The Voynich Ninja

Hi all, 

I was reading an interesting thread (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) on cribs and ReneZ mentioned You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as one of the clearest ones for the VM. I thought it would be interesting to have a look at the supposed lunar mansions names and if/when they occur throughout the VM. I used Voynichese for all of the analysis and checked every single occurrence individually using the VM Voyager. Some of the labels differ from the EVA vord given on Voynichese. This is my personal interpretation of these vords so I am absolutely not certain it is right and in fact would be happy to get the rest of the forum's opinions on the few (re)interpretations of certain EVA vords. 

I will give below the EVA names for the labels. I started with the "low" station okeyd (which funnily enough is given as "okey d" on Voynichese) and moved around clockwise. 

Mansions:

• okeyd (Voynichese has it as okey d however my personal opinion is that the d is very close to the preceding y, making it likely to be a single vord). OCCURS 1
  
• okead (Voynichese has it as okeod, which other have pointed out would have it appear 3 times on this single folio. However, the o looks quite clearly like an a and very different from the initial o). OCCURS 1
  
• okodchy OCCURS 1
  
• okeody OCCURS 37 of which 2 in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (more detail on this further down)
  
• okcheys OCCURS 1
  
• oar alys OCCURS 16 and 2 (more detail on this further down)
  
• okeey sar (Voynichese has the first vord as okchy but there is a lack of the typical connector between c and h very clearly there in the rest of the folio, so I am inclined to see the first vord as okeey)
  
• okeo dy OCCURS 37 (this is a repetition, further analysis down)
  
• ochoyk OCCURS 1
  
• ykeey OCCURS 58
  
• ytary OCCURS 1
  
• oeesy (Voynichese has it as oeesa but the last letter is clearly  a y with the distinctive tail) OCCURS 1
  
• ytody OCCURS 9
  
• okody OCCURS 16
  
• otody OCCURS 14
  
• okeal (Voynichese has it as okeol but the o looks more like an a, even has the little tail typical of a) OCCURS 12
  
• okeod//lkeod (Voynichese has it as okeod which already appears once on the page if we assume my correction above, however the first letter looks like an l to me with really faded legs. This is the change I am the least certain about so would welcome comments) ASSUMING Lkeod, OCCURS 1
  
• oteeys OCCURS 2
  
• oteol OCCURS 42
  
• ykeydy OCCURS 1
  
• okeod (occurs either 6 or 4 times depending on above corrections, either 3 times or just once on f69v) OCCURS 4
  
• saral OCCURS 6
  
• saiir OCCURS 6
  
• okolar OCCURS 2
  
• ykeody OCCURS 16
  
• sarydy OCCURS 1
  
• otchy OCCURS 48
  
• okeeydy (Voynichese has it as okchy dy but it looks a lot like okeey sar further along. Could be potentially 2 vords?) OCCURS 1
  
  

Once I was happy with my transliteration of the labels, I went and checked every occurrence, starting with the ones that appeared twice and going up. I did not check ykeey, otchy, oteol, and okeody since they appeared in excess of 30 times and it would take me a long time to go through every single occurrence and assess it qualitatively, though I might do so another time, or maybe someone else could help

Below is the qualitative analysis of the occurrences. I wanted to also check if there was a pattern in scribes using the vords on f69v, but not had the time to do that yet.
I had two assumptions: 1- vords should not appear twice on the labels in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. UNLESS we're dealing with some sort of cipher/abbreviation system where two different Mansions can be written the same way. This does not seem to be the case. 2- we should see the Mansions names potentially pop up more in the astrological sections, especially the Zodiacs, since they are dependent on the Moon's position in the sky.

• okolar: occurs 1 outside of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (the MAY Zodiac) underneath a figure with a star. It is on a different position than on f69v. 
  
• oteeys: occurs 1 outside of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in f68v2 (star map with 8 sections) in the outer ring of text.
  
