I have hinted at it a couple of times, but finally it is done. I present to you the first episode of Voynich Talk! I wanted to make more videos like the interviews David and I did before, but also I wanted some more freedom in the format.

Instead of interviews with a single guest, I would like to invite one or more guests to talk about a selected topic.

As for the expected publication schedule, there is none. I  don't expect to put out more than one video a month, since these take a lot of my spare time, and also I don't want to wear down potential (recurring) guests and topics too quickly. If I can approach some semblance of long-term regularity, I will be happy.

Normally, the talks will be focused on the guests and their input on the topic, and I will just guide the conversation.

However, for this first episode, we did something different. Together with Cary Rapaport, I have been researching the Herbal section (large plants). We studied different elements of the plant drawings, and noticed that many of them were near-exclusively found in either Herbal A or Herbal B. As it turns out, there are many more consistent features indicating the typical A-style and B-style than were previously known.

We developed the system to such a degree that we could now easily classify most plants as A or B by looking at the picture alone.

I even thought that we could probably teach someone else, thereby testing the validity of the system in the process. And so the idea for the first episode of Voynich Talk was born.

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Thanks to Lisa Fagin Davis, Lars Dietz (@Oocephalus), Michelle Lewis and David Jackson for their participation!

For a more in-depth discussion of distinctive plant features, see:
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Very pleased to announce the publication of Keagan Brewer's and my work below:

The Voynich Manuscript, Dr Johannes Hartlieb and the Encipherment of Women’s Secrets

Social History of Medicine, hkad099, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Published: 22 March 2024

Abstract
The Voynich manuscript is a famous European enciphered manuscript of the early fifteenth century featuring herbal, pharmaceutical, astrological and anatomical illustrations, including hundreds of naked women. Some hold objects adjacent to or unambiguously pointed towards their genitalia. This paper therefore investigates the culture of self-censorship, erasure and encipherment of women’s secrets, with a focus on Dr Johannes Hartlieb (c. 1410–68). Hartlieb had enduring apprehensions about the propagation of women’s secrets in vernacular Bavarian, which culminated in a call for ‘secret letters’ to hide recipes for abortifacients and contraceptives. Other cases of encipherment relating to sexual intercourse and genitalia will be described. On the basis of this evidence, we propose that the Rosettes, the largest and most complex illustration in the Voynich manuscript, represents coitus and conception. This hypothesis explains many of the illustration’s features and establishes a variety of future research possibilities.

Because of licensing fees, this is behind a paywall, but a broader summary is available You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. at The Conversation.

This work expands on what Keagan presented at the Malta Conference.

For those who do not know Keagan and his work, a summary can be found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

Keagan is scheduled to present on this at our upcoming Voynich Day celebration and we're happy to discuss on this thread.

   

it's on quire 19, surrounded by a few other familiar looking plants/vegetables.

Several new posts at my Voynich blog, including these reflections on the repetitive nature of the text:

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Further thoughts on mapping the Voynich manuscript to Middle English, with the aid of the Auchinleck Manuscript:

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(08-04-2024, 07:47 PM)Antonio García Jiménez wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Today there was a solar eclipse that could be seen in various parts of the world. It would be strange if there were not in the VM, with so many astronomical diagrams, the representation of an eclipse. Some illustrations suggest eclipses. At least one is clear, although with a very childish drawing.This is this illustration from f67:

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Astrological aspects, angular relationships of the Sun and Moon are represented in the corners of this page. In the drawing that I have shown, the opposition between the Sun and the Moon is represented. In the middle we see the Earth with that nice cone that represents the shadow that the Sun projects on the Moon in an eclipse.

1. Centers of events - Augsburg, Munich, Prague - the inner circle of Duke Albrecht III and Emperor Sigismund I of Luxembourg.
2. Group of putative collective authors: Kaspar Bernauer, Johannes Hartlieb, Jacob Pueterich von Reichertshausen, Abraham von Worms and from three to seven more specialists in the field of balneology, herbal medicine, pharmacology, gynecology, astrology, cryptography, cosmology and white magic.
3. Jakob Pueterich von Reichertshausen (1400–1469) was one of the most trusted advisors of Duke Albrecht III, whom Albrecht III also served as an accomplished diplomat, and it was most likely he who wrote the Voynich Manuscript along with Dr. Hartlieb and company.
4. The group developed an imitation font and created the Voynich Manuscript for white magic sessions in order to attract clients to pharmacies, medicinal baths, clinics, etc.
5. There are three candidates for the prototype castle from the Voynich Manuscript: Blutenburg Castle, Nannhofen Castle and Pasing Castle.
6. Perhaps there were several manuscripts.
7. One of the copies was presented to Anna of Brunswick and then went to Emperor Rudolph II. Or maybe Emperor Rudolf II owned another copy of the manuscript from the library of his predecessors - Emperor Sigismund I of Luxembourg and intermediate successors?

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Is the Voynich Manuscript encrypted (encoded, enciphered)? (April 2024)

I think the Voynich Manuscript...

- is a constructed language.
- is encrypted and the base language is Latin.
- is encrypted and the base language is a non-Latin European language.
- is encrypted and the base language is a non-European language.
- is encrypted but I don't know the base language.
- is not encrypted but an unknown script of an unidentified natural language.
- is not a human language but written by mermaids/angels/extraterrestrials/etc.
- is something meaningful but other than the above options.
- is meaningless, all you people were duped by a hoax.
- Don't know / Not sure / No comment.

