The Voynich Ninja

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I have my reasons for believing this.
Example.
"und lege de über de öge de vertribet de böse blut"
In German "und lege dies über die Augen das vertreibt das böse Blut". and put this over the eyes that drives away the evil blood.
You can see that "de" stands for different things here.

"tüe es in de öge" "tue es in die Augen" put it in the eyes.
I always have to pay attention to the context.

Pay attention to the "s"

Rene: that makes sense. To make this discussion easier, let's use similar English words. Mush is similar enough to "Mus", and meal (as in "a coarse, unsifted powder ground from the edible seeds of any grain") is similar to "mel".

Meal mush is a mush made of meal.
Mush meal is a type of meal used for making a mush.

So what you are saying is that if the meaning of these words are indeed "mush" and "meal", we must assume that it refers to a type of meal (ground powder) rather than the mush made of that meal.

A first question to follow up on this would be why one would write "mush meal" at all - did that exist as a concept or would it have been a unique formation? It would be interesting if any other references to a mush meal exist in external texts. This would reinforce the reading and perhaps suggest some context.

The second, more difficult question is what this means for the first "word". Unless I'm mistaken, it cannot be read as an article that goes with "mel".

Aga: do I understand correctly that you think this is what happened?

1) someone writes den mus me, "...then must you...". This is not just a partial sentence, it is very explicitly the middle of a sentence.
2) someone corrects this to den mus de, "...then must this...", which is again the middle of a sentence.
3) this is then changed to den mus des, which has a similar meaning
4) ...but you also think it means mush meal?

@Koen.
No, I don't think it has anything to do with "mel" flour at all.
I just think he meant to write "me" "man" but didn't.
"und den muss des" You can assume that he must use what is written at the top of the VM text.

There are also 2 different "den/denn". Today, spelling is the rule. One stands for "these" and the other for "later".
"Nach den Ziegen kommen die Schafe, und denn/dann kommen die Kühe".  "After the goats come the sheep, and then/then come the cows".
In VM, *den* stands for later/after.

An argument in favor of what you say is that something similar happens on the last folio.

"Voynichese ..... den muss..."
"Voynichese ..... so nim..."

Can muss be a verb meaning "to mush"? In that case "den muss mel" would make more sense to me.

(24-06-2024, 05:59 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Can muss be a verb meaning "to mush"?

Unlikely without mental gymnastics in my opinion, there is no such verb in German. Maybe in some obscure dialect.
Usually recipes use verbs like make, take, do this or that.

I think all of this is mere speculation and we are probably overinterpreting these marginalia. One thing we can say for sure that all of them are profoundly odd to the point of not making any sense. It's not an isolated incident that could be explained with spelling mistakes or running out of space. The marginalia fit into the context of the VM in being 'out there'. We have to consider the possibility that they are gibberish or failed translation attempts.

Still the similarities to the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is striking. Maybe we should compare You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Interestingly it mentions that patients undergoing excessive vomiting should be given 'pulenta' a porridge from crushed grain. But that probably is a coincidence.

I was looking at this today, I can't help with the language at all, but I can chip in with some image analysis

I think there's signs that this was not a "d" made into an "m" or the other way around "only". Which would account for the differing interpretations. If you ignore the m as it is written directly above this m from the new glyph you are left with a T shape and a \ shape. If you draw the basic m shape back in it is difficult to account for the "cross stroke" (top of T), the right point of it would mean doing the "flick" of the m in the middle, the left point requires having something like "nnn".

This would lead me to believe the "d" was written over the "m" (but it is not).

Looking at the "d" shape, it is not fluid, ink/equipment/scan (I did try 3) could account for this, I don't know, but the \ is floating, which from what I have seen isn't unusual, however it is a bit odd to have one "d" done this was directly below another done a different way. I'm not talking about stylistically or alterations in handwriting, but whoever did this looks to have been very unsure while doing it as there are several possible alterations as they went, maybe they were just having "technical difficulties" with the writing equipment. I do though think it is evident that opting to not copy the "d" from above, which would have been a far more elegant solution, is telling and ultimately I concluded that if this is a "d" and "m" the "m" was written over the top of the "d", it explains the weird cross stroke on top of the "d", why they did not fill in the "d" and why the "m" was not a match with the one done above. 



For what it is worth, I thought that the \ shape might be an attempt to signify another letter between the "m" and "e", as we would write a letter above if we didn't leave enough room to squeeze the letter in to correct spelling, and the "d" was never a "d" at all. But I think that idea is above my station... so I will stick with "this is m" not "d"

 

We have to consider the possibility that they are gibberish or failed translation attempts.
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I have set up a Python code I was using to measure conditional entropy of the VM plain text with other texts of different styles. I could test Voynich found in/around Marginalia separated from bulk text with the bulk text to show if it is any more or less gibberish-like.. I'll stick it on the to-do list

@Koen
For me, first the "m" was with or without an "e", and then the "m" was overwritten with a "d". I note height "l", it is not where it should be.

Maybe you still remember the mistake "nim Gott / min Gott"

New speculation.
What if it's not an "m" at all, but an "in".
"into something"
With an "e" added, it would be "ine" Alemannic form of "hinein".
De nail mues ine. The nail must go in.
Used a thousand times by children. "Und Du gasch ine" And you go in"

The sentence wouldn't be quite correct. It's missing an "es". Correct, "Und den muss (es) ine"
This would explain Marco's picture in a nutshell.

(24-06-2024, 01:45 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A first question to follow up on this would be why one would write "mush meal" at all - did that exist as a concept

When googling for 'musmehl' one finds that this is a type of porridge eaten already in the middle ages.
Apparently, this was especially the case in Swabia, which is South-West Germany, including lake Konstanz.
I have not found any reference to it ever being used in some medicinal manner.

(24-06-2024, 01:45 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The second, more difficult question is what this means for the first "word". Unless I'm mistaken, it cannot be read as an article that goes with "mel".

Here, I am not at all sure that we are seeing the whole word. But it could just be an example of another m overwritten by a d.

In that case, the suggestion that this is a translation attempt by a later owner becomes a bit more likely: "perhaps this character should be a d rather than an m".

From every observation some new hypothesis sprouts immediately, so now we might even guess that this bifolio used to be in the centre of a quire. In that case, writing deep in the margin would not have been a problem.
There are some things that could link You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to f66r: the use of the x character (picnic table), the sequences of characters and the number 17.