The Voynich Ninja

[Edit KG: I'm hijacking this first post for some explanation. All too often, discussions on matters Voynichese end up on the same old You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. debates, like some weird version of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. When this happens and really takes threads off-topic, we will simply move those posts here. Feel free to keep discussing in this thread.]

(21-07-2026, 09:53 AM)J_Voy Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I just find it hard to believe that handwriting analysis of the marginalia that almost perfectly lines up with the dates of the vellum being produced is actually a wiped off, then a scribe writing over it would just so happen to almost perfectly mimic that writing style, I see the possibility, and if further evidence appears for this, I will change my mind about this, but I just don't believe it is probable, and plus, on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there appears to be a drawing of both a goat, and a nymph, the goat matches up with the first and last words, 'poxleber', and 'gaſmich' which are generally believed to translate to 'buck's liver' and 'goat's milk' respectively. In my opinion, that long s is almost certainly a long s, as the reading gaſmich, actually means something, what would 'gafmich' mean? Nothing, we don't even see a clear crossbar than an f would have, as well as the fact that first you're taking the liver of a goat, then the milk of a goat? It makes more sense. Anyway, the nymph could represent the two Voynichese words, (aror Sheey)why wouldn't these also be washed away?

The nymphs and the goat on the left do not seem to fit with the author's style (especially when compared to the nymphs from balneology). You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. can be either an attempt to reconstruct the text or You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I don't really believe that this is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., because in the end, it feels like stretching an owl on a globe.

(21-07-2026, 09:53 AM)J_Voy Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Remember how we agreed that in and iin are digraphs? If this is true, then why waste time writing digraphs/trigraphs instead of inventing a new symbol that would take less time to write?

I did not "agree" that in is a digraph and iin is a trigraph.  That is just a guess, and at this point I have no real evidence to support it.

By the way, the name "trigraph" for iin would be a bit inappropriate because the ii by itself is not a glyph.  The in and iin are better viewed as like single glyphs with disconnected parts.  Like Greek Θ and Ξ.   Or Voynichese ee, in my word model.

Anyway, iin may still be quicker to write than whatever would be the "natural" representation of the same sound in Latin letters.  For instance, if iin stands for the Mandarin final sound -ng, (which is distnct from "-n"), it seems to be a win, no matter how that "-ng" is written with Latin letters.

Quote:

Quote:It also visually matches some You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

Then i'm surprised that the plant drawings don't match plants from anywhere, Chinese or European.

Don't they?

For the 30 years since the COT was proposed (not even by me), no one has spent more that a few minutes investigating it.  Everybody -- everybody -- dismissed offhand as nonsense, because "the drawings look European, so obviously the language and subject must be European".

I bet that none of the hundreds (thousands?) of people who tried to identify the plants bothered to look at a Chinese herbal.  If they looked at a comprehensive herbal, with plants from all the world, they must have skipped any plant that said "grows only in Asia".

Quote:I just find it hard to believe that handwriting analysis of the marginalia that almost perfectly lines up with the dates of the vellum being produced

The letter style and handwriting of the marginalia does not "perfectly" match those of any manuscript.  That is impossible, because the letter shapes on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are all over the place. 

Correct me if I am wrong, but what Koen and Marco did was

  for each candidate document D:
     for each letter L of the Latin alphabet:
        pick an instance S of L on f116v;
        if D has a letter that looks like S:
           increment score(D)

and then they looked at the dates and places of the documents with largest scores.  But no document got a 100% score!

But that method assumes that the "michiton" text was a meaningful message that someone wrote in his language with his natural handwriting.  If instead the text is an attempt by someone to restore a text that he believed to be from the 1400s the conclusion about the dates cannot be trusted anymore. (The conclusion about the place where that happened still would be significant.)

