Calgary engineer believes he's cracked the mysterious Voynich Manuscript

[Pepper]

Hi Pepper,

When I do not translate directly (1/1), what I wrote to you seems to be my personal comments. The reason I translate directly is because you can see that the sentence is linked to the drawing on the page and the words have meanings. The direct translation is: "The roots are cute." and/or "The roots are fat."

But none of these words in Turkish alone mean root. But when both of these two words (AYAK SAPI) combine, it becomes an adjective that refers to the roots of the plant. Therefore, translation of a Turkish text into other languages is also a matter of expertise.

I don't need to comment on your other comment because I already shared my opinion on these issues.

Thanks for your comment,

Ah, I haven't been clear. I don't object to you converting your direct translations into a form that makes sense in English ("the foot stalk is plump, robust, cute" > "the roots are cute"). I'm grateful for those Turkish > modern English translations because it helps me understand.

What I'm asking is if somebody writing in 15th century Turkish would write "the foot stalk is plump, robust, cute" in that way? JKP explained this better than me - "keep you tomorrow best health" could be a direct translation from VMS to English but it would be dubious because nobody would construct a sentence that way.

Also, what does cute mean in this context? It makes me smile because it seems so anachronistic for a medieval mansucript, but that could be my ignorance talking!