No, the Voynich manuscript has not been deciphered

Abstract

Debunking of Gerard Cheshire's presumed "decipherment" of the Voynich manuscript (2nd revision)

Full text

No, the Voynich manuscript has not been deciphered
Artemij Keidan󰃻
(2nd revision, September 29, 2020)
Introduction
        󰄙󰄛   
       󰄀   󰂺 󰂶  
   󰂶 󰂺   󰃍  󰆩󰆧󰆨󰆰󰃎󰂺       
        󰂺        
󰂶               󰂺
Two ways of being wrong
     󰂹   󰂺       
   󰂹
    
     󰂶    󰄙󰄛  󰄙󰄛󰂷 󰂶 󰂶 󰄙󰄛
 󰄙󰄛󰂷  󰄙󰄛  󰄙󰄛󰂺            󰂺
   󰂶        󰄙󰄛󰂹
󰄛      
 󰄙󰄛      󰂺     󰄀
󰂺              󰂶   󰂶  
󰂶      󰂺
 󰄘 󰄙󰄛        󰂺       󰄀
  󰂶       󰂺        󰂺 
                 󰂺  
              󰄙󰄛󰂶    
         󰂺
󰃻    󰃍󰃎󰂶 󰂹 󰂺󰅸󰆨󰂺󰂺       󰄀
  󰂺
󰆨

About the author
      󰂶       󰂺   
                  󰂺
  󰄙󰄛      󰂺    󰂹
󰄍      󰂷
󰄍 󰂶      󰂷
󰄍      󰂷
󰄍      󰂷
󰄍      󰄎 󰂶  󰄎 󰂺
󰂶                󰄀
 󰂶 󰂶  󰂶  decipherment 󰂺 󰂶  󰄙󰄀󰄛  
          󰂶       
   󰂺
              󰃍 󰂶 󰂶
󰂺󰃎󰂺
About the “methodology”
󰂺              󰂶    󰄙
󰄛    󰂺 󰂶       󰂺
󰆨󰃎    󰂺  󰂶 󰂺        󰃍
         󰂶   󰃎󰂺
󰆩󰃎 󰂺  󰄙󰄛          󰄙󰄛 󰃍 󰂶
 󰄘        󰂹 󰂶 󰂶  󰄀󰂶 
       󰃎󰂺
󰆪󰃎       󰄙󰄛       󰃍
󰂶       󰃎󰂺        󰄀
󰂶       󰂺   󰂶     
        󰂺   󰂶     󰄀
󰂺 󰂶  󰂶   󰄙󰄛        
  󰂺
󰆫󰃎  󰂺            󰄙󰄛󰂺
󰆬󰃎            󰂶   
  󰂶       󰂶      
     󰂺
󰆩

           󰂺        󰄀
󰂺    󰂶 󰂶     󰂶  
    󰂺
Two words on the “Proto-Romance” and the “Italic writing system”
󰂺       󰄙󰄀󰄛 󰂶     󰂶
          󰂺    
 󰄀    󰂶      lingua franca󰂺 󰂺  
       󰂺      󰂶 
  󰂶       󰄀 󰃍󰂶 󰂺󰂺  󰆨󰆰󰆬󰆧󰃎󰂺 󰂶    
 󰂶         󰄙󰄛    󰂺
󰂶        󰄀    󰆨󰆬 󰂶 
󰂺 󰂶                
󰂺󰂺
     󰂺󰄘     󰄙  󰄛󰂺 󰂶   
    writing system󰂺          
     󰃍 󰂶            
     󰂶      󰃎󰂺 󰂶 
      Italic󰂶     󰄀   
         󰆨󰆬 󰂺 󰂶   Italic 󰂶  󰂶 
   󰂺 󰂶 󰂺     Italic types   Proto-Italic 󰂶
󰂺󰂺               󰂶 
 󰂶 󰂶 󰂶 󰂺󰂶      󰂺 󰂶      󰄙
 󰄛󰂶     󰂺󰂶   󰂶        󰂺
Line-by-line criticism
            󰂺󰂶  
     󰂺            
   󰃍    󰂶      󰃎󰂺 󰂶      
       󰂶     
 󰂺        󰂶   󰂺   
  󰂶         󰃍󰂶     
      Romance Studies󰃎󰂶           
 󰂹      󰂶    󰂶 
    󰂺
Page 1
The writing system is rather more singular and less intuitive than modern systems
󰂺        󰂺     󰄙 󰄛󰂺      
󰂺
󰆪

