• Options
• Login
• Desktop Style

The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

• Index

  • The Voynich Ninja
  • Voynich Research
  • Theories & Solutions
  • The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
• The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

• RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

  Battler > 31-07-2026, 06:15 AM

  (12-07-2026, 09:46 AM)Noctula Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not exactly my turf and not exactly Chinese either, but resting in the same geographic area, anyone considered Hangul as a possibility?
  The Hangul writing system assembles letters into syllable blocks with an initial slot, a medial vowel slot, an optional final slot, so text is a linear sequence of internally slotted blocks, which structurally is, in my modest understanding, what Voynichese slot grammar does, at least in principle.
  
  Excluding many dissimilarities: Hangul and Voynichese use the same type of mechanical blueprint to build their tokens. Hangul uses that blueprint to map the infinite variations of human speech, while the Voynich system uses it to heavily lock down and restrict its underlying code. 
  Mechanically opposite objective functions while the blueprint is same and thus purpose-neutra
  
  But as said initially, not really my gaming area.
  
  -Noctula

  I have, I proposed the Korean hypothesis once, also because it makes chronologically sense - the Voynich Manuscript has been dated to the early 15th century and that's exactly when King Sejong was devising a new writing system for Korean, so this could have been an earlier attempt at it.

• RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

  rikforto > 31-07-2026, 04:57 PM

  (31-07-2026, 06:15 AM)Battler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The Hangul writing system assembles letters into syllable blocks with an initial slot, a medial vowel slot, an optional final slot, so text is a linear sequence of internally slotted blocks, which structurally is, in my modest understanding, what Voynichese slot grammar does, at least in principle.

  If you treat the jamo as letters, which they essentially are, I would not expect that you get the remarkable structure of Voynichese letter ordering because the finals significantly overlap with the initials. I'm not sure I've seen anyone run the entropy statistics on Romanized Korean text---and if someone is interested in tackling that challenge I have some thoughts about how to do it---but it has a very different quality from Pinyin or Chữ Quốc Ngữ.

• RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

  Damiro > Yesterday, 05:28 AM

  If you take a look at the ancient Chinese compasses they used for sailing (ancient drawings as well just google for "Ancient Chinese sailing compass 1400s and 1500s), you will see that there is a similarity between the Voynich drawings and whatever they used back then to sail the seas... It is quite possible that it were an inspiration for some of those drawings.  Now, I do not think that language is actual Chinese or any other language, my theory is that it is a set of indexes except for the parts that look like old German (will make a post about it should mods accept me to this forum).
  
  Cheers!

• RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

  ololololo > Yesterday, 03:43 PM

  Does the Chinese theory allow for the possibility that the author knew and could read the characters, but simply created a different system for writing them?
  In general, this may be possible. In any case, the book was clearly intended for sale or some other exchange, as there is no longer any point in bringing an unreadable book to Europe.

• RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

  Jorge_Stolfi > Today, 12:06 AM

  (Yesterday, 03:43 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Does the Chinese theory allow for the possibility that the author knew and could read the characters, but simply created a different system for writing them?

  
  If the author lived for a few years in the place, he probably picked up a few dozen basic Chinese characters.  But, AFAIK, to read a modern Chinese newspaper one needs to know between 2000 and 5000 characters.  Chinese students reach that level at the end of high school, learning a couple hundred characters per year.  Medical books like the Shennong Bencao use many specialized and old characters that not even a normal Chinese speaker can't read.   
  
  Therefore, it is highly unlikely (to put it mildly) that the Author could read those medical books himself.
  
  

  Quote:In any case, the book was clearly intended for sale or some other exchange, as there is no longer any point in bringing an unreadable book to Europe.

  
  The Author possibly expected to get some benefit from bringing that book to Europe.   Maybe he was a doctor himself, and hoped to learn some new remedies.  Or maybe he just imagined that doctors back home would be very interested.
  
  Anyway, I believe that hist goal at first was just to get the book in a form that he could understand, to the extent that his knowledge of the spoken language would allow.  The VMS we see today is not the result of that Dictation exercise.  It is a cleaned and edited version of his notes, that he prepared in Europe.  Perhaps in the hope of selling it to an interested doctor or scholar. Perhaps as a legacy for a disciple or heir.   
  
  All the best, --stolfi
• Next Oldest Next Newest