The Voynich Ninja

Several interpretations for the same symbol - it seems to be an eternal problem in solutions, including mine. From time to time, I try to rebuild my interpretations in such a way as to minimize variability, that is, excessive liberty in interpreting the text. But, no matter how I change the meaning, half of the words are obtained, the other half - no. 
I conducted Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, English, French, Latin interpretation experiments, but all of them didn't look working, unfortunately. However, I still believe in Latin theory, or rather, Roman languages group theory.

Hmm, while I am more comfortable with English than with German, the German text is far more readable. I dare say that the translation was not made by a native English speaker.

I have not re-read it all, but I note a major issue in the beginning (p.11 in the German version), that the MS is supposed to be from 1400 to 1520, according to expert opinion.

No sources are quoted for this.
The upper limit is much higher than what the experts I know are saying.
It should be closer to 1450 or even 1440.

Many thanks for the comments and suggestions. I would like to go into some points below, especially the question raised by MarcoP about the 3 criteria "What Will It Take to Solve the Voynich Manuscript?"
 
1) An acceptable proposal must be consistent with the realities of the object itself.
 
In the 15th century, a well-stocked library consisted mostly of manuscripts from various periods and regions. Accordingly, a reader of these works came across various applications and forms of Latin abbreviations, depending on the region and age from which the works originated. These different systems, which are now being intensively researched and systematized, probably caused readers some headaches even then. If we now assume (as I do) that the author of the Voynich manuscript was deliberately looking for a coding system that was as complex and confusing as possible, it is precisely this reality of the multiplicity of different abbreviations that has become the brilliant idea behind his code. In this respect, the method fits in perfectly with the circumstances of the time.
 
On the other hand, the reverse conclusion, repeatedly expressed as criticism, that a solution to the Voynich code must be based exclusively on the circumstances of Latin manuscripts of the XVth century, is not admissible. Then the text would have been unencrypted and readable by anyone in the 15th century.
 
2) An acceptable solution must be the result of a sound and explicable methodology that is logical and repeatable.
 
I fully agree with this statement, but again, the criticism of my presented solution based on this is not correct in my opinion. Yes, ambiguities do result, and I am not the only one who considers a 1:1 assignment of characters to be impossible due to the structure of the Voynich text.  So ambiguities are inevitable. But: The ambiguity arises exclusively in the back-translation. If one "turns around" the translation guide I have drawn up, i.e. takes it as a coding key, the same character sequence will always result for each word. The method does not allow the arbitrary use of characters for a specific Latin word. The coding can always be repeated with the same result. Only when recoding, ambiguities occur - but this is the case in the entire medieval manuscript system up to a certain degree (see also my quite detailed comments on the difference between ambiguity and arbitrariness in the original text). Partly still open, however, is an exact rule at which position of the word endings was abbreviated in each case (see next point on the open questions of grammar).
 
Conclusion: The method I presented is logical and repeatable, but (inevitably) only in one direction of coding.
 
3) An acceptable proposal must result in a reading that makes sense semantically, chronologically, and logically.
 
Maybe I am too optimistic, but of all the solutions I have seen so far, the results of my approach are, despite all ambiguity, highly plausible, consistent and logical. I do not know of any other work that actually results in botanical explanations, where botanical explanations would be expected due to the world of images. The conclusions from the translation of folio 71r also seem more than plausible to me.
 
However, since I am not an expert in Latin, I have taken the path of greatest possible transparency in the remaining difficulties to derive grammatically correct sentences. My hope was and is that here in the forum there will be experts who constructively push forward a further development, improvement and correction of gaps and errors in my basic work. I think it will be worthwhile.
 
To two aspects of detail @ JKP: 1. "We always encounter this written character at the beginning of a word only in very short words.": This was not the letter o, but the letter a. Of course “o” occurs in many long words at the beginning of a word.
2. contari and percontari can both be found in Latin dictionaries for "inquire". This is not a word invention of mine.

(05-07-2020, 11:53 AM)PaulW Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My hope was and is that here in the forum there will be experts who constructively push forward a further development, improvement and correction of gaps and errors in my basic work.

I very often read this from people who claim to have translated the Voynich. Why can't you push forward? The more complete your translations, the more scope you will have for persuading people. If your latin isn't good enough then you will have to work on improving it. So many people claim to have translated a small bit of the manuscript and expect others to be persuaded by their very lose translations and then continue their work.

