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| Ancient Rome Ms. from Collegio Romano |
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Posted by: -JKP- - 21-02-2020, 03:13 AM - Forum: Provenance & history
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Princeton MS Garrett 158. Check out the very detailed illustrations and the early modern rendition of a classical style of script and page layout in this c. 1471 manuscript.
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It was one of the manuscripts acquired by Wilfrid Voynich, so I thought it appropriate to have a link in this section:
"The early provenance of the manuscript is unknown. It was owned by Marc Antoine Muret, the French humanist (1526-1585), who died in Rome, where it was inherited by Marc Antoine Muret, his nephew (d. 1586), a student in Rome, who donated it to the Collegio Romano, a Jesuit school in Rome, founded 1551 and later renamed Gregorian University. The school was closed 1870-1874, and many books and manuscripts (including Garrett MS. 158) were lost or sold in 1873. It is unknown who owned or had possession of the manuscript immediately after it left the Collegio Romano. The Marcanova manuscript was part of the Voynich Collection, the personal collection of the New York antiquarian dealer Wilfred Voynich; in 1915 and 1920 the manuscript was exhibited with a group of Western illuminated manuscripts the General Library of the University of Michigan. It was described at the time as having been illustrated by Maso da Finiguerra (1426-1464), according to an article in University of Michigan, General Library Building (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1920), p. 35; copy on file in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Wilfrid Voynich sold the manuscript to Robert Garrett of Baltimore, Maryland, Class of 1897, in August 1924. Garrett deposited the manuscript in the Princeton University Library (deposit no. 7542) and donated it in 1942."
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| Are perfect-reduplication and quasi-reduplication related? |
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Posted by: MarcoP - 20-02-2020, 04:21 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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By perfect-reduplication, I mean the exact consecutive repetition of the same word: e.g. daiin.daiin
By quasi-reduplication, I mean two consecutive words that are very similar to each other: e.g. qokedy.qokey
In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., I mentioned the transcription of the French You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. While discussing a different subject with Koen, I noticed that this file contains examples of both reduplication and quasi-reduplication. These examples are quite different from what we see in the VMS: the repetition occurs across lines, the first occurrence is written in red and entirely lower-case, the second occurrence is written in black with a red capital initial (the title of a recipe, written in red, often also occurs as the first word of the recipe).
These are three examples of perfect reduplication (brouet.brouet gruyau.gruyau coulis.coulis) and three examples of quasi-reduplication (blan.blanc escreissez.ecreuissez mulet.mullet).
The "perfect" examples of course are not-so-perfect because of the differences listed above; the first case also has different 'r's, so one could argue that it is b2ouet.brouet (or b2ouet.Brouet). For the sake of argument, please ignore these differences.
res.jpg (Size: 191.35 KB / Downloads: 391)
The point I want to make is that here quasi-reduplication appears to be accidental: the two words are not really different, the differences are due to arbitrary spelling variation.
Semi-reduplication is a rarely discussed Voynich phenomenon. Timm and Schinner have provided a model for it. I may be wrong, but I understand they create reduplication by mean of this process:
1. words are randomly selected from a certain pool (a previous page)
2. when writing down a word, it can be slightly modified
Point 1 is responsible for both reduplication and quasi reduplication: word selection does not check that the new word is different from the immediately previous word.
Point 2 is largely responsible for quasi reduplication: a word identical to the previous one is selected and it is slightly altered before/when writing it on the page.
In this model, reduplication and quasi-reduplication appear to be closely related.
The other explanation of quasi-reduplication I am aware of is the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. encryption system by Rene. I undertand that here a nomenclator is created by adding new words as they are found in the text. Each word is replaced by a ciphered version that is very similar to the cipher version for the previous word - "the quick brown fox" becomes something like "2134 2135 2136 2137", but of course if a word is already present in the nomenclator, the cipher word in the nomenclator is used: this quasi-reduplication pattern only happens under certain conditions.
In this case, each minimal difference between two words is highly significant. It is no more true that similar words typically have similar meanings (as in plain text). Perfect-reduplication is an entirely unrelated phenomenon that is not explained by the cipher system but must have its source in the original plain text.
Obviously, the spelling variation that we see in plain text manuscripts (such as S 108) is more similar to what Timm and Schinner discuss.
I was wondering if there is any statistical method that could tell us if, in the VMS, quasi-reduplication is related with perfect reduplication or not. I.e. are there verifiable patterns that should be present if the two are related and absent if they are not?
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| Voynich Paleography lecture |
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Posted by: LisaFaginDavis - 18-02-2020, 09:55 PM - Forum: News
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[color=#1d2129][size=small][font=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]OK, folks, here's my recent lecture from the annual meeting of the Bibliographical Society of America in New York City. This is only one part of my research, though - the full extent of my work will be published in the coming months in the journal Manuscript Studies: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
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| Possible Constellations - f68r.2 |
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Posted by: caitlin_B200 - 14-02-2020, 01:26 PM - Forum: Astronomy
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I was looking at the folio 68r.2 after reading a thread in this forum about it. I noticed that they had marked two constellations on this page (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
I think that the constellation at the bottom of the page near the star they have marked Sirus, could be the constellation Cancer. I looked at the modern starmap for Cancer, which has 4 stars in it. Therefore if this is Cancer then the stars would be Iota Carncri, Asellus Borealis, Asellus Australis, Acubens and Altarf. At first look this star drawing looks to be made of 3 stars. But further up there is another star which might show Iota Cancri.
