The Voynich Ninja

(12-07-2026, 04:58 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Indeed medieval medicine was often connected to astrology. (Culpeper's herbal is big on that connection too.)  But the connection was usually scattered throughout the medical text, where each plant was associated to a planet, etc. 

But that is not at all the case of the VMS.  We cannot read the text, allright; but what about the figures?

There is not a single star, Moon, Sun, or Zodiac icon in the whole Herbal  and Pharma sections.  There is not a single herb, disease, medicine, or medical procedure depicted in the Astro, Cosmo, and Zodiac sections (unless you count the bush of Aries and the hay of Taurus).  Those sections are not even in the same quires...

Well, take this example: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Aftrer the initial animal section, there is in this order: 

1) Herbal section with alternating herb/text pages (no astrological imagery)
2) Rules for the months (this work is often is accompanied by astrological imagery, but not in this specific manuscript)
3) Good and bad days for bloodletting (In SPS style paras)(also often accompanied by astrological imagery, but not in this specific manuscript)

I'm not sure where the assumption comes from that astrological imagery has to be intertwined everywhere in a manuscript. On the contrary, it tends to be the opposite: Astrological imagery is often in its own section, and the rest of the manuscript tends to just be text. 

But again, you are claiming no crossover in topic, but you do not know what the text says. None of us do. How can you know that this:
[attachment=16520]
does not say: 
"During the times highlighted in green below, apply the ointment made from a mix of melted fat and the fragrant herbs (see page 17 for details) to the patient's skin. Avoid doing this during the times highlighted in blue, which are the time periods ruled by Venus."

So if you are using the lack of astrological imagery throughout other sections as an argument for the manuscript not being european, I do not see evidence that backs that up. 

(12-07-2026, 04:58 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why would he have felt the need to invent such a complicated encryption method?  Why would he invent a new script from scratch, unlike any other script?  The use of original glyphs, instead of Latin or Greek letters, did not make the encryption more secure.

"why would he do this" is not an argument against the VMS being european. But that being said, the same question surely applies to your theory too. Would it really be quicker to design an entirely new writing system instead of simply using latin letters? Is writing daiin really quicker than zhǔ, djoo, ju, or something else? If you were to send me to china right now, and task me with writing down what someone was saying as quick as I can, lets just say that my first instinct would not be to make an intricate, detailed phonetic writing system that only I could understand.

(12-07-2026, 07:38 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Would it really be quicker to design an entirely new writing system instead of simply using latin letters? Is writing daiin really quicker than zhǔ, djoo, ju, or something else?

I asked the same question, but for some reason I didn't get an answer.
If the author came from Europe and understood the Latin alphabet, it would have been unnecessary for him to create a separate, complex phonetic alphabet for the equally complex Chinese. Indeed, it is easier to write characters as ju, zi, guo, etc., because its 1). shortly 2). more understandable to the reader.
Again, let's recall the Codex Cumanicus - the missionaries were more cunning and decided to write the Polovtsian language in Latin.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Maybe I'm missing something, but to me, the Chinese theory seems like a very, very big speculation...

(12-07-2026, 03:28 PM)rikforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Orthographies have clear rules for representing language, though. ... The hypothesis of a made-to-purpose script would cut very hard against a complicated, inconsistent script, all else equal.

Quite the opposite.  

The "ortho" in that word refers to an external standard of how to "properly" encode sounds.   But if the Author invented the script for his own specific use, it is expected that he changed the rules as he went along.  There would be no "ortho".  Like, at some point he may have decided that a sound distinction was not phonetically significant or worth recording. Like the two sounds of "th" in English, or the stress position and the "ò"/"ó" distinction in Italian.

Or he may have alternated between two ways of writing the same sound in his system.  Like Lewis and Clark sometimes writing "mountains" and "distance" as "mountans" and "distans", "breakfast" as "brackfast", and "buffalo" as "buffalow", "buffaloe", or "biffalo". (Although the last one may be an error by the digital transcriber.  Something which we know is plentiful in the VMS.)

Either of these two possibilities is in fact my preferred explanation for the A-B "language" difference.  It does not seem to be really a language difference, because You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I would be surprised if similar plots can be obtained with two distinct languages -- even with Spanish and Portuguese, even if transcribed in the same phonetic notation.

Quote:But even accepting the possibility that The Author, for whatever reason, made a complicated script from scratch

I see no evidence that the script is complicated.  I bet it is much simpler and neater than Latin spelling.  It should be about as phonetic as the Turkish script (which was invented in the early 1900s), or pinyin, or the modern Vietnamese script; but the glyph shapes, since they were not constrained by tradition, were probably chosen to have some logical relation to their sounds -- like the Shavian, Inukitut, and Korean scripts.

