03-02-2025, 10:39 AM
Following Aga Tentakulus 's observation that the x-s might be meta-linguistic (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.), how about we encode (x+) meta-linguistically as, say, bold font, and plain (+) as italic font. This gives us a likely two-part stanza like so:
si mavi mori vi ahia ma ria
It also suddenly looks remarkably like a medieval romance language, especially if we read mavi as "ma vi" and ma ria as "ma via", thus:
si ma vi mori vi ahia ma via
I am no expert, but Medieval Occitan is a very nice fit, especially as ahia is an attested variant of "aida", which means "help", and the second vi read as a known variant of the demonstrative derived from Latin ibi. ( My Occitan knowledge comes from here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. )
A fairly straightforward interpretation follows: "If my life dies there, help me on my way", or perhaps more idiomatically:
Wherever I should die help me on the journey
ahia ma via could still be read as ahia maria ("May Mary help!"), but the inserted extra cross above seems to me to be an after-thought to force a two-word reading.
I make no claim that any of the other lines of this marginalia are also Medieval Occitan (especially as the Germanic interpretations seem very good). I think what we probably have overall is a list of miscellaneous charms and recipes, and this little Occitan verse stands on its own as one of those items.
si mavi mori vi ahia ma ria
It also suddenly looks remarkably like a medieval romance language, especially if we read mavi as "ma vi" and ma ria as "ma via", thus:
si ma vi mori vi ahia ma via
I am no expert, but Medieval Occitan is a very nice fit, especially as ahia is an attested variant of "aida", which means "help", and the second vi read as a known variant of the demonstrative derived from Latin ibi. ( My Occitan knowledge comes from here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. )
A fairly straightforward interpretation follows: "If my life dies there, help me on my way", or perhaps more idiomatically:
Wherever I should die help me on the journey
ahia ma via could still be read as ahia maria ("May Mary help!"), but the inserted extra cross above seems to me to be an after-thought to force a two-word reading.
I make no claim that any of the other lines of this marginalia are also Medieval Occitan (especially as the Germanic interpretations seem very good). I think what we probably have overall is a list of miscellaneous charms and recipes, and this little Occitan verse stands on its own as one of those items.
![[+]](https://www.voynich.ninja/images/collapse_collapsed.png)
