The Voynich Ninja

@Bernd
I see you're from Germany. Question: which region? Are you fluent in Upper German? Alemannic and Bavarian. Especially in spoken dialect.
Is there anyone else here who understands and, above all, speaks these dialects?


@Bernd
Ich sehe Du kommst aus Deutschland. Frage: aus welcher Region. Bis Du der Sprache im Oberdeutsch mächtig. Alemanisch und Bayrisch. Vor allem in der gesprochenen Dialektorm.
Ist sonst noch jemand anwesend wo diese Dialekte versteht und vorallem spricht.

(28-08-2025, 07:37 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But the difference in quality between goat and nymph are stunning.

Keep in mind that the goat/sheep on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is only ~9 mm long from nose to tail. The ones on f70v1 and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are ~30 mm long.

Curiously the goat/ram on f70v1 (AriesDark) has the front legs bending like knees, which is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  Whereas on the next page, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (AriesLight) they bend the other way, like elbows, which is wrong.

Since the drawings were obviously made by the same "artist", is this evidence that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was drawn before f70v1?  It would be consistent with another hint, namely that on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the nymphs are still fully clothed, while on f70v1 only some of them are clothed, and even then with more transparent dresses.  And on most other Zodiac pages, including f70v2 (Pisces), they are all like Eve when she started dating Adam...

Anyway, it is hard to figure out the order in which those first few Zodiac pages were drawn.  There is a general evolution of style, but not  quite monotonic:

page                 dressed  inBarrels   b.type[0]   b.decor
-------------------  -------  ----------  -------     -------
f71r  (AriesLight)   all      all         tubs        all
f70v1 (AriesDark)    some     all         tubs        most
f71v  (TaurusLight)  some     all         tubs        most
f70v2 (Pisces)       NONE     all         both[1]     all
f72r1 (TaurusDark)   NONE     some        tubs        NONE
f72r2 (Gemini)       four     three[2]    barrels     NONE
f72r3 (Cancer)       NONE     NONE        ---         ----

[0] Tubs are vertical and wide, barrels are horizontal and less wide.

[1] The choice of barrels instead of tubs for the inner band of nymphs may have been due to Pisces being the first attempt to cram 30 nimphs (instead of 15) in a singe diagram.  Otherwise its is possible that the Artist would have used tubs for all nymphs.

[2] These three nymphs are not inside the barrels but standing on top of or in front of them.

All the best, --jorge

(28-08-2025, 12:15 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Leb.

(28-08-2025, 12:42 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Von einer pokch leber
The flourish stands for -er

Not sure if this was implied by either of you, but perhaps the "lab" people have seen on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is in fact "leb[er]"...

(28-08-2025, 11:15 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.@Bernd
I see you're from Germany. Question: which region? Are you fluent in Upper German? Alemannic and Bavarian. Especially in spoken dialect.
Is there anyone else here who understands and, above all, speaks these dialects?


@Bernd
Ich sehe Du kommst aus Deutschland. Frage: aus welcher Region. Bis Du der Sprache im Oberdeutsch mächtig. Alemanisch und Bayrisch. Vor allem in der gesprochenen Dialektorm.
Ist sonst noch jemand anwesend wo diese Dialekte versteht und vorallem spricht.

As one of the many Germans here: The dialect itself is not the issue, I can understand most Bavarian (as well as a number of other dialects) even if I don't actively speak it myself. However, the combination of dialects that had limited conformity in how they were written, the ancient words and the sometimes barely legible handwriting can make certain words or sentences impossible to read properly. Those might require one of the few of experts on the matter...
While I am far from an expert on medieval Austrian charters, my best guess for the gaismich in the sentence that Bernd You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. would be that it is the reference to a time of the year, i. e. when young goats are born. This only makes sense in this context because the chickens in the same sentence are referenced to as fall chickens and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.=Fasching=carnival chickens, and apparently goats are usually born in early spring. So, it would be a list of poultry delivered (?) at certain times of the year. This is highly speculative, of course, and hardly in any way helpful for 116v. I mostly mention this as an approach to sentences that are difficult to make sense of.

(28-08-2025, 11:15 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I see you're from Germany. Question: which region? Are you fluent in Upper German? Alemannic and Bavarian. Especially in spoken dialect.
Is there anyone else here who understands and, above all, speaks these dialects?

I'm from Munich but I have relatives in Austria. I'd say I am more familiar with (Lower) Austrian dialects than with rural Bavarian ones. Despite its size, Austria is quite diverse, dialect-wise. I have my difficulties with Styrian, Carinthian or Tyrolian dialects. Vorarlberg is a world of its own and basically Switzerland. Unintelligible. Unfortunately as this appears to be our best bet for German phrases in the VM.

(29-08-2025, 05:03 AM)N._N. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.While I am far from an expert on medieval Austrian charters, my best guess for the gaismich in the sentence that Bernd You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. would be that it is the reference to a time of the year, i. e. when young goats are born. This only makes sense in this context because the chickens in the same sentence are referenced to as fall chickens and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.=Fasching=carnival chickens, and apparently goats are usually born in early spring. So, it would be a list of poultry delivered (?) at certain times of the year. This is highly speculative, of course, and hardly in any way helpful for 116v. I mostly mention this as an approach to sentences that are difficult to make sense of.

