# # Identification: # # * Title: "Zodiac" # * Pages: f70v2,f70v1,f71r,f71v,f72r1,f72r2,f72r3,f72v3,f72v2,f72v1,f73r,f73v # * Folios: f70,f71,f72,f73 # * Panels: f70v3,f70v2,f70v1,f71r,f71v,f72r1,f72r2,f72r3,f72v3,f72v2,f72v1,f73r,f73v # * Bifolios: bJ1,bK1,bL1 # * Quires: J,K,L (Rene) = X,XI,XII (Beinecke) # # D'Imperio figure 10, page 88 (centers). # # Attributes: # # * Languages: ? (Currier) # * Hands: ? (Currier) # * Subsets: Z (Rene), zod (Stolfi) # * Subject: zodiac # # Description: # # This section comprises 12 pages, the first one spanning two panels # (f70v3 and f70v2). Each page contains only a circular diagram, # defined by two or three concentric rings of text. The innermost # ring is a couple of centimeters in diameter; the outermost one # spans most of the page's width, sometimes extending a bit # into the adjacent pages. # # Each text ring is bounded by a pair of faint mechanically-drawn # circles. As in other circular diagrams, the circles seem to be # traced with a template rather than with a compass; they are # not quite round, and sometimes are off-center by a millimeter or more. # # All text rings read in the clockwise direction. Some of them are # interrupted by a "notched square" marker, usually betwen 09:00 and # 12:00. Some other rings have an extra-wide interword gap, and/or a # short radial line (spanning the two bounding circles), in that # same quadrant. Still others have no obvious interruption or # distinguished gap. # # Inside the innermost ring of text there is always a simple icon # (one or two animals, one or two persons, a balance scale), # sometimes a star of two, and a word in Roman script (sometimes # abbreviated). # # Between every two consecutive text rings there is a band of # figures ("nymphs"). On some pages there is also a group of 4-5 # "overflow" nymphs just above of the diagram, outside the outermost # ring. All nymphs have their torso more or less aligned with the # radius, so that their "up" direction is away from the center. # Except for one set on the first diagram (f70v2), who have their # legs bent horizontally, they are all standing up. # # Some nymphs are standing inside "barrels" or "tubs", horizontal or # verical, that usually cover their legs up to the waist. As a rule, # the remaining nymphs are standing with their feet covered by the # text ring just below (i.e. inward) of them. However some nymphs # have one foot raised above the text ring, as for climbing or # stomping, and others are drawn with both feet visible . A few # nymphs are standing on top of oblong objects, resembling # logs or rolled carpets. # # Most of the nymphs are in 3/4 view, halfway between frontal and # facing clockwise. Some however are in frontal view, and some are # in 3/4 view counterclockwise. Most of them are naked, with hair of # various lengths, colors, and types. Some wear hats (or hat-like # hairdos), and a few bear crowns. # # Most nymphs are obviously female, with full breasts and hips. The # nipples of most naked nymphs (and of some dressed ones?) are # marked as red dots. Some nymphs have indeterminate sex; none has # obviously male genitals. (However, some of the dressed nymphs are # likely to be male, judging from the dress style.) # # Most of the nymphs are holding or (pointing at) a star, about a # foot across in proportion, with 6--9 triangular rays. Sometimes # the star has a wire-like "tail", sinuous or straight, usually # attached to one of the lower rays; the tail may be used by the # nymph as a handle, or may be just hanging loose. Many of the stars # are colored and/or have a colored spot at the center. The star is # always in front of the nymph (which usually means clockwise of # it), typically at the level of her head or higher. # # There are a couple of nymphs without stars, but no stars without # nymphs. Almost every nymph (with one or two exceptions) has a # Voynichese label next to it, also reading clockwise. In the few # cases where there is more space than needed for the label --- in # particular, next to the "overflow" nymphs --- the extra space is # usually after (clockwise of) the label. Conversely, when the label # runs over the adjacent figures, it usually runs into the following # one. # # Typically, the right arm of the nymph is bent behind her, with the # hand resting on her back, buttock, hip, waist, thigh, belly, or # lower ribs. However, several nymphs have the right arm stretched # back and down at some angle A few are holding the star with both # hands. Nymphs that are standing on barrels often have the right # hand tucked inside it. (For those few nymphs that face # counterclockwise, the roles of left and right are reversed.) # # There is no obvious alignment or association between the # words in the text rings and the adjacent nymphs. # # The numbers of nymphs, stars, and labels in each diagram are # given below, first for the central figure (C), then for each band, # (1-3, innner to outer) and then the totals for the whole diagram (T). # The "overflow" nymphs are shown as band 3. # # page f70v2 f70v1 f71r f71v f72r1 f72r2 f72r3 f72v3 f72v2 f72v1 f73r f73v # name Piscs Arie1 Arie2 Taur1 Taur2 Gemin Cancr Leo Virgo Libra Scorp Sagit # ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- # C stars 2 - - - - - - - 1 - 1 - # # 1 stars 10 5 5 5 5 9 7 12 11(a) 10 10 10 # 1 nymphs 10 5 5 5 5 9 7 12 12 10 10 10 # # 2 stars 19 10 10 10 10 16 11 18 18 20 16 15(b) # 2 nymphs 19 10 10 10 10 16 11 18 18 20 16 16 # # 3 stars - - - - - 5 12 - - - 4 4 # 3 nymphs - - - - - 5 12 - - - 4 4 # ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- # T stars 31 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 31 29 # T nymphs 29 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 # # ---------------------------------------- # (a) one star seems to have been erased. # (b) one star reduced to a dot. # # (Some of the star counts could not be confirmed because of poor copy quality.) # # Folio 74 (the other half of the bifolio bL1 = f73+f74) is missing in the VMS. # # Comments: # # LAYOUT # # Although all the pages share the basic layout described above, # which gives a strong sense unity to this section, there is # considerable variation in the details from one diagram to the # next. # # Robert Firth [???] observed that through the whole zodiac we see # the artist struggling to find the best layout for his "30-nymph # diagram". # # Stolfi thinks that the variations in the layout make more sense # if one assumes that the folios were not drawn in their "natural" # order. In particular, he thinks that the original plan was to # have 15 (5+10) nymphs per diagram, as in f70v1 through f72r1; # eventually the author switched to 30-nymph layouts, of which # pisces was the first. Stolfi thinks that the variations in # drawing style and other details confirm this theory; see below. # # STYLE # # The small details of the layout, symbology, and decoration (such # as the number of nymphs per band, the presence of "tubs", # decorative patterns, dresses and hats) show significant # variations from page to page. The same can be said of the # artist's style and skill, especially with regards to the nymphs' # anatomy and proportions. # # However, there doesn't seem to be a consistent improvement as # one goes from f70v2 to f73v. For one thing, the nymphs on the # Aries 2 page (f71r) look more "primitive" and clumsy than those # of Pisces (f70v2) or even Aries 1 (f70v1). It is also curious # that the women are clothed only on the Aries and Taurus pages # (f70v1-f71r). Also, on those pages their legs are still hidden # inside the "barrels"; but they get progressively more naked and # exposed on subsequent pages. Yet the Pisces page (f70v2) goes # against these trends. # # To explain these "evolutionary anomalies", Stolfi [11 Aug 1998] # conjectured that Pisces (f70v2) and Aries 1 (f70v1) were # (re)drawn after Aries 2 (f71r) but before Gemini (f72r2). # # Stolfi conjectures, moreover, that the panels f70v3 through f70v1 # were originally the back cover of the book, and were pressed into # service after the folio containing the original version of the # Pisces and Aries 1 diagrams was discarded (perhaps for being # too ugly). # # Stolfi [11 Aug 1998] thinks that the nymphs in the Biological section # are generally better drawn than those in the Zodiac, and therefore # the two sections were probably written in that order. # # Stolfi also thinks that the quality of the nymph drawings # in f71r (Aries 1) is *much* worse than that of the sheep (goat?) # at the center of the diagram. So perhaps the central symbols # were drawn last of all? # # Finally, stolfi thinks that the poor quality of the drawings on # Aries 1 is somewhat inconsistent with the neat handwriting on # the page. So perhaps the writing was done by a different person? # # # MEANING # # The central symbols represent, without doubt, the signs of the # Zodiac. This interpretation is reinforced by the month names # written next to them (see below), although these may be guesses # by a later owner of the MS. # # The fact that (almost) all diagrams have 30 stars and 30 nymphs is # puzzling, as it matches neither the Western solar calendar (where # the months roughly alternate between 30 and 31 days), nor the # Arab, Hebrew, or Chinese lunar calendar (where the months roughly # alternate between 30 and 29 days). # # Rene Zandbergen [???] # Astrological systems giving one sign for each degree were described by Peter of Abano (14C) in his Astrolabium Planum and in the so-called 'Heidelberger Schicksalsbuch' a much later translation and explanation of P. d'Abano's work. I am still pursuing these documents, but first indications are that the short labels near the stars in our zodiac do not match well with the names used in these two documents. These are of a typical descriptive nature 'a man with red hair carrying a sword' and each one occurs several times (more so than we see in the Voynich labels). Main conclusion: whereas the VMs again seems original, it is not entirely original and similar astrological systems do exist. # and others have offered a plausible # explanation: the nymphs/stars indicate degrees, rather than # days. Indeed the signs of the Zodiac are defined by dividing the # Ecliptic into 12 equal arcs of 30 degrees each [???Check]. # Jacques Guy [21 Feb 1997] and Denis Mardle [23 Feb 97] hinted in that direction # too. # # The same method was used by the Chinese in their "agricultural" # (solar) calendar, where the Ecliptic was divided into 24 arcs of # 15 degrees each. # # In either case, the Roman words would be only the # "best matches" of the 12 months to the 12 signs. # # [??? Jubilee calendar] # # Rene Zandbergen [18 Jan 1999] offers this possible analogy for the # contents of the labels and/or text, taken from a 15th century # astrological treatise [1]: # # Scorpius. # 1st deg.: Apparet vir cuspidem tenens in manu sua. # Fur erit et nequam # 2nd: Vir sedens in elephante # Homo fortis erit et stabilis # 3rd: Homo stans ociosus # Homo malus erit et ociosus # 4th: Cithara una(?) leticiam signans # Homo iocundus erit # # etc. etc. for all 12 * 30 degrees. The `image' [first line] # derives from the star or constellation that rises (e.g. # cithara from Lyra) and the `property' [second line] is the # astrologer's interpretation. So perhaps the label words mean: # `fur', `fortis', `ociosus', `iocundus'. However, here again # the repetition found in Johann Engel's list is much higher # than what's observed in the label words. # # Rene also reminds us that the origins of the above list can be # traced back via Persia to Babylonia, so the language is not # necessarily Latin. # # If the pages are rearranges as proposed by Stolfi (see above), # on the first pages the nymphs are at first fully clothed, # without breasts, and half-hidden inside their "tubs"; then they # get progressively more undressed and exposed as we move along # the section. # # While there may be a symbolic motivation for this "cosmic # strip-tease", Stolfi thinks that it could also mean that the # "artist" gradually (a) lost his/her inhibitions, and/or (b) # learned how to draw the lower parts of the female anatomy, # and/or (c) became more interested in those parts. These # possibilities seem to support the theory that the VMS # illustrator (if not the author) was a child or teenager. # # # [??? Paratellonta] # # MONTH NAMES # # Jim Reeds [12 Dec 95], possibly quoting Toresella, says that the # month names are in a French late 1400's handwriting, which is # different from that of the VMS author. # # References: # # [1] Johannes Angelus, "Astrolabium Planum" (Augsburg, 1488). # [quoted by [2]?] # # [2] Saxl's "Verzeignis", see D'Imperio's references. # ---------------------------------------------------------------------- stolfi [11 Aug 1998] To confuse the issue further, some of the Aries women have no breasts; see, for example, the one at 8:00 in the inner ring of f71r. On the other hand, on several of the dressed women of f70v1 one can clearly see not only the breasts but even the nipples! Check the inner ring at 8:00 and 3:00, and the outer ring at 2:00 and 3:00. Unde the "Young Master" theory, I propose that the dressed nymphs were first drawn naked, but the artist then felt guilty and dressed them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [Rene 18 Jan 1999] > > By the way, I thought one person represent one day in the zodiac > > calendars. But it is not true, right? (I mean, there are 30 > > women in each zodiac calendars. But some women have the same > > label.) They could each represent one degree in the zodiac. > > What do their labels mean in the zodiac calendars? What do you > > think kind of property they have? Their name? their birthday? > > where they live? They have a same kind of star? who and who are > > relatives by blood and marriage? etc. > > I have no satisfactory theory for what the "zodiac" diagrams and the > numphs are supposed to be. If they indeed represent the zodiac signs, > why do they all have 30 "stars"? Why are Aries and Taurus split in > two? The split in two is odd, but it could be just a space problem. The writer/illustrator was still very careful when making the early zodiac pages (as opposed to later on, when everything is cramped together). > Even the zodiac symbols at the center are a bit suspect; it is > possible (although, I admit, unlikely) that the central circles were > originally empty, and the signs were added later, by someone who just > guessed they were related to the zodiac. Or perhaps the guess was made > by the VMS author himself, as he copied the diagrams from some other > book. All possible. Also, the appearance of a month name is odd. Each figure could be valid for one sign, or for one month, where the 'largest overlapping' sign was added. And, as commented many times, to start with Pisces instead of Aries is also quite odd. If somebody 'just guessed' that it was a zodiac, he would have started with Aries. > If the nymphs are real or imaginary individuals (not just decoration), > then the labels are likely to be their names; in which case it is not > that strange to see repetitions. Star names do have roughly the right number of duplications. 'Rigel' is a well-known bright star but there are other stars named 'Rigel ' which may have been abbreviated. Many stars were called 'the head of xxx' or the 'foot of yyy' for different xxx and yyy. Finally, something else that could be indicated by the label is the star's latitude (distance from the ecliptic), which would be measured with a resolution of ten arc minutes, which gives a bit less than 1000 possible values (with a non-uniform probablility), so a few duplications should be expected with 300 samples. In the end, what is not explained at all is the fact that the first nine or ten pictures in Aries involve a horizontal tub, the next whole signs involve a person sitting in a dustbin and later on the person is standing up. I am particularly intrigued by the fact that: - the number of points of the stars varies from 6 to 9, with non-uniform distribution - the nymph hand which is not holding the star is either on the hip or pointing back (it's clear from the drawings that this is a deliberate thing) - the nymph may be standing on one or two feet and the legs may be crossing or not. Again, this seems quite deliberate. - the clothing, crowns and pedestals which have been remarked by D'Imperio and Brumbaugh. About 1 out of 6 of the standing nymphs have their hand pointing behind them, not on the hip. But for nine-pointed stars this fraction is zero. I checked that the probability of this is 0.02 if this was just due to chance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [stolfi 20 Jan 1999] > [Rene:] They could each represent one degree in the zodiac. And > each degree would again represent a property (reflecting the > character of the person born while this degree of the zodiac > rose). > > Here's what the label words could mean (taken from Johannes > Angelus, Astrolabium Planum, Augsburg 1488): This example is quite encouraging! > The split in two is odd, but it could be just a space problem. Possibly. > And, as commented many times, to start with Pisces instead of > Aries is also quite odd. If somebody 'just guessed' that it was > a zodiac, he would have started with Aries. The Pisces page is peculiar in other ways: decorated bands, nymphs in horizontal tubes, no dressed nymphs. It also seems to have been drawn with more care than the rest. > In the end, what is not explained at all is the fact that the > first nine or ten pictures in Aries[Pisces?] involve a > horizontal tub, the next whole signs involve a person sitting in > a dustbin and later on the person is standing up. I think that the style of the drawings (particularly the nymph's anatomy and dress) shows a clear evolution, especially in the first few diagrams; and the style and presence of the "dustbins" seems to be part of that trend. Ignoring pisces for the moment, I would say that f71r and f71v were drawn first, then f70v1 and f72r1, then the rest. Note how the drawings become firmer and better proportioned, and the nymph's anatomy becomes more realistic and standardized. At the same time the dresses and dustbins get simpler and then disappear. Also the first diagrams have the "notched square" design at 10:00, presumably a start-of-text maker, which is missing in the rest. Pisces is rather anomalous in that it has dustbins but no dresses, and thus does not fit into the sequence above. Moreover it has has nymphs in horizontal tubes, decorated circles. In fact the drawing "hand" seems better than all the rest. Here is a possible explanation for these anomalies. Suppose that when the zodiac section was being drawn it was still a separate booklet, or a stack of nested but unbound bifolios. Suppose moreover that there was originally another bifolio around the Zodiac quire, so that there were two extra pages between f70v1 and f71r. Call them fXr and fXv. The theory is that artist began drawing the zodiac diagrams with Pisces on fXr, Aries on fXv + f71r, Taurus on f71v + f72r1, etc. At some point he looked again at the Pisces diagram and decided that the nymphs were too ugly (they must have been uglier than those of f71r!). So he discarded the fX bifolio, and redrew Pisces and Light Aries on f70v. That was the last page of the "cosmo" booklet, which he had completed some time earlier. (That page had been left blank for the same reason that f116v was left blank, namely that as the back cover of the book it would tend to get soiled and worn rather quickly.) When redrawing, he preserved the layout and details of the old drawing, out of inertia (thus the horizontal tubes and decorated borders), but of course he drew the nymphs at his current skill/inhibition level (hence the lack of dresses and passable anatomy). (BTW I am using "he" just to protest against the opressive female exploitation of the dumber sex. But considering the inordinate attention given to (feminine) dresses and hats on the early Zodiac pages (e.g. f71r/f71v), I bet all the olives in my pizza that the artist was a young girl...) Of course this theory loses some strength if it turns out that the presence or absence of dustbins is meaningful information (as Rene proposes) and not an artistic detail. If tubes and dustbins are meaningful, an obvious guess for their meaning is visibility. (Didn't Rene suggest this some time ago?) My brain battery is low now so I cannot think out the geometry involved. Would some Zodiac stars be (partly) invisible from (your favorite place) during Pisces/Aries/Taurus? Too bad we don't have the november/december charts; if this theory is correct then they should have had dustbins and tubes, too. One curious detail: there is a "cigarette" hole on the inner band of the dark Taurus diagram (page f72r1), just clockwise of Miss Oparalar, the 09:00 nymph. The hole lies right where her star should have been. Through the hole one can see the head of Miss Kar, a Scorpio nymph (page f73r, inner band, 09:15). The artist drew an extra arm on the Taurus page, so that Miss Kar seems to be reaching through the hole and holding the 09:30 star of Taurus --- while Miss Oparalar is holding the 09:00 star in Scorpio. This playful "fix" to the vellum defect (if it is not an illusion) may mean several things. For one, it seems to imply that f72r1 was at least retouched after f73r had been drawn. Moreover the bifolios were already folded in their present positions, if not actually bound together, when they were in the author's posession. A good question is whether the extra arm on Taurus was drawn for Miss Kar specifically. Perhaps it was drawn for some other nymph (possibly on some other page), but the leaves were reshuffled/shifted afterwards, and and Miss Kar just happened to land under the hole, roughly in the right posiiton. However I think I see a slightly darker spot on f73r, around the head of Miss Kar, matching the hole; that may be evidence that the pages were in the same relative position for a long time. Moreover, Miss Kar seems to have been crammed between her two neighbors almost as an afterthough, to the point that there was hardly any space left for the two adjacent labels. Perhaps she was placed there on purpose, to make the "joke" possible? > About 1 out of 6 of the standing nymphs have their hand pointing > behind them, not on the hip. But for nine-pointed stars this fraction > is zero. I checked that the probability of this is 0.02 if this > was just due to chance. Interesting... