geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory

[Linda]

There are a significant number of elements that appear to be signs of a deliberate intention to make the script hard to read for the uninitiated, even those who knew Greek and Yevanic. Ambiguating the consonants, then creating alternate characters for each type of those ambiguated consonants, strikes me as a clear sign of an intention to make the script effectively a cipher that only those who knew the encryption and decryption system would be able to figure out, even among those who knew Greek and Yevanic, which knowledge would of course also be necessary to read and understand the script. The reversal of the script direction could have been another step to disguise the Yevanic / Hebrew / Jewish nature and origin of the script and text.

I can think of logical reasons for the author to feel the need to create such a cipher.

The Voynich MS dates to the period of the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire. It is true that Constantinople itself did not fall until 1453, but many parts of the Byzantine Empire were conquered by the Ottomans well before that date, by the late 14th and early 15th centuries, including substantial areas of Greece itself. Perhaps the author of the Voynich MS felt the need to hide the contents of it during this period, and even to prevent outsiders from being able to identify the script or language or cultural origin of the MS at all. That would be a justification for many of the features and elements of the encryption system that I have described here, including the decision not to write in their sacred script, which could be identified as such even by others who didn't know or read the language. Of course there are many possible reasons for an author to want to conceal the contents of a text, not just from Ottoman conquerors in one particular time and place.

An alternative explanation for the different, non-sacred, script might be found in the Karaite Jewish community. Karaites are Jewish but they do not accept the Talmud as an authoritative interpretation of the Torah and the Tanakh, which distinguishes them from Rabbinic Judaism. There was a substantial community of Constantinopolitan Karaites in the Byzantine Empire in the medieval period; a small community still exists today. They also spoke Yevanic or Judaeo-Greek, but in the case of their community the language was called Karaeo-Greek or Karaitika. The Karaites were significant enough among medieval Greek Jews in particular, that some well-known leading Romaniote Greek Jewish scholars (Romaniotes were and are Rabbinic) wrote about the need to reunite the two Greek Jewish communities. The Constanopolitan Karaites were also known for producing leading scholars and writers.

Parts of what you recently stated shook free some connections that have lingered in my head since a recent blog post.

Bear with me while i try to outline a possible connection between your ideas and some of the imagery in the Rosettes.

Recently in a post called Light on the Subject, under the heading, The VMS “Map” Seen as Layers, JKP outlined the central rosette and the four middle rosettes from each side, as being separated from the others, ie i see them as being lifted off the map. I had seen those connections before but the way it was presented was significant to me in that it brought another dimension to the religious ideas i had already thought to have seen in the imagery. It seemed to bring it to the present day, ie early 1400s. I had previously seen the central rosette to show a conglomeration of monotheistic religions and the E rosette to reference the Greek and Roman mythologies, and possibly those that preceded them. These both are highlighted by the ethereal bands which i took to place them as historical, ie removed in time, the double band being further removed than the other. (The same blog post also gives examples of these in the section called The Infurled Scalloped Band). The connection of all 5 rota together i saw as adding the various versions of each religion that had branched off since, that seemed to be coming together again, as for instance the Council of Constance ended the Western Schism, and we have your mention of the idea of reuniting the Greek Jewish communities. Perhaps instead of the conglomerate view, the lifted area is more representative of the Jewish population of the world at that time. The places i had assigned to those rosettes were Greece, Jerusalem, Libya, and Spain, surrounding Sicily. Seems pretty coincidental we are talking about JudaeoGreek, Hebrew, JudaeoArabic, and JudaeoSpanish, among others. The Jewish population in Sicily were evidently speaking mainly Greek but with ties to the other communities, due to their origins and proximities. The situation at the time is also coincidental with the idea of being lifted off the map, in a different way than i had previously been considering. I had earlier thought of it outlining a cosmopolitan view, but in the context of this view, it seems more one of displacement, but one with its own unity.

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Histories in other places show similar themes around the time of the vms.

I see obfuscation in the imagery as well, so to read that you are finding similar in the writing does not surprise me,  if it is like the imagery, it shows just enough hints for someone that can recognize the bits that show through to go forward, it being somewhat amorphous as a whole, with layers appearing as more connections are seen in what is uncovered. That is, of course, if any of what any of us are seeing is correct. The only way to know is to keep going until it can be seen whether the various hypotheses pan out. I like it when different views can be pulled together into a new way of thinking about the same things. However i apologize if i have stretched anyone's viewpoint too much in doing so, it is not my intention to twist or degrade anyone's ideas, i appreciate them each on their own as well.

Perhaps it could be that parts of the text are interspersed with the other representations or versions of these languages, or their portrayals. Unfortunately it opens the door even wider for multiple interpretations, but if that is in fact what it is, maybe that is why it has escaped solution thus far. Previous attempts may have thrown the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, if only parts of the solution were found to work out within the constraint of any particular version of language. That goes for those outside the Jewish traditions as well.

So i just wanted to throw that into consideration, it might help to broaden the scope of the languages involved, rather than to try to pin it down, if you are running into roadblocks with the version you originally started with.