Hi everyone,
so I was looking at some astronomy folios and noticed the uppermost/outermost band of "text" in the diagram on f70r1 is really weird.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
...lots of dots, then nine o's then what looks like EVA "lar", five more dots and what might be EVA "rara" (or "sasa"?) then more dots...
What is going on here? Is it a 'title" disguised as a ring of text?
From what I can tell from the "voynichese" website stat tool, "o" repetition doesn't occur anywhere else in the manuscript. "Olar" and "lar" do occur, rather rarely, and as for "rara" and "sasa" they don't be seem to be anywhere else either.
Can Anton's "first vord uniqueness" paradigm help to explain this? It sure looks... unique... if not downright odd.
Or is this line a remnant of partially erased text? Is this page a copy of a partially erased document? Or... what?
I do not like to post anything in which I'm not sure of, or which, in my estimation, has low degree of likelihood, and I usually abstain from such publications. This is one of the cases when I stray from this practice, mostly because of that while the readings referred to hereinafter may prove wrong, still the idea which might be built on top of them may deserve attention independently of the readings' validity.
So I warned you that the below considerations are highly speculative.
There are some words in the VMS marginalia which may be interpreted as Mediterranean geographical names.
First, as I You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. a year ago, the much disputed "anchiton vs michiton" of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. may be neither of those, but rather “Nichiton” (supposing somewhat “ornate” ascender of the leading letter). “Nichiton” was the historic name of Frangokastello, as Flaminio Cornelio suggests in his book “Creta Sacra”, - a Venetian castle (or rather fort) built in late 14th century when Crete was under Venetians' rule.
Next, "Abia" (found in the second line of the "spell" in f116v) sounds the same as the name of an ancient town on the southern coast of Greece. Now it's just a village, but on the verge of the 15th century it was also under Venetians' rule, and they built a castle named Mantineia there.
The enigmatic "mallier" of f17v, which resists interpretations as a single word not split in two, may relate to the name of Mallia, or Malia, an ancient town in Crete dating back to the Minoan era. Specifically, it may be interpreted as "the inhabitant of Mallia".
Within the course of my Voynich research I noted that first vords of folios of at least some of the VMS sections are highly unique. Thus, 66% of first vords of botanical folios are unique. 60% of first vords of balneo folios are unique.
High as the above numbers are, the vords that are not first also exhibit quite a good deal of uniqueness. Thus, 33% of second vords, 34% of third vords and 35% of last vords of botanical folios are unique.
The above figures and their significance, as applied to the research direction that I pursue, will be explained in detail in my forthcoming article. For now, it matters that I got a feeling that many vords are unique on the whole - which may be characteristical for the Voynich text on the whole. To check this feeling, I referred to Rene's website which You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:
Quote:The number of word types that appear only once in the MS (so-called hapax legomena) is rather high (about half of all word types). A detailed comparison with plain texts in other languages should be made.
What occurs to me is that the distribution of vord frequency count would speak about the type of the underlying message rather than of the underlying language. If analyzed and compared with other sources, it would possibly tell us two things:
1) What is the range of matching text categories? Is it Bible, or herbal, or so on?
2) What is the range of matching text styles? Is it narrative, or reference book, or telegraph-style conspect ("a good glass in the bishop's hostel..."). Is it abbreviated in the medieval-style or not abbreviated?
The analysis of the vord frequency count distribution can be further supported (and the results thus narrowed down) by the vord entropy comparative analysis. As I know, word entropy is text-category-dependent.
Are there any results obtained upon the above aspects? If not, would anyone please undertake at least building a vord frequency histogram?
Should we bring forth this research activity as a Voynich task? What do you think?
Second one on f43v, rotated 90°. First it looks like a snake, but if you consider the paint, it seems to have more of a bird's beak. Perhaps something like a swan?
So here I am minding my own business, casually looking at some Voynich roots, when suddenly I enter You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
It's one of those folios with marginalia, and somehow I've always thought the first word resembles Latin for woman, mulier. Compare Spanish mujer, Portuguese mulher, Old Spanish mugier...
Ok so now think "woman" and look at that plant's root. I'm not going to say what it looks like, because I already created the "Voynich phallus" thread and I'm starting to make a name for myself.
The excellent You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. tool developed by Job suffers from a number of limitations.
First, it does not include the Rosettes folio and, I believe, a couple of farmaceutical folios. This affects the reported frequency counts. Don't know if it's possible to add those folios, and why they are absent.
Second, some vords are rendered incorrectly, which affects frequency counts. In some places the readings are ambiguous, but in some places a typo is certain. In the past, I have been silently accounting for the ambigous and incorrect VQP readings for my personal research purposes. It occured to me now, that it would be better to report incorrect renderings, so that they might be corrected. I will do so from now on, on a case-by-case basis.
