geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory

[geoffreycaveney]

5. You gave a reason why a Jew did not use Hebrew letters to write their language. I’m not good at history, let alone world history, so I’ll leave this part to the others.

Anyway, this was the first question raised in my mind when I saw the theory you have proposed. No matter it is Yiddish or Judæo-Greek, Jews are famous for writing every language in Hebrew letters. That was why I did not considered much the possibility that VMS has any relation with Hebrew language or letters.

It’s nice that you have given an answer to this question, though I’m not capable of judging it.

Chen Zhe: This is a good question and a difficult question. I have suggested a possible explanation for it. JKP has mentioned some other possible explanations for it. Different groups and sects of Jewish people may have had different views about the sacrosanct nature of the Hebrew script and the inadmissibility of writing anything in any language in any other script. In certain historical situations, Jewish people may have justified the writing of a text in a different script if and when some extraordinary circumstances were seen to justify it. In the Jewish religion, even the many restricted activities that are traditionally banned on the day of the Sabbath (Shabbat) are explicitly allowed when such activities are seen as necessary to save a human life. This principle is called "pikuach nefesh", meaning "saving a life" in Hebrew.

Alternatively, perhaps now is an appropriate moment to mention one other possibility. This is just a speculative suggestion for now. I do not want it to become the main focus of my theory, which I want to remain on the language of the MS text, which I conclude is a form of Greek. But I will mention this here: Recently I have come to consider the possibility that the Voynich MS may have been written by a woman. Traditionally, the study of the Hebrew language was almost exclusively the province of boys and men in Jewish culture. Consider the following evidence in the case of Yiddish:

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"Women in the Ashkenazi community were traditionally not literate in Hebrew, but did read and write Yiddish. A body of literature therefore developed for which women were a primary audience. This included secular works, such as the Bovo-Bukh, and religious writing specifically for women, such as the צאנה וראינה‎ You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and the תחנות‎ You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. One of the best-known early woman authors was You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., whose memoirs are still in print.

"The segmentation of the Yiddish readership, between women who read מאַמע־לשון‎ mame-loshn but not לשון־קדש‎ loshn-koydesh, and men who read both, was significant enough that distinctive You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. were used for each. The name commonly given to the semicursive form used exclusively for Yiddish was ווײַבערטײַטש‎ (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 'women's taytsh', shown in the heading and fourth column in the adjacent illustration), with square Hebrew letters (shown in the third column) being reserved for text in that language and Aramaic. This distinction was retained in general typographic practice through to the early 19th century, with Yiddish books being set in vaybertaytsh (also termed מעשייט‎ mesheyt or מאַשקעט‎ mashket—the construction is uncertain).You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."

Thus, consider the situation of a Jewish Greek-speaking woman in medieval Europe. The study of the Hebrew language was not meant for her. She spoke Judaeo-Greek, and perhaps if she was motivated and intellectual and linguistically talented, she could make the effort to find the opportunity to learn to read and write in Judaeo-Greek. But she would be excluded from the main body of Jewish literary culture in Hebrew, which circles were only open to boys and men. She would have to make most of the effort on her own, quite possibly in a certain amount of isolation.

It makes a certain amount of sense to me, to consider the possibility that such a person, under such circumstances, may have had the motivation to invent her own fanciful script for the language that she knew and spoke and even read and wrote, but which was isolated from the primary focus of literary culture in her community, which was reserved for a different language and for people of a different gender.

Like I say, it is just a speculative idea for now. But it may explain certain things, and I think it is a possibility that is worth considering.

Geoffrey