In some of these guesses/claims, it is not clear if it concerns the marginalia or the main text.
Right now there is no way of telling what is the language of the plain text (if there is one).
The Voynich MS text is equally far away from all of them.
(28-01-2026, 07:07 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (28-01-2026, 06:54 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The problem is the regional differences in spelling, which leads directly to a deep exegesis in every attempt at deciphering if you apply Voynich as a simple cipher in Bavarian.
I am not surprised. It is a more specific version of the same fundamental mistake every expert makes when attacking the VMS. "The drawings look {European|Bavarian}, so the language must be {European|Bavarian}. But since a simple alphabet change does not work, it must be some sophisticated cipher."
All the best, --stolfi
No, not because of the images or the marginalia. Because of the structure of the Voynich text, these statistical anomalies, low entropy, frequent repetitions with only slight changes, the small alphabet (in Bavarian, you basically only need about 20 letters, if that) and a rather monosyllabic orientation – all of this fits perfectly with Bavarian (or a similar dialect that was pronounced correspondingly short and probably also written that way at the time). I have examined texts and found that, if written in a slightly less standard form of High German, they show great similarities.
And I'm afraid that's a damning verdict on the possibility of deciphering it. Because there are so many possible interpretations of a cipher that has encrypted the language phonetically, if you don't know the dialect exactly. It's like a jigsaw puzzle with about 12,000 pieces, many of which are just blank....
deleted - reason: off topic
(28-01-2026, 10:40 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And I'm afraid that's a damning verdict on the possibility of deciphering it. Because there are so many possible interpretations of a cipher that has encrypted the language phonetically, if you don't know the dialect exactly. It's like a jigsaw puzzle with about 12,000 pieces, many of which are just blank....
If it were indeed some Bavarian dialect, it would be easy to crack. No matter how divergent and obscure, it would have the same basic Germanic structure, and many words would be very similar to any reference dialect. See "des", "dass", "so", "wo", "wenns", "is" in the examples you gave. Even if it was encrypted, as long as the encryption was one-to-one on words (as the statistics indicate), it would be possible to identify function words like those, and some common nouns like "herb"...
All the best, --stolfi
This is getting off topic. JoJo, do you want me to move to your Bavarian monosyllabic thread or create a new "Bavarian theory" thread?
(27-01-2026, 09:15 PM)JustAnotherTheory Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have a theory that the VMS was once in the possession of Hartmann Schedel, a 15th century humanist (and avid book collector), who is famous today because he wrote the Nuremberg Chronicle.
The reason I think this is because of a specific manuscript that he possessed in his collection, a Biblia Pauperum (also called Armenbibel, a so-called "poor man's Bible"), housed today in the Bavarian State Library under the denomination You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Before going any further I'd like to note that such "Bibla Pauperum"s were widely circulated at the time (14th, 15th centuries), and their purpose was to tell the chapters of the Bible with many small illustrations within the text. There exist hundreds of Biblia Pauperum, each one is copied from a previous source. What is different about the specific copy in Hartmann Schedel's collection, i.e., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., is the style of the illustrations, which appear to be drawn by a very similar set of hands as those of the VMS.
There are several examples of this, perhaps the most striking are the drawings of women. Here is a drawing of a naked woman:
In general, the faces of the woman (and men) in the manuscript are a close match to the VMS's illustrator's style:
Notice the red cheeks and red lips, that are characteristic of the faces in the VMS. Note also that no other Biblia Pauperum draws human faces like this.
Here's an enlarged example from another folio:
Again, red facial features. Here's an example of soldier's chainmail that has the same motifs as the VMS "architecture":
And then there's more depictions of women:
And more:
Notice the hairstyles, that are a good match for the hairstyles in the VMS, along with the identical red cheeks and red mouth. But wait, there's more. What about these Voynich-y animals?
Note the hooves, and the horns, which are similar to the VMS zodiac animals' details. There are many other fantastical animals in the manuscript, some donkeys and snakes, it's well worth a look if you're interested.
Now on to the theory at hand: if Hartmann Schedel got this book from somewhere, and assuming this illustrator is somehow related ot the VMS, that it stands to reason that Schedel might have possessed the VMS at some point in its early history. An interesting sidenote to make is that a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by computing experts who implemetd a graph theoretical algorithm to search for possible early possessors of the VMS concluded that the most likely candidate to have it in their collection is... Hartmann Schedel.
I will end this discussion with a bit of a cheeky easter egg, if you can call it that:
In my opinion, the illustration style does not resemble that of the Voynich Manuscript at all; in fact, the two styles appear to be completely different. Red lips and cheeks are not particularly unusual, and the animals are fairly generic.
I don't feel competent talking about Bavarian dialects
but lets go back to the original topic...
This Pauper Bible and Voynich Manuscript are a bit similar but they are
similar in a a generic and not specific way. Let me explain:
- they are both on the "cheap" side, without golden ornaments and illustrated by not so good artists
- they both have "German style" (my subjective impression)
But they are not drawn by the same man. Details are different and the Pauper Bible artist is not good but still a bit better than Voynich artist.
And there is no "wow factor". No any single pair of pictures that would have some striking similarity.
But lets say they are somehow similar. So what?
Claiming that some Hartmann Schedel owned Voynich Manuscript because he owned a similar manuscript is a very long shot. And long shots are usually missed.