***
f75r1: the beginning should be kchedykary, not kchedy.kary. No space discernable.
f76r: the first vord should be potchokor.
f80v: the first vord should be pchedy.
f84r: the first vord should be kol.
f95r1: the last vord should be chckal.
f105r: the first vord of the second paragraph should be par.
This was posted by David in a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:
(22-03-2016, 09:46 PM)david Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I had a vague theory somewhere that this page represents female purity and how accepting divine will improves your lot.
The top woman receives blessed water from heaven directly (note the cross staff she is holding* - she isn't holding it, it is coming into her hand. Compare with the ring below), which also falls straight down onto the next woman, who may represent nobility (note Crown/Ring?). But she is on her back. The water falls onto her face to symbolise purity and her whole body is in the water
This goes down to the next level of commoner who is not purified by the water but is allowed to touch it.
And finally it goes down to the beasts of the field (whores?), one of whom escapes from her bestial form by touching the water (note how she is leaving the fish) whilst her companions stay.
The hair styles of the women become progressively plainer towards the bottom.
It's just the gist of a theory... a previous one of mine was that the women represent different phases of pregnancy (note belly - the penultimate belly has been retouched to make it more prominent).
*This cross-staff, of course, may simply be a stick she is pointing at the top of row of women on the next page, showing a connection between the two sets of illustrations.
I would like to add that a detail on the following page (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) is somehow reminiscent of a baptism scene. The attached image is from an You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 1268.
From You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:
A possible additional use of the verb baptizein to relate to ritual washing is suggested by Peter Leithart (2007) who suggests that Paul's phrase "Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead?" relates to Jewish ritual washing. In Jewish Greek the verb baptizein "baptized" has a wider reference than just "baptism" and in Jewish context primarily applies to the masculine nounbaptismos "ritual washing". The verb baptizein occurs four times in the Septuagint in the context of ritual washing, baptismos; Judith cleansing herself from menstrual impurity, Naaman washing seven times to be cleansed from leprosy, etc. Additionally, in the New Testament only, the verb baptizein can also relate to the neuter noun baptisma "baptism" which is a neologism unknown in the Septuagint and other pre-Christian Jewish texts. This broadness in the meaning of baptizein is reflected in English Bibles rendering "wash", where Jewish ritual washing is meant: for example Mark 7:4 states that the Pharisees "except they wash (Greek "baptize"), they do not eat", and "baptize" where baptisma, the new Christian rite, is intended.
I've been posting a bit lately about how I think the plants on the foldout 89v_1_2 are special. They have been drawn in an ambiguous way, so that they can be seen both as plants and as representations of scenes or figures from Greek myth. On my blog, I argue that these images likely had a didactic function, helping traders to memorize the local names for a number of important plants and products.
Today, I started posting on the last group on this foldout, which might be the most convincing plants mnemonic wise. They represent Heracles (Hercules) and two creatures he famously fought: Cerberos and the Hydra. I've put up the first post about the leftmost plant, which I identify as teak, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Tomorrow I'll get Cerberos and the Hydra online.
As always, comments, questions and criticism are welcome
I think it would be a good idea for people whose work on the Voynich manuscript is tied up with their financial affairs to make that clear.
This is not really about money - we're not the income tax department - but because people with a vested interest in maintaining their preferred hypothesis will be less likely to respond well to challenges and new information. And that's something other researchers need to know.
I'll start by saying that I'm working on a book commissioned by a reputable publishing house. Submission date is late this year.
I'm also instructed by the publisher to remind everyone that he considers his publishing house has a well-earned reputation, and that reputation is partly due to the quality of the persons whose works appear under their imprint. In his opinion, irresponsible persons' allegations and insinuations about one of his authors may well have a quantifiable impact on his sales, profits, and his own house's reputation, things of which he would take a dim view.
Sorry, but I've been asked to say that in a public Voynich forum. It has to do with a small clique, a sub-group in the 'German theory' set, who have pursued a relentless campaign of denigration and personal abuse because my work has not reached conclusions which support that theory. The campaign has noticeably become more vicious since I began demonstrating Jewish influence in the manuscript. The slanders have included insinuations that I am a liar, that my academic qualifications are not real; that my students were not real; that I suffer from some mental, moral or other deficiency... and so on and so forth.
I don't think our moderators will tolerate that sort of thing. I'm posting the notice for form's sake in a public forum as I've been asked to do.
![[Image: lawalt-wappen.png]](https://voynichviews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/lawalt-wappen.png)
![[Image: trio.jpg?w=720]](https://herculeaf.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/trio.jpg?w=720)
