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+--- Thread: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? (/thread-4996.html)
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 25-10-2025
While reviewing a page for another reason, I found another good example:
F19r.1 starts with the third word: qotshy dytshy gotchy qoky
If you look closely and imagine someone sitting there copying something but unable to read the text clearly, that's exactly what they would do: 4 different versions of the same word. In this case, they are unsure about three things. 1. The first letter: q or dy, then he is not sure whether there is a titulus above the ch, ch or sh, and he is not sure whether it is a t or a k.
And here there is a possible clue. The Gallows may have been spelled differently in the original text, because the ch is missing in the last version. It must also have looked as if there was a ch in the k Gallow.
This had dramatic consequences. Because that could be one of the reasons why it cannot be deciphered today. Those who copied it, however, may have already interpreted it and described it “differently” from the original. That would render the Voynich manuscript useless, so to speak. Not a hoax, but misinterpreted rubbish, because a lot of information was probably destroyed in the process. Information that might have been important for deciphering it. This means that the writing must have been very unclear, at least in some places, or so different that the person copying it did not understand it and, just as we do, created an "Eva" transcript that omits many subtleties. This would give us a transcript of a transcript, made by two people who did not know what they were doing. Then it would indeed be impossible to decipher it.
This is a third theory alongside: hoax and not yet deciphered: it cannot be deciphered because it was too badly distorted by ignorant people when it was copied!
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 25-10-2025
and it explain the different "languages" in this manuscript, too..
You would need a team that would go to great lengths to analyze the different variations/interpretations of the glyphs in the various languages of the Voynich manuscript based on this thesis, in order to determine what could be possible misinterpretations behind them, so that you could possibly deduce a source text. I know that I couldn't do that, it would be too much effort...
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 25-10-2025
Here, too, a second version has been added.
![[Image: 114r.png]](https://i.ibb.co/5VYCbwY/114r.png)
At the top it says: ytain. At the bottom it says: ytcheb. These are two versions of the same word. When copying the text, the author does not know which version is correct.
And then look at the following text and compare the two based solely on the rough handwriting. Here, too, the author simply used a second version – which was not unusual at the time.
And if that is the case, it proves how difficult it was to recognise the underlying text... which is truly remarkable. Because then, as already mentioned, we have an interpreted version, which logically means that no one can decipher it.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 25-10-2025
Sry, had Problems with my Browser....
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 28-10-2025
we all know this crazy passage: f75r.37 ff
qokedy dy c'heety qokedy qokeedy qokechdy lol
qokeedy qokeedy qokedy qokedy qokeedy ldy
yc'hedy qokeedy qokeedy olkeedy otey koldy
I have written them down in such a way that my thesis becomes clearer without changing the order of the glyphs(!).
Just look at the image and you will see that the differences in the three lines often have to do with letters that are used with descenders and ascenders. For example, a q can be interpreted as a y and vice versa.
This shows that the same basic form, with a descender or in other cases with an ascender, was interpreted differently in the lines. If you read the text from this perspective, you will immediately see that there are three versions of an original line of text.
And, of course, other letters were probably not deciphered accurately either.
In the picture you can see the following:
Black: The first two glyphs, two times al qo, then underneath as y and the beginning of sh.
Red: The glyph is first written as k and then underneath as sh, obviously with the o from qo above.
Then one or two c follow.
Blue: 8q as one version and then qo as the following versions. 8q = qo
Ochre: sh = K
Light green: T = 8q
Dark green: qo = ol
Grey: 8q = c8
Pink: qo = yo
Purple: more complex here, he cannot distinguish whether this is a ch8q or a cc 8 q or a qko
and black(2): l = y
What is clearly noticeable is that there are different spellings in the same line. This is designed so that all possible variants can be seen at once with just these three lines (otherwise he would have had to write many more lines).
What does this prove?
1. That the underlying text was highly illegible – I hope only at this point in that extremly way.
2. This supports my thesis, which I have become increasingly certain of in the course of this thread, that duplicates were often simply written one after the other in the text because the original text was difficult to decipher.
3. If so many variations were possible, there is unfortunately a chance that the text was difficult to read overall and that we may only have a very rough version of the original text here. And that, in turn, may explain why the text has not yet been deciphered.
Q.E.D.
PS. I am currently approaching this topic from another angle, which once again confirms point 3 in particular. More on this in a view days in another thread.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - nablator - 28-10-2025
Hello JoJo_Jost,
You are re-discovering the phenomenon of local similarity: repetitions, almost-repetitions, clusters of similar words by some metric or other (for example the presence of k/t gallows)...
