Imagine, if you will, ascribing English letters to parts of the zodiac in such a cunning way that the movements of the sun, moon and stars spell out valid English words.
That would be remarkable.
It cannot be done.
Indeed, not only cannot it be done in English, it cannot be done in any language.
We cannot ascribe a system of Hebrew letters to celestial coordinates such that the movements of the Sun spell out valid Hebrew words (and still less whole phrases and sentences, and still less the Torah.)
No natural language is that accommodating.
But the promise that such a system might be possible in LATIN is implicit in the (widely revered) SATOR magic square.
This square, as I have explained previously, depicts the quarters of the YEAR.
It is “magic” because it shows that, by ascribing Latin letters in the right way, the cycles of the year make coherent Latin words, and indeed a coherent Latin phrase.
As it happens, it is not quite coherent, and to work it requires a neologism (AREPO), but the intention of the square is plain.
It says: the cycles of the year – the very patterns of the cosmos – are inherent in the Latin language.
This is a "lost" secret, though, and is only preserved and revealed in things like the SATOR square.
The proper placement of the Latin alphabet to celestial phenomena has otherwise been forgotten.
On the face of it, Latin is no different than English. It cannot be done.
Yet the SATOR square offers the promise that it can.
That is, the SATOR square suggests a fusion of cosmology and linguistics.
* * *
The position I have sketched out and explored in recent times is contradictory.
I present the Voynich text as a cosmological language. It is thus generated, artificial and essentially non-linguistic.
And yet it is linguistic. For a start, it presents as a language, as a readable written text.
And it behaves as a language in essential ways, notably in consonant/vowel alternation.
(This is one of the keys to the SATOR square too. It is the right alternation of vowels and consonants that makes the “magic” work.)
Moreover, I am not blind to the work of those seeking a linguistic solution to the enigma.
I can give an account of certain glyphs as part of a cosmological scheme, but at the same time others have demonstrated how these glyphs are Latin abbreviations and how they are used consistent with them being Latin abbreviations in the Voynich text.
I am left describing Voynichese as “quasi-linguistic”.
It is not an each-way bet: it is betting eveything on a long shot.
I am left arguing something like:
The text is non-linguistic and generated and symbolic, made by ascribing a set of glyphs to celestial cycles, that somehow produces a linguistic text.
It can’t be done.
But perhaps someone has tried?
In that case, they soon discovered that it cannot be done with the standard Latin alphabet and so have searched (ransacked) the manuscript tradition for glyphs and symbols that suit the purpose.
The quest is to transcribe the cosmic text, the text of nature. The plaintext is the astrological cosmos.
The SATOR square promises that there is such a thing, and that it is “hidden” in Latin.
To work, a word like [daiin] will represent some celestial configuration, and the glyphs will have coherent astrological meanings, but the word (configuration of glyphs) will ALSO render a relevant abbreviated Latin word.
To work, all Voynichese words must have this double signification: cosmological and linguistic.
It would not have smooth grammar, any more than the SATOR square, and it might require the liberty of neologisms, like the SATOR square, but every word would be both a code of celestial symbols and a relevant Latin word.
Linguistic and non-linguistic are ordinarily opposites, but perhaps the Voynich text opens some borderland between them?
* * *
Aside from the SATOR square this borderland also opens up in the case of alphanumeric languages.
A likely inspiration for the Voynich experiment was the Canones of Ptolemy where celestial configurations are recorded in Greek letters, as numbers.
To all appearances – even if it is a misreading - these letters might also seem to spell out (abbreviated) words.
Here too is the suggestion of a fusion of cosmology and linguistics.
Alphanumerics is a bridge between cosmology and linguistics.
If we were to try to make Hebrew, or Arabic, work in this way we would need to exploit their alphanumerics.
We would try to record celestial coordinates using letters as numbers that also make relevant words.
* * *
As an aside, long ago as part of early background research I encountered a Youtube cell-phone video of tourists going through medieval buildings in Bolzano, in the Sud Tyrol.
One room featured the SATOR square inscribed on the wall, which was presented as authentic and explained as a medieval “good luck symbol.”
I noted it: the SATOR square was current in that region at that time.
It was not surprising, though, because the square was widely known and used.
I am confident, in any case, that it was known and current in northern Italy in the relevant period.
More to the point, the way of thinking about language implicit in the SATOR square - that the text of the cosmos is hidden in Latin - was current.
R.B.
No comments:
Post a Comment