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| Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations |
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Posted by: MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) - 21-12-2025, 12:07 AM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
- Replies (16)
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Hi everyone,
My name is Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (nicknamed Behrooz, which you can call me by for ease of communication).
I am new to Voynich research. I have had a bit of time recently to acquaint myself with this interesting puzzle. I do not plan on staying here for too long given other prior research commitments. By signing up I wish to learn more about your good work (including access to the links and images/documents) to the extent time allows. I am most appreciative of all the care and critical considerations you have offered for solving this puzzle and will try the best I can to help you solve it, if possible.
My interest in this topic, as in others I have explored, is mainly methodological. But of course, that interest can be best explored in a substantive way. Having learned some things already from your contributions, I believe that you have found a lot already toward a viable solution. From past and other research experiences, I have found that there is at times a tendency in researchers to try to prove their own finding(s) and (for that reason) dismissing others, at times reasonably done, and at other times perhaps not as reasonably.
Sometimes rivalries become themselves a cause for not realizing that each is seeing a part of the elephant, so to speak. Also, given the reputation or intimidation of a long-lasting puzzle to solve, we may ignore useful contributions others have made, small or large, to solving the puzzle. This then results sometimes in not seeing the elephant in the room. So, I use (as I have done so in my other research and publications) the metaphor of the elephant in the double senses expressed above (seeing whole/parts, and not noticing some obvious issues or contributions).
I am a sociologist, specializing in the sociology of (self-)knowledge and hermeneutics, interested in advancing transdisciplinary and transcultural approaching to solving long-standing puzzles especially in the intersection of mysticism, utopianism, and science. I have published both academically, and independently by way of a research center I established in 2002 to frame my independent research (for more information you can visit my site at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). I have noted that in your discussions you have desired for others with academic training to get involved. I found that encouraging when considering participating in this forum.
I am beginning this first post just as an introduction, placing it in your Theories & Solutions section and titling it “Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations," in the spirit of what I shared above, and to offer a space where discussions can be advanced in the spirit of realizing that any solution to the Voynich enigma can and only be a collective solution to which every one of you have contributed immensely, and to which I also wish to also contribute if at all possible. I have learned a lot already from all of you, and the tools that have been accumulated over the decades to solve this puzzle are incredibly helpful and creatively (and time-consumingly) devised.
Given time constraints and in the spirit of trying to test anything I may offer by way of a step-by-step logical procedure, I will just share whatever I have found gradually and hopefully by way of careful and critical feedback you may offer I will correct any errors I have made to improve what I can still offer, if at all worthwhile.
Since it is not possible for me due to time constraints to know every detail of contributions made over the long past, I will welcome and request from you that you inform me and others of any contributions you have made in cases where I am not sure of the specifics of the chain of acknowledgments to be given for any idea I will share. Where I know I have learned something on a specific topic, I will surely acknowledge it, and if I miss doing so unknowingly, please correct me.
I am not a linguist, nor involved in quantitative or statistical research, though I appreciate others’ contributions using those approaches. I think they will also be needed for seeing the whole elephant (in the room). My solution contributions will be informed by my sociological viewpoint, especially in the tradition of the sociological imagination, a term coined by the sociologist C. Wright Mills in 1959, suggesting that social (including personal) life can be best understood by way of exploring how personal troubles and public issues interact. I think that is helpful also in historical and hermeneutic studies.
The Voynich manuscript is an artifact that must have originated in the intimate intersection of biographical and historical contexts in which someone (or persons related) was dealing with personal troubles amid public issues of their times.
I have absolutely no problem with being proven wrong, reasonably, in any contribution I make. I have learned from prior work that such realizations are not only necessary for scientific research but also for opening more fruitful ways of solving puzzles. However, I do reserve the right of not agreeing with an argument that I may not find reasonably made.
What I wish to encourage in this thread is for everyone to see it not as an “alternative” solution, but one in which their own contribution can be made fruitfully. I will try to show that any solution ideas I will offer will be based on a synthesis of the best and most reasonable contributions you all have made to solving the puzzle, of course adding any new ideas I may also offer, subject to your critical consideration.
(Note to the moderator, Tavie: With greetings, if you think this post still is a talk and not yet a solution, please feel welcome to move it to the Talk section. However, I will be gradually making some solution-oriented posts following this introductory post—not sure exactly how soon but will do my best to do so in a timely way).