• saiir: occurs 4 outside of f69v, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. it is saiis rather than saiir so I have excluded it, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (botanical), in f68v3 (astrological, on one of the "streams" moving towards the centre), f101v2 (pharmaceutical) and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (stars/recipes)
  
• saral: occurs 5 outside of f69v, in f67r2 (the 12 zodiac signs?), in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (balneological), You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (pharmaceutical)
  
• ytody: occurs 8 outside of f69v, in f6v, f37r, f51v, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (botanical), in f67r2 (the 12 zodiacs signs? it is 8 spaces distant from saral, as on f69v!), twice on f86v5 and once on f86v6 (Rose)
  
• okeal: occurs 11 outside, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and twice on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (botanical), on f70v1 although it reas as okealar to me rather than okeal so I have excluded it, once on f72r2 (the GEMINI zodiac) next to a star figure, and in f103r, twice on f108v, once on f111r, on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and on 112r (recipes)
  
• otody: occurs 13 outside, f16r, f29v, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (botanical), f70r1 (within inner circle, similar position as on f69v), f70v2 (PISCES zodiac) next to a figure, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (SAGGITTARIUS zodiac) in circle of vords, f85r2 (in rose inner ring), f94r, f94v, f95v1 (pharmaceutical) and f104r, 112r and 114v (stars/recipes)
  
• okeey sar, as seen above this looks like 2 vords: I checked every occurrence of sar to see if it was preceded by okeey and it happnes 1 outside of f69v, in f67r1, another stars/moon chart, in a similar position as on f69v)
  
• oar alys, as seen above 2 vords: no occurrence one after the other, although oar is followed by al in 2 cases (although this is probably has nothing to do with the Mansion of the Moon in question)
  
• okeod: as seen above, occurs 6 times according to Voynichese and 3 times on f69v! Although I am fairly certain one is actually okead, the other 2 are extremely similar. As discussed above, I have interpreted one as lkeod and the other as okeod since the starting o in the former looks a lot like a faded l glyph. Assuming it is lkeod and okeod, we have 3 occurrences outisde of f69v: one on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the SAGGITTARIUS zodiac next to a star figure and one on f101v1, although I could not find it on Voynichese, so potentially only one match on a Zodiac chart. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has it too but it is clearly okeodsho rather than okeod. 
  
• ykeody has 15 occurrences, f14r, f43r, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (botanical), f67r2 (12 Zodiac signs? in red ink outside circle), f68r2 and f68v2 in paragraphs (astrology), once in f70r1 in the outer circle of vords, once in the APRIL zodiac on f70v1 in the outer circle of vords, and 2 on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the SAGGITTARIUS Zodiac, 1 in the outside circle and 1 next to a star figure, then once on f89r2, f89v2, f90r1, f102r2, and interestingly on f102v1 as a label? (pharmaceutical)
  
• okody occurs 15 times, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (botanical), You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. twice (in same section of drawing as well) and 2 in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (one is the label, the other is on the outer circle although the k is very weirdly written), 1 on f70v2 (PISCES zodiac) next to a star figure, 2 in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the outer and inner circles, once on f95v2, f101v2 (looks like it could be united with another particle but unsure), f102r2, f102v1 has been excluded since it is more like otady, and f102v2 (unsure about this one too, looks like okydy or okady) (pharmaceutical) and 1 in f112 and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (recipes)
  
• okeody, which occurs 37 times, but more interestingly twice on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. labels: the first okeody is undebatable, however the second has a lot of distance between okeo and dy, and okeo could also be okoo. There is another okoo written by the same hand on f68r2 and it looks nothing like this one, so I am inclined to think this is oke, which would be problematic since it goes against our assumptions about non-repetition on the labels, unless the space is significant. I looked for okeo followed by dy in the rest of the VM and it doesn't occur apart from the label.
  