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [stolfi 21 Jan 1999] > [Rene:] About 1 out of 6 of the standing nymphs have their hand > pointing behind them, not on the hip. But for nine-pointed stars > this fraction is zero. I checked that the probability of this is > 0.02 if this was just due to chance. Good point. Yesterday I thought that those nymphs might mark the starting point for reading each ring of stars. Now that I have looked at those cases with some care I am not so sure. Anyway, here are the cases that I could see: 70v2 Pisces There is one nymph with both arms raised at 00:15 in the inner band. I would say that this is the most likely starting point for the inner star sequence, which runs clockwise (agreeing with the text). Thus I think that the inner parade begins with Miss Otalar (stretched arm), and ends with Miss Otaral (facing clockwise) This is another anomaly of Pisces, since in the other diagrams the starting point seems to be around 10:30. I suppose tha the last nymph at 11:30 was reversed so that it would face the "honor spot" at noon. The starting point of the outer band is not so obvious. I would say it is near the top, too, but it could be before, after, or in the middle of the four "baby" nymphs. f70v1 Aries "dark" Here all nymphs have the right hand on the hip; several have the left hand down too. My guess for the starting point is at 10:30 in both bands, i.e. Miss Otalchy (the Tar Am Dy) and Miss Okoly. Note that they (and only they) are holding their high enough to intrude into the surrounding text ring. Moreover Miss Okoly is wearing a striped sleeve (or whatever). Note again that the label at 06:00 is not obviously associated with any star, so it must be attached to one of the nymphs. I would say that, going clockwise, each label is associated with the preceding nymph. f71r Aries light Here all nymphs have the same pose: right arm on the hip, left arm up and holding the star. The stars have no tails, except for the outer 04:30 one that has a very short one. The starting point for each text ring is clearly marked by the "notched square" device, which occurs in other cosmo diagrams, presumably with the same function. As I argued in my previous message, this is the zodiac page with the most "primitive" style. f71v Taurus "light" Here too all nymphs have the same pose. I see no obvious "start" marker for the nymphs, except perhaps for the decorated dustbin of Miss Otalody, the inner nymph at 00:00. However the outer text ring has a wider gap at 10:30 (the "standard" starting place), with a centered dot which may be the last vestige of the notched square symbol. To my eyes, the style of this page is only a bit less primitive than that of f71r. f72r1 Taurus "dark" The outer nymph at 02:30 has her right arm stretched back and down; all the others have the right hand on the hip or inside the dustbins. There are no obviosu start markers that I can see, but the reproduction I have is unreadable around 03:00. There is anextra wide gap in the inner parade around 10:30, but that may be a consequence of the "cigarette hole" and its visual pun. Other plausible candidates are the nymphs at 00:00, Miss Otchoshy and Miss Oaiin Ar-Ary. I would say that the figures on the outer band of this diagram are the first attempts by the artist at drawing full-body naked women. f72r2 Gemini My copy is almost illegible. I can see on the outer band one naked nymph at 10:30, Miss Okar-Aldy, with the right arm stretched out. That seems to be the "standard" starting position in several other diagrams. Most of the other nymphs have the right hand on the hip. Some have the right arm back and down, bent or straight, but it is questionable whether this pose is significantly different from hand-on-hip. The extreme case is the figure at 06:30 on the outer band, Miss (or Master?) Otarar (dressed, standing on an horizontal tube); the first of four dressed figures. Miss Ofchdamy, the first of the five "extra" nymphs at the top, may be another significant exception, but her forearm is not visible on my copy. f72r3 Cancer The outer nymph at 11:00, miss Otchy(?)-Daiin, has the right arm stretched back and down at 45 degrees. She may well be the leader of that band; there is a wide gap between her and the preceding nymph at 09:30. I cannot see any other nymph with stretched right arm, but half of the nymphs are just faint blurs on my copy. f72v3 Leo I see two ladies with the right arm stretched back and down at 45 degrees, bot on the inner band: Miss Oky at 11:30, and Miss Oteeod(?) at 06:15. There is no obvious starting point, but the diagram is cut by multiple creases between 07:00 and 10:30, which seems a natural place to start. f72v2 Virgo This seems to be a very complicated month astronomically 8-) There are many nymphs in new and strange poses, and even a freak reappearance of the dustbin (shallow, with "cutaway" edge). I can see several nymphs with the right arm stretched back and down at 45 degrees. In the outer band there are Opaiin at 08:30, and Ofchdy-Sh. at 05:00. In the inner band we have four consecutive nymphs starting at 05:00 (Cheosy, Ofcheey, Yteedy, On-Aiin). However we also have a nymph at 00:15, Miss Oeedy, with *both* arms stretched back, and hands clasped behind her. Three nymphs (outer Oeedey and Oeeo-Daiin at 10:30-10:45, inner Oka*** at 10:30) are grasping their stars with both hands; and inner Okeeom at 01:30 is almost doing the same. f72v1 Libra Miss Oteoly at 10:30 on the outer band (the "standard" starting place), has the right arm stretched back and down. But so do Miss Okeeoly at 01:00 and Miss Okal at 11:00. In the inner band the nymphs are holding their right hand in various positions near the hip; none seems to have a clearly "stretched-out" arm. The one that comes closest is Miss Oko**y at 03:30, but she is bending down to avoid the "cigarette hole", and the hand position my be accidental. In any case that hole would be a natural starting place for the inner band. f73r Scorpio Outer Misses Dolshey and Opaiin at 08:00-09:00 have outstretched right arms. The latter is more exhuberant and holds a bigger star. 09:00 could be a starting place in this case. Ladies Shekal, Okeedy and Okedal at 05:00-06:30 outer band, have stretchde arms. They cannot be all starting points... In the ineer band, the stretched-arm ladies are Miss Chek and Miss Kar (not their real names, I am sure 8-) Miss Kar, by the way, is the one who was involved in the cigarette hole affair with Taurus girl, as reported bove. Outside the diagram, at the top, there are Miss Chockhy and Miss Yteeody; the latter may a full stop, hardly a start marker... f73v Sagittarus I see only three ladies with stretched arms here. In the outer band we have Miss Ykeody at 02:00 and Miss Okeody at 10:00; the latter may well be the band leader. In the inner band I see only Miss Otal at 03:00. For whatever it is worth, ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [stolfi 21 jan 1999] > [Rene:] The order of the pages in the VMs is correct and > deliberate. I don't dispute this claim (for the zodiac section, at least). But this claim is not incompatible with my proposal that Pisces and Aries Dark were (re)drawn after Aries Light and Taurus. More on that below. Note that "after" does not imply "long after"; it is quite possible that the whole section was done over the span of a few days. In fact I estimate that each diagram could have been drawn and painted in less than one hour, given a bit of pressure; so that perhaps the entire zodiac section was done in a single (long) day.. Note also that the zodiac section was probably drawn while the sheets were still unbound. For one thing, it is much easier to draw diagrams like those on a loose sheet than on one that is attached to a book. Also, if you spill ketchup on a loose sheet, you just get another one... In fact we are almost sure that the herbal and bio sections were drawn while still unbound, so it is reasonable to assume the same for the zodiac. Thus pages may have been rearranged and discarded by the author, while producing that section, without leaving any material trace in the bound book. > The rings of nymphs are ordered inside to outside. Agreed. (Needless to say, Murphy told me to transcribe them in the opposite order...) > The labels are written to the right [clockwise] of the nymphs > with which they belong. This is mostly clear from the spacing, > but proved by the outer-ring nymphs of Gemini, Scorpius and > Sagittarius Agreed. In fact from the spacing and placement of the labels, I would say that they are attached to the nymphs and not to the stars. Note for example on f70v2 (Pisces) the label at 11:00. > While the circular text between the rings of nymphs are written > clockwise, the nymphs themselves *could* be ordered in the opposite > sense. Perhaps, but given that the vast majority of the nymphs is facing clockwise, it seems that the sequence is to be "read" that way. (This rule seems to be valid for many other scripts, and I believe it is commonly assumed for the Phaistos disk...) The main exception to the clockwise-facing rule is the inner ring of Pisces (again!). But that anomaly may have a trivial explanation, see below... > The order in which they were drawn is perhaps significant, > but not necessarily so. Quite plausible for a scribal copy, or a clean copy from a draft. However the irregular spacing of the figures makes me believe that the zodiac diagrams (indeed all cosmo diagrams) were drawn directly on the VMS, without preliminary sketches, by the person who conceived them. (Which BTW seems to be the typical "modus operandi" of child/teenage artists.) (Yes, this claim goes against the "ignorant scribe" theory which I once argued for. But that must have been on a Tuesday...) > I am still very impressed with a former list member's > observation about this (Thibault but his first name was not > Jehan) We are obviously seeing the birth of something: Hm, that is certainly a plausible theory, but I don't buy the "obviously". The observation that most impresed me (by @ Robert Firth, if I recall @ correctly) is that through the whole zodiac we see the artist @ struggling to find the best layout for "30-nymph diagram". I would add @ that he was also struggling with the symbology and decoration, and, on @ top of it all, still learning to draw. > From Pisces to Sagitarius there is a gradual but spectacular > degradation in illustration quality. I agree (except perhaps for Pisces), but only in the sense that the drawings become more hurried, sketchy, and less carefully done. Also all decoration gets dropped after the first few drawings. Indeed a plausible explanation for the "undressing" of the nymphs may be simply that a naked nymph can be drawn and painted much faster than a dressed one. On the other hand, from Aries to Sagitarius I see an equally gradual and spectacular improvement in the artist's skill, especially at drawing the female body. Just as the nymphs get simplified and standardized, they also get drawn more realistically, with more natural poses (except that they are also drawn with less care, so the improvement is not obvious). But Pisces (and Aries Light, to a lesser extent) seem to be anomalous in both aspects. The nymphs in Pisces are better drawn than those in Aries Dark, for sure. They are naked while those in Aries are still clothed, and the barrels have lighter, more "mechanical" decoration. So here is an alternative theory that tries to explain this style anomaly and also the "oscillation" between tubes and dustbins. It is a slight elaboation of the "discarded bifolio" theory from my earlier message. According to this theory, the original Pisces page was split in two halves, like Aries and Taurus; in fact the author's original plan was to do all the "signs" in that format. So, in the original plan, there were to be at least two extra folios fX, fY, and four extra pages before f71r, arranged like this: fX recto: zodiac cover page ??----------------------------------- <- extra folio fX verso: original Pisces 1 fY recto: original Pisces 2 ??----------------------------------- <- extra folio fY verso: original Aries 1 f71 recto: Aries 2 ("light") ----------------------------------- / f71 verso: Taurus 1 ("light") | \ f72 recto 1: Taurus 2 ("dark") recto 2 recto 3 -----------------------------------+--------····----+---------······--- f72 verso 1: Libra verso 2 verso 3 The artist began drawing the diagrams in order, starting with the original Pisces 1. In those first few diagrams, all nymphs were drawn inside dustbins. (The dustbin may have meant "rainy season", "womb", "below the horizon", "cup of medicine", "unable to walk" --- whatever Or it may have been just an excuse to avoid drawing the lower half of the nymphs). At some point --- most likely, after drawing Taurus 1 (f71v) --- the artist decided to redraw the original Pisces 1/2 and Aries 1 pages, for some reason. (Perhaps they had came out too ugly, or he changed his mind on some important detail, or his kid found the book while he was out and drew beards on all the nymphs.) He choose to redraw those diagrams on f70v, possibly because he didn't have spare vellum at hand. Since f70v had only two and a half panels, he was forced to redraw Pisces 1 and 2 as a single diagram on f70v2/v3. (He had no choice for Aries 1 either, since discarding Aries 2 would mean discarding Taurus 1, already drawn, and six precious blank panels.) He redrew Aries 1 first on f70v1, trying to match the style he had used on Aries 2 --- including the dresses, even though he had already started to dispense with them on Taurus 1. Then he went on to Pisces on f70v2. By accident or design, he made the "lanes" of the new Pisces diagram narrower than in the original diagrams. He could have drawn smaller nymphs, but he was already unhappy about the large gaps he had to leave in the other diagrams, especially in the inner band. So he tried instead making the dustbins narrower and turning them on the side. But he soon regretted that idea, because it forced him to bend the nymphs' bodies in an unnatural way. On top of that, he began by drawing Miss Otaral at 11:30 and her twin sister Miss Otalar at 00:15, facing each other; then, without realizing what he was doing, he went down the band clockwise, orienting all nymphs the same (wrong) way --- and had an unpleasant surprise at the end. Wiser for the experience, he went back to upright dustbins for the outer band. In either band he did not feel necessary to dress the nymphs --- he had already gotten over that inhibition. After redoing Pisces he went back to Taurus 2 (f72r1). While doing the outer band he tried dispensing with the dustbins too, just as he had given up on dresses (Either they were no longer applicable, or he concluded that they were superfluous, or he devised a simpler convention to encode the same information.) His first attempt, Miss Oaiin Ar-Ary at 00:00, didn't come out quite well; the frontal pose bothered him a bit and din't match the 3/4 view of the head (the only view he had learned to draw). Besides, he made the mistake of drawing the head too low (still at the "dustbin" level), so the body came out too small. The next attempt at 01:00, Miss Okalam, came out much better. However he drew the wrong leg forward, and the other leg came out too short, so she seemed to be twisting like a pretzel. But practice makes perfect, and when he drew Miss Otaraldy next at 02:00 he knew he had found the purpose of his life. After finishing Taurus 2 he went on to Virgo. Thanks to the involuntary experiment with Pisces, he figured that he could fit a full 30-nymph diagram in a single normal page, saving not only vellum but also time. (He miscalculated a bit however, so in the end he had to draw the last five nymphs outside the diagram, at the top.) After drawing 20 or so naked ladies for Virgo, he got a bit tired of the theme. He tried adding some sort of base under the nymph at 06:00. Then he tried dressed figures, full-body this time: two kids standing on barrels, a lady with flowing dress, and a grown-up man. (A happy family; perhaps "me, sis, mom and dad"?) But that was just a temporary detour. Naked ladies were obviously more fun (or at least easier to draw) so he went back to them for good. About then he realized that it was past midnight, and he still had eight diagrams and 240 nymphs to draw. So he hurried along through the remaining pages. He did play around a bit here and there, trying different hairdos and poses. But now he didn't have time for fun. Soon he was too tired even to count the nymphs and watch the spacing, and again he had to draw a few of them outside the frame. What the heck. At four in the morning he was done. While cleaning up the desk and refolding the sheets, he noticed the head of Miss Kar from Scorpio poking through the hole on f71r. Tired as he was, he couldn't resist adding a little joke, before blowing out the candle and collapsing onto his bed. Well, that is my guess at how the zodiac was made, modulo the obvious variations. It does not explain what the diagrams mean (and they surely must mean something!). But I think it explains fairly well the variation in style and format that we can see along the section. More importantly, this theory provides a "null hypothesis" that must be kept in mind when investigatig the presumed "symbolism" of arms, legs, tubs, dresses, etc.: namely, any or all of those details may not mean anything... All the best, ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [John Grove 21 Jan 1999] I could be incorrect - but I think that the Author of the VMs was a follower of Astronomy as opposed to Astrology. The sun is just entering Capricorn today in reality - not the Astrological Aquarius. Thus, Pisces is still two months away - Commencing on the Vernal Equinox - perhaps the 'inside' label of Pisces marks the beginning of a new 'farmers' year with the beginning of spring, when the plants begin to rise out of the snow cover they've been under - or new seeds are broken open and the first sprouts of spring begin to show 'out of the barrels' -- oh well - At least - I think the real Sun position is a month out of whack with Astrology... ... I just spent a little time searching zodiac related pages and found this description of the vernal equinox/zodiac alignment point: <> So according to this, the first day of spring is now close to Aquarius. -- What would it have been in the 14/15/16th century? Any half decent astronomer of the time should have been able to see that the sun wasn't lined up with the accepted zodiac year I.e. Aries = Vernal equinox. John. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [moonhawk 21 Jan 1999] Again, I believe this is a misapplication of astrology. I don't have my books nearby, but I believe it's the North Star, not the sun, that is the pointer to Aquarius; or, rather, our North direction, which currently points to what we therefore call the North Star. It's been a long time since I looked at this topic, so I could be misremembering. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [grove 21 Jan 1999] Reading back over some of the recent zodiac comments, I noticed Adams Douglas had already alluded to the fact that the calendar seems to be in the right order astronomically - rather than taking the ancient start of Aries: Adams Douglas wrote: > It's already been mentioned that the VMs Zodiac seems to start with > Pisces, which was astronomically correct for this millenium until the > 20th century, rather that holding with the ancient tradition of > Starting in Aries. If there is a representation in the VMs of the > relative visibility of signs of that Zodiac, then it would seem to > indicate a particular time of year that is astronomically accurate. I think that this basically gives the best explanation as to why the calendar does start with Pisces and not Aries, and thus the first label of the zodiac should relate to the vernal equinox, or spring, or new year. John. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [rene 21 Jan 1999] > I could be incorrect - but I think that the Author of the VMs was a > follower of Astronomy as opposed to Astrology. The sun is just > entering Capricorn today in reality - not the Astrological Aquarius. Well, in those days the distinction between the two was very different from the modern understanding, and it is not an unfair simplification to call them one and the same. As for the astrological signs: the sign of Aries did (and does) coincide with the first 30 degrees of the ecliptic 'to the left' of the crossing with the equator (vernal equinox). In the days of Ptolemy, this area roughly coincided with the constellation of Aries. Since then, the ecliptic, and the constellations, stayed put, but the equator moved and with the change of the crossover point, all signs shifted. Now the sign of Aries coincides (approximately) with the constellation of Pisces. This is really approximate. For one thing, the ecliptic cuts through 13, not 12 constellations. The unlucky one is Ophiuchus. And none of the constellations occupy a band of 30 degrees either. So the illustrations in the VMs refer to the signs, not the constellations. The start with Pisces could very well mean that this sign is somehow special to the author, or the person for whom this illustration is meant. (My favourite schizophrenic 14th-15th C humanist who was versed in papal codes and natural sciences and spent years in gaol was indeed born under the sign of Pisces, but I don't know his ascendant). Cheers, Rene ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [matthew skala 21 Jan 1999] Present-day astrologers occasionally cast horoscopes based on a "sidereal zodiac" rather than the standard "tropical zodiac"; they do this by taking the standard division of the circle into 12 30-degree signs, and shifting it so that it does coincide (more or less) with the constellations rather than the equinoxes. I don't know what the supposed significance of this shift is. It's not very commonly done, but they do do it sometimes. It seems to me that a smart student of astro(log|nom)y in the VMS's time period, could come up with a similar idea of "hey, let's make the signs line up with the actual stars!". We already know that whoever created it had some other new ideas, and new ideas tend to come in bunches. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [rene 22 Jan 1999] we cannot know what the VMs writer thought, imagined or knew about astronomy, but let's see what he 'could have known'. The rate of precession (the motion that makes the sign of Aries visit all constellations in due time) was already known by Ptolemy, and accurately applied by medieval astrolabe-makers to convert the classical coordinates to the (then) current time. (In fact, it has been shown beyond reasonable doubt that Ptolemy's coordinates were not derived from his own observations, as he claims, but from an earlier catalogue to which he himself applied the effect of precession). This effect is equivalent with roughly 1 degree every 75 years. So it is very reasonable to assume that the VMs writer knew perfectly well that the vernal equinox was located in the constellation of Pisces. The very knowledge that would have enabled him to consider an alternative zodiac starting with Pisces would have told him that what matters are the zodiac signs. They formed the origin of the coordinate system in which one expressed the location of the stars. Using stars to define the reference and placing the zodiac in that reference system is a modern invention. To illustrate. - Ptolemy gives the coordinates of the important star Aldebaran (the brightest star in Taurus) as: longitude: Taurus 12 degrees, 40 minutes; latitude: -5 deg, 10 min. - In a catalogue from the 9th-10th C it is listed at longitude Taurus 27 deg. - Later catalogues (still prior to the 15th C) have it listed at Gemini 1 deg 26 min, Gemini 2 deg, etc. This is the effect of precession at work. Astronomers were not bothered by the fact that the star Aldebaran was located in the sign of Gemini. Still, very important for us is that we should keep an open mind. If the VMs zodiac starts with Pisces, it may refer to the sign of Pisces. It may also refer to the sign of Aries, but Pisces was drawn in, to indicate that he knew where the vernal equinox was. Or it may in fact refer to the month of March, which has the sun in Pisces at the start. Or, as I suggested before, the sign of Pisces may have been especially important for him. As Matthew Skala wrote: > Present-day astrologers occasionally cast horoscopes based on a "sidereal > zodiac" rather than the standard "tropical zodiac"; they do this by taking > the standard division of the circle into 12 30-degree signs, and shifting > it so that it does coincide (more or less) with the constellations rather > than the equinoxes. Again, they are using the signs. I must admit that I know virtually nothing about 20th century astrology, but I would not be surprised if the sign of Aries would still be counted as the 'first'. But that has little bearing on the Voynich MS. Lastly, while the zodiac illustrations in the VMs are unique as far as I know, there are many other medieval Mss which have zodiac illustrations consisting of a circular design with the zodiac sign in the middle and 30 'things' around it. The most famous one must be codex Vat. Reg. 1283 (i.e. from the collection of queen Christina of Sweden). If I can't find it on the web somewhere, I'll put a gif at the geocities site. It is of course completely different from the VMs. And it should be read anti-clockwise... