Complete solutions

What constitutes a 'solution'? I often refer to a "cogent" solution. What might that amount to? It means that a solution offers, at least, a plausible account of all the main features of the manuscript, and specifically the illustrations, the unique script, and the language, the text. Needless to say, this must be consonant with the historical context, but the vital matters that are internal to the manuscript are illustrations, script and text. All of these need to be explained.

In this, it is not entirely necessary that the text is translated. There may be viable solutions in which the text cannot be translated. But there must be an account of what the text is, and why it is the way it is. And there must be an account of the script. And the illustrations which are abundant throughout the work. Indeed, on the face of it, the illustrations are vitally important. The work appears much more like a book of illustrations with text (as commentary) than it does a text with illustrations. 

Many proposed solutions fail on this criterion: they offer an account of the text or the script, but trivialize the illustrations. Or vice versa. A case in point is the solution offered by T. Timm, to which I have referred in recent posts. He proposes a self-generating pseudo-text and studies the language at depth. But only at the end of his study does he write:

Finally, it makes sense to illustrate a manuscript 
nobody can read. The illustrations would attract 
attention and everyone would assume 
that the text might be explaining the secret 
he or she could see within the strange illustrations. 
Or, in other words, if the text cannot be read 
or decoded then a background story or some 
fanciful illustrations are needed to make 
a manuscript interesting.

This is an utterly unsatisfactory account of such a copiously illustrated work! Regardless of how cogent might be his account of the text and the script, he does the illustrations a grave injustice. Even if the illustrations are not related to the text, they surely cannot be so easily dismissed and deserve a fuller account.

What is required, that is, are comprehensive and global - even holistic - solutions to the conundrums posed. After all, these three elements exist together:     

I am reminded of a medical analogy. A man has arthritis - for which he takes a pill. Insomnia - for which he takes a pill. Headaches - for which he takes a pill. But all of these conditions have something in common - they are all occurring in the same organism. Perhaps they are related?

Or perhaps the elements in the Voynich are not related? The text has nothing to do with the illustrations, or both are bogus, and the script has been lifted from somewhere else? What brings them together?

The more natural reading - certainly the impression that we are given - is that script, text and illustrations are all part of a coherent, common project. The text, that is, goes with the illustrations, and the script with the text. The work is all of apiece in a natural way, as it appears. It demands a solution that explains all three elements and their unity in our manuscript.

The approach I take in these pages attempts to find a comprehensive solution. In the first instance, I have approached the work as a Mutus Liber - a silent text. This is in order to establish a context in which the text and script can be placed. I am persuaded that the work is unified, coherent, meaningful and of one design. As I see it: The script was made for the text and the text was made for the illustrations. Think of them as symptoms.  There is a single explanation for all three.

R.B.