The approach to the Voynich text being proposed in these pages seeks to provide solutions to the most difficult conundrums; one of them is the lack of repeated phrases. The Voynich text is conspicuous in having very few – almost no – repeated phrases. This is the starting point for many accounts of the text. It is one of the outstanding features of the text and one of the things that most strongly counts against it being a natural language.
In his 2014 work T. Timm begins his assessment of the text by saying, “The text of the VMS seems to be unique because repetitive phrases are missing.” He flags this as its defining characteristic.
He explains:
“In a text using human language grammatical relations should exist between words, and these relations should result in words used together multiple times.”
The Voynich text fails to do this – this must count as evidence against it being a “text using human language…”
But Timm’s statement isn’t quite true in all cases. It is only true if it reads:
"In a prose text using human language grammatical relations should exist between words, and these relations should result in words used together multiple times."
But there are other texts that use human language where there are no grammatical relations between words. For example, there are LISTS and CATALOGUES, surveys and indices and such. These may be made up of words but they have no grammar. They have other organising principles, but not the type of grammar one expects in prose. Specifically, there may be no phrases in a list or catalogue because there are no sentences; there are just collections of words without grammatical relationships.
I suggest that this is what we find in the Voynich text; the data of a catalogue, or a survey, or a text such as that. What it might catalogue is another matter, but in form it would possibly explain this aspect of the text. Why are there no phrases? Because the text is not running prose. It is, rather, a catalogue of some sort. The vords are entries in a catalogue. They are not random. There is organisation. But they are not organised the way words are in running prose.
Ordinarily, this sort of data would be presented in tables. It is an interesting question why the Voynich manuscript does not do this, and my hypothesis tries to provide an answer. The data has been presented as having been collected by and reported by the nymphs. In any case, I suggest that the plaintext was, indeed, in table form – a catalogue of compiled data of some sort. This has then been written out like prose in the Voynich ms.
I argue there are many remnants of this to be seen in the text. Timm’s study addresses many of them, although they lead him to a different conclusion. In particular, he notes clusters of similarly spelt vords, often in vertical patterns. Here are some of his examples:
In his 2014 work T. Timm begins his assessment of the text by saying, “The text of the VMS seems to be unique because repetitive phrases are missing.” He flags this as its defining characteristic.
He explains:
“In a text using human language grammatical relations should exist between words, and these relations should result in words used together multiple times.”
The Voynich text fails to do this – this must count as evidence against it being a “text using human language…”
But Timm’s statement isn’t quite true in all cases. It is only true if it reads:
"In a prose text using human language grammatical relations should exist between words, and these relations should result in words used together multiple times."
But there are other texts that use human language where there are no grammatical relations between words. For example, there are LISTS and CATALOGUES, surveys and indices and such. These may be made up of words but they have no grammar. They have other organising principles, but not the type of grammar one expects in prose. Specifically, there may be no phrases in a list or catalogue because there are no sentences; there are just collections of words without grammatical relationships.
I suggest that this is what we find in the Voynich text; the data of a catalogue, or a survey, or a text such as that. What it might catalogue is another matter, but in form it would possibly explain this aspect of the text. Why are there no phrases? Because the text is not running prose. It is, rather, a catalogue of some sort. The vords are entries in a catalogue. They are not random. There is organisation. But they are not organised the way words are in running prose.
Ordinarily, this sort of data would be presented in tables. It is an interesting question why the Voynich manuscript does not do this, and my hypothesis tries to provide an answer. The data has been presented as having been collected by and reported by the nymphs. In any case, I suggest that the plaintext was, indeed, in table form – a catalogue of compiled data of some sort. This has then been written out like prose in the Voynich ms.
I argue there are many remnants of this to be seen in the text. Timm’s study addresses many of them, although they lead him to a different conclusion. In particular, he notes clusters of similarly spelt vords, often in vertical patterns. Here are some of his examples:
We can find plenty of instances of this almost anywhere we look in the manuscript, except in labels. Timm explains this phenomenon as the product of a self-generating nonsense text. As he explains it, the author has created text by copying and modifying text already written. Timm depicts the Voynich text as the product of a system of auto-generation.
But there can be other explanations for vertical patterns of similar vords. By my account, it is the remnant of a plaintext that was set out in tables. By the same account I see the display of combinatorics - clusters of permutations of a vord - as also a feature of a plaintext of compiled data set out in tables.
On the surface, the text looks like prose. The mystery of the Voynich language is that when we examine it closer it does not behave like prose at all. Conspicuously, there are no phrases. The quest is to find a cogent explanation for what we see. My point in this post is simply to say that the choices are not between a meaningful book of prose and a hoax. If it is not prose, it is not necessarily nonsense. What Timm does is show the ways in which the text does not behave like ordinary running prose. There may be other explanations for what we see.
The upshot of this is that the Voynich ms. is not a prose text. It looks as though it is - and seems to have been made to have this appearance deliberately - but in fact it is not prose. This does not mean it is not human language. It only means it is not prose and does not have the typical characteristics of prose, such as words in grammatical relationships.
R.B.
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