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [rene 22 Jan 1999] Stolfi sent a long message about the zodiac section, which deserves a reply of some sort, but I am sure this one cannot do justice. > > [Rene:] The order of the pages in the VMs is correct and > > deliberate. > > I don't dispute this claim (for the zodiac section, at least). Indeed, for the zodiac, but by extension also for the quire in which the zodiac starts (nr. 10). A frivolity: I hereby claim that the lost folio 74 used to be a foldout. Can't be proved, can't be disproved. But if it wasn't, it would have been the only single-page quire in the VMs which isn't a foldout. > But this claim is not incompatible with my proposal that Pisces and > Aries Dark were (re)drawn after Aries Light and Taurus. More on that > below. The explanation is somewhat complicated. I like to keep it simple and could (for example) very well imagine that the VMs writer did the first few zodiac drawings by making a draft first and copied that draft onto the pages we have. For the later pages he could have drawn straight on the vellum. Surely, for the last one it is hard to believe that any draft was ever involved. > Note also that the zodiac section was probably drawn while the sheets > were still unbound. Agreed > [...] given that the vast majority of the nymphs is facing > clockwise, it seems that the sequence is to be "read" that way. > (This rule seems to be valid for many other scripts, and I believe > it is commonly assumed for the Phaistos disk...) If this circular carved piece of stone is to be read outside in, then yes. ( :-) ) > > I am still very impressed with a former list member's > > observation about this (Thibault but his first name was not > > Jehan) We are obviously seeing the birth of something: In fact, Guy is still there. > Hm, that is certainly a plausible theory, but I don't buy the "obviously". My mistake. I should have said: "there is a strong suggestion that we are seeing...". The 'person-sitting-in-a-cauldron'-type illustration is reminiscent of the alchemical 'making of a homunculus'. > > From Pisces to Sagitarius there is a gradual but spectacular > > degradation in illustration quality. > > I agree (except perhaps for Pisces), but only in the sense that the > drawings become more hurried, sketchy, and less carefully done. Also > all decoration gets dropped after the first few drawings. This is what I meant: more hurried. If the nymph was an infant on the Pisces page, less detail would be required. The tubs are certainly at least as decorated as on the next Aries page... > [...] So, in the original plan, there > were to be at least two extra folios fX, fY, and four extra pages > before f71r, arranged like this: > > fX recto: zodiac cover page > ??----------------------------------- <- extra folio > fX verso: original Pisces 1 > > fY recto: original Pisces 2 > ??----------------------------------- <- extra folio > fY verso: original Aries 1 But what happened with the other pages on the same bifolios as these extra ones? Pisces and Aries-1 are on the verso of some cosmo pages. I must say that I see no reason to suspect anything wrong with the page order as we see it... Cheers, Rene ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [stolfi 23 Jan 1999] > [Rene:] The order of the pages in the VMs is correct and > deliberate. .... for the zodiac, but by extension also for the > quire in which the zodiac starts (nr. 10). I agree with this claim too. My fanta, er, theory assumes that quire 10 was done before the Zodiac section. > ... I must say that I see no reason to suspect anything wrong > with the page order as we see it... My proposal does not imply any reordering of the pages or the signs; on the contrary it assumes that the present order of the signs is the order originally intended by the author. In fact, it implies that the order was important, so much so that the author preferred to use f70v rather than move Pisces to the end of the zodiac. In particular, the redrawing theory has no bearing on the "why Pisces" question. It would however explain why Pisces was not split like Aries and Taurus, and why it has tubes instead of dustbins. > A frivolity: I hereby claim that the lost folio 74 used to be a > foldout. Can't be proved, can't be disproved. But if it wasn't, > it would have been the only single-page quire in the VMs which > isn't a foldout. You mean single-sheet, presumably. Yes, that is quite possible. (However, one implication of the redrawing theory is that the physical layout of that section is partly accidental. So until this theory is disproved I would not trust any conclusions based on presumed regularity of the physical layout.) Looking your "quires" note, it seems most likely that folio f74, if it was a six-panel foldout, was attached to f73, after the fashion of f69+f70 and f71+f72. Is this what you had in mind? But that begs the question: what would those six panels contain? Panels f74r1 and f74r2 must have contained the two missing signs (Capricorn and Aquarius). Perhaps f74r3 contained a "conclusion" similar to the last paragraph of the Cosmo section (f70r2+3) --- and to the last paragraph of the Stars section (f116r). I propose that the remaining three panels (f74v1+2+3) were simply left blank, to serve as a temporary back cover --- just as f116v was left blank at the end of the Stars section, and as f70v (according to the redrawing theory) was left blank at the end of the Cosmo section. Indeed that suggests an explanation for the loss of folio f74: almost surely it was the last folio of the book for a while, and so it must have taken more abuse than the rest of the Zodiac. Even if it didn't fall off on its own, by the time the Pharma section was added f74 may have been in such a poor condition that it had to be discarded. (By the way, the fact that bifolios f67+f68, f69+f70 and f71+f72 all have similar dimensions suggests that they were part of the same batch of blank vellum, which in turn is strong evidence that the Cosmo and Zodiac sections were done with little or no interval between them.) > The explanation is somewhat complicated. I like to keep it simple > and could (for example) very well imagine that the VMs writer > did the first few zodiac drawings by making a draft first and > copied that draft onto the pages we have. For the later pages > he could have drawn straight on the vellum. The main arguments I have for the redrawing theory are based on the style and feel of the drawings. Unfortunately it is hard to turn those feelings into objective statements. I can only say that the difference that I see between Pisces and Aries 2 are not simply a question of draft/no draft. Going from Aries 2 to Pisces (and even from the inner to the outer band in each diagram) I see clear improvements not only in the artist's skill at drawing nymphs, but also in his conception of the diagram (including the switch from the "15+15" format to the "30" one.) I wish I knew how to be more specific... > If this circular carved piece of stone is to be read outside > in, then yes. ( :-) ) Note I said "assumed" but didn't add "correctly" 8-) > The tubs are certainly at least as decorated [on Pisces] as on > the next Aries page... Yes, but the proposed drawing order is Aries2 - Taurus1 - ( Aries1 - Pisces ) - Taurus2 - (all the rest) except that the redrawing of Aries1 and Pisces could have happened anytime between the start of Taurus1 and the finishing of Taurus2. > But what happened with the other pages on the same bifolios as these > extra ones? Indeed, that is a weak spot of the theory. If the original plan was to have 24 diagrams of 15 nymphs each, then three of his "double A4" vellum sheets, each with space for 8 panels, would be just enough. But then there would be no panels left over for covers, and the pairing would be inconvenient --- the two halves of each sign would have to lie on opposite sides of the same folio. So it is somewhat more likely that he had planned to use 4 bifolios, in which case one of them could have been a "standard" 4-panel sheet. Then the planned physical layout could have been fXXr: front cover ------------------------- <- discarded later / fXXv: Pisces1 | \ fYYr: Pisces2 ------------------------- <- discarded later fYYv: Aries1 f71r: Aries2 ------------------------- / f71v: Taurus1 | \ f72r1: Taurus2 f72r2: Gemini1 f72r3: Gemini2 -------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------- f72v1: Leo1 f72v2: Cancer2 f72v3: Cancer1 f73r: Leo2 ------------------------- / f73v: Virgo1 | \ f74r1: Virgo2 f74r2: Libra1 f74r3: Libra2 -------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------- <- lost f74v1: Sagittarius1 f74v2: Scorpio2 f74v3: Scorpio1 f75r: Sagittarius2 ------------------------- <- not needed / f75v: Capricorn1 | \ f75r1: Capricorn2 f75r2: Aquarius1 f75r3: Aquarius3 -------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------- <- not needed f75v1: back cover (blank) .................................... Of course the last bifolio was droppd from the plan after the switch to the 30-nymph format. There are many other possibilities, e.g. that the original plan was to have four nested bifolios, or to fold the bifolios in a diffrent way. But... the assumption of a discarded bifolio may not be necessary after all. Suppose the Artist had planned to draw the Zodiac as a continuation of the Cosmo section, as you say, but using 24 15-nymph diagrams, according to this layout: ---------------------- / | \ f70r: Cosmo stuff .................................................. ----------------------+---------------------+------------------------- f70v1: Aries1 f70v2: Pisces2 f70v3: Pisces 1 f71r: Aries2 ---------------------- / f71v: Taurus1 | \ f72r1: Taurus2 f72r2: Gemini1 f72r3: Gemini2 ----------------------+---------------------+------------------------- f72v1: Leo1 f72v2: Cancer2 f72v3: Cancer1 etc. However, for some reason the Artist could not start with Pisces1. (Perhaps the Cosmo booklet was in use by the Master, or bifolio f69+f70 still had to be unbound, or the Scribe was still busy on it.) So the Artist started his job with Aries2 and continued with Taurus1 and Taurus2. Before he finished the latter he got hold of bifolio f69+f70, and noticed to his chagrin that panel f70v3 was too narrow even for a 15-nymph diagram. Thus he was forced to invent the 30-nymph format for Pisces. When he went back to Gemini, he realized that, if he sqeezed things a little, he could use the 30-nymph format even on standard-width panels. The rest of the story goes on as before. Actually, I prefer this version of the theory to the previous one, because it does not require the Artist to discard an expensive vellum sheet and a couple of hours of his work. Somehow, such a act of Artistic Heroism does not seem to square with his obvious haste and sloppiness in later diagrams. All the best, ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [adams Douglas 20 Jan 1999] Jorge Stolfi wrote: > If tubes and dustbins are meaningful, an obvious guess for their > meaning is visibility. (Didn't Rene suggest this some time ago?) My > brain battery is low now so I cannot think out the geometry involved. > Would some Zodiac stars be (partly) invisible from (your favorite > place) during Pisces/Aries/Taurus? Too bad we don't have the > november/december charts; if this theory is correct then they > should have had dustbins and tubes, too. The Zodiac can be visualized as a band of constellations around the celestial sphere tilted at a 22.5 degree angle relative to the celestial equator. One way to think about what's obscured is a bowl (hmm, a tub?) in which the celestial sphere sits and rotates throughout the day and year. You can only see what's above the edge of the bowl. Whatever constallation the Sun is in, it's the opposite constallations (and planets in those constellations) which are visible at night--about 4/5ths of the full set There is nowhere on Earth that some signs of the Zodiac are always invisible, this would be the same as places on Earth where the Sun is always invisible. But all signs are invisible for different portions of the year, because they're below the horizon at night. It's already been mentioned that the VMs Zodiac seems to start with Pisces, which was astronomically correct for this millenium until the 20th century, rather that holding with the ancient tradition of starting in Aries. If there is a representation in the VMs of the relative visibility of signs of that Zodiac, then it would seem to indicate a particular time of year that is astronomically accurate. Since I haven't got the classic Zodiac memorized I'll have to go look today and get back to this--but it's a very interesting idea. -Adams ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [stolfi 23 Jan 1999] > [Rene:] The order of the pages in the VMs is correct and > deliberate. .... for the zodiac, but by extension also for the > quire in which the zodiac starts (nr. 10). I agree with this claim too. My fanta, er, theory assumes that quire 10 was done before the Zodiac section. > ... I must say that I see no reason to suspect anything wrong > with the page order as we see it... My proposal does not imply any reordering of the pages or the signs; on the contrary it assumes that the present order of the signs is the order originally intended by the author. In fact, it implies that the order was important, so much so that the author preferred to use f70v rather than move Pisces to the end of the zodiac. In particular, the redrawing theory has no bearing on the "why Pisces" question. It would however explain why Pisces was not split like Aries and Taurus, and why it has tubes instead of dustbins. > A frivolity: I hereby claim that the lost folio 74 used to be a > foldout. Can't be proved, can't be disproved. But if it wasn't, > it would have been the only single-page quire in the VMs which > isn't a foldout. You mean single-sheet, presumably. Yes, that is quite possible. (However, one implication of the redrawing theory is that the physical layout of that section is partly accidental. So until this theory is disproved I would not trust any conclusions based on presumed regularity of the physical layout.) Looking your "quires" note, it seems most likely that folio f74, if it was a six-panel foldout, was attached to f73, after the fashion of f69+f70 and f71+f72. Is this what you had in mind? But that begs the question: what would those six panels contain? Panels f74r1 and f74r2 must have contained the two missing signs (Capricorn and Aquarius). Perhaps f74r3 contained a "conclusion" similar to the last paragraph of the Cosmo section (f70r2+3) --- and to the last paragraph of the Stars section (f116r). I propose that the remaining three panels (f74v1+2+3) were simply left blank, to serve as a temporary back cover --- just as f116v was left blank at the end of the Stars section, and as f70v (according to the redrawing theory) was left blank at the end of the Cosmo section. Indeed that suggests an explanation for the loss of folio f74: almost surely it was the last folio of the book for a while, and so it must have taken more abuse than the rest of the Zodiac. Even if it didn't fall off on its own, by the time the Pharma section was added f74 may have been in such a poor condition that it had to be discarded. (By the way, the fact that bifolios f67+f68, f69+f70 and f71+f72 all have similar dimensions suggests that they were part of the same batch of blank vellum, which in turn is strong evidence that the Cosmo and Zodiac sections were done with little or no interval between them.) > The explanation is somewhat complicated. I like to keep it simple > and could (for example) very well imagine that the VMs writer > did the first few zodiac drawings by making a draft first and > copied that draft onto the pages we have. For the later pages > he could have drawn straight on the vellum. The main arguments I have for the redrawing theory are based on the style and feel of the drawings. Unfortunately it is hard to turn those feelings into objective statements. I can only say that the difference that I see between Pisces and Aries 2 are not simply a question of draft/no draft. Going from Aries 2 to Pisces (and even from the inner to the outer band in each diagram) I see clear improvements not only in the artist's skill at drawing nymphs, but also in his conception of the diagram (including the switch from the "15+15" format to the "30" one.) I wish I knew how to be more specific... > If this circular carved piece of stone is to be read outside > in, then yes. ( :-) ) Note I said "assumed" but didn't add "correctly" 8-) > The tubs are certainly at least as decorated [on Pisces] as on > the next Aries page... Yes, but the proposed drawing order is Aries2 - Taurus1 - ( Aries1 - Pisces ) - Taurus2 - (all the rest) except that the redrawing of Aries1 and Pisces could have happened anytime between the start of Taurus1 and the finishing of Taurus2. > But what happened with the other pages on the same bifolios as these > extra ones? Indeed, that is a weak spot of the theory. If the original plan was to have 24 diagrams of 15 nymphs each, then three of his "double A4" vellum sheets, each with space for 8 panels, would be just enough. But then there would be no panels left over for covers, and the pairing would be inconvenient --- the two halves of each sign would have to lie on opposite sides of the same folio. So it is somewhat more likely that he had planned to use 4 bifolios, in which case one of them could have been a "standard" 4-panel sheet. Then the planned physical layout could have been fXXr: front cover ------------------------- <- discarded later / fXXv: Pisces1 | \ fYYr: Pisces2 ------------------------- <- discarded later fYYv: Aries1 f71r: Aries2 ------------------------- / f71v: Taurus1 | \ f72r1: Taurus2 f72r2: Gemini1 f72r3: Gemini2 -------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------- f72v1: Leo1 f72v2: Cancer2 f72v3: Cancer1 f73r: Leo2 ------------------------- / f73v: Virgo1 | \ f74r1: Virgo2 f74r2: Libra1 f74r3: Libra2 -------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------- <- lost f74v1: Sagittarius1 f74v2: Scorpio2 f74v3: Scorpio1 f75r: Sagittarius2 ------------------------- <- not needed / f75v: Capricorn1 | \ f75r1: Capricorn2 f75r2: Aquarius1 f75r3: Aquarius3 -------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------- <- not needed f75v1: back cover (blank) .................................... Of course the last bifolio was droppd from the plan after the switch to the 30-nymph format. There are many other possibilities, e.g. that the original plan was to have four nested bifolios, or to fold the bifolios in a diffrent way. But... the assumption of a discarded bifolio may not be necessary after all. Suppose the Artist had planned to draw the Zodiac as a continuation of the Cosmo section, as you say, but using 24 15-nymph diagrams, according to this layout: ---------------------- / | \ f70r: Cosmo stuff .................................................. ----------------------+---------------------+------------------------- f70v1: Aries1 f70v2: Pisces2 f70v3: Pisces 1 f71r: Aries2 ---------------------- / f71v: Taurus1 | \ f72r1: Taurus2 f72r2: Gemini1 f72r3: Gemini2 ----------------------+---------------------+------------------------- f72v1: Leo1 f72v2: Cancer2 f72v3: Cancer1 etc. However, for some reason the Artist could not start with Pisces1. (Perhaps the Cosmo booklet was in use by the Master, or bifolio f69+f70 still had to be unbound, or the Scribe was still busy on it.) So the Artist started his job with Aries2 and continued with Taurus1 and Taurus2. Before he finished the latter he got hold of bifolio f69+f70, and noticed to his chagrin that panel f70v3 was too narrow even for a 15-nymph diagram. Thus he was forced to invent the 30-nymph format for Pisces. When he went back to Gemini, he realized that, if he sqeezed things a little, he could use the 30-nymph format even on standard-width panels. The rest of the story goes on as before. Actually, I prefer this version of the theory to the previous one, because it does not require the Artist to discard an expensive vellum sheet and a couple of hours of his work. Somehow, such a act of Artistic Heroism does not seem to square with his obvious haste and sloppiness in later diagrams. All the best, ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [stolfi 28 Jan 1999] By the way, I strongly suspect that the drawings were made by a young child or teenager, who may not have seen a naked person before. This may sound unbelievable to some cultures, but would have been quite possible in medieval Europe --- people did not take baths then, and nakedness was strongly supressed as immoral and sinful. Until recently it would have been quite common for people to grow up without even seeing a person of the opposite sex naked, not even close relatives... (This does not mean that the *author of the book* was a child. I believe that in those times most artists began as apprentices and assistants when they were in their early teens. Also, when my mother was 13 years old, in pre-war Italy, she was already working as an "artist" for architects and home decorators. Even today many cartoon "artists" are very young, often under 18; they are not younger mainly because of labor laws, which of course did not apply to medieval times. So it is quite possible that the VMS author hired a boy or girl to do the drawings, or left the work to his own child.) He also doesn't have breasts, which confirms he is male. But the lack of breasts, by itself, is not proof: the figures in the first drawings (Aries f71r) don't have breasts but must be female. All the best, Dear all, the month names written on the zodiac pages have been discussed quite a few times already. Not unexpectedly, there is not much agreement about their origin. The first few are quite readable, and read: Mars, Abril, May, Yony Then there is the very German 'Augst' An oddity is the use of 'Octembre' for October. Exactly which language this is has not been determined as far as I know. It certainly isn't Latin, but I think Provencal has been suggested once. Whether the month names were written by the original writer or a later owner, it should say something about the location of the VMs at some point in time - prior to its appearance in Prague, I would say. It doesn't fit with Voynich's scenario, where the VMs was located mostly in England and Bohemia. If the VMs originates from N. Italy of Germany, then it must have travelled a bit before it reached Prague. Unless a N. Italian dialect can be identified that has these month names. Or we postulate that the writer, in N. Italy, was of another origin. Interestingly, I read in a book by Paul Kunitsch, who is a recognised expert in Arabic star lore, that the following month names were used normally by astronomers in the Arabic West: ynyr, fbryr, mrs, 'bryl, m'yh, ywnyh, ywlyh, 'gst, stnbr, 'ktwbr, nwnbr, dgnbr. This is how they were printed in the book, except that the 's' in august and september have a caret (hacek) above them and so does the 'g' in december. The quote represents the glotal stop. Obviously, in the Mss that the book describes, this would have been written in the Arabic script. The only one that does not seem to fit is the 'octembre'. So who could have written these month names, and where and when did he do it? Anybody know a specialist in mediaeval Romance languages? Cheers, Rene From VM Tue Apr 13 09:14:38 1999 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3915" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "06:35:34" " +0000" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Re: The month names once more" "^From:" nil nil "2" "99021506:35:34" nil (number " " mark " Jorge Stolfi 1999- 2-15 3915 \"Re: The month names once more\"\n") nil] nil) Content-Length: 3915 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 References: Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br From: Jorge Stolfi To: Zandbergen@t-online.de (Rene) In-Reply-To: Subject: Re: The month names once more > The first few are quite readable, and read: > Mars, Abril, May, Yony They certainly are names of months, and that is how I read them, too. But some of the letters can be read only by assuming that the word is a month name, so that the question is merely choosing between a few "plausible" spellings. For example the word on f70v1 could also be read "abcril" and that on f71r could be "ab'rab" or "abirib" or many other things. The reading "abril" is only a fair compromise between what we expect to read and what is really there on the paper... On f71v, I see a (round) circumflex over the "y" in "May"; is it noise? It is not present on f72r1. The final "y" of "yony" seems to be closed at the top. On f72r3 I think I see a double "l" and an "y" at the end, perhaps "yoll*y". > Then there is the very German 'Augst' I see a dot over the first leg of the "u"; is that noise? On f72v2 I read "s#*p$@b^" where "#*$@^" are illegible. The "#*" seems too big for an "e". The "$" could be a "t", okay. There is a short crescent-shaped mark over the "@", and a longer stroke over both, so I am willing to grant that the "@" could be "en" or "em". The "^" is an L-shaped superscript, which could be an abbreviation for "er". > An oddity is the use of 'Octembre' for October. > > Exactly which language this is has not been determined as far > as I know. It certainly isn't Latin, but I think Provencal has > been suggested once. Indeed I once found through Altavista this sample entry from the Oxford English Dictionary (no longer on-line) that says: October (ktb(r)). Also 3­7 -bre; in 7 sometimes abbrev. 