The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[J_Voy]

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.

Alright, perfect, we agree that the author could not read Chinese Characters.

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.  

Remember how we agreed that in and iin are diagraphs? If this is true, then why waste time writing digraphs/trigraphs instead of inventing a new symbol that would take less time to write?

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

Then i'm surprised that the plant drawings don't match plants from anywhere, Chinese or European.

What exactly do you think is improbable in that scenario?

I just find it hard to believe that handwriting analysis of the marginalia that almost perfectly lines up with the dates of the vellum being produced is actually a wiped off, then a scribe writing over it would just so happen to almost perfectly mimic that writing style, I see the possibility, and if further evidence appears for this, I will change my mind about this, but I just don't believe it is probable, and plus, on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there appears to be a drawing of both a goat, and a nymph, the goat matches up with the first and last words, 'poxleber', and 'gaſmich' which are generally believed to translate to 'buck's liver' and 'goat's milk' respectively. In my opinion, that long s is almost certainly a long s, as the reading gaſmich, actually means something, what would 'gafmich' mean? Nothing, we don't even see a clear crossbar than an f would have, as well as the fact that first you're taking the liver of a goat, then the milk of a goat? It makes more sense. Anyway, the nymph could represent the two Voynichese words, (aror Sheey)why wouldn't these also be washed away?