(Consider this thread as a bit of a brainstorming space.)

I have noticed that there are some problems with the way we refer to certain sections. There seems to be a tension between sticking to older names like "biological section" on the one hand, and moving towards more neutral terminology on the other. I have given this some thought, and, in my opinion, these are the pros and cons:


Old names: pros

• many of them have become conventions already
  
• they are used in quite a number of publications already
  

• Even within the conventions, there is variation (biological section = bathing section)
  
• Some (new) people might confuse convention with consensus
  
• Objectively speaking, some of these names include an assumption
  
• The terms and their meaning are not known to everybody. For example, I've seen a number of people use "recipe section" to refer to not only the final section, but also the small plants. 
  

Discussions in general and Positions we can agree upon

Most new discussions I do not read anymore because the positioned statement is 
formulated such a way that any discussion towards a good position is extremely difficult.

A good statement in my opinion:

1) holds a positive statement (and not a negation, or a double negation)
Good example: the figures in the manuscript are for 95% female with breast
Bad example: most figures are female but of those that are not female we can not say what they are.

2) is simple, plain, straightforward (and not complex, made of of subcategories etc.)
Good example:  the manuscript is handwritten in black ink
Bad example: the manuscript is made from vellum, handwritten, from north Italian region and is bound and rebound more than once.

3) open for a reasonable discussion
If a person want to bring up something entirely off the chart, this should be taken seriously. 

4) replies should be short
This is almost the longest post I've ever made on a forum, 
and I know I will only read it, because of the clear bulleted points, 
otherwise I would only scan the lines, which will give me at a glance what it is about.


Suggestion: 
Rating system per posting and not per person.

Here, replies can be rude towards one person and surprisingly kind towards another. 
For example: when you say 'thank you' to one poster and ignore another poster, by not mentioning his name, but mention your "friends" in your reply or thanking them.

In many discussions there are standard replies from the major "discussion leaders" with no real contents, just air.
It would be nice if those could be removed or marked as invaluable:  One writes that he already investigated that before, but has no exact knowledge which and when. Someone else will come up with a exact link and paper of research, from somewhere between the year -2000 till +2000, which is so old it has been discussed already a million times, and it does not add anything new to the table.  

A voting/rating system such as on stackexchange.com is highly recommended where there is a real voting system per posting + or -.
The positive aspect of it is, that we ourselves can learn from it: what is received as positive response and what not?

UPenn Lawrence J. Schoenberg MS LJS 419 is a XV Century Italian herbal, possibly from Veneto.

I just noticed that the leaves of the plant illustrated You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ("fugana"?) contain letters. It seems to be the same words repeated on each leaves. It seems to be clearly readable in the top left leaf: "uon" I would say.
Any idea of what this could mean? Color annotations come to mind, but "uon" does not seem to me to be like any Italian word for colors.

I think the plant could be the Eastern plant that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. calls "fagara d'Avicenna" (tentative idea, of course).

Actually, the name of the plant reads "sup[er]ana]", from the text of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., it's clear that the first letter is an 's'.
It corresponds to one of the plants in the Alchemical herbals: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
   

Hello everyone.  I'm was thinking what if the person who wrote the VM wrote it whilst looking in a mirror? Has anyone here looked into this line of thought? When I write in my journal, I sometimes like to write backwards and I know this way of hiding information is used by various people through out history- a very simple way of hiding information. So, perhaps he created a code using various Romani dialects and then transcribed the using a mirror to write them backwards, or upside down, or maybe both?

After some time of going through the VMS I found many numbers.  Have fun and another possible date.

Statement: The root of the plant at the top right of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was drawn to suggest an elongated animal.

Explanation: The head of the animal is represented in profile, in the upper part of the root. An eye and the mouth were drawn. The base of the stem of the plant corresponds to the mouth of the animal.

[NOTE:  the original statement was
"The root of the plant at the top right of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was drawn to suggest an elongated animal with forked tail". 
In the comments, it was pointed out that the forked tail might be two secondary roots. So I removed the reference to the tail.]

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
   

1) The roots of the plant in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. include depictions of two You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. heads.
2) The roots of the second plant of the bottom row  of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  include depictions of five anthropomorphic heads.
3) The roots of the fourth plant of the bottom row of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  include the depiction of an anthropomorphic head.

[This thread follows You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Trying to accommodate the suggestions of Anton, David et al.]

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
           

Excuse my dropping in from out of left field, but I read in Nature
last week a review of a new book about the manuscript. Now I've
been studying Rene Zandbergen's gorgeous website devoted to it.

Has anybody ever suggested that the VMS is no more (or less) than
a prodigious piece of what nowadays we call outsider or visionary
art, that happens to include a faux script as part of its
invention? If not, I'd be glad to elaborate on the notion, drawing
on my background in psychology and art appreciation.

If you don't vote in this poll, I will count it as you don't know.  If you count outside of the answers being higher or lower, I will count it as a null.  

Please vote as I'm looking to gain some insight into the text and you all being highly smart with the VMS I need your partnership and this is what this forum is for.

Results will be released in two weeks.

The question is often discussed whether spaces in the VMS are real spaces or not.

In his You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Bennett specifies that space is the most frequent character in the languages that are considered there (Western European languages mostly). Interestingly, I have never thought of a space in that way before reading the book.

I decided to check whether this is true for Voynichese. I did a very brief check (less than 600 character long - first and fourth paragraphs of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in Takahashi's transcription) for a trial indication - and it seems that it is. The space (represented by the dot in the transcription) is ranked first, accounting for 17 and 16% of the total, respectively. I added a space to the end of each line except the last line of a paragraph. I also included "titles" in the count.

I suspect this is the sort of a check that must have been performed before me. Are there results for a more solid body of the text than two paragraphs? D'Imperio does not count spaces, and neither does the "Voynich Reader" tool.

Do the results speak in favour of the assumption that spaces are spaces? It's 3am in Moscow, so I'm not sure right now