8bre, 8ber. [In OE. and mod.Eng. a. L. October, -obrem, f. octo eight (orig. the eighth month of the year); in ME. a. F. Octobre (1303 in Hatz.-Darm.), ad. L. Octobrem, which supplanted the popular OF. oitovre. Med.L. had also the analogical form Octember, -imber, 13th c. F. Octembre, Pr. Octembre.] ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ "Pr." is Provençal, I assume. > Whether the month names were written by the original writer or > a later owner I propose that the person who wrote the month names is the same who wrote the "michiton" lines on f116v. The letter shapes and the handwriting seem to match, don't you thinks so? I propose also (somewhat less convincingly) that the person who wrote the "michiton" lines was the author. That is because the words on f116v seem to be part of the text, implying that the writer of that sentence knew Voynichese. > it should say something about the location of the > VMs at some point in time - prior to its appearance in Prague, I > would say. > It doesn't fit with Voynich's scenario, where the VMs was located > mostly in England and Bohemia. The German-looking letters and the "augst" seem compatible with Bohemia, next door to Germany. (Wasn't Rudolph more German than Czech?) > Unless a N. Italian dialect can be identified that has these > month names. Seems unlikely.... > Or we postulate that the writer, in N. Italy, was of > another origin. The "b" in "abril" seems characteristic of Spanish and Portuguese. > Interestingly, I read in a book by Paul Kunitsch, who is a recognised > expert in Arabic star lore, that the following month names were > used normally by astronomers in the Arabic West: > > ynyr, fbryr, mrs, 'bryl, m'yh, ywnyh, ywlyh, 'gst, stnbr, 'ktwbr, > nwnbr, dgnbr. Interesting! The Arabs ruled Spain and Portugal for several centuries, and left their mark on the language---such as a couple hundred words beginning with "al-". I wonder if the change from Latin "april.." to Spanish/Portuguese "abril" was also part of that influence? Or was it the other way around---the "'bryl" above were borrowed from ... All the best, --stolfi From VM Tue Apr 13 09:14:46 1999 Content-Length: 3916 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3916" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "06:36:19" "-0200" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Re: The month names once more" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021508:36:19" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA00147 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 06:38:22 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id GAA12890 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 06:38:20 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-8-173.rand.org [130.154.8.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id AAA18278; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 00:41:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id AAA27136 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 00:39:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.1.11]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id AAA18068 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 00:39:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.11]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id GAA12886 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 06:36:20 -0200 (EDT) Received: from coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (coruja.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.24.80]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA00067 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 06:36:20 -0200 (EDT) Received: (from stolfi@localhost) by coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA11537; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 06:36:19 -0200 (EDT) Message-Id: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Length: 3915 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 06:36:19 -0200 (EDT) From: Jorge Stolfi To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: Subject: Re: The month names once more > The first few are quite readable, and read: > Mars, Abril, May, Yony They certainly are names of months, and that is how I read them, too. But some of the letters can be read only by assuming that the word is a month name, so that the question is merely choosing between a few "plausible" spellings. For example the word on f70v1 could also be read "abcril" and that on f71r could be "ab'rab" or "abirib" or many other things. The reading "abril" is only a fair compromise between what we expect to read and what is really there on the paper... On f71v, I see a (round) circumflex over the "y" in "May"; is it noise? It is not present on f72r1. The final "y" of "yony" seems to be closed at the top. On f72r3 I think I see a double "l" and an "y" at the end, perhaps "yoll*y". > Then there is the very German 'Augst' I see a dot over the first leg of the "u"; is that noise? On f72v2 I read "s#*p$@b^" where "#*$@^" are illegible. The "#*" seems too big for an "e". The "$" could be a "t", okay. There is a short crescent-shaped mark over the "@", and a longer stroke over both, so I am willing to grant that the "@" could be "en" or "em". The "^" is an L-shaped superscript, which could be an abbreviation for "er". > An oddity is the use of 'Octembre' for October. > > Exactly which language this is has not been determined as far > as I know. It certainly isn't Latin, but I think Provencal has > been suggested once. Indeed I once found through Altavista this sample entry from the Oxford English Dictionary (no longer on-line) that says: October (ktb(r)). Also 3­7 -bre; in 7 sometimes abbrev. 8bre, 8ber. [In OE. and mod.Eng. a. L. October, -obrem, f. octo eight (orig. the eighth month of the year); in ME. a. F. Octobre (1303 in Hatz.-Darm.), ad. L. Octobrem, which supplanted the popular OF. oitovre. Med.L. had also the analogical form Octember, -imber, 13th c. F. Octembre, Pr. Octembre.] ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ "Pr." is Provençal, I assume. > Whether the month names were written by the original writer or > a later owner I propose that the person who wrote the month names is the same who wrote the "michiton" lines on f116v. The letter shapes and the handwriting seem to match, don't you thinks so? I propose also (somewhat less convincingly) that the person who wrote the "michiton" lines was the author. That is because the words on f116v seem to be part of the text, implying that the writer of that sentence knew Voynichese. > it should say something about the location of the > VMs at some point in time - prior to its appearance in Prague, I > would say. > It doesn't fit with Voynich's scenario, where the VMs was located > mostly in England and Bohemia. The German-looking letters and the "augst" seem compatible with Bohemia, next door to Germany. (Wasn't Rudolph more German than Czech?) > Unless a N. Italian dialect can be identified that has these > month names. Seems unlikely.... > Or we postulate that the writer, in N. Italy, was of > another origin. The "b" in "abril" seems characteristic of Spanish and Portuguese. > Interestingly, I read in a book by Paul Kunitsch, who is a recognised > expert in Arabic star lore, that the following month names were > used normally by astronomers in the Arabic West: > > ynyr, fbryr, mrs, 'bryl, m'yh, ywnyh, ywlyh, 'gst, stnbr, 'ktwbr, > nwnbr, dgnbr. Interesting! The Arabs ruled Spain and Portugal for several centuries, and left their mark on the language---such as a couple hundred words beginning with "al-". I wonder if the change from Latin "april.." to Spanish/Portuguese "abril" was also part of that influence? Or was it the other way around---the "'bryl" above were borrowed from ... All the best, --stolfi From VM Tue Apr 13 09:14:48 1999 Content-Length: 878 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["878" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "02:31:09" "-0700" "Annette M. Stroud" "astroud@du.edu" "" nil "Re: The month names once more" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021509:31:09" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA04452 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 07:30:16 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id HAA13182 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 07:30:15 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-8-173.rand.org [130.154.8.173] (may be forged)) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id BAA29736; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 01:33:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id BAA27678 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 01:31:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from atlas.cair.du.edu (atlas.cair.du.edu [130.253.2.202]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id BAA21904 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 01:31:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from odin.cair.du.edu (odin.cair.du.edu [130.253.1.2]) by denver.du.edu (PMDF V5.2-29 #28064) with ESMTP id <01J7R8WXZX9C90NUMG@denver.du.edu> for voynich@rand.org; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 02:31:09 MST Received: from localhost by du.edu (PMDF V5.1-10 #28062) with SMTP id <0F7600401VRXH3@du.edu> for voynich@rand.org; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 02:31:09 -0700 (MST) X-Sender: astroud@odin.cair.du.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 877 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 02:31:09 -0700 (MST) From: "Annette M. Stroud" To: voynich@rand.org In-reply-to: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Subject: Re: The month names once more On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Jorge Stolfi wrote: > The "b" in "abril" seems characteristic of Spanish and Portuguese. > > > Interestingly, I read in a book by Paul Kunitsch, who is a recognised > > expert in Arabic star lore, that the following month names were > > used normally by astronomers in the Arabic West: > > > > ynyr, fbryr, mrs, 'bryl, m'yh, ywnyh, ywlyh, 'gst, stnbr, 'ktwbr, > > nwnbr, dgnbr. > > Interesting! > > The Arabs ruled Spain and Portugal for several centuries, and left > their mark on the language---such as a couple hundred words > beginning with "al-". I wonder if the change from Latin "april.." to > Spanish/Portuguese "abril" was also part of that influence? > Or was it the other way around---the "'bryl" above were borrowed from > ... There is no "p" sound in arabic. Closest is "b". There is also no "v". Annette From VM Tue Apr 13 09:14:51 1999 Content-Length: 1844 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1844" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "13:13:49" "-0200" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Re: The month names once more" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021515:13:49" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA01475 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:16:00 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAA15064 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:15:58 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-8-173.rand.org [130.154.8.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id HAA17699; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 07:18:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id HAA03647 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 07:16:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.1.11]) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id HAA16884 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 07:16:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.11]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAA15048 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:13:51 -0200 (EDT) Received: from coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (coruja.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.24.80]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA01354 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:13:50 -0200 (EDT) Received: (from stolfi@localhost) by coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA13716; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:13:49 -0200 (EDT) Message-Id: <199902151513.NAA13716@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Length: 1843 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:13:49 -0200 (EDT) From: Jorge Stolfi To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: Subject: Re: The month names once more > [Annette:] There is no "p" sound in arabic. Closest is "b". > There is also no "v". Thanks! That still doesn't imply that the Iberian "b" in "abril" is due to Arab influence, but somehow makes it a bit more likely... Another observation about month names: note that they are written in odd places and angles, and "december" (Sagittarius) in particular is squeezed beyond recognition. That probably means that the names were not planned from the beginning, but added as an afterthought, when all the drawings were already done. It doesn't follow, however, that the month names were written by a different person. In fact, another argument for assigning f116v to the original VMS author is that the drawings on that page are quite similar in theme and style to the other illustrations (especially the "biological" ones); and it is hard to explain why the artist would squeeze those pictures in the margin of f116v if the text wasn't there yet. Furthermore, consider the possibility that the person who wrote the month names (and the "michiton" line on f116v) did not know any Western language, not even the month names, and was quite unfamiliar with the Western alphabet; so he merely copied those words as pictures (as I would copy an Arabic word). This theory may explain certain strange details of the month names, such as the dot over the "u" of "augst", the misplaced dot of "abril", the extra stuff between the "s" and "p" of "september", etc. It may also explain why the handwriting of f116v is so ugly, why no one has been able to identify its language, and why there are no Latin or Greek letters at all in the text proper... All the best, --stolfi PS. It would be handy to have a standard nickname for the VMS author, just as we have "VMS" for the book and "Voynichese" for the language and script. Any suggestions? From VM Tue Apr 13 09:14:56 1999 Content-Length: 1656 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1656" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "16:29:55" "GMT" "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" "mcv@wxs.nl" nil nil "Re: The month names once more" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021516:29:55" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA06588 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:29:37 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA15553 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:29:35 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-8-173.rand.org [130.154.8.173] (may be forged)) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id IAA27657; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 08:31:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAA09045 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 08:29:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp02.wxs.nl (smtp02.wxs.nl [195.121.6.60]) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id IAA27331 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 08:29:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from hlm0084-1.dial.wxs.nl ([195.121.40.84]) by smtp02.wxs.nl (Netscape Messaging Server 3.61) with SMTP id AAA3F05 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:29:56 +0100 Reply-To: mcv@wxs.nl Message-ID: <36d4495b.207648694@mail.wxs.nl> References: <36C85DDF.2A12@alphalink.com.au> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99g/32.326 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 1655 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:29:55 GMT From: mcv@wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: <36C85DDF.2A12@alphalink.com.au> Subject: Re: The month names once more jguy wrote: >Rene wrote: > >> An oddity is the use of 'Octembre' for October. >> Exactly which language this is has not been determined as far >> as I know. It certainly isn't Latin, but I think Provencal has >> been suggested once. > >Quite some time ago now, someone on this list said that it was >slavic, more precisely, Czech if I remember. Russian, on the >other hand, has lost the "m" everywhere: okt'abr', nojabr', >dek'abr' Russian is the regular reflex of the Common Slavic nasal vowel /e~/. Oktjabr' < okte~brI, which in turn must derive from a Greek form , besides the literary form . But the Greek (< Latin) month names are used only in the Slavic areas which were converted to Orthodox Christianity. Most Catholic areas have native month names ("October" is paz'dziernik in Polish, r^íjen in Czech, listopad in Croatian). The exceptions are Slovenian (which has Latin month names under Austrian influence) and Ukrainian (which has Polish month names under Polish influence). That rules out Czech. Serbian, Bulgarian or (Old) Russian are possibilities, and so are Greek and Romanian. The Romanian month names are not directly inherited from Latin, but borrowed from Greek/Bulgarian, and October is "octombrie" (which looks like a contamination between oktobrios/oktobar and oktembrios/oktembar). But, as Jorge has said, Medieval/Vulgar Latin octember is also a possibility. The anaology with september, november and december could have arisen anywhere and anytime where Latin/Greek month names were in use. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv@wxs.nl Amsterdam From VM Tue Apr 13 09:14:58 1999 Content-Length: 782 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["782" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "16:46:32" "GMT" "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" "mcv@wxs.nl" nil nil "Re: The month names once more" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021516:46:32" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA07155 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:45:49 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA15668 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:45:48 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-8-173.rand.org [130.154.8.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id IAA23399; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 08:48:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAA10683 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 08:46:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp04.wxs.nl (smtp04.wxs.nl [195.121.6.59]) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id IAA29953 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 08:46:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from hlm0101-1.dial.wxs.nl ([195.121.40.101]) by smtp04.wxs.nl (Netscape Messaging Server 3.61) with SMTP id AAA3009 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:46:32 +0100 Reply-To: mcv@wxs.nl Message-ID: <36d54cc3.208520879@mail.wxs.nl> References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902151513.NAA13716@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99g/32.326 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 781 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:46:32 GMT From: mcv@wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: <199902151513.NAA13716@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Subject: Re: The month names once more Jorge Stolfi wrote: > > > [Annette:] There is no "p" sound in arabic. Closest is "b". > > There is also no "v". > >Thanks! That still doesn't imply that the Iberian "b" in "abril" is due to >Arab influence, but somehow makes it a bit more likely... It's certainly not Arab influence, it's the normal development of Latin intervocalic -p- (including -pr-) in Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan and some Occitanian dialects (namely those where v > b). Also Sardinian. French and North Italian have -vr-, South Italian and Romanian mostly maintain -pr- (although we have abbrile in Naples). Central Italian (toscano), as always, shows a mix of -p(r)- and -v(r)- [in this case: aprile]. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv@wxs.nl Amsterdam From VM Tue Apr 13 09:14:59 1999 Content-Length: 623 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["623" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "09:48:15" "-0800" "jguy@alphalink.com.au" "jguy@alphalink.com.au" nil nil "Re: The month names once more" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021517:48:15" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA13381 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 20:51:24 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id UAA09852 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 20:51:21 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-8-173.rand.org [130.154.8.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id OAA12858; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 14:54:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA18446 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 14:53:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.alphalink.com.au (mail.alphalink.com.au [203.24.205.7]) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id OAA04890 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 14:53:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from LOCALNAME (ppp32-15-Melbourne.alphalink.com.au [202.161.98.95]) by mail.alphalink.com.au (8.9.2/8.6.9) with SMTP id JAA31041 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 09:53:44 +1100 (EST) Message-ID: <36C85DDF.2A12@alphalink.com.au> Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 622 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 09:48:15 -0800 From: jguy To: voynich@rand.org Subject: Re: The month names once more Rene wrote: > An oddity is the use of 'Octembre' for October. > Exactly which language this is has not been determined as far > as I know. It certainly isn't Latin, but I think Provencal has > been suggested once. Quite some time ago now, someone on this list said that it was slavic, more precisely, Czech if I remember. Russian, on the other hand, has lost the "m" everywhere: okt'abr', nojabr', dek'abr' > So who could have written these month names, and where and when > did he do it? Someone who lived in Prague (aka Praha), where, nowadays, I hear, they speak Czech? With my tongue not quite in my Czeech... From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:01 1999 Content-Length: 2385 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["2385" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "22:23:32" "+0100" "Zandbergen@t-online.de" "Zandbergen@t-online.de" "" nil "Re: The month names once more (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021521:23:32" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA29614 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 19:22:57 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id TAA17475 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 19:22:54 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-8-173.rand.org [130.154.8.173] (may be forged)) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id NAA27497; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:25:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAA05661 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:25:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from mailout04.btx.dtag.de (mailout04.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.152]) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net (Pilot/) with SMTP id NAA07063 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:25:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from fwd08.btx.dtag.de (fwd08.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.168]) by mailout04.btx.dtag.de with smtp id 10CVUm-0005CO-00; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:24:00 +0100 Received: (0625764225-0001(btxid)@[62.156.39.184]) by fwd08.btx.dtag.de id ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:23:32 +0100 Message-Id: References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> X-Mailer: T-Online eMail 2.