Is it possible that the manuscript was written by... doctors? It would explain why nobody was able to read it. As far as I know, nobody in human history was able to decipher a doctor's handwriting.
Doctors write in shorthand, which is why you can't read it, but the pharmacy can. I think it's covered in another video that abbreviations aren't the answer because the entropy is too low.
8:56: Admirable attempt at using correct botanical terminology here. A few notes. The two flowers in B look like classic members of the sunflower family, which has very weird flowers, in that their "flowers" are actually composites of many small flowers in one inflorescence structure. In this case the members of what looks like the calyx would be "bracts". Also in both cases it would be okay to refer to them as petals. Tepals (pronounced "tee-pulls") is a term we use to describe petals and sepals ("see-pulls") when the two look the same as each other.
@@glenmorrison8080 thanks for the pointers :) In my defense, studying this thing requires one to become familiar with so many different fields of study that it's almost impossible to keep up. But I understand this can look a bit clumsy to actual specialists in one of those fields. And the English pronunciation of words originating from Latin and Greek is a specialty of its own. :)
@@voynichtalk Oh for sure. And I didn't mean to criticize even. It's a lot of terminology to learn. Also, the way you two were using the terms here I was able to figure out what you were saying. Also also, these plants are not known to even be representative of specific known species, so it complicates everything further. I think you do a good fair job of discussing all this. Enjoying the channel a lot btw.
@@glenmorrison8080 is this a regional/American thing? In the UK I've only ever heard kah-lyx, but I'm not a botanist, I'm a geologist and we use calyx when talking about the cup of a crinoid. Perhaps it's field based?
15:36 I started seeing butterflies, birds and some small faces in those leaves and I can't unsee them now! The root looks like a scarab beetle. It's hard for me not to think that there's a kind of lying motif in that picture.
This is really interesting, I always love to see people discover new features of the VM and while our collective track record might suggest otherwise, I think we will 'solve' the mystery one day. Looking forward to the next episode and I'd really like to visit one the Voynich meet ups or talk with other interested people in general. Sadly, I don't really have any Voynich enthusiasts among friends and family.
Great video. I have an idea i want to share with you. An artist develops his skills in a lot of aspects over time. In his drawing technique, his depiction of form, his perspective, and his choice of motives will gradully change along with experience. I think the plants in B are often more artistic because of this. Another thing could be that A and B was made with a long period of time in between. Thank you very much for your excellent channel. Best Regards Mr U from Sweden 🇸🇪
@@urbeke it is possible, but apparently specialist think the difference in handwriting is such that it's better explained by multiple scribes. So that's the explanation I prefer, though I don't entirely discount the possibility that there was time in between.
@ Thank you for taking your time to reply. I Am going through all of your videos. They are excellent made and very interesting. I am impressed of the work you and your collegues are making. I soaking it all in to my base of knowledge. I am openminded and not objecting anything of what your presenting, on the contrary. I admit that thinking it is a work of a lonely genius like ”Vincent” is a romantic veiw. But I dont think it is a product of a woorkshop like painters/craftsmen had in the italiano renessance ”scola”. The quality of the pictures and layouts is too poor in my opinion. I just saw your presentation on the color blue. Have you considered looking into some kind of eveloution in the esteticism of the drawings? Best Regards Mr U🇸🇪
13:59 I'd noticed that as well, and it's an interesting detail as that's something some real plants actually tend to do. As fantastical and bizarre as most of these botanical illustrations are, there's still occasional hints of some actual knowledge of the behaviour and structure of real plants on the part of the illustrator 🤔
It is clear from this that A is an inexperienced person showing plants, while B has a better idea of what is needed to really understand the plant, and only includes important parts. For instance plants having flowers or leafs only on one side. It seems silly but that is a good way of showing what they look like clearly and then the other side can show other characteristics. Like how moden science books sometimes do. Maybe with expertise comes these sorts of insights. which makes this all even more complex since they are not real plants...
just starting this series now as I'm super interested, maybe it's fixed in future episodes but the levels are kinda all over the place in this and there's some peaking/distorting
@@SisterRose yeah, this was the first time I edited a video. I did ask the program (Davinci Resolve) to normalize audio for UA-cam. But maybe this wasn't sufficient. Most of my other videos won't have so much different input, and I think the one I uploaded yesterday should be alright in the audio department. But thank you for letting me know, I want to improve my editing to make videos that are pleasant to watch :)
I get the feeling the illustrations are somehow the key to know how to decode the text. Any patterns in the shape of the language and the type of illustrations?
@@br9809 it's complicated... Insights on shifting text "dialects" are evolving at the moment (not my area of expertise). I'm planning to do a video about this in the future, where I'd probably ask some others to talk about their research.
The plants pictures seem very odd. They aren't real plants. They don't have any obvious symbolic content. They are amateurish, not based on years of practice. There doesn't seem to have been any quality control from a central organization. What's the point? It strikes me as playful.
have to say, very easy to see the difference, im pretty shocked at how long it took some of your partners to actually decide A or B, it was pretty obvious within milliseconds
The "daisy " plant with stolons discussed appears to be a variety known as Antennaria Dioica commonly known as "pussytoes" or "catfoot". Somewhere I read the Voynich is a womens health manual so what do you think the medicinal property of this plant is for ?????. It is used for vaginitis according to Wiki.
