geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory

[geoffreycaveney]

Another exercise, this one hopefully closer to an actual Voynich MS reading scenario:
You have a text which you know is a pharmacopoeia. You have the following illustration together with Voynichese text on a page
[see previous post for illustration]
And you have the following Voynichese text with it:

[  pchor  ros  ochepshod  rosy  oaiin  ochepsho  chaiin  olaly  aiin  s  chkas  ]
[  shol  odcthardy  shaiin  shol  dsheol  tory  chys  s  shod  cthalod  aldary  ]
[  otol  olshy  rchcthol  cheocthy  tar  chaiin  ody  chaiin  tos  shy  olkory  ]
[  shod  char  chod  odar  ody  shaiin  ckhaiin  olky  she  sh2aiiin  toraiin  ]
[  kaiin  tshol  tar  dkeey  shaiin  aiin  s  chkas  dar  chaiin  s  dary  kaiin  olkor  aiin  ]
[  shod  char  chod  chedar  tedshaiin  ]

"[sh2]" is the Voynichese character [sh] with a closed loop on top. All other [sh] characters in this passage of text have an open loop on top.
To help readers get started with the process of reading and understanding this Greek text, I will do the first step of converting the text into the "10-letter Greek alphabet" here:

" pior  rot  oiiptou  rot's  oan  oiipto  `ian  onan's  an  t  `itat  
  ton  opikarus  tan  ton  ption  kor's  `ist  t  tou  kianou  anpar's  
  okon  ont's  riikon  `iioik's  kar  ian  op's  ian  kot  t's  ontor's  
  tou  `iar  iou  opar  ous  tan  tian  ont's  ti  nain  koran  
  tan  kton  kar  ptiis  tan  an  t  `itat  par  ian  t  par's  tan  ontor  an  
  tou  `iar  iou  `iipar  kiptan "

And here is this same text in the 10-letter Greek alphabet in Greek letters:

" πιορ  ροτ  οιιπτου  ροτ'ς  οαν  οιιπτο  `ιαν  οναν'ς  αν  τ  `ιτατ
  τον  οπικαρυς  ταν  τον  πτιον  κορ'ς  `ιστ  τ  του  κιανου  ανπαρ'ς
  οκον  οντ'ς  ριικον  `ιιοικ'ς  καρ  ιαν  οπ'ς  ιαν  κοτ  τ'ς  οντορ'ς
  του  `ιαρ  ιου  οπαρ  ους  ταν  τιαν  οντ'ς  τι  ναιν  κοραν
  ταν  κτον  καρ  πτιις  ταν  αν  τ  `ιτατ  παρ  ιαν  τ  παρ'ς  ταν  οντορ  αν
  του  `ιαρ  ιου  `ιιπαρ  κιπταν "

Note 1: As a reminder that Voynichese final [-y] may often represent a "vowel+s" word ending, I have marked each such case as <'s> or <'ς> in the 10-letter text above.
Note 2: As a reminder that Voynichese initial [ch] may represent either a Greek front vowel or the "rough breathing" /h/ sound, I have marked [ch] in Greek word-initial position as <`i> or <`ι> in the 10-letter text above.
Note 3: This text of 64 Voynichese words represents 52 Greek words.
Note 4: This text is in a Koine Greek dialect, which is more than a millennium earlier and thus much more archaic than the late medieval Greek dialect that the author of the Voynich MS would have spoken and written in. Thus, not every form in this text will precisely match the forms that we would expect to find in the Voynich MS itself. Nevertheless, I think that this text still looks very much like the actual Voynichese of the Voynich MS text.
Note 5: Recall that one of the most important steps in reading the 10-letter Greek text as actual Greek, is to recognize and identify where the letters rho and nu should actually be lambda and mu. In practice I believe that the identification of the lambda's is usually the most critical step, and I find that to be the case in this text as well. It is a universal linguistic tendency for the sounds /l/ and /m/ to be relatively more common in word-initial and syllable-initial position, while /r/ and /n/ tend to be much more common in word-final and syllable-final position. This tendency definitely holds true in Greek, probably to a greater degree than in most other languages, so knowing and using this tendency to help identify lambda's and mu's can potentially be of great assistance to the reader.
Note 6: Remember how "gyro" is pronounced in Greek.
Note 7: The Greek consonant cluster "k+liquid" is written with an unpronounced Voynichese vowel character between the two consonant characters in Voynichese (akin to the way in which Linear B represented such Greek consonant clusters).
Note 8: There is a well-known phenomenon in Greek grammar called "movable nu", by which an optional letter nu is added to the ends of some third person verb forms and dative plural noun forms. In this passage the Voynichese text includes such a movable nu in a few third person verb forms.
Note 9: About a dozen Greek word-final vowels are still deleted in this Voynichese text, but I do not believe this will be an absolute barrier to comprehension. (It is possible that additional "movable nu's" could retain some of these word-final vowels in Voynichese, but I want to proceed sparingly with the use of such movable nu's until I have a more complete understanding of how and to what extent Voynichese may or may not reflect this phenomenon.)

I will offer a guide to the first line to help readers get started. I think readers would be able to do this process by themselves on their own, with some practice and experience.

You have the illustration, and in the first line in the 10-letter Greek text you see the repeated root "ροτ" and "ροτ'ς" ("rot" and "rot's"). Knowing that rho/lambda substitution is one of the first things you should check in this reading process, I think the meaning of "ροτ'ς" will be very readily apparent to the reader, knowing what the text is about and seeing the illustration.

You also have the repeated root "οιιπτου" and "οιιπτο" ("oiiptou" and "oiipto"). Having recognized "ροτ'ς", I think the reader can also recognize "οιιπτου" rather readily. (The "gyro" rule is helpful here.)

Point: with a modicum of common sense about the context on the reader's part, these words are not actually ambiguous at all. 

Now once the reader has gotten started with the plant name words at the beginning of the text, the Greek function words around them will begin to fall into place. Then, toward the end of the line, the experienced reader can see that you clearly have a prepositional phrase at the end of the line: "[prep.] [article] [noun]".

Using this context clue, the reader can figure out that a verb or participle form with a verbal meaning is very likely to occur in between the plant name/location and the prepositional phrase. With this expectation, and with the aid of nu/mu substitution and the "gyro" rule again, the experienced reader can figure out the verb/participle word in this place in the text.

Thus, using context in the proper way, the entire first line will not be ambiguous at all to a reader with some practice and experience with such a method and writing system.

And once one has begun reading and comprehending entire lines of text, it will become increasingly possible for the experienced reader to use context to guess what the following words and phrases are likely to be anyway. Having such context, the 10-letter Greek alphabet form of the words will be enough for the reader to figure out what the rest of the text says. 

I have in mind of course a late medieval Greek speaker and reader for whom reading and using such a pharmacopoeia was a regular part of their daily life experience and practice. It is more difficult for us in modern times, even for a native speaker, since we no longer need to use such pharmacopoeias on a regular basis. But if you lived in the 15th century, and the life and health of your family members depended on your ability to read and understand the pharmacopoeia, I bet you could learn to become surprisingly proficient in reading and understanding the meaning of such a text even in a 10-letter alphabet form.

Geoffrey