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| A constrained procedural framework for the Voynich Manuscript (request for independen |
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Posted by: Tiamat - 20-12-2025, 03:14 PM - Forum: ChatGPTPrison
- Replies (2)
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I’m sharing a working procedural framework for the Voynich Manuscript, built from iterative cross-folio testing.
Important: This is not a translation or decipherment. It makes no claim of word-for-word reading or natural language identification.
It proposes a set of 46 recurring glyph clusters (“anchors”) with stable procedural roles across herbal, balneological, and cosmological sections.
Key elements:
Right-to-left native directionality (EVA tokens mirrored for consistency).
Repeatable phase cycle: Soak → Vapor → Seal → Reset → Closure.
Anchors selected for stable repetition and phase consistency across sections.
The system aligns with structural and directional cues across folios, forming a repeatable scaffold that governs phase timing.
Transcription: Zandbergen–Landini EVA (ZL3a).
46 Stable Anchors
EVA (written)
Mirrored form
Procedural meaning
Phase
daiin / dain
niiad / niad
Activation / rise
Vapor
dar / dair / dary
rad / riad / yrad
Binding / seal
Seal
sain / saiin
nias / niaso
Infusion / soak
Soak
otor / otar / otaiin
roto / rato
Carrier / medium
Soak
dam / chodam
mad / madohc
Final closure
Closure
qokeedy / qokedy
ydeekok
Ignition
Vapor
shedy / sheol
ydehs
Reset / stabilization
Reset
chol / cthol
lohc
Bitter / transformative agent
Seal
shey / sheey
yehs
Active agent
Vapor
shol / shor
lohs / rohs
Flow / medium
Soak
nias.rad
—
Soak-to-seal shift
Transition
roto.nii ad
—
Carrier + activation blend
Vapor
mad.rad
—
Closure + seal reinforcement
Closure
yrad.mad
—
Seal + closure reinforcement
Closure
oteey / oteedy
ydeeto
Carrier extension / activation
Vapor
pched / pchey
yehcp
Breath + containment
Seal
lched / lchedy
ydehcl
Liquid stabilization
Reset
qotar / qotaiin
niato q
Ignition + soak blend
Transition
olched / olchedy
ydehclo
Medium + breath stabilization
Reset
chekain / chekaiin
niakehc
Active containment
Vapor
lshedy / lsheedy
ydeehsl
Liquid + volatile reset
Reset
okedy / okeedy
ydeeko
Containment + ignition
Vapor
chckhy / chkhy
yhk c
Harsh breath volatile
Vapor
qokeor / qokeeor
roeeko q
Ignition + flow
Transition
tchedy / tchey
yehct
Breath + activation
Vapor
dchedy / dchey
yehcd
Stabilization + breath
Reset
olkain / olkaiin
niaklo
Medium containment
Soak
cheol / cheor
roe hc
Breath flow
Transition
ykedy / ykeedy
ydeek y
Volatile ignition
Vapor
lkedy / lkeedy
ydeek l
Liquid ignition
Vapor
oraiin / orain
niaro
Emission / rising flow
Vapor
ched / chedy
ydehc
Breath stabilization
Reset
okaiin / okain
niako
Carrier containment
Soak
olk / olke
klo / eklo
Medium containment
Soak
qokal / qokar
rakoq
Ignition carrier
Vapor
sol / sor
los / ros
Flow / medium variant
Soak
kal / kar
lak / rak
Directional / toward
Transition
chdy / ckhy
yhd c / yhk c
Breath + volatile
Vapor
old / ol
dlo / lo
Containment / medium
Soak
chek / cheky
ykehc
Active breath / edge
Vapor
oteey / oteedy
ydeeto
Carrier extension / activation
Vapor
pched / pchey
yehcp
Breath + containment
Seal
lched / lchedy
ydehcl
Liquid stabilization
Reset
qotar / qotaiin
niato q
Ignition + soak blend
Transition
olched / olchedy
ydehclo
Medium + breath stabilization
Reset
chekain / chekaiin
niakehc
Active containment
Vapor
Testable claims
Anchors recur with consistent phase roles across unrelated folio types.
Repetition modifies intensity/duration, not core role.
