The Voynich Ninja

The following is an attempt to assemble something of an overview, or at least a sketch, of how I view the Voynich language consistent with my Cusanus Ladin hypothesis. Notes towards a language model...

MEASURES

I propose that the Voynich language is a system of measures. The text is made up of various counts, coordinates, weights and measures.

The things being measured are the four elements (fire, air, water and earth) and their conditions (hot, dry, moist, cold) along with the humors and the associated elements of medieval cosmology.

The four elements are regarded as condensations of Light which is the fifth element, the root of the others, in a largely Neo-Platonic emanationist worldview.

The work, however, might be called early modern in that it applies a new system of measures in order to refine the traditional elementary cosmology.

I see the work as a manifestation of the late medieval Llullian project to improve (not replace) the system of four elements and to build a new natural science on the basis of the Llulian Art.

Llull sets out the basic type of procedure in his The Principles of Medicine:



*In Llull’s system the four elements are denoted by the letters A (Fire-Heat), B (Earth-Dryness), C (Air-Wetness) and D (Water-Coldness).

*Llull then combines these letters in order to define sixteen characteristic herbs denoted by the letters E, F, G, H, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V and Y.

*The herbs are then characterized by the degree of the presence (the measure) of the elements A, B, C and D.

*For example, herb E is characterized by A in the 4th degree, B in the 3d degree, C in the 2nd degree and D in the 1st degree, and so on.

(I take Llull’s method from THE ART OF RAMON LLULL (1232–1350): FROM THEOLOGY TO MATHEMATICS, Teun Koetsier, 2016.)



I further propose that by the 1400s Llull’s method was developed and refined and expanded, and we find some application of it in the Voynich manuscript.

The development, I think, was most likely done by Nicholas of Cusa, Llull’s chief advocate in the relevant period, and is foreshadowed in several works by Cusanus. He proposed extending the Art to the measures of the natural sciences.

SCRIPT

The script contains both letters and numbers. The script is not phonic and not properly linguistic. It is more algebraic in the Llullian sense.

One of the main principles of the script design is the seamless flow of both letters and numbers.

The letters in the plaintext were UPPER CASE combined in an unweildly way with numbers. The Voynich script allowed the quick and smooth copying of that data by converting it (both letters and numbers) into a uniform lowercase system.

Some glyphs may function as both letter and number in different contexts. That is, some glyphs may be alphanumeric.

VORDS

Vords are formulae of letters and numbers constituting a measure or group of measures. In the Llullian Art these are called “figures”.

Vords have been created using an undetermined system of (Llullian) volvelles and combinatorics.

One of the volvelles was elemental and contained the four gallows glyphs.

Vords display the tripartite structures of Llullian “compartments” – each “figure” in the Lullian Art consists of three “compartments”, which appear as the prefix, core and suffix strutcture in vords.

TEXT

The text of the manuscript consists of LISTS of vords. Vords are grouped and arranged meaningfully in these lists, and according to a method, but there is no grammar. (It has about as much grammar as a phonebook. It is compiled.)

A line of text is a complete list.

A paragraph is a collection of line-lists relevant to the same matter.

Paragraphs are marked with pilcrows (gallows) meaning ITEM, followed by lists of relevant vords.

The first line of paragraphs signal the nature of the ITEM or pose the question being answered.

TABLES

In other works such measures (vords, formulae, figures) would be presented in the form of tables (columns and rows).

The plaintext was a set of tables. In the plaintext the data was set out in columns and rows.

Orphaned words at the end of paragraphs are remnants of columns from the plaintext tables.

Uneven and non-sequential construction of text by the scribes is a remnant of columns from the plaintext tables.

NYMPHS

The text has been shaped by the literary device of the “language of the nymphs”. The nymphs are shown doing the measuring, weighing and collecting the data that appears as the text.

It is the nymphs who measure and collect data on the elements of the cosmos in the celestial and terrestrial realms.

Tables of data have been presented as a running text as if the “figures” (vords) are spoken by the nymphs. We find lists of vords arranged to look like a written text because the content is being presented as knowledge gained from the nymphs. This might be a claim of wizardry by the author but in the first instance I am treating it as a literary device.


