The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

I don't believe the author of the manuscript would be able to read and write in Chinese characters, this explanation does help, but why not use his native script to transcribe the sounds?

I do believe that the Author could not read Chinese characters.  Otherwise he would have bought a printed copy of the Zhenghe Bencao.  Which would be maybe 10x or 20x longer than the Shennong Bencao, with hundreds of additional remedies and lots of additional information about the SBJ ones, compiled from several other medical books published between 300 BCE and 1000 CE.

He did not use Latin script to encode the sounds for the same reason that people who routinely took dictation, like court clerks and secretaries, did not.  Namely, writing down any language with Latin letters, phonetically or not, is way too slow.  Hence the existence of many You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. systems that use letter shapes designed specifically for writing speed.  

Writing in Voynichese does seem to be faster than writing in Latin script; but of course we will not know for sure until we identify the language and the sound values of the glyphs.

Why does the Voynich Manuscript visually match European herbals?

It also visually matches some You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

[f116v wiped-off theory] is most definitely a possibility, and I can see how people would believe this, again, I can see this as possible, but not probable.

What exactly do you think is improbable in that scenario?

All the best, --stolfi