(18-07-2025, 12:05 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I once suggested that it may be a k, but then at least this word would be unlikely to be Latin.
In that case, we would expect the abbreviation to work differently, right? Kucent doesn't make any sense in any language that I know of.
In fact I cannot think of any way to resolve "kuc..." so that it results in a plausible word.
Looking at the marginalia in total, the question remains if it has to be a plausible word that makes sense. I think we should focus on what we see rather than what we think words 'should' be.
Alemannic ‘chue®z’, Bavarian ‘kue®z’, German “kurz”
We don't necessarily pronounce the ‘r’. I'm not sure about Bavarian. MHD is clear.
When I speak ‘kurz’ in the North German dialect, I don't actually hear the ‘r’ either. Written as spoken?
(18-07-2025, 08:46 AM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Looking at the marginalia in total, the question remains if it has to be a plausible word that makes sense. I think we should focus on what we see rather than what we think words 'should' be.
There's what we see, but also what we can derive. Someone starting a word with "k" is unlikely to be writing in Latin.
What we see is k, u, and a ligature of c+3 with a macron. (I just use 3 as shorthand for the symbol).
If this were Latin, the way to read it would be
kucent, which doesn't exist.
Cucent doesn't either, by the way.
In German, the 3-symbol and the macron might function differently, so we need to go beyond what we can see to figure out if the word makes sense.
In general, the marginalia do not use a lot of obvious abbreviations. The macron seems to be the only clear example.
This means that the 3 could be something else.
As one who has nearly zero experience parsing medieval handwriting, I find the matches in this thread extremely convincing. Supposing the authors of the marginalia and the authors of the manuscript shared the same time and geographical location, how does this affect the list of possible plaintext languages for the manuscript itself?
(18-07-2025, 11:33 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As one who has nearly zero experience parsing medieval handwriting, I find the matches in this thread extremely convincing. Supposing the authors of the marginalia and the authors of the manuscript shared the same time and geographical location, how does this affect the list of possible plaintext languages for the manuscript itself?
I agree, I think given the rarity of the final 8 for s, as well as the distinctive letter shapes, I would be extremely surprised if it turned out that this marginalia (and hence the rest of the VM) wasn't a product of someone who lived in or around Zurich/Northern Switzerland/Southern Germany between 1410 and 1450. What I find really interesting is that this also gives extra context to the other bits of plaintext in the VM, i.e. the months name. There is another thread with a lot of archival work that pretty confidently places the month names as originating from somewhere in N.E. France (specifically either Lorraine or Picardie due to the rare and specific regional spelling of Octembre and the clear germanic influences in Augst, though I feel this is already speculation on my part
). Cambresis and Lorraine were all part of the HRE up until the 1550s, so I do not find it unlikely that the VM could've traveled as far as 500km from Zurich to Cambrai.
In any case, these are extremely interesting findings and another crucial piece of the VM puzzle. It would be amazing to have a bit more clarity on the pre-1600s history of the VM, or even a potential origin date and place!
(18-07-2025, 09:32 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There's what we see, but also what we can derive. Someone starting a word with "k" is unlikely to be writing in Latin.
What we see is k, u, and a ligature of c+3 with a macron. (I just use 3 as shorthand for the symbol).
If this were Latin, the way to read it would be kucent, which doesn't exist. Cucent doesn't either, by the way.
In German, the 3-symbol and the macron might function differently, so we need to go beyond what we can see to figure out if the word makes sense.
I know I like to play Devil's Advocate, but I still think the
a priori assumption that the marginalia consist of valid words or phrases has little ground. This does not mean we should not try to make sense of them, maybe they consist of exotic spelling and abbreviations, but we must not fall into the trap of the countless Voynich 'Theorists' who perform mental gymnastics to make 'sense' of a vord or line of VM text. The main issue with marginalia is the small sample size.
The second issue here is that we are not dealing with one or two unreadable words in an otherwise readable text but a completely unreadable corpus. Even if it looks familiar. That is the main theme throughout the VM. Imagery, Voynichese, Marginalia.
(18-07-2025, 11:33 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I find the matches in this thread extremely convincing. Supposing the authors of the marginalia and the authors of the manuscript shared the same time and geographical location, how does this affect the list of possible plaintext languages for the manuscript itself?
I think there is some evidence that the person who wrote the marginalia and made the drawings associated with them might be the same person who made all drawings in the VM. I will make a thread about what I found.
(18-07-2025, 12:12 PM)davidma Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I would be extremely surprised if it turned out that this marginalia (and hence the rest of the VM) wasn't a product of someone who lived in or around Zurich/Northern Switzerland/Southern Germany between 1410 and 1450.
Yes, I do agree with this. Early 15th century Switzerland is by far the most likely place and time for the creation of VM imagery and marginalia. Whether the month names and quire numbers really require a travel to France, or whether they could also have originated in Switzerland is another matter. Given that Switzerland borders South Germany, France and Italy, I do not think it is entirely unreasonable to assume that the entire VM was created in Switzerland. But honestly I would not rule out anything at this moment.
Just looking for the '3' symbol at the end of words.
Maybe on the line with the fifth red letter, there are several.
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(18-07-2025, 05:02 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I know I like to play Devil's Advocate, but I still think the a priori assumption that the marginalia consist of valid words or phrases has little ground. This does not mean we should not try to make sense of them, maybe they consist of exotic spelling and abbreviations, but we must not fall into the trap of the countless Voynich 'Theorists' who perform mental gymnastics to make 'sense' of a vord or line of VM text. The main issue with marginalia is the small sample size.
Though the marginalia are not entirely readable and do not make sense grammatically, we can say
a posteriori that about 50% of the You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. text is readable. Longish words like “poxleber”, “anchiton”, “dabas”, “multos”, “portas”, “maria” and (famously, see Panofsky) the fragment “so nim” are documented and perfectly legitimate (as well as the shorter “cere/tere” and “vix”). Of course, some readings are more ambiguous than others, but the quantity of readable text is significant. I am not aware of any “theorist” directly extracting so many legitimate words from four lines of text with a simple substitution (i.e. without resorting to heavy distortion and taking a lot of liberties).