The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Perhaps the Voynich Manuscript is a retranscription by a European of such a Koreanized version of the Shennon Bencaojing

At this point I cannot rule out that possibility.

Korea has some points in favor as the place where the Starred Parags section (SPS) was redacted.  It would be not affected the xenophobic policies prevalent in China at the time.  I gather that the Shennong Bencaojing (SBJ) was highly regarded in Korean medical literature.  A local doctor reading the SBJ would have read it from a Chinese edition, character by character, with some local pronunciation -- which is consistent with what is seen in the Voynichese text.  

On the other hand, any influence to or from Hangul seems unlikely, since Hangul was designed around 1440.  Afaik there is no evidence that European alphabetic scripts influenced or inspired the development of Hangul.  It is a completely original design, based on the mechanics of articulation of each sound -- an idea that does not seem to have occurred anywhere else in the world, not even in modern "phonetic" alphabets like Shavian and Inukitut.

All the best, --stolfi