Is there a possibility that the Voynich manuscript is all one big hoax? I've been researching this topic for almost a year now, and I've heard countless theories, and I feel as though it would make sense, especially for the time period it was made in, as at that time many royals collected rare texts, so maybe a con artist did so very well with this text. But I'm open to being proven wrong, so if you know anything, please reach out! 

The manuscript Commentarii super Parvulum philosophiae naturalis is a 15th century philosophical treatise owned by a Jakob Lauber, a Swiss rector of the University of Basel. The manuscript itself is mostly uninteresting from a Voynichese point of view, as it is predominantly composed of text. That is, until the last two pages, where we find some illustrations that look familiar, in a sense. Consider the following snippet, for instance:

   

The lines and strokes in the "wave" pattern are reminiscent of the illuminator of the VMS. There are other such patterns in the manuscript. Here is another example:

   

Again, this gives (to me, at least), Voynichese vibes.

There is also a small "illumination" on the first page:

   

which also reminds one of the style of some plant bulbs in the VMS.

However, no more illustrations appear in this manuscript and the illuminator responsible for the above images is... unknown.

I have found a detailed description of the item on the website of the University of Basel, which lists many pieces of historical information, but nothing about the illuminator:

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And you can browse through the entire manuscript here, if you wish:

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What do you think?

I was just texted by a friend who asked me if I was going to the Voynich talk at the Yale Club in New York City this Wednesday evening (1/14/25). I told him I had not heard of it, and then did a search... searches, a million different ways... and could find nothing. Nothing is listed on their site, but they don't offer a "calendar of events" there anyway.

Does anyone know what this is, or who is speaking? I am only about 35 miles above NYC, and might consider popping down to see this, if possible. But I also suspect that if my friend's information is correct, it may be a private affair.

Rich

I’ve been spending a little time with the zodiac folios and related cycle diagrams in a loose, exploratory way. Nothing systematic yet, mostly looking, noticing repetition, and following my curiosity rather than trying to solve or identify anything.
What keeps catching my attention is how much of the structure can be read as temporal rather than symbolic. The way divisions repeat, how some sequences appear to stop or change rhythm, and how different folios seem to care about duration or flow more than labels. It feels less like decoding and more like watching how time might be handled or experienced across the pages.
I don’t know whether this overlaps with work that’s already been done, and I’m not presenting this as a theory. I’m sharing it simply as something I’ve been playing with visually and intuitively, in case it’s useful, familiar, or sparks a connection for someone else working in this area.
If this belongs somewhere else or connects to existing threads, I’m happy to be pointed in the right direction.

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Hey y'all! I've searched all over the Internet. Yes, even in the third page of Google results. But, I didn't really find anything. I need some sort of thingy to work with when I start translating. The alphabets I've used in the past turned out to be just little fun fake thingies put together by random people. 

This is probably a stupid question, but I'm just looking for an alphabet to use? Did anyone make that? 

Thanks! 

As some of you might know, I am a big supporter of the hypothesis that the VM has Arabic/Muslim influences, especially in the balneary section, which I believe to be Arabic Hammams (link to thread: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). In this vein, I searched contemporary (14-15th century) Arabic manuscripts to see if there is something that ressembles the VM. I believe I have found something of interest.

The Kitab al-Bulan (or so-called Book of Wonders) is a late 14th century manuscript, more info here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Here is an example of Voynichese characters in one of the folios:

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Note the gallows-like character on the right hand side as well as the other clearly non-Arabic symbols that closely ressemble Voynichese. Here is another example:

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As you can see, there is one of the gallows on underlined text in the center-right, as well as multiple characters that are in the VM that appear in the figure on the left hand side. Given that this text is written exclusively in Arabic, this seems odd, to say the least.

You can find a full scanned copy here:

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Here are a few interesting folios:

• Folio 72: more Voynichese characters
  
• Folio 78: several gallows-like characters
  
• Folio 255: some kind of translation table
  
• Folio 365: text with Voynich-like glyphs
  

Hello everyone , I think the first few words of the first line in the voynich manuscript is

Facts move as OlauJ crow.

Translation to this is: 

The book is saying The observable laws of nature operate exactly as the scholar Olaus proclaims.
Olaus was a student and scholar in 1420s when the voynich parchment was made in 1404-1438.

It makes perfect since as Olaus had diverse knowledge, he was incredibly educated and eventually became the bishop of turku. He would have known Latin, early German dialects and possibly secret shorthand used by scholars in Paris as he went to Paris for university.

