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Could the Voynich Manuscript be a private educational system?
- Could the Voynich Manuscript be a private educational system?
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Could the Voynich Manuscript be a private educational system?
barienka > 18-05-2026, 11:00 PM
I have been thinking about the Voynich Manuscript from a more psychological and human perspective rather than as a pure cryptographic problem.
What strikes me most is the contrast between the highly disciplined writing system and the relatively naive illustrations. The text appears systematic and internally consistent, while many drawings look almost childlike or non-professional.
This made me wonder whether the manuscript could have been a deeply personal knowledge system rather than a book intended for the public.
One idea that especially interests me is the possibility that the manuscript may have been connected to teaching or transmitting knowledge within a very small private circle, perhaps even between a parent and child, or a mentor and a younger student.
The botanical drawings often look less like professional scientific illustrations and more like functional memory-images. Some plants appear to combine several stages of growth or important identifying features rather than trying to represent a realistic botanical specimen.
Another reason why I am drawn to this interpretation is the strange linguistic behavior of the text itself.
Perhaps the manuscript is not a true spoken language at all, but a hybrid system somewhere between language, classification, memory aids and personal notation.
This could explain why modern linguistic and AI analyses detect patterns that resemble real language, while at the same time many sections appear repetitive, mechanical or algorithmic.
If the author was organizing knowledge through a highly personal symbolic structure, then parts of the manuscript could naturally behave like technical notation or internally coded reminders rather than normal human communication.
I also wonder whether the author could have been someone highly intelligent but outside formal academic structures, possibly even a woman with limited access to official education in the 15th century. Such a person might have created a private symbolic system to organize botanical, medical and astrological knowledge gathered from fragments of learning available around them.
The astrological sections seem especially important because they connect the manuscript to real medieval systems of knowledge that remained relatively stable over time.
To me, the manuscript feels less like a hidden universal language and more like the internal operating system of a very unusual human mind.
I would be curious whether other researchers have explored similar psychological, educational or family-based interpretations. -
RE: Could the Voynich Manuscript be a private educational system?
Rafal > 19-05-2026, 01:31 PM
Some interesting issues raised here.
Quote:What strikes me most is the contrast between the highly disciplined writing system and the relatively naive illustrations. The text appears systematic and internally consistent, while many drawings look almost childlike or non-professional.
I suppose we could all agree on that. Handwriting is much better than illustrations. But it doesn't mean that the artist was a child, only that he or she was inexperienced in drawing. You can for a laugh ask some your adult friends to draw a human or a horse and watch the results
Quote:I also wonder whether the author could have been someone highly intelligent but outside formal academic structures, possibly even a woman with limited access to official education in the 15th century.
It is possible for me. This or just having only a brief contact with formal knowledge and education. I once suggested a link to goliards or clerici vagantes, "eternal students" who often got into some shady business and generally preffered a tavern to a library.
Quote:To me, the manuscript feels less like a hidden universal language and more like the internal operating system of a very unusual human mind.
Well, it's one of the perspectives. If you read these forums, you will discover another ones - pure hoax, Asian language, story told in pictures with unimportant text and so on. -
RE: Could the Voynich Manuscript be a private educational system?
dashstofsk > 19-05-2026, 02:36 PM
(18-05-2026, 11:00 PM)barienka Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.between a parent and child
(18-05-2026, 11:00 PM)barienka Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.technical notation or internally coded reminders
Really? How many people do you know who correspond with their children in technical cypher? I can give you a big round number. -
RE: Could the Voynich Manuscript be a private educational system?
Jorge_Stolfi > 19-05-2026, 07:37 PM
(18-05-2026, 11:00 PM)barienka Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What strikes me most is the contrast between the highly disciplined writing system and the relatively naive illustrations. The text appears systematic and internally consistent, while many drawings look almost childlike or non-professional.
I would not call the writing "highly disciplined". It looks nice only by comparison with the illustrations. But the baselines are all bent and unevenly spaced, the letter size varies from word to word, the glyph shapes are all over the place, the right text rail is more like a suggestion than a hard straight line, ...
My feeling is that the Scribe had a reasonably firm hand and did have some experience with a quill, but had never done much drawing before he started working on the VMS. He learned this second skill as he went along. I also suspect that he had no experience writing on vellum. I imagine him as someone who used to write business letters, ledgers, log books etc, or copy lecture notes for students -- but never got to write important documents or copy books for sale. In particular, I cannot see him as working in a "manuscript factory" like those that were run by monks.
Quote:This made me wonder whether the manuscript could have been a deeply personal knowledge system rather than a book intended for the public. ... connected to teaching or transmitting knowledge within a very small private circle, perhaps even between a parent and child, or a mentor and a younger student.
The use of vellum and the fancy illustrations do not fit that theory. They make more sense if the book was intended for other people, who would have appreciated or expected such details.
Quote:I also wonder whether the author could have been someone highly intelligent
I would not say "intelligent", but indeed the script and the general consistency of book across the various topics seems to imply an educated person. The script was designed with specific goals which were sustained through the whole book.
And we keep finding that many of the illustrations were "inspired" by illustrations in other manuscripts that were circulating at the time -- the sort of books that only "scientific"-minded scholar would have.