On the other hand, the language itself must have been phonetically complicated because of tones and consonant distinctions that the Author may not have been fully able to hear.  (I lived 13 years in the US, yet I still cannot hear the difference between the vowels of "man" and "men" -- the firmware driver in my ears maps them to the same Portuguese "é" (Italian "è") phoneme before the words reach my dictionary lookup unit...)   And because of phenomena like tone sandhi.

Since you like traditional characters, I suppose you are familiar with the way tones are encoded in Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR, = Guóyǔ Luómǎzì in pinyin), so you should understand how complicated the encoding of tones in Voynichese may be.  

And GR still encodes tones, like pinyin; but maybe Voynichese encodes pitch levels instead (which is my wild guess for the roles of the glyphs a, o, y).  If this is the case, the placement of the pitch codes would be somewhat free, and pitch codes could be omitted depending on the pitch or adjacent words.

Quote:the fact that you have been unable to penetrate it

I think I went at least as far in that direction as I could be expected to, considering that I don't speak any Chinese language.  

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (the current edition of my old crust-mantle-core model) seems to be as good as it gets.  It may be somewhat worse than Zattera's in terms of which words it allows, but it seems to be more logical and more likely to lead to uncovering the phonetic values of the glyphs and digraphs.
 

Quote:it is a problem for your theory, not for your critics.

Well, that is your opinion... 

--All the best, --stolfi

(12-07-2026, 07:38 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, take this example: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Aftrer the initial animal section, there is in this order: 

1) Herbal section with alternating herb/text pages (no astrological imagery)
2) Rules for the months (this work is often is accompanied by astrological imagery, but not in this specific manuscript)
3) Good and bad days for bloodletting (In SPS style paras)(also often accompanied by astrological imagery, but not in this specific manuscript)

Sorry, I don't get your point.  Are there any astrological references in the text of the herbal section of that manuscript?

My original rhetorical question was: "how likely it is that a doctor have valuable secret knowledge, that demanded encryption, about herbs and about anatomy/plumbing and about astronomy and about astrology?" 

The example you showed does not seem to be encrypted and does not point to its contents being original knowledge collected or reformulated by the author.  Is there anything original in its Zodiac?

Unless the sections are tied together by the text, that manuscript seems to be three separate book(let)s, probably compiled from different sources.

Quote:I'm not sure where the assumption comes from that astrological imagery has to be intertwined everywhere in a manuscript. ...  So if you are using the lack of astrological imagery throughout other sections as an argument for the manuscript not being european, I do not see evidence that backs that up.

I am not doing that.  I am responding to those who claim that the whole book was encrypted because it is all precious secret knowledge of the Author.  A claim that implies that the Astro+Cosmo+Zodiac sections exist because of the astrological elements in European medical theory.   I am just pointing out that there is absolutely no evidence that the Astro+Cosmo+Zodiac sections have anything to do with Herbal+Pharma+Bio, or vice-versa.  

While absence of evidence is generally not evidence of absence, depending on the situation it can be quite close to it...

Quote:

Quote:Why would he have felt the need to invent such a complicated encryption method?  Why would he invent a new script from scratch, unlike any other script?  The use of original glyphs, instead of Latin or Greek letters, did not make the encryption more secure.

"why would he do this" is not an argument against the VMS being european.

Tell that to those who tell me "why didn't he use Latin letters", "why did he write down a book that he mostly did not understand", "why didn't he include a glossary or a note in Latin", ...

But, in fact, "why" is an important question to ask when assessing the probability of any hypothetical scenario involving people. "Why would Rudolf give a precious book to Jacobus".  "Why would Raphael claim that it was Bacon's".  "Why would Kelley lie about seeing angels in the crystal ball".  "Why would Wilfrid lie about the provenance of the VMS".  ..

All the best, --stolfi

(12-07-2026, 09:55 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I am not doing that.  I am responding to those who claim that the whole book was encrypted because it is all precious secret knowledge of the Author.  A claim that implies that the Astro+Cosmo+Zodiac sections exist because of the astrological elements in European medical theory.   I am just pointing out that there is absolutely no evidence that the Astro+Cosmo+Zodiac sections have anything to do with Herbal+Pharma+Bio, or vice-versa.

Sorry, but my initial message was clearly a response to this statement:

(12-07-2026, 01:07 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why is there no visible connection anywhere with European medicine of the time?