I claim that most of the observable, peculiar features of Voynichese, statistical and otherwise, can be explained in terms of this model. For instance, one of the most glaring characteristics of the language is this twin fact:

*There are remarkably few recurring phrases such as one finds in natural languages.

*Instead, there is a high incidence of serial repetition; vords and similar vords are repeated in sequences.

Both of these (related) phenomena can be explained by the text being made up of lists. There are no repeat phrases in lists, but there may well be serial repetition.

The other glaring characteristic of Voynichese: strict spelling, loose grammar. How do we explain a text with such strict spelling but such loose grammar? The words are highly structured but the higher level text is not. This can be explained as lists of formulae.


The test of the model is how well it can explain the observable textual phenomena of the ms.

(27-09-2022, 01:43 PM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.*In Llull’s system the four elements are denoted by the letters A (Fire-Heat), B (Earth-Dryness), C (Air-Wetness) and D (Water-Coldness).



*Llull then combines these letters in order to define sixteen characteristic herbs denoted by the letters E, F, G, H, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V and Y.



*The herbs are then characterized by the degree of the presence (the measure) of the elements A, B, C and D.



*For example, herb E is characterized by A in the 4th degree, B in the 3d degree, C in the 2nd degree and D in the 1st degree, and so on.

Is there possibly a manuscript in which this method is presented ?





Edit:

This is where the system is supposed to be mapped, but I can't quite figure it out ( It is probably the middle branch ):

[attachment=6854]

The Tree of Medicine Principles according to the Palma Manuscript, Bibl. Publ., 1029, folio 23V.4

(27-09-2022, 04:48 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(27-09-2022, 01:43 PM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.*In Llull’s system the four elements are denoted by the letters A (Fire-Heat), B (Earth-Dryness), C (Air-Wetness) and D (Water-Coldness).



*Llull then combines these letters in order to define sixteen characteristic herbs denoted by the letters E, F, G, H, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V and Y.



*The herbs are then characterized by the degree of the presence (the measure) of the elements A, B, C and D.



*For example, herb E is characterized by A in the 4th degree, B in the 3d degree, C in the 2nd degree and D in the 1st degree, and so on.

Is there possibly a manuscript in which this method is presented ?





Edit:

This is where the system is supposed to be mapped, but I can't quite figure it out ( It is probably the middle branch ):



The Tree of Medicine Principles according to the Palma Manuscript, Bibl. Publ., 1029, folio 23V.4

Yes, I believe it is the middle branch on that diagram. (We can't fault Llull for making things simple, can we?) Llull's system is spread over many works in various iterations. The question is how it was used and developed by his admirers in the 1400s. Nicholas of Cusa was an avid collector of Llull's works but not a slavish follower or imitator. It is also hard to trace the influence of Llull on Cusanus - and also on Cardinal Bessarion - because they are reticent to mention him by name.

In the Voynich manuscript we find a text in search of a metaphor. We can observe and describe the text, but we lack a metaphor through which to conceptualize it and make sense of it. It is not an unimportant task: once the data has been accumulated, there is the question of what it all amounts to. In crime detection, once the evidence is assembled, a plausible scenario that explains the evidence is put together and a list of suspects drawn up.

My wider hypothesis tries to give the whole work an historical and geographical context. I do this mainly on the evidence of the illustrations. But then, from within that wider context, I try to supply a more exact context and explanation for the text such as we find it.

The proposal I offer is: the language of the nymphs.

Briefly: the author has presented his text as material from (or by) the nymphs who are the protagonists in the work.

Further: I suggest the plaintext was in fact tables of records, or catalogues, or reports, collected in a formuaelic manner. But, these have been presented like running prose because we are to believe it is the testimony of the nymphs. The author collected records, but has written them as if they were collected by (or from) the nymphs. (The text looks like prose but on closer inspection it is more like lists.)

Further: I observe that the nymphs are shown measuring. I suggest the content of the records are certain weights and measures in a calendrical manner.

