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Welcome, Guest You have to register before you can post on our site. Username/Email:    Password    Remember me Search Forums (Advanced Search) Online Users There are currently 985 online users. » 1 Member(s) | 980 Guest(s) Applebot, Baidu, Bing, Google, rikforto Latest Threads Inside the Voynich Networ... Forum: Analysis of the text Last Post: Jorge_Stolfi 1 hour ago » Replies: 8 » Views: 204 Ms. Plut. 73.16, medicati... Forum: Imagery Last Post: bi3mw 3 hours ago » Replies: 10 » Views: 393 [split] Darker ink, retra... Forum: Voynich Talk Last Post: Jorge_Stolfi 10 hours ago » Replies: 114 » Views: 13,093 copy of an older, barely ... Forum: Theories & Solutions Last Post: JoJo_Jost 10 hours ago » Replies: 23 » Views: 664 The Voynich is for espion... Forum: Theories & Solutions Last Post: Ransom 10 hours ago » Replies: 0 » Views: 64 f114r - what happened? Forum: Analysis of the text Last Post: JoJo_Jost Yesterday, 12:39 PM » Replies: 24 » Views: 2,819 How to prove that the B-l... Forum: Theories & Solutions Last Post: Ruby Novacna Yesterday, 09:14 AM » Replies: 111 » Views: 39,063 The Voynich Garden Forum: News Last Post: asteckley Yesterday, 01:50 AM » Replies: 43 » Views: 22,048 Cipher or unknown languag... Forum: Provenance & history Last Post: Bluetoes101 24-10-2025, 10:48 PM » Replies: 38 » Views: 5,826 why the voynich ist celti... Forum: Imagery Last Post: Stefan Wirtz_2 24-10-2025, 10:20 PM » Replies: 27 » Views: 2,386

How could we approach the Pharma and Recipes? Posted by: Anton - 19-01-2020, 09:57 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text - Replies (50) These are some methodological thoughts of mine. Since I'm unlikely to bring them to practice in the nearest future, I thought I'd better share them for someone to maybe pick them up. Initially I approached the herbal section in the view that it may reveal some "template" of narration (which I was not able to find, but that does not mean it does not exist, because I tested it from one side only). But the Recipes section (suppose these are recipes, to begin with) would perhaps exhibit even a more templated style. There are different types of recipes (not in the VMS, I mean, but in human practice). You have recipes to cook something, recipes to prepare medicines, recipes to cure the diseases. Each of those, however, would exhibit regularities. There will be some frequent words (such perhaps as "water" or "powder"). Some function words, such as e.g. "for", are not unlikely to exhibit positional affinities (e.g. in the titles: "for ...."). There will be measures and numerics (be that expressed by digits or by words). What is especially interesting, there will be established phrases, such as the "so nim" which we have extensively discussed in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. thread. So what could we do? Take some contemporary manuscript with recipes. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. seems to me a good candidate, since it contains several recipe sections by different scribes (that is, by different authors, most probably) and of different types. Calculate word statistics for each section. Find most frequent words and word combinations, find positional templates. Do the same for the Recipe section of the VMS. Compare the results.   Alchemy conference in Vienna Posted by: ReneZ - 19-01-2020, 12:30 PM - Forum: News - Replies (7) From 19-21 February 2020, the beautiful city of Vienna will host the International symposium “Alchemical Laboratories. Practices, texts, material relics”. Here is the web page with the most relevant information: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I am planning / hoping to attend. This is, of course, only marginally related with the Voynich MS. Perhaps.   f65r - extensive attack Posted by: davidjackson - 19-01-2020, 10:16 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text - Replies (25) I'd like to open a thread on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to intensively attack it. The short reason being, it is a page with no more than three vords which one could assume have a direct relationship to the plant. I don't think any other page has less text on it than this one. Considering that all other plant pages have several paragraphs of text (an average of 89 vords per plant page - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.), there must be a compelling reason for this plant to warrant a miserable three words. I have dashed off a series of observations and questions to get us started. Plant identification. The possible identification of this plant was recently discussed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Examination of the parts Seeds As ReneZ pointed out You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.the "seeds" are drawn branching out in opposition on the right hand branch, but in sequence on the left hand branch. They are drawn a third way for the top branch - a single branch protrudes up before splitting into three with "seeds" at the end. The very top of the folio has been trimmed and part of the image has been lost. All the seeds are drawn in very similar fashion, regular fashion. They all have either five spikes and six balls, or six spikes and seven balls. No apparent reason. Leaves The leaves on the right hand branch are drawn incorrectly. The first two leaves appear to be part of the branch. I think this is a scribal mistake, at the third leaf this is corrected in an exaggerated fashion with the branch coming out at an angle. In subsequent branches the leaves are drawn with greater distinction from the trunk of the branches. Possibly the right hand branch was drawn first. Roots Brown bulbs connect to a central bulb from which the plant emerges. Three branches end in a tapering line, the fourth in a squashed bulb. The folio as a whole The counter folio to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is f58r. