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| A Hidden Markov Model for the Linguistic Analysis of the Voynich Manuscript |
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Posted by: Torsten - 16-10-2019, 01:22 PM - Forum: News
- Replies (8)
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New paper about the VMS: "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."
The paper by Luis Acedo is available You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
The author concludes:
Quote:The most interesting results are, however, those obtained with the observation probability matrix, which clearly separate two kinds of characters to be associated with vowel and consonant phonemes ... On the other hand, this correspondence is not as strong as in the case of the English text of Section 3.1 because there are symbols with noticeable probability that appear in both figures (in particular, the EVA symbols 'e', 'i', 's' and 'y').
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| Medieval sirens and mermaids |
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Posted by: R. Sale - 12-10-2019, 10:00 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (64)
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In the cosmic comparison of VMs f68v3 with BNF Fr. 565 fol 23, the illustration of Harley 334 fol 29 has also been included.
Does the comparison of the siren /mermaid in the lower part of VMs You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. form a second link with the illustration from Harley 334 fol 57?
There has been discussion of the VMs mermaid before, but I don't see where the Harley 334 image was included.
If not, is there a better match to the VMs illustration?
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| Was Voynichese meant to be pronounced? |
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Posted by: Stephen Carlson - 10-10-2019, 11:05 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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I'm wondering if Voynichese was meant to be pronounced or pronounceable.
If it was, it would fit an unknown-language or glossolalia hypothesis, but not so much a ciphertext hypothesis. The answer seems neutral on a hoax hypothesis.
In favor, the glyphs really do look like an alphabet (some glyphs even present in Latin MSS), the "vords" seem to have an onset-nucleus-coda structure (which is pronounceable), and the EVA representation is pronounceable.
Against, no phonetic values are known, the script has layout effects (e.g., first character of lines, first lines of paragraphs, etc.), and many vords seem differ by only a stroke or two and may have been generated by purely graphic means (see Timm & Schinner).
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| Siege Imagery with VMS Similarities... |
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Posted by: -JKP- - 10-10-2019, 05:52 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (3)
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The VMS rosettes folio doesn't feel like siege imagery to me, but there are some iconographical elements in siege drawings that relate to the way other things were drawn in the 14th and 15th centuries, so I thought it might be interesting to look at them. I didn't want Marco's discussion of tents to go off-topic, so I thought it might be a good idea to start a separate thread for the broader topic of siege imagery.
To start off...
This is the 7th century siege of Constantinople by the Sassanids/Ava/Slavic forces (fresco in Modovita Monastery) which was painted in 1537.
What it has in common with the VMS rosettes folio is the big round waves around one edge of the city walls (similar to the "big wave" shapes in the VMS rotum top-right) and high mountain escarpments with a castle on a separate "bump" nearby:
![[Image: 1920px-Moldovita_murals_2010_16.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/Moldovita_murals_2010_16.jpg/1920px-Moldovita_murals_2010_16.jpg)
Image credit Man vyi, Wikipedia
If you look closely, you will also see long pipes that look like cannons pointing out at the ship in the water. Pipes were used to shoot fire at least before the 12th century.
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The siege of Chandax (Biblioteca Nacional de España). Note the tents, arches, and the "bumpy texture" for the helmets (this was a common way to depict an army wearing helmets):
![[Image: Byzantines_under_Nikephoros_Phokas_besiege_Chandax.png]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Byzantines_under_Nikephoros_Phokas_besiege_Chandax.png) . ![[Image: Fall_of_Antioch_in_969.png]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Fall_of_Antioch_in_969.png)
Wikipedia from the History of John Skylitzes
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Saddleback portal gate and tents showing the tie-downs (maybe belongs on the tent thread, but I thought it was a good example of a saddleback portal):
![[Image: 800px-Siège_d%27Hennebont.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Siège_d%27Hennebont.jpg/800px-Siège_d%27Hennebont.jpg)
Siege of Hennebont (1342, depicted in the 15th century), Jean Froissart, BNF via Wikipedia
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Men dressed as mounds. Not quite like the mounds on the rosette folio (they have holes in the top), but I thought I'd post them, for the record, along with another saddleback portal gate:
![[Image: staatsbibliothek.jpg]](http://www.medievalwarfare.info/photos/staatsbibliothek.jpg)
Göttingen Codex philos 63 (15th century)
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| The Sticks and Bumps on the rosettes folio |
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Posted by: -JKP- - 10-10-2019, 09:19 AM - Forum: Imagery
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I've suggested some of the bumpy things on the rosettes folio could be volcanoes, mud spouts, steam vents, and other geological structures.
