Voynich manuscript discussion: 2005 January 22
Voynich manuscript.
Looks like a hoax to me.The Stars and Stripes are a dead giveaway, with the cute modern facial cartoons. Don't we have enough of this rubbish with the Da Vinci code.
When a hoax is a hoax...
I would not be to quick to jump on the hoax bandwagon as the easiest thing to do if you can't figure it out is to say "It doesn't mean anything!"
or "It's nothing but gibberish" After all we would never have been able to translate heiroglyphs if it were not fot the rosetta stone.
or "It's nothing but gibberish" After all we would never have been able to translate heiroglyphs if it were not fot the rosetta stone.
This excerpt from the SciAm article (link previously posted in thread) seems to second the motion that it's a hoax:
"For example, the word lengths of Voynichese form a binomial distribution--that is, the most common words have five or six characters, and the occurrence of words with greater or fewer characters falls off steeply from that peak in a symmetric bell curve. This kind of distribution is extremely unusual in a human language. In almost all human languages, the distribution of word lengths is broader and asymmetric, with a higher occurrence of relatively long words. It is very unlikely that the binomial distribution of Voynichese could have been a deliberate part of a hoax, because this statistical concept was not invented until centuries after the manuscript was written. "
http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm? ... 414B7F0000
But the Stars and Stripes, or for that matter the Procter and Gamble logo arrived even later than the binomial distribution - and I understand the ink on the manuscript has been dated conclusively.
"For example, the word lengths of Voynichese form a binomial distribution--that is, the most common words have five or six characters, and the occurrence of words with greater or fewer characters falls off steeply from that peak in a symmetric bell curve. This kind of distribution is extremely unusual in a human language. In almost all human languages, the distribution of word lengths is broader and asymmetric, with a higher occurrence of relatively long words. It is very unlikely that the binomial distribution of Voynichese could have been a deliberate part of a hoax, because this statistical concept was not invented until centuries after the manuscript was written. "
http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm? ... 414B7F0000
But the Stars and Stripes, or for that matter the Procter and Gamble logo arrived even later than the binomial distribution - and I understand the ink on the manuscript has been dated conclusively.
The origin of the pic
It's a hoax!!! The pic posted on AOPD, 1/22/05 is clearly that of the headdress for a captain of a Fancy Brigade for a Philadelphia Mummer’s parade, circa 1920. Accordingly, the script is probably of South Philly origin too which would account for the inability of linguists and cryptographers to understand it. ![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
Voynich manuscript
This is probably a book on astrology written by an amateur who made his or her living by telling fortunes.
Languages of Cape Verde Islands
Republic of Cape Verde. República de Cabo Verde. National or official languages: Portuguese, Kabuverdianu. 408,000 (1998 UN). Literacy rate 37% to 70%. Information mainly from J. Holm 1989; S. and T. Graham 1998. Christian, secular. Data accuracy estimate: B. The number of languages listed for Cape Verde Islands is 2. Of those, both are living languages. Diversity index 0.00.
Spoken living languages KABUVERDIANU [KEA] 393,943 including 255,101 in Sotavento or 65% of the speakers, 138,842 in Barlavento or 35% of the speakers (1998 S. Graham). Population total all countries 934,000. Alternate names: CABOVERDIANO. Dialects: SOTAVENTO, BARLAVENTO. Classification: Creole, Portuguese based.
More information.
PORTUGUESE [POR] Classification: Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Italo-Western, Western, Gallo-Iberian, Ibero-Romance, West Iberian, Portuguese-Galician.
More information.
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Republic of Cape Verde. República de Cabo Verde. National or official languages: Portuguese, Kabuverdianu. 408,000 (1998 UN). Literacy rate 37% to 70%. Information mainly from J. Holm 1989; S. and T. Graham 1998. Christian, secular. Data accuracy estimate: B. The number of languages listed for Cape Verde Islands is 2. Of those, both are living languages. Diversity index 0.00.
