Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ?

[Diane]

Pete
I looked into the possibility of gipsy transmission during the research-and-exploration phase 2008-2011.  One of the items which I found very interesting was the story of an early arrival - a 'chief' - whose name was Thomas and said he was from southern India.  All very possible.

Another tid-bit that intrigued was an account of how a gipsy - possibly also Thomas - I'd have to look back at those notes.. was conversing in Basque with a local.  A third party asked how a (foreign) gipsy could speak Basque and the local just said, 'How could he not speak Basque?'

As you may know, Basque is a difficult language to learn.. so how could a newly arrived eastern gipsy know it?

If you want, I can send you a copy of those posts and the bibliography.  Nice to see the topic crop up again later at Stephen Bax' site, adding so much linguistic information.

I think it's a dead end, though.  I think the peripatetic profession we should be looking for are those travelling to a purpose:  merchant-traders, Franciscan missionaries...

that sort of thing.

Come to think of it, others might find it interesting, so I'll re-print the posts from the old blog at voynichimagery.wordpress.com