The Voynich Ninja

(05-05-2021, 02:46 PM)Scarecrow Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.All of this, of course, if the VMS was meant to be readable. I have seen so far many reasonings why VMS would not be readable or a hoax, none of them so far convincing. But then again, nothing in VMS is truly convincing. I believe it has a meaning, and not just an intellectual exercise, which is left to the readers.

On the question of whether the VMS makes sense or not, I can only repeat myself at this point. I think if you consider the effort that was spent on the creation of the VMS, then you have to assume that it makes sense. If it were only a few lines of code, then it would be also conceivable that it concerns a hoax. With a whole codex the thing looks however different. What is quite possible is that the content should only be accessible to an "exclusive" group of readers. That is, anyone without the necessary prior knowledge of the writing system should be excluded from the outset. So it was not about the distribution of information / knowledge to everyone who could read but about the transmission from insiders to insiders. The complete absence of any plain text (annotations, marginal notes and so on) reinforces this assumption.

Threads merged.

How I personally see it in terms of this issue.
I see it as a work of a family and, or people in the immediate environment.
It doesn't matter whether it's a doctor or a pharmacist. They all have training in this direction.
For me, it is what I have learned applied to the personal environment.
What do I find in my environment, what do I make of it and how do I apply it.
It is quite possible that there are similarities from other textbooks, but also specific ones from one's own environment.
The text is written accordingly in the local dialect. I don't think the encodings are very complicated, but the understanding of the dialect makes you think. This is what the passages with German text tell me, which constantly leads to discussions but is not encoded.
For me, both are present, a copy (from memory) and my own interpretation.

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I suspect it's a group project, as well.

My top pics are family project, or possibly a group of university students, or possibly some apprentices at a studio.

Thanks Aga for your insights.

Quote:How I personally see it in terms of this issue.
I see it as a work of a family and, or people in the immediate environment.

It is possible, but finding all the skills within the family does not sound so common to my ears. If it was really a family affair, as it surely could have been, my next question would be "why they decide to encode/encrypt" something of family affair in first place?
And following that, why design a custom glyph-set and writing rules for it? As a form of steganography they have learned about somewhere?

Quote:It doesn't matter whether it's a doctor or a pharmacist. They all have training in this direction.
For me, it is what I have learned applied to the personal environment.

I'd argue that doctors and pharmacists in 14th-15th century had much to do with cryptography, nor with steganography. Substitution and transposition ciphers were a known quantity, while polyalphabetic ciphers were not. I am no expert, but I haven't found examples where combination of cryptography and steganography has been used together in one piece of work, like in VMS could be. New set of glyphs (as an attempt of steganography or cryptanalysis avoidance) + encryption (hide the meaning). Maybe even added two ciphers, one main plus a null cipher.
How known those techniques were to 15th century doctors and pharmacists is unknown to me. Still, yes, it is possible that we have here a well educated and curious minded doctor, with a lots of free time and secrets to hide.

Quote:The text is written accordingly in the local dialect. I don't think the encodings are very complicated, but the understanding of the dialect makes you think. This is what the passages with German text tell me, which constantly leads to discussions but is not encoded.
For me, both are present, a copy (from memory) and my own interpretation.

As far as I know, we cannot be sure that those glyphs represent letters at all. We call groups of them as vords. It is a book, so it must be text, is the reasoning. But then many the statistical analysis tools say: maybe not.
Just for fun, think if those glyphs are notes. The whole VMS is really a music book, where the combinations of the glyphs, vords, are played in different speeds or rhythms, together or not, depending what is in the line initial and the first gallows on the page. The illustrations are just for style, fun or describing something about the parts of the concerto. Could it be music? Does it follow the MTTR, first or second entropy, zipf's law? I don't know, but so far, the encoding the family has used has been elusive for a few hundred years. Unlike you, I'd characterize it "very complicated". And just to be clear, I do not think VMS is a music book, an opera, a concerto. I have my own small and think hypothesis what those glyphs represent, and possibly that leads to text, but that is for later times.

Thanks Aga!

(06-05-2021, 12:06 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I suspect it's a group project, as well.

My top pics are family project, or possibly a group of university students, or possibly some apprentices at a studio.

A family project I could agree, but what level of family we should have to be able to produce VMS? Not a plain common family I would think.
University students maybe had access to the required techniques and knowledge, but skills and resources.. no idea. The complexity of the VMS especially in some parts, doesn't look like student's best pass time to me. Same goes for apprentices. I see some more coherent complexity in the VMS, that students and apprentices did not have potential to do. Just an opinion.

Thanks!

You have to go back in time to the Middle Ages.
Recipes were a secret, and still are today.
Coca Cola would never tell you their recipe. Even Appenzeller cheese is a well-kept secret. Uwe Ochsenknecht tried for years.
Saying: My grandmother's secret cake recipe....
The patent office didn't exist yet.
For ordinary citizens, Latin was already enough, and only very few could read.
There are enough reasons for Heimlich and Co.

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scarecrow Wrote:A family project I could agree, but what level of family we should have to be able to produce VMS? Not a plain common family I would think.

Plain common families didn't know how to read or write. I can't remember the exact figure for the early 15th century, but I think about 85% of the population (or maybe more) was illiterate.


I even read that many of the illustrators could not read or write (I don't know how reliable the source was, but there was quite a bit of division of labor in the manuscript studios and scriptoria).

The printing press changed this. A manuscript could easily cost a year's wages (for a professional person, not a wealthy person). The printing press created mass market books that were accessible to more people but this revolution was a century after the VMS radio-carbon dating.

(06-05-2021, 12:06 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I suspect it's a group project, as well.

My top pics are family project, or possibly a group of university students, or possibly some apprentices at a studio.

Another possibility is a team of scribes or clerks working in the service of and under the direction of a wealthy noble person or family. This may or may not overlap with the "wealthy family project" idea.