I am unsure what to do next but wanted to share with everyone, I definitely think it is interesting how some labels only appear again on specific Zodiac signs next to stars, and generally there seems to be a lot of affinity between these labels and the astrological section. It is also curious how saral and ytody both appear on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as labels and on f67r2 (the 12 zodiac signs?) and on both folios are separated by exactly 8 spaces. 

I will try and see the scribe's distribution for the labels and if I have time analyse the 4 labels I haven't done yet because of the quantity of vords to check. I really doubt the VM is a one to one cipher (if it even is a cipher) but it would be interesting to compare the labels with the 28 Mansions' names or their main Stars, as well as using the labels present in the zodiacs to restrict the search to the Mansions pertinent to that specific sign.

Edit - Ignore me. Teaches me for multi-tasking / skim reading   Can see you checked some y/o variations now they are just not in order. 
"qo" variants might still be interesting, though I'm not really sure where this leads

(21-02-2025, 08:56 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Edit - Ignore me. Teaches me for multi-tasking / skim reading   Can see you checked some y/o variations now they are just not in order. 
"qo" variants might still be interesting, though I'm not really sure where this leads

I went and checked every folio to see which scribes uses what words. I'll check qo variations later on. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was written by Scribe 4 in language B according to the paper from Lisa Fagin Davis, so all the characters appearing once are in that hand and from that Currier "dialect". 

Below, the ones that appear more than once, Scribal distribution and dialects. As a reminder, I have not analysed okeody, otchy, oteol and ykeey since they appear a lot and I don't have the time now to go through them all, but will do so when I get the chance. 

List (including appearance on f69v): 

• okolar: Scribe 4, lang. B x 2
  
• oteeys: Scribe 4, lang. B x 2
  
• saiir: Scribe 1, lang. A x 1 / / Scribe 3, lang. B x 1 / / Scribe 4, lang. B x 2 / / Scribe 5, lang. B x 1
  
• saral: Scribe 1, lang. A x 2 / / Scribe 2, lang. B x 2 / / Scribe 4, lang. B x 2
  
• ytody: Scribe 1, lang. A x 3 / / Scribe 2, lang. B x 3 / / Scribe 4, lang. B x 2 / / Scribe 5, lang. B x 1
  
• okeal: Scribe 1, lang. A x 2 / / Scribe 3, lang. B x 8 / / Scribe 4, lang. B x 2
  
• otody: Scribe 1, lang. A x 2 / / Scribe 2, lang. B x 2 / / Scribe 3, lang. B x 6 / / Scribe 4, lang. B x 4
  
• okeey sar: Scribe 4, lang. B x 2
  
• okeod: potentially Scribe 1, lang. A x 1 / / Scribe 4, lang. B x 2
  
• ykeody: Scribe 1, lang. A x 6 / / Scribe 2, lang. B x 2 / / Scribe 4, lang. B x 8
  
• okody: Scribe 1, lang. A x 4 / / Scribe 2, lang. B x 1 / / Scribe 3, lang. B x 3 / / Scribe 4, lang. B x 8
  

Interestingly, the "label" vords seem to appear throughout the VM regardless of Currier's language/Scribe. Unsure what this means but it is interesting nonetheless, seems to be that correspondence is independent of language. 

I will have a look at the remaining 4 "labels", though it means I'll have to check about 200 vords one by one...  and then have a look at "qo" variations.

The labels show up in both because Currier B is more of a mix of A and B, and you are looking at A. 
If "okody" was "okedy" you would only see it show up in B, or "lkody" would be the same (usually). It is interesting all the scribes knew these words though, yet wrote in a new way all the same if in A or B.  

