The Voynich Ninja

But I do care what I see elsewhere. I try to spend a part of every day reading medieval manuscripts in several different languages and I collect letter samples every day.

From this I learned that many scribes will use both double-story and single-story "a" in the same paragraph and often even in the same line (especially at the beginning of the 15th century). I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't looked at a lot of manuscripts.

I also adjust my thinking quite frequently. For example, when I first saw the text on 116v, I thought the "v" was out of character with the rest of the text, but I have learned that the backleaning (and rather sparse) "v" was not unusual and I even discovered the history of why it was written that way (a holdover from early medieval styles).


But I also care how THIS particular scribe does things (because no two scribes do everything the same).

And I honestly don't see how that letter between "m" and "l" can be interpreted as "ei". It is tightly bunched together and it is taller than the other letters (which is normal for double-story "a" but not for other lowercase letters).

This scribe tends to put larger spaces between each letter (larger than average) and often writes the "m" a little smaller. The "i" always has a long leading serif (a distinctive characteristic of this writer), and uses the style of "r" that almost has a gap between the stem and the crossbar. Also, the crossbar on the "e" is barely there and sometimes omitted (like the first "e" in "cere" on 116v). The same specific features are seen in the text on 116v.




Do you have an example of "ei" bunched together like this (and taller than the other letters)?

I would like to see what you are seeing but I can't see "ei" here and will need to be shown an example so I know which strokes you are interpreting as each letter.

I think it was a double-story "a" which was later emended (probably by a different person) into a single-story "a".

(I think we can move this discussion to the f17 thread).

I think he wrote an e like the e at the end of the word and then an i like the i's he writes and wrote them touching one another and the i slightly bigger than the e, of course the two  letters look similar to a double storeyed a, but are not. I think he had just dipped his pen in and and something went wrong. Just follow the strokes. I think you can see it better in in the Voyager scans than in the scans now on the Beinecke site.   If you don't see that, you don't see  it, no reason to  make an issue out of it.

(02-06-2019, 02:01 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think it was a double-story "a" which was later emended (probably by a different person) into a single-story "a".

(I think we can move this discussion to the f17 thread).

Anton do you know were the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. thread was placed, or disappeared too? I have the page translated and would like to add to the thread.

Hi Monica,

I meant the Marginalia subforum thread (for marginalia discussion), which is here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Your translation (of the Voynichese text, not of the marginalia) would be fine to be placed in this thread: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  (we have the custom that when one has a solution, s/he should develop it in a single thread, instead of spreading the discussion across many threads).

(03-06-2019, 12:59 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi Monica,

I meant the Marginalia subforum thread (for marginalia discussion), which is here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Your translation (of the Voynichese text, not of the marginalia) would be fine to be placed in this thread: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  (we have the custom that when one has a solution, s/he should develop it in a single thread, instead of spreading the discussion across many threads).

thank you very much. I posted the plant (it was not about any plant) translation in the imagery section. I think the controversial translation is why there is a coded message on the top.

Guys, I´m not sure, but I think I have a complete translation for the folio 116v.

If I´m right with that, we can say, that somebody found the book on the banks of a small river (in a cave). He describes the book as that, what it is ... 

- made of vellum, seemingly powerful and he found it wet. 


As far as I interpreted the last (maybe unfinished) sentence "o nim gas mich (...)", he died when he wrote the sentences on 116v. But here I could be wrong.

He even tells us, where exactly he found it, but unluckily it does not help us with the exact language of the rest of the manuscript. 

The key for that place is "olabidas". 

No, not "oladabas". And the one of you, who wrote, that "ola" means "wave" was very close to the word´s (maybe) true meaning as I would say.

Furthermore, the writer of these lines seems to have German and maybe French ancestors, because he used 5 German and maybe one French word (but that is not as clear as it should be, even if it´s meaning is discovered). But they did not give us a hint, who he was. The rest of the text consists of a spoken Latin and the name of the River.

On page 116v I would read:

poxleder umen potifer
inchiton olabidas multos te / tu ceve portas
mi six marix movix vix adia matria orrorr hui valsen ubrey / ´o nim geis mich` !



/ = end of a sentence

I translated it as:

Feuchtes machtbringendes Kalbsleder, 
der reißende Oladibas strafte dich. Du batest mich vom Höhleneingang, aus sechs kaum bewegten Meeren (kommend), dazu zu dieser Quelle im fruchtbaren Tal. O, Geist, nimm mich zu dir!

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It´s free for discussion

It's not poxleder.

It is very clearly a Gothic "b" where you have a "d". No one wrote "d" like that and many wrote "b" like that.

I cannot tell if the last letter is "r" or "n" because it's faded or rubbed. It's not clear.

poxleben or poxleber (and there's some dispute about the x because the ink blobbed and filled in, but I think it looks like x).

You are mixing up Gothic "d" and "b" (getting them backwards) because in the oladabas word you read the "d" (which is a normal "d") as "b", but no one wrote b like that.

Both the "d" and "b" are written in a typical way for the time so I'm not sure why you are reversing them.

I don't think there's any reason to think the first letter is "i" to make "inchiton". This scribe does not write "i" like that (the first "i"), with a beginning loop (in fact, almost no one did). This scribe seems to always write "i" with a straight long serif. Look how different the first letter is from the "i" that comes after the "h".