So if you are responding to those who claim the whole book was encrypted for whatever reason, you are not responding to me. I also never claimed to be linking an encrypted manuscript, nor intended the example to be any argument for or against encryption. 

And then my manuscript example was a response to:

(12-07-2026, 04:58 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Indeed medieval medicine was often connected to astrology. (Culpeper's herbal is big on that connection too.)  But the connection was usually scattered throughout the medical text, where each plant was associated to a planet, etc. 

But that is not at all the case of the VMS.  We cannot read the text, allright; but what about the figures?

My point in linking that was to show that a lack of a link between astrological/herbal/recipe sections is consistent with european manuscripts from the time. And therefore, a lack of a link between the sections is not indicative of a non-european origin. It was also to address that "the connection was usually scattered throughout the medical text", which I don't believe to be true.

But yes, you might say there is still no visible connection with european medicine, but I would say that the structure of the sections in the VMS are quite reminiscent of some european manuscripts, including the one I linked.

(12-07-2026, 10:40 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Sorry, but my initial message was clearly a response to

Well, sorry for the confusion.  Blame it on rhetorical questions with recursive "what if"s, replying to several people at the same time, etc...

Quote:My point in linking that was to show that a lack of a link between astrological/herbal/recipe sections is consistent with european manuscripts from the time. And therefore, a lack of a link between the sections is not indicative of a non-european origin.

Again, i did not claim that the absence of that visible connection is "indicative of a non-european origin".  It is just not indicative of a any particular origin, European or not.    

Quote:I would say that the structure of the sections in the VMS are quite reminiscent of some european manuscripts, including the one I linked.

The similarity is only that the VMS has separate sections for Herbal+Pharma, Zodiac, and "Recipes".  That is not specifically European.  

On the other hand, now that you mention it, how many European Medieval manuscripts have a section like Bio?  I know of the Balneis Puteolanum and its many copies; but is there any one with so many branching pipes and individual tubs  shaped like organs and pangolins and kidneys or whatever those VMS things are?

(I recall that, back in the mailing list days, it was "common knowledge" that anatomical examination of corpses was strictly forbidden by the Church, which explained a supposed absence of books on human anatomy.  That was even offered as an explanation for why the Author had to encrypt the bio section and disguise the illustrations as an ad for the MundusAquaticus amusement park to open soon.  Was any of that true?)

And the structure of the Starred Parags section is very similar to that of the Shennong Bencao -- not just visually or qualitatively, but quantitatively.

All the best, --stolfi

(12-07-2026, 11:16 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, sorry for the confusion.  Blame it on rhetorical questions with recursive "what if"s, replying to several people at the same time, etc...

No problem 

(12-07-2026, 11:16 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Again, i did not claim that the absence of that visible connection is "indicative of a non-european origin".  It is just not indicative of a any particular origin, European or not.    

Ah, I see. I took "why is there no visible connection to the european medicine of the time?" as an argument against VMS being a book on european medicine, and then extended that to "against being european", which you did not say. 

(12-07-2026, 11:16 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The similarity is only that the VMS has separate sections for Herbal+Pharma, Zodiac, and "Recipes".  That is not specifically European.  

Yes, but I was actually also referring to the order that they appeared in, too. Are there any eastern works that contain all of the sections in a similar way to in the VMS?

(12-07-2026, 11:16 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And the structure of the Starred Parags section is very similar to that of the Shennong Bencao -- not just visually or qualitatively, but quantitatively.

Well.. I wonder if the SPS is also quantitatively similar to the bloodletting and recipe sections of that german manuscript..

(12-07-2026, 07:58 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(12-07-2026, 07:38 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Would it really be quicker to design an entirely new writing system instead of simply using latin letters? Is writing daiin really quicker than zhǔ, djoo, ju, or something else?

I asked the same question, but for some reason I didn't get an answer.

Sorry for not replying to you directly, but I did answer that question, several times.

Quote:it is easier to write characters as ju, zi, guo, etc., because its 1). shortly

Is it? We do not know how 主 was pronounced in the local language by that hypothetical Dictator; "zhǔ" (note the tone) is the reading in modern Mandarin, written in pinyin.  

Gemini says that it would be zyu2 in modern Cantonese, written in jyutping, one of the two common phonetic notations; the "2" indicates the second of six possible tones. If the scenario happened today in Vietnam, the Dictator's reading would probably be written chủ in the modern Vietnamese script (that is a "hook" accent over the "u").   

