The Voynich Ninja

I myself am not a supporter of the hypothesis that scribes were hired to write the manuscript, who did not understand a single word in it, however, if we accept it, then the question arises - did the scribes copy the letters correctly? Did the writing look like this from the beginning?

I can imagine it like this: I'm a scribe, and I've been hired by a certain society to transcribe their scribbles onto parchment. I don't understand what they've written, and the letters are unfamiliar to me, but I'm tasked with filling 100 pages with them. I must copy it carefully, without changing anything or trying to add anything of my own. 
To speed up this process, I can practice writing these letters and adapt them to make them easier to write with a stylus.

I'm not a scribe anymore. Now, considering the time when I was a scribe, let's take a look at the letters of the Voynichese alphabet.

As you can see, all the letters are written very quickly when writing with a pen, and only require a few strokes. Some of the letters have a simple loop shape (such as m or a gallows). Prescott Carrier also noted that almost all symbols contain a base in the form of i or e. There is also a CLS study based on the same feature (link: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). 

The fact that the alphabet was written by people who didn't understand it at all makes me think that it was adapted. 

I can assume that if this is the case, the original form of the Voynich alphabet would look something like this:
[attachment=16096]
Or maybe it was more complicated in appearance, and the scribes simplified it, reducing it to a couple of lines and loops.

There may also be some misidentifications of letters by the scribe, regarding the letters a, o, r (similar in shape to r-rotunda - ꝛ) and q (which the scribe mistook for 4).

What do you think?

It seems to me highly unlikely that any such hired writer would be permitted by the hirer to write the manuscript and to do it unsupervised, to mangle it and make errors. Really? The hirer did not bother to check the work as it being done? At no time did the hirer point out the errors? At no time did the hirer notice the bad drawings? At no time thought to tell him, "You are no good at this job. On your bike. I am getting someone else"?

(19-06-2026, 12:06 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It seems to me highly unlikely that any such hired writer would be permitted by the hirer to write the manuscript and to do it unsupervised, to mangle it and make errors. Really? The hirer did not bother to check the work as it being done? At no time did the hirer point out the errors? At no time did the hirer notice the bad drawings? At no time thought to tell him, "You are no good at this job. On your bike. I am getting someone else"?

The scribe could justify himself to the author, saying, "I did this because of this and that." And maybe the author wasn't very critical. He didn't get angry if the scribe wrote a as a Latin a. 
If you give someone else a note to rewrite, will you be angry if they don't rewrite it exactly as it was? If he writes a letter differently from the way you write it (as long as you can tell what the letter is)?
It's possible that the author liked the result and didn't punish the scribe.

There is a possibility that "a" is actually "ci":


See my old thread: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Unfortunately you cannot be sure about almost anything, like usually.

(19-06-2026, 12:06 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It seems to me highly unlikely that any such hired writer would be permitted by the hirer to write the manuscript and to do it unsupervised, to mangle it and make errors. Really? The hirer did not bother to check the work as it being done?

Marci's famous VMS letter was written by a secretary, because (IIUC) by that time his eyesight was so poor that he could not write letters himself.  (And he may have been already suffering from senility -- letters to Kircher from his friends, years later, say so much.)

If failing eyesight was one of the reasons for the Author recruiting a scribe, rather than doing the clean-copy himself, then perhaps he was also unable to check the result, and had to trust the Scribe.

Quote:At no time thought to tell him, "You are no good at this job. On your bike. I am getting someone else"?

Actually I suspect that he did so when the Scribe was  halfway through line f105r.13. 

Here is my most favored (most fun if not most likely) reconstruction of the relevant events.  After finishing the parag tail line f105.9 (...okchey), the Scribe started the next parag on what is now f105.11 (pdar oshedy ...).  He was halfway through that line when he noticed that he had skipped five words dairy ... ytam earlier in that same line.  So he wrote the rest of f105.11 a little lower than intended, to leave enough space above it; and wrote the skipped words in that space, creating what is conventionally called the "right-justifed title" f105.10.

The Scribe was almost finishing line f105.13 when -- oh no! -- the Author dropped in to check his work.  In spite of his bad eyesight, the Author noticed the mess the Scribe had done on line f105r.10, emphatically expressed some unwarranted conjectures about the his mother's occupation, and sent him "on his bike".   Leaving a half-word ot dangling on that last line.

The Author then recruited another Scribe and trained him on the Voynichese alphabet.  But this new Scribe did not notice that f105.13 was incomplete, so he started with the next parag, f105r.14 (kesoar qoeeedy...)

All the best, --stolfi

LFD doesn't believe that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was written by two different people, but believes instead that it is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. where there is a change of hand [ You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ], from 2 to 3.

In my opinion also the change in ink colour in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. shows just that the writer there stopped work for the day. Then later resumed work with a lighter ink.

