State of the Voynich 2020

[nickpelling]

1. Does the text contain any meaning? Yes
   
   
2. Has the text been purposefully enciphered to conceal its meaning? Yes, but abbreviation has also discarded a lot of information.
   
   
3. Do the images match the text? Yes, but I strongly doubt that the images [b]all represent what they seem to be.[/b]
   
   
4. Are the plants meant to refer to real plants? Yes for a few (e.g. viola tricolor), but definitely no for many.
   
   
5. Is the majority of the plants exotic from a European perspective (Asian, African, American...)? No (for those plant drawings that do represent plants)
   
   
6. Have the images been made ambiguous or otherwise strange to conceal their true meaning? Yes
   
   
7. Is alchemy an important part of the manuscript? No
   
   
8. Is astronomy and/or astrology an important part of the MS? Yes
   
   
9. Is medicine an important part of the MS? Yes
   
   
10. Is the MS the creative product of one mind, i.e. an author? (Taking into account the possibility that one or more scribes helped to fashion the physical manuscript). Yes
    
    
11. Is the MS authored by a known historical figure? Maybe. But let's decrypt it first and then worry about such subtleties. ;-)
    
    
12. Will we ever be able to read the MS? Yes, but only with great difficulty, even once it has been decrypted. :-(
    
    
13. Will there be any breakthrough in Voynich studies in 2020? Meh.
    
    
14. Is the MS any kind of hoax? There are too many wildly different definitions of hoax to answer. It's certainly deceptive.
    
    
15. Have (part of) your views about the MS changed notably over the last few years? No.