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Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
- Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
-
Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
eggyk > 20-02-2026, 04:43 PM
Theory
My speculation is that the recipes section You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. may be a multilingual glossary. Each subsection (assumed as words beginning with p) would then start by listing the different ways the object is pronounced, with both dialectal differences and language differences. The repeated words -such as "okedy okeedy"- would be similar to eachother because they represent a homophonic representation of the different ways that people call the same object.
An example of what I mean in english is something like this: (written with vowels in IPA to signify my attempt at some different dialects):
Bellis Perennis: Also Deɪzi, Deɪzɪ, Dɛɪzi, also Deese or Deezɛ, rarely called Deɪz aɪs, is found in...
(Bellis Perennis: Also "day-zee", "day-ziih", "dayy-zee", also "Deh-seh" or "Deh-ze", rarely called "Dayz eyes", is found in...)
Malus domestica: Pomme, Poma, also Apfel, Appel, sometimes Malum or mala, is found in....
How this fits with what's known about the VMS
Use Case
The use case for such a glossary is quite straightforward. The author wanted themself -or anyone who could understand the script- to be able to know the different names that people have for various things. If they lived in a fairly multicultural area, or an area with frequent through-traffic, having a knowledge of how certain things are called would be especially useful. I imagine there would be a LOT of overlapping names too (especially with plants and herbs), with one culture differentiating between two similar things where another doesn't.
Such a place could be somewhere like along the trading routes that ran between italy and western europe, with frequent travellers of various tongues. If the author wanted to buy, sell, acquire or find a specific plant for use, knowing that some people say "day-zee" and some say "Deh-Seh" or some people say "pomme" and others "Poma" is probably very useful.
Lower quality parchment/drawing/decoration
If the document was intended to be used, perhaps day to day, outside in the rain, during travels, during preperation of materials or other activities, as opposed to only read in an academic context, it makes sense to use a slightly less expensive material for this. It also could be a reason for the lower quality drawings and colouring. Why waste time making a perfectly decorated manual if theres a good chance it will smudge, or be ruined during the intended use?
I thought I would use this thread to discuss the merits of this theory (which i'm sure is not unique of course) but also to post some things that i've noticed that led me to it. The first of which is a re-transcribing of some of the first lines of subsections using a different alphabet, which i will post immediately under this post.
Looking for signs of this theory in the text
Effects of using a specific transliteration alphabet
When looking for words that are potentially similar to one another, the transliteration alphabet that you use has an effect. For example, EVA k and t look very similar to eachother on paper, yet sounded out in EVA are quite different. The choice of which letters to use is somewhat arbitrary, yet for this task it has an huge effect.
In order to make the transliterated alphabet easier to sound out, I'm adjusting the EVA and using that for these examples. As long as the transliteration is consistent, our choice of specific letter used to represent each symbol doesn't matter for these purposes. This is just to demonstrate the potential properties of the words.
For clarity, I will use BOTH the EVA and my adjusted version in any examples.
The adjustments to EVA and their reasoning
Adjusted EVA: k = tl, t = thl, l = th, y = -us / con-, m = ré / ch = er / sh = ér
The most important changes are to take similar looking Voynichese symbols and assign them letters that are closer in sound than in EVA.
l: based on it sort-of looking like a cursive greek theta ϑ or the letter thorn Þ (which often resembled wynn ƿ and y).I'm using "th" as it's easier to write.
m: looks like r with a flourish, similar to "re" or "te" in some manuscripts. I have chosen "ré" arbitrarily here, with an accented é only for clarity in examples.
k: splitting the gallows into two letters and assigning TL, simply based on it somewhat resembling a TL
t: again splitting the gallows, assigning L the same way as above but interpreting lL instead of TL, making THL
ch: assuming that c is actually e , and the crossbar is a property of h, so ch = eh . h looks like a small cursive r, so "ch" = "er"
sh: same assumptions as "ch", but s = é
q also gives plenty of issues, but for the purposes of this thread I am going to consider q to be a type of contraction, marker or punctuation instead of a plaintext letter. Something like "also, and, +". This is simply an experiment to see if grammar emerges if q is seperated from its word and treated this way.
Example You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 30:
EVA: Polshedaiin qokeoy keol chokeol qotedy qoteedy dar raiin shedy qotain oteedy
EVA: Polshedaiin qokeoy keol chokeol qotedy qoteedy dar raiin shedy qotain oteedy
aEVA: Pothéredaiin q otleous tleoth chotleoth q othledus q othleedus dar raiin éredus q othlain othleedus
There are a few things of note here.
1) Words that did not obviously relate to eachother in EVA suddenly seem far more alike. Compare "qokeoy / qoteedy" vs "otleous / othledus". It seems far more likely that some people may say "otleous" and some may say "othledus". Its less likely that someone may say "okeoy" and someone else says "oteedy".
