The Voynich Ninja

(12-06-2026, 10:37 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(11-06-2026, 10:42 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But at the bottom (especially near the bottom-left A, for example, I can clearly see a T there), you can make out the remnants of the text in Voynichese.

That is probably see-through of the text on page f116r.  No?

Quote:It seems strange that the "cleaner" tried to restore the inscriptions by stylizing them as a German font. The page may have contained a mixture of German and Voynichese words, but the cleaner was only able to recover the upper ones (and not entirely accurately).

I believe that the page had only 3-4 lines of pure Voynichese at the top.  The person who tried to recover the written text apparently did not know the Voynichese alphabet.  Either he was an Owner who had not spent any time studying the text, or the clumsy visitor who spilled the water and tried to fix the damage before the Owner saw it, or some librarian who had to recover a bunch of books that were damaged by a roof leak...

All the best, --stolfi

PS. When replying to a long post, please try to trim the quoted text to the specific points you are replying to.

I promise to learn how to quote in the near future (I still haven't figured out where to click).
Yes, I'm talking about this text. Just to point out that you can still see the rest of the text, which means that the entire page was written, not just the top.

Jorge has his retracer theory, but even though I played around with the multispectral images for a long time, I could not find any sign of re-tracing or underlying Voynichese source text in the marginalia. I wouldn't rule it out but frankly I find it unlikely. It does appear however that the author did change, mingle or amend some of the 'latin-alphabet' text.

What stands out is that all 3 marginalia are created after the same pattern.
They contain a small drawing, some (ordinary looking?) Voynichese words, and text that appears to be in a German or Romance language but has nonsensical words and very odd letters. As if the scribe changed his mind while writing them. I have been wondering if whoever made this was able to write Voynichese fluently, but not the Latin script. Then again, most letters appear fine and ordinary as our attempts to find similarly shaped letters in other contemporary manuscripts have shown. Not like a non-European foreigner trying to learn how to write our script. I have no idea what to make of this, but looking at the overall manuscript, I doubt the author was a genius that tried to trick us with some ingenious obfuscation.

Of special interest:
All marginalia are accompanied by at least one small drawing that matches the general style of the quire. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has an alpha-plant flower which resembles the calyx of the plant on f24v, the same bifolio. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has the person lying on the ground with by small objects beside him. The person resembles those on f57v, the same bifolio

An exception is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. with the nymph, goat and whatever the thing on top is, as this quire contains no further imagery aside from stars. I would rate the nymph on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as the most advanced in the manuscript though. It looks much more life-like and 3-dimensional than the others. Opinions vary, but this would mean that the marginalia on the last page were also added late in the VM's history, while the others were probably added shortly after the text of the page was completed. Unless we argue they were all made by different people, which brings its own problems. To me it looks like all VM imagery and the marginalia were created by the same person, over an extended time period in which the artist experienced some artistic development. Which still doesn't answer why there is Voyniches mixed into the marginalia.

(12-06-2026, 04:53 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As if the scribe changed his mind while writing them.

It may be that the Latin text was written simply as such, without the intention of copying the lost text of the manuscript. For even if he tried to restore the text, I do not understand why crosses were needed between the words, and how exactly this text was "corrected" (the author wrote in Latin, but left the Voynichese d at the end of the word oladaba). 
Also, if you look closely, you can see the remains of text on the Voynichese above the word maria. There is also something visible on the top. It is unclear why the restorer wrote between the lines.

(12-06-2026, 04:53 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.An exception is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. with the nymph, goat and whatever the thing on top is, as this quire contains no further imagery aside from stars.

The drawings may have been made by a restorer, because they are too small and do not resemble the author's style (especially the nymph, as you pointed out).

(12-06-2026, 09:05 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The drawings may have been made by a restorer, because they are too small and do not resemble the author's style (especially the nymph, as you pointed out).

But they do indeed strongly resemble the author's style. I would rate the possibility that another person made the marginal drawings as very low. Just as I'd rate the possibility that several people made the drawings in the VM as very low. The style evolves yet shows strong consistency throughout the manuscript.

My own thought on this was that the person writing didn't have a word in their language to use. 

I think it might be like people writing the "many names of God, Jesus or Maria" in a charm/curse. At the time people put a lot of weight in knowing the true name of "whoever" because that would mean they have to answer / pay attention. You can find examples of the true name of god being a hundred or more names, because people didn't know and so just gave them all a whirl in the hope one would work. I think it is possible we see this same thing with "Marix Morix Abia Ma Ria", looking for the "true name of "Maria"". 

You can see this idea survive today in things like Japanese storytelling where if you know the name of the wind, or river you may control them (Any "Spirited Away" fans?)

Some of the ideas shown in this thread where not what I expected though and good food for thought. I'm glad there were no "its step 3 in the coding, step 2 is the "plain text" and step 1 is the "actual plain text".. because that one scares me