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+--- Thread: Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective (/thread-4874.html)
RE: Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective - N._N. - 21-08-2025
As far as I know, the estimate that 95% of manuscripts were lost is not so much about different languages, types of manuscripts etc. but rather about the overall body of work in the most common languages of medieval Europe. Which is an important point in terms of what conclusions we can draw about certain texts surving or not in general, but this overall estimate can hardly be used for smaller sample sizes such as regional (varieties of) languages. In particular cases, it might as simple as one monastery/town hall/university burning down due to maybe a lightning strike in the 18th century, i. e. a random event with barely any connection to the manuscripts' context of creation.
However, you would not even need the theory to argue that only very few manuscripts has survived for certain languages etc., since there is ample evidence of the targeted destruction of the cultural heritage of whole groups that were considered heretics, dissenters, or just dangerous in general. See, for example, the Maya codices, of which barely a handful has survived.
All that being said, I would agree that there is currently no reasonable scenario in which the vms is simply the one lucky survivor of a small, but 'regular' script culture. As usual, it basically is impossible to prove a negative here, yet the idea is at odds with practically everything we know about the manuscript and its contents, its most likely region of creation, and its history.
RE: Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective - dashstofsk - 21-08-2025
(20-08-2025, 12:15 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.several languages even in Europe who did not develop any own alphabet
Reading and writing was the great invention that brought about the rise of civilization.
It is unlikely that any community in Europe that still used an unwritten language had no sight of writing from other languages. When the time came for them to adopt a writing system they would have adapted an existing alphabet. It is so with the Latin alphabet. For instance the writing of the letter A can be traced back to phoenician writing. [ You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ]
The dominant alphabets in Europe are the Latin and Greek alphabets because these were the dominant cultures.
But when we look at the VMS we see characters that do not appear elsewhere. It is unlikely that these have been adapted from any other alphabet.
So I cannot see much credibility of the VMS being in any 'new' writing for a community that previously had no writing.
RE: Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective - cvetkakocj@rogers.com - 21-08-2025
Comparing Voynich letterforms to the ones used in the 15th century when the cursive writing was not yet fully developed, only EVA p, f, k, t, q are completely different, b and s look like mirror images of Latin b and s.
When vernacular languages accepted Latin alphabet for their writing convention, they have to adjust it for their sounds. In order to do that, they
- used one Latin letter for one or more different sounds,
- used two or three Latin letters for one unique sound,
- drop a letter,
- used diacritic markers,
- slightly redesign the Latin letterform,
- invent new letter form.
Besides that, Slavs also adhere to the so-called 'word blocks', which means that they attached short conjunctions or prepositions to the next word.
This was particularly important for Slavic languages, because Slavic Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets had 44 individual letters - one for each sound. They also often combine them in ligatures.
This brings us to the question why the Voynich alphabet was so short-lived. When the Counts of Celje who ruled Carniola, Bosnia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, were planning to form their own Slavic kingdom, they would be motivated to use Latin alphabet. We can imagine that the Carthusians who were financially supported by the Counts, have attempted to develop the alphabet suitable for Slovenians living in different political entities, particularly at the time when Basil Council was calling for the liturgy in vernacular languages. After the dissolution of the Basel Council and the assassination of the last Count of Celje, Latin remained liturgical language, and German the official secular language in these Slavic speaking lands. Slovenians who remained under Hungary, later adopted Hungarian writing convention, and those under Italian rule, adopted Italian writing convention. This means that the unique letterforms for k, t, p, f, q were no longer needed, particularly since printing presses that became in use at about that time, did not adopt those letterforms.
According to Slovenian sources, Slovenian dictionary and Grammar book was allegedly written in 1470 by an unknown author, but since it was lost, its existence cannot be proven. What if the Voynich Manuscript contains that lost book? The large number of labels is suggestive of pictorial dictionary, useful for consistent spelling by those who were familiar with oral language.
According to Slovenian sources, Strasbourg native Nicholas Kempf who spent 30 years as a prior of Slovenian Carthusian monasteries Jurklošter and Pleterje, wrote 30 books, including book of poems, but only five were preserved. Could Voynich Manuscript be a lost book of his poems?
Could weird pictures in the Voynich Manuscript allude to his mystical religious experience, explained theoretically in his most important book Mystical Theology? Because of his criticism of the medieval Church, he was probably regarded heretic and his work was not mentioned until 1970s.
Although several effort to develop a written form for Slovenian language were made in the 15th century, only a few short fragments in different writing convention remain. Slovenian literacy practically started in the middle of the 16th century, when Protestantism spread in Slovenia. Most Slovenian books were destroyed in the Counter Reformation. The fact that Slovenian language was included in several 16th multilingual dictionary attests to the existence and the wide-spread of Slovenian language. It was official vernacular language in Carinthia and large part of Styria.
I am surprised that none of the academics from Italian and German linguistic environment has considered Slovenian language.
RE: Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective - Stefan Wirtz_2 - 21-08-2025
(21-08-2025, 09:59 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[..]
The dominant alphabets in Europe are the Latin and Greek alphabets because these were the dominant cultures.
That's wrong.
Latin and (indirectly) Greek were the dominant alphabets of western europe.
Greek (in it's Byzantine version) has had it's time und was quickly losing ground in south-east europe , which ended 1453AD with the fall of constantinople.
In east- and northeast europe, Latin and Greek had never such domination;
Glagolithic dominated huge slavic regions, the newer Cyrillic just began to develop and spread at 14th/15th century. It spreaded the (east roman) Christianity also.
If you want to talk about cultures:
the most dominant culture, reaching deep into europe, was the Mongol Empire in all is branches and chanats, for centuries.
The Mongols alone used several different alphabets over their time - Moscow and Kiev were small principalities and had to pay for their safety.