It seems to me that the plant being depicted on folio f19r could be Mimosa pudica. Almost all features of this plant match the description. Here is a picture of Mimose Pudica:

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Two sets of leaves (large and clustered, as well as small and diverse) appear on the folio. The small bulbs that are characteristic of Mimosa Pudica also appear. The large flower on top, while not perfectly accurate, is also depicted.

A peculiarity of this plant is that if you touch it, it's larger leaves will automatically fold downwards and inwards. I believe this is eactly what is being shown in folio f19r. Here is a depiction of the plant's repsonse to touch:

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It is called "touch me not", because if you touch it, it will respond defensively using an electric inner reaction. 

Could the striking ressemblance to the VM be merely coincidental? Maybe. The only issue is that this plant is native to South America only.

I will try to list a few conspicuous systems in the Voynich manuscript that I personally consider to be (grammatical) markers or at least verifiable systems.
my Assumption for this thread:  a and y = a
word search = voynichese.com

1) the regularitiy of c+h to ch
more than 85% of the words that begin with the c+h also begin with ch
(clustered words see nr. 2 not considered separately)
over 85% (or more if we separate the clustered words)  are the same "c+h" and "ch"
(This system is already widely accepted)
 
2)   The clusterd words: 
we find often words that occur both individually / separate and as word clusters.
 
For example the word: tol
F21r: tolchory we also find it separately tol and chory
F 21v: toldc+hy we also also find it separately tol and dc+hy
F39r: tolkchdy we also find separately tol and kchdy
F38r: tolor we also find it separately tol and or
F48r: tolkeol we also find it separately tol and keol
 
For example the word: chol
F6v: choldar we also find it separately chol and dar
F34r: cholchedy we also find it separately chol and chedy
F22r: choldchy we also find it separately chol and dchy
F29v: cholody we also find it separately chol and ody
F17r: choldc+hy we also find it separately chol and dc+hy
Some more clusted words that we find also as single words:
cheodam or cheo and dam
kamdam or kam and dam
cheodar or cheo and dar
qokalchey or qotal and chey or qo kal ceey
We frequently encounter these word clusters in the manuscript. However, there seems to be no specific system governing whether the words are written separately or together.

3)   The system of prefix, baseword and sufix
There are already several threads that deal extensively with the topic of word structure in the Voynich Manuscript, dividing word formation into prefix, base, and suffix. However, the question remains: what is the base word, and how can it be identified? 
Or on the other way, can we locate the prefixes and sufixes?
(I will address the prefixes in this thread)
the first prefix that is widely accepted as a prefix is qo- qo -
In the first step, we could assume that the word qo- qo - is followed by the base word, possibly with a sufix. As for example:
qotol, qokchdy, qokeor, qochol, qodal, qochedy, qodchy, qoody 
Qotol, qokchdy, qokeor, qochol, qodal, qochedy, qodchy, qoody 
In some cases, this does indeed appear to be the case. However, there are special cases in which it seems that the gallows characters or other prefixes following the prefix qo- before the baseword starts.
(so the gallow sign can be both another prefix and /or the first letter of a word)
Evidence for the function of prefixes as above mentioned:
We find the word:  eees if we could assume that eees is a base word because we find the follwogin form, too:
Also we find the word qoeees with the prefix qo, we find also  oeees but never qooeees
So we can assume that the word oeees ist eees with the prefix o
The same happend with deees we never find the word qodeees we can assume that d is an prefix of eees
we find a possible evidence that the gallow signs in part are prefixes:
we find the word qoteees and oteees as above mentioned the baseword eees but never the word teees
 
we can take the word dor (73x in the manuscript)
we find the word as: qodor and also as: qotedor also as okedor and odor but never as kedor
The assumption that the root words have prefixes (as mentioned above) arises from a closer examination of the words; however, this is currently my subjective assumption. Therefore, I searched the manuscript for a system that works for a larger number of words.

4) the "e" extention
o/a/y to eo/ea/ey
This could be one way to identify the root words. Words whose second letter is "o" or „a/y“
(a/y being less common) tend to change their stem by adding an "e" before the "o" or „a/y“

Here some examples:
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This system could be one approach to separating prefixes from word stems. It doesn't always work since not every word has a partner with „e“ However, after analyzing the word structures in the manuscript and considering the strong arguments for a prefix-base-suffix system, it could help answer the question of prefixes and word stems. If we find and analyze enough words with the word structure "e", we discover the same prefix systems even in words that don't have an "e" extension.
 