![[Image: VentsDetail-1024x763.png]](https://voynichportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/VentsDetail-1024x763.png)
But some of them look man-made rather than natural...
And maybe some of the "natural" looking ones are manmade.
For example... the production of gunpowder used to be done in small ceramic kegs, hung from the ceiling, but you need charcoal, and for centuries, charcoal for various purposes has been burned under mounds, some of which are tiered layers. Maybe some of those strange steaming mounds on the rosettes folio are charcoal mounds:
![[Image: main-qimg-5df00abbfdab1fa1836c57d370df518a-c]](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-5df00abbfdab1fa1836c57d370df518a-c) . ![[Image: images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSQYowWyvr__4IahCr2usA...nR1OamAa4f]](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSQYowWyvr__4IahCr2usA57wyay1y-TshVzYQJsHnR1OamAa4f)
Often the mound was created with logs and sticks (the part that burns), with pats of mud blobbed onto the sticks. These look quite a bit like the vented blobby small mounds on the rosettes folio. Here is a woodcut of charcoal workers:
![[Image: 1-charcoal-burners-medieval-tradesmen-sc...source.jpg]](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/1-charcoal-burners-medieval-tradesmen-science-source.jpg)
Pounding the powder used to be done by rows of men, but they eventually engineered a wheel to pound the powder.
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Also, there are a lot of skinny vertical "sticks" around one of the rota that look to me like palisades around a town (or like spears stuck in the ground, all pointing up) next to a lot of rounded textures:
Palisades.png (Size: 72.88 KB / Downloads: 88)
At first I thought they might be a palisade:
![[Image: antique-illustration-of-medieval-fortres...d512989540]](https://media.istockphoto.com/illustrations/antique-illustration-of-medieval-fortress-with-palisade-illustration-id512989540)
But here's another thought... bumps and spears in a different context (the group on the left, with helmets and spears, shields and spears can look like that, as well):
![[Image: attachment.php?attachmentid=45135&stc=1]](http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=45135&stc=1)
Pipes, wheels, bumps, vertical-pointing sticks...
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| VMS - a holy book of the Romani people? |
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Posted by: Gavin Güldenpfennig - 09-10-2019, 02:43 AM - Forum: Provenance & history
- Replies (2)
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Dear Voynich- fans,
during the last weeks I have reviewed my former "linguistic theory", that the Voynich Manuscript could be written in Erromintxela.
And I have to say..... it isn´t the Erromintxela we know today, but (!) the VMS seems to have a Romani connection.
Why?
The Voynich astronomy seems to be star- based. Some of the stars of the folio 68r1 and r2 are marked with white or a black dots in the middle. Also we can see star- holding women in the Zodiac charts and in front of the passages in the recipe section. In the VMS we do have drawings of tent- like things full of stars, with a nail or a cross (christianity(?)) on its top.
1.) Today we don´t know very much about the Romani mythology, but we know they have connections to the Hinduism and maybe also to the Buddhism, because they originally came from India. In both religions the "Polaris" (which, if my reading is correct, in the VMS is called "hava" (French: gaffa / Old Norse: hadda = "nail")) plays an important role, as you can see in this German Wikipedia article ("Weltenberg"):
Sumbur heißt derselbe Berg bei den Mongolen, Sumur bei den Burjaten und Sumer bei den Kalmücken. Der sich drehende indische Weltenberg passt zur asiatischen Vorstellung einer Weltsäule, die wie eine Holzstange in der Zeltmitte bis zum Himmelsgewölbe ragt. Sie ist die vergrößerte Form eines Nagels, wie einige nordasiatische Völker den You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. nannten, weil sich um ihn in einer Kreisbewegung der Sternenhimmel dreht. In skandinavischen Sagen heißt dieser Drehpunkt veraldarnagli („Weltnagel“), die You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. sprechen vom bohinavlle („Nordnagel“). Wie die Säule ragt der Weltenberg bis zum Polarstern, er erstreckt sich also vom Erdnabel zum Himmelsnabel; und wie der Polarstern im Norden liegt, wird auch der Weltenberg im Norden vorgestellt. Inder verorten den Weltenberg in dem für sie im Norden gelegenen You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. und bringen ihn wie die Tibeter vorzugsweise mit dem heiligen Götterberg You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in Verbindung. Die You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. wenden sich beim Gebet nach Norden, wo sie den Himmelsgott vermuten, die Buddhisten brachten gemäß einer Schilderung aus dem 13. Jahrhundert die nordwärts gewandte Gebetsrichtung mit nach Zentralasien. Der Polarstern, um den die Sterne ihre Kreise ziehen, steht üblicherweise – außer bei den You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – über dem Sumeru. Bei den Kalmücken verbergen sich in einer sternlosen Nacht die Himmelskörper hinter dem Sumer.