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the first full page of text after the herbology section, with the exception of the four people pointing on f57v, followed by another full page of text on f58v. (f65v is another plant image). So this sheet of parchment consists of two pages of text on the left and plant images on the right. Remember that three whole folios have been lost between f58 and f65, as illustrated You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. (When reconstructing the layout of the book, we are going by the numbers inked on the right hand folios.) Text There are three vords on this page. otaim dam alam otaim dam alam There has been no attempt to leave space on the page for block of text, which indicates to me that the scribe never intended having a large description. Why? Q - Which was inked first, the plant or the text? The three vords appear to have been almost an afterthought, and the last glyph runs into the leaf, despite there being plenty of room. The first two vords are close together. The third has a double space, which is why it runs into the leaf. Q - Why is this double space so important? You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a rare word, it only appears twice (f65r and f111v). This may be a scribal issue, but the two don't seem that similar to me. On the other hand, this may be my own wishful thinking - what do you think? You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. appears all over the place, 98 matches. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has eight matches. So let's have some fun! Let us assume otaim is the name of the plant. We thus most likely have a subject - object - verb  sentence going on (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.), based purely on the frequency of occurrence of the vords. Something like plant_name used [for] nothing. This makes a certainly amount of logical sense for an a priori constructed language, especially coming from a Latin speaker. It also explains away the double space in the sentence - the scribe paused to think before dashing off the final vord. dam doesn't have to be just one vord - it is perfectly possible that this is an artificial construct. It could, for example, be a shorthand construct meaning something like, for example, the purposes of. So let us assume otaim is the subject, the noun, the name of the plant. Let us further assume that this vord has been contracted in some way, by the use of scribal abbreviations. So: Q - Can this word otaim be deciphered or expanded to link to any known or reasonable vernacular name for a plant similar to the one depicted?   Do you think it might be a secret word? Posted by: otaly - 18-01-2020, 08:49 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk - Replies (4) page - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. See attachment image, Do you think it might be a secret word? You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Attached Files   fudd.jpg (Size: 351.9 KB / Downloads: 179)   Scribal penmanship Posted by: -JKP- - 18-01-2020, 12:54 AM - Forum: Codicology and Paleography - Replies (27) Here's a quick example of what happens when you push against the direction of the quill. One of the reason the tails (connected macrons) in medieval scripts are generally added in a separate stroke is because the scribe re-aligns the quill to pull it in the correct direction for dispensing the ink. If you don't do that, the tip jitters and the ink splats. This scribe apparently didn't want to lift the pen to add the tails in a separate stroke. He reversed direction and drew upwards and back and the ink feathered out and splashed. I don't see this very often in manuscripts so I thought I'd post it for general information of something that is unconventional:   AgainstPen.png (Size: 108.23 KB / Downloads: 355)   I Can Read the Voynich MS Posted by: Rebekah - 16-01-2020, 08:35 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk - Replies (57) Hey Everyone, I just stopped by to let everyone in the Voynich MS discussion world know that; I recently found a copy of the Voynich MS on the bookshelf in the home where I live (January 10, 2020), and I immediately realized that I could read the strange writing because it is in thee most ancient form of Hebrew dialect every written, and I recognized it the moment that I picked up the book. It's a sad story filled with the regrets of a young man named 'Poar' (pronounced "Far"; I believe).  It is Poar's account of his crimes against many of the pregnant woman in his homeland and his subsequent banishment from his homeland for these crimes.  This account tells of Poar's entire geneology, and about how Poar has brought great reproach on that lineage because of his crimes and his banishment that ultimately led to Poar's death, far away from his people. I can read this book and given the next 50 years, I may even be able to have it completely translated by then. I am looking to have help translating it...as I am not fluent in ancient Hebrew dialect.  