The Voynich Ninja

Hello VMS community,

after fighting some Brythonic dragons  ...

... I´m back with a new idea.

We all have thoughts about the VMS manuscript. Some are good, some are bullshit. But all are useful for making progress. Even my old theories about the VMS, "that it could be written in Basque" and "...in Gaulish / Galatian". 

They were surely wrong, as some of you expected and as I know today, but I learned a lot about the manuscript and its way through the history even after working for 10 years on the VMS. 

Let us summarize, what we have...

Facts about the VMS:

* it was written in the early 15th century
* but: we do not know for sure, if it is a "new" text or a copy of an older one
* someone sold the VMS manuscript to Rudolf II.
* some Jesuits tried to solve the VMS puzzle
* the Jesuits tried to "domesticate" the Celtic initial mutations in writing (for example in Breton language)
* Voynich bought the VMS in Italy around 1912
* Voynich´s wife was from Ireland
* there is a litte dragon on folio 25v
* there is a drawing of four beings on folio 86r, which could be inspired by the Book of Revelation
* there is a drawing of a (naked) woman in the upper left corner of folio 82v, which gives us (if my reading is correct) the word cluster y-ƒar(i)∂ín (otechdy)

You see a tendency, where the VMS text could come from? Right, the (former) Celtic part of the British Isles. Or being more precise...

... the Hen Ogledd or even Pictland!

That would even explain the naked women, because the Picts ... were Picts ... and they extensively use cauldrons.  

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The word "y-ƒar(i)∂ín" {ə-ƒarᶦðʲn} could be a key for understanding the language. 

A main figure of the Welsh mythology is the witch "Carridwen". One of her attributes is a cauldron. So maybe her name could mean something like "the women (in Welsh: "dynes") of the cauldron (in reconstructed Proto-Celtic: *kʷaryos)". If that is true, and if ƒ is a labialized "k"- sound, we could have her original name "Kwaridín" in the VMS. 

The "y" could be something like an article.

To check this theory I have done some work with the star map on 68r1 again. And now I´m further than ever before with understanding the map. But the ƒ did different things during transcribing the map, while all other letters are very consistent in their sound value, and even follow some modern Celtic orthography- sound- rules. 

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1.) ƒ arises, when we expect a {p} like in "pajenn" (Brezhoneg: side)
2.) ƒ arises, when we expect a labialized {ʷ} ... {k, g, h} like in *kʷaryos
3.) ƒ arises, when we expect a {ɬ} like in Welsh "ll" or Arabic h-sounds or š

What does this mean?

I don´t really know, but...

The ƒ is used for labialized sounds. That´s sure, if my reconstruction is correct.

Also Derek Vogt mentioned before in his video series about a possible VMS- Romani connection, that there seems to be no sign of a "l- sound" in the Voynich language. But maybe that´s the point. The ƒ could have been used for laterals, too. It really seems to be its main function.

And what is even more exciting. It seems to be a possibility to write a "p".

The Celtic language family is divided into the P- & Q- Celtic branches. Celtic {p} and {k} are reflexes of the Indoeuropean sound {k[font=Arial]ʷ}.[/font]

Could have been their a third branch with an {[font=-webkit-standard][font=Liberation Serif, serif][font=Times New Roman, serif]ł[/font][/font]}- reflex. Could this be the real ancestor of modern Welsh?[/font]

I will further work on it and I´m ready for discussion and your thoughts.   

PS: I have developed a Voynichese Phonetic System. But I´m unsure with some sound additions because of the small but Celtic word inventory I have translated, so I will finish this while coming translations. But what I can say is, that there are similarities to the known Celtic phonetic inventories. 

The Voynichese phonetic system seems to be divided in to three main articulation areas (Labial - Coronal - Velar) and it uses palatalized and labialized (as velarization in Old Irish) coronal sounds.   

There is no evidence that Dee sold *any* book to Rudolf.
If that is a proposed link to a Welsh, Pict or Cornish influence to the Voynich MS, it should be removed from the list.

There is also no evidence at all that either Dee or Kelly saw the MS before of after it was sold to Rudolf.

I have deleted the points about John Dee. I think that there is a connection to him, but I'm not sure. ? Wenn shouldn't believe all what we read.

The connection is that Watson, a respected palaeographer, was quite certain that the VMS foliation was by Dee, but I have been investigating this (and other aspects of the palaeography), for over ten years and have located a few examples of numerals that are as similar or more similar to the VMS foliation than Dee's handwriting, which means we cannot be certain that it was John Dee's handwriting.

I can see the basis for Watson's opinion. Dee's handwriting is close to the foliation, but so are a few others.


Some people thought the book of "hieroglyphics" (which was a more general term then than it is now for unfamiliar scripts) might have been a reference to the VMS but historians think that this was probably the Book of Soyga, not the VMS.

We know that Kelley had some kind of interaction with the emperor (not a positive one, since he was imprisoned with instructions to create a reference), but I don't know if he had an actual audience with the emperor or if this was done through intermediaries. It's quite possible that Dee never had an audience with the emperor. Surely he would have recorded it as he recorded events on almost a daily basis. Dee did not receive patronage from the emperor and ended up in Trebon under the hospitality of another nobleman.

I think the critter on 25v is disputable, it's not clearly drawn, but after collecting hundreds of medieval dragon-drawings, I think the VMS critter probably is meant to be a flower-tail dragon. What it is doing, we don't even know. Is it tasting the plant, smelling the plant, or pulling the plant, or is it indicating something about the use or the name of the plant?

Dragons were used for many things in the Middle Ages. They were used to indicate toxicity or heat, or to indicate something that was used to ameliorate burns or bites in numerous manuscripts with plants, or for dozens of other reasons in both religious and secular texts, heraldry, sculpture, and textile crafts.

Sometimes they were purely decorative. There's one herbal manuscript where there are dragons on almost every folio (including folios with plants that were not depicted with dragons in the exemplars). The illustrator obviously liked drawing dragons and wasn't giving them the usual mnemonic significance.

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On many pictures the dragon can be seen in pharmacies. Crocodiles were also hung up.
I think the dragon is already something like a trademark of the guild pharmacists.

Whether it has something to do with St. George or with the serpent bearer in the zodiac sign I cannot say.
But the serpent bearer in Scorpio stands for the snake on a staff, and is the symbol for medicine and doctors.
But we've been through all that before.