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT X-Sender: 0625764225-0001@t-online.de Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 2384 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:23:32 +0100 From: Zandbergen@t-online.de (Rene) To: voynich@rand.org Subject: Re: The month names once more (fwd) I wrote: > > An oddity is the use of 'Octembre' for October. > > > > Exactly which language this is has not been determined as far > > as I know. It certainly isn't Latin, but I think Provencal has > > been suggested once. And Stolfi quotes the OED (this particular page being publicly visible): > [...] Med.L. had also the analogical form Octember, -imber, > 13th c. F. Octembre, Pr. Octembre.] ^^^^^^^^ > ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ > > "Pr." is Provençal, I assume. And Med.L. is medieval Latin, I presume, so there goes my "certainly isn't Latin" :-) About the Spanish Abril and the Arabic 'bryl: Indeed, Arabic doesn't have a p, but letters have been added to the Arabic alphabet to use it for other langauges. I think there are several versions which do have a p (e.g. Malay, though it is no longer used). In any case, here this simply wasn't necessary. Here's a transcription of a piece of Portuguese written in the Arabic script(16th C). As far as I can tell, there are no additions to the Arabic alphabet. I did not transcribe from the Arabic script. It was given as below. I cannot tell whether this is in some way an 'official' transliteration. The x represents the 'shin', reflecting how the 's' is pronounced in Portuguese. Juro bor Deeux, bor Deeux, ber Deeux qiriyador do ceu e da tera e bor xuwax xirconxtanxiyax fijifeyix e bolo-meu borfeta mofomede almoctafa qe-berego e firmou e moxtoro a fe qe-nox otrox Morox e Xalamowix qeremox e bolo w Alcoro (etc) Some of the vowels (i,y,w) are actually written small, in superscript. Miguel Carrasquer Vidal then wrote (about Abril): > It's certainly not Arab influence, it's the normal development of > Latin intervocalic -p- (including -pr-) in Portuguese, Spanish, > Catalan and some Occitanian dialects (namely those where v > b). > Also Sardinian. French and North Italian have -vr-, South > Italian and Romanian mostly maintain -pr- (although we have > abbrile in Naples). Central Italian (toscano), as always, shows > a mix of -p(r)- and -v(r)- [in this case: aprile]. So our forerunners are medieval or vulgar Latin, the Iberian languages, some Occitan and/or Provencal. I wonder if the use of 'y' in 'may' and 'yony' indicates anything else. Again, it doesn't seem very much like Latin to me, but I'll except all evidence to the contrary. Cheers, Rene From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:04 1999 Content-Length: 945 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["945" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "17:02:51" "-0500" "Karl Kluge" "kckluge@eecs.umich.edu" nil nil "Re: The month names once more (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021522:02:51" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA00974 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 20:00:25 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id UAA17703 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 20:00:24 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-8-173.rand.org [130.154.8.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id OAA14776; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:03:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA09088 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:02:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from krusty.eecs.umich.edu (krusty.eecs.umich.edu [141.213.12.25]) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id OAA00315 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:02:52 -0800 (PST) Received: (from kckluge@localhost) by krusty.eecs.umich.edu (8.9.2/8.9.2) id RAA11768; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:02:51 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199902152202.RAA11768@krusty.eecs.umich.edu> Content-Type: text Content-Length: 944 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:02:51 -0500 (EST) From: Karl Kluge To: voynich@rand.org In-reply-to: (Zandbergen@t-online.de) Subject: Re: The month names once more (fwd) Rene wrote: > I wrote: > > > > An oddity is the use of 'Octembre' for October. > > > > > > Exactly which language this is has not been determined as far > > > as I know. It certainly isn't Latin, but I think Provencal has > > > been suggested once. > > And Stolfi quotes the OED (this particular page being publicly > visible): > > > [...] Med.L. had also the analogical form Octember, -imber, > > 13th c. F. Octembre, Pr. Octembre.] ^^^^^^^^ > > ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ > > > > "Pr." is Provençal, I assume. > > And Med.L. is medieval Latin, I presume, so there goes my "certainly > isn't Latin" :-) What's somewhat disturbing is the presence of a 13th c. French or Provencal spelling for October in what, by various other features, appears to be a late 15th century mss. Could the month names have been written in by someone trying to give an air of spurious age to the Mss? Karl From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:07 1999 Content-Length: 592 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["592" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "22:30:33" "GMT" "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" "mcv@wxs.nl" nil nil "Re: The month names once more (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021522:30:33" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA04442 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 20:28:01 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id UAA17871 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 20:28:00 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-8-173.rand.org [130.154.8.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id OAA19112; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:30:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA11649 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:30:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp02.wxs.nl (smtp02.wxs.nl [195.121.6.60]) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id OAA02173 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 14:30:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from hlm0226-1.dial.wxs.nl ([195.121.40.226]) by smtp02.wxs.nl (Netscape Messaging Server 3.61) with SMTP id AAA3171 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 23:30:34 +0100 Reply-To: mcv@wxs.nl Message-ID: <36df9e92.229468808@mail.wxs.nl> References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99g/32.326 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 591 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:30:33 GMT From: mcv@wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: Subject: Re: The month names once more (fwd) Zandbergen@t-online.de (Rene) wrote: >So our forerunners are medieval or vulgar Latin, the Iberian languages, >some Occitan and/or Provencal. I wonder if the use of 'y' in 'may' and >'yony' indicates anything else. Again, it doesn't seem very much like >Latin to me, but I'll except all evidence to the contrary. 'may' and 'yony' kind of exclude Latin (-us), Portuguese and Spanish (-o). Catalan (maig /madZ/ and juny /Zun~/) and Occitan/Provencal are still possible (as well as a number of Germanic and Slavic lgs.). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv@wxs.nl Amsterdam From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:10 1999 Content-Length: 2235 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2235" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "22:12:59" "-0700" "Annette M. Stroud" "astroud@du.edu" nil nil "Re: The month names once more (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021605:12:59" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA04163 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 03:10:28 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id DAA20215 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 03:10:25 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id VAA27304; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:13:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA00588 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:13:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from atlas.cair.du.edu (atlas.cair.du.edu [130.253.2.202]) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id VAA27279 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:13:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from odin.cair.du.edu (odin.cair.du.edu [130.253.1.2]) by denver.du.edu (PMDF V5.2-29 #28064) with ESMTP id <01J7SE777ZX290OBDL@denver.du.edu> for voynich@rand.org; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:12:59 MST Received: from localhost by du.edu (PMDF V5.1-10 #28062) with SMTP id <0F7800501EHN4O@du.edu> for voynich@rand.org; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:12:59 -0700 (MST) X-Sender: astroud@odin.cair.du.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 2234 Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:12:59 -0700 (MST) From: "Annette M. Stroud" To: voynich@rand.org In-reply-to: Subject: Re: The month names once more (fwd) On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Rene wrote: > About the Spanish Abril and the Arabic 'bryl: > > Indeed, Arabic doesn't have a p, but letters have been added to > the Arabic alphabet to use it for other langauges. I think there > are several versions which do have a p (e.g. Malay, though it is > no longer used). In any case, here this simply wasn't necessary. I don't know when the later letters were added. The letter for "p" is just the "b" with three dots rather than one under the curve. The letter for "v" is the letter "f" with three dots over it rather than one. But my impression was that these were rather recent additions, that outright substitutions were used before they were added. > Here's a transcription of a piece of Portuguese written in the > Arabic script(16th C). As far as I can tell, there are no > additions to the Arabic alphabet. I did not transcribe from the > Arabic script. It was given as below. I cannot tell whether this > is in some way an 'official' transliteration. The x represents > the 'shin', reflecting how the 's' is pronounced in Portuguese. > > Juro bor Deeux, bor Deeux, ber Deeux qiriyador do ceu e da > tera e bor xuwax xirconxtanxiyax fijifeyix e bolo-meu > borfeta mofomede almoctafa qe-berego e firmou e moxtoro a > fe qe-nox otrox Morox e Xalamowix qeremox e bolo w Alcoro > (etc) > > Some of the vowels (i,y,w) are actually written small, in > superscript. > > Miguel Carrasquer Vidal then wrote (about Abril): > > > It's certainly not Arab influence, I know that Arabic is my favorite, and I am biased toward it, but I don't see that what Miguel says following proves that there was no Arabic influence in the Voynich month names. It is just an alternate explanation. (Okay and it might be the easiest. Shaved by Occam's razor again.) > >it's the normal development of > > Latin intervocalic -p- (including -pr-) in Portuguese, Spanish, > > Catalan and some Occitanian dialects (namely those where v > b). > > Also Sardinian. French and North Italian have -vr-, South > > Italian and Romanian mostly maintain -pr- (although we have > > abbrile in Naples). Central Italian (toscano), as always, shows > > a mix of -p(r)- and -v(r)- [in this case: aprile]. Annette From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:16 1999 Content-Length: 2379 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2379" "Tue" "16" "February" "1999" "03:54:27" "-0200" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Re: The month names once more (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021605:54:27" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA07112 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 03:54:59 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id DAA20420 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 03:54:57 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id VAA02513; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:57:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA01483 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:57:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.1.11]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id VAA13822 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 21:57:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.11]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id DAA20416 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 03:54:29 -0200 (EDT) Received: from coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (coruja.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.24.80]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA07108 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 03:54:29 -0200 (EDT) Received: (from stolfi@localhost) by coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA18389; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 03:54:27 -0200 (EDT) Message-Id: <199902160554.DAA18389@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Content-Length: 2378 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 03:54:27 -0200 (EDT) From: Jorge Stolfi To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: Subject: Re: The month names once more (fwd) > [Karl:] What's somewhat disturbing is the presence of a 13th c. > French or Provencal spelling for October in what, by various > other features, appears to be a late 15th century mss. Well, the OED quote may be parsed "(13th c. French) or Provençal" not necessarily as "13th c. (French or Provençal)" > [Rene:] Here's a transcription of a piece of Portuguese written > in the Arabic script(16th C). Fun! In fact, the phonetics is quite accurate, except of the p->b and a the "Xr" consonant clusters, and even I can read most of it fairly easily. For the curious, I have appended the modern spelling and the translation at the end. > Some of the vowels (i,y,w) are actually written small, in > superscript. Hm... like that "c"-like mark over the "t" in "septembr?" BTW, I think I read "siep..." rather than "sep..." Miguel says that the "b" in "abril" could mean Portuguese Spanish Catalan some Occitanian dialects Sardinian Neapolitan Now Neapolitan is intriguing, since the manuscript that Rene offered as a possible model for the biological section (the "De Balneis Puteolanis") was writen in Naples... On the other hand "octembre" could be Serbian Bulgarian Old Russian Greek Romanian Provençal or almost anywhere (a natural analogy with "september" etc.) Not much of an intersection 8-( All the best, --stolfi The Portuguese-in-Arabic text: Juro bor Deeux, bor Deeux, ber Deeux qiriyador do ceu e da Juro por Deus, por Deus, por Deus criador do céu e da I swear by God, by God, by God creator of heaven and of tera e bor xuwax xirconxtanxiyax fijifeyix e bolo-meu terra e por suas circunstâncias visíveis e pelo meu earth and for his circumstances(*) visible and by my borfeta mofomede almoctafa qe- berego e firmou e moxtoro a profeta Maomé al-Mustafa(?) que pregou e firmou e mostrou a prophet Mohammed al-Mustafa(?) who taught and consolidated and showed the fe qe- nox otrox Morox e Xalamowix qeremox e bolo w Alcoro fé que nós outros Mouros e Salamões(?) cremos e pelo ? Alcorão faith (in)which we Moors and Suleimans(?) believe and by the ? Quran (*) this word presumably meant "manifestations" back then... From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:18 1999 Content-Length: 1356 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1356" "Tue" "16" "February" "1999" "07:35:35" "+0100" "Zandbergen@t-online.de" "Zandbergen@t-online.de" nil nil "Re: The month names once more (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021606:35:35" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id EAA10675 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 04:34:33 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id EAA20660 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 04:34:31 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id WAA05046; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:37:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id WAA02075 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:37:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from mailout09.btx.dtag.de (mailout09.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.157]) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net (Pilot/) with SMTP id WAA05005 for ; Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:37:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from fwd04.btx.dtag.de (fwd04.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.164]) by mailout09.btx.dtag.de with smtp id 10Ce7A-0000Ly-00; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 07:36:12 +0100 Received: (0625764225-0001(btxid)@[62.156.39.24]) by fwd04.btx.dtag.de id ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 07:35:35 +0100 Message-Id: References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902160554.DAA18389@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> X-Mailer: T-Online eMail 2.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT X-Sender: 0625764225-0001@t-online.de Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 1355 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 07:35:35 +0100 From: Zandbergen@t-online.de (Rene) To: voynich@rand.org Subject: Re: The month names once more (fwd) Jorge Stolfi wrote: > Miguel says that the "b" in "abril" could mean > > Portuguese > Spanish > Catalan > some Occitanian dialects > Sardinian > Neapolitan > > Now Neapolitan is intriguing, since the manuscript that Rene > offered as a possible model for the biological section > (the "De Balneis Puteolanis") was writen in Naples... It was Brian Smith who made that connection. > On the other hand "octembre" could be > > Serbian > Bulgarian > Old Russian > Greek > Romanian > Provençal > or almost anywhere (a natural analogy with "september" etc.) > > Not much of an intersection 8-( Note that Provencal is an Occitanian dialect so we have the ideal intersection with one member :-) Little joke alert: Given that 'Augst' seems to be German, we might conclude that the month names are written in a polyglot tongue, somewhere in S. France (Occitania) in the 13th Century. Annette Stroud wrote: >> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal then wrote (about Abril): >> >> > It's certainly not Arab influence, >I know that Arabic is my favorite, and I am biased toward it, but I don't >see that what Miguel says following proves that there was no Arabic >influence in the Voynich month names. I'm sure that Miguel was talking about a possible Arab influence on the Spanish change from April > Abril, not the VMs. Cheers, Rene From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:21 1999 Content-Length: 818 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["818" "Tue" "16" "February" "1999" "15:00:17" "-0200" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" "<199902161700.PAA21835@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br>" nil "Re: The month names once more (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021617:00:17" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA26874 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:01:37 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id PAA24155 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:01:33 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id JAA09328; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:04:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA22183 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:03:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.1.11]) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id JAA22885 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:03:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.11]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id PAA24133 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:00:19 -0200 (EDT) Received: from coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (coruja.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.24.80]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA26847 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:00:19 -0200 (EDT) Received: (from stolfi@localhost) by coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA21835; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:00:17 -0200 (EDT) Message-Id: <199902161700.PAA21835@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902160554.DAA18389@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <36CA5343.3D7@alphalink.com.au> Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902160554.DAA18389@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <36CA5343.3D7@alphalink.com.au> Content-Length: 817 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:00:17 -0200 (EDT) From: Jorge Stolfi To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: <36CA5343.3D7@alphalink.com.au> Subject: Re: The month names once more (fwd) > [Jacques:] That is strange, the occasional confusion between e and o, viz: > > > Juro bor Deeux, bor Deeux, ber Deeux qiriyador do ceu e da > > Juro por Deus, por Deus, por Deus criador do céu e da > ^ ^ ^ Part of the confusion may be in the Portuguese itself, not in the Arabic transcription. The modern "por" was replacing the Latin "per" by about that time, and the contractions "pelo" and "polo" were both in current use. Leafing through my obbligatory Camões (~1570) I quickly found all four spellings. Of course "polo" would be more logical but "pelo" is the form that survived. Of course. BTW, Camões also writes "pera" ("for") where modern Portuguese uses "para". Some dialects still pronounce it as "pera". --stolfi From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:25 1999 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1210" "Tue" "16" "February" "1999" "20:29:55" " +0000" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Titillating tidbit: x -> s? " "^From:" nil nil "2" "99021620:29:55" nil (number " " mark " Jorge Stolfi 1999- 2-16 1210 \"Titillating tidbit: x -> s? \"\n") nil] nil) Content-Length: 1210 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br From: Jorge Stolfi To: voynich In-Reply-To: Subject: Titillating tidbit: x -> s? > [Rene, about the Portuguese-in-Arabic sample:] The x represents > the 'shin', reflecting how the 's' is pronounced in Portuguese. > > Juro bor Deeux, bor Deeux, ber Deeux qiriyador do ceu e da Indeed the final "s" tends to be pronounced "sh" in Portugal. Here in Brazil it is the main characteristic of the Rio accent. Just to stay in topic, consider the third line of page f116v, which has been transcribed as + six+marix+morix+vix+abta+maria+- As we know far too well, these words can't be matched to any language. However if we read "x" as "s" and "b" as "p" we get + sis+maris+moris+vis+apta+maria+- Which may not make any sense either, but at least the words are all common Latin words... And if that is not enough, here is what I got when I asked Altavista for "sis NEAR maris": http://eden.vmg.co.uk/baebes/salvanos.html Salva Nos, Stella Maris Anon. Latin 13th Century. Latin ... Sis nobis salutaris, Imperatrix celorum; Salva Nos, Stella Maris et regina celorum. ... "Stella Maris", the "Star of the Seas", is of course the Virgin Mary, "Maria" in Latin... All the best, --stolfi From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:30 1999 Content-Length: 1211 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["1211" "Tue" "16" "February" "1999" "20:44:53" "-0200" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" "<199902162244.UAA23672@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br>" nil "Titillating tidbit: x -> s? " "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021622:44:53" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA25583 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:46:34 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id UAA27435 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:46:32 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id OAA11822; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 14:48:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA28707 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 14:47:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.1.11]) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id OAA07069 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 14:47:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.11]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id UAA27409 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:44:54 -0200 (EDT) Received: from coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (coruja.