I want to share some information with you, that may help others.
I think the manuscript is part of an early version of the Roteiro de Guiné, a travel report of the first travels of the Portuguese along the west coast of Africa. The book itself is from around 1500 (the Roteiro) and some researchers think its based on earlier encrypted reports.
Around 1400 the Portuguese started to travel at the west coast of Africa. The information were so valuable that the reports of the travels were encrypted. The Voynich manuscript could be a report that is a transcript of an early travel report. That would mean it could be a homophonic substitution ciphers, with special nautical words have their own letter combination (maybe indicated in the letter columns of the book, were one word is next to 2 letters). Because of the valuable information Portugal was leading in encryption at that time.
What are the hints that can be found in the manuscript. Nautical reports of that time consist of 3 sections a descriptive part of what has been found. Nautical travel information section and a section with the pure log book.
First, the plants that are shown in the manuscript have similarity with plants in Africa. For example the plant on page 34r is a protea. There are many other plants that have similarities, however since it is probably a transcript by a writer that has painted it from oral information transfer they all look like fantasy plants.
Naked woman at that time were a symbol for Africa and it is normal for that time that they are painted in white. It should show the difference between norther world and Africa.
The star section of the book (last pages) are probably the transcript of the log book. It contains a lot of repeating information in short paragraphs that are marked with a star. Its very similar to the log book of vasco da gama You are not allowed to view links.
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In the nautical travel information section we find a lot of circles with stars and compass roses. The compass roses have a typical wind god face in the middle which indicates in which direction the wind blows typically in east direction (shown by the direction of the face). This is absolut typical for Portugal around 1400. We found a very similar face in the compass rose of the well known Cantino_planisphere You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. . Which was stolen by "Italy" from Portugal around 1500.
However, the most important hint is in the zodiac sign section. There are two circle diagrams of aries. One is with woman that have clothes and the other one is naked. This round diagrams have been used for the astrolabe that has been used to navigate at that time in Portugal. However, if you travel around the west coast of Africa traditional Astrolabe made for the norther hemisphere became useless. You have to mirror the stars to navigate in the southern hemisphere. This was the key point and key secret that aloud Portugal to travel south. The both circle diagrams of aries show the two astrolabe versions, woman with cloth for the northern hemisphere and woman without cloths for the southern hemisphere.
The jars that are shown are typical jars from Sierra Leone of that time. You are not allowed to view links.
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Why its so hard to decipher the manuscript. Probably because of the homophonic substitution cipher paired with a very telegram style nautical log book style, maybe with a lot of
abbreviations and special nautical words. Maybe some special nautical words have there own combinations.
The paragraph sign is P or variant of the TT, which maybe indicates a new word, or that the TT is a P (for paragraph) or a C (for chapter). However, I am not a linguist. I just wanted to share the information that the manuscript could be a nautical report from the area of Henry the navigator.
Maybe you find other hints that support this theory, I am happy to discuss my findings. Sadly I have no access to very old books from Portugal, it would be interesting to read this copy of the Os mais antigos roteiros da Guiné Valentim Fernandes, Duarte Pacheco Pereira.