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No text, but a visual code

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• No text, but a visual code

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 14-01-2025, 05:51 PM

  Are the Voynich script glyphs phonetic units or semantic units? Do they represent sounds or concepts?
  
  I think that in the debate about the nature of the script, sooner or later, that simple question will have to be answered.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 18-01-2025, 06:12 PM

  The Voynich Manuscript was an early attempt to construct an artificial or universal language of the A-Priori type.
  
  This is the conclusion reached by the great cryptographer William Friedman after many years of study. The Voynich script is a synthetic language not based on natural languages. I don't think anyone who takes Voynich seriously can leave aside this conclusion from one of the most brilliant minds who investigated this codex in the 20th century.
  
  On other occasions I have expressed my agreement with this conclusion, because what it means is that we are not dealing with phonetic units but rather that the glyphs of the script are symbols with meaning, semantic units.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 22-01-2025, 01:25 PM

  There are many indications that the glyphs are independent units that are joined together in strings but could very well be loose. This quality of the glyphs can be seen graphically in the fillings between the elements of the images.
  
  For example in this strange f90v1 plant
  
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  The glyphs perfectly fill the gaps that exist between the three stems. It is a wonder that the supposed speech adapts in such a way to the shape of the plant, with just the right words for the gaps.
  
  Naturally everything is a mirage because there are no words at all. How could there be words in a plant like this that is pure fantasy, with a root in the shape of an animal beast and flowers in the shape of nails?

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 26-01-2025, 07:35 PM

  When my wife, my children or my friends ask me what I think is the most difficult thing about Voynich, I always answer that the most difficult thing is to tune into the mentality of the people who created it.
  
  For me the message of the VM is clear: the stars create all those strange plants that we see. In the document there are those naked ladies who introduce an element that seems discordant, but only in appearance because in reality they are a personification of the numerous stars in the sky. What I just said is the most difficult thing to understand, to the point that many who read me will think that it is almost an extraterrestrial message.
  
  Let's imagine that we go to a medieval university from the Voynich era, to an astrology class that was an official subject. We want to teach them why it is cold in winter now in the northern hemisphere and we explain that it is due to the inclination of the Earth's axis with respect to the plane of the Sun and that therefore the solar rays reach us tangentially.
  
  Surely they would take us for crazy. Everyone knew that it is cold now because we are in the zodiac sign of Aquarius and the stars of this sign are the ones that cause the winter cold.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Dana Scott > 27-01-2025, 02:30 AM

  (22-01-2025, 01:25 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There are many indications that the glyphs are independent units that are joined together in strings but could very well be loose. This quality of the glyphs can be seen graphically in the fillings between the elements of the images.
  
  For example in this strange f90v1 plant
  
  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
  The glyphs perfectly fill the gaps that exist between the three stems. It is a wonder that the supposed speech adapts in such a way to the shape of the plant, with just the right words for the gaps.
  
  Naturally everything is a mirage because there are no words at all. How could there be words in a plant like this that is pure fantasy, with a root in the shape of an animal beast and flowers in the shape of nails?

  
  
  With a slight stretch of the imagination, one might find a comparison of the flowers in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to the mustard flower Sinapis alba.
  
  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 29-01-2025, 01:51 PM

  It will always be possible to find plants that look somewhat similar to those drawn in the VM. But what we have to ask ourselves is whether the intention of the illustrator or illustrators was really to draw plants in a realistic way. I don't think that was the intention because, not only would they have drawn them more recognizable, but they would not have accompanied them with a script that cannot be interpreted. Strange plants correspond with a strange script. The intention of the authors of the VM was clearly different.
  
  Getting fooled with the identification of Voynich plants is relatively easy. The clearest example is that of Janick and Tucker, botanical experts who saw an American origin of the codex with Aztec plants. And that against all evidence. Not only because of the C-14 dating but also because of the zodiacal figures clearly belonging to the European Middle Ages.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 01-02-2025, 07:51 PM

  The greatest example of the disparity between the opinion of a true expert and the general opinion refers to the hundreds of female figures in Voynich.
  
  Erwin Panofsky was one of the greatest authorities on art history and iconography of the 20th century. He had the Voynich in his hands and was able to study it. The curious thing is that he did not see anything biological or balneological in the codex. No women bathing, no gynecology, no female organs, nothing to do with women.
  
  I believe that this fact, this enormous discrepancy between the opinion of an academic expert and the common opinion, would deserve deep reflection by those who take the study of Voynich seriously.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 04-02-2025, 01:33 PM

  It is notable that Panofsky, who spoke twice about Voynich with an interval of more than 20 years, always maintained the same opinion about the cosmological philosophy underlying the codex. He changed his mind, for example, about the date and place of creation of the Voynich but not about the aforementioned doctrine that emanated from the codex, according to the images it contains.
  
  The first time, in the 1930s, Panofsky spoke of plants and stars simply, and in the 1950s, more explicitly, he spoke of astral radiation on plants and the occult power of the stars.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 09-02-2025, 08:49 PM

  As anyone who reads me will have seen, I am a great defender of the work carried out by researchers of the 20th century. I now want to highlight the ideas of Mary D'Imperio, who was the first to relate the drawings on the pages of the female figures with the drawings of the plants.
  
  She saw that the tubes, pulpits and pipes populated by the female figures had a striking resemblance to certain parts of the herbal plants. She was even the first to say that the liquid in which the female figures seem to bathe could be a symbolic representation of plant sap.
  
  I highly recommend reading or re-reading if you have already read Mary D'Imperio's work: The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma. It is a work full of suggestions.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 12-02-2025, 06:22 PM

  Mary D'Imperio was also, I believe, the first person to see that some of the female figures in Quire 13 carried spindles or spindle-like objects. This is a matter that has been discussed in the forum but without any results in order to a correct interpretation.
  
  In my opinion, the first step to clarify this point is to identify the female figures of Quire 13 with those we see in the zodiacal pages holding stars. Obviously these female figures with a star each represent the fixed stars of the firmament. What else could they be? It's a simple personification.
  
  In Quire 13 only a few figures have spindles but in reality the artist wanted to show that they all have them even though the spindles are not painted on each and every one of them. The only plausible interpretation is that the artist wanted to suggest that the stars spin over and over like spindles do when spinning thread. The stars spin day and night without rest.
  
  It is curious that in English they do not say spindles when talking about time zones. In Spanish the word spindle is used, which directly refers to the fact of spinning.
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