Page 2
One scholar even produced a transcription of the manuscript that is entirely incorrect (Reeds
1995)
󰂺         󰂺   󰃍󰆨󰆰󰆰󰆬󰃎
                  󰂺 󰄘
  󰂶   󰂺       󰂶     󰂺
Even algorithmic data mining for patterns with computers resulted in abject failure, because
the computer scientists lacked a vital piece of information for their programming.
    󰄀󰂶 󰂺   󰄀     
     󰂶 󰂶     󰂺 󰂶  
   󰃍     󰆩󰆧󰆩󰆧󰂶     󰆩󰆧󰆨󰆨󰂶  󰃎 
     󰂺         󰂺
Furthermore, some of the manuscript text uses standard Latin phrasing
󰂺    phrasing 󰃍 phrase󰃎      󰂶     
   󰂺
a language and writing system that were in normal and everyday use for their time and place
󰂺   󰄀        󰂺
Page 3
Incidentally, Maria was great-aunt to Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536), rst wife of King Henry
VIII (1491–1547) and mother of Queen Mary Tudor (1516–58)
󰄀           󰂺
The manuscript has many images of naked women bathing in them, both recreationally and
therapeutically
       󰂺         
󰂶            󰂺󰄘 󰄀
󰂺
󰆫

By that period the language of neighbouring Naples was already well on its way to becoming
early Italian, and the writing system was early Italic.
 󰂺   󰆨󰆬 󰂺            
󰂺
So the language and writing system of Ischia
…
the separate languages and writing systems of their homeland, of Ischia and of Naples
󰂺           󰂺    󰂶
   󰂶    󰃍   󰂺      󰃎󰂶   
       󰆨󰆬 󰂺
On the other hand, the writing system of the manuscript was evidently unique to Ischia, as it
has insucient similarity with Italics to be described as proto-Italic.
 󰂶   󰂺
The manuscript uses a language that arose from a blend of spoken Latin, or Vulgar Latin,
and other languages across the Mediterranean during the early Medieval period following the
collapse of the Roman Empire and subsequently evolved into the many Romance languages,
including Italian
        󰄙󰄀󰄛󰂺       
   󰄀   󰂺
For that reason it is known as proto-Romance (prototype-Romance)
               
   󰄙󰄀󰄛󰂶  󰂶   󰂶     prototype󰂺
Page 4
varying levels of linguistic meme ow between populations
    󰄙  󰄛    󰂺     󰄀
󰂺
Proto-Romance would always have been a spectrum of language variants across the entire
Mediterranean, always in ux and evolving at dierent rates, depending on geographic contexts
󰂶  󰄀       󰂺   󰄀
󰂶 󰂺
󰆬