I wouldn't worry too much about "qo", I have a feeling I know where they will show up anyway. I just have a bit of an idea that "q" might be "+" and most "labels" start with "o" so it would be Thing+thing+thing+thing as in a recipe, or charm or sinful words requiring a cross maybe (as I saw posted on here recently). As with all things Voynich, I'm probably completely wrong. I'm just interested in labels starting with "o" and where they pop up again with "q" because of this. If the crib idea is correct maybe if two or three of these that you documented might be found in a "qo" cluster, then a charm/recipe could be found that related to these same three things. 
That obviously would be "winning the lottery".. but you have to have a ticket right

(22-02-2025, 02:00 AM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I wouldn't worry too much about "qo", I have a feeling I know where they will show up anyway. I just have a bit of an idea that "q" might be "+" and most "labels" start with "o" so it would be Thing+thing+thing+thing as in a recipe, or charm or sinful words requiring a cross maybe (as I saw posted on here recently). As with all things Voynich, I'm probably completely wrong. I'm just interested in labels starting with "o" and where they pop up again with "q" because of this. If the crib idea is correct maybe if two or three of these that you documented might be found in a "qo" cluster, then a charm/recipe could be found that related to these same three things. 
That obviously would be "winning the lottery".. but you have to have a ticket right

So I went back and checked variation with "qo". Would you care to explain how your additional system treats the "y" symbol? Would it change to an o? i.e ytody --> qotody? 

I've only done labels starting with o, 10 of them never occur as "qo" + vord:

• qokeody appears 31 times
  
• qokody appears 9 times
  
• qotody appears 11 times
  
• qokeal appears 4 times
  
• qokeod appears 8 times
  
• qoteol appears 12 times 
  
• qotchy appears 63 times
  

qokeey and sar appear 308 times (!) and 84 times. I don't think I can manually check it, same with qotchy. 

• qotody appears on 43r, 49r (Plants), 85r1 (rose) , 2 x 88v, 93v (pharma) , 104v, 113r, 114v, 116r (recipes). Scribe 1, A x 4 / / Scribe 2, B x 2 / / Scribe 3, B x 5
  
• qokody appears on f3r, f26v, f43r, f50v, f51v, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Plants), 86v3 (Rose), 88v(pharma), 113v (recipes). Scribe 1, A x 5 / / Scribe 2, B x 3 / / Scribe 3, B x 1
  
• qokeal appears on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Plants), 83r (balneo), 94v (pharma), 108v (recipes). Scribe 2, B x 1 / / Scribe 3, B x 3
  
• qoteol appears on 3r, 41v, 46r (Plants), 86v (rose), 89r2, 3 x 102r1, 102v1 (pharma), 108v, 111v, 115v (recipes). Scribe 1, A x 6 / / Scribe 2, B x 2 / / Scribe 3, B x 3 / / 5, B x 1
  
• qokeod appears on 87v, 90r2, 101v2, 102r2, 102v2 (pharma), 106r, 111r, 115r (recipes)
  
• qokeody appears in 31r, 41r, 2 x 41v, 57r, 4 x 66r (two in a row) (Plants), 68v3, 73v (Astronomy/Zodiac), 85r2, 86v4 (rose), 88r, 4 x 88v, 89r1, 89r2, 89v1, 96r, 100r, 102r1, 102r2, 102v1, 102v2 (pharma), 107v, 2 x 111r, 113r (recipes). Scribe 1, A x 14 / / Scribe 2, B x 3 / / Scribe 3, B x 4 / / Scribe 4, B x 2 / / Scribe 5, B x 8
  

Seems to be present mainly in the pharma section and the recipes. Should probably put all this in an excel file to analyse it more easily.

(21-02-2025, 05:30 PM)davidma Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I was reading an interesting thread (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) on cribs and ReneZ mentioned You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as one of the clearest ones for the VM.

Why not continue on the same thread, to avoid readers having to move between the two?

P.S. I have a strong allergy to long messages, but I can't get the "reply" button out when I select an excerpt. What should I do?

"y" and "qo" work very much the same when starting a word in that they are mainly followed by a gallows character (f,p,t,k) or to a lesser extent "d". "o" is a bit more universal but works in this way too. These seem to be split off from "a" which will hardly ever be seen proceeding a gallows character or "d".   

