The Voynich Ninja

I don't think it's an amended "a". I think it's a double-story "a". It was quite normal for the double-story (double-chamber) "a" to be taller than the other lower-case letters. It was also reasonably common for scribes in the late 14th century and early 15th century to use both of them because that is when the script was transitioning between the old "a" to the new one.


The VMS You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. "a" in "mallier" is third from the left (the modern "a", second from the left, is included for height comparison):



Note especially the example from 1355, which was drawn in separate strokes so that the open top looks like a pen skip (but actually is not).

On the topic of the marginal line on f17r, let me throw in another possible interpretation of the third word.
This is just food for thought. I am not in any way convinced that this is right.

This would be "kr[an]cz".

In contemporary manuscripts, this word is usually spelled "crancz", so I don't know if the "k" would be completely out of place here.

This word, in modern spelling "Kranz", means wreath.

It could also be krancem/krankem which would mean ill/unwell/diseased.

kranc'm (with the m being the rotated-m abbreviation symbol)


Thus, if "mallier" is a carrying trunk, and "aller" is "all the", one would get something like "carrier/container of all diseases". Interpreted this way, it's quite Normanesque.

You know what the problem is? With these abbreviations? 

You can only understand them if you know what you can expect, because they are different based on context and language. There's basically predictive reading involved, and your prediction on the following word will help you to successfully develop the abbreviation.

But we don't even know which language family we're in!

Another speculation:

l[iber] p[re]c[eptoru]m (Moses Maimonides?)

At least, it would not be contrary to what we can read. the letter which looks like a Greek ny or Latin v seems to be a Latin p, cf. 116v and the single letter, that looks a bit like Greek gamma on 66r, which could be a p as well

(01-12-2018, 04:57 PM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Another speculation:

l[iber] p[re]c[eptoru]m (Moses Maimonides?)

At least, it would not be contrary to what we can read. the letter which looks like a Greek ny or Latin v seems to be a Latin p, cf. 116v and the single letter, that looks a bit like Greek gamma on 66r, which could be a p as well

Helmut, I hadn't thought of reading the whole luc'm/lpc'm as an abbreviation, I was only looking at the last part of the word as an abbreviation, but you're right. It's possible it may have been written as highly abbreviated and "book of instructions" would fit as well as any of the other possibilities.

Helmut has made a really good point.

It was quite common for medieval scribes to code entire phrases into common acronyms and abbreviations. If it's an acronym, it might superficially look like a word. Then when you consider that many scribes didn't use capital letters (or used them sparingly), then it becomes even harder to recognize them out of context.

Some of the "weird" stuff that almost looks like words might be phrases. Weird things like pbren/ubren (116v) might not be a word at all, it might be an abbreviation phrase, as might some of the text on 17r.

The title of this thread is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and not limited to the margin of 17r. therefore I take the freedom to post:

If I would assume the name of this plant is mentioned in the last two wordsYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. because transcribed [crol daiiin] means:  'plant name'.
Note that [crol]  [cror] and variants are the same words, twin abbreviated variants. Same for [dain, daiin, daiiin]
Then the last page words [ycrody crotom] where m=abbrev. and y=the/a/of  could mean be something in English like:
'the herb of plantoligiumo[men]'. (just a word with some imagination)

However perhaps a more logical, but evenly imaginative name can be found along the same reasoning, perhaps in other medieval herbals.

(26-03-2016, 10:30 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So here I am minding my own business, casually looking at some Voynich roots, when suddenly I enter You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .

It's one of those folios with marginalia, and somehow I've always thought the first word resembles Latin for woman, mulier. Compare Spanish mujer, Portuguese mulher, Old Spanish mugier...

Ok so now think "woman" and look at that plant's root. I'm not going to say what it looks like, because I already created the "Voynich phallus" thread and I'm starting to make a name for myself.

I mean, come on...

I posted the translation on the imagery page (not sure how to link) you might want to look at it. Please let me know what you think. It is not about the plant.

To the German text on the page.
In relation to Link:
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Where Rene posted this wonderful picture, which I just saw for the first time.
And to the discussion with JKP about "L" on Link:
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After I have thought about it again, and have thought through alemannic possibilities, I have to correct my " suez / sutz ".
If I take an L instead of the S, as JKP has announced, I would come to " luez / lutz ".
But "luez" can also mean people. So today: "so sind d'lüt" "so sind die Leute" " so are the people " 
This could be the sentence: blabla aller Leute ihr blabla.     yada yada of all people yada yada.

Which is interesting for me, that in the scan of Rene / Nick there is again a direct connection between German and VM.
Also the mentioned 88 is close to the fact that he falls back into the alemanic.  " so sind dlüt " so are the people "
I see a direct connection, or I do not rule it out.