Here, I will collect all the notes and thoughts that I did not mention in the main post or that did not exist at the time the main post was published.
First, I'll say a few words about the text, and then I'll go over the other one.
1). From the set of "syllables" I have derived, I want to highlight the layer of "units":
i, r, l, and
m. All of them are a copy of
i, but with the addition of a curl or loop.
i and
m are most often found at the end, while
r and
l can also be found at the beginning (excluding cases where
al/
ar and
ol/
or are found together). The positional features and similarity to a unit led me to conclude that it is a unit with something. Let's say
i = 1, then perhaps
r = 2,
l = 3,
m = 4, and so on. Digrams can be represented as a sum. Let
a = 5, then
ai = 6,
ar = 7,
al = 8, and
am = 9. This suggests that in the supposed "alphabet," the Latin letters were not only arranged in ascending order, but some of them may have had unique indices. It is also possible that this was a way to distinguish between
letter bigrams and
abbreviation bigrams (It is actually possible that the author of the manuscript was encrypting some Latin roots, prefixes, or endings, which were often abbreviated in writing. I don't think it would be difficult for a medieval educated scribe to encrypt a couple of roots).
Why is that? I don't see any problem with writing a unit with a pen and then abruptly moving the pen away to create a scribble. There is no particularly complex system here.
2). When I say a numeric cipher, I mean a cipher where letters are replaced by numbers or digits, and then by letters from an artificial alphabet. In my understanding, we can assign a meaning to the Voynich letters, but we can't remove the letter from that meaning (because it's a nomenclature, not a simple substitution). Using the positional rules of Roman numerals, I was able to derive the most likely values for the following letters:
i = n = 1 (it is almost always the last letter in a word. If we think of a Voynich word as an ordered set of numbers, it is clear that the unit would be at the end as the smallest digit).
a = 5 (it never occurs twice in a row and is combined with a unit)
e = 10 (it can be doubled, but it rarely appears at the end)
ch = 50/100 (why is 50? because it comes before the above-mentioned letters, which means it is greater than them, but it also does not repeat. Why 100? there are 18 words where ch goes in a row, and logically this means that ch = 100, but these examples don't give us any information, and it's also possible that it's just a repetition of 50-50, because if the numbers are arranged in ascending order and there are two identical numbers in the set, they will be next to each other. But I'm more inclined towards 50).
It's not that valuable, and it doesn't actually give us anything, but it's still there.
3). I repeat the theme of previous posts. How can we decrypt a cipher if we don't know anything about the algorithm? Right! We can take a word that stands next to an identifiable object.
We won't translate the names of plants, but we will take on more obvious examples:
otol - fire (f77r)
olkchs = air (f77r)
otedy = water (f77r)
dchdy = earth (f77r)
okalo = intestine (f77v)
We match the Latin words:
o-t-ol = i-gn(g)-is,
o = i,
t = g,
ol = is. The words are similar because they have the same vowel twice.
dchdy = terra,
d = r,
ch = t?,
y = a? We check for similarity - two consonants are repeated in the words. It's unclear why there's a single
d at the beginning, as the logic of the permutation would suggest that it should be
chddy, but it's possible that the author has devised a clever strategy. The equality
y = a is quite logical, a is the first letter of the Latin alphabet, and in numerical substitution it is often given a lower value. It turns out that y is also equal to one (this is also logical, by the way, because in the manuscript we will not find examples where two types of units occur together. There is only
daiiny, but there is no
yii or
iiy), i.e. once again we see that in the cipher, most likely, one number can have several meanings.
o-k-al-o = i-n-test-i (a possible contraction of intestinum, where the ending -num is just omitted). We check for similarity - two vowels are repeated, but there is a difference in the total number of letters. From here, we get that the bigram
al = test. In the last example, the digram
ol gave us is. We could be quick to say that
l = s, but I won't jump to conclusions. In two different examples, bigrams have already given us shortened morphemes.
