The Voynich Ninja

I'm still relatively new to Voynich studies (couple of months) so there are some peculiarities I still have to learn about. I noticed on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. a row was added left of the text, and some (rather modern looking?) numbers. Is there a consensus about who did this or what it means?

(09-03-2016, 09:38 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm still relatively new to Voynich studies (couple of months) so there are some peculiarities I still have to learn about. I noticed on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. a row was added left of the text, and some (rather modern looking?) numbers. Is there a consensus about who did this or what it means?

I don't know what has been said about the numbers. To me, the ink looks similar but it's difficult to know if it's the same hand as the text. It may not be.

The shapes that are set apart from the main text in columns is a format that was very common in medieval manuscripts, enough so that you could call it a convention. Usually they represented the first letter of the first word in the line and the space was just there for formatting purposes, but sometimes the dangling character was a marker.

Why this convention was used on this particular plant page is a bit of a puzzler. The columnar format was usually used for lists and indexes rather than for prose. It might be an experiment, it might be a choice to represent information differently for this plant, or maybe it's an index or something other than a description of the plant.

The ink on the numbers looks the same as the rest of the text to me, so I've always assumed it was done by the original scribe, but I don't think that's a consensus view.  I know I've seen it asserted that the numbers are a later addition.

There's a pattern repeated three times in the column of letters that goes p/f - o - r - y - "e" - "hook".  The numbers are next to the last five letters in the first instance of this pattern.

66r and 76r also have columns of letters.

I don't think these are just the first letters of the words following them, although it may be intended to look like that. This would create letter combinations such as "fk" or "eq" which are very rare or nonexistent in the VMS. Also, it wouldn't explain the repeating pattern noted by Sam G.

(10-03-2016, 02:06 AM)Oocephalus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't think these are just the first letters of the words following them, although it may be intended to look like that. This would create letter combinations such as "fk" or "eq" which are very rare or nonexistent in the VMS. Also, it wouldn't explain the repeating pattern noted by Sam G.

If you look at calenders and astronomical texts, you will see voluminous columns that are headed by a letter to help you keep track.

The ones in astronomical charts are usually seven-character sequences (the length of a week), often the letters a to g (although numbers or other sequences can also be used) and then they repeat. This is the kind pf sequence I was referring to when I mentioned that sometimes they are markers (in this example, line markers).

If they were markers (as one possibility), and the VMS writer were intent on hiding the meaning of the characters, the markers themselves could be written out in some sly way

Has anyone ever tried to compare the 1,2,3,4,5 numerals to other sources? They look surprisingly "normal" for Voynich standards. Couldn't they teach us something about the manuscript's origin or its history after its creation?

(10-03-2016, 12:54 PM)en Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Has anyone ever tried to compare the 1,2,3,4,5 numerals to other sources? They look surprisingly "normal" for Voynich standards. Couldn't they teach us something about the manuscript's origin or its history after its creation?

I have done some comparing and my personal opinion is that we have a full set of Arabic numerals in the VMs and I think  Roman numerals as well. I have an inkling what it could mean but no hard evidence which I would dare to publish

(10-03-2016, 12:54 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Has anyone ever tried to compare the 1,2,3,4,5 numerals to other sources? They look surprisingly "normal" for Voynich standards. Couldn't they teach us something about the manuscript's origin or its history after its creation?

It's possible that the 1 2 3 4 5 is similar to the a b c d e f g... on the first page, someone long ago's attempt at deciphering the manuscript.

The zodiac labels are in another hand (a hand that appears to be distinct from other marginalia) , the a b c d e f g h... are in another hand (not in Gothic cursive as with the zodiac labels and other notes), so the 1 2 3 4 5 may have been added by another hand, as well, but still be very old. If it was around the time the manuscript was made or shortly after, the ink could be from the same source.


Since we are missing many years of the manuscript's provenance, it's possible that several attempts to decode it, long before Kircher had it, have left their imprint on the VMS.

That's what it looks like to me as well. Even if we manage to translate this manuscript completely, there will still be plenty of unanswered questions left...

-JKP- You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:

Quote:The page with the index column on the left might be in random order.

Often index columns were there only for a visual reference to find a particular line and could be almost anything. In other words, they were like capitula, not meaningful in themselves, but using different shapes was like using different colors for capitula (with a wider palette), it let you scan down faster to the one you wanted.

In many of the calendars and astronomical tables of moons, they would simply use a b c d e f g a b c d e f g a b c d e f g to express the days of the week and as you can see, it's just a sequence, it doesn't correspond to the first letters of the day of the week (e.g., M T W TH F Sa S) or anything meaningful related to the content other than the fact that it repeats every seven lines.


