11-04-2021, 06:37 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-04-2021, 08:58 PM by geoffreycaveney.
Edit Reason: add point on Great Vowel Shift
)
I recall Marco once wondering, if people have all these language theories for the Voynich ms, why doesn't anyone simply try to read it as English?
The simple answer is that very few people can really read Middle English anymore, least of all English speakers, except for a couple weeks in secondary school and a couple weeks in college when we pretend to be able to read my namesake Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with the help of very heavily annotated student editions where every other word has a note telling us that shoures means "showers", not "shores" (that would rather be strondes); soote means "sweet", not "soot"; swich means "such", not "switch"; flour means "flower"; and seke means "seek" but seeke rather means "sick". Most modern English speakers want no part of any of that monstrously difficult and confusing spelling, so why would they seke swich language, that they find more seeke than soote, among the floures of the Voynich ms?
Among other things, for modern English speakers, the Great Vowel Shift of 1400-1700 really means that we are "orphans" with regard to medieval languages. At the time of the Voynich ms, no one spoke a language with vowels pronounced the way we do in modern English. So all medieval languages are foreign to us modern English speakers, in a way that does not apply so extremely to speakers of other European languages.
But since this is a Germanic thread, and I happened to stumble across some interesting Middle English words in my research of my latest ideas about possible Germanic readings and interpretations of Voynich characters, units, and vords...well, Marco's wish is hereby granted.
I was thinking about and looking into the famously repetitive vord [qokeedy] [qokeedy] [qokeedy] throughout the bathing women section and in a couple places in the recipes section, and my latest Germanic reading system gave me "neecH neecH" for this vord. Well, it so happens that neece is a Middle English spelling of "niece", an alternative form of nece, and it can also mean a woman family member more generally. Moreover, this word nece happens to also be a Middle English alternative form of nyce, which in that period could mean "foolish, simple, naive"; or "scared, weak, lazy"; or "fussy" (14th c.); or "wanton, sinful" (14th c.); or "cunning" (15th c.); or "fragile, delicate" (15th c.); or "strange, odd, bizarre" (15th c.).
So...by this interpretation, [qokeedy] [qokeedy] [qokeedy] could be a Middle English play on words, "nece, nece neeces", meaning "foolish, bizarre women" or really any other combination of the various possible meanings of Middle English nece as adjectives describing the neeces.
Even better, according to this system, the very similar Voynich vords [qokedy], [qokchdy], and [qokchedy] could possibly represent alternative Middle English spellings of these words: nec(e), nyc(e) / nic(e), niec(e). Hmm, the latter two spellings, although the most familiar to us in modern English, actually would have been more current in Middle French than in Middle English in this time period. Either way, these various spellings of these two words could account for the roughly 750 occurrences of these [qoke/ched-] vord forms in the ms text, the vast majority of them in the bathing women and recipes sections. (A search for [qok*d] on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a quick and simple way to visualize the occurrences of all of these forms in the ms.)
As Marco would say, the English interpretation is no worse or less logical than any other claimed reading of the Voynich ms.
[Note: both Middle English words come from Old French, they are the origin of "niece" and "nice" in modern English, and the latter's original meaning was actually "ignorant", being derived from Latin nescius, as in ne scire, "not know"!]
The simple answer is that very few people can really read Middle English anymore, least of all English speakers, except for a couple weeks in secondary school and a couple weeks in college when we pretend to be able to read my namesake Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with the help of very heavily annotated student editions where every other word has a note telling us that shoures means "showers", not "shores" (that would rather be strondes); soote means "sweet", not "soot"; swich means "such", not "switch"; flour means "flower"; and seke means "seek" but seeke rather means "sick". Most modern English speakers want no part of any of that monstrously difficult and confusing spelling, so why would they seke swich language, that they find more seeke than soote, among the floures of the Voynich ms?
Among other things, for modern English speakers, the Great Vowel Shift of 1400-1700 really means that we are "orphans" with regard to medieval languages. At the time of the Voynich ms, no one spoke a language with vowels pronounced the way we do in modern English. So all medieval languages are foreign to us modern English speakers, in a way that does not apply so extremely to speakers of other European languages.
But since this is a Germanic thread, and I happened to stumble across some interesting Middle English words in my research of my latest ideas about possible Germanic readings and interpretations of Voynich characters, units, and vords...well, Marco's wish is hereby granted.
I was thinking about and looking into the famously repetitive vord [qokeedy] [qokeedy] [qokeedy] throughout the bathing women section and in a couple places in the recipes section, and my latest Germanic reading system gave me "neecH neecH" for this vord. Well, it so happens that neece is a Middle English spelling of "niece", an alternative form of nece, and it can also mean a woman family member more generally. Moreover, this word nece happens to also be a Middle English alternative form of nyce, which in that period could mean "foolish, simple, naive"; or "scared, weak, lazy"; or "fussy" (14th c.); or "wanton, sinful" (14th c.); or "cunning" (15th c.); or "fragile, delicate" (15th c.); or "strange, odd, bizarre" (15th c.).
So...by this interpretation, [qokeedy] [qokeedy] [qokeedy] could be a Middle English play on words, "nece, nece neeces", meaning "foolish, bizarre women" or really any other combination of the various possible meanings of Middle English nece as adjectives describing the neeces.
Even better, according to this system, the very similar Voynich vords [qokedy], [qokchdy], and [qokchedy] could possibly represent alternative Middle English spellings of these words: nec(e), nyc(e) / nic(e), niec(e). Hmm, the latter two spellings, although the most familiar to us in modern English, actually would have been more current in Middle French than in Middle English in this time period. Either way, these various spellings of these two words could account for the roughly 750 occurrences of these [qoke/ched-] vord forms in the ms text, the vast majority of them in the bathing women and recipes sections. (A search for [qok*d] on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a quick and simple way to visualize the occurrences of all of these forms in the ms.)
As Marco would say, the English interpretation is no worse or less logical than any other claimed reading of the Voynich ms.
[Note: both Middle English words come from Old French, they are the origin of "niece" and "nice" in modern English, and the latter's original meaning was actually "ignorant", being derived from Latin nescius, as in ne scire, "not know"!]