Spoken living languages KABUVERDIANU [KEA] 393,943 including 255,101 in Sotavento or 65% of the speakers, 138,842 in Barlavento or 35% of the speakers (1998 S. Graham). Population total all countries 934,000. Alternate names: CABOVERDIANO. Dialects: SOTAVENTO, BARLAVENTO. Classification: Creole, Portuguese based.
More information.
PORTUGUESE [POR] Classification: Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Italo-Western, Western, Gallo-Iberian, Ibero-Romance, West Iberian, Portuguese-Galician.
More information.
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I'm commenting on the APOD image posted 1/22/05:
The blurb says it may be the sun, but it looks more like the MOON, especially since there are 12 segments surrounding it. The writing looks similar to the kind of writing around in the 1700's (the "s"'s back then looked like un-crossed, lower case "f"'s) and at first glance seems like some sort of latin language. It looks like some kind of horoscope to me...
The blurb says it may be the sun, but it looks more like the MOON, especially since there are 12 segments surrounding it. The writing looks similar to the kind of writing around in the 1700's (the "s"'s back then looked like un-crossed, lower case "f"'s) and at first glance seems like some sort of latin language. It looks like some kind of horoscope to me...
how come the speed limit of the universe is set by our eyeballs?
My first impression (assuming, for a moment, it's not a hoax or in some other way random) is that it seems to follow all the rules of what modern occultists would call a 'Book of Shadows'. That is, a book of times and recipes used by practitioners of hedge magic.
By tradition, such books are written in a sort of proprietary language...highly symbolic, 'low' (informal) vocabulary one would hear from the peasantry, usually with a custom alphabet.
The plants are obviously not real, but suggest a sort of botanical chimera. Assuming the text for each page is related to the chimera, one could suppose the 'plant' is more of an ingrediant list to accompany textual instructions or use guide. Many of the plant parts tend towards the generic (most stems, and a number of the roots), suggesting a lack of importance...maybe there are no stems in that recipe?
A curious aspect of the plants...some of them seem to have roots or stems that grow appart and together in a fairly non-sensical way. A number of these instances suggest a sort of 'Georgia O'Keefe' thing going on.
The wheels are, for the most part, obviously time indicators. Note that quite a few actually have more than 12 radii, tho. There are a number of circles that don't seem to make any correlation to a calendar. I'm particularly intrested in this one:
![Image](http://highway55.library.yale.edu/VOYNICHIMG/size3/D0025/1006231.jpg)
As for the text having a clue to how to translate it, I doubt it. If it is a proprietary language used by a tradition of hedge magic, there won't be any clues anywhere...wouldn't be a very good secret if there was a key ;)
By tradition, such books are written in a sort of proprietary language...highly symbolic, 'low' (informal) vocabulary one would hear from the peasantry, usually with a custom alphabet.
The plants are obviously not real, but suggest a sort of botanical chimera. Assuming the text for each page is related to the chimera, one could suppose the 'plant' is more of an ingrediant list to accompany textual instructions or use guide. Many of the plant parts tend towards the generic (most stems, and a number of the roots), suggesting a lack of importance...maybe there are no stems in that recipe?
A curious aspect of the plants...some of them seem to have roots or stems that grow appart and together in a fairly non-sensical way. A number of these instances suggest a sort of 'Georgia O'Keefe' thing going on.
The wheels are, for the most part, obviously time indicators. Note that quite a few actually have more than 12 radii, tho. There are a number of circles that don't seem to make any correlation to a calendar. I'm particularly intrested in this one:
![Image](http://highway55.library.yale.edu/VOYNICHIMG/size3/D0025/1006231.jpg)
As for the text having a clue to how to translate it, I doubt it. If it is a proprietary language used by a tradition of hedge magic, there won't be any clues anywhere...wouldn't be a very good secret if there was a key ;)
Re: Voynich manuscript discussion: 2005 January 22
Online discussion of the ancient Voynich Astronomical Manuscript
Fascinating! As a recent university adjunct astronomy teacher in Portland Oregon, I realize that we have so much undiscovered and documented history of our world and universe. *Did anyone see the Tuesday Jan 18th NY Times Science Section pg D3 "Visions of Ancient Night Sky Were Hiding in Plain Sight for Centuries" - Discovery of the Zeuss marble sculpture holding the globe of the sky with ecliptic and lines of latitude realized by the Greeks 100 years before Christ!?