I've been assuming the most likely explanations for the index column are that they are

• the first letter of each "paragraph" or
  
• a sequence to help the eye find a particular spot which may bear a relation to the text on the right or
  
• that the characters relate the information on the "index" page to something else in the manuscript (which may or may not have been bound in with the other pages) or
  
• a random column to help the eye find a particular spot with the characters bearing no relation to the following text or
  
• it's a ruse to make it look like a sequence (I don't think this is the most likely explanation).

Let's sum up what we have with this.

1) There are two blocks of text, separated by increased line spacing.

2) Each of the two blocks has 13 lines.

3) The first block seems to be one-paragraph, while the second block is two-paragraph.

(As a side note, the distinction between blocks (marked by increased line spacing) and paragraphs (marked by the incompleteness of the last line) might designate the difference between plain text paragraphs, on one hand, and blocks of text used as input to the encoding process, on the other hand. Although which one is plain text paragraph, and which one is input block, it is not easy to say. It could be either way).

4) Each of the two blocks ends with daiin - the most frequent vord. (Maybe that's accidental, but let's note it).

5) The "index" column (let's call it thus, as opposed to the digits column to the left, just for the sake of brevity - because it might be not an index actually) contains 26 elements separated into two subsets of 13 symbols each, corresponding to the two text blocks.

6a) The first subset of the index column looks like it has been put down after the text block was put down, or at least at the same time - in the course of writing each new line. Note that the spacing between symbol 1 (f) and symbol 2 (o) is exactly the same as the spacing between lines 1 and 2. Note, further, that symbol 9 (p) is slightly below the baseline of line 9, so as to avoid overlapping with symbol 8 (s). Generally, symbols of the first set align quite well to the respective lines, with one exception of symbol 12 (y).

6b) The second subset of the index column does not align so fine to the respective lines in its beginning, but the alignment gets fine towards the end. The improper alignment concerns symbols 15 (s or Extended EVA &164;) and 16 (p), but it can be reasonably explained if we assume that symbol 15 was originally aligned with line 15, and presented something like a or e, but immediately afterwards it was considered to be incorrect, and then corrected to s by adding a curl downwards. Hence the next symbol (p) had to be also shifted downwards. Then o is only slightly shifted down as compared to the respective baseline. And the subsequent symbols are aligned to the baselines.

Note that this explanation waives the possibility that the index column was created directly in the process of writing the main text. If it were so, the scribe would have naturally aligned line 16 with the index symbol p, which is not the case.

This leaves unexplained, though, why symbol 15 was corrected downwards and not upwards (which seems to have been a more appropriate option).

6c) Given the considerations above, it seems more likely that the index column was put down after the main text was put down. If the text is the original text, then this waives the possibility that the index column has something to do with the encryption process (if any). If the text is a copy (like copied from the wax tablets or otherwise), this is not so certain, but likely.

7) If the text is a copy, then the original may or may not have exhibited the same misalignment. In the former case, the copy is perfect and it just conveys the original misalignment. (And then the proposition of item 6c) about the encryption process applies). In the latter case, the copy is imperfect (the copyist had problems with representing original good alignment).

8) There are repetitive patterns in the index column, although it is not easy to embrace the scope. The most certain and frequent patterns are "y e &163;" which is repeated thrice, and "y e" which is repeated four times - thrice within the "y e &163;" pattern and one time standalone.  The pattern "p o &192;" is repeated two times. And if we consider symbol 15 to be s (and not &164;), then this is expanded to "s p o &192;" repeating twice. Now, if we consider &192; to be the same as r (which I'm not sure in), then we have "o r y e &163;" repeating thrice. Further, if symbol 1 is p and not f (which I'm even less sure in), then we have the mega-pattern "p o r y e &163;" repeating thrice.

9) However, repetitive patterns do not exhibit cyclic character in their appearance. They are separated by different number of symbols.

10) The digits column contains arabic digits 1 to 5 and is matched to symbols 2 to 6 of the index column. It is not clear whether it was added before or after putting down the main text and the index column.

11) Two possibilities exist: the digits column is the addition by the original author, or it is the addition by a later reader. In the former case, it might provide insight into the essence of the index column. In the latter case, it might reflect the trail of thought of the reader. If he considered r and &192; to be the same character, he might have discerned the repetitive pattern "o r y e &163;" and decided that those stand for numbers 1 to 5, or simply numbered that sequence for reference.

However, the ink of the digits column looks pretty the same, and faded out in the same degree. Thus the probability is higher that it was created by the original author.

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Now, what would we make of all this?