I have suggested the work is like a set of records kept by a medieval Water Steward, or Land Surveyor, but presented as if the records were kept by the nature spirits of the land itself.

I contend that this literary scenario could account for many of the odd phenomena we see in the text.



I find the best match for my scenario in some of the probing studies of Patrick Feaster. At the end of one: Transitional Probabilities in the Voynich Manuscript, September, 2021, he is searching for a metaphor to describe the observable cyclic nature of the text. He writes:

I’ve been toying with the idea of using the annual cycle as a metaphor for the structure of Voynichese text, much as Stolfi used a core-mantle-crust metaphor for one of his. Curvelet sequences could be associated with planting, and minim sequences with harvesting. The loopdown flourish (y, l) could be associated with winter. Much as the new year falls during the winter season, word breaks occur in winter, so that “winter glyphs” tend to appear near word boundaries, either at the beginnings or ends of words. Gallows could be associated with the summer solstice, which may occur before, during, or after planting. Successive seasons can see the same events happening for two or more years in a row, or events can alternate as with the rotation of crops, or maybe following an even longer schedule as with cicada broods. Sometimes there’s a bad year with no harvest, but there’s scarcely ever a harvest without any planting. Sometimes the summer solstice isn’t celebrated, in which case the following new year is less likely to be acknowledged as such.

It’s a fun metaphor, and it might even work decently in practice, exposing “entanglements” across cycles even more starkly than word-based analysis has. Of course, I still couldn’t say what any of this means.

In the last statement he is echoing an infamous utterance by Currier who described similar aspects of the text’s behavior but said, “It doesn’t mean anything, but there you have it.”


The metaphor offered by Feaster is much the same as I have suggested for the content of the text. This is the best or most useful metaphor Feaster can think of. I add to that that this material is being presented in the way it is – giving the very distinct appearance of ‘normal’ running text – as records kept by the nymphs of the landscape. It is the sort of record kept by a guardian of a landscape – the work of a medieval steward or a marshal.

Feaster’s metaphor is too agricultural. There is no evidence of agriculture in the Voynich manuscript. This is a common mistaken assumption. Rather, as I have argued on other pages, it is a herb gathering tradition that is depicted. The cycles are not so agricultural and, I would think, concern the rise and fall of alpine lakes and watercourses relative to seasons and star cycles.

In any case, I find evidence in Feaster's studies, especially, that the Voynich text is both cyclic and numerical in nature. As I see it the "nymphs" gather data about the natural cycles of the mountains. We merely need to understand the literary device involved.

The text consists of numerical lists, yes, but in cyclic patterns. This is data gathered about a landscape (and its skies.) 


Consider the plight of the alpine herb gatherer. Some of the rarest but most valuable herbs are only found in remote valleys, difficult and often dangerous to access. Moreover, they flower for only brief seasons.

Living lower down the mountain, the herb gatherer can judge the snow thaw and conditions higher up from measuring water flows. He doesn't want to march to remote valleys just hoping the herbs are in flower. He needs to know his landscape intimately and keep records thereof.

In the case of the Ladin alpine herbal tradition, the landscape and waterways were populated by and regulated by the nymphs of the Ladin mythology and Ladin belief.

I'm glad you've found that seasonal metaphor for Voynichese text patterns interesting.  You write:

(09-10-2022, 04:40 AM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The metaphor offered by Feaster is much the same as I have suggested for the content of the text. This is the best or most useful metaphor Feaster can think of.... Feaster’s metaphor is too agricultural. There is no evidence of agriculture in the Voynich manuscript. This is a common mistaken assumption. 

Bear in mind that I meant this as a metaphor (as you say) rather than as an identification of actual subject matter.  I don't think Stolfi meant to imply that the meanings of Voynichese characters have anything to do with a planetary crust, mantle, and core either.  But of course its status as a metaphor doesn't mean some aspects of it *couldn't* be interpreted more literally.  (As an aside, I find myself thinking now of the notes I keep myself about when and where I find particular wild mushrooms.)