The system shown below illustrates how the prefixes repeat themselves in the same form.
If we allow for a moment the assumtion, that e.g. daiin is a baseword because we find also deaiin we can search for the Prefixes:

odaiin, ydaiin, qodaiin, chodaiin, padaiin, todaiin, tedaiin, chedaiin, c+hedaiin, chdaiin, c+hdaiin, c+hpydaiin, pc+hdaiin, sodaiin, ytodaiin, tchdaiin, oldaiin, chodaiin, cheodaiin, qochodaiin, dodaiin
 
for example the word chol (cheol)
ochol, ychol, ypchol, dchol, otchol, qotchol, chopchol, kchol, okchol, tchol, qochol,
kchol, fchol, opchol, ofchol, ytchol, schol, chechol, 

next example kol (keol)
okol, ykol, dkol, qokol, chkol, chokol, c+hkol, lkol, otykol, c+heekol,

next example tol (teol)
ytol, otol, qotol, cheotol, chotol, chtol, c+hotol, kc+hotol, totol, potol,

we can use also examples in which the above mentionted system doesnt take place.
What we see ist that the system is the same. We always find the same prefixes.
kaiin (no keaiin found) but as we use the word kaiin as baseword we find the same prefixes as above:

Ykaiin, okaiin. Qokaiin, qykaiin, chkaiin, c+hkaiin, chokaiin, sykaiin, kokaiin, chekaiin, skaiin, lkaiin, olkaiin, cheykaiin, ykykaiin, chekaiin, c+hekaiin, qekaiin, cheekaiin, ekaiin, oekaiin, qoekaiin,
one question what I asked me is how could it be sure that kaiin is the baseword? Could k also be the prefix of aiin (as we find aiin in the manuscipt with all prefixes, too) but if you broaden your search you find chkeaiin, qokeaiin, okeaiin with the same prefixes as we still know. There are for sure still the last possibility that ke ist a prefix too (as it coud be), so we would deal with the word aiin but as we find the word kokaiin it is nearly sure that kaiin is the baseword because we never find kok as prefix.
 
We can make more expample: kor (keor)
okor, ykor, qokor, qekor, oekor, chkor, chokor, cheokor, lkor, chekor, c+hokor, olekor,

The word cho (cheo)
ocho, ycho, qocho, dcho, scho, tcho, otcho, pcho, opcho, kcho, okcho, ofcho, ykcho, ytcho, qotcho, qofcho, qokcho, chetcho, qokecho,

example chor (cheor)
ochor, ychor, qchor, tchor, otchor, ytchor, kchor, okchor, ykchor,  pchor, opchor, ypchor, fchor, ofchor, yfchor, qokchor, qotchor, qopchor, qofchor, chochor, schor, lchor, dchor,

example: chain (cheain)
ychain, schain, dchain, qokchain, kchain, opchain,
we can also seach for the prefixes of cheain - ycheain, tcheain, ocheain

Although it is debatable because of the letter spacing in the manuscript, some of the single prefixes seem to occur both connected to the base word and on their own. (as we can see under point 2 based on the clustered words)

so we find the following single prefixes:
o, y, s, l, d, ch, c+h, e, q, t, k, p, f
and also the form of two letters:
do, so, qo, qy, qe, ol,
po, py, pe
to, ty te
ko, ka ke
cho, cha,
and three letters (cho, chy to cheo, chey)
cheo, chey,
 
5)   The gallow signs
If we start with prefixes, base words and suffixes, we must also look at the topic of the gallow signs as they are used as prefixes and also as part of the base words.
 
As mentioned earlier, we find gallows signs as prefixes.
If we look at word stems that begin with "ch", we find those in which the gallows symbols are located within and before the "ch".
chor, cheor, pchor, kchor, fchor, tchor, kcheor, pcheor, tcheor,
cPhor, cKhor, cKhor, cpheor, ckheor, cpheor
next word:
chol, cheol, pchol, kchol, tchol, fchol, tcheol, kcheol, pcheol, fcheol
cphol, ckhol, cthol, cfhol, cpheol, ckheol, cfheol, ctheol
next word:
cho, cheo, pcho, kcho, tcho, kcho, pcheo, kcheo, tcheo,
cpho, ctho, ckho, cpheo, ctheo ckheo, cfheo
next word:
choy, cheoy, kchoy, fchoy, pcheoy, cphoy, ckhoy, cfhoy
next word:
chs, ches, kchs, fchs, ckhs, cfhs, cths, cthes,
next word:
chd, ched, pchd tchd, tched, pched, cthd,
next word:
chod, cheod, tchod, pchod, kchod, tcheod, cphod, cthod, ckhod, ctheod, ckheod
next word:
chaiin, cheaiin, pchaiin, kchaiin, tchaiin, cthaiin, cphaiin, ckhaiin, cfhaiin,
next word:
chody, cheody, kchody, tchody, pchody, cthody, ckhody, cphody, pcheody, tcheody, kcheody, fcheody, ckheody, cpheody, ctheody, cfheody
next word:
chdy, chedy, kchdy, tchdy, pchdy, fchdy, cthdy, ckhdy, cfhdy, pchedy, tchedy, fchedy, kchedy, cthedy, ckhedy, cphedy,
next word:
chy, chey, kchy, pchy, tchy, fchy, ckhy, cphy, cthy, ckhy,
kchey, pchey, tchey, fchey, ckhey, cphey, cthey, cfhey

What we see is a repetition-based prefix system, so we can assume that the base word is always the same and only the prefixes change. 

