geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory

[geoffreycaveney]

Just to show a small piece of how this Yevanic magician's grimoire text may be analysed, take a look at the following excerpt from the middle of the left page of the spread that I posted:

   

Focus on the word in the exact center of this photo. Here is an even closer look, with the focus word now on the left side of the phrase:

   

Yevanic in the Hebrew script is written right-to-left of course, so the focus word is the last word in this phrase.

Reading and analysing such handwriting is naturally quite difficult. I do not claim to be any kind of specialist in this skill. I imagine there are not too many scholars who are specialists in both medieval Greek dialects and medieval Hebrew cursive scripts, which makes it quite difficult for anyone to read and analyse such a text. Nevertheless, if I want to propose a theory that the Voynich MS is written in medieval Yevanic, I better be able to learn how to read a Yevanic magician's grimoire as well, so I will make my best effort to read and analyse this text.

Here is a chart from the Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901-1906 showing the forms of each Hebrew letter in a wide variety of medieval Hebrew cursive scripts from various regions and centuries:

   

I find that not only the "Greek 1375" column, but also the "Constantinople 1506" column, appear to be somewhat similar to the Hebrew cursive letter forms that I find in this Yevanic text. Nevertheless, I recognize that reading such handwriting is fraught with many difficulties, and it will need to be confirmed by an expert in the field - if indeed any such experts exist.

Returning to the focus word that I mentioned in the Yevanic excerpts above, my best reading of the Hebrew cursive letters in it, based on the chart above, is this:

נכרן

That is, nun-kaf-resh-nun (the Hebrew final form of nun is distinctly different from the non-final form of nun).

If my reading here is correct, there are no vowels in this Yevanic word. There are no glides like yod or vav, no aleph or ayin, and no he or chet. There are just four pure consonant letters, nun-kaf-resh-nun. With no vowel diacritic dots in sight.

Phonetically, this sequence is transcribed "n-k-r-n".

I interpret this word as the Yevanic form of the Greek word νεκρον ("nekron"), the accusative singular form of νεκρος ("nekros"), meaning "dead", "dead body", "corpse", "dying person", "dead man". The root word will be familiar to everyone from words such as "necromancy".

I did not need any vowel diacritic dots or vowel letters to figure out that "n-k-r-n" likely means "nekron" in a Yevanic or Greek text. I doubt that the author or medieval Yevanic readers needed vowel diacritics or vowel letters to read and understand this word either.

Naturally, there is much more work to be done in reading, interpreting, and studying this Yevanic magician's grimoire text. I just want to offer readers a glimpse of it with this brief analysis and commentary.

Geoffrey