The Voynich Ninja

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Wouldn't it have been better to gather some of these in one single thread?
Also, does You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. even exist?

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Hi Don

Let me use this thread to provide my impression of your proposals in general.  I think you have three qualities that set you apart from many other researchers:

1) You are always civil and open to discuss everything, staying to the point.
2) You have a very good eye for spotting images and patterns in the drawings that might have a symbolical meaning.
3) You take the structure of Voynichese into account. This is all too often absent from explanations.

Now the problem for me personally with your mnemonic-text links is the following. I have spent countless hours looking into the "art history" side of the VM images, and the more I find, the more I agree with Diane that they originated well before the time the manuscript was made. In other words, the images were directly copied from older sources. There are various cultural influences present, but those lie a large distance east and/or south of England.

This would take several books to explain, but it is clear to me that the images in the manuscript cannot have been made by a medieval English speaker. I would need very strong art-historical arguments to convince me of the contrary, because I consider the evidence in favor of a Hellenistic origin very strong.

Your theory about the text and the mnemonics would imply that they were created by the same person, who spoke at least 15th century English. So for me it is clear that either:
- The text is not in any form of English.
OR
- The text is not related to the images - a 15th century text has been placed with unrelated ancient imagery.

I believe there are at least some arguments that the text does belong with the imagery, so I have to stick with the hypothesis that English was extremely unlikely to have played any role in the composition of the manuscript or its sources.

You have clearly trained your eye in spotting significant mnemonics, which is a skill all in its own. But I don't agree with the way you interpret the intention behind those mnemonics.

Edit: I must also add that the way you approach the language is a very good example that an "alternative approach" can work. I just don't agree with the cultural background, but I find the concept very interesting and well executed.

Don, Koen,

I find myself in the peculiar position of agreeing with two people who differ from each other and neither of whom necessarily agrees with me.

Of course I've always said the origin of the imagery was Hellenistic. But not eeveryone in the Hellenistic world or even in the Greek-speaking world was a Greek.

Given that the Hellenistic period ends about 30 BC, the imagery, at least, had to be maintained in some form, somewhere until the Vms was made.

I don't think much of it arrived into the view of  Latin Europeans before the  mid-12thC -though I've always excepted the antecedents of the centres in the month-roundels, which could have been known to Latins by the 10thC.

Mid-12thC to c.1400 is still a fair gap, and manuscripts circulated pretty easily throughout the Latin speaking world, just as through the Islamic or Byzantine.  So though I think our present manuscript made in italy, I'd be open to its having been made in England, chiefly becausethe earliest appraisals, both professional and expert-amateur found nothing to object to in that provenance.

Sometimes a hostile witness is the best witness, especially by what they cannot say.  Lynn Thorndike seems to have had a strong personal antipathy towards Wilfrid, and hated alll the 'hype' about supposed Baconian authorship. He was certainly a specialist in medieval manuscripts .. and I'm sure if he could have said "this is no English manuscript" he would have jumped at the chance to demolish Wilfrid and the 'Bacon' story at one go.  But he never did - nothing about the manuscript's vellum or hand obviously denied it.  For myself, I'm positively inclined to arguments about England before 1400 - for the precedents, not the current MS.

I must agree that for all we know, England played a role in the transmission of the material. I'm still kind of fuzzy about what could have happened to the material between the Muslim conquest and the manufacturing of our manuscript. For all I know, it went to [Italy?] through Denmark. Since it seems that the meaning of the original makers has not been lost, I still assume minimal copies, with minimal alterations of content.

But even if it could have passed England, that still doesn't mean it should contain English language

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