The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

He didn’t study it. He learned it to speak, not to study. That’s the difference.

Sorry, I don't see the point.

I’m not arguing that the author might not have known what a particular plant looks like. But the point was that, according to your reasoning, the author didn’t understand the text at all. That is, he was simply recording sounds as they were dictated, without really understanding what he was writing.

No, that is not my claim at all!  He kept to his plan only because he could understand many of the words as they were spoken, and thus hoped that he would be able to understand at least some of his phonetic transcript when he went back to Europe.

Take the Red Rooster recipe, for example.  If he had a working knowledge of the spoken language, he must have understood all the syllables marked in green below, apart from possible homophones.  He surely could tell where each sub-entry started, and knew that what followed each 主 was a list of diseases or benefits.  What he probably did not understand right away were the two- or three-syllable compounds, like 下血闭, that comprise most of the items in the list, or the precise syntax of the items that are not just the name of a disease.
(A)    | 丹雄鸡：　　　　 |Red male chicken:
(A3)   | 　［主］　　　　　 |··[Mainly for]
(A31)  | 　　（女人）　　　 |····(women)
(A311) | 　　　崩中，　　　|······sudden discharge,
(A312) | 　　　漏下，　　　|······drip-down,
(A313) | 　　　赤白沃。　　|······red and white discharges.
(A32)  | 　　补虚，　　　　|····stopping energy leaks,
(A33)  | 　　温中，　　　　|····warming the center,
(A34)  | 　　止血，　　　　|····stopping bleeding,
(A35)  | 　　通神，　　　　|····connecting with divine intelligence,
(A36)  | 　　杀毒，　　　　|····killing toxins,
(A37)  | 　　辟不祥。　　　|····warding off inauspiciousness
(B)    | 头：　　　　　　 |Head:
(B3)   | 　［主］　　　　　 |··[Mainly for]
(B31)  | 　　杀鬼。　　　　|····killing ghosts.
©    | 肪：　　　　　　 |Fat:
(C3)   | 　［主］　　　　　 |··[Mainly for]
(C31)  | 　　耳聋。　　　　|····ear deafness.
(D)    | 肠：　　　　　　 |Intestines:
(D3)   | 　［主］　　　　　 |··[Mainly for]
(D31)  | 　　遗溺。　　　　|····involuntary urination.
(E)    | 肶胵裹黄皮：　　 |Gizzard lining yellow skin:
(E3)   | 　［主］　　　　　 |··[Mainly for]
(E31)  | 　　泄利。　　　  |····diarrhea and dysentery.
(F)    | 屎白：　　　　　 |Excrement white:
(F3)   | 　［主］　　　　　 |··[Mainly for]
(F31)  | 　　消渴，　　　  |····wasting-thirst,
(F32)  | 　　伤寒寒热。　  |····damage by cold with chills and fever
(G)    | 翮羽：　　　　　 |Quill feathers:
(G3)   | 　［主］　　　　   |··[Mainly for]
(G31)  | 　　下血闭。　　  |····discharging blood blockage.
(H)    | 鸡子：　　　　　 |Egg:
(H3)   | 　［主］　　　　　 |··[Mainly for]
(H31)  | 　　除　　　　　 |····eliminating
(H311) | 　　　热火疮，　　|······hot fire sores,
(H312) | 　　　痫痉；　　 |······epileptic convulsions.
(H4)   | 　［可作］　　　　 |··[Can be made into]
(H41)  | 　　虎魄。　　　　|····amber

VMS in your reasoning appears to be the result of some very intricate theory.

Rather, the result of a highly unusual process, very different from those that produced all other "European" Medieval manuscripts.  Not necessarily more intricate.

For example, Nan Madol [...] it is possible to find a rational explanation for why and how this was done.

And the Chinese Origin theory is just that... 