Moreover, if the text is a meaningless attempt at restoring a lost Voynichse text as Latin script, the method above is already biased towards the 15th century.  For example, when they had to select an instance of "d" on f116v, they picked the first "d" of "oladabad", not the final one, because they assumed that the final letter must have been a "short s" as was used in the 1400s (even though it is too tall for that), whereas that first "d" looked more like a "d" as would be used in that period.  The "poxleber" looks more "poxlcber"; they read the 5th letter as "e" only because they assumed that the "word" must be a Germanic word written with the handwriting of the period. And so on. 

Quote:on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there appears to be a drawing of both a goat, and a nymph, the goat matches up with the first and last words, 'poxleber', and 'gaſmich' which are generally believed to translate to 'buck's liver' and 'goat's milk' respectively. ...

As in many other words of that parag, the Restorer was trying to guess the original text, so he picked "reconstructions" that seemed to make sense to him.  But he had very limited success. The readings "poxleber", "maria", "gasmich" are highly strained (as Koen himself admit on the video).  Most of the words just cannot be interpreted.

Quote: that long s is almost certainly a long s, as the reading gaſmich, actually means something, what would 'gafmich' mean? In my opinion, Nothing, we don't even see a clear crossbar than an f would have, as well as the fact that first you're taking the liver of a goat, then the milk of a goat? It makes more sense.

The third letter in "gasmich" was read as "s" because they assumed that the word was "gasmich".  But in fact there is a crossbar. It just was damaged, like the top stroke and the left end of the "m":
[attachment=16687]
At the very least, objectively -- without assuming the "words" are "meaningful" -- one should say that it could be "s" or "f".

And the drawings of the [thing], the lamb (not goat!), and the nymph are tucked in the margin, beyond the ugly defect on the vellum, and turned toward the edge, rather than toward the text. The assumption that the text is related to them is rather shaky.  They are probably just doodles by the original Scribe...

Quote:the two Voynichese words, (aror Sheey) why wouldn't these also be washed away?

Because they are at the lower left corner of the text, and were spared by the spill.
 
All the best, --stolfi

We did not assume meaning at all. We looked at the letter shapes and only used those that could be reliably determined, regardless of expected meaning. For example, we did not use those 8-shapes, because they don't quite work for "d" or short-s, they are just too wonky and unreliable.

There is no crossbar in the long-s at the end of "gas". There is only the horizontal line running from "g" through "a". This may be a connecting stroke plus another one through "a", perhaps. And then there is the onset of "m", which leaves a dot. These combined cause the illusion that there may have been a stroke through the long vertical. What we see is quite consistent with the way this author writes long-s.

To the extent this helps, I just happen to have been messing with the MSI tiffs for You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. this week and have this assembled.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.


it's too big to attach or embed so just putting it on a free image hosting site and linking to it.

(21-07-2026, 06:02 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.We did not assume meaning at all. We looked at the letter shapes and only used those that could be reliably determined, regardless of expected meaning. For example, we did not use those 8-shapes, because they don't quite work for "d" or short-s, they are just too wonky and unreliable.

Apologies for that undue inference.  

But beware that the Restorer himself must have chosen the Latin letter interpretation of several smudges on no other basis than they seemed like they could maybe perhaps make sense in Latin or his German dialect.  

Quote:There is no crossbar in the long-s at the end of "gas". There is only the horizontal line running from "g" through "a". This may be a connecting stroke plus another one through "a", perhaps. And then there is the onset of "m", which leaves a dot. These combined cause the illusion that there may have been a stroke through the long vertical.

Well, there is a small crossbar:
[attachment=16691]
It could be just a quill accident; but, given the overall variability of the handwriting, that could also have been a crossbar.

Note that the vellum seems to be damaged in that area:
[attachment=16692]
That damage could account for the detached dot from the "m" and for the gap in the upper part of the "s"/"f".  If the damage is real, the crossbar could have been longer,

Anyway, isn't that the wrong place for a long "s"?  Since it is word-final, shouldn't it be a short "s"?