Something you wrote earlier in this thread caught my attention:

(27-09-2022, 01:43 PM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The text of the manuscript consists of LISTS of vords. Vords are grouped and arranged meaningfully in these lists, and according to a method, but there is no grammar. (It has about as much grammar as a phonebook. It is compiled.)

You went on to identify each line as a list and each paragraph as a collection of related lists.  Do you have any further thoughts about what kind of "method" the formal structure of a list/line might reveal?

(09-10-2022, 02:50 PM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm glad you've found that seasonal metaphor for Voynichese text patterns interesting.  You write:

(09-10-2022, 04:40 AM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The metaphor offered by Feaster is much the same as I have suggested for the content of the text. This is the best or most useful metaphor Feaster can think of.... Feaster’s metaphor is too agricultural. There is no evidence of agriculture in the Voynich manuscript. This is a common mistaken assumption. 

Bear in mind that I meant this as a metaphor (as you say) rather than as an identification of actual subject matter.  I don't think Stolfi meant to imply that the meanings of Voynichese characters have anything to do with a planetary crust, mantle, and core either.  But of course its status as a metaphor doesn't mean some aspects of it *couldn't* be interpreted more literally.  (As an aside, I find myself thinking now of the notes I keep myself about when and where I find particular wild mushrooms.)

Something you wrote earlier in this thread caught my attention:

(27-09-2022, 01:43 PM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The text of the manuscript consists of LISTS of vords. Vords are grouped and arranged meaningfully in these lists, and according to a method, but there is no grammar. (It has about as much grammar as a phonebook. It is compiled.)

You went on to identify each line as a list and each paragraph as a collection of related lists.  Do you have any further thoughts about what kind of "method" the formal structure of a list/line might reveal?

*****

Thanks for your reply, and your work.

Yes, you offer the metaphor as a metaphor, a tool for further exploration of the text no different in application than Stolfi’s planetary layers metaphor. Not to be taken literally.

But the metaphor conforms very neatly to my thought experiments on the matter and I am suggesting that it might not be too far astray. It might be close to the operative idea guiding the shape and system of the text. My thoughts were in that neighborhood, namely the text as a system to record data of a (less agricultural) nature regarding a particular landscape. So it caught my attention that you turn to such a metaphor as the most adequate to embody the patterns you observe in the text.

I regret I don’t have any solid ideas on the method by which lists might have been compiled. I can only suggest the implements of measuring are likely to be the weight-scales and the water clock, counting devices and devices used for surveying, in period. I point to methodology (and epistemology) provided by Nicholas of Cusa’s curious little work Idiota de Staticis Experimentis as highly suggestive.

But that concerns what measures to take and how – and the idea of compiling an inventory of such data for particular regions - not how they are recorded and compiled and assembled into a text. (Let alone with a unique set of glyphs for doing so.)

My guess has been that vords, lines and paragraphs are meaningful units based on TIME. The work is essentially calendrical. I think the underlying tables of data in the plaintext would be organised in units of time. (That mutability within recurring cycles.)

The main unit would be the day (or zodiacal degree, daily solar increment) – counted as a dawn. A line = a day? Some calendrical cycle might be the uniting pattern (that generates vords and other structures as epiphenomena.) The larger frame would be the year, the full annual cycle. 

As for the formal structures of lists/lines, I suspect the whole thing is isomorphic. I note well your suggestion that “labels” may be short lines. So, conversely, lines are long “labels”. The same structures at dfferent scales?

This sort of isomorphism is very traditional and based in seeing things in terms of ratios and harmonies. The basis here would be the equation one day = one year. This, in traditional cosmologies, allows such parallels as one lunar cycle = one Saturn cycle (28 days = 28 years), for example, and a host of other conveniences.

The “entanglement” you describe reminds me of the (related to isomorphism) harmonic mean in Platonic cosmology whereby the elements of the cosmos are bound together by “strong bonds”.