The alphabet of [the Voynich ms.] runs from a to z, just as our modern Italic alphabet does
     󰂺 󰄙    󰄛       󰂺
󰂶     󰄙  󰄛 󰂺     󰂺
a number of the symbols are unfamiliar, either because they have dierent graphic origins or
because they are linear variants to indicate particular uses and phonetic accents
     󰄙󰄛  󰄙󰄛       
  󰂺       󰄙 󰄛   󰄀
󰂶  󰂶 󰂶      󰂺
a few of the familiar modern letter symbols are absent from the manuscript alphabet, either
because they were silent in speech or because their pronunciation had overlap with other letter
symbols that are used in their place
󰂶   󰂺          󰂺
󰂶          󰄙󰄛󰂶        
  󰂺 󰂶     󰄙󰄛     󰂶    󰂺  
      󰂺 󰂶         󰂶
   󰂶     󰂺
   󰂺               
     󰂺 󰂶        
    󰂷 󰂶          
  󰂶        󰂺   󰂺
combined letter symbols — diphthongs, triphthongs and so on — used to represent specic
phonetic sounds
󰂺        󰂺      󰂶 󰄀
󰂶   󰂶    󰂺
the writing system of the manuscript can be apprehended once the grammatical rules are
understood
  󰂷 󰂶             󰂺
The manuscript uses only lowercase letters and there are no punctuation marks either, so
punctuation is indicated by the use of symbol variants and spacing
󰂶               
         󰂺 󰂶       󰄀
  󰃍  󰂺     󰃎󰂺         
 󰂹     󰂶   󰄎 󰂼 󰄎  󰂺
󰆭

conjoined, or portmanteau, phrases
󰂶 󰂺       phrase󰂶     portmanteau󰂶   
    󰂺  󰂶            
            󰂺
Page 5
Figure 5 shows the diphthong ‘æ’, which was once commonplace in Latin derived words and is
seen frequently in the manuscript. It is sometimes known by the name æsc (pronounced ash).
          Romance Studies   
     encyclopedia   encyclopædia   󰂺
Page 6
Figure 6 shows the letter ‘d’ from the manuscript. It is derived from the Greek delta triangle,
which is why it comprises three straight lines
         󰂶        󰂺 
                   
      󰂶        󰂺  󰃍󰆨󰆰󰆭󰆭󰃎󰂺
They are used to denote phonetic dierences that roughly correspond with the use of the single
and double ‘e’ in modern language
󰂺        󰂶       󰂺 󰄀
󰂶          󰄙 󰄛󰂶     
󰄙 󰄛󰂺
letter ‘d’ … nearly always followed by the letter ‘o’
      󰂺    󰂺       󰄀
         󰂺
Page 7
double short e … corresponds with doubling of the modern e, with intonation (e’e)
 󰂺   󰂶   󰄙󰄛󰂶   󰂺
󰆮

triphthongs and quadriphthongs
    󰂶        
󰃍          󰂶    󰃎󰂺
Page 9
letter n … modeled on the Arabic nuun symbol: ن(n). In the modern Osmanya (Somali) and
Kaddare conversion alphabets the letter nis modeled on the nuun in much the same way
󰂶 󰂶      󰄎  󰂼 󰄎    
   󰂺  󰆩󰆧 󰂺           
 󰂺   󰂶   󰄙 󰄛 󰂿
The Arabic inuence on the Romance languages is often neglected due to the Eurocentric
historic view of linguistics
                󰄀
  󰃍󰂺󰂺  󰆨󰆰󰆭󰆩󰂹 󰄲󰆬󰆰󰃎󰂷 󰂺     󰂺
letter ‘o’ … imitates the shape of the mouth when the phonetic sound is made
  󰂶  󰂶 󰂶      󰄘 󰂺
show the letter ‘p’ and the phoneme ‘qu’
 p  󰄙󰄛󰂶  qu   󰄙󰄛󰂿
Page 10
letter p … sometimes extended left or right … to indicate possession of other letters in a word
… may be silent: pt-,ps-,pn-
   󰄙  󰄛    󰂺   󰂹   
       󰂶   󰄙󰄛 p      󰄀
 󰂺
Page 11
Although some Romance languages now contain ene and enne phrasing, there is no Latin root
for those terms, which is why letter lwas symbolically partnered with m,p, and qu, instead of
letter nin the manuscript
󰆯