The combination of Lithuania and Poland had stopped the mongols' rush to West and used the upcoming Ruthenic alphabet, a flavour of cyrillic.
None of the western-european countries or smaller units were anyhow culturally relevant, the big times of Roman and East-Roman were gone at ~1450AD, the Romans' for 1,000 years already.
Some Italian city-states had their phase as major trading powers, but that was limited.
(21-08-2025, 09:59 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But when we look at the VMS we see characters that do not appear elsewhere. [..]
That's wrong.
Single characters of VMS tend to appear, at least as similar-looking letters, in nearly every known alphabet of that period, but never more than a few, and never a full set which would allow an allocation.
Claudette Cohen showed in her blog the origin of Old Permic script, by St. Stephen (Khrap) (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) :
this monk created in a one-man-mission an alphabet which leaned several letters and produced some new ones --
this was for finno-ugric speaking Perm people who had no own alphabet only a few decades before VMS.
By the way, Glagolitic was a two-man-stunt by just 2 monks, Cyrill and Method.
Some west-caucasian languages had no own alphabet until today and use an extended Georgian version, but this does not exclude early tries to gain one for themselves.
In northeast europe, some few smaller languages nearly or fully disappeared meanwhile, but it is known that a first Livonian Bible version (printed allready) was seized and destroyed at the beginning of 16th ct by german crusaders.
--> whoever claims that there was "no new [or new-old] writing system upcoming during the VMS time" would have to prove that all existing languages in europe and even Levante/Anatolia faced never a try to establish an adapted or constructed alphabet.
As shown, this could have been even the idea of just one man alone.
There are more than enough failed "solutions" in Latin and Greek upon this graveyard list here, but just a few for the smaller languages of europe (and other regions). Where is the proof for that statement above?
Thereby the only thing allowed to say is:
Nowadays, we can be certain beyond reasonable doubt, that the Voynich MS is not an example of Latin and Greek.
RE: Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective - Jorge_Stolfi - 22-08-2025
(21-08-2025, 09:59 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is unlikely that any community in Europe that still used an unwritten language had no sight of writing from other languages. When the time came for them to adopt a writing system they would have adapted an existing alphabet.
That is not quite correct. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 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. are three alphabets from ~400 CE that were not adaptations of other alphabets. Their creators got the concept of alphabet from other languages, like Latin and Greek, but developed their own set of symbols without trying to imitate the letters from those or any other alphabets. Ogham seems to be a bit earlier; it clearly was inspired by other alphabetic scripts, but the letter shapes were not borrowed from any other alphabet.
All the best, --jorge
RE: Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective - Battler - 28-08-2025
(22-08-2025, 12:19 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That's correct. And later, there were also at least three different alphabets created from scratch for Albanian, one of them surviving in, I believe, only one single manuscript. So the idea that the Voynich Manuscript can't be a lost language and writing system because we only have one single manuscript, is refuted by that very above-mentioned Albanian manuscript.(21-08-2025, 09:59 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is unlikely that any community in Europe that still used an unwritten language had no sight of writing from other languages. When the time came for them to adopt a writing system they would have adapted an existing alphabet.
That is not quite correct. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 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. are three alphabets from ~400 CE that were not adaptations of other alphabets. Their creators got the concept of alphabet from other languages, like Latin and Greek, but developed their own set of symbols without trying to imitate the letters from those or any other alphabets. Ogham seems to be a bit earlier; it clearly was inspired by other alphabetic scripts, but the letter shapes were not borrowed from any other alphabet.
All the best, --jorge
RE: Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective - ReneZ - 29-08-2025
(28-08-2025, 10:59 PM)Battler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That's correct. And later, there were also at least three different alphabets created from scratch for Albanian, one of them surviving in, I believe, only one single manuscript. So the idea that the Voynich Manuscript can't be a lost language and writing system because we only have one single manuscript, is refuted by that very above-mentioned Albanian manuscript.
That may also be correct, but we still have the problem that the Voynichese text cannot be explained as a rendition of a still-known language using an otherwise unknown alphabet. While Albanian is certainly an exceptional (for lack of a better word) language, it is still well known nowadays.
RE: Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective - Koen G - 29-08-2025
I predict that our conversations would be different if the VM had been written in a unique Albanian alphabet. Even in Wilfrid's day, someone would have noticed "this looks like an unattested form of Albanian writing". This forum wouldn't exist and we'd all be focused on the Rohonc Codex instead.
RE: Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective - Jorge_Stolfi - 29-08-2025
(29-08-2025, 07:50 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I predict that our conversations would be different if the VM had been written in a unique Albanian alphabet. Even in Wilfrid's day, someone would have noticed "this looks like an unattested form of Albanian writing".
Not so sure... Consider the difficulty we have had, all these years, in identifying the language and reading of the "michiton" marginalia. And yet we know (don't we?) that it must be some Romance or Germanic language.
Voynichese is not just an original alphabet for the underlying language. It must be also a new spelling system for it, plus possibly some simple encryption of it. If the language was some now-lost dialect of Albanian (whether the one in the Caucasus, or the one in the Balkans) or Iberian (whether the one in the Caucasus, or the one in Western Europe), would someone have recognized it under those layers of obfuscation? Would someone have even tried?
All the best, --jorge
PS. I wonder how the movie Inside Man would have worked out if the message from the bank robbers had been in Caucasian Albanian instead of in ordinary hey-my-wife-speaks-that Balkanian Albanian.
RE: Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective - Koen G - 29-08-2025
The dialect doesn't really matter. Often the language doesn't even matter. If you gave me someone's historical attempt at writing Catalan in a modified alphabet, I could tell you pretty quickly that we're looking at a member of the Romance language family, then take it from there.
Were the three Albanian alphabets really created from scratch? What do they look like?