.

For me at least this chart is an hint that Voynichese is a real language and is authentic for the early 15th century, when the Romani people came to Spain.

What I can´t refute is the possibility, that the VMS could also be a work by the Arabic conquistadors of the Iberian Peninsula, but their connection with the Basque people wasn´t very tight. So for me its more unlikely, than the Old Romani origin.[/font]
By the way, the plant names, which Bax transcribed in his essays and presentations and my phonetic inventory are different from each other. But it seems, that my transcription is a little more precise than the transcription of Bax.

[font='Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]I´m ready for your opinions![/font]

Hi Gavin! 
Well you've certainly put some work into this. 
It requires some more careful thought. 
A few questions off the top of my head. 
- you've transliterated the upper right corner in two completely different ways. However in Voynichese the only difference is the addition of one glyph. Why is this? 
-we're seeing words from both Persian and babylonia being included. Is this really feasible?
-okor appears over You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the corpus, throughout the manuscript. Is it feasible that it always means the name of this one star?

(21-09-2019, 07:09 AM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi Gavin! 
Well you've certainly put some work into this. 
It requires some more careful thought. 
A few questions off the top of my head. 
1. you've transliterated the upper right corner in two completely different ways. However in Voynichese the only difference is the addition of one glyph. Why is this? 
2. we're seeing words from both Persian and babylonia being included. Is this really feasible?
3. okor appears over You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the corpus, throughout the manuscript. Is it feasible that it always means the name of this one star?

Hello David,

thank you for your thoughts. It seems, that they brought me a step further in thinking.

Coming to your questions:

1.) We have okor and otory in the upper right corner of 68r3, so we have two different letters not only one.   

As I tried to explain above. Depending from which original language the word did came from and from its position in the word, the open and half- open vowels, â (EVA- a) and a, e, o (EVA- o) can change into a vowel- consonant- harmony, like "al" (initial), "ar", "or", "ro", "ara" (central) or "an" and "as" (final, marked by EVA- y). 

And even consonants like "k" can vary their glyph shape, depending on their position, so the initial "k" has the same EVA- glyph (k) as the "gn- sound". And final EVA- r, seems to correlate sometimes also with "rr/ch" like- sound as we know it for example from the spanish word "perro"  So we have the following reading of the 68r3 examples:

(EVA- letter / transcription- letter / letter in Arabic)

for okor: (o/al/al) + (k/gn/m) + (o/a/â) + (r/rr/ch)
for otory: (o/al/al) + (t/p/f) + (o/ar/ar) + (y/as/as)

2.) 

If we follow the Basque - Romani theory, we have to consider, that both languages had different connections to other languages. So we could do the following summary of correlating languages until the 15th century:

for Basque: Spanish, French, Arabic/ Mozarabic, Celtic
for Romani: Sanskrit, Persian, Armenian, Turkic, Greek (Byzanz Empire)

So all words which we can follow back to these language are possible loan words.

In the one case of possible Babylonic origin, I should mention, that this word is a very old one, which we can found even in the Arabic name of the star. And the word "fish" itself is a word which exists since the earliest time of human history. So it might came with Punic people to the Basque. We don´t know. In the mean time I have found another (Turkic) word for a VMS- star connected to Mesopotamia.  

3.) The word "algnarr" for the caracal (almaach) is quite strange in comparison to the other Voynich- words. But there is maybe an explanation. The Voynichese seems to have a final- m- glyph (EVA- z, which is a small version of EVA- k), but an initial- m or a central- m seemingly is missing, so the EVA- k- letter could be used for that. So "okor" could read as "almarr" or "almaach" and at least depending on the context as akar(a) (= black) or al- kar(a) (=(burst of) buds) according to this book dealing with the indoeuropean word history:

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What I want to say is, that if I´m right, we cannot do any statistics about the VMS at the moment. We think "okor" appears 100 times as the same word, with the same meaning, but word meanings can change even with writing the same word depending on the context. 

A good example for this phenomenon is "bank". In English it can be used as "bank of money" or "bank of a river" and even a "bench" is existing there.

And then you have such a writing system as the Voynichese one. For me it is clear, after nobody could read this book, the alphabet became a case for the shredder. It simply doesn´t work. At least not in a way without interpreting words while reading them.

I hope you can follow my thoughts.

That word that appears over 100 times translates as "baby/infant" in Hebrew.

(21-09-2019, 03:24 PM)Monica Yokubinas Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That word that appears over 100 times translates as "baby/infant" in Hebrew.

Do you have any proof, that the whole VMS is written in Hebrew? 

Until now I have found only one hebrew word on folio 68r3 which maybe is an old name for "Antares", in EVA: (dolchidy), transcripted Voynichese: "tashchitan", from Hebrew "tashchit".

Nothing more, although I would expect some Hebrew related words in the VMS, but it´s definitely not Hebrew, if my system is correct.

Gavin, you should take a look at Monica's transliterations and translations. Whether or not you agree with them, they are consistent and the transliterations are repeatable by anyone who pays attention to how she is doing it.

(21-09-2019, 03:46 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Gavin, you should take a look at Monica's transliterations and translations. Whether or not you agree with them, they are consistent and the transliterations are repeatable by anyone who pays attention to how she is doing it.

-JKP- Wrote:  [url=https://www.voynich.ninja/post-27213.html#pid27213][/url]
Monica, I'm having trouble with the f68 star chart.