2) Words similar to the constituent parts of "Pothéredaiin" are found after "dar raiin". P-oth-éred-aiin contains "éred" and "oth-aiin", and "éredus" and "othlain" are seen in the sentence. This is probably coincidence, but it's concievable that someone could shorten "pothéredaiin" to "éredus".
3) The first words to not be part of a string of similar repeated words is "dar raiin". The structure is something like (repeated words),(repeated words), dar raiin (slightly different words). I will discuss this further on, but this structure matches other first lines of other subsections.
Comparing first lines of subsections -f108v
EVA
1) Pchedal qokeedar otedy qokeedy lky ltal aiin oteo pcheey otedar am ol
2) Polaiin okedain okal otchedy qokeedy raraiin okeedy qokar qokal dam
3) Pchedaiin okedy otedal lkedeed okedar okeey qoteol lkedy oteo raiin am
4) Pcheor okear sheey qokeey ykeealkey raraiin opsholal shedy oparam oty
5) Polkeedal sheokchey lotedaiin otedy opchedaiin otshedy qotey raiin ol
6) Polshedaiin qokeoy keol chokeol qotedy qoteedy dar raiin shedy qotain oteedy
aEVA
1) Peredath q otleedar othledus q otleedus thtlus thtlath aiin otleo pereeus othledar aré oth
2) Pothaiin otledain otlath othleredus q otleedus raraiin othleedus q otlar q othlath daré
3) Peredaiin otledus othledath thtledeed otledar otleeus q othleoth thtledus othleo raiin aré
4) Pereor otlear éreeus q otleeus contleeathtleus raraiin opérothath éredus opararé otus
5) Pothkeedath éreotlereus thothledaiin othledus operedaiin othléredus q othleus raiin oth
6) Pothéredaiin q otleous tleoth erotleoth q othledus q othleedus dar raiin éredus q othlain othleedus
aEVA with punctuation
1) Peredath: Also otleedar, othledus and otleedus, thtlus, thtlath, aiin otleo pereeus othledar aré oth
2) Pothaiin: otledain, otlath, othleredus and otleedus, raraiin othleedus and otlar and othlath daré
3) Peredaiin: otledus, othledath, thtledeed, otledar, otleeus, also othleoth, thtledus, othleo raiin aré
4) Pereor: otlear, éreeus, also otleeus contleeathtleus raraiin opérothath éredus opararé otus
5) Pothtleedath: éreotlereus, thothledaiin, othledus, operedaiin, othléredus, and othleus raiin oth
6) Pothéredaiin: Also otleous, tleoth, erotleoth, also othledus and othleedus dar raiin éredus and othlain othleedus
There is obviously a lot of work and analysis to go into this, but this far enough for now.
Edit: it seems that posting a reply simply adds it to the OP, oh well -
RE: Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
oshfdk > 20-02-2026, 05:30 PM
(20-02-2026, 04:43 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Adjusted EVA: k = tl, t = thl, l = th, y = -us / con-, m = ré / ch = er / sh = ér
If these are the right phonetic mappings, the underlying text has no K, L, M sounds at all, which seems very strange. I'm not sure I know a language with wouldn't have at least one of these three in some form. -
RE: Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
rikforto > 20-02-2026, 06:21 PM
(20-02-2026, 05:30 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(20-02-2026, 04:43 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Adjusted EVA: k = tl, t = thl, l = th, y = -us / con-, m = ré / ch = er / sh = ér
If these are the right phonetic mappings, the underlying text has no K, L, M sounds at all, which seems very strange. I'm not sure I know a language with wouldn't have at least one of these three in some form.
Even if you get good coverage of the phoneme inventory of the Silk Road, the problem of the fairly rigid order characters is still outstanding. This conjecture solves the problem of locally similar words, but doesn't get us any closer to explaining why globally there are fairly dramatic limitations on where certain characters can appear in a "word", or why the apparent alphabet is so small. -
RE: Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
oshfdk > 20-02-2026, 06:25 PM
rikforto: even under the Chinese theory? I thought its main (if not the only) strong point is explaining the rigid structure using the way syllables are constructed in monosyllabic languages -
RE: Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
eggyk > 20-02-2026, 07:29 PM
(20-02-2026, 05:30 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(20-02-2026, 04:43 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Adjusted EVA: k = tl, t = thl, l = th, y = -us / con-, m = ré / ch = er / sh = ér
If these are the right phonetic mappings, the underlying text has no K, L, M sounds at all, which seems very strange. I'm not sure I know a language with wouldn't have at least one of these three in some form.
So these mappings aren't intended to be a correct phonetic mapping, not at all. Those changes are not an extensive list of possible changes that could be done, nor an attempt at a genuine substitution. To an extent they are arbitrary.
