observations made to date on the manuscript

The writing is neat, with distinct letters and clearly defined ascenders and descenders. Some letters show similarities to humanistic writing, including rounded forms and consistent spacing.
Ligatures are present in the manuscript, although their style may differ from that of typical humanistic manuscripts. Some ligatures appear fluid and skillfully executed, while others seem forced or unusual.
The letters in the manuscript exhibit similarities to humanistic writing, especially in the rounded shape of the letters. However, variations in certain letters and ligatures could indicate regional influences or unique styles.
The manuscript displays elements resembling humanistic writing, as well as other styles such as Gothic and Caroline scripts. The absence of common ligatures like "æ" and "œ" in the manuscript is noteworthy.
The manuscript may have been influenced by specific regional styles, but it also seems to fall within the broader framework of humanistic writing  


 

This looks like an interesting game (for Windows users):

Medieval Dynasty

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SpringerLink published this year a book about Friedmans, and touches the Voynich question also.

The Gambler and the Scholars
Herbert Yardley, William & Elizebeth Friedman, and the Birth of Modern American Cryptology
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Might be quite entertaining to read.

Torsten Timm and Andreas Schinner have published on 19. of July a study related to the material of the Voynich Malta 2022 conference.
I don't have access to it but abstract is below.

"Abstract

The International Conference on the Voynich Manuscript 2022 at the University of Malta has covered many aspects of the current Voynich manuscript research. We discuss a representative selection of the conference proceedings, in particular the question of existing versus non-existing linguistic structures that indicate some underlying meaningful text.
"

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Regarding the question if "pox" can be a genitive form, we need a situation where the scribe decided to replace the usual spelling /cks/ by /x/. Did this ever happen? When did scribes use /x/ to begin with? 

As a quick test, I went through the cookbooks transcribed at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. These are the situations:

* /x/ is not used at all: B1, B2, B5, B6, Br1, Bs1, Er1, Ha1, Hi1, M1, M7, M8, Mi1, N2, Pr1, Sb1, St1, Ste1, W2, Wol1
* /x/ is only used in Latin numerals: B3, B4, Bs2, Db1, Er2, H2, H3, H4, Ka1, Ka2, Ka3, Ko1, M2, M5, M6, M9, M10, M11, N1, Pa1, So1, W1, W4, Wo2, Wo3, Wo4
* /x/ is only used in Latin numerals and paragraphs of Latin text: A1, K1, Sb2
* /x/ is used in Latin loanwords within the German text: Ds1
* /x/ is used in German words: Gr1, Sb3, Wo1, Wo7, Wo8, Wo9, Wo10, Wo11

Summary: 46 manuscripts in this selection do not use /x/ at all, or only as a Roman numeral. Four additional manuscripts only use it in Latin words. Only 8 manuscripts use /x/ in German words, and most of those are later than the 15th century.

The manuscripts that use /x/ in German words show the following examples:
Gr1: sex, waxein, wax, wüext, braxsenn
Sb3: sex
Wo1 (16th or 17th century): oxn, bix
Wo7 (16th century): flux, oxen, wax, waxen, weixel, weixsel
Wo8 (17th century): bix
Wo9 (17th century): weixell, weixel, weÿxel, weixeltaig, oxenzungen
Wo10 (16th century): Mastix, Weyxel, weÿxlen, bux, oxen, wax
Wo11 (16th century): Oximell, laxiert, simplex, complexi, Storax (Latin loanwords)

An interesting observation here is that /x/ tends to gravitate towards certain words that become associated with it: ox, wax, bix, weixel. I did not encounter a single situation where an incidental /ks/ like in the genitive pocks is replaced by /x/. 

Hence, it is possible that the spelling /pox/ became associates with expletive use, but it is in my opinion much less likely for a simple genitive of pock, "male goat".

This was just a small selection of manuscripts, but they do paint a certain picture of the use of /x/ in 15th century German texts. Maybe counterexamples can be found.

Does anyone here use the Voynich 1.01 TTF font? The font file name is 'voynich.ttf' and I downloaded it from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I have an issue with it. It is that when I use this font in MS Word words at the end of a line are split and the split segment is moved to the next line. So when I look at a word at the beginning of a line I can never be sure if it is a whole word or the end part of the word that was truncated on the previous line. It must be something wrong with the font because this behaviour never happens with the EVA Hand 1 font ( filename 'eva1.ttf' ).

Does anyone have a solution to this?

Thanks,

here's a VM consideration video I made recently about the celestial bodies section.

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Here's a video consideration video of the first plant section
It's has about 75,000 plays

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Please let me know what you think (*- -)(*_ _)ペコリ

In "The Voynich Manuscript - An elegant Enigma" Jeffrey Krischer is introduced in chapter 6.7. At one point it says: "At the time of writing his paper Krischer planned to carry out further studies."

I have not heard of this Voynich researcher yet. All I could find were the following entries:

JSTOR, Directory of Scholars Active
---------------------------------------
*L493. Analysis of the Voynich Manuscript
Chief investigator: Jeffrey P. Krischer, 380-A Great Road, Acton, MA 01720.
Scope: To perform an analysis of the language of the Voynich manuscript in an effort to
determine the grammar and usage for translation.
Type of computer used: IBM 360/65, PDP 1, CDC 6400. Language and level: FORTRAN,
MIDAS.

Does anyone know of any publications by this researcher ? After all, he is mentioned in one breath with Friedman, Tiltmann, Currier etc..

Edit:
Here is a find on a paper by Krischer from 1969:
Krischer, J. "The Voynich Manuscript." A term paper for Linguistics 205, Harvard University, Spring 1969.
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While trying to categorize the plants in the VMS, I noticed that the schematic structure is partly similar to the one in the Materia Medica. What I mean by schematic can be illustrated by the following example ( the similarity can therefore be quite abstract ):

   

Here the direct comparison with a Materia Medica ( Dioscorides ) from the 15th century:

   

                   
 
   

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I am not saying that the plant illustrations in the VMS are in the Materia Medica tradition, only that there are similarities. A comparison with other 15th century MS would also be interesting here.

Edit: As already shown in the opening example, several comparisons are possible in some cases.

I've spent quite some time looking at medieval cookbooks in German these days, and one of the things I noticed is that they often include the ingredient "mandel", i.e almonds. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that gave us the previously noticed attestation "mandelmich", also has a recipe form "mandelmuos":

Quote:So du wilt machen ein mandelmus . so nim mandelmilch . vnd semelin broet . vnd snide daz wuerfeleht vnd tuo daz in die mandelmilch vnd erwelle daz . vnd nim einen apfel vnd snit den wuerfeleht . vnd roest den in eime smaltze . vnd tuo daz vf daz mandelmuos . vnd gibz hin .