If I am satisfied that I have a method of decipherment of the Voynich, I cannot see myself rushing to the Ninja forum for assistance in continuing my decipherment, but then that is probably me.

It is quite usual for people with a proposed solution, who are looking for feedback, to primarily expect positive feedback. When the feedback is negative (and this can still be constructive), this is somehow not acceptable.

People also often develop a 'blind spot', specifically with respect to their 'plain text'.  Most of the time these are unconnected sentences that don't make any sense, but the proposer of the solution just does not see this and considers it meaningful.
A classical example is in the Hauer and Kondrak paper, for the opening sentence of the MS:
"She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people".

I think that there has been plenty of "further development, improvement and correction of gaps and errors in my basic work" but with the caveat that this primarily pointed to problems, and there is no great feeling that this solution is generally going in the right direction.

(05-07-2020, 11:53 AM)PaulW Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
...
I fully agree with this statement, but again, the criticism of my presented solution based on this is not correct in my opinion. Yes, ambiguities do result, and I am not the only one who considers a 1:1 assignment of characters to be impossible due to the structure of the Voynich text.  So ambiguities are inevitable. 
...

Ambiguities are only inevitable if your premise and your equivalency charts are used. If the VMS is encoded in a completely different way, there may not be any ambiguities.

I don't think you have convincingly made the case that the VMS is abbreviated Latin. There are numerous people in the VMS community who can read Latin, quite a few who can read medieval Latin, and two or three who know Latin very well. Those are the ones you have to convince.

I do not find medieval abbreviations to be "bewildering". It's just like learning to read music. You just have to sit down and practice. Medieval scribal abbreviations may be flexible, but they are also quite rational. It's a system, not a collection of oddities. In fact, it's easier to learn than shorthand.


Two of the biggest problems I see with your explanation so far are:

1. There is no grammar according to medieval Latin standards. You are subjectively filling in the blanks to create a rational narrative, but even with the filled-in blanks much of the translation is questionable.
   
2. When you expand the VMS text according to your tables and it does not result in a valid word, then you seem to think it's permissible to expand it even further until it becomes a valid word. This not only introduces a high degree of subjectivity, but this level of subjectivity puts you in the realm of one-way ciphers. Everyone using your method will get a different result.
   

(05-07-2020, 11:53 AM)PaulW Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
...Maybe I am too optimistic, but of all the solutions I have seen so far, the results of my approach are, despite all ambiguity, highly plausible, consistent and logical. I do not know of any other work that actually results in botanical explanations, where botanical explanations would be expected due to the world of images. The conclusions from the translation of folio 71r also seem more than plausible to me.

Paul, your idea is not new. Probably every one of us who knows some Latin has tried to expand it using your basic method. I'm sure Kircher and his colleagues tried it, as well, but since they were strong in Latin, they could undoubtedly see very quickly that the VMS was something different.

Patrick Lockerby tried to decipher the VMS using Latin scribal expansion, but he clearly doesn't have enough background in Latin to judge whether or not the words are Latin (about 85% of the words in his translation were not Latin).

Antoine Casanova proposed a system of abbreviated Latin, but the degrees of freedom (and possible expansions) is even broader than yours.

Michael Hoffman posted a very long thread with translations based on the premise that the VMS is Latin.

Searcher (on this forum) has published a paper (available here) that uses Latin scribal abbreviations to try to decipher the VMS. Of the many efforts of VMS-to-Latin, I think this is the best attempt because Searcher has some knowledge of Latin and because the translation does not attempt to inject the large number of subjective options included by other solvers. It is worth taking a look at it because it reveals the very repetitious nature of VMS text and makes it easier to see some of the ways in which the VMS diverges from abbreviated Latin.


I commend the fact that you sat down and learned the basic concept of medieval scribal abbreviations and that you are taking the time to document your journey, but it's difficult to assess whether your method works if you don't know Latin well enough to evaluate your own translations. If you would prefer to leave this step to others, then you must be willing to accept criticisms of the translations such as have been posted here.


As for your botanical explanations, they are pretty questionable. You took a plant with thistle-like flowers (aster family) and overlapping elliptical leaves, and identified it as a plant with umbellate flowers and compound odd-pinnate leaves. None of the morphological structures match.