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.24.80]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA25510 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:44:54 -0200 (EDT) Received: (from stolfi@localhost) by coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA23672; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:44:53 -0200 (EDT) Message-Id: <199902162244.UAA23672@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Content-Length: 1210 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:44:53 -0200 (EDT) From: Jorge Stolfi To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: Subject: Titillating tidbit: x -> s? > [Rene, about the Portuguese-in-Arabic sample:] The x represents > the 'shin', reflecting how the 's' is pronounced in Portuguese. > > Juro bor Deeux, bor Deeux, ber Deeux qiriyador do ceu e da Indeed the final "s" tends to be pronounced "sh" in Portugal. Here in Brazil it is the main characteristic of the Rio accent. Just to stay in topic, consider the third line of page f116v, which has been transcribed as + six+marix+morix+vix+abta+maria+- As we know far too well, these words can't be matched to any language. However if we read "x" as "s" and "b" as "p" we get + sis+maris+moris+vis+apta+maria+- Which may not make any sense either, but at least the words are all common Latin words... And if that is not enough, here is what I got when I asked Altavista for "sis NEAR maris": http://eden.vmg.co.uk/baebes/salvanos.html Salva Nos, Stella Maris Anon. Latin 13th Century. Latin ... Sis nobis salutaris, Imperatrix celorum; Salva Nos, Stella Maris et regina celorum. ... "Stella Maris", the "Star of the Seas", is of course the Virgin Mary, "Maria" in Latin... All the best, --stolfi From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:40 1999 Content-Length: 493 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["493" "Tue" "16" "February" "1999" "22:13:49" "-0200" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Re: Titillating tidbit: x -> s? " "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021700:13:49" nil nil nil] nil) Content-Length: 493 Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA04378 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:14:44 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id WAA28458 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:14:41 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id QAA24794; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:17:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id QAA07376 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:16:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.1.11]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id QAA24627 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:16:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.11]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id WAA28454 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:13:49 -0200 (EDT) Received: from coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (coruja.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.24.80]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA04308 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:13:51 -0200 (EDT) Received: (from stolfi@localhost) by coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA24280; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:13:49 -0200 (EDT) Message-Id: <199902170013.WAA24280@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902162244.UAA23672@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902162244.UAA23672@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Content-Length: 492 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:13:49 -0200 (EDT) From: Jorge Stolfi To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: <199902162244.UAA23672@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Subject: Re: Titillating tidbit: x -> s? One more "ding!": the spelling of april on f70v1 and f71r is definitely closer to "abiril" than to "abril". Now note how consonant+R clusters are transcribed in Rene's Portuguese-in-Arabic example: CRIador -> QIRIyador PREgou -> BEREgo mosTROu -> moxTORO cremos -> QEREmox Seems too good to be true... Another almost certainly irrelevant tidbit on the b -> p line: "Oladapo", "Oladape" etc. is a common Nigerian name... --stolfi "Et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat" From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:41 1999 Content-Length: 793 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["793" "Wed" "17" "February" "1999" "00:34:58" "GMT" "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" "mcv@wxs.nl" nil nil "Re: Titillating tidbit: x -> s? " "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021700:34:58" nil nil nil] nil) Content-Length: 793 Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA05077 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:32:57 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id WAA28552 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:32:50 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id QAA29191; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:35:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id QAA08864 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:35:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp05.wxs.nl (smtp05.wxs.nl [195.121.6.57]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id QAA29143 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:35:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from hlm0075-1.dial.wxs.nl ([195.121.40.75]) by smtp05.wxs.nl (Netscape Messaging Server 3.61) with SMTP id AAA5F3F for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 01:34:59 +0100 Reply-To: mcv@wxs.nl Message-ID: <37140ce9.323266024@mail.wxs.nl> References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902162244.UAA23672@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902170013.WAA24280@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99g/32.326 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 792 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 00:34:58 GMT From: mcv@wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: <199902170013.WAA24280@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Subject: Re: Titillating tidbit: x -> s? Jorge Stolfi wrote: >One more "ding!": the spelling of april on f70v1 and f71r is >definitely closer to "abiril" than to "abril". Now note how >consonant+R clusters are transcribed in Rene's Portuguese-in-Arabic >example: > > CRIador -> QIRIyador > PREgou -> BEREgo > mosTROu -> moxTORO > cremos -> QEREmox But, given that Arabic has no vowel letters as such, how was that actually written in Arabic? Rene' mentioned superscripts (vowel diacritics?), with the non-superscript vowels presumably written using alif (a), waw (u,o) and yod (e,i). How was it done in these words? [If anybody's interested, such inserted vowels are technically known as anaptyctic or svarabhakti vowels]. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv@wxs.nl Amsterdam From VM Tue Apr 13 09:15:45 1999 Content-Length: 223 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["223" "Wed" "17" "February" "1999" "02:32:57" " +0000" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Image of the month names" "^From:" nil nil "2" "99021702:32:57" nil nil nil] nil) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902160554.DAA18389@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <36CA5343.3D7@alphalink.com.au> <199902161700.PAA21835@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br From: Jorge Stolfi To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: <199902161700.PAA21835@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Subject: Image of the month names I have posted a pencil reproduction of all the zodiac month names, for the benefit of those who haven't got a copy of the VMS: http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/99-02-16-month-names/ Hope it helps, --stolfi From VM Tue Apr 13 09:16:00 1999 Content-Length: 506 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["506" "Tue" "16" "February" "1999" "21:09:02" "-0600" "ixohoxi@micro-net.com" "ixohoxi@micro-net.com" nil nil "Re: Voynich Author(s)" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021703:09:02" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA19616 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 01:11:50 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id BAA00229 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 01:11:46 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id TAA24517; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 19:14:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id TAA17260 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 19:14:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from candy.micro-net.net (candy.micro-net.net [207.182.64.2]) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id TAA06095 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 19:14:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from denstall (ip161.baton-rouge2.la.pub-ip.psi.net [38.12.54.161]) by candy.micro-net.net with SMTP id WAA29472; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:14:10 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <36CA32CE.5BC8@micro-net.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902151513.NAA13716@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Length: 505 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 21:09:02 -0600 From: Dennis To: Voynich List Subject: Re: Voynich Author(s) Jorge Stolfi wrote: > > PS. It would be handy to have a standard nickname for the VMS author, > just as we have "VMS" for the book and "Voynichese" for the language > and script. Any suggestions? Until recently, we assumed that the VMs had two authors, A and B. We're not quite so sure now. If there's a single author, how about "Abe", the nickname of Abraham Lincoln, the President of the USA during the Civil War. That's pronounced /eib/, for those who don't know. With tongue in cheek, Dennis From VM Tue Apr 13 09:16:03 1999 Content-Length: 724 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["724" "Tue" "16" "February" "1999" "23:10:45" "-0500" "Karl Kluge" "kckluge@eecs.umich.edu" nil nil "Re: Voynich Author(s)" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021704:10:45" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA21703 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 02:08:05 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id CAA00572 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 02:08:01 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id UAA08312; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:10:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id UAA18749 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:10:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from krusty.eecs.umich.edu (krusty.eecs.umich.edu [141.213.12.25]) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id UAA08283 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:10:47 -0800 (PST) Received: (from kckluge@localhost) by krusty.eecs.umich.edu (8.9.2/8.9.2) id XAA02746; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 23:10:45 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199902170410.XAA02746@krusty.eecs.umich.edu> Content-Type: text Content-Length: 723 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 23:10:45 -0500 (EST) From: Karl Kluge To: voynich@rand.org In-reply-to: <36CA32CE.5BC8@micro-net.com> (message from Dennis on Tue, 16 Feb 1999 21:09:02 -0600) Subject: Re: Voynich Author(s) Dennis wrote: > Jorge Stolfi wrote: > > > > PS. It would be handy to have a standard nickname for the VMS author, > > just as we have "VMS" for the book and "Voynichese" for the language > > and script. Any suggestions? > > Until recently, we assumed that the VMs had two authors, A and B. > We're not quite so sure now. If there's a single author, how about > "Abe", the nickname of Abraham Lincoln, the President of the USA during > the Civil War. That's pronounced /eib/, for those who don't know. Surely "A" and "B" must be Alice and Bob, the two slackers from the crypto literature who spend all day playing poker over the telephone. Exactly the shifty types who'd write something like the Voynich. Karl From VM Tue Apr 13 09:16:07 1999 Content-Length: 224 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["224" "Wed" "17" "February" "1999" "02:32:59" "-0200" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Image of the month names" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021704:32:59" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA26135 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 02:33:16 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id CAA00734 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 02:33:13 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id UAA10098; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:36:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id UAA19313 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:36:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.1.11]) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id UAA10073 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:36:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.11]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id CAA00730 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 02:32:59 -0200 (EDT) Received: from coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (coruja.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.24.80]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA26053 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 02:33:01 -0200 (EDT) Received: (from stolfi@localhost) by coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA25796; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 02:32:59 -0200 (EDT) Message-Id: <199902170432.CAA25796@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902160554.DAA18389@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <36CA5343.3D7@alphalink.com.au> <199902161700.PAA21835@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902160554.DAA18389@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <36CA5343.3D7@alphalink.com.au> <199902161700.PAA21835@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Content-Length: 223 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 02:32:59 -0200 (EDT) From: Jorge Stolfi To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: <199902161700.PAA21835@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Subject: Image of the month names I have posted a pencil reproduction of all the zodiac month names, for the benefit of those who haven't got a copy of the VMS: http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/99-02-16-month-names/ Hope it helps, --stolfi From VM Tue Apr 13 09:16:09 1999 Content-Length: 1085 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["1085" "Tue" "16" "February" "1999" "21:27:31" "-0800" "jguy@alphalink.com.au" "jguy@alphalink.com.au" "<36CA5343.3D7@alphalink.com.au>" nil "Re: The month names once more (fwd)" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021705:27:31" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA28214 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 08:30:47 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAA21694 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 08:30:43 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id CAA05212; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 02:33:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id CAA06039 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 02:33:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.alphalink.com.au (mail.alphalink.com.au [203.24.205.7]) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id CAA20697 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 02:33:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from LOCALNAME (ppp47-1-Melbourne.alphalink.com.au [202.161.100.47]) by mail.alphalink.com.au (8.9.2/8.6.9) with SMTP id VAA20754 for ; Tue, 16 Feb 1999 21:33:12 +1100 (EST) Message-ID: <36CA5343.3D7@alphalink.com.au> Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> <199902160554.DAA18389@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Length: 1084 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 21:27:31 -0800 From: jguy To: voynich@rand.org Subject: Re: The month names once more (fwd) Jorge Stolfi wrote: > The Portuguese-in-Arabic text: [snip] That is strange, the occasional confusion between e and o, viz: > Juro bor Deeux, bor Deeux, ber Deeux qiriyador do ceu e da > Juro por Deus, por Deus, por Deus criador do céu e da ^ ^ ^ > tera e bor xuwax xirconxtanxiyax fijifeyix e bolo-meu > terra e por suas circunstâncias visíveis e pelo meu ^ > fe qe- nox otrox Morox e Xalamowix qeremox e bolo w Alcoro > fé que nós outros Mouros e Salamões(?) cremos e pelo ? Alcorão ^ Remember what I found about the frequency of occurrences of e and o (EVA) in Currier's A and B languages? Mind you, the e/o alternance is found in many totally unrelated languages all over the world, from English (EIIR's English vs Scots), to Japanese, Mota (an Austronesian language) and many more. So it probably means nothing at all. Sigh. From VM Tue Apr 13 09:16:29 1999 Content-Length: 2029 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["2029" "Wed" "17" "February" "1999" "21:46:32" "+0100" "Zandbergen@t-online.de" "Zandbergen@t-online.de" "" nil "Arabic, Portuguese, crosses and Dee" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021720:46:32" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA13678 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 18:56:33 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA08773 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 18:56:29 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id MAA23476; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 12:59:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id MAA08317 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 12:59:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from mailout03.btx.dtag.de (mailout03.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.151]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with SMTP id MAA28023 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 12:59:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from fwd06.btx.dtag.de (fwd06.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.166]) by mailout03.btx.dtag.de with smtp id 10DDvb-0006b2-00; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 21:50:39 +0100 Received: (0625764225-0001(btxid)@[193.159.4.161]) by fwd06.btx.dtag.de id ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 21:46:32 +0100 Message-Id: References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> X-Mailer: T-Online eMail 2.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT X-Sender: 0625764225-0001@t-online.de Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 2028 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 21:46:32 +0100 From: Zandbergen@t-online.de (Rene) To: voynich@rand.org Subject: Arabic, Portuguese, crosses and Dee Because of the interest in the 'Portuguese in Arabic', I include the whole text below, with the superscript vowels in upper case and originally-upper-case letters in lower case: juramento qe-faz o turco cando comete alguWa gArande coja juro bor deeux, bor deeux, ber deeux qIriYador do ceu e da tera e bor xuWax xirconxtanxiYax fijifeYix e YinfijifeYix e bolo-meu borfeta mofomede almoctafa qe-bErego e firmou e moxtOro a fe qe-nox otrox morox e xalamoWix qEremox e bolo-Walcoro e Yo-quWal esta exqIrito en arabigo a fe qe-nox otrox temox e bolo-xalteiro de dafi e bolox efanjelox de jesu qIrixto e bolox cento e vinte e quWatro borfetas de deeux de qe adao foi o birmeiro e bola alma do benino meu badre e bola fida de meux filox e bola mina cabeca e bola exbada qe-eu jinxo eu bormeto de fazer tal coja. A few vowels have a superscript bar (not shown here), the 'c's in almoctafa and cabeca (2nd one) have a cedilla and two 'n's were in italics (xircoNxtanxiYax and efaNgelos). I'll also scan the Arabic original (hopefully it comes out readable) and post it on the geocities site tomorrow. The above text has already been 'regularised', in the sense that 'w' has been converted to 'o' or 'u' as appropriate, and same with 'y' to 'e' or 'i'. As for the plusses in michiton etc, there is yet another possibility: if the two lines above 'aror sheey' are a tentative translation of some part of a VMs page by a later owner, these could reflect: - the markers in between words, like e.g. on f67v1, f69r - the stars as on f68r1 or a zodiac page - tubes between labels as in the bio pages, e.g. f77r And here's part of the text along the perimeter of a circular diagram once drawn by Dee, in the 'Libellus Veneris Nigro Sacer': + Mi+chael + AGLA + Uri+el + ALPHA + Geb+riel + OMEGA + Raph+ael + ON + Joan+nes + JESUS + Lu+cas * NAZARENUS + Ma+ttheus + REX + Mar+cus + JUDEORUM + TETRAGRAMMATON + JEHOVA + ELOHIM + ADONAI This might be an example of what Jacques meant, but there are a lot of crosses... FWIW, Rene From VM Tue Apr 13 09:16:46 1999 Content-Length: 4195 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4195" "Thu" "18" "February" "1999" "01:08:50" "-0200" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Portuguese in Arabic: translation" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021803:08:50" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA13592 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 01:09:27 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id BAA12198 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 01:09:23 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173] (may be forged)) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id TAA06451; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 19:12:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA07951 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 19:12:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.1.11]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net (Pilot/) with ESMTP id TAA03633 for ; Wed, 17 Feb 1999 19:12:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.11]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id BAA12194 for ; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 01:09:08 -0200 (EDT) Received: from coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (coruja.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.24.80]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA13569; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 01:08:52 -0200 (EDT) Received: (from stolfi@localhost) by coruja.