The Voynich Ninja

Pellen as a transitive verb basically means "to peal", though it looks like the usage has been a bit wider than in modern day Germanic languages. Basically, to remove a hard outer layer from something.  Intransitively, it meant "to shed (parts of) the outer layer". Just think of English "peal" as in "to peal a banana" as the main meaning.

I agree with Koen.

I fail to see   the descenders, I  am afraid the Albus reading is another Jesus on Toast, even if it comes up again and again and was presented at Mondragone, and the v's are not similar to te poxleber p.

pellen is the same word as English peel,  it generally means to take the skin off something, e.g. potatoes, nuts, peas and so on, Pelle is the skin of a sausage.  It is mostly North German but in use everywhere nowadays, a good example is Pellkartoffel, (cooked and) peeled potato. palen is a very fine Umlaut, but not in use any more, an example in use  is Palerbse, green pea in its husk, the verb is now  ich pelle, pellte, gepellt, not  ich pelle, palte, gepalt  any more. The more common verb is schälen

Hello Helmut,

I won't go into any argument on the reading, but I do see traces of especially the first descender.
It's hard to say conclusively that it's there, but also very hard to dismiss.
(Which is why these discussions never end.....)

Possibly, such traces happen when a writer keeps his pen too close to the surface during writing. I met similar traces in the other places of the VMs. I think that last line was very solemn to the author, he finished his work with these notes and couldn't mistake here. Maybe, this emotion has played its part in that how he wrote it.

Pellen comes from the Latin root pilāre.
Most European languages have a similar word: English peel, Spanish pelar, French peler, Danish pille (as a verb), Dutch pellen, etc.
So it could be linked to any of these languages.
The question is: Does it function as a verb or a noun in this pseudo-sentence of ours?
Without sorting out the question of the grammar, we'll never get anywhere.

David - your comment sums up well why I argue an initial 'language group' approach instead of pondering over the details of specific dialects. Also, we need a formal method. See my thread in the tasks subforum where I propose an approach. 

A first step would be to have our members who know a thing or two about paleography to agree on a set of possible readings for each word. This would give us a formal data set to start from and avoid having the same discussions over and over.

The head of the figure with the knees doesn't look quite human to me. The neck is far too long, for one thing.

There have been other interpretations of the marginalia, some reading it in Latin, others (if I recall) in Italian. 

Although the script and language aren't my area, I was interested to find a word in another manuscript that looked remarkably like the "michiton"


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I haven't had time to blog about this (or about anything lately) but I have spent much time looking at "gas mich" trying to determine if that is a long-S or an f because it looks like a rub in the parchment many have removed or impeded the stroke for the "f" (if it is an f).

If it's a long-S, I can't make much sense of the statement but...


If it is an "f" then gaf mich does make some sense as "gaf" was used, in a limited region in the German-speaking lowlands, to mean "gave". It was not frequently used, but I came across it in some late 14th-century and early 15th-century documents. I'm worry, I haven't the time to look up the references but if it happens to be "f", it would add the possibility of a somewhat fractured Germanic statement something like...

"so to take gave me" which may seem strange but could be interpreted in English as "so/thus [s/he] gave me [this] to take" (as in a medicine or as a charm, for example).

"Gaf" is still the modern Dutch form for "gave". 

If you say that "gaf mich" is a valid reading, then a translation "gave me" seems valid as well. 

However, "x gave me y to take" is very problematic. This reading can only be argued if you assume the "nim" or whatever is an abbreviated form, since we would always expect an infinitive ending in -en there. Like "(to) nimmen gaf mich". This would also imply that the item drawn after "mich" actually represents the object of the sentence.

"to take(abbrev) gave me [round object]"

Now if the "nim" is actually the subject of the sentence, that would work a lot better for me: 
"nim gave me [round object]"

I'm actually not sure if word order like "John apples gave me" was ever grammatical in any West-Germanic language. Maybe only in highly artificial poetic contexts. And "John to take gave me" is even more questionable, even if we assume the round object to be the thing given (which would somewhat push the word order towards the acceptable).