I hope to see more discussions on this Voynich piece. Am I seeing all the discussions? I only see one post here???
please advise, thanks,
-Mark Seibold
Fascinating! As a recent university adjunct astronomy teacher in Portland Oregon, I realize that we have so much undiscovered and documented history of our world and universe. *Did anyone see the Tuesday Jan 18th NY Times Science Section pg D3 "Visions of Ancient Night Sky Were Hiding in Plain Sight for Centuries" - Discovery of the Zeuss marble sculpture holding the globe of the sky with ecliptic and lines of latitude realized by the Greeks 100 years before Christ!?
I hope to see more discussions on this Voynich piece. Am I seeing all the discussions? I only see one post here???
please advise, thanks,
-Mark Seibold
RJN wrote:What is the strange astronomical Voynich manuscript? This manuscript was discussed on the 2002 August 26 APOD and the 2005 January 22 APOD respectively found here: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020826.html , http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/ap050122.html .
Any insight involving what the manuscript says, which culture wrote it, or even when it was written could be a breakthrough in this stalled historical field.
My hope is that the broad international collective experience and proven intelligence of the diverse APOD readership will be able to uncover some previously overlooked clue. Please feel free to post your thoughts!
- RJN
Linguistic Lineage for PORTUGUESE
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PORTUGUESE [POR] (Portugal)
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dubious, if you transpose all the "e"'s and "o"'s, and the "i"'s and "s"... it's STILL gibberish. Maybe, the Manuscript was written by the Gibbers?dubious wrote:[here] "Balwuakan iditox monicasto plotonsa, mechanos iverisot beht hem saj concenvox. To mi mar meca sot be hevlos mi chora sox, sox abros boster beta, btor sma risa to sare. Colors thesi aths aieh vorisotsic para; abre sieng demora osotix baren."
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Seriously...
.. and...sj wrote:[here] A start to understanding the Voynich manuscript would be to do an analyses of the paper and ink. Carbon dating could give a close date. By comparing the paper and ink to those used in different times and places, a close date and place should be easy to find.
I very much concur with sj & moodman - let's look at the physical evidence, even if the inks from the "two" authors match. That will give us a location and time. I'm sure there are manuscript dating techniques that can place an ink or a vellum within 50 years, within 50 miles, no? Or at least rule out things, like it was Rudolph's own mad creation, or such.moodman wrote:[here] Has anyone actually done a test on the paper and ink used in this? This would be very helpful in determining a whole host of things, such as the fibers in the paper showing where the pulp came from, or, if done on some other medium, the physical clues would go a long way towards determination of its physical origin.
I'm also leaning towards the calendar theory, though perhaps not for planting as much as some obscure fertility rite. Or, maybe, a 15th century Viagra?
![Twisted Evil :twisted:](./images/smilies/icon_twisted.gif)
Reality works... only if you use it
Voynich Manuscript picture dated 1-22-05
This particular picture/chart looks like an Astrology Chart. Each 3-part section contains three colors- maroon, blue and beige, and can easily represent an astrological sign. Counting the three colors as one sign, there are exactly 12 signs (zodiac signs) Branching off from the 3-section sign are other segments that can easily represent houses, cusps, trines, etc. as explained in Astrology. This is just my opinion, and I'm not well-versed in Astrology. However, it seems to be well known that BCE and BC astrologers were sometimes associated with astronomers and visa versa.
Not From Earth
This is obviosly written by someone who came from another planet. The constelations are from another perspective,even the species of plant is not found on earth. The pinwheel drawing looks like the hovercraft toy , "Vectron Ultimate" that I purchased at a science store recently.