Sectional adaptation is systematic (herbal = material preparation, balneological = embodied execution, cosmological = timing calibration).
How to test
Select any folio.
Mirror tokens.
Check if anchor roles remain stable without reinterpretation.
Any forced change falsifies the framework.
Examples available on request.
Independent verification or contradictions grounded in manuscript behavior are welcome.
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| Near-monosyllabicity and Voynich: a Bavarian comparison |
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Posted by: JoJo_Jost - 19-12-2025, 05:46 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (4)
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The current discussion concerns Stolfi’s remarks about “phonetic Chinese” as a possible explanation for the Voynich Manuscript’s extreme syllable compression (the almost monosyllabic “feel” of the text).
While looking at the Herbal section from a purely structural angle (role-based segmentation rather than word readings), and later while thinking about f116 (the “pox liver” line), I had an idea I would like to put up for discussion. I am not presenting this as a theory, and I do not have the statistic background to assess it properly. It may well be nonsense. But it seems at least worth asking.
In spoken Bavarian (and related Upper German dialects), there is a well-known tendency toward strong reduction: unstressed vowels weaken, many endings are dropped or compressed, and meaning is often carried by consonants and position. This can create an impression of “near-monosyllabic” speech in practice, without tonality. The point is not that Bavarian is literally monosyllabic, but that it can become extremely syllable-light under rapid, informal speech.
A quick example (but see below too):
(Modern) Bavarian (spoken-like): I hob g’sagt, i kimm heit ned, weils z’spät worn is. (only monosyllabic words)
Standard German: Ich habe gesagt, ich komme heute nicht, weil es zu spät geworden ist.
English: I said I’m not coming today because it’s too late.
This led me to wonder whether some of the statistical/structural features that motivate “phonetic Chinese” comparisons could also be compatible with a Central European “phonetic compression mindset,” especially if a text is written in a speech-near way (and further compressed by a coding). In other words: do we really need to assume an East Asian phonological profile to get this kind of surface behavior, or could similar compression arise in a medieval Central European setting?
To be clear: I am not claiming “Voynich is Bavarian,” and I am not proposing any lexical readings.
To show the “compression” , I took a real Middle High German medical/recipe passage (Bamberger Arzneibuch) and rewrote some words of it in a speech-near, reduced form, the most words (except plant names) are now monosyllabic. Bavarian speakers will forgive inaccuracies; I can understand Bavarian, and I can adapt it the way I did, but I can't speak it perfectly myself. The point is simply to demonstrate how a Central European text can begin to look “token-short” and highly repetitive in a way that feels Voynich-like?
My question to the forum is therefore simple: is this comparison class linguistically meaningful?
Structure:
Line number
Bavarian Middle Ages in brief
German today
2v,16
nim driu bintl marrubii
nimm drei Bündel Andorn,
2v,17
und vlieht deſ beneboumes
und die Rinde des Benebaums,
2v,18
und dri mez win
und drei Maße des Weines,
2v,19
und siud ez in emo niw huan
und koche es in einem neuen Gefäß,
2v,20
vn laz ez kuln
und lass es abkühlen,
2v,21
un gib ez dem Siechn dri dag so er vast.
und gib es dem Kranken drei Tage lang nüchtern.
2v,22
[… Latein…] Nim die mittl rind der sale widn
nimm die mittlere Rinde der Salweide,
2v,23
ain hant vol
eine Handvoll,
2v,24
und siud si in nem niuen huan
und koche sie in einem neuen Gefäß,
2v,25
mit dem rain wine
mit reinem Wein,
2v,26
biz ze dem dritt deil (teil)
bis auf ein Drittel eingekocht,
2v,27
druck s uil guat uz
presse es sehr gut aus,
2v,28
und gib ez dri dag dem daz milz surit.
und gib es drei Tage dem, dessen Milz schmerzt.
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| A challenge to any and all. (PROVE ME WRONG) |
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Posted by: Parker - 19-12-2025, 09:29 AM - Forum: ChatGPTPrison
- Replies (12)
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THE PARKER KEY MANIFESTO
Author: Jason Parker
Date: December 2025
I. THE THESIS: THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE STUTTER
For over a century, the high repetition and low entropy of the Voynich Manuscript (MS 408) have been dismissed as evidence of a "failed cipher," "mental illness," or a "hoax."