Another constellation that was marked was the open ended triangle at the top of the page that looks a little like the ship from the game Astroid. I think that this shows the Summer Triangle constelation. If so then the stars for this is Vega (top left), Deneb (bottom left) and Altair (bottom right).
Please do share your views on this
Caitlin
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| Dotted scallop pattern |
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Posted by: Koen G - 13-02-2020, 03:33 PM - Forum: Imagery
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Scallop patterns are very common in medieval art (and any art really). They can indicate scales, feathers, fur, mountains, armor and probably much more. On a few VM folios, a slightly enhanced version is used, where many of the "scales" are dotted.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. both combine plain scales, dotted scales and something tent-like topped by a pole, water emerging from each. The pattern is also used on the two-birds page and to some extent on the rosettes foldout.
Browsing around, I came across an image from the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., of a castle with dotted roof tiles.
Naamloos-1 kopiëren.jpg (Size: 161.33 KB / Downloads: 213)
All of this is rather confusing. I'd have thought the Q13B dotted scallops must be mountains since water flows from them, but their orientation and color is quite similar to that of roof tiles as well. It almost feels like Q13B, the rosettes foldout and its reverse are patched together from a catalogue of roof and tent images...
Edit: the Wenceslas bible also contains some tents with extremely VM-like cloud band patterns, though I feel like this must have been pointed out before:
Naamloos-3 kopiëren.jpg (Size: 83.73 KB / Downloads: 206)
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| turkicresearch.com |
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Posted by: -JKP- - 13-02-2020, 08:42 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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We probably need a separate thread to discuss You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that RenegadeHealer posted on the Calgary thread, since the interpretations of this researcher might be different from those of others who claim that it is Turkish (just as there are many different versions of "the VMS is Latin" theories).
It's a very nicely organized site, with a clear explanation of how the letters are transliterated.
Many of the substitutions are similar to the Latin characters, so it's not hard for westerners to understand their transliteration system. For example EVA-e = c, i = i, m = k, iin = m, o = o, ö, l = x, r = r, k = l, il, d = s (just as it is written in French).
These substitutions are extremely similar to the majority of Latin transliterations, so I assume they are treating it as Romanized Turkish (here is a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on Romanizing Ottoman Turkish and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and there are quite a few more since translation of Persian documents into machine-readable Latin text would open up a great many important historical documents to a larger research community).
Unfortunately, I see the same problems here as I see with most of the Latin "solutions".
First of all, it is interpreted as a substitution cipher without consideration for letter frequency and position. This is the PRIMARY problem I see with supposed VMS "solutions" and it usually goes unexplained (and often un-noticed) by the solver. Also, there is no explanation for letter pairing and you cannot explain Voynich text without accounting for this.
For example, in Turkish, the letter "k" can be found in any part of a word, here is a modern example:
dketr mstfa amara dr mwrd kearkerd mghz twdahat mkhtsra ma dhd ! f'ela mkhtsr! nzr bdad ltfa agur maalad mfsl tr shbt
In contrast, in the VMS, EVA-m is almost always positioned at the ends of tokens and very frequently at the ends of lines. This position is consistent with the Latin -ris abbreviation, which is the same shape as the VMS glyph and is almost always at the ends of words and also frequently at the ends of lines (as an end-section marker, or as an etcetera marker). In other words, in the VMS, this glyph is positioned like a ligature or abbreviation, not like a letter (I'm not saying it is an abbreviation, I don't know what it is, but it does not behave like an alphabetic letter in Latin-character languages or in Farsi).
Similarly the "o" glyph in the VMS is very frequently at the beginnings of tokens and very frequently precedes EVA-k or EVA-t, but you can see from the above romanized example, that "o" or "ö" does not appear frequently at the beginnings of words.
Hopefully that's enough information to get the idea across. Let me know if you need more examples.
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| Phonetic Theory about the VMS |
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Posted by: Gavin Güldenpfennig - 11-02-2020, 11:56 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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Hello VMS community,
after fighting some Brythonic dragons  ...
... I´m back with a new idea.
We all have thoughts about the VMS manuscript. Some are good, some are bullshit. But all are useful for making progress. Even my old theories about the VMS, "that it could be written in Basque" and "...in Gaulish / Galatian". 
They were surely wrong, as some of you expected and as I know today, but I learned a lot about the manuscript and its way through the history even after working for 10 years on the VMS.
Let us summarize, what we have...
Facts about the VMS:
* it was written in the early 15th century
* but: we do not know for sure, if it is a "new" text or a copy of an older one
* someone sold the VMS manuscript to Rudolf II.
