10-04-2016, 12:07 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-04-2016, 12:34 PM by Diane.
Edit Reason: cut
)
Marco,
I'll be frank. I see no purpose to this exercise, which appears to me to be verging on the intellectually dishonest.
First, you have included no "ancient" herbals, only medieval and late medieval ones.
Secondly, what you appear to be doing is begging the question of whether any of those identifications for the Voynich botanical folios are correct (adding some indication of which person proposed each would also be a good idea), and by begging that absolutely fundamental question, inviting people to presume the identification not only reasonable but actually correct, so that then the very details which indicate that the Voynich botanical folios *do not* derive from the Latin herbal traditions can be spuriously 'explained away' as superficial stylistic differences which - in my opinion - would be a mistake.
I don't say that you are necessarily aware of the logical fallacy in this proposed exercise, or of the potential waste of time for newbies, cryptanalysts and linguists by falsely representing the Voynich botanical id's as if they were unarguable, but I do not think it can serve any interests save those attempting to create a theoretical history for the manuscript, one which denies all the very obvious internal evidence of non-Latin derivation, style, character and.. botany.
Not that I expect these things to deter you - so rock on.
I'll be frank. I see no purpose to this exercise, which appears to me to be verging on the intellectually dishonest.
First, you have included no "ancient" herbals, only medieval and late medieval ones.
Secondly, what you appear to be doing is begging the question of whether any of those identifications for the Voynich botanical folios are correct (adding some indication of which person proposed each would also be a good idea), and by begging that absolutely fundamental question, inviting people to presume the identification not only reasonable but actually correct, so that then the very details which indicate that the Voynich botanical folios *do not* derive from the Latin herbal traditions can be spuriously 'explained away' as superficial stylistic differences which - in my opinion - would be a mistake.
I don't say that you are necessarily aware of the logical fallacy in this proposed exercise, or of the potential waste of time for newbies, cryptanalysts and linguists by falsely representing the Voynich botanical id's as if they were unarguable, but I do not think it can serve any interests save those attempting to create a theoretical history for the manuscript, one which denies all the very obvious internal evidence of non-Latin derivation, style, character and.. botany.
Not that I expect these things to deter you - so rock on.