By the way: I don't recall how you read the two words below, but they start with "p", not with "u" or "v" as many have read them:
[attachment=16693]

All the best, --stolfi

(21-07-2026, 10:48 PM)J_Voy Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If it's not a meaningful German spell, then why do you see '+' shapes that indicate a medieval charm? And a capital 'N' that in medieval charms stands for the names of people?

Well, it is not a meaningful German spell because it has no meaning in any German dialect, known or imagined.  

I suppose that the person who tried to restore the lost text saw one or two smudges that looked like tall crosses.  They could not be "t"s, which, in the script he was assuming, did not look at all like crosses (see the "multod" for example).  So he must have guessed that the second line was a charm -- and "restored" it accordingly.  But the words that he got just don't make sense, in any language...

All the best, --stolfi

Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, it is not a meaningful German spell because it has no meaning in any German dialect, known or imagined.  

I suppose that the person who tried to restore the lost text saw one or two smudges that looked like tall crosses.  They could not be "t"s, which, in the script he was assuming, did not look at all like crosses (see the "multod" for example).  So he must have guessed that the second line was a charm -- and "restored" it accordingly.  But the words that he got just don't make sense, in any language...

Personally, i believe there is meaning, it's just that the handwriting is so sloppy we can't read any of it besides a few words here and there, we see the capital 'N' which i pointed out along with the '+' shapes, but we also see the phrase 'ſo nim' meaning 'then take', being one of the most common phrases in medieval charms.

(22-07-2026, 06:22 AM)J_Voy Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Personally, i believe there is meaning, it's just that the handwriting is so sloppy we can't read any of it besides a few words here and there

If it was just a matter of sloppy handwriting, we should have figured out the text 70 years ago.  But the handwriting is not that sloppy.  It is not cursive.  At worst, there are only a few possibilities for each latter.  Juggling all the possibilities would not turn "michiton", "oladabas", "morix", "abia",  "pbren" etc into words of any language.  Those few "words" that could be "Germanish" or Latin words do not make sense together.

Quote:we see the capital 'N' which i pointed out along with the '+' shapes, but we also see the phrase 'ſo nim' meaning 'then take', being one of the most common phrases in medieval charms.

Again, the Restorer who tried to recover the lost (Voynichese) text apparently thought that the parag was a charm, and tried to "restore" the smudges accordingly.  

Wherever there is now a cross, maybe there was a smudge that looked like cross, or maybe there was just a blank space and he assumed that there should have been a cross there too, because in charms typically there is a cross at every word space.  Charms often have a (capital) N that is supposed to be replaced by the name of the target person, and presumably there was a smudge at the end of the line that could be a large (lowercase) n, so he restored its as such.  On the last line there were smudges that he thought could have been "so nim", so that is what he wrote.  And so on...

By the way, two of the crosses (after "multod" and after "cere") are closed at the northwest quadrant by a diagonal line, so that they look more like a "4".  But crosses are normally drawn with a vertical down stroke and a left to right horizontal stroke.  If the quill is not completely lifted off the vellum between the two traces, the result would be a diagonal line closing off the southwest or northeast quadrant, depending on which stroke is drawn first.  The diagonal line at the northwest suggests that what the Restorer saw there was a "4", not just a cross.  Like a partially erased q...

All the best, --stolfi

Stolfi: that little "thorn" thingy is actually expected for long-s, it comes from doubling the line. 

And yes, it would be out of place in word-final position, which is why I think gasmich is best read as one word.

(21-07-2026, 10:48 PM)J_Voy Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.No, i feel like the nymph actually belongs to the same style

The hat looks a little more detailed, and it has legs. The difference is that she looks a little better. Judging by the illustrations in the VMS, the artist could not have drawn such a hat, and he would hardly have drawn legs. I believe that someone has redrawn the nymph. But who knows...

(21-07-2026, 10:48 PM)J_Voy Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If it's not a meaningful German spell, then why do you see '+' shapes that indicate a medieval charm? And a capital 'N' that in medieval charms stands for the names of people?

Is there an N there?
There could be many reasons why there are pluses there. The fact that it's a spell is undeniable, but the fact that it makes sense is incredible.