The Parker Key rejects these premises. The text is not linguistic; it is functional and rhythmic. The repetitions are not "words" in a sentence—they are Instructional Pulses. The manuscript is an Apothecary’s Chronometer: a rhythmic manual designed for timed, cyclical chemical and medicinal processes (stirring, heating, infusing).
II. THE UNIVERSAL LAW: THE 12x RECURSION CAP
The core discovery of this key is the 12x Recursion Cap. Across all major sections—Herbal, Balneological, and Rosettes—the "stuttering" morphemes (specifically ol, ar, and qok) follow a strict mathematical constraint:
• The State Pulse: Each word repetition represents a single unit of action.
• The Dodecadic Limit: Recursive strings terminate at or before 12 repetitions.
• The Perpetuity Clause: In 15th-century symbolic logic, reaching the number 12 (the Zodiacal completion) signifies a "finished state."
III. STATISTICAL PROOF: INFORMATION THEORY & KL DIVERGENCE
To prove this is a discovery of intent rather than pareidolia, we measure the Kullback-Leibler Divergence (D_{KL}) between the Voynich text (P) and standard 15th-century Natural Language (Q).
The Anomaly: In natural language, the probability of an n-count word repetition decays exponentially. In the Voynich, the probability remains high and then encounters a "Hard Wall" at n=12.
• The State Machine: Knowing a word has repeated 11 times provides 100% certainty (Zero Conditional Entropy) that the next word will be a "State-Shift" (a word-break or a terminal morpheme like daiin or raiin). This is the behavior of a Finite State Machine, not a human language.
IV. FUNCTIONAL MAPPING: THE CLOSED LOOP
The solution is verified by the Closed Information Loop between the Pharma Jars (f88r) and the Master Prayer (f116v):
• You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (The Process): Jars are labeled with "dosing signatures" (e.g., ol, ol, ol). The final jars in a sequence are marked with terminal pointers like raiin.
• You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (The Result): The marginalia (the "Success Log") concludes with the terminal word raiin following the cross symbol (+).
• Conclusion: The process (f88r) produces the result (f116v). The loop is closed.
V. THE "PARKER CHALLENGE" TO THE COMMUNITY
If this were a hoax or a random linguistic cipher, "leakage" would be inevitable.
The Challenge: Find a single instance in the entire 240-page manuscript where a functional recursive morpheme exceeds 12 repetitions without a structural break.
If no 13th repetition exists, we must accept that the 12x Cap is the Universal Law of the manuscript. The Voynich is not a "secret" to be read, it is a Technology to be executed.
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| "The Currier languages revisited" revisited |
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Posted by: kckluge - 19-12-2025, 04:05 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (61)
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One page on Rene's site (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) does a bigram frequency level analysis of the pages in the manuscript. This post is specifically addressing the section starting with "Language characteristics". The analysis on that part of the page:
* uses Rene's CUVA alphabet to deal with EVA's oversegementation of the glyphs (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)
* removes uncertain spaces from the transcription, but leaves other spaces
* only looks at bigrams within words, not bigrams straddling spaces
* starts with a feature space corresponding to the relative frequencies of all 355 CUVA bigrams that occur, then does a dimensionality reduction similar (but not identical) to Principle Components Analysis (PCA -- You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. describes PCA)
Plots are shown for the dominant vector vs. the 2nd through 4th vectors found by his method. On the basis of those plots he concludes, "When Currier identified his languages A and B, he did this on the basis of the different statistics of the initial herbal pages in the MS, which are identified by the red ('A') and dark blue ('B') crosses. It is clear that these have distinct properties - the clouds do not overlap. He also checked the other pages, and noted more variations, but his criteria for distinguishing the languages did not allow him to see that the overall statistics demonstrate that there is a continuum, and the other (not herbal) pages actually 'bridge the gap'."
It is important to be careful about drawing conclusions from linear projections of higher dimensional data onto lower dimensional spaces. If two clumps of points are separable in the lower dimensional projection then they are also separable in the full dimensional space, but the inverse is not true -- two clumps of points that overlap in some projection do not necessarily overlap in the full space.