I dare say that it is much more rational than other theories that assume it is an encrypted book of heretic bathing techniques, or mechanically generated gibberish specifically designed to leave everybody suspicious that it was gibberish.

the theory continues with something like “but then the author suddenly became impoverished, got hold of some dirty scraps of parchment

It is a fact that the parchment was mostly offcuts of "reject" quality.  The "impoverished Author" theory is just the obvious deduction from that fact.  Otherwise, why would he use such bad vellum for a project of that magnitude?

found some impoverished orphaned children

It is obvious from the manuscript itself that the Scribe had no experience copying and illustrating books.  He did know how to operate a quill pen, and had a reasonably firm hand.  But he did not know that he should have scored guiding lines to keep the margins and baselines straight and evenly spaced.  He knew how to handle a straightedge and a compass, but could not divide a circle into four equal parts, or draw two lines perpendicular to each other.  Apparently his experience as artist was not more than a few doodles.

That lack of skill is consistent with the Author's financial stress: apparently he could not afford to hire a competent scribe.  I speculated that the scribe could be someone like an accountant or notary with cobwebs on his office door, or maybe a teenage nephew of the Author -- the latter on account of his fondness for the naked nymphs, and his apparent ignorance of the same.

But I never said "impoverished orphaned child", much less "children".  The drawings are not that bad.

his random letters

The letters were not "random".  You mean "unusual"?

they made so many mistakes in the text that we can’t read it!

That is not the reason.  We cannot read it because we still don't know the language, and for the last 100+ years we all have started with a fatally wrong deduction: "the drawings look European, thus the language must be European".

And when they were drawing scribbles, instead of the author’s drafts, they took their favorite European manuscripts or re‑drew them!”.

Again, this is a misstatement of the Chinese Origin theory.  

We don't know how detailed were the Author's instructions about the illustrations.  He could have sketched every detail of every illustration, including the nymphs' hats and the lobster legs.  Or he could have just written "copy the root of this plant from this sketch [attaching a cut-out of his draft for Pharma] and fill the rest with your imagination".

But, either way, we now know that many VMS illustrations (or details thereof) were copied from other European manuscripts that were popular at the time.  And we can see that many details got mangled in the copy (if they were not already mangled in the copies that they were copied from).  

There is nothing strange about that: many illustrations on Medieval manuscripts were copied from other manuscripts, possibly from memory, and many were often misinterpreted or unduly "improved" or "simplified" by the copyst.  Illustrators did not devise from scratch, for each illustration, what Sagittarius, Moses, or King Arthur may have looked like. 

Given what we can infer about the Scribe, above, it seems unlikely that he owned those source books.  But the Author must have been reasonably well educated, even if he was a just a merchant and not a scholar (see Marco Polo).  So most likely those source books were his, and he either copied those details himself, or gave the books to the Scribe for him to use as "inspiration".

Sometimes it seems to me that you’re just trying to explain absolutely everything using Chinese theory.

Well, of course, any origin theory must be consistent with everything we see in the VMS.

The Chinese Origin theory says that the VMS is a phonetic transcription of 4-5 East Asian books in some monosyllabic East Asian language.  So it inherently applies to the whole text (Some of the "atypical" text, like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f66r, may have been comments or instructions added by the Author himself in the same language.  But that seems unlikely; he would probably have chosen Latin or his own language for that.  More likely, those atypical pages too were transcribed from the the original books.)

However, to be precise, the Chinese Origin theory only proposes to explain the text and inked figure outlines of the VMS as they were in ~1430, right after the Scribe did his job. It does not say anything about what happened after that.  

I have a few other  theories about the following 600 years, including the Late Painting theory, two successive Retracing theories (Global and Mastophilic), the Big Wipe theory for f116v, and the Book Switch and Forged Signature theories for what happened after the book got to Wilfrid.  

These theories are generally independent of the Chinese Origin theory; except that, if true, the Late Painting and Retracing theories imply that what we see today may be very different from what one would have seen in ~1430, and therefore very different from what the Author intended them.

All the best, --stolfi