Discussion of Yulia May's proposed solution

[-JKP-]

An analysis of the text of the Voynich and a proposed partial solution by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

The document in English can be downloaded from her website You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. A Russian language version of the document is available You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

Thanks for posting the link, David.

As I see it (I worked through the translation), the "method" consists of

• taking the glyphs that look like traditional Latin abbreviations and expanding them into unabbreviated Latin, and then
  
• assigning a variety of letter possibilities to the other glyphs.
  

I've long said that the abbreviation shapes are traditional Latin but that the meaning behind them may not be.


The problem with interpreting it as Latin is that the STRUCTURE of the VMS text does not follow traditional Latin structure even if the glyphs are shaped and placed in a similar way and even if the person deciphering it builds extra flexibility into it by allowing specific shapes (the ones in between that are not shaped like Latin abbreviations) to have a variety of meanings, as well...

Taking May's translation for Plant 1v as an example... It includes: hot skeletons brought together, sloping ground and gurgled kisses, vanity, beehives, condensing great burdens, songs, warnings... These subjects don't appear to relate to each other in any discernible way even if we assume the text has nothing to do with the plant drawing.



A lot of effort obviously went into this, but looking at May's translation, it comes out like many translations, with a dozen different chunks of subject matter unrelated to each other on the same page (even if you choose the alternative word that seems to work best in relation to the others) and there's no perceivable grammatical coherence, not even the note-style coherence that one sometimes sees in herbal manuscripts, for example (where they jot down characteristics, uses, recipes, etc., without a lot of verbs or joining words).

I'll look at it some more this evening when I have time to give the "Latin" a better read to see if there's anything in that jumble. Unfortunately, I have to run (as usual, I have deadlines).