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA03325; Thu, 18 Feb 1999 01:08:50 -0200 (EDT) Message-Id: <199902180308.BAA03325@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Cc: rdahab@dcc.unicamp.br MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 <199902150836.GAA11537@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Content-Length: 4194 Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 01:08:50 -0200 (EDT) From: Jorge Stolfi To: voynich@rand.org In-Reply-To: Subject: Portuguese in Arabic: translation > [Rene:] Because of the interest in the 'Portuguese in Arabic', I include > the whole text below Thanks! Just for the record, here is my reading (in modern Portuguese spelling) and the English translation: > juramento qe- faz o turco cando comete alguWa gArande coja juramento que faz o turco(0) quando comete(1) alguma grande cousa swearing that makes the Turk when (he)commits some big thing > juro bor deeux, bor deeux, ber deeux qIriYador do ceu e da juro por Deus, por Deus, por Deus criador do céu e da I swear by God, by God, by God creator of heaven and of > tera e bor xuWax xirconxtanxiYax fijifeYix e YinfijifeYix e bolo- meu terra e por suas circunstâncias(2) visíveis e invisíveis e pelo(3) meu earth and by his circumstances visible and invisible and by my > borfeta mofomede almoctafa qe- bErego e firmou e moxtOro a profeta Mahomede al-Mustafá que pregou e firmou(4) e mostrou a prophet Mahomed al-Mustafa who taught and confirmed and showed the > fe qe- nox otrox morox e xalamoWix qEremox e bolo- Walcoro fé que nós outros mouros e salamões(?) cremos e pelo Alcorão faith (in)which we Moors and Suleimans believe and by the Quran > e Yo-quWal esta exqIrito en arabigo a fe qe- nox otrox temox e em o qual está escrito em arábico a fé que nós outros temos e in which is written in Arabic the faith which we have and > bolo- xalteiro de dafi e bolox efanjelox de jesu qIrixto e pelo Saltério de Davi e pelos Evangelhos de Jesus Cristo e by the Psalter of David and by the Gospels of Jesus Christ and > bolox cento e vinte e quWatro borfetas de deeux de qe adao foi pelos cento e vinte e quatro Profetas de Deus de que Adão foi by the hundred and twenty four Prophets of God of whom Adam was > o birmeiro e bola alma do benino meu badre e bola fida de o primeiro e pela alma do benino(?) meu padre e pela vida de the first and by the soul of the blessed(?) my father and by the life of > meux filox e bola mina cabeca e bola exbada qe- eu jinxo meus filhos e pela minha cabeça e pela espada que eu cinjo my children and by my head and by the sword that I carry > eu bormeto de fazer tal coja. eu prometo de dazer tal cousa(5). I promise to do such thing. (Whew! Who can doubt it after *that*!) (0) Even today "turco" is the popular term for all middle eastern people (other than the Jews). (1) "comete" has now lost the sense of "promise", which it retains in English. (2) "circunstâncias" presumably meant "manifestations" way then. (3) "pelo" = "por + o" was spelled (and probably pronounced) "polo" way then. (3) "firmou" now means "made firm", "consolidated", strenghtened", or "signed"; but way then it may have meant also "confirmed" or "affirmed" (4) The "j" in "coja" and the "s" in "cousa" actually sound quite similar in Portuguese, especially in the dialects that pronounce "s" as "sh". > [Rene:] with the superscript vowels in upper case Quite a few of those superscript wovels seem to be extra vowels inserted into the groups cr/br/gr/tr. (I keep thinking of that "abiril"...) The word "alguma" was often written "algua" with a tilde over the "u". Perhaps the "W" in "alguWa" on the first line is actually a tilde? Ditto for the first "Y" on line 6. > A few vowels have a superscript bar (not shown here) Those could be tildes, denoting nasal sounds or "m/n"s. I would expect tildes over the first "e" of line 6, the final "o" of "Walcoro" and the "ao" of "adao". > the 'c's in almoctafa and cabeca (2nd one) have a cedilla The Portuguese "ç" has the sound of "s" (soft), and indeed those two "c"s have that sound. > and two 'n's were in italics (xircoNxtanxiYax and efaNgelos). I have no idea why... All the best, --stolfi From VM Tue Apr 13 09:14:37 1999 Content-Length: 1788 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["1788" "Sun" "14" "February" "1999" "21:37:16" "+0100" "Zandbergen@t-online.de" "Zandbergen@t-online.de" "" nil "The month names once more" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "99021420:37:16" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from grande.dcc.unicamp.br (grande.dcc.unicamp.br [143.106.7.8]) by amazonas.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA03868 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 18:35:48 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA09251 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 18:35:45 -0200 (EDT) Received: from mail.rand.org (unknown-8-173.rand.org [130.154.8.173] (may be forged)) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with ESMTP id MAA29772; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 12:38:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail01-lax.pilot.net (mail-lax-1.pilot.net [205.139.40.18]) by mail.rand.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id MAA16713 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 12:38:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from mailout03.btx.dtag.de (mailout03.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.151]) by mail01-lax.pilot.net with SMTP id MAA29752 for ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 12:38:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from fwd14.btx.dtag.de (fwd14.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.174]) by mailout03.btx.dtag.de with smtp id 10C8Is-00023p-00; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 21:38:10 +0100 Received: (0625764225-0001(btxid)@[193.159.141.248]) by fwd14.btx.dtag.de id ; Sun, 14 Feb 1999 21:37:16 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: T-Online eMail 2.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT X-Sender: 0625764225-0001@t-online.de Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 1787 Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 21:37:16 +0100 From: Zandbergen@t-online.de (Rene) To: voynich@rand.org Subject: The month names once more Dear all, the month names written on the zodiac pages have been discussed quite a few times already. Not unexpectedly, there is not much agreement about their origin. The first few are quite readable, and read: Mars, Abril, May, Yony Then there is the very German 'Augst' An oddity is the use of 'Octembre' for October. Exactly which language this is has not been determined as far as I know. It certainly isn't Latin, but I think Provencal has been suggested once. Whether the month names were written by the original writer or a later owner, it should say something about the location of the VMs at some point in time - prior to its appearance in Prague, I would say. It doesn't fit with Voynich's scenario, where the VMs was located mostly in England and Bohemia. If the VMs originates from N. Italy of Germany, then it must have travelled a bit before it reached Prague. Unless a N. Italian dialect can be identified that has these month names. Or we postulate that the writer, in N. Italy, was of another origin. Interestingly, I read in a book by Paul Kunitsch, who is a recognised expert in Arabic star lore, that the following month names were used normally by astronomers in the Arabic West: ynyr, fbryr, mrs, 'bryl, m'yh, ywnyh, ywlyh, 'gst, stnbr, 'ktwbr, nwnbr, dgnbr. This is how they were printed in the book, except that the 's' in august and september have a caret (hacek) above them and so does the 'g' in december. The quote represents the glotal stop. Obviously, in the Mss that the book describes, this would have been written in the Arabic script. The only one that does not seem to fit is the 'octembre'. So who could have written these month names, and where and when did he do it? Anybody know a specialist in mediaeval Romance languages? Cheers, Rene From VM Tue Apr 13 09:14:38 1999 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3915" "Mon" "15" "February" "1999" "06:35:34" " +0000" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Re: The month names once more" "^From:" nil nil "2" "99021506:35:34" nil (number " " mark " Jorge Stolfi 1999- 2-15 3915 \"Re: The month names once more\"\n") nil] nil) Content-Length: 3915 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 References: Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br From: Jorge Stolfi To: Zandbergen@t-online.de (Rene) In-Reply-To: Subject: Re: The month names once more > The first few are quite readable, and read: > Mars, Abril, May, Yony They certainly are names of months, and that is how I read them, too. But some of the letters can be read only by assuming that the word is a month name, so that the question is merely choosing between a few "plausible" spellings. For example the word on f70v1 could also be read "abcril" and that on f71r could be "ab'rab" or "abirib" or many other things. The reading "abril" is only a fair compromise between what we expect to read and what is really there on the paper... On f71v, I see a (round) circumflex over the "y" in "May"; is it noise? It is not present on f72r1. The final "y" of "yony" seems to be closed at the top. On f72r3 I think I see a double "l" and an "y" at the end, perhaps "yoll*y". > Then there is the very German 'Augst' I see a dot over the first leg of the "u"; is that noise? On f72v2 I read "s#*p$@b^" where "#*$@^" are illegible. The "#*" seems too big for an "e". The "$" could be a "t", okay. There is a short crescent-shaped mark over the "@", and a longer stroke over both, so I am willing to grant that the "@" could be "en" or "em". The "^" is an L-shaped superscript, which could be an abbreviation for "er". > An oddity is the use of 'Octembre' for October. > > Exactly which language this is has not been determined as far > as I know. It certainly isn't Latin, but I think Provencal has > been suggested once. Indeed I once found through Altavista this sample entry from the Oxford English Dictionary (no longer on-line) that says: October (ktb(r)). Also 3­7 -bre; in 7 sometimes abbrev. 8bre, 8ber. [In OE. and mod.Eng. a. L. October, -obrem, f. octo eight (orig. the eighth month of the year); in ME. a. F. Octobre (1303 in Hatz.-Darm.), ad. L. Octobrem, which supplanted the popular OF. oitovre. Med.L. had also the analogical form Octember, -imber, 13th c. F. Octembre, Pr. Octembre.] ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ "Pr." is Provençal, I assume. > Whether the month names were written by the original writer or > a later owner I propose that the person who wrote the month names is the same who wrote the "michiton" lines on f116v. The letter shapes and the handwriting seem to match, don't you thinks so? I propose also (somewhat less convincingly) that the person who wrote the "michiton" lines was the author. That is because the words on f116v seem to be part of the text, implying that the writer of that sentence knew Voynichese. > it should say something about the location of the > VMs at some point in time - prior to its appearance in Prague, I > would say. > It doesn't fit with Voynich's scenario, where the VMs was located > mostly in England and Bohemia. The German-looking letters and the "augst" seem compatible with Bohemia, next door to Germany. (Wasn't Rudolph more German than Czech?) > Unless a N. Italian dialect can be identified that has these > month names. Seems unlikely.... > Or we postulate that the writer, in N. Italy, was of > another origin. The "b" in "abril" seems characteristic of Spanish and Portuguese. > Interestingly, I read in a book by Paul Kunitsch, who is a recognised > expert in Arabic star lore, that the following month names were > used normally by astronomers in the Arabic West: > > ynyr, fbryr, mrs, 'bryl, m'yh, ywnyh, ywlyh, 'gst, stnbr, 'ktwbr, > nwnbr, dgnbr. Interesting! The Arabs ruled Spain and Portugal for several centuries, and left their mark on the language---such as a couple hundred words beginning with "al-". I wonder if the change from Latin "april.." to Spanish/Portuguese "abril" was also part of that influence? Or was it the other way around---the "'bryl" above were borrowed from ... All the best, --stolfi From VM Wed Feb 24 21:58:39 1999 Content-Length: 2412 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2412" "Thu" "14" "August" "1997" "16:13:13" "-0700" "madimi@internetmci.com" "madimi@internetmci.com" nil nil "re: Zodiac and herbal pages" "^Date:" nil nil "8" "97081423:13:13" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net ([205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA26678 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 20:26:36 -0300 (EST) Received: from monty.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net with ESMTP id QAA03775; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 16:30:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net ([205.139.40.16] (may be forged)) by monty.rand.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id QAA05810 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 16:29:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mailsrv1.pcy.mci.net (mailsrv1.pcy.mci.net [204.71.0.43]) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net with ESMTP id QAA02468 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 16:29:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from madimi.internetMCI.COM (usr1-dialup4.mix1.Bloomington.mci.net) by MAIL-CLUSTER.PCY.MCI.NET (PMDF V5.1-8 #10044) with SMTP id <01IMFVNA7QMO9BXDQB@MAIL-CLUSTER.PCY.MCI.NET> for voynich@rand.org; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 19:14:13 EDT Message-id: <01IMFVNAQ3T29BXDQB@MAIL-CLUSTER.PCY.MCI.NET> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1008.3 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOle: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE Engine V4.71.1008.3 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 16:13:13 -0700 From: rmalek To: VSG Subject: re: Zodiac and herbal pages I cannot precisely pinpoint what influenced my first impressions of the Voynich, but I do remember well that when I first looked at the zodiac pages I was reminded of lunar calendars, and not solar calendars. I think perhaps it reminded me of the stories of folk herbalism and the 'barefoot doctors' of the past and present. A lunar day is not equal to a solar day, and a lunar month can vary as much as four days, depending on how you count the cycle. There are months with as many as three days of full moon, and other months when the visual moon is still waxing one day, and visually waning the next, never reaching a full state. Should these states of the moon by counted by the old calendar and matched with the appropriate zodiac, one might even be able to deduce the possible years in which the zodiac was drawn. My impression is that these drawings are an old-time farmer's almanac. What struck me odd about the herbal pages is that most of the plants are drawn in the seeding stage, and not the normally depicted stage where the plant may be picked for consumption. Considering the age of the drawings, this also reminds me of the old style remedies. Plants were to be picked in certain stages of development and solar/lunar influence for different effects on the body. It was reasoned that the plants physically changed form from one stage to another, and therefore they must also have changed essence, which was influenced by the sun, the moon and the planets. If you wish to see just one of many very Voynich-like plants in person, let your artichoke go to seed. You would never identify it as an artichoke if you did not know to begin with. If the Voynich zodiac is indeed based on a lunar year, there is much to be considered in its meaning. While most traditional medicines were gathered from plants during daylight hours, a lunar calendar means something quite different in folk medicine. The gathering of medicinal aids for fertility, sexual stimulation, and contraception was typically a nocturnal pursuit. Love potions and other magical medicines were also gathered at night. The components were usually either parts of very small seedlings or portions of plants that had received the full lunar influence and went to seed themselves. Granted these are untested impressions, but if they are correct, we are dealing with a lunatic in the truest sense. Regards, Rayman From VM Wed Feb 24 21:58:38 1999 Content-Length: 3668 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["3668" "Thu" "14" "August" "1997" "17:29:09" "+0100" "Denis Mardle" "Denis.V.Mardle@btinternet.com" "" nil "VMs Zodiac Statistics" "^Date:" nil nil "8" "97081416:29:09" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net ([205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA17953 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 13:21:26 -0300 (EST) Received: from monty.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net with ESMTP id JAA27477; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 09:25:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net ([205.139.40.17] (may be forged)) by monty.rand.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA22304 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 09:24:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.btinternet.com (helium.btinternet.com [194.72.6.229]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net with SMTP id JAA27319 for ; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 09:24:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.btinternet.com [194.72.6.226] by helium.btinternet.com with smtp (Exim 0.57 #1) id 0wz2oW-0004yY-00; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 16:31:56 +0000 Received: from default [195.99.55.147] by mail.btinternet.com with esmtp (Exim 0.57 #2) id 0wz2hr-0000Yz-00; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 17:25:04 +0100 Reply-To: <@btinternet.com> X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1157 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 17:29:09 +0100 From: "Denis Mardle" To: Subject: VMs Zodiac Statistics From Denis Mardle 14 August 1997 Hello All I have made a very interesting discovery that may be new. It is certainly relevant and is completely independent of codes, ciphers, languages etc. I am working with the lengths of the labels in Voynich symbols including all the 'words' in the label if there are more than one. I will give statistics later but the first important observation, only evident by looking at the 10 Zodiac pages, is that the figures ( mostly 'nymphs' ) are very unequally spaced. Even more important the lengths of the labels between figures have a very strong correlation with the lengths of the available spaces ! Now this can have only three explanations :- A) The figures were drawn without knowing where the labels would go ( or knowing the positions but not the lengths ). B) The figures were drawn knowing the positions and lengths so giving peculiar circular structures to account for the total lengths. This meant splitting the 243 symbols of Aries into two half months, similarly for the 228 of Taurus and giving a full third circle for Cancer ( 236 symbols ). C) The figures were drawn later. Now C) is extremely unlikely as the later herbs and pots in the Pharmaceutical section were not given labels. Also B) gives severe problems with Gemini as one very small space could not be used, probably because the label was too long, and this would throw out the later labels from their 'pre-prepared' slots. So - I strongly favour A) . This, however, almost certainly implies that labels are put in to fill the avaiable space ( I suspect this also in other sections, but we all need to check this point ) and my conclusion is that the text has no relation to the illustrations ! I do admit that the Biological section is in a different hand/language to every other section so text and illustrations were done by the same person. I will also admit that the Zodiac section could have been drawn and text written in parallel by the same person, but this would be very tricky to get right. Is there any evidence for this last thought ? Now statistics. Column headers explained later. (z) (s) (r) (m) (t) (i) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 17 18 1st 2nd 3rd PSC 1 2 9 11 5 2 10 19 5.77 173 2 AR1 2 4 3 1 2 1 1 1 5 10 8.93 134 3 AR2 1 3 7 1 2 1 5 10 7.27 109 - TA1 1 1 4 4 3 1 1 5 10 7.00 105 7 TA2 4 3 3 1 2 1 5 10 8.20 123 11 GEM 6 7 7 5 4 9 16 5 5.79 168 3 CNC 1 1 2 4 3 6 6 2 2 1 1 7 11 12 8.14 236 30 LEO 1 6 7 5 6 2 2 1 12 18 5.93 178 7 VIR 1 5 14 8 1 1 12 18 6.20 186 10 LIB 1 511 11 2 10 20 5.27 158 6 SCO 1 4 4 7 7 7 10 16 4 5.20 156 2 SGR 1 9 7 8 5 10 16 4 5.23 157 7 z = Zodiac sign s = symbol counts r = figure rings m = mean symbol count t = total symbol count i = no. of symbol i's in t. One could also measure label lengths and figure gaps but I'm not sure if the copies are all to the same magnification. Comments ?? Denis From VM Wed Feb 24 21:58:40 1999 Content-Length: 3774 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3774" "Fri" "15" "August" "1997" "01:38:26" " +0000" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Re: VMs Zodiac Statistics" "^From:" nil nil "8" "97081501:38:26" nil nil nil] nil) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 References: Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br From: Jorge Stolfi To: <@btinternet.com> In-Reply-To: Subject: Re: VMs Zodiac Statistics > Even more important the lengths of the labels between > figures have a very strong correlation with the lengths of the > available spaces ! Now this can have only three > explanations :- > A) The figures were drawn without knowing where the > labels would go ( or knowing the positions but not > the lengths ). > B) The figures were drawn knowing the positions and > lengths so giving peculiar circular structures to account > for the total lengths. This meant splitting the 243 symbols > of Aries into two half months, similarly for the 228 of Taurus > and giving a full third circle for Cancer ( 236 symbols ). > C) The figures were drawn later. > > Now C) is extremely unlikely as the later herbs and pots in the > Pharmaceutical section were not given labels. Also B) gives > severe problems with Gemini as one very small space could not > be used, probably because the label was too long, and this would > throw out the later labels from their 'pre-prepared' slots. > So - I strongly favour A) . This, however, almost certainly implies > that labels are put in to fill the avaiable space ( I suspect this also > in other sections, but we all need to check this point ) and my > conclusion is that the text has no relation to the illustrations ! > I will also admit that the Zodiac section could have > been drawn and text written in parallel by the same person, but this > would be very tricky to get right. I do not have the photocopies of the VMs (yet 8-). But let me comment anyway: Just because one section had figures and text made in a certain order, it does not follow that the same order was followed in other sections. It is quite possible that the order depends on the nature of the drawings. For instance, the herbal section has big plant drawings, whose shape and location on the page is rather fixed (stems have to be straight, etc.), but with large blank spaces; whereas the text is not tied to any particular location. So, for that section, it makes sense to draw the plant first, and then write the text anywhere it would fit. In the astrological diagrams, however, the labels have to be placed in very specific positions with respect to the diagram. On the other hand, the geometry of the diagram can be broadly adjusted to make the text fit. The right way to proceed would then be to sketch first the whole thing, diagram and labels, on a blackboard or a separate sheet of "paper"; erase and redraw and fiddle until everything fits together nicely; and then copy the whole thing into the book, with the right spacings and sizes. In this second scenario, it doesn't matter which was drawn first, labels or diagram. Another possibility to keep in mind is that the labels may well have been abbreviated so as to fit the available space. We do that often enough ourselves, e.g. when writing column headers in tables --- "Total", "Tot", etc. Does this make sense? > (z) (s) (r) > (m) (t) (i) > 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 17 18 1st 2nd 3rd > > PSC 1 2 9 11 5 2 10 19 5.77 > 173 2 > AR1 2 4 3 1 2 1 1 1 5 10 8.93 > 134 3 > AR2 1 3 7 1 2 1 5 10 7.27 > 109 - > TA1 1 1 4 4 3 1 1 5 10 7.00 > 105 7 The alignment got all messed up. What font are you using? --stolfi From VM Wed Feb 24 21:58:42 1999 Content-Length: 4873 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["4873" "Fri" "15" "August" "1997" "18:37:22" "+0200" "rzandber@esoc.esa.de" "rzandber@esoc.esa.de" nil nil "Re: VMs Zodiac Statistics" "^Date:" nil nil "8" "97081516:37:22" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net ([205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA03849 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 13:35:44 -0300 (EST) Received: from monty.