In your opinion, did the writing of the VM start closer to 1412 or closer to 1440?

This relates to something I was pondering earlier today, but I'd like to see the poll results first. The poll is anonymous, but you can always comment if you like. If you have no idea, then pick what feels best to you. This is not intended to find any solutions, just to see how opinions are divided.

[I know: it's speculative, just an experiment, not a theory, I'm not buying it myself.]

Omitting spaces in a ciphered or coded message only makes sense if the original string of symbols or code words can be reconstructed.

The problem with using MZ's slot sequence directly on space-less Voynichese is that there are several ways to insert spaces: the same glyphs appear several times in the slot sequence. So I tried a different slot sequence as an experiment to see what happens: this is an attempt (un-optimized, just an example) to re-parse vords of space-less Voynichese unambiguously.

In this example, I removed all spaces from the first paragraph of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

polcheyqokedySholopchedyolpchedyofShdyoly
dcheylShlolchedqokolcholotarchedyoky
qoteylcheesolkalolchedyokarShedy
dchedyqokainololchcThyykeedyal
qolcheolokeeyolololaiinolorain
sarolesesoteeyShorqokeeyol
dSheesokainchcThyoteyokain
pchedyqokeeyotyqoteyoteeyoly
qoteesyqotedyqokeedychcPhey
choldainotedycheeyqotainly
olSheololkedyShecKhedyoltedy
ychedytedyolSheedyqokeeyloly
dcholShedyqotedyqolchedychetyry
qokechedyqolSheedyorainaroloeeedy
sainolcheedyqokeedyotedy

Then vords were re-constructed using the following unambiguous 10-slot sequence defined as a regular expression:

Replace:
"((qo|)(k|t|p|f|)(ch|Sh|)(c(K|T|P|F)h|)(eee|ee|e|)(o|a|)(iii|ii|i|)(d|l|r|s|)(m|n|)(y|))"
with:
"\1\."

Spaces at the end of lines were removed:

Replace:
"\.$"
with:
""

Result:

pol.chey.qokedy.Shol.o.pchedy.ol.pchedy.o.fShdy.oly
d.chey.l.Shl.ol.ched.qokol.chol.o.tar.chedy.o.ky
qotey.l.chees.ol.kal.ol.chedy.o.kar.Shedy
d.chedy.qokain.ol.ol.chcThy.y.keedy.al
qol.cheol.o.keey.ol.ol.ol.aiin.ol.or.ain
s.ar.ol.es.es.o.teey.Shor.qokeey.ol
d.Shees.o.kain.chcThy.o.tey.o.kain
pchedy.qokeey.o.ty.qotey.o.teey.oly
qoteesy.qotedy.qokeedy.chcPhey
chol.d.ain.o.tedy.cheey.qotain.ly
ol.Sheol.ol.kedy.She.cKhedy.ol.tedy
y.chedy.tedy.ol.Sheedy.qokeey.l.oly
d.chol.Shedy.qotedy.qol.chedy.che.ty.ry
qoke.chedy.qol.Sheedy.or.ain.ar.ol.o.eeedy
s.ain.ol.cheedy.qokeedy.o.tedy

Not bad, but all prefixing o, d, l, r, s, and "Janus pairs" are separated, these are the main differences with a typical transliteration.

Spaces that should probably be omitted, in any consecutive vord pair of the previous paragraph, according to MZ's slot sequence, are marked with ",":

pol.chey.qokedy.Shol.o,pchedy.ol,pchedy.o,fShdy.oly
d,chey.l,Shl.ol,ched.qokol.chol.o,tar.chedy.o,ky
qotey.l,chees.ol,kal.ol,chedy.o,kar.Shedy
d,chedy.qokain.ol,ol.chcThy.y,keedy.al
qol,cheol.o,keey.ol,ol.ol,aiin.ol,or.ain
s,ar.ol,es.es,o,teey.Shor.qokeey.ol
d,Shees,o,kain.chcThy.o,tey.o,kain
pchedy.qokeey.o,ty.qotey.o,teey.oly
qoteesy.qotedy.qokeedy.chcPhey
chol.d,ain.o,tedy.cheey.qotain.ly
ol,Sheol.ol,kedy.She.cKhedy.ol,tedy
y,chedy.tedy.ol,Sheedy.qokeey.l,oly
d,chol.Shedy.qotedy.qol,chedy.che.ty.ry
qoke.chedy.qol,Sheedy.or,ain.ar.ol,o,eeedy
s,ain.ol,cheedy.qokeedy.o,tedy

The two slot sequences complement each other well, using the 10-slot sequence to get the shortest possible vords and MZ's 12-slot sequence to figure out which concatenations are probable.

If most of these "," are removed, and a few "." as well the end result is close to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

The hypothesis is that Voynichese was constructed from components in which glyphs were strictly ordered in a slot sequence or similar (it could be a partial order relation or what would be best described by a tree or a finite state machine, because all combinations allowed by the 10-slot sequence don't occur) then spaces were omitted randomly. This randomness was non-uniform, there were preferences, these preferences are (imperfectly) modeled by MZ's slot sequence.

Of course 15th century scribes knew nothing about finite state machines and regular expressions, but they could have a practical implementation that was easy to use. For example the rule that glyphs must be strictly ordered can be enforced by a simple rule in a zigzag path on a square table using glyphs as coordinates: each linear segment of the zigzag path must cross the diagonal and, if we want more constraints, vertices could be forbidden on some areas of the table. I haven't abandoned my theory/delusion about zigzag paths and board games.