You transliterated doaro as rasna (ראסנא), but your Hebrew letters underneath (רצה) don't match.

The next one oalcheol as aszyf az, but your Hebrew letters ( אז אסף) don't quite match this either (should be אז אסזייף).


A lot of them on this section don't match and I've noticed several of them, if they are transliterated according to your system do not match any Hebrew words.

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]

[/font]

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]I know her translation attempts. She did some good work with the plants I think, but as far as I can say, she - like all of us -, did not understand the manuscript.[/font]

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]As it seems her transcriptions don´t seem to fit for prosaic texts AND labeling words in the VMS. You´ve tried to repeat them and got another result.  [/font]

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]This manuscript has highly complex writing conventions. Given, that my substitution cipher is correct, and I don´t think, that everything is right, I´ve found some general orthography and grammar rules, but only a few, at it seems. There are far more of them hidden in the VMS. When I have finished the summary of the most important orthography rules, I will publish them. But even now (without knowing all rules), you can try to repeat my system and you will see, that you can at least reproduce the words I have transcribed.[/font]

(21-09-2019, 04:23 PM)Gavin Güldenpfennig Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(21-09-2019, 03:46 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Gavin, you should take a look at Monica's transliterations and translations. Whether or not you agree with them, they are consistent and the transliterations are repeatable by anyone who pays attention to how she is doing it.

-JKP- Wrote:  [url=https://www.voynich.ninja/post-27213.html#pid27213][/url]
Monica, I'm having trouble with the f68 star chart.

You transliterated doaro as rasna (ראסנא), but your Hebrew letters underneath (רצה) don't match.

The next one oalcheol as aszyf az, but your Hebrew letters ( אז אסף) don't quite match this either (should be אז אסזייף).


A lot of them on this section don't match and I've noticed several of them, if they are transliterated according to your system do not match any Hebrew words.

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]

[/font]

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]I know her translation attempts. She did some good work with the plants I think, but as far as I can say, she - like all of us -, did not understand the manuscript.[/font]

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]As it seems her transcriptions don´t seem to fit for prosaic texts AND labeling words in the VMS. You´ve tried to repeat them and got another result.  [/font]

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]This manuscript has highly complex writing conventions. Given, that my substitution cipher is correct, and I don´t think, that everything is right, I´ve found some general orthography and grammar rules, but only a few, at it seems. There are far more of them hidden in the VMS. When I have finished the summary of the most important orthography rules, I will publish them. But even now (without knowing all rules), you can try to repeat my system and you will see, that you can at least reproduce the words I have transcribed.[/font]

I cannot give the words Prose, since the language is still unknown. I can however tell you that it is a Semitic language, and i utilize the Hebrew to gain an understanding of the words conveyed. It is in a VSO order, it is phonetically based (which is why the glyphs are elongated in some words) it is agglutinative (either for magical purposes or how the language was spoken) and it uses glottal stops. Those star charts were a first attempt, and i already translated them using Arabic, Hebrew, Syrian and Persian. The Latin translations of the Arabic, were corrupted and that is why some stars are still unknown.

(21-09-2019, 07:17 PM)Monica Yokubinas Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I cannot give the words Prose, since the language is still unknown. I can however tell you that it is a Semitic language, and i utilize the Hebrew to gain an understanding of the words conveyed. It is in a VSO order, it is phonetically based (which is why the glyphs are elongated in some words) it is agglutinative (either for magical purposes or how the language was spoken) and it uses glottal stops. Those star charts were a first attempt, and i already translated them using Arabic, Hebrew, Syrian and Persian. The Latin translations of the Arabic, were corrupted and that is why some stars are still unknown.

For me it´s clear, that a semitic language is involved, because we both read words from semitic languages. Do you have a list of the star names you have translated until now? I think I have found some stars, which does´t have arabic or hebrew names. May we could fill our gaps with the work of each other? I have used the numeration from Derek Vogt:

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The agglutinative aspect in the VMS could came from the agglutinative Basque language. Syrian and Persian connections I have found, too.

(21-09-2019, 07:51 PM)Gavin Güldenpfennig Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(21-09-2019, 07:17 PM)Monica Yokubinas Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I cannot give the words Prose, since the language is still unknown. I can however tell you that it is a Semitic language, and i utilize the Hebrew to gain an understanding of the words conveyed. It is in a VSO order, it is phonetically based (which is why the glyphs are elongated in some words) it is agglutinative (either for magical purposes or how the language was spoken) and it uses glottal stops. Those star charts were a first attempt, and i already translated them using Arabic, Hebrew, Syrian and Persian. The Latin translations of the Arabic, were corrupted and that is why some stars are still unknown.

For me it´s clear, that a semitic language is involved, because we both read words from semitic languages. Do you have a list of the star names you have translated until now? I think I have found some stars, which does´t have arabic or hebrew names. May we could fill our gaps with the work of each other? I have used the numeration from Derek Vogt:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The agglutinative aspect in the VMS could came from the agglutinative Basque language. Syrian and Persian connections I have found, too.

I have a paper on Academia.Edu it you would like to look it up for Quire 9, i have to add the last 2 pages. I cannot add the link here, as it keeps messing up. Sorry for the inconvenience. The 2 main star charts, show a good time of the year vs a bad time of the year. Also I forgot to mention that I do not use the EVA system, i use a very old Hebrew script, so the letters are different that what is conveyed in the EVA letters.