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net with ESMTP id JAA03670; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 09:39:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net ([205.139.40.16] (may be forged)) by monty.rand.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA25613 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 09:38:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from esoc.esa.de (com24.esoc.esa.de [131.176.86.2]) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net with SMTP id JAA12815 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 09:38:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: by esoc.esa.de (8.6.12/ESARLY1.8) id QAA22782; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 16:32:31 GMT Received: from esocmail1.dev.esoc.esa.de(131.176.51.228) by com24.esoc.esa.de via smap (V3.1.1) id xma022780; Fri, 15 Aug 97 16:32:18 GMT Received: by esocmail1.esoc.esa.de(Lotus SMTP MTA v1.06 (346.4 3-18-1997)) id C12564F4.005BA8C2 ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 18:41:09 +0200 X-Lotus-FromDomain: ESA Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 18:37:22 +0200 From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de To: voynich@rand.org Subject: Re: VMs Zodiac Statistics Dear all Denis' comments about the zodiac labels deserve some attention, as the notion that the labels might be 'meaningless filler' could be one explanation of his observations, as he also points out. Unfortunately, the table at the bottom came to me with the lines wrapped and alignment lost so I could not really understand these. Anyway, Denis wrote: >... the first important observation ... is that the > figures ( mostly 'nymphs' ) are very unequally spaced. > Even more important the lengths of the labels between > figures have a very strong correlation with the lengths of the > available spaces ! Now this can have only three > explanations :- > A) The figures were drawn without knowing where the > labels would go ( or knowing the positions but not > the lengths ). This would exclude that this section of the Ms is a fair copy, an issue that was never resolved, but should be considered. There are some indications for and against the 'fair copy' theory in the other sections. Perhaps we may even differentiate between the first few pages (Pisces to the Tauri) and the later pages (Gemini and ff.) The first group are drawn and written with more attention. These are also the ones with the cans (the transition being in Taurus-2 (dark). Perhaps the later figures give originals and the earlier ones are fair copies, with additional embellishments... > B) The figures were drawn knowing the positions and > lengths so giving peculiar circular structures to account > for the total lengths. I like this one best. One may even assume that the figures and the text were done at the same time. > C) The figures were drawn later. > Now C) is extremely unlikely... Agreed. Let's assume these pages were drafted up as follows (leaving open the question of whether we are looking at the drafts or fair copies): First the circles were drawn. These are pretty circular and concentric. Space was left for the circular text. Now, we're faced with a similar mystery as brought up by Denis: the text always fits exactly!!! The zodiac emblem was done either first or last. The nymphs were drawn from the inside ring outwards, with the text added either immediately or afterwards. The text is written to the right of the nymph. I think there are two possibilities for the order: either starting near 00:00 and going clockwise or starting near 09:00 and going against the clock, this from observing where the nymphs are more cramped together (especially the inner circle of Sagittarius). > Also B) gives severe problems with Gemini as one very > small space could not be used... There is one nymph in Gemini without a label. I would favour the idea that this was a simple oversight. There is also one nymph without a star somewhere... > So - I strongly favour A) . This, however, almost > certainly implies that labels are put in to fill the > avaliable space ( I suspect this also in other sections, > but we all need to check this point ) and my conclusion > is that the text has no relation to the illustrations ! I would 'like' that the text belongs with the illustrations and perhaps this biases my views. But I think the Pisces page is a counterexample to Denis' observations. The labels are generally of a similar length. In the inner circle they do not fill all the space available. In the outer circle (especially near the top) they are crammed in, sometimes even writing two halves above each other. > I do admit that the Biological section is in a different > hand/language to every other section so text and > illustrations were done by the same person. Certainly a different 'language', though it is less different from some sections (stars) than from some others. About the hands: I am not all that sure. We have always stuck to the term 'language' to differentiate between A and B, even though this is perhaps not the best name (as Currier also admitted). With 'hands' we can do the same, but the idea that different persons were involved should not be taken for granted. The differences are obvious at first sight, but whenever experts were asked, they said: one person. I fully agree with Denis that text and drawings (in the astro, cosmo and bio sections at least) were probably done by one and the same person. > I will also admit that the Zodiac section could have > been drawn and text written in parallel by the same person, > but this would be very tricky to get right. Not tricky if it's a copy of some draft or sketch. > Is there any evidence for this last thought ? The last few diagrams seem like drafts. If they were done against the clock, they could well have been drawn in parallel, with a general adjustment being made once the composer got near the end of each circle. Further comments much appreciated... Rene From VM Wed Feb 24 21:58:48 1999 Content-Length: 3234 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3234" "Sat" "16" "August" "1997" "15:25:33" "+0100" "Denis Mardle" "Denis.V.Mardle@btinternet.com" nil nil "Re: VMs Zodiac Statistics and f75v" "^Date:" nil nil "8" "97081614:25:33" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net ([205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA17595 for ; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 11:22:10 -0300 (EST) Received: from monty.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net with ESMTP id HAA27057; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 07:26:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net ([205.139.40.17] (may be forged)) by monty.rand.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA22429 for ; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 07:25:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from helium.btinternet.com (helium.btinternet.com [194.72.6.229]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net with SMTP id HAA27024 for ; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 07:25:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.btinternet.com [194.72.6.226] by helium.btinternet.com with smtp (Exim 0.57 #1) id 0wzjum-0007hS-00; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 14:33:16 +0000 Received: from default [195.99.62.96] by mail.btinternet.com with esmtp (Exim 0.57 #2) id 0wzjo4-0007AW-00; Sat, 16 Aug 1997 15:26:21 +0100 Reply-To: <@btinternet.com> X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1157 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 15:25:33 +0100 From: "Denis Mardle" To: Subject: Re: VMs Zodiac Statistics and f75v >From Denis 16 August 1997 Rene says > B) The figures were drawn knowing the positions and > > lengths so giving peculiar circular structures to account > > for the total lengths. >I like this one best. One may even assume that the figures >and the text were done at the same time. On reflection I have to agree with Rene, even though I have reservations. How to settle the question of fair copy versus draft copy is clearly impotant, but unsettled. I intend to look carefully at all the pages/folios that have or should have 'labels' to see what other evidence I can find. I am a bit puzzled by the ten 'nymphs' on f75v which have two rows of apparent labels above which do not have the usual starter symbols to the 'words' and look more like normal text. There is a strong restriction to 'words' of lengths 3 to 6 and the shorter words are above each other in the shortest gaps. The texts are in Currier :- Four 'nymphs' facing right then six facing left. Texts 1 to 8 OFZO 8OFAE 8AE89 8AEFAR 8E9 OP9 8AR9 8AE89 2ARAE 8AROE 8AEZ8 4OFAE OR9 ES9 8AE 4OPC8 Texts 9 and 10 RFAE OEFS9 9FC89 OPOE9 There is no doubt about the 'words' which are divided by the struts of an overhead canopy. They come between the first and second paragraphs on the page. Now back to the rearranged Zodiac counts (s) (z) PSC AR1 AR2 TA1 TA2 GEM CNC LEO VIR LIB SCO SGR 2 1 3 1 1 1 1 4 1 4 2 1 6 1 6 1 5 4 9 5 9 2 1 1 7 2 7 5 11 7 7 6 11 4 3 4 4 7 4 5 14 11 7 8 7 5 7 4 3 5 3 6 8 2 7 5 8 2 3 1 3 3 4 6 2 1 9 1 2 1 1 6 2 1 10 1 2 1 11 2 1 1 2 2 13 1 1 1 14 1 17 1 18 1 (t) 173 134 109 105 123 168 236 178 186 158 156 157 (m) 5.8 8.9 7.3 7.0 8.2 5.8 8.1 5.9 6.2 5.3 5.2 5.2 (i) 2 3 0 7 11 3 30 7 10 6 2 7 (r) 1 10 5 5 5 5 9 7 12 12 10 10 10 2 19 10 10 10 10 16 11 18 18 20 16 16 3 5 12 4 4 (z)=Zodiac sign (s)= label symbol lengths and counts (m)=mean length of label symbol counts (t)=total symbol count for given Zodiac labels (r)=figure/nymph ring counts (i)=no. of symbol i's in total (t) I hope this is clearer. Denis From VM Wed Feb 24 21:58:49 1999 Content-Length: 1202 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1202" "Mon" "18" "August" "1997" "09:17:39" "+0800" "robertjf@iss.nus.sg" "robertjf@iss.nus.sg" nil nil "Re: VMs Zodiac Statistics" "^Date:" nil nil "8" "97081801:17:39" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net ([205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA26523 for ; Sun, 17 Aug 1997 22:14:23 -0300 (EST) Received: from monty.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net with ESMTP id SAA24394; Sun, 17 Aug 1997 18:18:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net ([205.139.40.17] (may be forged)) by monty.rand.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id SAA01714 for ; Sun, 17 Aug 1997 18:17:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from iss.nus.sg (dragon.iss.nus.sg [137.132.247.20]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net with SMTP id SAA24370 for ; Sun, 17 Aug 1997 18:17:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtpmta.iss.nus.sg by iss.nus.sg (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id JAA14854; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 09:17:55 +0800 Received: by smtpmta.iss.nus.sg(Lotus SMTP MTA v1.06 (346.6 3-18-1997)) id 482564F7.00071E62 ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 09:17:45 +0800 X-Lotus-FromDomain: ISS Message-ID: <482564F7.00067A32.00@smtpmta.iss.nus.sg> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 09:17:39 +0800 From: "robertjf" To: voynich@rand.org Subject: Re: VMs Zodiac Statistics > B) The figures were drawn knowing the positions and > lengths so giving peculiar circular structures to account > for the total lengths. I like this one best. One may even assume that the figures and the text were done at the same time. ---- RF: I think this can be tested. If I were drawing a divided circle *before* adding nymphs and text, I'd draw the lines as bisectors of the circle, ie every line would cross the whole circle. If I were doing it the other way round, I'd do the lines as radii and they wouldn't line up across the circle. My VMs copy is packed away, so could someone else look? ---- The nymphs were drawn from the inside ring outwards, with the text added either immediately or afterwards. The text is written to the right of the nymph. I think there are two possibilities for the order: either starting near 00:00 and going clockwise or starting near 09:00 and going against the clock, this from observing where the nymphs are more cramped together (especially the inner circle of Sagittarius). ---- RF: yes; I recall making the same observation. I believe the circles were filled in clockwise, one sector at a time. ---- Yours Robert From VM Wed Feb 24 21:58:51 1999 Content-Length: 1194 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1194" "Mon" "18" "August" "1997" "08:39:51" "+0200" "rzandber@esoc.esa.de" "rzandber@esoc.esa.de" nil nil "Re: VMs Zodiac Statistics" "^Date:" nil nil "8" "97081806:39:51" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net ([205.139.40.17]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA17336 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 03:37:15 -0300 (EST) Received: from monty.rand.org (unknown-6-173.rand.org [130.154.6.173]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net with ESMTP id XAA05850; Sun, 17 Aug 1997 23:41:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net ([205.139.40.17] (may be forged)) by monty.rand.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id XAA16874 for ; Sun, 17 Aug 1997 23:40:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from esoc.esa.de (com24.esoc.esa.de [131.176.86.2]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net with SMTP id XAA05825 for ; Sun, 17 Aug 1997 23:40:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: by esoc.esa.de (8.6.12/ESARLY1.8) id GAA06961; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 06:35:11 GMT Received: from esocmail1.dev.esoc.esa.de(131.176.51.228) by com24.esoc.esa.de via smap (V3.1.1) id xma006949; Mon, 18 Aug 97 06:34:50 GMT Received: by esocmail1.esoc.esa.de(Lotus SMTP MTA v1.06 (346.4 3-18-1997)) id C12564F7.0024F747 ; Mon, 18 Aug 1997 08:43:45 +0200 X-Lotus-FromDomain: ESA Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 08:39:51 +0200 From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de To: voynich@rand.org Subject: Re: VMs Zodiac Statistics Robert Firth wrote: > If I were drawing a divided circle *before* adding > nymphs and text, I'd draw the lines as bisectors of > the circle, ie every line would cross the whole > circle. If I were doing it the other way round, I'd > do the lines as radii and they wouldn't line up > across the circle. > My VMs copy is packed away, so could someone else look? Well, there aren't any lines really (as I am sure Robert knows), but if we talk about the imaginary lines creating the sectors in which the nymphs are drawn, I can confirm that these do not line up at all for the different 'tracks' (to use a more contemporary term). All tracks seem to have been done completely independently. It's not even clear where the starting point is, i.e. there is not always a nymph at one 'starting position'. I'd have to look again for a clock direction in which there is always a gap. Perhaps it's significant that on the 'text tracks', whenever a start marker is present, it is near 10:30. Also, obviously, the text is written clockwise. Still, I would not take anything for granted. There are some cases where text-only pages were almost certainly not written line by line. Cheers. Rene From VM Wed Feb 24 22:02:44 1999 Content-Length: 1731 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1731" "" "29" "October" "1997" "10:39:39" "-0500" "Guy Thibault" "gthibault@artefact.qc.ca" nil nil "Objet: Yet more hypothesis :-)" "^Date:" nil nil "10" "97102915:39:39" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from mail-lax-2.pilot.net (mail-lax-2.pilot.net [205.139.40.16]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA21137 for ; Wed, 29 Oct 1997 13:37:14 -0200 (EDT) Received: from monty.rand.org (unknown-8-173.rand.org [130.154.8.173]) by mail-lax-2.pilot.net with ESMTP id HAA20519; Wed, 29 Oct 1997 07:41:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-lax-3.pilot.net (mail-lax-3.pilot.net [205.139.40.17]) by monty.rand.org (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id HAA04460 for ; Wed, 29 Oct 1997 07:40:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from artefact.qc.ca (mercure.artefact.qc.ca [206.108.57.2]) by mail-lax-3.pilot.net with SMTP id HAA01368 for ; Wed, 29 Oct 1997 07:40:40 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: X-Mailer: Mail*Link SMTP-QM 4.1.0 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by grande.dcc.unicamp.br id NAA21137 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; Name="Message Body" Date: 29 Oct 1997 10:39:39 -0500 From: "Guy Thibault" To: "Voynich List" Subject: Objet: Yet more hypothesis :-) Dear all, Still working on the idea that the "nymphs" depicted in the zodiacal circles represent a daughter of royal descent who had a twin sister... So far I have only one match and this set the epoch to 1438 and the daugthers of Charles VII, pseudo-King of France (until Joan of Arc came along). I gathered as many events as I could, that were suceptibles to be noteworthy and I am trying to match them with drawings. So far the bets results seems to indicate two scale of time. Which is the correct one??? Common base: Start of circle is at 10 o'clock (not noon) - birth is depicted at 10, where there are third rings they "start" at 10 o'clock... You read clockwise H1: The circles are read from the inner ring first, going outward. Each nymphs is a lunar month (full moon). This would bring us right to the end of Charles VII reign. H2: the inner ring nymphs are the full moon the next ring (going outward) are the half moon (crowing C|, and decreasing D) when there is an extra third ring this is the first quarter and last quarter That way one can pin point an event to within a couple of days and this brings us to sometime after the death of the older daughter in 1446. This means that where there is tho rings, you read the outer first, this is the growing phase towards full moon, then the inner ring which is full moon, and then back to the outer ring for the half moon going towards the new moon... I am still trying to gather data on events of that era, and of course I am still exploring new hypothesis ;-) I just thought I might mentions these (new?) interpretations while you were all discussing the bathing beauties and stuff ;-) We might have known word yet :-) for the labels! Cheers Guy Thibault From VM Wed Feb 24 22:03:37 1999 Content-Length: 3550 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil t nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["3550" "Sun" "2" "November" "1997" "15:33:24" " +0000" "Jorge Stolfi" "stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br" nil nil "Re: Hello!" nil nil nil "11" "97110215:33:24" nil nil nil] nil) From: Jorge Stolfi To: voynich@rand.org Subject: Re: Hello! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 In-Reply-To: <9711021142.AA00219@lily.arai.pe.u-tokyo.ac.jp> References: <345AFE89.6A@study.club.or.jp> <9711021142.AA00219@lily.arai.pe.u-tokyo.ac.jp> Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br > [pepe:] (1) Can we be sure that the units of the text are > "words" as we see them written? (I mean, groups of symbols > divided by blanks). My current guess is that a large fraction of the blanks are NOT word spaces. One bit of evidence is that 85% of the spaces can be predicted by looking at the two adjacent letters. Few natural languages behave like that. Also, it seems that figure labels can be found more easily in the main text if one ignores the word spaces of the latter > Has anybody tried to analyze the text using as unit, > not the word, but some other division? (like lines, or > "syllables"). The letter and digraph frequencies around word spaces are significantly different from those around line breaks. This was noticed first by Capt. Currier and has been confirmed by many others. Robert Firth and others have observed that the VMs "words" seem to have a relatively rigid internal structure. They do look more like syllabes than indo-european words. > (2) Can we be sure of the sense in which the manuscript has to be > read? (left-to-right or right-to-left) Most of the text is in the form of ordinary-looking paragraphs, averaging 5-6 lines (in the "bio" section, at least). There is some extra vertical space between consecutive paragraphs. The top line of each paragraph often contains (and often begins with) certain ornate letters that are rarely seen elsewhere. All the lines of a paragraph begin on the left margin. They all end approximately on the right margin---except the bottom one, which may end anywere between the two margins. The right margin looks generally more irregular than the right margin. In some sections, each paragraph is "highlighted" by a star-shaped symbol at the left end of the top line. A few pages contain what look like "itemized lists", with a single-letter label at the left of the top line of each paragraph. These features are strong proof that the text was written left to right, top to bottom, as in modern European languages. In fact, they show that the scribe was European, or at least familiar with the European paragraph structure (such as ornate letters on the first line). Before we jump to conclusions, however, note that this tells us about the *scribe*, not necessarily the *author*. Thus, for instance, the VMs may be an European copy of an Arabic original, mirror-reversed for the convenience of an European client who could not get used to the right-to-left order... > (3) Can we be sure that the order of the pages in the manuscript is > correct? (of course, if we have a picture spanning two pages, we know > that those two pages are well placed, but, what about the rest?). The pages have numbers, but they were apparently added some time after the book was written, by someone who could not read it. Pages with similar contents (as far as we can tell, from the figures and text structure) are mostly grouped together. The signs of the zodiac are in the correct order (but start with Pisces, an unusual choice). There are a couple of pages that seem out of place, though. Also, the the sheets of the herbal section alternate between two distinct handwriting styles; this *might* be due to scrambling of the sheets (folios) in that section. The other sections seem OK in this regard. Jim Reeds's site has a very detailed physical description of the book, which he checked against the real thing. There you will find a list of the folios and how they are folded, nested and bound. --stolfi From VM Wed Feb 24 22:03:44 1999 Content-Length: 1044 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1044" "Sun" "2" "November" "1997" "15:03:13" "-0800" "Dan Moonhawk Alford" "dalford@haywire.csuhayward.edu" nil nil "Re: Hello!" "^Date:" nil nil "11" "97110223:03:13" nil nil nil] nil) Received: from haywire.csuhayward.edu (dalford@haywire.csuhayward.edu [134.154.5.50]) by grande.dcc.unicamp.br (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA29076 for ; Sun, 2 Nov 1997 20:53:35 -0200 (EDT) Received: from localhost by haywire.csuhayward.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA02697; Sun, 2 Nov 1997 15:03:14 -0800 cc: voynich@rand.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 15:03:13 -0800 (PST) From: Dan Moonhawk Alford To: Jorge Stolfi In-Reply-To: <199711021733.PAA05627@coruja.dcc.unicamp.br> Subject: Re: Hello! On Sun, 2 Nov 1997, Jorge Stolfi wrote: > Pages with similar contents (as far as we can tell, from the figures and text > structure) are mostly grouped together. The signs of the zodiac are > in the correct order (but start with Pisces, an unusual choice). Oops! I must've missed this as it came through in an earlier discussion on the signs of the zodiac. This is not an unusual choice at all if one knows astrology. It dates that this was done during the Piscean Age (ours), and if there are numbers or portions of a 30-degree arc bisected by a line, we could even have an approximate date (given that the 30 degrees of Pisces line up against that portion of the Great New Year that would be some portion of 1/12th of about 26,400 yrs or so -- I could look up the exact number). In other words, the Pisces beginning actually points to it being done in this age, while the abstract chart beginning with Aries would point to nothing in particular. Gee, now that we have that part, the rest should be easy! ;-) warm regards, moonhawk # # References: # # # Last edited on 1999-04-22 01:37:13 by stolfi