* some Jesuits tried to solve the VMS puzzle
* the Jesuits tried to "domesticate" the Celtic initial mutations in writing (for example in Breton language)
* Voynich bought the VMS in Italy around 1912
* Voynich´s wife was from Ireland
* there is a litte dragon on folio 25v
* there is a drawing of four beings on folio 86r, which could be inspired by the Book of Revelation
* there is a drawing of a (naked) woman in the upper left corner of folio 82v, which gives us (if my reading is correct) the word cluster y-ƒar(i)∂ín (otechdy)
You see a tendency, where the VMS text could come from? Right, the (former) Celtic part of the British Isles. Or being more precise...
... the Hen Ogledd or even Pictland!
That would even explain the naked women, because the Picts ... were Picts ... and they extensively use cauldrons. 
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The word "y-ƒar(i)∂ín" {ə-ƒarᶦðʲn} could be a key for understanding the language.
A main figure of the Welsh mythology is the witch "Carridwen". One of her attributes is a cauldron. So maybe her name could mean something like "the women (in Welsh: "dynes") of the cauldron (in reconstructed Proto-Celtic: *kʷaryos)". If that is true, and if ƒ is a labialized "k"- sound, we could have her original name "Kwaridín" in the VMS.
The "y" could be something like an article.
To check this theory I have done some work with the star map on 68r1 again. And now I´m further than ever before with understanding the map. But the ƒ did different things during transcribing the map, while all other letters are very consistent in their sound value, and even follow some modern Celtic orthography- sound- rules. 
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1.) ƒ arises, when we expect a {p} like in "pajenn" (Brezhoneg: side)
2.) ƒ arises, when we expect a labialized {ʷ} ... {k, g, h} like in *kʷaryos
3.) ƒ arises, when we expect a {ɬ} like in Welsh "ll" or Arabic h-sounds or š
What does this mean?
I don´t really know, but...
The ƒ is used for labialized sounds. That´s sure, if my reconstruction is correct.
Also Derek Vogt mentioned before in his video series about a possible VMS- Romani connection, that there seems to be no sign of a "l- sound" in the Voynich language. But maybe that´s the point. The ƒ could have been used for laterals, too. It really seems to be its main function.
And what is even more exciting. It seems to be a possibility to write a "p".
The Celtic language family is divided into the P- & Q- Celtic branches. Celtic {p} and {k} are reflexes of the Indoeuropean sound {k[font=Arial]ʷ}.[/font]
Could have been their a third branch with an {[font=-webkit-standard][font=Liberation Serif, serif][font=Times New Roman, serif]ł[/font][/font]}- reflex. Could this be the real ancestor of modern Welsh?[/font]
I will further work on it and I´m ready for discussion and your thoughts. 
PS: I have developed a Voynichese Phonetic System. But I´m unsure with some sound additions because of the small but Celtic word inventory I have translated, so I will finish this while coming translations. But what I can say is, that there are similarities to the known Celtic phonetic inventories.
The Voynichese phonetic system seems to be divided in to three main articulation areas (Labial - Coronal - Velar) and it uses palatalized and labialized (as velarization in Old Irish) coronal sounds. 
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| [Nymph Philosophy] Why the nude female form? |
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Posted by: Koen G - 08-02-2020, 01:57 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (47)
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Why do the Zodiac section, Q13A and Q13B all favor naked nude female forms for their human figures? This is a question I have pondered often, and which, in my opinion, might provide some insight into the manuscript's underlying thoughts.
(In fact, only one part of the manuscript uses human figures which are not predominantly nude and female: the four-figure diagrams.)
When looking exclusively at Q13B (the central pool pages), the argument would be simple. The women are nude because they are bathing, and they are mostly women because communal baths or bathing sites for women are often no men allowed.
Naamloos-2 kopiëren.jpg (Size: 67.61 KB / Downloads: 326)
Just some women bathing in two orderly rows, no big deal. We know of other manuscripts with more or less similar imagery (Balneis etc).
But then move to Q13A, and the situation becomes more complicated. Some of the figures are still standing in pools, but they engage in unusual activities like physical conflict, or they hold items we don't recognize, or wouldn't immediately associate with bathing or even medicine (thinking of the spindles for example). The bases on which they stand become more complex and hard to explain in literal terms. Symbols like cloud bands appear.
Naamloos-3 kopiëren.jpg (Size: 78.83 KB / Downloads: 323)
Moving into the sub-subsection with rainbows and other elemental madness, things get even more complex. Still, everything is performed by nude human figures.
Naamloos-5 kopiëren.jpg (Size: 40.76 KB / Downloads: 334)
Now in Q13, all but a dozen or so figures appear to be standing in at least a personal basin of water. But move over to the Zodiac section, and you see the same kinds of figures marching along concentric circles around their Zodiac symbol. For sure, there are exceptions (notably the circles with clothed figures), but the nude female appears to be the general rule.
Naamloos-7 kopiëren.jpg (Size: 61.34 KB / Downloads: 321)
So what gives? I understand that bathing and even medicine may require nudity, but why are the same strange figures holding rainbows or queuing around a month emblem while holding stars? There seems to be some continuum in how easy or hard it is to explain the figures in a literal sense. Is it possible that Q13B (pools) is about literal bathing, while the same bathers also function as personifications (?) of days (?) in the Zodiac section?
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