Alisa Gladyseva: Voynich manuscript is decoded

[-JKP-]

"The  most important  thing  is  to  determine  the  language  that  was  used  in  the marginalia, but scholars to this day cannot even read the uncoded text."

She is referring to the month labels, and this statement is nonsense. The month names are in standard Latin script with abbreviations and are not hard to read. Numerous researchers have blogged about them, including me, years ago.

Also, since blogging about them, I spent years researching the spellings in medieval manuscripts to try to find hard evidence for where they originated. The origin of the spellings is no longer an educated guess, I found examples, so now there is evidence. I'll post them when I have time.


Her claim that LJS 419 includes "corrupted" plant names is also nonsense. This blog explains why:

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It's very clear from her "translations" of the month labels that she does not know how to read medieval scribal abbreviations. She interpreted "mars" (with Greek sigma-shaped final-ess) as "março". She interpreted "aberil" (abbreviated in a standard way) as "april". She turned "augst" (very clearly written) into "ag (o)st(o)". "Augst" is commonly found in manuscripts, so there is nothing unusual about the spelling, but Gladyseva assumed it was abbreviated because she didn't recognize the spelling.

She transliterated the month of October as "'Octubro', 'Outubre' or 'Oitubro'". This is wrong. It is clearly written as "octēbre" (Octembre) with a straight macron for the missing "m". I think she is basing her interpretations on her Galician/Portuguese theory rather than actually reading what is written.

It takes time to learn medieval scribal abbreviations, but it is necessary to learn them in order to read medieval manuscripts and notes. Most scribes used abbreviations. She hasn't learned them yet.