The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

But of course I also have to defend my theory that it is Bavarian in a certain way

Well, I do not yet know what is the language, or how daiin was pronounced by the Author.  All I can say is that the SPS seems to correspond to the SBJ almost word-for-word.  And I was already convinced that Voynichese was a monosyllabic language. 

So, I suppose it still could be a word-for-word transcription of the SBJ into Bavarian...

I listened to the different "bais" in a German-Chinese dictionary. They sound the same

I cannot hear the Chinese tones myself, unless I hear two syllables that differ only in tone said next to each other.  And even then I cannot tell which tones -- only that they are different.

In Mandarin there are four tones. The words bái bài bāi and bǎi are distinct and unrelated, like English 'bat', 'bet', 'bit', 'bot', 'but'.  Or Portuguese "avô" (grandpa) and "avó" (grandma). Or German "schon" (already) and schön (beautiful)...

Is it still pronounced differently despite being spelled the same?

You mean 拜 (bài) and 败 (bài)?  Like any language, Mandarin has homophones -- words that are pronounced the same way even though they have different meanings and different origins.  I gather that in at least some cases the two meanings are written with different Chinese characters.  Like English "two", "to", and "too"...

However, if I only go by the Chinese characters, there are still dopplers that clearly do not correspond to Voynich.

I already discussed the cases of bái 白 and zǐ 女, but the general answer is that, if the same Chinese character is used in two different compounds, the readings of the compound in Voynichese may use different sounds. 

 As for jī 鸡, in particular, the SPS apparently omitted the last two sentences of the SBJ recipe: jī bái dù, féi zhū 鸡白蠹，肥猪 "[Also to treat] chicken lice and to fatten pigs", which is about a veterinary use and is claimed to be a late addition to the SBJ; and hēng píng zé 生平泽 "It is found in marshlands", a statement that is "required" by the fixed formula of SBJ recipes but makes no sense in this case.

All the best, --stolfi