If a sequence like this in f108v.8 lists versions of the same word:
ysheedy okeedy oteedy qokeedy okeedy okeedy
what was the scribe thinking, in your opinion? The word could be ysheedy or okeedy or oteedy or qokeedy and did I already mention okeedy and okeedy? It's not likely that exactly the same word would be repeated multiple times if the idea is to list alternatives.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 28-10-2025
Oh, isn't this theory, that a writer copied it from a poor version and simply listed the different versions he could recognise one after the other something new? Then sorry... I hadn't read it before and I thought I had read a lot
. Do u have links?ysheedy okeedy oteedy qokeedy okeedy okeedy
Different versions:
1 / 2 ysheedy okeedy
the o in okkeedy has the beginning of a y (9) here he means, that he does not know whether the first letter is a y or an o. he also does not know whether the following glyph is an sh or a k; obviously it is not clear because the template is probably defective. eedy remains the same.
Since he cannot recognise the second glyph, he writes the same word again with a t oteedy. The third word.
The fourth word is the verse qokeedy. Obviously, the underlying word is in such poor condition that there could also be a qo at the beginning. Here, he uses a k.
And now the same word appears twice, which is also already in second place. So that wouldn't fit. Is it then a counter-argument? Not necessarily.
I try to explain these repetitions of identical words by saying that there were three different words in the original text, with slightly different glyphs, which have been normalised here so that they look the same. I will write another post on this, trying to illustrate it with examples, but it's more complicated than I thought
.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - Bluetoes101 - 28-10-2025
The elephant in the room is obviously vellum. People had paper and other cheaper/reusable writing materials.
With the above example, the use of EVA "y" is fairly rigid and when you try to apply this thinking further it won't work.
"y" is found proceeding gallows characters (I include "d" in this group also), or also benched glyphs, but generally only at the starts of lines.
"o" is seen also doing this, but is much less rigid and, notably, often proceeds the backslash stroke formed letters like "l", "r" and "i" where you won't find "y".
Basically I think you have noticed "y" "o" and "qo" fairly often proceed gallows/bench's but once you go beyond you'll find it starts falling apart.
An example of that would be, why were the end of words (almost) always deemed to be definitely y and not o?
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 28-10-2025
(28-10-2025, 03:00 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The elephant in the room is obviously vellum. People had paper and other cheaper/reusable writing materials.
With the above example, the use of EVA "y" is fairly rigid and when you try to apply this thinking further it won't work.
"y" is found proceeding gallows characters (I include "d" in this group also), or also benched glyphs, but generally only at the starts of lines.
"o" is seen also doing this, but is much less rigid and, notably, often proceeds the backslash stroke formed letters like "l", "r" and "i" where you won't find "y".
Basically I think you have noticed "y" "o" and "qo" fairly often proceed gallows/bench's but once you go beyond you'll find it starts falling apart.
An example of that would be, why were the end of words (almost) always deemed to be definitely y and not o?
I'm sorry, but I don't really understand your answer in this context. Could you clarify that again?
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - dashstofsk - 29-10-2025
(28-10-2025, 01:32 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If a sequence like this in f108v.8 lists versions of the same word:
ysheedy okeedy oteedy qokeedy okeedy okeedy
what was the scribe thinking, in your opinion?
Anomalies like these are consistent with the hypothesis that the text is meaningless, fabricated using some scheme to give the text a semblance of foreignness. The writer probably was having a bit of fun. Knowing that the text would be undecypherable he did not give too much importance to correctness.
Words ending edy occur very frequently in the language B pages. The following maps show where they occur in the BioB2 pages. 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 high in them ( ~33% ). f79r, 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 low in them. The statistical variance of their distribution in BioB2 is just too high for us to be able to say that edy words appear randomly throughout this section.
It suggests that the writer was being choosy, favouring edy on same pages and not in others. To back up this suggestion note that the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f83 pages are on both sides of the same sheet. Also that f79r, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f80v, together with You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which is also low, are the four pages on the sides of the same sheet. And since it now appears likely that the manuscript was written sheet-by-sheet and not in book page order it suggest that 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. were written in consecutive order possibly in one sitting, and f79r, f79v, 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. also in consecutive order possibly also in one sitting, with the writer choosing to write edy in the first instance and not in the second.