The point is that mapping similar looking symbols to similar sounding sounds totally changes which words correlate with which and in my view shows clusters of connected words that you may expect from such a glossary.
For example, "qokeedar otedy qokeedy" dont look all too similar, but after those changes you have 3 very similar words "qotleedar othledus qotleedus". -
RE: Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
rikforto > 20-02-2026, 09:06 PM
(20-02-2026, 06:25 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.rikforto: even under the Chinese theory? I thought its main (if not the only) strong point is explaining the rigid structure using the way syllables are constructed in monosyllabic languages
Perhaps, but I don't think the two strands play very nicely here. If it is a document for European use, I would expect European glosses as well, not to mention other languages that don't fit the profile of a standard Mainland Southeast Asian language. On the other hand, if those non-MSEA glosses are in Voynichese, that would prove Voynichese is capable of encoding a European language, and undercut the need for the Chinese Theory in the first place.
I can't with full intellectual honesty say neither possibility is conceivable, but they do seem to be stepping on each other's toes, if that makes sense? -
RE: Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
eggyk > 20-02-2026, 10:28 PM
(20-02-2026, 06:21 PM)rikforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Even if you get good coverage of the phoneme inventory of the Silk Road, the problem of the fairly rigid order characters is still outstanding. This conjecture solves the problem of locally similar words, but doesn't get us any closer to explaining why globally there are fairly dramatic limitations on where certain characters can appear in a "word", or why the apparent alphabet is so small.
Nor is it intended to, by the way.
My intention is to call focus to the potential that in this specific area of the manuscript there may be sets of correlated words, and that those words could be the various names for an object.
Something that potentially suggests this is opchedaiin (operedaiin) from subsection 5, which matches the first word of subsection 3: pchedaiin (peredaiin). Interestingly, in subsection 3 there is otedal (othledath) which is quite similar to the first word of subsection 5: Polkeedal (Pothtleedath). Such crossovers make sense in a glossary (maybe even expected in a multilingual glossary), if certain terms are exchangeable between dialects/languages.
I also deliberately coloured some text in red, namely "raraiin, aiin, raiin, dar raiin". They don't appear at the exact same place in each line, but always after a set of repeated words.
I've been considering that if "aiin" is really "am", raraiin may be "raram", which could be an indication of rarity. It's a stretch. However, it could make sense if words with "raiin" represent some kind of qualifying clause within a sentence though. -
RE: Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
oshfdk > 20-02-2026, 11:10 PM
(20-02-2026, 09:06 PM)rikforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Perhaps, but I don't think the two strands play very nicely here. If it is a document for European use, I would expect European glosses as well, not to mention other languages that don't fit the profile of a standard Mainland Southeast Asian language. On the other hand, if those non-MSEA glosses are in Voynichese, that would prove Voynichese is capable of encoding a European language, and undercut the need for the Chinese Theory in the first place.
If I remember correctly, Jorge_Stolfi's answer to this was something like "the original notes of the author could have contained European notes and translations and remarks, but this specific rendering on vellum was specifically designed to only contain the original manuscript in its phonetic form with no extraneous writing". This is not impossible and not even very strange, if one thinks of it as a presentation document accompanied by a separate booklet of notes.
As I said elsewhere, the storyline accompanying the Chinese theory is not totally unbelievable, and I think with some minor tweaks it can be made very plausible.
For example, if we replace the Reader with the Teacher:
- the Author (European, can speak some Chinese, but cannot read/write Chinese characters well) meets the Teacher in China and the Teacher is enthusiastic about spreading the teachings to Europe, so he agrees to help the Author create an accessible copy of his works
- however, being Chinese, the Teacher insists that the book cannot be translated from laconic Chinese into a European language without losing most of the meaning, or the Teacher simply wants to make sure that the teachings are rendered as closely to the original as possible
- on the other hand, the Teacher understands that it's also impossible to teach the Author how to write the Chinese characters quickly enough
- the Teacher studies Latin writing and decides to adapt some Latin script forms (throwing in gallows as a mix of Chinese forms with Latin letters) to create a phonetic representation of Chinese that the Author could write down quickly enough and also that certainly will make it easy for European scribes to create many copies of this work in Europe
- the Teacher dictates the work and checks that the Author writes it down correctly and precisely without any extra writing, notes or comments in a foreign language, to preserve the purity of the work
- in Europe the Author orders a vellum copy and asks the Scribes to throw in some pictures to make the book appear more valuable
and this is how we got the VMS. I really see no problem with this, especially if the whole work was sponsored by the Teacher (or the Emperor), so the Author was obliged to keep it precisely as it was. However, after making a single copy in Europe the Author wasn't able to find any interest, or maybe died and without his knowledge of spoken Chinese the book became useless.