2.) The Romani people also have mythological creatures called "Nivasi". They exist in male and female forms, but the female Nivasi are described as naked and with long hair and with red shoes, exactly as the VMS women (except: the red shoes):
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
3.) According to this source, the Romani people also do have a legend of the book of Dundra, which they tell us in the "Alako Legend". It´s a secret book, which explains the world. I do not say, that this is the Voynich Manuscript, but maybe the VMS is a result of this belief, especially if we think of the missing writing tradition of the Romani.
4.) Furthermore the fire plays an important role in their culture and they do have mermaids, which we can also see on page 79v in the VMS.
5.) The fire also plays an important role in the Zoroastrism. During the time between the 5th and 7th century, when according to the Shahnameh Legend the Luri and Romani came to the Sassanid Empire, the Zoroastrism was the main religion in this area. We can find two symbols of this religion on page 1r in the VMS which are connected to Atar (the angel of fire) and "ates" (the fire or the eternal flame). Also the Sassanid royal family were believing in the Anahita cult. A cult of a water goddess which was also the goddess of fertility.
6.) In the Zoroastrism you have six angels. If you link the three female angels and their attributes to the themes in the Voynich manuscript, you will see, that they fit very well.
7.) What does not really seem to fit with these findings is something which I can not identify for sure, but if my reading and the readings of Stephen Bax is correct, there could be a "Taurus" cult in the manuscript. Taurus is shown at folio 68 r3 and "Taurus" is also labeled at the upper left of the chart on folio 57 v, maybe as the beginning of the year in the VMS culture.
8.) In addition to that, there is a connection between the most important star at folio 68 r1 (today: Arcturus) and the star "Elnath" in the constellation of Taurus. When Arcturus reaches the zenith, Elnath "dies", which is happening near to the dates of Beltane (or Ostara) and to the time the sun is wandering through the constellation of Taurus. Is that a reference to the Roman- Persian Mithra- cult? Think back, the Zodiac calendar is a Roman Calendar!
9.) But there is even a fourth calendar in the manuscript, which could lead together with the calendars at 68 r1 and at 57 v (which starts on Beltane) into another direction. The calendar of folio 67 r1 starts with the winter´s solstice followed by the months called "Al- Paraton" (December) and "Eponas" (January).
Could it be that there are even Celtic influences in the VMS? Epona was a well- known Celtic goddess of the horses which was adapted by the Romans. If this true which 9 heavens does the Rosette page 86 shows us? The nine heavens of the Hinduism or of the Northern Europeans?
These questions were wandering through my mind for the last weeks. Until I found a possible solution...
What if the Romani people leave Chorasan and Bakhtria during the 5th century and went to the Southern Caucasus region and Galatia (where the Galatian tribes (Celts) live at that time? Is there any evidence for or against that? According to the Shahnameh legend the Romani people have to leave the Sassanid kingdom, but did they really do this?
If the VMS originally comes from this time and was written in Galatia, the VMS, we know today, must be an extended copy of the original! But, if my reading of 116v is correct, who brought it to Navarra and when?
Do you have any ideas? 
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![[Image: Medieval_mill_with_overshot_wheel.png]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Medieval_mill_with_overshot_wheel.png)
![[Image: add_ms_42130_f181.jpg?w=608&h=342]](https://www.bl.uk/britishlibrary/~/media/bl/global/picturing%20places/add_ms_42130_f181.jpg?w=608&h=342)
![[Image: Bayâd-und-Riyâd1.jpg]](http://www.funci.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/Bayâd-und-Riyâd1.jpg)