Quote: but outside formal academic structures, possibly even a woman
The quality of the vellum and the amateurish Scribe tell me that the Author was rather strained financially. Could have been an old retired scholar, or book-loving amateur, living out of a pension or supported by of relatives. Maybe he undertook to put the book to vellum as an attempt to save his knowledge or elucubrations for posterity.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Could the Voynich Manuscript be a private educational system?
Linda > 20-05-2026, 05:14 AM
(18-05-2026, 11:00 PM)barienka Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have been thinking about the Voynich Manuscript from a more psychological and human perspective rather than as a pure cryptographic problem.
What strikes me most is the contrast between the highly disciplined writing system and the relatively naive illustrations. The text appears systematic and internally consistent, while many drawings look almost childlike or non-professional.
This made me wonder whether the manuscript could have been a deeply personal knowledge system rather than a book intended for the public.
I agree with the idea that it was meant to encode the information for personal use, or that of a small group.
I think the drawings may be less naive than meets the eye.
Quote:One idea that especially interests me is the possibility that the manuscript may have been connected to teaching or transmitting knowledge within a very small private circle, perhaps even between a parent and child, or a mentor and a younger student.
The small group might be for teaching, or it might be for ease of making up the unencoded version(s) more quickly than one person can, if you wanted to provide someone else in the group a copy, for instance, (or someone else, who might be willing to pay for that product)
Quote:The botanical drawings often look less like professional scientific illustrations and more like functional memory-images. Some plants appear to combine several stages of growth or important identifying features rather than trying to represent a realistic botanical specimen.
Agreed. There are mnemonics everywhere. But this makes it difficult, sometimes, depending on whether it is a cultural mnemonic or a personal one. In many cases I see cultural ones, ie animals or insects that others can recognize, a way of depicting correct atributes while being overall incorrect to how it looks. Having a tapeworm root can mean it is a parasitic plant, for instance.
Quote:Another reason why I am drawn to this interpretation is the strange linguistic behavior of the text itself.
I wish I could see what is going on with it. It seems to me one would not make it so difficult to put it back together, if it is meant to work that way. If it isn't meant to be put back into anything, it seems a waste of time to no real end other than resemble some sort of language as a red herring to it being meaningless?
Quote:Perhaps the manuscript is not a true spoken language at all, but a hybrid system somewhere between language, classification, memory aids and personal notation.
Probably. Hard to figure out what the memory aids are if we don't know what is to be remembered.
Quote:This could explain why modern linguistic and AI analyses detect patterns that resemble real language, while at the same time many sections appear repetitive, mechanical or algorithmic.
Some of the observations about the text leave me wondering... doesn't make sense to me to spend a lot of time to make up stuff to fill a page up with nonsense. I see real value in the visual mnemonics, I can only hope there is a method to the madness of the text. The choice of alphabet seems like it could be based on personal pet peeves, things often misunderstood? d/b/p with looped ends can all look the same as an 8, for instance...if not here, then in other texts.
Quote:If the author was organizing knowledge through a highly personal symbolic structure, then parts of the manuscript could naturally behave like technical notation or internally coded reminders rather than normal human communication.
Shorthand, a personal version?
Quote:I also wonder whether the author could have been someone highly intelligent but outside formal academic structures, possibly even a woman with limited access to official education in the 15th century. Such a person might have created a private symbolic system to organize botanical, medical and astrological knowledge gathered from fragments of learning available around them.
Yes I think that is what this is, an encyclopedia of the world and its surroundings.
Quote:The astrological sections seem especially important because they connect the manuscript to real medieval systems of knowledge that remained relatively stable over time.
I put them third after Baths and Rosettes. Actually, Rosettes and Baths.
Quote:To me, the manuscript feels less like a hidden universal language and more like the internal operating system of a very unusual human mind.
The distance of time is not so much when discussing the natural world around us, especially when there is a history to the knowledge that they knew, and they knew that history too. OK, some of the knowledge gets lost or mixed up, but we know even more now, but we also know some good hints at what they knew, and where some of those things came from. Now add in the unusual mind. They included in this compendium several TO maps, which originated with Isidore of Seville, (c. 560 – 4 April 636) who wrote a compendium of his time's knowledge. This seems like someone's own personal compendium for their time, but kept as though they are hiding it from anyone other than perhaps a trusted few, or just themselves. At least that is the way it turns out, at present.
Quote:I would be curious whether other researchers have explored similar psychological, educational or family-based interpretations.
I think much of it is out of order and that therefore, some context may be missing. Full of mnemonics and visual ambiguity. For that reason I think it is a family/group treasure, as long as they can read it, they can turn out the parts they wish to their intended forms for whatever benefit it may offer themselves or others.
It could have existed before any children, then as each are born, they become indoctrinated to it, first you look at the pictures and tell little stories, then you have them draw out what each thing is meant to represent, then you tell the names and the histories attached to all of these things, all the while connecting the things with the mnemonics. Maybe you teach them how to make vellum too. Maybe they got better at it, maybe we know their work. Wouldn't that be something.
But at some point the last who had it who knew how to read it passed away without passing on the secrets to whomever next had it in their possession, it could no longer be read and got to us as we know it now.