The Voynich Ninja

Well, ell-shaped "s" is well used in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (gas), unless I'm mistaken in what you'd call "ell-shaped", but the point is that in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. it's significantly above the baseline which really precludes it from being an ell-shaped "s". This apart from that it looks more like "l".

There are two strange points about the plain text here. First, the correction(s) - there's at least one correction (mel -> del), and possibly more. That's strange for such simple labels. If you want to label something "del" (which is MHD for "Brett" or "Diele"), you won't label it "mel", to begin with. (That would be a very curious mistake).

The second point is the strange cross-like positioning of the four words (including that p/y/thorn as one of them). This makes me think that this might be an attempt of decryption - or a preparation for encryption.

The presence of correction weighs this towards decryption (vs encryption).

(05-08-2020, 07:45 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Maybe the last part of "mus" is not a letter at all. Maybe it's a bit of round spongy stuff, a drawing element, that happens to be near "mu".

That's an interesting turn, JKP.

Lexer refers to "müeje" for "mû", and "müeje" is "Beschwerde, Mühe, Last, Not, Bekümmernis, Verdruss". Indeed, the modern Mühe must have descended from "müeje".

This would be more or less in context with the sickening woman. "Müeje" is feminine which is incompatible with "der", so that would need to be "den"? (here my knowledge of German grammar fails me)

Now, this somehow is gathered in one explanation. The initial plain text was a decryption of the Voynichese string. Let's say it was an idle decryption by the same scribe. (Or it might have been an idle encryption instead).

Then this secretive and cunning guy realises that the presence of both plain text and cipher text side by side may compromise his cipher. Thus he introduces fake corrections into the plain text (adding "s" to "mu", changing "mel" to "del").

(06-08-2020, 12:06 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Maybe you should look at other but whole texts.
This one comes pretty close to the german dialect used in VM. So you can form your own picture.
Apart from that, the word structure is similar to the VM text.
This does not mean that the VM-Text is in German!
It's only about the characters.
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Interpretations depend on:
1. which letters are taken into attention;
2. how questionable/illegible letters are interpreted.
I'm inclined to consider the underlying text, not those letters that overlayed. On my subjective view, they don't matter at all, or play some additional role. And I want to note that "d" to the right quite differs from the bottom "d", it looks more like the Voinichese "n". I don't know whether it is important, but what is important, on my view, are the underlying letters/symbols and the words.
I see it as Latin notes or, at least, notes in some dialect of some Roman language.
Some time ago I wrote that I think that the three words must be Latin: ren - a kidney, bodyside; mel - honey and mus or muris - a mouse/of a mouse. Revising it, I probably will change my opinion in favor to "mur" or "mus" interpretation as "mucor" (or mucre, mucro). r = ter; s = cer (usually) 
"Mucor" is asserted to be a post 1650's word, but I already found it in the Dictionarium copiosissimus" (1516), so I won't be surprised if it existed much earlier. It is translated as: 1) moldy bread; 2) wine-must.
Of course, I think that we must consider the context that is given by an image. Although German "muss" or "mussmel" seems to fit this context more or less, but I think Latin version: ren + mucor + mel is better. My explanation:
the word "mel" is written right above the image of a pot with the yellow matter. The yellow spot also appears on the body side of the depicted human figure. The word "mu?" that damaged with the symbol similar to the letter "O" is quite questionable, but the shapes under the overlayed letter remind abbreviation symbols ( r or s), with the latter I can suppose "mucer" or "mucor". If you look at the picture next to it, you will see  the round shapes with dots. Perhaps, they imply exactly bread with spots of mould. Thus, the word is accompanied with the picture related to it.
As for "ren", I didn't found medieval recipes for kidney treatment with applications of moldy bread, but from ancient Egyptian healers to medieval doctors it was used for treating of wounds and dermal inflammations. Now we know that must  is penicillin.
Honey was a popular remedy,as well, in particular, it was used as an ointment.

(07-08-2020, 09:09 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Well, ell-shaped "s" is well used in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (gas), unless I'm mistaken in what you'd call "ell-shaped", but the point is that in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. it's significantly above the baseline which really precludes it from being an ell-shaped "s". This apart from that it looks more like "l".
...

By ell-shaped I do not mean like a block-letter ell. I mean like a medieval Gothic ell with a loop. Aga keeps reading the letter "ell" (with an angular loop) as an ess. In fact the example you chose from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. supports what I was trying to explain to Aga. The ess does not have an extra down-slanting stroke like the "ell" in the word "mel", which Aga wants to read as "des" (ess at the end).

It is also unlikely that they would use straight-ess as final-ess. It is much more likely that they would use sigma-ess or B-shaped ess. In Italy they sometimes used straight-ess or long-ess for final-ess, but the rest of this script does not look Italian. It looks Bohemian, German, or Saxon. Only the "m" might be Italian (smaller and more rounded), but many of the Bohemians wrote "m" this way so it is not always Italian.

It is the same style as the text on 116v, with the angular loop, probably a similar time period, but... it might not be the same handwriting (the "m" is a different style). There are not enough letters to be sure.

(07-08-2020, 09:09 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
...
There are two strange points about the plain text here. First, the correction(s) - there's at least one correction (mel -> del), and possibly more. That's strange for such simple labels. If you want to label something "del" (which is MHD for "Brett" or "Diele"), you won't label it "mel", to begin with. (That would be a very curious mistake).

The second point is the strange cross-like positioning of the four words (including that p/y/thorn as one of them)....

I think these are good observations.

(07-08-2020, 09:21 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."Müeje" is feminine which is incompatible with "der", .....

Not necessarily, there is for example a saying "der Mühe wert" (worth the effort), Dativ or Genitiv Singular is the grammar.

Whatever the symbol written over the m is (to me it looks like an at - abbr.), it is the same symbol as that before the en
and does not look like a correction, and the m really looks like the 116v m.

I was wondering whether the "plain text" was written by the scribe, who didn't understand the language he was writing. After all, we have no evidence he wrote German.
How else could you cock up a double 's' so badly?

(08-08-2020, 10:54 AM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I was wondering whether the "plain text" was written by the scribe, who didn't understand the language he was writing. After all, we have no evidence he wrote German.
How else could you cock up a double 's' so badly?

Yes, the "ess" is slightly strange. I was thinking it might be because it is so small, but the other letters are mostly normal.

So, if it is someone not accustomed to that style of final-ess, then perhaps it was written by someone who usually used another form (or another alphabet like Cyrillic or Greek).

The B-shaped final-ess was used in many places but there were regions where they used several forms.

In Spain they tended to use a snake-shaped final-ess and sometimes a straight-ess.

In Italy they used more than one style, sometimes sigma-shaped, sometimes straight-ess, sometimes long-ess.

I have some samples from Slavic countries, but I can't remember which form of final-ess was more common in eastern Europe. I will have to look in my files.

Overall, the text looks Bohemian (Bohemia was much bigger in those days and included parts of Austria, Germany, northern Italy but I can't remember the exact extent).

I would also take into account the possibility of a non-native speaker. After all, apparently a letter in a simple phrase had to be corrected. Maybe they wrote "mus mel" because of alliteration, only to discover later that it was incorrect.