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The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

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• The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

• RE: The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

  LisaFaginDavis > 14-09-2026, 03:02 PM

  I didn't say he was Jewish - I was quoting the Bureau dossier, where there is a note suggesting he was. I have no idea what his faith or the faith of his family was. It certainly doesn't matter to me and it shouldn't matter to anyone else...but it would have mattered in the 1910s.

• RE: The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

  nablator > 14-09-2026, 03:15 PM

  (14-09-2026, 03:02 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I didn't say he was Jewish - I was quoting the Bureau dossier, where there is a note suggesting he was. I have no idea what his faith or the faith of his family was. It certainly doesn't matter to me and it shouldn't matter to anyone else...but it would have mattered in the 1910s.

  
  Yes you did, matter-of-factly, so it is impossible to tell if you were quoting a (false) information or if you meant it as a (true) fact.
  
  

  The Atlas Obscura podcast Wrote:And so they immediately started investigating him as a spy. Especially because he had this mysterious background, right? He had a background, you know, as a Russian revolutionary. He was Jewish, you know, he was so very suspicious of him as a Eastern European immigrant just after World War One. And you know, so this sort of anti-immigrant hysteria, he fit right into that. And no matter how many times he says that it's a medieval manuscript. It is not a code book for the US Army. It took several years for him to be exonerated.

  
  

  The Maniculum podcast Wrote:He takes it all over the country and he's showing it to people. One time, he's at a dinner in Chicago and he's bragging about his mystery coded manuscript and someone overhears, someone who works for the FBI and decides that he has to be investigated because he's got this thick Polish accent and he was Jewish and he was very suspicious.

• RE: The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

  LisaFaginDavis > 14-09-2026, 04:06 PM

  Not sure I agree that that wasn't clearly sarcasm, but I suppose you hear what you hear. I will say, the "gotcha" mentality of this site is pretty tiresome. It's one thing to be held to account with genuine critique, it's another entirely to parse each word looking for ways to accuse me of...what exactly? Imprecision? We should all strive for precision and take care when we speak. And that's what I try to do.

• RE: The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

  Torsten > 14-09-2026, 10:34 PM

  (14-09-2026, 02:21 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thank you, I agree with you absolutely. This is a podcast. It isn't a peer-reviewed essay or a conference lecture. It's a public-facing informal podcast, so while we should all take pains to be cautious in how we speak about the VMS, we also need to consider the context and audience of any presentation or publication.

  
  My point was not that you should provide references in a podcast. My point is that several of your statements do not seem to represent the current state of Voynich research — and I would like to understand what they are based on.
  
  The format question is easy to resolve: if the published sources supporting statements like "It's almost certainly not Asian. It's almost certainly not African." (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) and "It seems to be most closely related to some kind of Indo-European language, but we just don't know yet which one" (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) exist, could you point to them here?
  
  Note: Your argument about the language family is based on the observation that "consonants and vowels, which every language has" (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). It is important to distinguish between languages and writing systems: for instance Hebrew is a Semitic language with consonants and vowels like any other language — but the Hebrew script is an abjad that writes mostly consonants. If someone enciphered a Hebrew text, a search for separate vowel and consonant characters would fail — not because Hebrew language lack vowels but because the writing system used to write Hebrew does not represent them as separate characters.
  
  You write that you do not ever claim to know what the manuscript is. But to say "It seems to be most closely related to some kind of Indo-European language, but we just don't know yet which one." is an identification — whether or not the word "is" is used. I'm concerned that people will spend time trying to decode the text as Indo-European and refer to a statement by the Executive Director of the Medieval Academy of America as evidence for their language identification. That is why the published basis for your statements matters in my eyes.