As a story this works fine for me. However, as far as supporting evidence goes, I think I haven't anything even remotely convincing so far. -
RE: Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
Jorge_Stolfi > 21-02-2026, 07:47 AM
(20-02-2026, 11:10 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If I remember correctly, Jorge_Stolfi's answer to this was something like "the original notes of the author could have contained European notes and translations and remarks, but this specific rendering on vellum was specifically designed to only contain the original manuscript in its phonetic form with no extraneous writing". This is not impossible and not even very strange, if one thinks of it as a presentation document accompanied by a separate booklet of notes.
I do think that the Author made a glossary (among many other writings that did not go into MS 408). However, this glossary:- Would have been a separate document, on paper.
- Would have been arranged alphabetically according to whetever order the Author chose for his alphabet.
- Would have contained only the "Chinese" terms that he did not know.
- Would contain only a few diseases and a few remedies that he could recognize from explanations by a local doctors.
- It would map Voynichese to his own native language, not to Latin.
The core of the SBJ was probably written before 100 CE, thus even Chinese scholars struggle to identify many of the diseases and remedies in it. I don't know how many diseases it covers, but since there are 365 recipes, and each may list half a dozen or more of "main uses", they are probably a couple thousand. Even if the Author was an European doctor (and I doubt he was) he probably would have not recognized the disease from the description that a local doctor could give, much less figured out its name in his own language.
Thus his glossary, at best, would have contained only a small fraction of those thousands of terms. It would not list "dān xióng jī" because the Author knew that it meant "red rooster", and it would not list "kài nì" because he would have not been able to understand the Dictator's explanation.
And moreover it is quite possible that his native language was not a major European language. (That could explain why it has been so difficult to identify the language of the month names.)
All this to say that his glossary would have been of limited use for himself, but practially useless for any other European readers. What those readers would need was a comprehensive dictionary from phonetic "Chinese" to a major European language. But the first one, (Mandarin-Latin) was compiled and published in Rome only in the late 1500s...
Quote:For example, if we replace the Reader with the Teacher: ...
Indeed, there are many other possible scenarios. Offhand, I cannot rule out this alternative one.
Quote:the Teacher insists that the book cannot be translated from laconic Chinese into a European language without losing most of the meaning
Or, rather, neither he nor the Author could translate most of the terms.
All the best, --stolfi - Would have been a separate document, on paper.
-
RE: Theory that the final section is a multilingual glossary
eggyk > 21-02-2026, 02:10 PM
(21-02-2026, 07:47 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thus his glossary, at best, would have contained only a small fraction of those thousands of terms. It would not list "dān xióng jī" because the Author knew that it meant "red rooster", and it would not list "kài nì" because he would have not been able to understand the Dictator's explanation.
(21-02-2026, 07:47 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And moreover it is quite possible that his native language was not a major European language. (That could explain why it has been so difficult to identify the language of the month names.)
All this to say that his glossary would have been of limited use for himself, but practially useless for any other European readers. What those readers would need was a comprehensive dictionary from phonetic "Chinese" to a major European language. But the first one, (Mandarin-Latin) was compiled and published in Rome only in the late 1500s...
The idea of a multilingual glossary (and by multilingual, I mean more than a 1-1 translation of a foreign glossary) would be different to this, right?
I'm not stating that this glossary would be a phonetic transcription of a foreign document, but that the names of each object would be written phonetically for the different languages that the author would interact with.
Using my example from the OP about apples:
Malus domestica: Pomme, Poma, also Apfel, Appel, sometimes Malum or mala, is found in....
Written like this:
Malus domestica pomme poma qafpel appel raiin malum mala am ol.....
What "language" is the above text? There are only a couple of words in the sentence that are truly the authors language, but the rest are phonetic transcriptions of a specific word in other languages. If this was being used in a non-academic context, this would be incredibly useful in areas with frequent travellers of different tongues.
Imagine a buyer looking for apples, not knowing exactly where the seller is from.
"Pomme? Poma?",
"???",
apfel? appel?",
"???",
"hmm, let me check my book... malum? mala?",
"Ahh, mala! Yes right here!"
The inverse works too, with a seller trying to sell apples to various travellers wandering by:
"Pomme! Poma! Apfel! Appel! Malum! Mala! We sell Pomme! Poma! Apfel! Appel! Malum! Mala!"
"Oh, that person looks asian.. check the apple section in the book... where's the marker for asian words... ah! píngguǒ! PingGwo! Ku-shu!"
This type of usage would be personal and the book would become useless as soon as the readers of the phonetic script die. It would also not be like other genuine bilingual or multilingual dictionaries, which attempt to translate all types of words: nouns, verbs, pronouns, tenses for as many words as possible. This would be far more limited, and only for the objects useful to the author.
You only need 1 word to buy or sell apples to a person, and that word is "Apple" in the person's native language. Context and handwaving does the rest.