We discussed the notorious Voynich Manuscript back in 2013 (at which time slawkenbergius pointed out that the theory that the Voynich manuscript is written in Manchu led to the digitization of Jerry Norman’s Concise Manchu-English Lexicon); now Ariel Sabar (who has been featured here a number of times, e.g. 2013) has a useful roundup in the Atlantic (archived) of the many crackpot theories about it, as well as the theoretically better-grounded recent work by medievalist Lisa Fagin Davis and those who have come out of hiding in her wake: linguist Claire Bowern, computer scientists at the University of Malta, etc. It makes for fascinating reading, but I still prefer the conclusion of the Batya Ungar-Sargon article I linked back in 2013: it was Voynich what done it. (Thanks, rozele!)
Nick Pelling’s site is entertaining on Voynich matters (a mix of criticizing crazy theories and hinting at his own eccentric solution) https://ciphermysteries.com/ If more medievalists and manuscript experts acknowledge that this manuscript is cool, I think its part of a wider trend where humanists at universities take public interest where they can get it rather than demanding that the public be keen on the same aspects of the past that professors are.
It is immediately apparent that the manuscript is written in proto-Western Oti-Volta.
Cuius rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi. Hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet.
It is immediately apparent that the manuscript is written in proto-Western Oti-Volta.
That was my suspicion, but I didn’t want to voice it without the warrant of an expert.
“in Manchu” – must be: by Fu Manchu.
“proto-Western Oti-Volta.” agreed, not archaic enough for proto-Welsh or KONGO.
The “Red Hunter”, ultimate founder of the Mossi-Dagomba kingdoms which spread the Western Oti-Volta languages so widely, is traditionally said to have come from east of Lake Chad. It is thus entirely possible that he was, in fact, Fu Manchu.
Chi fu Manciù?
No, it would have been his brother, Psi Fu Manchu.
Chi was the one who was reincarnated as Genghis Khan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_of_Fu_Manchu
Perhaps the impostor, Psu-do Fu
Who he?
Once in correspondence with a Voynich scholar, I quoted about the Manchu theory a saying of my mother: “Fu Manchu, but many man smoke.”
A hypothesis was presented earlier this year which seems reasonably plausible to me, but I admittedly know nothing about late mediaeval gynaecology:
https://theconversation.com/for-600-years-the-voynich-manuscript-has-remained-a-mystery-now-we-think-its-partly-about-sex-227157
Well, assuming that stuff is partly about sex is always a good heuristic.
Or at least good clickbait.
Well, assuming that stuff is partly about sex is always a good heuristic.
Assumptions by other people that stuff is partly about sex are an excellent heuristic. From them I immediately and reliably conclude that dealing with what those people say and write would be a severe waste of my time. It’s all so banal and esoteric, like the doctrine of the Trinity – except that everyone can contribute their two cents’ worth of experience.
This is a scathing review, which I’d been inclined to trust if it a. went more into specifics, and b. did not refer to Keagn Brewer and Michelle Lewis’s article as “Brewer and Green” or “Green and Brewer” (Monica Green collaborated with Brewer on other work.)
I like Lisa Davis’s approach, of studying what you can. There’s a lot of interesting stuff to learn about this manuscript, even if you can’t read it, say, analyzing the tools used to cut the sheets, or even a statistical text study comparing the Voynich to the supposedly atextual Codex Seraphinianus.
Though I am largely an ignorant rooky concerning the Voynich Manuscript, the article in the Social History of Medicine (Oxford UP), presumably a peer-reviewed publication, seems to me to be a detailed and learned presentation of an elaborated hypothesis. Even if it may turn out to be quite mistaken, what’s wrong with an attempt?
Did anyone suggest that there is something “wrong” with the attempt ? I said I would not waste my time on it. Others will do as they please, as they have always done.
I mentioned my own reaction not because I think it worthy of emulation, but simply to put the idea out there that one can choose. I have found that a lot of people are addicted to detailed, learned presentations of elaborated hypotheses. It never occurs to them to Just Say No.
If you, Stu, don’t wish to read the article, fine.
Calling the unread a waste of time, maybe less fine.
Oh, that’s just Stu being Stu. Like me, he often expresses himself more sweepingly than might be advisable.
i was very specific about my time. Isn’t it curious that that is stubbornly ignored ?
There does seem to be a general conviction that whatever one opines must be imposable as a universal opinion on all. All Kant did was to take vulgar self-importance and doll it up as a categorical imperative.
TBF “waste of my time” connotes “waste of anyone’s time” to many speakers of standard English. As soon as purposes have been crossed, people will start talking at them.
Did a comment of mine get snarfed?
Thanks for the heads-up — I just unsnarfed it.
sex-crazed herbalist
The best kind of herbalist.
I’m not sure I understand why an assumtion that some undefined stuff is about sex is esoteric.
But I guess what is meant is an assumtion that stuff is underlyingly partly about sex.
By the way, is Chomsky’s Language Faculty (I wanted to type LF but from “In the historical development of Chomsky’s theory of syntax, LF (Logical Form) has undergone significant evolution.” I understand that these two letters are reserved for a different (?) thing) partly about sex?
it used to be, but things haven’t been the same since they replaced the tenured lines with adjuncts, who simply don’t have the time.
I still miss Invisible Adjunct after two decades.
LFA = Looking for academic, maybe?
The world’s first international conference was held quite recently (like in the past week or so). I wonder if the Voynich Manuscript was on the agenda.
Ariel Sabar has also reported (very well) on a for-sure fake in Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife (Doubleday, 2020).
And on another disputed document: “The ‘Secret’ Gospel and a Scandalous New Episode in the Life of Jesus
A Columbia historian said he’d discovered a sacred text with clues to Jesus’s sexuality. Was it real?” in The Atlantic, April, 2024. (I think Morton Smith faked it; others disagree.)
As Antony Grafton wrote, some folks you would not at first suspect of forgery, did so, such as Erasmus.
And retraction watch site records science publications with bogus data.
I am fond of the genre. One favorite is Peter Lanyon-Orgill, whose career was reviewed here, and who was the publisher of supposed manuscripts of his ancestor who accompanied Cook on his Pacific voyages.
Above all, Hugh Trevor-Roper’s Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse is a spectacular book.
Me too. Trevor-Roper was a great historian, yet fooled by “Hitler Diaries.”
Now, with “Artificial Intelligence” we have a new ghost writer–and new style forgeries?–
by ghost-in-the-machine.