Greek/Latin synthesis?

Prior to the victory of the Turks and the fall of Constantinople in the mid 1400s there was an urgency to Greek/Latin reconciliation: there was a concerted attempt to bring Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism together as a united Christian front against the Turks. Nicholas of Cusa was deeply involved in these efforts as an emissary and diplomat in negotiations with the Greeks.

Pressed by the context, there was a widespread feeling that the matters that had separated Eastern and Western churches for centuries were not insurmountable. Indeed, it was felt that the important differences were often matters of semantics and language rather than theology and doctrine. After all, the whole split had occurred over a single Latin word - fililoque - and, arguably, a breakdown in understanding between Latin and Greek languages.

Given this, there might well be an incentive for someone to craft an artificial or at least synthetic language designed to be used in common between Greek and Latin speakers. "Gratin." The Voynich script is suggestive: it is arguably made up of a combination of Latin and (some) Greek letter forms and textual conventions. Many researchers have detected Greek, and Latin, influence in the script. Is the Voynich language some attempt to marry together Greek and Latin into a common tongue?

As far as I know, there is no evidence such a synthesis was attempted: it is a purely contextual conjecture. The context is that the Voynich manuscript comes from the period that climaxed in the fall of Byzantium, a period during which very capable minds (like Nicholas of Cusa) were set to the largely linguistic problem of East/West reconciliation.

Needless to say, reconciliation didn't happen. The Turks won. After that, the Greek and Latin churches no longer felt any urgency to mend their differences. In that case, an experimental language designed to help bridge Greek and Latin would have quickly fallen into disuse.

Again: no evidence, but it is a possibility within the range of a Cusean hypothesis. The scenario would be that Cardinal Nicholas, and his good friend Cardinal Bessaron, perhaps deploying the Ars Magna of Ramon Llull, devised a synthetic language and script designed to overcome the linguistic divide between the Greek East and the Latin West.

In that case, the Voynich language would have been designed for purposes other than the manuscript, but has been adapted to that use.

The conjecture arises out of the nature of the script. Presumably, the script is made to suit the language it encodes. If the nature of the script is (arguably) Graeco-Latin then perhaps the language it is used to write is also some synthesis of Graeco-Latin?

R. B.