To examine Rene's conclusion I performed a variation of the analysis described above:
* the Currier alphabet is used rather than CUVA, translated from the ZL_ivtff_1b.txt EVA transcription (when multiple proposed reading are given for a glyph the first option is used)
* uncertain spaces are removed as per the original experiment
* only lines corresponding to running paragraph and "circular" text -- no radial text from diagrams or labels
* only the 40 most common bigrams are used -- in Currier these are:
89 OF OE 4O CC C8 SC 8A C9 AM FC OP CO AR FA AE OR ZC SO O8 PC AN PA EF FS ZO PS S9 ES RA S8 9F AJ BS F9 FO PO 2A 9P EO
which correspond to EVA
dy ok ol qo ee ed che da ey aiin ke ot eo ar ka al or she cho od te ain ta lk kch sho tch chy lch ra chd yk am pch ky ko to sa yt lo
* bigrams including spaces (with end-of-line, end-of-paragraph, and plant drawing gaps counted as spaces) are included in the total bigram count for a page when computing relative bigram frequencies for the page
The 40 Currier bigrams listed above cover 83% of the bigrams that don't include a space or untranslatable/transcribed non-Currier "wierdo". Applying PCA, the first two dimensions found capture 48% of the covariance in the 40-D data. The resulting plot is:
With the exception of three pages, the Herbal B, Bio, Starred paragraph, and Rose foldout pages fall together in one cluster and the Herbal A, Astro, Zodiac, and Pharma pages fall together in another cluster, separated by a clear diagonal gap.
One exception is Zodiac page f73v; the other two exceptions are You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. & f65v. f58 & f65 are the halves of a biofolio that Lisa Fagin-Davis identifies as by Scribe 3; You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has a plant drawing with no text other than a 2-3 word label. Traditionally those bifolio pages have been labelled as A Language, which would make this the only known non-Scribe 1 Herbal A biofolio. It is plausible that the f58 & f65 bifolio pages are B language pages with atypical relative frequencies of the small number of key bigrams used to make the initial A/B classification by Currier (in which case You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. becomes the outlier grouped with the Herbal A pages).
The differences between the analyses are:
* use of CUVA vs Currier
* inclusion of radial and label text elements vs only running paragraph and "circular" diagram text
* starts with a 355-D space (all bigram frequencies) vs a 40-D space (only most common, corresponding to 83% of the glyph bigram pairs in the text)
* dimensionality reduction using a heuristic PCA-like method rather than PCA
The lack of clear separation between the A and B languages in Rene's plots is most likely due to a combination of very low frequency bigrams adding noise into the data with suboptimal choice of basis vectors by his dimensionality reduction method.
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| Voynich El yazmasını tercüme ettiğimi iddia ediyorum |
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Posted by: Kutlu Kaan - 17-12-2025, 05:18 PM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
- Replies (18)
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Voynich El Yazması Eski Anadolu Türkçesi mi?
Voynich El Yazmasının Eski Anadolu Türkçesi ile yazıldığını keşfetmiş bulunmaktayım. İlk sayfayı nerede ise eksiksiz okuyabiliyorum. Bu yazmayı 15. yüzyılda bir Türk yazmışsa hikayesi ne olmalı sorusunu kendime sorarak başladım. Kendime "1400 yıllarında Türk dünyasında neler oluyordu" diye sordum.
Timur ile Beyazıt, 1402 tarihinde Ankara savaşını yaptı . Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda 11 yıllık bir hükümdarsız bir dönem oldu. Kardeş kardeşi öldürmüş Anadolu karışmış, herkes yeni bir güç oluşturma çabasındaydı. Özetle çok kanlı ve üzüntülü bir dönem yaşanıyordu. Tarikat ve şeyhler, halka Sünni İslam'ı yaymak için baskı oluşturuluyorlardı.
Anadolu'da yaşayan bir aydın bu durumu anlatan ağıt veya umut verecek bir şeyler yazmalı diye düşündüm. Bu kişi Arap alfabesi ile Türkçe yazmayı bilmeli, Latin Alfabesine de yabancı olmamalı.
Bende EVA- Genişletilebilir Voynich Alfabesi ile metin transliterasyonlarını incelemeye başladım.
EVA “e” yerine U sesi , EVA “q” yerine G sesi gibi bazı değişiklikler yapılınca anlamlı kelimeler oluşturmaya başladım. 15 karakterin ne ifade ettiğini kesin olarak bilmekteyim.