That silent 'H' that Americans use for the world 'herbal', making it into 'Erbal' is painful to non-Americans. It almost makes the throat hurt (urt?) when listening to it for some reason! I wonder if that type of thing might not be represented in the manuscript.
@@bernardfinucane2061 Lisa Fagin Davis (professional paleographer) determined that there are 5 scribes. The herbal section is especially heavy on scribes 1 and 2. Quire 8 is complex (I have a video about that).
@@voynichtalk Thanks. Figuring out how it was created (whether there was copying for example) is probably a clue. I also wonder if the drawings were done by the same people, and if so whether there was a 1:1 match. That is, did certain people illustrate texts written by others?
Amazing work - now that we have these facts, we want to hear your (and your guests) theories! Why so many parasitic daisies, lol? These were clearly two different artists, right? These chimeric and non-biologically feasible plants are pretty obviously works of fantasy, and I'm interested if they relate at all to John Dee's belief in an "angelic" culture - do you think these are meant to be the plants of the angels, or of heaven?
Thanks! Yes, I think it's likely that there were more than one artist, although they seem to have been working with the same overall "plan". Most of the differences appear like artistic tells. Part 2 of the episode will have some of the guests' opinions about all this. As for the interpretation, I really don't know. Anyone you ask will have a different opinion. There are a few concrete building blocks I want to gather first.
@@voynichtalk RIght, it did say Pt 1 - really looking forward to Pt 2, and to re-watching this one again just to see all those really interesting details! Are the isolated plant images available anywhere for folks who want to look at them?
Is it possible that the manuscript was written by... doctors? It would explain why nobody was able to read it. As far as I know, nobody in human history was able to decipher a doctor's handwriting.
Has anyone tried showing it to a pharmacist?
The idea that doctors have their own language is so funny to me.
Doctors write in shorthand, which is why you can't read it, but the pharmacy can. I think it's covered in another video that abbreviations aren't the answer because the entropy is too low.
As a trained botanist, and hobbyist of linguistics and history, I find the plant aspects of the Voynich MS very intriguing.
8:56: Admirable attempt at using correct botanical terminology here. A few notes. The two flowers in B look like classic members of the sunflower family, which has very weird flowers, in that their "flowers" are actually composites of many small flowers in one inflorescence structure. In this case the members of what looks like the calyx would be "bracts". Also in both cases it would be okay to refer to them as petals. Tepals (pronounced "tee-pulls") is a term we use to describe petals and sepals ("see-pulls") when the two look the same as each other.
Oh and calyx is pronounced usually more like "Kay-Lix".
@@glenmorrison8080 thanks for the pointers :) In my defense, studying this thing requires one to become familiar with so many different fields of study that it's almost impossible to keep up. But I understand this can look a bit clumsy to actual specialists in one of those fields. And the English pronunciation of words originating from Latin and Greek is a specialty of its own. :)
@@voynichtalk Oh for sure. And I didn't mean to criticize even. It's a lot of terminology to learn. Also, the way you two were using the terms here I was able to figure out what you were saying. Also also, these plants are not known to even be representative of specific known species, so it complicates everything further. I think you do a good fair job of discussing all this. Enjoying the channel a lot btw.
I immediately thought of the sunflower also. 'Daisy' didn't seem descriptive to me. Even perhaps dandelion more than daisy.
@@glenmorrison8080 is this a regional/American thing? In the UK I've only ever heard kah-lyx, but I'm not a botanist, I'm a geologist and we use calyx when talking about the cup of a crinoid. Perhaps it's field based?
this is one of the most interesting things I learned so far about the Voynich manuscript, very weird but helpful
15:36 I started seeing butterflies, birds and some small faces in those leaves and I can't unsee them now! The root looks like a scarab beetle. It's hard for me not to think that there's a kind of lying motif in that picture.
This is really interesting, I always love to see people discover new features of the VM and while our collective track record might suggest otherwise, I think we will 'solve' the mystery one day. Looking forward to the next episode and I'd really like to visit one the Voynich meet ups or talk with other interested people in general. Sadly, I don't really have any Voynich enthusiasts among friends and family.
Thanks! Always welcome at Voynich ninja, in case you're not a member yet.
Great video. I have an idea i want to share with you. An artist develops his skills in a lot of aspects over time. In his drawing technique, his depiction of form, his perspective, and his choice of motives will gradully change along with experience. I think the plants in B are often more artistic because of this. Another thing could be that A and B was made with a long period of time in between. Thank you very much for your excellent channel. Best Regards Mr U from Sweden 🇸🇪
@@urbeke it is possible, but apparently specialist think the difference in handwriting is such that it's better explained by multiple scribes. So that's the explanation I prefer, though I don't entirely discount the possibility that there was time in between.