As you have seen you will find a fair amount of words which can start "o" or "y" or "qo".
It might be like trying to find a common link between "oats" "boats" and "goats", but an idea could be to try find strings of words in pages where you would expect labels and another, even if it is "okchy qokeedy ykedy" and not "okchy okeedy okedy"

Or on single words, lets take the famous "Pleiades" on f68r3. The word below the line is "oalcheol" which is unique, but "alcheol" actually shows up in the previous quire as "qokalcheol". These are the only two "alcheol" cases. The word above the line is "doary" or "doaro" which is also unique, but "doar" turns up 2 pages later, and again these are the only two cases of "doar". So building up a list like this might be more fruitful than trying to find exact matches. 

Another example - choekey is the word at the top of the middle circle on f68v3. That is unique, but "choeke" is found top and bottom of the circle on f70r1 ("choekeeos" and "choekeey") to make up the only 3 cases of this sequence.

Though obviously we have no idea if these could be linked or "oats" "boats" and "goats", when the make up of the word is this unique it might be possible

(23-02-2025, 11:57 AM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(21-02-2025, 05:30 PM)davidma Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I was reading an interesting thread (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) on cribs and ReneZ mentioned You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as one of the clearest ones for the VM.

Why not continue on the same thread, to avoid readers having to move between the two?

I thought the original was more about cribs in general and I didn't want to flood the thread with this stuff. Happy to reply there as well if people think it'd be easier to navigate though.

I went and checked the mean Levenshtein distance for the vords on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. wrt each other. I think somebody else had already done so but since there are some differences between my reading and the voynichese one I thought I'd try too. As previously, no immediate drop/gap in values. 
[attachment=10032]

I also checked for occurrences where these labels happen on the same folio. 

• On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (weird thistle-looking plant, potentially Castor Bean plant/Ricinus Communis): ytody / / okody. They appear one after the other as "okody ytody". They also follow each other on f69v.
  
• On f67r2 (Zodiac with planetary influences, one of the two "strongest" cribs in the VM according to the above thread):  ytody / / saral / / ykeody. Ytody and saral are 8 spaces distant as in f69v, ykeody is one of the words in red ink in outer circle, above section before saral.
  
• On f68v2 (astronomical depiction of sky in 8 sections with stars?): oteeys / / ykeody. Oteeys appears in the outer circle followed by "sar", ykeody in the top line.
  
• f70r1 (weird astronomical illustration with 9 "o" characters in top ring): otody / / ykeody. Otody is inside one of six sections of inner "star" as a label, and ykeody is on the outermost ring.
  
• f70v2 (Pisces/March zodiac): okody / / otody. Both on star labels in the pisces zodiac, they follow each other on f69v.
  
• f73v (Saggittarius zodiac): otody / / okeod / / ykeody. Ykeody appears twice, one as star label in second circle and one on the outermost ring of words, okeod as a star label in innermost circle, and otody on second innermost ring of words. 
  
• f101v2 (pharmaceutical section): okody / /saiir. Okody is in the top paragraph, saiir in the bottom paragraph.
  
• f102r2 (pharmaceutical section): okody / / ykeody. Okody is in the top paragraph, ykeody in the bottom one.
  
• f104r (recipes): saiir / / otody. otody is at the top of the page, saiir at the bottom.
  
• f112r (recipes): okody / / otody / / okeal. Again okody immediately precedes otody in the text, okeal is further down the page.
  

Beyond the presence of ytody and saral on f67r2 (the zodiac crib) that I already mentioned, it's interesting how ytody, okody and otody follow eachother on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and we have okody ytody in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (the Castor Oil plant?) and okody otody as star labels in the Pisces Zodiac and as part of a recipe in f112r. These are not common vords and they only appear a few times in the VM. 

It would be interesting to see the Levenshtein distances for the 28 Lunar Mansions in latin. Somebody shared here a pdf with a latin translation by Guglielmo de Moncada of the work of Ibn Al-Hatim on Lunar mansions, dated in the 1480s. Here are the names in Latin of the Mansions. 

[attachment=10033]