        󰂺 󰂶 󰂺    
      󰂶           
      󰂺       phrasing󰂺
As the Italian peninsula is proximate with North Africa it meant that the Arabic symbol for n
would have been familiar at that time anyway, so its adoption also made practical sense for a
working alphabet
󰂶    󰂺    󰂶      
 󰂶      󰂺  󰂶        
     󰂺
The ‘standing s’ is used at the start of words or within words, while the ‘sitting s’ is used at
the end of words. The two versions therefore serve as a form of punctuation
 󰂺󰄘      󰂶      󰂺    
  s   󰄙󰄛 󰂺       󰂿 󰂶  
      󰄙󰄛 󰂺
Page 12
A variant of the sitting s can still be seen in the handwritten sas a sux in modern languages.
  󰂺
Page 13
letter v … corresponds with the letter v, but phonetically corresponds with v,ph,f,th,w,
depending on pronunciation.
  󰂺    󰂿
Page 14
The missing letters/phonemes c, k, h, ch, sh, j, g, y are not given symbols in the manuscript
alphabet, either because they were not used in the manuscript language, or they were silent, or
because they represent syllabic junctions that were pronounced anyway, and therefore required
no symbols.
 󰂶 󰂺        󰂺    
  󰂶     󰂶         󰂺
        󰄙󰄛   󰂺    󰂶 
󰂶  󰂺
󰆰

The word opát survives to mean abbot in Polish, Czech and Slovak, demonstrating that proto-
Romance reached as far as Eastern Europe. In Western Europe other variants survive: abat
(Catalan), abad (Spanish), abbé (French), whilst the Latin is ‘abbas’. This also demonstrates
the phonetic overlap between the sounds ‘p’ and ‘b’ in the manuscript alphabet.
   󰂺    opat  󰂶 󰂶 󰂶   
󰂶 󰂶  󰂶    󰂶           
󰂺  󰂶      󰄙   p b󰄛󰂶   󰂺
Page 16
The words orla la describe the mood of the woman on the left and may well be the root of the
French phrase ‘oh là là’, which has a very similar sentiment.
󰂶           󰃍 󰂼󰃎󰂺    
  󰂺
or aus (golden bird: well behaved)
󰂺               
         󰂺 󰂺     
  󰂺 󰂶    󰂶        󰂺 󰄀
󰂶   󰂶   󰂶      󰂺   
  󰂺
Drosera contains substances known as avonoids and quinones, which have an antibiotic, an-
tiviral, antimicrobial and antifungal eect.
     󰂶  󰂺        󰂺
Page 16–17
The text words can still be found in various Romance languages and Latin: panais-or (French);
o’nauira (Latin); æo arna (Galician); o’péor (Galician, Spanish); omor (Romanian); or é’epe a
(Old Italian); doméas (Old French); t [terminus] (Latin).
     󰂺󰄘        󰄙󰄛 
   󰂺               
 󰂺       󰂺   󰂶    
 󰂺    󰂶   󰂶  or é’epe a󰂷   æo arna  󰂷 󰂺 󰄀
 omor      umoriti 󰄖 󰄘      󰄀󰂺
󰆨󰆧

Page 19
Each vignette includes a combination of naïvely drawn and somewhat stylized images
󰂶    󰂶    󰂺       󰄀
   󰂺
Page 21
They read: o’péna (of rock: Old Spanish) o’qunas [cunas] asa (the cradle/birth it is: Spanish,
Latin) amena sa (its lead/start: French) rolen æt (turning re: Spanish, Latin) o’monas (of
unity: Latin) amenaus (amazing/threatening: Spanish, Catalan) o’lena (of energy: Italian)
formena (forming/shaping/create: Catalan, Spanish) o’péna sa (of rock it is: Old Spanish)
    󰂺    󰄘 o   of󰂺  
    de             󰂺
      󰂶        o   
  de󰂺    󰂺    o      
     of󰂺  󰂶    pena  󰄖󰄘  󰂺 
rolen æt    󰄖 󰄘  󰂺
Page 22
The illustration in Figure 42 shows a diagram of a nautical inclinometer
             󰆨󰆬 󰂺  󰂺 
      󰂿
tas [tasse] (the hull/bowl: French, Adriatic)
   󰂿
the annotation [d]oména omona (big man dominates: Portuguese, Italian)
 󰂺   󰂶   󰂶      
d  󰂺     󰂺
Page 23
The annotation reads: o’ména omor na (the direction of death’s ight: French, Romanian,
Latin) clearly demonstrating the Christian belief in a celestial afterlife.
󰆨󰆨