@ Thank you for taking your time to reply. I Am going through all of your videos. They are excellent made and very interesting. I am impressed of the work you and your collegues are making. I soaking it all in to my base of knowledge. I am openminded and not objecting anything of what your presenting, on the contrary. I admit that thinking it is a work of a lonely genius like ”Vincent” is a romantic veiw. But I dont think it is a product of a woorkshop like painters/craftsmen had in the italiano renessance ”scola”. The quality of the pictures and layouts is too poor in my opinion. I just saw your presentation on the color blue. Have you considered looking into some kind of eveloution in the esteticism of the drawings? Best Regards Mr U🇸🇪
13:59 I'd noticed that as well, and it's an interesting detail as that's something some real plants actually tend to do. As fantastical and bizarre as most of these botanical illustrations are, there's still occasional hints of some actual knowledge of the behaviour and structure of real plants on the part of the illustrator 🤔
I agree! It's like they are simultaneously showing off their knowledge and messing around. One of the manuscript's many enigmas.
It is clear from this that A is an inexperienced person showing plants, while B has a better idea of what is needed to really understand the plant, and only includes important parts. For instance plants having flowers or leafs only on one side. It seems silly but that is a good way of showing what they look like clearly and then the other side can show other characteristics. Like how moden science books sometimes do. Maybe with expertise comes these sorts of insights. which makes this all even more complex since they are not real plants...
just starting this series now as I'm super interested, maybe it's fixed in future episodes but the levels are kinda all over the place in this and there's some peaking/distorting
@@SisterRose yeah, this was the first time I edited a video. I did ask the program (Davinci Resolve) to normalize audio for UA-cam. But maybe this wasn't sufficient. Most of my other videos won't have so much different input, and I think the one I uploaded yesterday should be alright in the audio department. But thank you for letting me know, I want to improve my editing to make videos that are pleasant to watch :)
I get the feeling the illustrations are somehow the key to know how to decode the text. Any patterns in the shape of the language and the type of illustrations?
@@br9809 it's complicated... Insights on shifting text "dialects" are evolving at the moment (not my area of expertise). I'm planning to do a video about this in the future, where I'd probably ask some others to talk about their research.
The plants pictures seem very odd. They aren't real plants. They don't have any obvious symbolic content. They are amateurish, not based on years of practice. There doesn't seem to have been any quality control from a central organization. What's the point? It strikes me as playful.
But why give the drawings so much space on the pages, if they're poor quality heavily stylized drawings of impossible plants?
have to say, very easy to see the difference, im pretty shocked at how long it took some of your partners to actually decide A or B, it was pretty obvious within milliseconds
The "daisy " plant with stolons discussed appears to be a variety known as Antennaria Dioica commonly known as "pussytoes" or "catfoot". Somewhere I read the Voynich is a womens health manual so what do you think the medicinal property of this plant is for ?????. It is used for vaginitis according to Wiki.
The daisies look like opium bulbs, lol
That silent 'H' that Americans use for the world 'herbal', making it into 'Erbal' is painful to non-Americans. It almost makes the throat hurt (urt?) when listening to it for some reason! I wonder if that type of thing might not be represented in the manuscript.
My own dialect of Dutch always drops initial h, like in French and Spanish. So I'm always happy when I don't have to try to pronounce it ;)
How many scribes are there for the total manuscript?
@@bernardfinucane2061 Lisa Fagin Davis (professional paleographer) determined that there are 5 scribes. The herbal section is especially heavy on scribes 1 and 2. Quire 8 is complex (I have a video about that).
@@voynichtalk Thanks. Figuring out how it was created (whether there was copying for example) is probably a clue. I also wonder if the drawings were done by the same people, and if so whether there was a 1:1 match. That is, did certain people illustrate texts written by others?
Amazing work - now that we have these facts, we want to hear your (and your guests) theories! Why so many parasitic daisies, lol? These were clearly two different artists, right? These chimeric and non-biologically feasible plants are pretty obviously works of fantasy, and I'm interested if they relate at all to John Dee's belief in an "angelic" culture - do you think these are meant to be the plants of the angels, or of heaven?
Thanks! Yes, I think it's likely that there were more than one artist, although they seem to have been working with the same overall "plan". Most of the differences appear like artistic tells. Part 2 of the episode will have some of the guests' opinions about all this.
As for the interpretation, I really don't know. Anyone you ask will have a different opinion. There are a few concrete building blocks I want to gather first.
@@voynichtalk RIght, it did say Pt 1 - really looking forward to Pt 2, and to re-watching this one again just to see all those really interesting details! Are the isolated plant images available anywhere for folks who want to look at them?
@@unseen_stranger The images were provided by Andres Steckley from his Voynich Garden page: thevoynichgarden.cryptobotany.org/home
These being the plants of heaven seems like it would relate well to the theory of the plants hiding/representing the Arma Christi.
Ist wirklich lustig. Der Verfasser verarscht euch bei der Sprache, bei den Bildern und auch noch bei den Seitenzahlen.