The Voynich Ninja

(07-08-2026, 02:36 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That may sound plausible to you, because you have spent years studying the Voynich script and you know the Voynich alphabet by heart, backwards and upside-down.
But imagine you borrowed a book in Arabic from your scholar friend, intending to do an in-depth scholarly study of the bathing houris depicted therein. But before you start you research, you spill a glass of beer on the last page, and by wiping that off you also wipe off a paragraph of text that was written there. Only a few wisps of ink remain here and there.
Would you leaf through the rest of the book to try to learn the Arabic alphabet?

But here I dare to object!
Do not compare Arabic script with Voynichese script. If there are any ink stains or outlines left, the restorer could simply find similar letters in the text of the literally preceding page.
Voynich script is very easy to write with a pen and is somewhat similar to Latin (so much so that your Restorer found analogues for the letters). In other words, it wouldn’t pose any difficulties for him.
One way or another, this entire theory, although it has some indirect evidence, is generally based on a big assumption — on one fool who spilled the water and didn’t know anything…

To me, it’s all quite clear, really.
You can read it, but more importantly, it has to make sense and fit in with the timeline.
Even ‘multos’ makes sense if you think of sugar-free Mentos. 

@ Stolfi, the 8 at the end of the word, written as an “s,” is indeed well attested in Gothic bastard scripts... and since the ‘d’ in aladabas is now clearly written as a “d,” we must assume that not only is the 8 an “s,” but that the 8 in Palsen is also an “s.” And while this doesn’t happen often in manuscripts in the middle of a word, there was a great deal of spelling anarchy—a fact that is often forgotten today...

(07-08-2026, 03:39 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.@ Stolfi, the 8 at the end of the word, written as an “s,” is indeed well attested in Gothic bastard scripts...

But isn't that final "s" always minim-height?  Are there any examples of a final-"s" as tall as a "h" or "l"?

My proposal is that, among the surviving smudges, the Repairman saw the fairly complete remains of a few Voynichese d that he could not parse as any valid Latin letter in that assumed script.   He may have decided that they were an oversize final-"s" because it was the "least wrong" prossibility.  

Just as he decided that some cross-like smudges had to be crosses, because there was no Latin letter (not even "t") that would fit that shape.

Quote:and since the ‘d’ in aladabas is now clearly written as a “d,”

Same there.  Presumably the smudge there was an incomplete d, and he guessed that it must have been a Latin "d" with that rather unusual shape -- because what else could it have been?

Quote:And while this doesn’t happen often in manuscripts in the middle of a word

"Does not happen often"... or rather "never happens"?

Quote:there was a great deal of spelling anarchy—a fact that is often forgotten today...

"Spelling anarchy" is a big cop-out.  It can justify arbitrarily stretched readings.

And yet even with that joker card we cannot get valid readings for more than half of the words in that text.

Isn't it strange that this very smart scholar who could devise a new script and a strong encryption scheme was so bad at German and Latin spelling?

But at least you must admit now that the Voynichese text can be full of "spelling errors" too.   Like daiin being written dain or dair or  kaiin or laiin...  No?

All the best, --stolfi

@ Stolfi It’s like everything else here: thesis, antithesis, and 100 other theses.
But I think we need to argue scientifically and logically.

I’ve said this before: I am NOT claiming that the writer of the marginal note is the author or one of the scribes of the VMS, because I don’t know that—nobody does.

Regarding the “daiin dain”—it’s striking that there are counting glyphs: ed, eed, eeed—one to three strokes; the same applies to ain, aiin, aiiin, and almost the same for air. These families are preceded by different “markers”—k, t, d, for example. I don’t believe these are spelling errors, but rather clearly recognizable counting structures of a cipher.

If one has to negate this structure in order to prove anything, that is an assumption—and one can make it—but it immediately weakens one’s own thesis—no, not refutes it, but merely weakens it. Every further assumption in this direction weakens the thesis even more.

The marginal note is a matter of logic. If I can explain so many words with a single small assumption—8=s—then, according to Ockham’s Razor, one should take it into account. And since I can identify so many words that are German and some that are Latin, I assume that the marginal note was written in Latin and German, as was customary in Germany at the time. Here, too, I don’t need any further assumptions—that’s simply how it was! This mix of Latin and German was the norm, not the exception (maybe the whole Voynich manuscript is written this way)

So this is the theory that costs the least. Much less than a theory that assumes a marginal note is an attempt to correct or reconstruct the Voynich glyphs.

As a scientist, surely you must recognize that???

[attachment=17049]
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Yet most of the words don't appear to make sense in either German or Latin, and neither does their context. 8 might as well be an abbreviation or even a Voynichese character. We just do not know. Imagine one day, by whatever means, we find out that the marginalia were just nonsensical pen test scribbles...

But Jorge has a point.
IF those words do form a coherent meaning in German/Latin, then we are dealing with both a highly unorthodox spelling and very weird letter shapes, something that does not befit an educated person, let alone a scribe.

There is something very odd I have pointed out before. No matter if you look at the imagery, the main text or the marginalia, it all has a common theme. It's weird, doesn't appear to make sense, yet is made up from familiar building blocks in a non-random way that looks like there was some plan behind it. What that means - I have no idea. But I don't think it's a coincidence that imagery, text and marginalia behave the same.

