
The Unsolvable Mysteries of the Voynich Manuscript - shawndumas
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-unsolvable-mysteries-of-the-voynich-manuscript?
======
icanhackit
Skimmed the article to see if it had been mentioned but from what I could see
it wasn't. Stephen Bax, Professor in Applied Linguistics University of
Bedfordshire:

 _Through analysis of a number of illustrations in the manuscript, including
one constellation (Taurus) and seven plants, then drawing on European and
Middle Eastern mediaeval manuscripts and contemporary nomenclature, the paper
proposes the identification of a set of proper names in the Voynich text,
giving a total of ten words made up of fourteen of the Voynich symbols and
clusters. The resulting scheme is set out in Appendix 1 (page 56) of the
paper. The aim of the paper is to attempt to lay the groundwork for an
eventual full decoding and complete decipherment of this fascinating document.

The evidence shows that the manuscript is not a hoax, and is probably an
explanatory treatise on nature. The script was possibly devised to encode a
previously unwritten language or dialect, perhaps by a small community which
later died out or disappeared._

The paper (PDF): [http://stephenbax.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Voynich-
a-p...](http://stephenbax.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Voynich-a-
provisional-partial-decoding-BAX.pdf)

The video, 47m-11s:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpZD_3D8_WQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpZD_3D8_WQ)

~~~
DonaldFisk
[http://ciphermysteries.com/2014/02/21/stephen-bax-voynich-
ma...](http://ciphermysteries.com/2014/02/21/stephen-bax-voynich-manuscript)
is critical of the approach taken by Stehen Bax.

~~~
raverbashing
This critique seems harsh, maybe dismissive, but it has some merit (then again
I don't know much about the VM)

All the gallows pointing at the same letter is indeed something problematic
and that the other video pointed in this thread come to the same conclusion
(that is, they mean different things)

His point 6 is addressed by the other video pointed in this page (basically
the repeated letters should have an 'r' between them)

Point 1/3 might be fair, 2 is just nitpicking, 7 might be an issue but then
this is not looking at a picture of a plant, but rather a bad illustration

------
pakl
For some recent information (mid/late 2016) on applying linguistic methodology
to the Voynich Manuscript, see this two part video.

It's really great to see how much progress the community has made.

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=4cRlqE3D3RQ](https://youtube.com/watch?v=4cRlqE3D3RQ)

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=8nHbImkFKE4](https://youtube.com/watch?v=8nHbImkFKE4)

~~~
anotheryou
Wow, thanks so much! End of part 2 is so amazing :). Looks like I can wait for
the translated version before I buy a print :)

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tetha
This is a great example for the RPG Call of Cthulhu.

It is an ancient text, written in an unknown language. It appears to have some
relationship with our world, because there are plants from earth, but there
are also... different plants. Or are they different? It's hard to tell - you
might be fooled by the style of illustration, but there might be something
wrong about some of these plants in a very strange way.

And you can kinda guess the meaning of some of the words based on their
relationship with the images, something must be connected to the sunflower,
something must be connected to that nightshade. But who knows fully?

And thus, it takes months and months to dig through some of the old text, the
texts the cultists read so freely. Months of relating to other, equally or
more obscure texts, months of lying in bed without sleep until an idea pops
into your head. That's why reading old occult texts is hard.

Yes, I love lovecrafts work and that RPG.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> That's why reading old occult texts is hard.

Hard, and it also costs Sanity, let's not forget.

------
Ros2
If the language is fake, enough special attention was paid to constructing it
to look real _enough_ in the present day to still attract analysis. If it's
real, it hasn't ever been turned into anything meaningful. Either outcome is
incredible.

It's a fun problem. Any angle you attack it at seems to just lead to more
questions and dead ends (with some WTFs thrown in).

~~~
pakl
Well, it seems taking a principled approach helps avoid the WTFs :)

Please see my other comment for informative video links reviewing recent work
by community collaborators.

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runeb
I recommend having a look though the Codex Seraphinianus which is an artwork
inspired by the manuscript. It has an incredibly alien feel.

~~~
jaclaz
Yes, it is a work of beauty. Find some references here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Seraphinianus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Seraphinianus)

Luigi Serafini thinks that the Voynich is as "invented" as his own work:

[https://www.wired.com/2013/10/codex-seraphinianus-
interview/](https://www.wired.com/2013/10/codex-seraphinianus-interview/)

------
cLeEOGPw
I don't know how much the idea is accepted within the community, but for me
the most probable case seems to be some guy writing half truth (real plants,
constellations), half fiction (imaginary plants and mechanisms) with either
made up or intentionally very unknown, even at the time of writing language,
script as a hobby/work. The illustrations, even the strange ones, fit the art
style of the time pretty well, and if there were people willing to buy things
like that, why not make it?

Seems perfectly reasonable course of action to produce it, only thing that's
strange is that there aren't more these kind of scripts. Or there are, we just
haven't heard of them because they were either in known languages, or
deciphered?

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Animats
Mandatory XKCD: [1]

[1] [https://xkcd.com/593/](https://xkcd.com/593/)

~~~
yitchelle
If a new edition of the Manuscript is ever published, they need to add this
XKCD as a forward.

------
sctb
Related discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13084229](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13084229)

------
patrickg_zill
Is there a reason in an American publication to use metric measurements,
especially for a book that is about the standard size of 6x9 inches?

~~~
na85
Well, perhaps the New Yorker knows it attracts a multinational readership, and
perhaps it also is aware that the rest of the world tends to view the US
customary system of weights and measures as rather silly.

~~~
harryjo
> The manuscript is two hundred and twenty-five millimetres tall, a hundred
> and sixty wide, and five centimetres thick.

"met_re_s" in an American publication?

In this case, it's obviously just the New Yorker spelling out words and mixing
scales just to increase word count/diversity to give the article a more
mysterious pseudo-intellectual feel, as is the style of the magazine. The New
Yorker spins articles through a thesaurus before publication.

See also

> ineluctable

Considering that the venerated New Yorker(!) is blogspamming a Reddit(!)
thread, they needed to do something to distinguish themselves from BuzzFeed.

~~~
na85
>The New Yorker spins articles through a thesaurus before publication.

Perhaps, but there's a reason for the French saying " _le mot juste_ ":
Synonyms aren't actually words that have the same meaning. They are words that
have similar, related meanings but don't actually connote the same thing.

What should they have chosen instead of "ineluctable"? Irresistable?
Inevitable? Those words don't really carry the same meaning for me.

Precision in language (spoken, written, programming, or otherwise) is a
beautiful thing.

