15-04-2016, 09:28 PM
Koen, thanks for providing the reply into this discussion. Actually I also thought to open a separate thread, but then I found a corresponding one. Anyway.
First of all, some of your counter-objections are based on the assumption that the Voynichese script conveys some natural language in plain text. There has been extensive criticism of that assumption, but since this assumption is not decisive in your argumentation, I will not touch it here. Your argumentation could be adapted to be used under the cipher-theory as well.
It is not clear why would the descriptive part (the botanical section) use one language, and the pharma section would use another. On the contrary, as we see through some herbal examples which colleagues such as Marco, Rene or Ellie bring to our attention (although I admit I do not follow them very closely), the "descriptive pages" often specify both the "foreign" (= Latin) and the local (e.g. German) name of the plant. That is only reasonable - the author says "this is konig's wurz, and by the way it is called dulcis saporis among learned men". Now, according to your point of view, the pharma section lists local, "familiar" names while the descriptive botanical section uses "foreign" or maybe "learned" alternatives without aiding the reader with the link between the two. It is like I begin to speak about Betula forgetting to specify that it is a birch, and then I switch to speaking about birches.
More important still, the observed practice is not consistent. While there are pharma labels not present in the botanical section, there labels that are. I think with your two languages assumption this should have been one way or the other, but not both at the same time.
This could be also in the case when one plain text word could be enciphered in a number of ways, yielding different ciphertexts. Unfortunately, this would render useless making any assumptions based on the labels consistency throughout the MS (which course I took).
Actually this negates the proposal that the pharma labels stand for the plant names, because the name is "teak", not "teakwood".
A similar name - maybe. The same name - well, not in this kind of section, apparently aimed at preparation of some medicals, mixtures or meals. We should expect consistency here. It is true that, say, "cat's tail" can be used to name different plants (at least it is so in the Russian tradition), but in a recipe book it would be really strange to mix the two under the same name, especially on two adjacent pages.
Furthermore, if the roots are "especially mnemonic", then developing this consideration we come to the conclusion that they don't need names to be put near them. Mnemonics is the first and foremost consideration why I began to doubt those labels as plant names - otherwise, I could not have answered the question "how the plants are to be identified by the reader if they are not labeled with names?".
First of all, some of your counter-objections are based on the assumption that the Voynichese script conveys some natural language in plain text. There has been extensive criticism of that assumption, but since this assumption is not decisive in your argumentation, I will not touch it here. Your argumentation could be adapted to be used under the cipher-theory as well.
Quote:A core part of my interpretation is that the labels are the local names for the plants, i.e. the names that were foreign to the reader. They may be repeated in other sections, but don't need to. It's like if you had a book in English about French plants, with first a botanical description of the plant, and then a list of the French names.
It is not clear why would the descriptive part (the botanical section) use one language, and the pharma section would use another. On the contrary, as we see through some herbal examples which colleagues such as Marco, Rene or Ellie bring to our attention (although I admit I do not follow them very closely), the "descriptive pages" often specify both the "foreign" (= Latin) and the local (e.g. German) name of the plant. That is only reasonable - the author says "this is konig's wurz, and by the way it is called dulcis saporis among learned men". Now, according to your point of view, the pharma section lists local, "familiar" names while the descriptive botanical section uses "foreign" or maybe "learned" alternatives without aiding the reader with the link between the two. It is like I begin to speak about Betula forgetting to specify that it is a birch, and then I switch to speaking about birches.
More important still, the observed practice is not consistent. While there are pharma labels not present in the botanical section, there labels that are. I think with your two languages assumption this should have been one way or the other, but not both at the same time.
Quote:So it's possible that the same plant name appears in two different forms, in which case I would expect the less ornate form in the "large plant" section.
This could be also in the case when one plain text word could be enciphered in a number of ways, yielding different ciphertexts. Unfortunately, this would render useless making any assumptions based on the labels consistency throughout the MS (which course I took).
Quote:The labels often refer to products rather than the actual plant, which may result in a label that reads "wood (of) teak"
Actually this negates the proposal that the pharma labels stand for the plant names, because the name is "teak", not "teakwood".
Quote:About some labels being re-used, that is to be expected. We're dealing with foreign plant names, and those names often got borrowed to name different plants, or got assigned to different plants in different places over time. Given the fact that Voynich roots are especially mnemonic, i.e. modified, we can expect roots that look different to bear the same, or a similar name.
A similar name - maybe. The same name - well, not in this kind of section, apparently aimed at preparation of some medicals, mixtures or meals. We should expect consistency here. It is true that, say, "cat's tail" can be used to name different plants (at least it is so in the Russian tradition), but in a recipe book it would be really strange to mix the two under the same name, especially on two adjacent pages.
Furthermore, if the roots are "especially mnemonic", then developing this consideration we come to the conclusion that they don't need names to be put near them. Mnemonics is the first and foremost consideration why I began to doubt those labels as plant names - otherwise, I could not have answered the question "how the plants are to be identified by the reader if they are not labeled with names?".