󰂹     󰂺   󰂿      󰄙 󰄛  
󰂺 󰂶   󰂹 󰂺󰄘  o’ména  󰃕d󰃖oména   
      󰂺   d󰂶         󰂺
   󰂺          󰂺  
          󰄙󰄛 󰂺 󰂶  
  󰂶          󰂺   󰂺    
󰂶 󰂶     󰂶     󰄀    󰂺
Page 24
words read: o quais aqua requi[ro] a (the quay/wharf, is required by water: Galician, French,
Italian, Latin).
󰂶         󰂺
Page 25
This was the rst month of the Roman calendar. The Gregorian calendar was introduced in
1582 by Pope Gregory VIII, which post-dates the manuscript by 140 years.
        󰄀   󰆨󰆫󰆧 󰂺
Page 28
Note that the Latin spelling is used, indicating that the words are contemporaneous with the
manuscript.
󰂺               
    󰂺           󰂺 󰂶 
     󰂺
Page 30
its modern Italian name is ‘l’aragosta’, which is derived from a combination of the words
‘Aragonese’ and ‘locusta’ (Latin for lobster): i.e. the Aragonese-lobster.
     󰂺      aragosta󰂺
The word beneath the lion, written in conventional Italics, reads ‘aug’st’, which means the
month of ‘August’ and survives in Latin as a contraction of ‘Augusta’.
     󰄙 󰄛󰂿 󰂶    󰄙󰄛   
         󰂺  󰂺    󰄙󰄀󰄛    
󰂿
󰆨󰆩

Page 31
Note the accent < over the letter m to indicate lower pitch, which was a Medieval device
  󰂺   󰄙 󰄛󰂺
Figure 56 shows … the Zodiac sign Scorpio — scorpion (green lizard): In the Medieval period
the term ‘scorpion’ was used colloquially for both lizards and scorpions, as they lived in similar
terrain and both had long tails
  󰂺              
     󰂺
Page 33
proto-Romance survived by vestigial fragmentation of its lexicon into the languages we see
today.
      󰂺
a language that was once ubiquitous over the Mediterranean and subsequently became the
foundation for southern European linguistics in the present day
 󰂺      󰂿     󰂿
The Greek sign of the holy cross ‘+’ is commonly used as a Latin text symbol to represent faith
in God, Christ, Christianity
    󰂶     󰂺 󰂶 󰂶         
󰂺
The circumex accent ‘^’ beneath the nal letter ‘o’ translates into a modern accented ‘ó’
making the word ‘mapeós’ a preterite indicative verb form: i.e. associated with a past event
               󰄘 󰂺
 󰂶  󰂺        preterite󰂺
Page 34
 󰂺     󰆨󰆬 󰂺  󰂶        
   󰂺 󰄙          󰄛󰂺
󰆨󰆪

The third image is the Roman numeric symbol for the century ‘1400� (MCCCC: M C x 4)
󰂺         Romance Studies      󰂺
the letter ‘z’, the phonemes ‘con’ and ‘ch’
 con  ch 󰂿
the second reads: ‘contento conchisto [conquista] patto’ (satisfactory conquest pact: Italian).
   󰂺 󰂺              
 󰂺 󰂶 conchisto    con questo 󰄖 󰄘󰂶    con-
quista 󰄖󰄘󰂺    󰂹 󰄖   󰄘󰂺
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Alfonsus dei gracia Rex Aragome (Alfonzo of the gracious, King of Aragon)
    󰂺󰄘 󰂺           󰂺 󰂶 dei
 󰄖 󰄘  󰂶         dei 󰄖 󰄘󰂺     󰄖󰂶
       󰄘󰂶  󰄖   󰄘 󰃍      󰂿󰃎󰂺
                  
