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• No text, but a visual code

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 09-08-2025, 08:39 PM

  In Voynich research, theories and approaches to the script predominate. This has always been the case, and it seems contradictory because common sense tells us that we can understand a good number of images (not all) and build hypotheses about them rather than attempting to address a cryptic and intractable script. A study of Voynich iconography as intense as that of the script would certainly be productive. But unfortunately, in this century, the humanities are not in fashion.
  
    For me, the script is a byproduct, something secondary. What I mean is, the Voynich authors created an astrological book full of images to convey a message quite common in their time: the power of the stars. They could have left the illustrations alone, without the script, and the message would have been clear to the educated people of their time.
  
    One of them came up with the idea that the images could be accompanied by a kind of explanatory text, but what text can there be for something that the illustrations themselves already explain? That's how I think the script was born, an iconic code of symbols and astronomical positions that was included in the book as text. A kind of game.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 17-08-2025, 10:15 PM

  Although with obvious differences, my theory about the script is comparable to the conclusion that William Friedman reached after many years of study.
  
  As is known, Friedman thought that the Voynich script was an early attempt to construct an artificial or universal language of a priori type. That is, he didn't believe that groups of glyphs should be read as if they were words, but rather that each glyph should be interpreted separately, given that it represented a concept or category. Although he didn't make it explicit, according to his model, language would be formed by interpreting the first glyph of each group as containing a general idea, the second glyph would continue to develop the idea, and so on.
  
  What I agree with him on is that each glyph has a semantic content; it's a symbol that represents a reality. It can be a celestial object or a position on the eclitic circle. Each group of glyphs would represent a celestial configuration. Friedman, for example, would see gallows as a category that forms a chain encompassing other, smaller concepts. In a way, I also believe gallows are a category, since for me they represent the sun.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > Yesterday, 06:02 PM

  Let's imagine for a moment that the Voynich only had the astronomical and cosmological pages. It would still be a book with an uncertain message, given that some of its images are rarely seen in other medieval codices on similar topics. The script for that reduced VM would be the same indecipherable script that we see.
  
    If I were to say that the glyphs in that script are astronomical symbols, I'm sure my theory would be more credible since it would be consistent with the imagery. It would seem logical that astronomical and cosmological illustrations would be accompanied by those symbols.
  
   The strange combinations of glyphs we see in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. would make sense then; we see single glyphs in one circle, only groups in another, and in another circle, single and groups mixed together. All of this leads one to think of astronomical symbols and their combinations on a cosmological page. The star-filled folios f68r1/r2 would also make sense. It would be easier to see the labels as groups of symbols marking the star's position rather than names.
  
  Seeing that script accompanying the dozens of herbs in the Voynich makes one think of a text from a language, but in the medieval mindset that permeates this book, the stars are what create the herbs, and so it makes sense that they share the same symbols.
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