Calgary engineer believes he's cracked the mysterious Voynich Manuscript

[Ahmet Ardıç]

Pardon the introduction of a hair-brained hypothesis, but much of the interpretation for certain VMs illustrations has tended to be historically European; such things as the Oresme cosmos, the use of heraldry and the Genoese popes, Melusine, the Golden Fleece. This aligns to a time and place approximated to the Duchy of  Burgundy after circa 1430. 

Burgundy, at the beginning of this florescence would have been a polyglot of French, German, Portuguese, Dutch, English and Italian. Any linguistic choice is possible.

Burgundy had enough 'Islamic contact' in the Christian defeat at Nicopolis in 1396. Later, the Burgundian ambassador to Russia used the trade route south to the Black Sea and returned via the Mediterranean. Burgundy had naval forces in the Black Sea in the 1440s. The Genoese preceded them about a century prior. The counts of Flanders ruled the Latin kingdom of Byzantium. Flanders later became an early and essential part of Valois Burgundy. The VMs cosmos reveals an eastern influence, if the outer circle and the eight curved spokes can be attributed to the influence of Shirakatsi.

So, perhaps Voynichese is Turkish. And not necessarily good Turkish, as spoken by a native speaker, but Turkish as composed by a Burgundian. Just think of all the possible problems there. Good grief! But it is a possibility.

All of the 'yes, it is' - 'no, it isn't' discussion is going nowhere. There needs to be a convincing demonstration from the beginning that can be presented to those who maintain the contradictory opinion. And as a subject of the demonstration, I suggest the outer band of text from VMs White Aries, because it is marked and because it has internal structure.

Hi,

Since my English is broken, I don't know the meaning of "hair-brained hypothesis" but I can guess that.

Politely, I would like to admit that you probably do not understand what I wrote, probably because my English is not good.

I have already explained that the author of VMS is a traveler in Europe. Therefore, it is quite normal that she/he drew what she/he saw. Did you understand this detail? Maybe it was inspired by a drawing she/he saw in Europe. Or it may be those who made the drawings you mentioned in Europe inspired by the author of the VMS. This issue can be discussed. However, there is no meaning for having this kind of discussion, because this issue is not connected with the language of the VMS.

The author wrote the word 'The Fortieth-Universe "(40.+OLAM / 40cc+OLAM / 40cc+alem) in Turkish on the VMS f-68v page (near 'the galaxy 'like drawing). According to the alphabet transcription, the word is also written as 'DOGOLAM'. It is a compound word and its root is the word DOG-. Today, this word is written as 'DOĞ'. You can see this word in the dictionaries with the '-mak' suffix only. 

[You can see the meanings of the word DOĞ / Doğmak in Turkish and English here: <https://sozce.com/nedir/97674-dogmak>]

[The suffixes “-mek/-mak”: these are suffixes of Turkish infinitive. They turn the root word into a verb as well as also a concrete noun. (Clauson, Guise)]

The word OLAM means 'all that has happened', 'all created/existed/ happen things' and 'galaxy'. The root of the word is 'OL-'. You can see this word in the dictionaries with the '-mak' suffix only such as 'olmak'.  [<https://sozce.com/nedir/241157-olmak>] In today's Turkish, this word is written as 'alem' and ' âlem'. It is known that in different dialects of Turkish (Uzbek and Azeri Turkish languages, 'A' sound is frequently replaced by 'O' sound. Some linguists think the origin of this word may be in Arabic, but this is probably not true. [<https://www.nisanyansozluk.com/?k=+%C3%A2lem>] 

(The word 40ccOLAM / 40ccALEM is located in the circular text on the outermost ring of the galaxy-like circle at 11 o'clock. You can see more information on this page: <http://www.turkicresearch.com/CodedWords>) 

I also found and review the "Oresme-cosmos" image on Google. There are parts that are similar to those drawn in this VMS. But there are parts that are not similar. So there is no complete overlap between this two images. (These are not exactly the same but partly similar.)

Thank you for the historical information you noted.

We do not know whether the author is Burgundian, German, Turkish, English, Genoese or Italian or Chinese. Because the VMS manuscript does not contain information about the nationality of the author. At least we did not find such information in the chapters we read. We don't know the author's name either. We also don't know if the author is a woman or a man. I personally guess that the authors may be two married couples, but this is only a guess. We don't have any claim that the author is Turkish anyway. The important thing here is that she/he/they wrote this manuscript in Turkish. The subject we are interested in is a language of the VMS, but the nationality of the author is not in our field of interest. Of course, if the writer is not Turkish, she/he/they may have a unique dialect or pronouncing words.

I think the author of VMS did not look at any galaxy with an advanced telescope, of course. However, she/he have been observed that by a circular air movement such as tornado, hurricane on the sky, or may be any circular structure found in some small plant parts, and she/he was thought may be that the whole galaxy might be in the same structure. But we know from the readings that the VMS writer uses lenses (like a magnifying glas structures). I think the author may have been written VMS under a magnifying glass. 

Because of the readings, we know that the VMS author is looking at the sky with a lens device. But this should probably be a primitive device. So we have no claim that she/he had observed the galaxies with this. 

Thanks for the information you share.

Best regards,

Ahmet Ardıç
ATA Team Alberta