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The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
- The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
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RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Jorge_Stolfi > 02-05-2026, 02:53 AM
(01-05-2026, 04:42 PM)rikforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Reading back over some of the recent back and forth, you may not fully appreciate what a solar term was legally and culturally, and why we have a pretty good idea how they were defined, not just abstractly, but like how.
I admit that I have practically no knowledge of Chinese astronomy, astrology, calendrics, or history.
But I know that, in the time of Emperor Dàin Chéo of the Gong Dynasty, they would boil over slow fire anyone who dared to invent wild stories about what Emperors did or did not do.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Ruby Novacna > 02-05-2026, 09:08 AM
Hi Jorge!
I can't access your site; I keep getting a "Forbidden" message.
Is there a reason for this? -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
JoJo_Jost > 02-05-2026, 11:26 AM
@ stolfi I’m currently doing a lot of statistical research, and every now and then, among other possibilities, Asian languages come up as a possibility.
I’m slowly starting to give your theory a little more credence than I have so far.
Although, of course, I still believe in my own. 
And if we’re being honest, there aren’t many plausible theories left.
As Sherlock said: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
With all the opposition you're getting here, I thought I’d write this to you.
P.S. Basically, these were studies on word length, atomic behavior, positional classes, and reduplication. They suggest that VMS functions syllabically as a writing system. -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
rikforto > 02-05-2026, 12:38 PM
(02-05-2026, 11:26 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.@ stolfi I’m currently doing a lot of statistical research, and every now and then, among other possibilities, Asian languages come up as a possibility.
I’m slowly starting to give your theory a little more credence than I have so far. Although, of course, I still believe in my own.
It should be said, as one of the more vocal critics of the specific identifications that have been put forward under the COT, I find this basic launching point for that search fairly compelling. There are some things that I think are cause for caution even at that high level, but nothing that rules out either of your broad frameworks. The high-level statistical evidence for a monosyllabic language with ordered features is not bad! Closing that gap into specifics is where neither of you has won me over yet. -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
JoJo_Jost > 02-05-2026, 01:21 PM
@ rikforto Yes, that's still the open problem. I'm working on it - with, honestly, uncertain outcome.
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RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Jorge_Stolfi > 02-05-2026, 01:33 PM
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RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Jonas Barnun > 05-05-2026, 09:10 AM
Hi Jorge, I am new to the VMS. I speak and read Chinese (mandarin and I am very exposed to Wu dialects) and Arabic (classic + North African dialects). Is there a page I could review your so called Chinese hypothesis? I would like to better umderstsnd its principles, however the univ site kept showing access denied.
Thanks,
Jonas -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Jorge_Stolfi > 06-05-2026, 05:22 AM
(05-05-2026, 09:10 AM)Jonas Barnun Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi Jorge, I am new to the VMS. I speak and read Chinese (mandarin and I am very exposed to Wu dialects) and Arabic (classic + North African dialects).
That is wonderful. As I see it, you are better qualified than anybody (including me) to decipher the VMS.
Quote:Is there a page I could review your so called Chinese hypothesis?
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a short write-up I posted a few months ago, slightly updated. For additional discussion, check this same thread, starting at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. (The evidence that was on page 8 of the PDF write-up is on page 3 of the revised version.)
I have made some additional progress since then. I believe I have identified the SPS parags corresponding to couple dozen additional entries, with various degrees of certainty. I have also identified another crib, 气 = chedy = Chedy. I have suspicions for 久服 / 久食 and 令 but I am not sure yet.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is an example of the matches that I have found. Don't bother trying to understand it all; the useful section is the very last one, "Aligning..." which has the tentative alignment of the SBJ entry with the supposedly corresponding SPS parag. (Most of that page was generated automatically; what I actually wrote is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and the imported libraries. It is in Unicode UTF-8 and contains Chinese characters, but our www server and your browser intrerpret it as ISO-Latin-1; so to read it properly you must download it.)
The bad news is that there seem to be many spelling errors or variations,affecting maybe 5-10% of the words. For example, I believe that the "correct" translation of 主治 / 主 in Voynichese is daiin, but that keyword may appear on the transcription files as dain, laiin, dair, or even others. These variations seem to be mostly addition or omission of certain EVA letters like e, or replacement of letters that would visually similar in "cursive" handwriting, like d <--> k (but not t) and iin <--> ir. Also m seems to be an abbreviation for iin.
And I suspect that the Author may have been tone-deaf...
The three biggest questions I have now are (1) what is the language, (2) what is the (presumably phonetic) encoding, and (3) which other "classical" Chinese books were the sources for the other sections.
My guess is that the Zodiac section, in particular, is about the "solar term" system, with each page referring to one interval between consecutive solar terms (for "Aries" and "Taurus") or two of those intervals (for the other signs).
I also would guess that much of the Bio section is about the flow of 气 and other "vital fluids" according traditional Chinese medical theory.
Quote:The univ site kept showing access denied.
The problem should have been fixed; the links work for me. Try forcing a full refresh of the page.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Jonas Barnun > 06-05-2026, 03:02 PM
Thank you Stolfi, it is very intriguing. I tried to map some other words in the rooster. More specifically the word for 鸡, 下 and 子 which each appear at least 2 times in the Chinese. I could not easily map them, however something strange happened in the process, when I was ready to give up it seemed as if a potential match appeared then I would dig further and notice no it does not really match then think again to stop looking and suddenly notice a new detail that would get me hooked, it happened several times until I really had to go. It’s a bit as if the text has some kind of resistance and elasticity at the same time ! Is that some mysterious power of the VMS? ?
Are you able to find potential candidates for these characters? It is intriguing, really, but I guess I would need to spend more time. Especially the versions of shennong bencao jing are multiple, so the possibilities are also quite numerous on that front as well, we are not talking about a canonical text. For now I have to remain agnostic. I did not have time to study other parts like the bee larva yet.
It would be helpful for me to have the rooster in EVA pronunciation (latin characters) to better visualize and avoid the trap of the Voynich script misreading.
Thanks again Stolfi and looking forward to spend some more time on this.
Jonas -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
DG97EEB > 06-05-2026, 04:06 PM
(06-05-2026, 03:02 PM)Jonas Barnun Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thank you Stolfi, it is very intriguing. I tried to map some other words in the rooster. More specifically the word for 鸡, 下 and 子 which each appear at least 2 times in the Chinese. I could not easily map them, however something strange happened in the process, when I was ready to give up it seemed as if a potential match appeared then I would dig further and notice no it does not really match then think again to stop looking and suddenly notice a new detail that would get me hooked, it happened several times until I really had to go. It’s a bit as if the text has some kind of resistance and elasticity at the same time ! Is that some mysterious power of the VMS? ?
Are you able to find potential candidates for these characters? It is intriguing, really, but I guess I would need to spend more time. Especially the versions of shennong bencao jing are multiple, so the possibilities are also quite numerous on that front as well, we are not talking about a canonical text. For now I have to remain agnostic. I did not have time to study other parts like the bee larva yet.
It would be helpful for me to have the rooster in EVA pronunciation (latin characters) to better visualize and avoid the trap of the Voynich script misreading.
Thanks again Stolfi and looking forward to spend some more time on this.
Jonas
I'm making no judgement on this theory generally, but it is certainly a truth of VMS that it has a curious mirror property, albeit a distorted one. This is why it can be Chinese to one person, Turkish to another, Latin, Greek Hebrew, Catalan, Slavic. Everyone seems to find their evidence for a match, and yet none of them quite matches perfectly. This makes it very curious indeed...