20-03-2019, 09:55 PM
I will offer one more example of a comparison that may be relevant to the interpretation of the Voynich MS.
This one is medieval, so hopefully it will be more in keeping with the interests of readers of this forum:
As an educated, literate native English speaker, I can read my namesake Geoffrey Chaucer in the original -- with some effort.
Much of it depends upon the individual words. I can read "Here bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunterbury" without any trouble at all of course, and likewise "Whan that Aprill, with his" is simple to understand. The archaic spellings are no problem at all so far.
The first challenge comes with "shoures soote". Determining the meaning of these words, without the aid of Middle English dictionaries, annotated editions, etc., would be a somewhat similar process to my method in interpreting the Voynich MS as medieval Byzantine quasi-Judaeo-Greek.
Imagine that we only knew modern English, and had to figure out the meaning of "shoures soote" by working from modern English and using the context of the text.
We would have to consider various possible alternatives for the meanings of the words with the medieval spellings "shoures" and "soote". The first word is much more tractable than the second, and we would surely figure it out first. We would have to compare similar letters and sounds. Then it would not be too difficult to identify the "u" in "shoures" with the "w" in modern English "showers", and we would know which word it had to be.
Having figured out "shoures", we should then be able to interpret the word "soote" with its strange vowels "oo". At first some people might object to this interpretation: "It looks like "soot"! How can you just change it to "sweet"? Can you make any vowel represent any other vowel that you like? Maybe you can change it to "suit", but "sweet" is going too far!" Eventually, however, we would be able to convince the skeptics and critics: The "w" in modern "sweet" is the connection to the rounded back vowel "oo".
I note in passing that "soote" was not even the standard spelling in Middle English! In fact, it is not among the first *seven* most common spellings of the word: swete, suete, sweete, swote, swoote, swoot, sote. Dictionaries only list "soote" as an alternative form of "swoote", which is itself listed as an alternative form of "swete".
These are the kinds of issues that we will have to continually be dealing with in a medieval manuscript like the Voynich MS.
Even worse, two lines later we run into the word "swich". At first this word might look more like "sweet" than "soote" did, due to its first three letters. But here it is the last consonant "ch" that is critical, and this allows us to identify the word as "such".
I daresay that I have taken not much more liberty with the vowels in my interpretation of the lines of the Voynich MS so far, than we would have to take to identify Chaucer's "soote" as "sweet", and his "swich" as "such".
This one is medieval, so hopefully it will be more in keeping with the interests of readers of this forum:
As an educated, literate native English speaker, I can read my namesake Geoffrey Chaucer in the original -- with some effort.
Much of it depends upon the individual words. I can read "Here bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunterbury" without any trouble at all of course, and likewise "Whan that Aprill, with his" is simple to understand. The archaic spellings are no problem at all so far.
The first challenge comes with "shoures soote". Determining the meaning of these words, without the aid of Middle English dictionaries, annotated editions, etc., would be a somewhat similar process to my method in interpreting the Voynich MS as medieval Byzantine quasi-Judaeo-Greek.
Imagine that we only knew modern English, and had to figure out the meaning of "shoures soote" by working from modern English and using the context of the text.
We would have to consider various possible alternatives for the meanings of the words with the medieval spellings "shoures" and "soote". The first word is much more tractable than the second, and we would surely figure it out first. We would have to compare similar letters and sounds. Then it would not be too difficult to identify the "u" in "shoures" with the "w" in modern English "showers", and we would know which word it had to be.
Having figured out "shoures", we should then be able to interpret the word "soote" with its strange vowels "oo". At first some people might object to this interpretation: "It looks like "soot"! How can you just change it to "sweet"? Can you make any vowel represent any other vowel that you like? Maybe you can change it to "suit", but "sweet" is going too far!" Eventually, however, we would be able to convince the skeptics and critics: The "w" in modern "sweet" is the connection to the rounded back vowel "oo".
I note in passing that "soote" was not even the standard spelling in Middle English! In fact, it is not among the first *seven* most common spellings of the word: swete, suete, sweete, swote, swoote, swoot, sote. Dictionaries only list "soote" as an alternative form of "swoote", which is itself listed as an alternative form of "swete".
These are the kinds of issues that we will have to continually be dealing with in a medieval manuscript like the Voynich MS.
Even worse, two lines later we run into the word "swich". At first this word might look more like "sweet" than "soote" did, due to its first three letters. But here it is the last consonant "ch" that is critical, and this allows us to identify the word as "such".
I daresay that I have taken not much more liberty with the vowels in my interpretation of the lines of the Voynich MS so far, than we would have to take to identify Chaucer's "soote" as "sweet", and his "swich" as "such".