• RE: The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

  bi3mw > 15-09-2026, 12:11 AM

  @Torsten: From a meta-level perspective, I understand that your “autocopier” theory isn’t compatible with Lisa Fagin Davis’s views. But with all due respect, that shouldn’t lead you to repeatedly confront her with nitpicking. It certainly matters whether, for example, you’re speaking about the VMS to a broad audience in a podcast or writing a scholarly article. Your claim that her statements do not reflect the current state of Voynich research raises the question of who defines this standard and what exactly this supposed standard refers to. I would be rather cautious with such statements, as they could give rise to the suspicion that one is indirectly referring to one’s own theory, which is to be elevated to the status of a standard, so to speak, through the back door. From such a position, anything that does not conform to it is then subject to a standard of accuracy that can never be met per se—at least not in “casual” communication about the VMS. However, such communication should remain possible, even here in the forums (including for men and women with specialized expertise).

• RE: The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

  eggyk > 15-09-2026, 01:21 AM

  (14-09-2026, 10:34 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My point was not that you should provide references in a podcast. My point is that several of your statements do not seem to represent the current state of Voynich research — and I would like to understand what they are based on.

  
  You say that "My point was not that you should provide references in a podcast", but then immediately request literary sources to backup what was said on the podcast. 
  
  If your implication truly wasn't that the references should have been provided, the implication in practice is then "if you ever say anything at all in public, best hope it was perfect or i'll make a lengthy post picking every point apart".

• RE: The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

  Torsten > 15-09-2026, 01:51 AM

  (15-09-2026, 12:11 AM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.@Torsten: From a meta-level perspective, I understand that your “autocopier” theory isn’t compatible with Lisa Fagin Davis’s views. But with all due respect, that shouldn’t lead you to repeatedly confront her with nitpicking.

  
  Your argument seems to imply that someone who disagrees with a position should not be allowed to ask questions about it. But nearly all Voynich researchers disagree with each other. If agreement were required to ask questions, nobody would be able to ask any question at all.
  
  Anyway, in my eyes to ask for published sources is the basis of any scholarly discussion. As Davis says "We should all strive for precision and take care when we speak. And that's what I try to do."

• RE: The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

  asteckley > 15-09-2026, 02:48 AM

  (14-09-2026, 10:34 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm concerned that people will spend time trying to decode the text as Indo-European and refer to a statement by the Executive Director of the Medieval Academy of America as evidence for their language identification. That is why the published basis for your statements matters in my eyes.

  
  Right. You're just being altruistic. Got it.

• RE: The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

  asteckley > 15-09-2026, 03:11 AM

  (15-09-2026, 01:51 AM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anyway, in my eyes to ask for published sources is the basis of any scholarly discussion. 

  
  If you do it based selectively on the subject matter, it may be "scholarly discussion", but when you do it so predictably on targeted people, it's just "being a bully." 
  The concern for people spending time trying to decode the text as Indo-European because of what Davis --or anyone-- says, is just nonsense.
  A real concern is that someone like Davis will decide her participation on this forum isn't worth the hassle and will stop contributing.  And who
  could blame her?

• RE: The Voynich Manuscript: Understanding the Untranslatable with Lisa Fagin Davis

  bi3mw > 15-09-2026, 03:33 AM

  Torsten worte Wrote:Your argument seems to imply that someone who disagrees with a position should not be allowed to ask questions about it.

  
  No, of course that's not what it implies. It means exactly what I wrote in this specific case.
  
  

  Torsten worte Wrote:But nearly all Voynich researchers disagree with each other.

  
  Exactly, that brings us back to the question of the standards you've proposed.
  
  

  Torsten worte Wrote:Anyway, in my eyes to ask for published sources is the basis of any scholarly discussion. As Davis says "We should all strive for precision and take care when we speak. And that's what I try to do."

  
  However, this does not change the fact that the degree of accuracy depends on the platform chosen for public expression and is determined by the intent behind it. In my opinion, the required level of precision can vary in this context. In the case of a podcast, for example, one shouldn’t expect the listener to be listening to an academic lecture and then be spoiled with a long list of sources and comprehensive references at the end of the episode. It simply doesn’t make sense here to weigh every word on a golden scale. Otherwise, it just becomes nitpicking.
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