There is two variants: gaismich Gens and Gaisiunnge gens. Unfortunately the latter is not digitized so we only know the potential spelling from a transcription which has some uncertainties. A season or holiday would be logical and is certainly true for the chickens, the problem with this hypothesis is that apart from these 2 entries the term gaismich never shows up elsewhere. Despite searching through countless of these documents and finding some other geese, it's always just geese. If this was a seasonal term, we should expect it to pop up somewhere else. I also looked into these holidays where tithe was to be paid and found nothing even remotely similar. It has been suggested that this is an agricultural term denoting either a breed or life stage of geese but that's also speculation.
The problem is-mich. There's not really any valid use for this suffix except "me, myself".  We had the discussion about milk which ended rather fruitless. At least for lower Austria I'd rule that out.

The VM phrase appears incomplete ending with a circle or O after 'gasmich'. I agree the script is rather shaky which contrasts the imagery. I think the best explanation is that the author could draw (yes, we tend to forget how tiny the drawings are), but not write properly. It may very well be that he jumbled or mixed up several letters.

Fun fact - the Herzogenburg document containing the gaismich Gens was written in the name of Leo von Franzhausen, Leo being written as Leb in the document. Leb is one of many spellings for lion. Not that I'm sure what's actually written in the VM. None of the 3 letters are clear.

(29-08-2025, 02:46 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not sure if this was implied by either of you, but perhaps the "lab" people have seen on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is in fact "leb[er]"...

Yeah, I'm not quite sure why I opposed this notion before, but all in all it's pretty coherent. Poxleber is an organ of a horned animal, and there happens to be a drawing of an organ and a horned animal nearby labelled "l*b". 

Having gone through many samples of handwriting, it's also become clear to me that de distinction between the round vowels isn't clear at all, especially without context.

(29-08-2025, 04:36 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is two variants: gaismich Gens and Gaisiunnge gens. Unfortunately the latter is not digitized so we only know the potential spelling from a transcription which has some uncertainties. A season or holiday would be logical and is certainly true for the chickens, the problem with this hypothesis is that apart from these 2 entries the term gaismich never shows up elsewhere. Despite searching through countless of these documents and finding some other geese, it's always just geese. If this was a seasonal term, we should expect it to pop up somewhere else. I also looked into these holidays where tithe was to be paid and found nothing even remotely similar. It has been suggested that this is an agricultural term denoting either a breed or life stage of geese but that's also speculation.
The problem is-mich. There's not really any valid use for this suffix except "me, myself".  We had the discussion about milk which ended rather fruitless. At least for lower Austria I'd rule that out.

The VM phrase appears incomplete ending with a circle or O after 'gasmich'.  I agree the script is rather shaky which contrasts the imagery. I think the best explanation is that the author could draw (yes, we tend to forget how tiny the drawings are), but not write properly. It may very well be that he jumbled or mixed up several letters.

I agree, the interpretation has its weaknesses, to put it mildly.

Where do you find the other version? Gaisiunnge gens might be a misreading according to this: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

This has been discussed in the respective thread and is offtopic here. It remains unclear what the commentary you linked really means and how the author reached this conclusion. But apparently because 'gaismich Gens' was found, the reading 'Gaisjunge' is accepted and 'Gansjunge' is rejected. I have now requested a scan of the document in question. Let's see but I'm not overly optimistic.

Regarding the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , what about the reading 'Pok' that has also been suggested? My favorite is still 'Lab' for the drawing above. It looks more like an abomasum (Labmagen) than a liver. The abpmasum is an elongated pear-shaped organ.

No idea what the medieval Germanic term for abomasum was though. Or if any of this even makes sense. Again we're pretending one word is difficult to read when in fact the entire text is unintelligible.

@Bernd
Munich or Lower Austria should be sufficient in terms of dialect (tone).
It's about goat's milk F116.
To understand it, it's important to be able to speak Bavarian, but also to hear it. It's about the tones.
Read it, say it and listen to yourself. Written as spoken.
‘so-nim-tzas-mich-o’
Do you understand the meaning?
Grammatically, however, it would be ‘so nimtz as mich o’.
In South Alemannic (Lake Constance region).
‘so nimtz äs mich au’
I am of the opinion that it has nothing to do with goat's milk. It is just a reading error.
What do you think? I don't see a ‘g’. I see a “z” that was written as a long ‘t’.

@Bernd
München oder Niederösterreich sollte vom Dialekt (Ton) her reichen.
Es geht um die Ziegenmilch F116.
Um es zu verstehen ist es wichtig das bayrische sprechen, aber auch hören zu können. Es geht um die Töne.
Lies es, sprich es und höre Dir selber zu. Geschrieben wie gesprochen.
"so-nim-tzas-mich-o"
Verstehst Du die Bedeutung?
Gramatisch wäre es aber "so nimtz as mich o".
Im Südalemanisch (Bodenseeraum).
"so nimtz äs mich au"
Ich vertrete die Meinung es hat nichts mit Ziegenmilch zu tun. Es ist nur ein Lesefehler.
Was denkst Du? Ich sehe kein "g". Ich sehe ein "z" was in ein langes "t" geschrieben wurde.
Beruhend auf dem "ez" von f17 und das er verbunden schreibt auf f116.