(09-10-2022, 11:08 PM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My guess has been that vords, lines and paragraphs are meaningful units based on TIME. The work is essentially calendrical. I think the underlying tables of data in the plaintext would be organised in units of time. (That mutability within recurring cycles.)
The main unit would be the day (or zodiacal degree, daily solar increment) – counted as a dawn. A line = a day? Some calendrical cycle might be the uniting pattern (that generates vords and other structures as epiphenomena.) The larger frame would be the year, the full annual cycle. 

Unfortunately you do not present examples on at least a few pages or paragraphs.

Tackling the Voynich, I'm happy to say, led me on a long and worthwhile detour through neoplatonic philosophy for many months. Returning to the Voynich, and reading back through my notes, I have new clarity. 

My account of the Voynich and its language is as follows:

It is a synthetic (symbolic) Lullian language that comes from the intellectual world of Nicholas of Cusa, is based upon the Coincidentia Oppositorum, and purports to be the 'Language of the Nymphs'. 

Its purpose is to show that the science of the Arabs - and more than their science - is to be found in indigenous occidental folk traditions, and specifically the herbal traditions of northern Italy (which needed to be recovered from a crude paganism.) 

I see the work as a case of what I call the Petrarchean Project. The necessary historical context is this:

The central intellectual problem of the later Middles Ages was how to counter the Muslims and their superior science. 

Petrarch's breakthrough was to appreciate that what the Arabs had was actually the ancient Graeco-Roman heritage. Rather than acquiring it through the Arabs - who Petrarch despised - Christendom could reacquire it through the recovery of its ancient past. 

With this came new attention to the vernacular and to folk traditions - a store of knowledge that was not Infidel exotica. 

The Voynich manuscript is part of this (Renaissance) counter-Islamic phenomenon.

More exactly, it is also part of the revival of interest in the works and methods of Ramon Lull (his 'Great Art') - which were dedicated to finding a (synthetic) science that exceeded that of the Arabs - in the 1400s, the main advocate of which was Nicholas of Cusa (who was himself also dedicated to the Muslim-Christian problem.) The revival was precipitated by the fall of Byzantium to the Turks, the defining event of this period.

That, broadly speaking, is how I see it presently. Like others with their pet theories, I am confident this is not too far wrong. :-)

Another name that looms large in my research is Cardinal Bessarion. He is an important character in the intellectual world of the fourteenth century Renaissance, and a close friend of Nicholas of Cusa.

There is an interesting anecdote recorded regarding these two friends.

It is said that, one day, they both attended a hunting party. Cardinal Bessarion had his sights set upon a hare, but it suddenly scuttled away and disappeared.

"Where has it gone?" Bessarion asked.

Nicholas replied: "If you apply the rule CDK from the Ars Magna, you will find the hare."

No doubt this was said in jest, and perhaps in a tone of scepticism, but - as it happens - it is correct: the rule CDK in the Ars Magna concerns questions of "Where?"

What the anecdote reveals is just how deep was Nicholas of Cusa's familiarity with the Ars Magna of Ramon Lllull. He could reference it effortlessly. It tells us the extent to which Cusanus had studied Llull's system in depth.

This is not at all explicit in Cusanus' extant writings. We can clearly see the influence of Llull in his work, and yet in all his writings and sermons he mentions Llull by name only once or twice.

Llull was controversial, and his orthodoxy had often been questioned. Cusanus' study of Llull was a private dedication, and he was diplomatic and cautious in his advocacy of Llullism, while at the same time being at the forefront of the Llullian revival in the 1400s.

From this anecdote we can see that he had a full command of Llull's system: indeed, he was the foremost student of Llull's thought in that era. What he put in writing is somewhat misleading: there were dimensions to his thinking and intellectual endeavours not reflected in his extant works.


My argument here is that the Voynich language is remarkably Llullian - the construction and combinatorics strongly suggests the influence of Llullianism. It appears to be a very sophisticated linguistic invention generated using some form of combinatorics that, surely, must go back to Lllull, of all people in the Middle Ages.

I then argue that the person with the greatest command of Llull's systems in the 1400s was Nicholas of Cusa. In fact, it is arguable that only Cusanus had the necessary depth of familiarity and understanding.