But I do know for a fact that the words in the Green Diamond on the bottom left corner of the Map are in fact the Compass Rose directional notations for: North, South, East & West.  With this knowledge, anyone should be able to translate the Voynich MS (given enough time, that is...lol). If you'd like to help me...hit me up at [snipped by mod] Much Thanks, Rebekah   State of the Voynich 2020 Posted by: Koen G - 13-01-2020, 01:18 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk - Replies (36) On January 1st 2017, I conducted a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to find out which beliefs about the VM were strongest in our community. I thought it would be fun to try this again, three years later. Members have come and gone, and people change their minds, so the results may be different this time around. First and foremost, this is just for fun and has no scientific merit whatsoever. We do not aim to find any consensus, it is just about aggregated personal opinions. The rules are simple:  You must answer yes or no to each question.  No maybe's allowed, you have to choose. If you believe a statement is 51% likely, then you pick YES. For once, speculation is obligatory. Answer in a reply to this post. Spolier tags are allowed if you don't want to influence others. Last time two or three people preferred to keep their answers private and PM them to me, that is also allowed. Try to answer each question, even if you don't have a strong opinion about it (that's better for the dataset ) Please answer in a numbered list to avoid confusion. I will analyze the results and compare them to 2017 as soon as we have enough submissions. These are the questions. I recycled the 2017 list and added one question at the end. Please answer in a numbered list with yes or no: Does the text contain any meaning? Has the text been purposefully enciphered to conceal its meaning? Do the images match the text? Are the plants meant to refer to real plants? Is the majority of the plants exotic from a European perspective (Asian, African, American...)? Have the images been made ambiguous or otherwise strange to conceal their true meaning? Is alchemy an important part of the manuscript? Is astronomy and/or astrology an important part of the MS? Is medicine an important part of the MS? Is the MS the creative product of one mind, i.e. an author? (Taking into account the possibility that one or more scribes helped to fashion the physical manuscript) Is the MS authored by a known historical figure? Will we ever be able to read the MS? Will there be any breakthrough in Voynich studies in 2020? Is the MS any kind of hoax? Have (part of) your views about the MS changed notably over the last few years?   Arthur Tucker passed away Posted by: voynichbombe - 12-01-2020, 05:59 PM - Forum: News - Replies (1) It has come to my attention that Arthur Tucker has passed away on August 5 2019. Here is his obituary: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. He was known as co-author with Janick of "Unraveling the Voynich Codex". The team of Tucker / Janick have been working on a sequel to their publication, called "Flora of the Voynich Codex: An Exploration of Aztec Plants" which is in print and available as an ebook here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Here is a vast list of his achievements, publications, teaching, honors & awards etc: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.   Upcoming VMS lecture in NYC Posted by: LisaFaginDavis - 11-01-2020, 03:31 AM - Forum: News - Replies (42) Hi, all, If you're in or near NYC, you may be interested in a lecture I'm giving on Friday, Jan. 24 at the Annual Meeting of the Bibliographical Society of America, where I'll be presenting the results of my study of VMS scribes. My session starts at 4:30 PM. More info here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. My work will be published this spring in a journal called Manuscript Studies (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) and in a collection of essays (Digital Palaeography, ed. by S. Brookes, M. Rehbein and P.A. Stokes (London: Routledge)) [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]that will likely come out in 2021.[/font] [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]Also - if you live in Europe and get ZDF, tune into Terra X on Jan. 19 for a Voynich piece that will include an interview with me and an appearance by Ray Clemens. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[/font] - Lisa   "Principal component analysis of characters in the Voynich manuscript Posted by: Torsten - 09-01-2020, 10:16 PM - Forum: News - Replies (9) There is a new paper about the VMS: "Principal component analysis of characters in the Voynich manuscript and their classifications based on comparative analysis of writings in known languages" The paper by Jonas Alin can be found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. The author concludes:  Quote:the Voynich language, unlike the known languages, shows proportionally larger separation also along PC2 in its character transition frequencies, showing that the Voynich characters probably abide by more complex co-occurrence rules than characters of typical known languages. An additional finding is:  Quote:The Voynich character’s observation points were generally close together in the plot if the characters looked similar. That is, the more similar the characters look, the more similar would be their pattern of transition probabilities to other characters. First Previous Next Last