+- The Voynich Ninja (https://www.voynich.ninja)
+-- Forum: Voynich Research (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-27.html)
+--- Forum: Theories & Solutions (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-58.html)
+---- Forum: The Slop Bucket (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-59.html)
+---- Thread: Illiterate Scribe Phonetic Dictation Trento Circa 1420 (/thread-5202.html)
Illiterate Scribe Phonetic Dictation Trento Circa 1420 - ZCiupek - 03-01-2026
I believe the Voynich Manuscript is a "House Manual" written down by an illiterate yet intelligent person who came up with their own phonetic written language for a spoken dialect at Castello del Buonconsiglio, in Tyrolia in approximately 1420. This was a German-speaking court ruling over an Italian-speaking population. A servant working here would hear German from the Bishop, Latin from the Priests, and Ladin/Italian from the staff.
I took this idea and started analyzing gallows characters, they appear disproportionately at the beginning of paragraphs and the beginning of lines. This makes sense for someone transcribing their own speech. Then I looked for the ways words might end, short vowels, hard vowels, and long fading sounds. Each one seems to be depicted in the text differently. If we stop treating the symbols for the different sounds ending words and instead start collapsing them into a single sound, the vocabulary of the "cypher" makes more sense.
Here is where I'll probably lose the interest of the pros here, but, I fed this information into a modern LLM. I'm fine with this thread being relegated into the AI slop bucket. But. When fed into the Zodiac illustrations you get A-bur-ril for April, You get Oct-ember, (which could be an illiterate person trying to remember the Latin suffix incorrectly). They get Mars for March, and Mai for May.
When I feed random sections to the AI with this idea in mind. I get text that looks like this.
Line 1 (EVA Transcription)
fachys ykal ar ataiin shol shory ctthy res y kor sholdy
1. Analysis & Prefix Stripping:
fachys: No prefix. Root: Fach (German: division/plot) or Wachs (German: grow - phonetic swap f/v/w common in dialect). Selected: Wachs (Grow).
ykal: Prefix y- (Um...). Root: Kal. German Kahl (bare) or Ladin Cal (stalk/stem). Selected: Cal (Stalk/Stem).
ar: No prefix. Ladin Ara (plowed field) or German Hier (here - phonetic). Selected: Hier (Here).
ataiin: Prefix a- (often directional or just noise). Root: Taiin. Ladin Tai (cut) or Taia (cutting). Selected: Tai (Cut).
shol: No prefix. German Soll (Should/Must).
shory: No prefix. German Schor (Shorn/Sheared).
ctthy: Prefix ch- (Throat clear) or c- (Look/Ke!). Root: Thy. German Die (The).
res: No prefix. Ladin Res (Thing/Matter) or German Ries (Giant/Big). Selected: Res (The thing/plant).
y: Prefix y- (Stammer/Um).
kor: No prefix. Ladin Cor (Heart) or German Korn (Grain/Seed). Selected: Korn (Seed/Grain).
sholdy: No prefix. German Schuld (Debt/Duty/Must).
2. Draft Translation (Stream of Consciousness): "Grow... um, the stalk... here... cut [it]... should be shorn... [throat clear] the thing... um... the seed... must [be done]."
3. Alternative Check (Ladin vs. German Context):
Check: Could fachys be Ladin Fasces (Bundles)?
Alt Translation: "Bundles... um, of stalks... on the field (ara)..."
Decision: The "Grow/Wachs" root fits the start of a herbal manual better than "Bundles". I will stick with the German root for the verb.
4. Final Translation (Folio 1r, Line 1):
"Grow... [eh]... the stalk here. Cut it... [it] should be sheared... [kch] the thing... [eh]... the seed is mandatory."
I've applied this to most of the EVA text and it's all pretty legible. If there is interest I can post the document I have the whole thing in.
Would anyone here be willing to sanity check me?
Thanks
Zbigniew "Z" Ciupek
RE: Illiterate Scribe Phonetic Dictation Trento Circa 1420 - PeteClifford - 03-01-2026
(03-01-2026, 06:44 AM)ZCiupek Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I took this idea and started analyzing gallows characters, they appear disproportionately at the beginning of paragraphs and the beginning of lines. This makes sense for someone transcribing their own speech.Sorry, I don't follow this logic. Can you elaborate please?
RE: Illiterate Scribe Phonetic Dictation Trento Circa 1420 - oshfdk - 03-01-2026
(03-01-2026, 06:44 AM)ZCiupek Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Would anyone here be willing to sanity check me?
This all looks like ordinary LLM hallucinations to me, but maybe I'm missing something. Regarding the month names, what did you ask LLM exactly and what was the exact reply?
RE: Illiterate Scribe Phonetic Dictation Trento Circa 1420 - obelus - 03-01-2026
As a descriptor for the AI prison, "slop bucket" is perfect.
RE: Illiterate Scribe Phonetic Dictation Trento Circa 1420 - Koen G - 03-01-2026
(03-01-2026, 10:25 AM)obelus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As a descriptor for the AI prison, "slop bucket" is perfect.
Ooh I like that.
RE: Illiterate Scribe Phonetic Dictation Trento Circa 1420 - Rafal - 03-01-2026
Quote:Would anyone here be willing to sanity check me?
If you check zodiac pages you will see that the month names were written with normal letters so the man who wrote them was literate after all.
But there is agreement that they were added later so they don't really help with deciphering the manuscript.
As for the rest what you present is trying to make sense out of nonsense.
- you get unexisting words
- you freely transform them to get real words (like shol becomes soll)
- the real words come from many languages
- the final sentences have no grammar and no real sense
Such attempts appear quite often and I can tell you that people won't accept it as a solution
RE: Illiterate Scribe Phonetic Dictation Trento Circa 1420 - Koen G - 03-01-2026
Looks like Tavi wasn't here yet