           󰂺  󰂺    
󰂿 󰂶 󰂺󰄘 󰄎    󰄘 󰄎  Aragome    
Aragonie 󰃍    Aragoniae󰃎󰂺 󰂶 󰂺        m 
ni      󰂺           󰂻
󰂶   󰂺󰂶   󰂶         
      󰂹     󰂺 󰂶     
  󰂺
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This owing handwriting style is known as ‘humanistic miniscule cursive script’. It was developed
by the Italian scholar Niccolò de‘ Niccoli (1364–1437) in the 1420s, with the intention of
formalizing and standardizing Italic handwriting and type.
 󰂺  󰂺         󰂺   
humanistic cursive    󰂶        󰂺   󰂹
        󰂶        
󰂷          󰂺
󰆨󰆫

It was duly adopted by the Vatican to make communication more consistent and reliable across
Catholic Europe
      󰆨󰆬 󰂺󰂶        󰂺
It is incredible too, that both manuscripts survived, as neither was written in the Latin of
ocialdom and might easily have been discarded.
󰂺󰄘           󰂺
The only males in the citadel were the abbot, celibate monks and young boys, leaving the
women and girls sexually and emotionally frustrated, so they amused and distracted themselves
whilst they waited and yearned for male attention to return.
  󰂶    󰂶    󰂺
Page 37
Ferdinand I of Naples (1423–94)
      󰆨󰆫󰆩󰆫󰂺
The solution to the codex of MS408 was developed over a 2-week period in May 2017
  󰄀             󰄘
   󰂺 󰂶    󰂺 󰂶       
 󰄀 󰂺
Concluding remarks
       󰄙󰄛          󰄀
 󰂺            󰂺
             󰃍   󰂶 
  󰃎󰂶            
󰂺              󰃍󰄀
    󰃎󰂺
           󰂶        
         󰂶  󰂺
                󰄀
 󰂶            󰂶 
 󰂶                
   󰂺
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References
󰂶  󰃍󰆩󰆧󰆨󰆰󰃎󰂺 󰄙      󰆫󰆧󰆯 󰃍󰃎 󰂺󰄛 Romance
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󰂶  󰃍󰆨󰆰󰆭󰆭󰃎󰂺 Geschichte der Schrift unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer geistigen En-
twicklung󰂺 󰂹 󰂺
  󰂺󰂶 󰂺 󰃍󰆨󰆰󰆬󰆧󰃎󰂺 󰄙   󰄀󰂺󰄛 Language 󰆩󰆭󰂺󰆨󰂶 󰆭󰄍󰆩󰆮󰂺 󰂹 10.2307/
410406󰂺
󰂶     󰃍󰆩󰆧󰆨󰆨󰃎󰂺 󰄙      󰂺󰄛 󰂹 Proceed-
ings of the 5th ACL-HLT Workshop on Language Technology for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, and
Humanities󰂺    󰂺 󰂶 󰂶 󰆮󰆯󰄍󰆯󰆭󰂺
󰂶 󰂺 󰃍󰆨󰆰󰆰󰆬󰃎󰂺 󰄙 󰂺 󰄘     󰂺󰄛 Cryptologia 󰆨󰆰󰂺󰆨󰂶 󰆨󰄍󰆩󰆪󰂺
󰂹 10.1080/0161-119591883737󰂺
󰂶  󰃍󰆨󰆰󰆭󰆩󰃎󰂺 Le origini delle lingue neolatine󰂺 󰂹 󰂺
󰂶     󰃍󰆩󰆧󰆩󰆧󰃎󰂺 󰄙       󰂺󰄛
Cryptologia 󰆫󰆫󰂺󰆨󰂶 󰆨󰄍󰆨󰆰󰂺 󰂹 10.1080/01611194.2019.1596999󰂺
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