Expanding on the idea from the post about planets (here's the link:https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-4089.html), we will also try to compare the encrypted names of the planets with the Latin words. Let's start with Mercury.
o-p-ch-ol-d-y = Hermes. There are no external similarities, but if we remove the y and decompose ol into o and l, we will see them:
o-p-ch-o-l-d = Hermes. The repeated vowel is e twice, so
o = e.
d = r, We already know that. This leaves only m and s, which must be equal to
p and
l. Only
ch remains. If we assume that
l = s, then we get that e-
P-
CH-e-s-r,
Xer
Xes, and
ch doesn't look superfluous anymore.
okal = Jeus. We get that e-
K-
A-s,
Xe
Xs, it turns out that
k and
a here should mean j and u.
ofar oeoldan = Helios. No letter is repeated in the word Helios, so we remove the repeated letters in the Voynichese word:
of® ldan = Helios (there are other ways, but I decided to do it this way). Taking
an as one letter, we get an equality in the number of letters. But there is a
d = r here, and there is no r in the word Helios, so we will get rid of it too.
of® lan = Helios, and to make the letters equal, we have to divide an into a and n. e-
F-
R-s-
A-
N,
Xe
XXXs.
y-t-o-ai-in = Selena. The Voynichese word has only one e and no s, but there is one a (if
y = a). It turns out the following: a-
T-e-
AI-
II,
Xe
XXXa. It is possible that the digrams encrypt Se and l, or that two letters are omitted (unlikely).
y-f-ai-n = Ares. Matching by number of letters, but no e, s and r. There is only a. a-
F-
AI-
II, A
XXX. Despite the matches, I can't explain why the letters we need are missing (and I probably won't, to avoid making mistakes).
d-al-ch-s-o-dy = Cronos. e (
o), a (
y) and second r (
d) are redundant, so we remove them:
d-a-l-ch-s = Cronos. I divided
al to get s. We have: r-
A-s-
CH-
S,
Xr
XXXs.
o-k-ai-n am = Aphrodite. There is one e, no r. e-
K-
AI-
II AM,
XXXXXXXe. The score is not in our favor... Something tells me that it's related to
am, and it's probably the reason for the lack of letters.
In general, the method works intermittently. There is evidence that the alphabet changes slightly depending on the section. In the examples, we see that bigrams encode morphemes or combinations of letters. I'm not sure if I've done the correct decoding, but at the very least, we can say that the substitution logic applies to Voynichese, and we didn't encounter any issues or anomalies during the decoding process. There are prospects for checking the signatures on the f68r1 and f68r2 charts with the names of the lunar months (regular and sacred, respectively) and, probably, the signatures in the pharmaceutical section.
And now, my thoughts, speculations, and assumptions...
1). It seems to me that the botanical section still depicts real plants and is about the healing properties of plants, but! The artist intentionally distorted all their parts except the main one (i.e., the one with healing properties), or simply distorting everything except the key feature. For example, You are not allowed to view links.
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2). I believe that balneology is not balneology, but
anatomy. For a medical book, it's more expected to see anatomy than some complex alchemy. I was unable to find 15th-century anatomical books for comparison, so identification will be based on comparison with organs.
I'll use an asterisk (*) to indicate something I'm not entirely sure about: You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. - mouth/throat/pharynx* You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. - maybe the nasal cavity, the shape of the pond below strongly resembles a brain You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. - uterus and fallopian tubes are on top; the intestine on the right;
f78r-f79r - the digestive system. Apparently, it is presented here in a generalized form, and the focus is on the digestive process itself rather than the organs. You are not allowed to view links.
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I can't prove or support these identifications; they are based solely on similarities. It can be seen that the author has a rough understanding of how the internal organs look, but draws them symbolically (either due to a lack of drawing skills or intentional concealment). Additionally, it can be observed that the organs are described in order from the head to the groin (although the female reproductive system is mentioned outside of this order).
3). It seems to me that the pharmacist's containers in the pharmaceutical section are nothing more than conventional symbols for the category of plant parts. I also think it's obvious that there are other fruits depicted besides turnips.
4). I believe that the cipher changed over time, and it was somewhat simpler at the beginning than at the end. Over time, it adapted to the text, and new morphemes could be added, or the meaning of the symbols could change (as we saw in the examples, where
o = e in astronomy and
o = i in balneology). The cipher could also be modified by the scribe himself, as he saw fit (for example, the author of the astronomical section chose to encrypt e as
o, presumably assuming that i would be rare or abbreviated).
5). I believe that nymphs in balneology (
don't be surprised that I'm using the term "balneology" instead of "anatomy"; for your benefit, I'll stick to the conventional terminology) represent vitality, but no more than that.