(20-06-2026, 09:24 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.LFD doesn't believe that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was written by two different people, but believes instead that it is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. where there is a change of hand [ You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ], from 2 to 3.

Well, for my part,I cannot see a change of hand on f115r.  Just a new (lighter) batch of ink.

And, to be honest, don't see a convincing change of hand on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. either.  Up to line 13 and from line 14 on I see the same totally variable glyph shapes, same crooked lines and jagged right margin, same uneven glyph sizes and spaces...

So I suppose that the Author apologized for what he said about the Scribe's mother and eventually convinced him to come back and resume the work.  And he even got him a real writing desk and a more comfy chair. Just a bit less funny, but possibly more likely...

But still the Scribe forgot that he had left line 13 unfinished, and resumed work on line 14 with a new parag.

All the best, --stolfi

Well, I personally have another variant of this theory.

The manuscript is a copy. The Scribe was not hired, he was working for himself copying some manuscript not known to us. The original was in a language barely known to the Scribe, so the Scribe had to invent his own way to write down and even to read the glyphs.

Just an experiment: what would happen if a person who only knows Latin would try to copy a text in Greek or, even worse, Arabic without understanding it at all, especially if it is not a very clear writing? Consider the person to be really overconfident about their writing skills. It could even be that someone has mistaken right-to-left script as left-to-right and wrote a "copy" of it in such a way. I can easily imagine a person who owns some book that he can't read but for some reason believes that this book is of extreme value and thus must be copied at all costs.

This would explain many features of the Voynich manuscript including existence of some grammatical structure (the original had it and it wasn't completely destroyed even during such a "copying"), low entropy (the copier has mistaken different words for the same one), prevalence of certain glyphs in certain positions (that's how the copier has read them), slightly different language of two different scribes (they included their personality in their copies) and so on.

Unfortunately, such a theory is very hard both to prove and to disprove. The only real proof would be finding the original, but even if it existed, it is very unlikely to exist today. So I don't believe my theory is of any use, I just keep in mind that what we're trying to read is not necessarily correctly written.

(19-06-2026, 11:32 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(19-06-2026, 12:06 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It seems to me highly unlikely that any such hired writer would be permitted by the hirer to write the manuscript and to do it unsupervised, to mangle it and make errors. Really? The hirer did not bother to check the work as it being done?

Marci's famous VMS letter was written by a secretary, because (IIUC) by that time his eyesight was so poor that he could not write letters himself.  (And he may have been already suffering from senility -- letters to Kircher from his friends, years later, say so much.)

If failing eyesight was one of the reasons for the Author recruiting a scribe, rather than doing the clean-copy himself, then perhaps he was also unable to check the result, and had to trust the Scribe.

Quote:At no time thought to tell him, "You are no good at this job. On your bike. I am getting someone else"?

Actually I suspect that he did so when the Scribe was  halfway through line f105r.13. 

Here is my most favored (most fun if not most likely) reconstruction of the relevant events.  After finishing the parag tail line f105.9 (...okchey), the Scribe started the next parag on what is now f105.11 (pdar oshedy ...).  He was halfway through that line when he noticed that he had skipped five words dairy ... ytam earlier in that same line.  So he wrote the rest of f105.11 a little lower than intended, to leave enough space above it; and wrote the skipped words in that space, creating what is conventionally called the "right-justifed title" f105.10.

The Scribe was almost finishing line f105.13 when -- oh no! -- the Author dropped in to check his work.  In spite of his bad eyesight, the Author noticed the mess the Scribe had done on line f105r.10, emphatically expressed some unwarranted conjectures about the his mother's occupation, and sent him "on his bike".   Leaving a half-word ot dangling on that last line.

The Author then recruited another Scribe and trained him on the Voynichese alphabet.  But this new Scribe did not notice that f105.13 was incomplete, so he started with the next parag, f105r.14 (kesoar qoeeedy...)

All the best, --stolfi

To quote one of my favorites: "Se non è vero, è ben trovato."  

Cheers, 

Doro

(04-07-2026, 04:07 AM)agalakhov Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Just an experiment: what would happen if a person who only knows Latin would try to copy a text in Greek or, even worse, Arabic without understanding it at all, especially if it is not a very clear writing?

Nothing bad would happen most likely. I've seen kids attempt copying unknown scripts for the first time while traveling (Hangul, Chinese, Greek that you mentioned), the proportions would normally be wrong and the letters look weird, but still perfectly readable and recognizable, just with a few minor mistakes. Voynichese looks like a specifically designed script that uses various combinations of simple strokes in almost all possible ways, so I think your hypothesis is not very likely.

One exception would be attempting to copy something like the Chinese below, this would be nearly impossible, but Voynichese certainly doesn't look like that.

[attachment=16311]