(07-08-2026, 09:50 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Regarding the “daiin dain”—it’s striking that there are counting glyphs: ed, eed, eeed—one to three strokes; the same applies to ain, aiin, aiiin, and almost the same for air. These families are preceded by different “markers”—k, t, d, for example. I don’t believe these are spelling errors, but rather clearly recognizable counting structures of a cipher.

Sorry to have brought this topic up here. Let's discuss errors in Voynichese it separately from f116r.  The two are likely to have been produced by very different processes and therefore any "errors" will be very different too.

Quote:The marginal note is a matter of logic. If I can explain so many words with a single small assumption—8=s—then, according to Ockham’s Razor, one should take it into account.

You need more than just that assumption.  For "multos" you need also to assume that the first squiggle is "mu" and that the "bowtie" under the "o" is meaningless "decoration" (even though it is as deliberate as anything else on that page).  For the "portas" you must assume that it is a single word and not "por tas".

... and, still, those are the only two words you can explain with the assumption "the 8 symbol is final-s".  You cannot explain the "oladabas".

... and anyway you cannot fit those two words in a meaningful sentence.

... and, most importantly, you must assume that it was OK to write final-"s" with a full "h"-height, instead of a minim height (as in the example alphabet you showed).  I ask again: is there any manuscript from the time that has final-"s" that big?

Quote: And since I can identify so many words that are German and some that are Latin, I assume that the marginal note was written in Latin and German, as was customary in Germany at the time.

I grant that the person who wrote that text spoke some dialect of German, and may have had at least a vague idea of what Latin sort of looked like.  And I even claim that he tried hard to make out German and Latin words out of the smudges that remained after the wiping incident.  

But he definitely did not write a note in German, Latin, or any mix of the two.  Again, more than half of the words cannot be identified as German or Latin or any other language, even if we accept highly unusual letter shapes and "non-standard" spellings.  

Quote:So this is the theory that costs the least.

Except that this "theory" does does not explain anything -- what is the language, what is the text about, why was it written, why doesn't it make any sense...

Quote:Much less than a theory that assumes a marginal note is an attempt to correct or reconstruct the Voynich glyphs.

The Big Wipe theory explains everything we see on that page, including the aror Sheey. It requires only two assumptions: (1) that originally there were three lines of Voynichese text on that page, and (2) that the guy who tried to reconstruct the text did not know the Voynichese alphabet and did not know that the lost text had to be Voynichese.  Why are these assumptions unreasonable?

Everything else follows naturally from those assumptions and from concrete evidence (such as the water stain on the UV image and the effect of the "ketchup" stain on the text of f103r).

All the best, --stolfi

"it's purposefully nonsensical, the abundance of X's, pb starting words next to each other... + everything else.."  
Says the depressing voice in my head... 
..."It's all just written to "be weird" *Magic!* (etc).." 

I half expect "Voynichese" is doing the same, and..  
I'm like 99.9% sure the voice in my head is right.

But, the 0.01% tells me if I wrote "Abra!, Kadabra! Alakazam!". I must have got it from somewhere.
Pokemon master btw!

So while I can never understand the nonsense, it might hold other clues.
Just the "Maria" could probably cross some places off a map, so while I think most think this is all futile, I don't think it totally is, unless you want to read it as a sentence.. then, well, yeah. 

"Ola-Da-Bas!"
*Poofs into smoke*

@ Stolfi 
Who says charms have to mean anything? They’re often strings of invocations of saints or angels, references to remedies—because people thought that alone would help—and magical words that can no longer be reconstructed. Here’s below a marginalia from an English book (B. L. Sloane 3160) that also contains some errors in the Latin words.

What’s particularly nice about this charm is: REX + AREX + RYMEX (this is essentially the same as “six marix morix vix” because the endings in “x”—see also “max pax brax”—are very typical of charms.)

The charm 116v invokes “maria,” specifically the most significant relic in the 15th century at Aachen Cathedral in Germany, which—according to the beliefs of the time—promised powerful healing simply through touch. It is Mary’s undergarment the one she is said to have worn at the birth of Jesus = mchiton.
“Alada” refers to hellebore (a remedy); “bas” means “better” (there is an effective form of hellebore and a less effective one). 
“Multos” is used for emphasis, meaning “many.”
A candle or wax (cere) is to be carried.
“N” stands for an invocation of Christ, or for the name of the person in question.
Then the typical magical words: six = six (also in German), marix morix vix (quickly).
“abia” can have many meanings—it could simply be a misspelled Latin word, as in the text from the English book, or “avia” (Christ’s grandmother, Anna), or the name “abia,” or something else.
Maria is invoked again.
Two Voynich words (probably referring to the illness or a remedy)—
“balsam” (palsen), possibly in the form of a paste (pbrey)—and then it says, “so nim es af mich,” which means something like, “so take it from me” (the illness).

(I have already provided the evidence and supporting arguments for all of these interpretations here in this thread)

Even if some of these interpretations may be incorrect—and I don’t mean to deny that by any means—they still illustrate the underlying principle. That’s what matters to me more than the individual interpretations, which we may never truly resolve 100 percent, for it’s a classic charm...

Didn't Koen have an expert on charms on his YouTube channel confirm this was in fact a typical charm?