Language of the Nymphs

The Ladin hypothesis presented on these pages offers an explanation to the following key difficulty:

Our problem is that the vords are carefully constructed formulae (that we suspect are astrological coordinates or similar.) And yet they are arranged to appear like a natural language in a running text. How so?

The mystery of it is that the words (vords) are highly structured and formed under tight restraints (rules) but there is little or no syntax at the higher level. The vords are tight like algebraic formulae and are gathered into lines, paragraphs and pages which have little internal grammar: rather they just seem to be lists of such formulae. That is, we have unstructured lists of highly structured units (vords).

But if vords are just formulae (of coordinates or whatever) then why are they not arranged systematically, say in columns and rows, charts, tables? Instead, they are arranged to look like words in a running text as if a natural language. Why? 

It is easy to make a case that vords constitute an artificial, systematic lexicon made by some means of procedural generation (volvelles, grille etc?) but it is much harder to explain how they are deployed, grouped, distributed and arranged. Ok, vords are astrological coordinates. But how do they work? How does one use these coordinates? There are no ready answers to this, and very few plausible explanations, but that is really the challenge. We can explain vords, perhaps, but not the higher levels of the text.

That is: words (vords) seem real and meaningful, or at least highly crafted, but the appearance of a running text made of such vords appears to be bogus.

This might suggest deception: we are being deceived into thinking it is language when in fact it is just a series of strings of coordinates (vords). Why?

I offer another explanation not involving deception: the language of the nymphs.

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It is very significant, I think, that various nymphs are depicted measuring things – using instruments to measure and take soundings. This includes astronomical and meteorological measures.

In fact, I think this is of what vords consist: measures (mythologically) taken by the mountain nymphs. They map correspondences between stars, topography and herbs. The measures, I posit, are in terms of traditional cosmological categories: fire, air, water, earth, hot, dry, cold, moist.

The boast of the author of the manuscript, I take it, is that he has control of (has captured) the nymphs (wizardry) which in fact means has come to learn their branch of knowledge to the extent he can predict cycles.

A similar thing happens when dragons are slain in myths: it often signifies that people have calculated the lunar nodal cycle (eclipses) and in this way have “tamed” or “defeated” the dragon.

In Ladin mythology the nymphs control the cycles of the mountain environment and specifically both the celestial and subterranean waters. The nympha, for example, know the rise and fall of the alpine lakes. If one can predict these cycles then it is analogous to “taming the nymphs”. To be able to predict is to have power over.

In the Voynich manuscript the author has “tamed” or “conquered” – or, in mythopoetic terms, “married” – the nymphs and thus gained their knowledge: namely how to measure and control a certain mountain landscape (specifically the mountains of the Dolomites) and be able to predict its cycles.

This, I venture, is what the entire work is about. 

We see this explicitly on page f80r.

On my reading, this is the single most significant and revealing illustration in the manuscript. I propose that it shows the author  having control of the nymphs. This symbolizes: the author has gained knowledge of how to measure (and predict) certain cycles. The nymphs work for him! 

 
And he now speaks their language.

And so, rather than presenting the data necessary for and concerning the cycles he has learnt in a technical, scientific format, he has presented it as a running language – the language of the nymphs. Within his mythopoetic framework it is the language of the nymphs.

What are vords? Measurements taken by the nymphs. Expressed as formulae in a system of notation. What is the text? Vords arranged as the language of the nymphs.

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There is a certain Ladin myth concerning Lake Karezza in the Rosengarten mountains that I believe is directly relevant to this, and vital to understanding the Voynich ms. It concerns how a wizard encounters and wants to marry the nymph of the lake. “Marriage” here means to “control” and to “tame” and to “acquire the powers of.”

The Voynich ms. is by someone who claims to have acquired the powers of the nympha. And accordingly he speaks their language. But their language – as we see in the illustrations – concerns taking measurements of cosmic and terrestrial cycles.

Again: the man who learns these measures knows the language of the nymphs and has acquired their powers. This, in short, is what the Voynich ms. is about and it is why what appear to be algebraic-like formulae are arranged into sets (lines, paragraphs, pages, topics) with the semblance but not the substance of syntax.

The language of the nymphs? Imagine a babbling brook. Now imagine that what the brook is babbling is a series of measures, coordinates and numbers concerning the ever-changing cycles of elements of the natural order.

R. B.