In August I published my analysis of Labels in the Voynich Codex which may be of interest to fellow Voynichologists. The description and link are below:
Brief Description:
I identified label words in Voynich illustrations and colour coded these throughout the Voynich 101 transcribed text.
Many areas of the text became so dense with these labels that they were lists, and I hypothesise that at least in places it is a catalogue of proper names.
Interestingly, many labels doubled as plant labels and star labels.
This process revealed that many labels of figures in the 'balneological' section are also for stars and plants, showing that the figures of woman are personified depictions of stars and plants. I hypothesise that this whole section is an allegorical depiction of astrological influence.
Included in this book is an entire list of labels and also the entire colour coded Voynich 101 text.
Here's the Amazon link:
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I don't quite see how your conclusion follows from the observation (which is not new).
There are many possible reasons for recurring labels:
* Labels may be something like dates. A star might appear in August, and a plant may be best picked in August. Bathing might be recommended on the same days, etc. This is not necessarily the case (we don't know yet), but it is one example. In short, labels for plants and stars and nymphs may refer to the same external thing, without expressing any relation between the plant, star and nymph.
* The encoding system may not use nouns at all, but for example numbers that refer to external lists. (If this is the case, we will never solve the MS unless the lists are found). Number 15 on the list of plants could be different from number 15 on the list of stars, but both will be labelled Voynichese's equivalent of "15".
* Last but not least, the encoding system is likely to be "reductive" somehow (Voynichese's low character entropy). Different plaintext words may result in the same cipher word.
(05-09-2022, 04:52 AM)danielemlynjones Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I hypothesise that this whole section is an allegorical depiction of astrological influence.
Daniel, even if your project is commercial, could you please make the bibliography page public?
(05-09-2022, 04:52 AM)danielemlynjones Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In August I published my analysis of Labels in the Voynich Codex which may be of interest to fellow Voynichologists. The description and link are below:
Brief Description:
I identified label words in Voynich illustrations and colour coded these throughout the Voynich 101 transcribed text.
Many areas of the text became so dense with these labels that they were lists, and I hypothesise that at least in places it is a catalogue of proper names.
Interestingly, many labels doubled as plant labels and star labels.
This process revealed that many labels of figures in the 'balneological' section are also for stars and plants, showing that the figures of woman are personified depictions of stars and plants. I hypothesise that this whole section is an allegorical depiction of astrological influence.
Included in this book is an entire list of labels and also the entire colour coded Voynich 101 text.
Here's the Amazon link:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Thanks so much for your contribution Daniel. From the description it seems like a valuable work presenting a very reasonable hypothesis. I think it is a very safe assumption that the manuscript presents, or depends upon,
systems of correspondences between the celestial order - the fixed stars especially - and plants. And it would seem that the nymphs are in some way intermediaries. Although I note there is no explicit connection between the nymphs and the herbs in the illustrations, only the nymphs and the stars.
In my view, this is because there are further parallels that are topographical. At the centre of the work we expect a chart of human physiology with the stars and herbs mapped to organs etc in the standard manner. It is hardly a herbalism without parallelisms to anatomy and physiology. And yet at the centre is a map.
My own reading is that the nymphs are mountain nymphs (Hellenized versions of the Ladin mythology) and we see them controlling and measuring the mountain terrain, specifically the waters. But more properly, rather than "personifications of stars and plants", they are (as per the Ladin mythos) anthropomorphizations of light (and thus are blonde and rosy cheeked.)
The conceptual hurdle here is to appreciate the way in which, in any traditional
emanationist cosmology, water can be taken as a condensation of light. I think it's necessary to understand that in order to discern the operative parallels in this work, again from the illustrations. I expect the text matches the illustrations.
I like the suggestion of lists of proper names. Lists, in any case. Inventories. What seem to be peculiarities of the language might be effects of the type of text it is. I look forward to reading the book.
(05-09-2022, 04:52 AM)danielemlynjones Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I identified label words in Voynich illustrations and colour coded these throughout the Voynich 101 transcribed text.
Many areas of the text became so dense with these labels that they were lists
I am not very familiar with Glen Castons voyn_101,
however i find this hard to believe
surely someone would have spotted that by now
and i am almost certain that this is not the case with Takahashi or ZL transcriptions
but maybe i'm wrong ( it wouldn't be the 1st time
).
Wayback link to Glen Castons transcription including a Labels concordance
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A paper would have been nice.
[Edit:
Nom, nom, nom <sound of RobGea eating his own hat>
Well i got that wrong !
Using voyn_101 there is indeed a stackful of labels on most every folio.
[/Edit]
(05-09-2022, 10:36 AM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Daniel, even if your project is commercial, could you please make the bibliography page public?
You can read the book for free in Kindle Cloud Reader ( or for 1,79 € ) . So you can't accuse the author of having mostly commercial interests in mind.
The only drawback is that the Kindle Cloud reader does not allow "copy & paste" (in case you need a translation of text sections).
(05-09-2022, 07:56 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You can read the book for free in Kindle Cloud Reader ( or for 1,79 € ) . So you can't accuse the author of having mostly commercial interests in mind.
Thank you, I will try.
I'm not accusing the author of having a commercial interest, it's just an observation.
If I knew how to write novels, I'd probably have to market them.
Hi, Daniel:
Thank you for the interesting analysis. Voynich 101 is not used as often and it was useful to see how it impacted the findings in relation to “labelese.” What the conclusion of this is, as you say, still unknown - but l do appreciate being made aware of this way to look at the text.
Michelle
(05-09-2022, 05:50 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[Edit:
Nom, nom, nom <sound of RobGea eating his own hat>
Well i got that wrong !
Using voyn_101 there is indeed a stackful of labels on most every folio.
[/Edit]
Never mind and welcome to the club.
I can confirm that the ZL and v101 (aka GC) transliterations are very similar, once they have been converted to a common transliteration alphabet.