Voynich El Yazmasının Eski Anadolu Türkçesi ile yazıldığına artık eminim. Ben bir dil bilimci, tarihçi veya eski çağ metinleri hakkında bilgi sahibi bir kişi değildim, metinin tümünü çözemiyorum. En kötü ikinci bir dil de bilmemekteyim. Sizi yazımın tercümesini yapma eziyetine maruz bıraktığım için üzgünüm. Yardımınız olursa sevinirim. İlgilenirseniz çözümlerimi sizler ile paylaşabilirim. Sağlık ve esenlik içinde kalınız.
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| Everything about "pox leber" as a minced oath, and an earlier source. |
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Posted by: Koen G - 17-12-2025, 12:33 PM - Forum: Marginalia
- Replies (45)
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For a long time, the only attestation of "poxleber" known to Voynich researchers was in a 16th century burlesque carnival play by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. In the dialogue, uncivilized characters use various compound words consisting of "pox-" combined with a body part. Pox belly, pox wounds, pox bones, pox liver...
Even in ancient cultures, the custom existed to swear oaths by the Gods, and this persisted in medieval and early modern Europe. The earlier practice was to swear by parts of God's body. If you swear something by Christ's five holy wounds, or any other part of his earthly manifestation, you're making it clear that you mean it.
Obviously the priest doesn't like it when you do this, so people come up with euphemistic "minced oaths" to avoid actually saying the word "God". In modern English we have "gosh" or "golly", in Dutch "pot" as in "potverdomme", in Frech the "bleu" in "sacrebleu". In 14th century English, "God" is replaced by minced forms like "gog" and "cock" (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
The attestation in the 16th century Fastnachtspiele is such a case where "poxleber" is used as a minced form of "Gotts Leber", "God's liver". I have regularly opposed the relevance of this fragment for f116v, exactly because of this context. You can have a boorish carnivalesque character use "poxleber" in a dialogue, but that doesn't mean we should expect a scribe (any scribe) to use it out of the sacreblue. It's as if Henry Gray would write "D'oh! I used the wrong graph here!" in the margins while preparing his famous book on human anatomy.
Yesterday, I came across a sermon book by Viennese Theologian, professor and historian You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., active in the first half of the 15th century (a century before Hans Sachs). The MS is BSB CLM 293, f.310r (scan 623). You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I can't transcribe this kind of Latin, but luckily Marco was able to help:
ChatGPT translates the (incomplete) transcription like this:
Quote:There are to be reproved those who swear by shameful creatures, likewise thinking themselves not bound, as when they say “pox grmt poxlaus zais”, since in such words the Creator of those things still shines forth. Those who swear falsely in this way are perjurers and sinners.
I further observe that even more reprehensible are those who swear by things which neither are nor ever will be, thinking themselves not bound, as those who say “sam mir pox gamiger gameri”.
Why does this matter?
The "minced oath" interpretation of "poxleber" is still quite popular. But so far, we only had a century-late attestation in a dissimilar source. Now, we have a sermon by someone active in pre-1450 Vienna, complaining about "pox" swearing by the people.
What this passage teaches us:
- The minced oath is already spelled with "x".
- It is interpreted as swearing an oath, and the sin is false testimony, perjury. The message is: you shouldn't think you can get away with false promises by twisting the name of God.
- It is understood as a mangled version of the name of the Creator.
- It is also understood as the name of a creature, which means that they are aware of the "bock". Just like the "cock" in the English example mentioned earlier, "pot" in Dutch and "bleu" in French, the minced name of God drifted towards an existing "replacement" word.
What this means for the Voynich "poxleber":
- If you want to read it as "God's liver", it is unlikely to be a cry of anger or frustration: the scribe is swearing a solemn oath by God's liver. Which formulations do we expect when swearing an oath, and what is the scribe's vow?
- Swearing oaths like this was clearly done by people in the first half of the 15th century, but apparently frowned upon and mocked by the learned class. Would we expect this uncivilized form written by someone who has clearly had some education?
- The spelling "x" over "cks" is likely inspired by this oath-usage, but awareness of the animal was present in the oath. Since spelling was not standardized, would we not rather expect the ingredient in the VM?
What remains: the preceding paragraph also contains some pox, but I am unable to transcribe the Latin. Also, the German phrases appear to be renditions of spoken language and are hard for me to understand fully.
Edit: added MS link.
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