But we know that all those languages changed a lot in the last 600 years.  And keep in mind that the Author would have never been exposed to a phonetic notation for that language, or to any way of encoding tones.  Pinyin, jyutping  the Vietnamese script were developed later, over many decades, by people who knew the languages very well; so those writing systems are fairly optimized in terms of compactness and writing speed. 

The matches that I have found so far indicate that, on average, Voynichese uses approximately 5 EVA letters for each Chinese character.   The following pinyin text with numeric tones (which may be the sort of encoding that the Author may have devised, if he was particularly clever) has 39 words and 169 non-blank characters

• tian1 xiong2 wei4 xin1 wen1 zhu3 da4 feng1 han2
  
• shi1 bi4 li4 jie2 tong4 jiu1 luan2 huan3 ji2 po4
  
• ji1 ju4 xie2 qi4 jin1 chuang1 qiang2 jin1 gu3
  
• qing1 shen1 jian4 xing2 yi1 ming2 bai2 mu4 sheng1
  
• shan1 gu3
  

which is 4.2 Latin+Arabic characters per Chinese character.  Would anyone care to compare the two in number of strokes? That is, how many pen strokes is 5 EVA letters versus 3.2 Latin letters plus 1 digit, on average?

The Author may have though of Voynichese more of a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. system than a precise phonetic notation.  Thus he created a new alphabet, instead of using the Latin one, for the same reason that the inventors of shorthand systems do.

Quote: 2). more understandable to the reader.

Which reader?  During the dictation, the Author would have worried only whether he could read his own notes, once he got back to Europe.

In fact, the "Voynichese script" that he used during the dictation may have been different from the one we see in the VMS.  The latter may be a "block letter" version of the "semi-cursive" script of draft.  Just similar enough that the Scribe could copy the draft on his own.

Quote:Again, let's recall the Codex Cumanicus - the missionaries were more cunning and decided to write the Polovtsian language in Latin.

Given the purpose of that book, it was important to use a phonetic notation that generic missionaries could read aloud fluently without having to learn a new alphabet.  (Even if they did not fully understand the language.)  But the book itself was produced "off-line" at a much slower pace, by priests who presumably were fluent in the language; not by a foreigner under dictation. 

People must often have invented original scripts for "obscure" languages, all through the Middle Ages.  But only a few caught on: Cyrillic, Glagolitic, Armenian, Georgian, Runic, ...  The others must have become tinder for their authors' fireplaces...

Quote:but to me, the Chinese theory seems like a very, very big speculation...

First, the dictation scenario is NOT an argument for the Chinese Theory.  In my view, the SPS≈SBJ claim was satisfactorily proved already by the numerical 主<->daiin matches in the "red rooster recipe.  Back then I showed that the the probability of the measured distances matching that well by accident was very low. The additional matches collected since then only "rained on water", as they say over here.  

So I consider the Chinese Origin theory, in the wider sense, a fact.  The dictation scenario is only my best guess for how that fact came to be.  Other scenarios are possible, but seem less likely and do not fit as well with all the features of the VMS.

So, what is in the dictation scenario that makes you say "a very, very big speculation"?  There were hundreds if not thousands of Europeans who could have satisfied the conditions assumed by the Scenario.  Marco Polo could have been the Author, except that he probably was much more interested in Chinese girls than in Chinese books...

All the best, --stolfi

(12-07-2026, 11:55 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The matches that I have found so far indicate that, on average, Voynichese uses approximately 5 EVA letters for each Chinese character.   The following pinyin text with numeric tones (which may be the sort of encoding that the Author may have devised, if he was particularly clever) has 39 words and 169 non-blank characters

• tian1 xiong2 wei4 xin1 wen1 zhu3 da4 feng1 han2
  
  
• shi1 bi4 li4 jie2 tong4 jiu1 luan2 huan3 ji2 po4
  
  
• ji1 ju4 xie2 qi4 jin1 chuang1 qiang2 jin1 gu3
  
  
• qing1 shen1 jian4 xing2 yi1 ming2 bai2 mu4 sheng1
  
  
• shan1 gu3
  

The average is close, but the spread / standard deviation is a very different story.

To me the dictation or even the Chinese theory is too far fetched. The use of unique words in voynich is too small in the context of a dictation. People do not speak like this. But they can write like this.

Also in a dictation, particularly if it is a relatively unknown language, Chinese, the likelihood of mishearing and thus miswriting entire new phonetic chains is absurdly high. You would see multiple spellings within the script with regular inconsistency. 

I can read Chinese characters (in the context of Japanese) and am not buying the idea that literate scholar level people would have left China to give a dictation in Chinese to a foreigner who would not understood them in Chinese.