Several authors have already proposed the idea that the VM is a women's health manual. There are several reasons for thinking along this line: a disproportionate amount of attention given to the female body in the manuscript, the taboo nature (and therefore willingness to encode) such a subject matter, as well as other sexually explicit imagery. Nonetheless, this is difficult to prove as the different themes in the manuscript cannot be linked to a specific set of contemporary practices, places or objects.

In my opinion this is not true, and I can give three arguments in favor of there being Arabic or Persian inspiration for women's health practices in the book.

Argument 1: The balneary section (the baths) are depictions of 15th century Hammams

A Hammam is basically an Arabic bathhouse. It features many advanced technologies such as a sophisticated tube system, gravity-assisted water provenance, and water spouts coming from walls, an early form of the shower concept. They were also heated, and had steam inside. Note that while these were totally absent in European baths at that time, Arabic Hammams in the 15th century were already equipped with these. 

There are many examples, one of them being the Hammam al-Mokhfiya, in Morocco, built in the late 14th century. Another one is the Hammam as-Sarah, in Jordan. This latter already had a complex system of pipes built in. You can find an archeological survey about this bath here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Some of these baths were powered using Qanats, another islamic invention for a dynamic underground water supply system. Many folios, including You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the VM, could allude to such a system. Here is a description of a Qanat: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Qanats were initially used for irrigation, but then also for other water supplies, such as hammams. In this picture, you can see the cross-section of a Qanat system, which reminds one of some of the VM tube drawings: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Another point of similarity with the VM is that it depicts baths with only women in them, and the concept of gender-segregated hammams was already common in Arabic hammams (sometimes called "hammam al-nisa"). There are several depictions of muslim baths with only women in them, in contemporary arabic miniatures, easy to find on internet.

Finally, in hammams, the pools were often connected to one another using pipes in which water flowed. This is reminiscent of folio f78r, or f81r, for example, which show exactly such a scene. On top of the image, you can even see what I believe is a system of pipes coming from a Qanat.

On folio f81v, you can see water being supplied to what appears (to me) to be a hammam supplied with water from a hammam pipe coming from a Qanat.

On folio f75r, you can see a woman in the middle enjoying the hammam bath water. I believe that is because the water is warm, which is typical of contemporary hammams.

On folio f82v, you can see women standing in small pools of water. This seems to me to be the part of the hammam where you clean your body before you actually enter the pool.

So it seems to me, that the idea that the balneary section depicts islamic hammams, seems to "fit" with the images in the manuscript. Of course, I could be totally wrong, too.

Argument 2: The containers and vessels might depict contemporary Persian oil lamps

The containers on folios f88/f89 have been the subjects of many debates. Are they ink vessels or apothecary storages? To me, they look like oil lamps. While not available in Europe at the time of the carbon dating of the VM, such lamps were available since the 11th century already in Persia. What makes them stand out as candidates to the VM vessels (as opposed to ink stands or apothecary bottles), are the following features: (1) the tripods are characteristic to oil lamps of that time in Persia, (2) the multi-layered design of the containers is typical of such lamps, and (3) many lamps were either decorated in blue paint or covered in copper, which then fades away with time and becomes green, which is what we see in the images of the VM.

Here are a few examples: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

Note that these would have been colored at the time of creation.

Argument 3: An Arabic or Arabic-inspired women's health manual would be worth encrypting to avoid persecution

Women's health was already a taboo at that time, women preferred talking to each other in order to exchange ideas or secrets about gynecology, menstruation and other health topics, instead of putting everything into a book. So a book on this subject, especially with foreign (non-Christian) origin or inspiration, would definitely be a cause for enciphering its contents.

This might (or might not) also explain why there are no mentions of Jesus or other Christian symbols in the entire manuscript.

Finally, I will add that the calendar section is heavily focusing on the Moon and its phases, which is the typical time keeping method in Arabic/Islamic countries and cultures at that exact time.

So, could it be that the VM is inspired by Arabic women's health secrets? Or perhaps a translation from an Arabic health manuscript? What do you think?