geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory

[geoffreycaveney]

Geoffrey, how does your method do with labels? For example those on f88-89? Or do you really need a paragraph for context?

Koen and Carl, this is a very good question, and we will have to study it in more depth.

In a sense we are very lucky that the MS is in Greek, because we have such a rich and well-documented history of Greek plant names, herb names, root names, etc., going back three millennia. In other languages it might be impossible to track down and identify obscure late medieval plant names; in Greek we have a much better possibility to identify many more of them.

For example, an expert in the subject could learn the letter correspondence system, study the illustrations, and go through the works of Galen, Dioscorides, Theophrastus, etc., and compare Greek plant names to the Voynich MS label names. It is likely that there will be many people who will be more qualified to do this research than I am. But of course I will be happy to assist in the process in any way that I can.

In the meantime, this evening I must focus on preparing the second line of the last paragraph of the MS on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for posting here. I can see that it is going to be very significant in terms of identifying the cultural origin of the MS.

Geoffrey