Focus on the System

Voynichese is a system. 

To be sure, all languages are 'systems', but Voynichese is a systematic system in the proper sense. There is much more system than any natural language. 

In my view, it is a mechanical system, generated by mechanisms, but since the model of those mechanisms are the celestial cycles we cannot say it is entirely artificial; it is natural in a way. 

It is a system in the same way astrology is a system. Indeed, they are parallel systems.

We ought to approach it in the same way.

If we know nothing of astrology but one day decide to learn it, what we learn is the system. 

We learn the symbols, the zodiac, the planets, the principles, the methods. When we are 'fluent' we are able to interpret horoscopes and charts of the heavens. 

Learning Voynichese is no different. What we learn - what is to be learnt - is a system. We learn the glyphs, the conventions, the principles of a system. 

When we study Voynichese we are studying a system, and the purpose of the study is to work out the system. 

But many lines of study mitigate against this outcome and lead us not towards system but away from it into confusion. 

To continue the astrology analogy:

There is a system of seven planets. But if the student starts by saying "But what about the modern planets, and the meteors, and the astaroids, and is Pluto really a planet, and the Sun and Moon aren't planets anyway..." and fails to grasp the system of seven, they will never understand astrology. No system, just confusion. 

Similarly, there is a line of study that wants to multiply the Voynich glyphs. Some glyphs are written slightly differently here and there (it is handwritten after all.) If we count them all as separate glyphs, there is an alphabet of over a hundred letters!

In astrology we would explain: there is a system of seven planets, and then there are the extra-Saturnians, and asteroids and what not. 

In astrology, the system of seven planets is important. The what not may or may not be. 

In Voynichese we should explain: there is a core system of standard glyphs, and then there are variants. 

The core glyphs are important. Variants may or may not be since they could be scribal error, scribal fancy, or signify other things.

A profusion of glyphs moves us away from the system. 

In the same way, paleographic studies want to multiply the authors. 

Paleography has a bad habit of doing this, conflating scribes into authors.

For paleographers, scribes are the heroes of the show. 

Assuredly, medieval scribes often had some liberty to contribute to a text, but usually not much, and so it was done surruptituously, and very often they had no idea what they were copying at all and were essentially hack-workers (an unglamorous career limited by failing eyesight.) 

In the Voynich ms. it is clear that the scribes are not the authors. The Voynich language was not invented by a committee. It is a singular creation, the brain-child of a single mind and imagination. It is not an anthology. It is singular, whole and consistent.

That single mind has then employed, or marshalled, a small team of scribes (and illustrators) to produce the manuscript he has envisaged. 

The scribes, then, were under direction. The system is the invention of the author. 

The directions given to the scribes may have been very specific, or loose and general, or anywhere in between. The scribes may have been given some license. The system itself might be flexible.

But the scribes did not invent the system. (Unless one of the scribes is the author - a herbalist/pharmacologist/cosmologist scribe - who has his friends helping out?) 

It does not help us then to dwell on scribal variations. Different scribes write different sections, and the system might be slightly different between sections and scribes, but this does not make scribes authors. Changes to the system itself will still be under the direction of the author.

The author, after all, is presumably, the financier. Hiring a small team of scribes for such a project is quite an expense. It is unlikely the financier told the scribes they could make it up as they went along. 

There is a growing trend in Voynich Studies to speak as though the manuscript was written by a basketball team. 

No. It was conceived, composed, written by the author. He employed scribes to put it on vellum. 

The paleography doesn't move us closer towards understanding the system. The system belongs to the author, not the scribes. 

Furthermore, as for expense, it is quite possible that the work was assembled over a long period of time. There is nothing to say it was made in one session. The author may have employed different scribes and completed different sections as funds and scribes became available. 

The author may have refined his system over time and between installments.

But there is a system. An idea. A developed idea. A plan. Some basic scheme. A conceptualization. There is a system to Voynichese, and our task is to uncover it. Focus on the system. 

The messy way in which the system has been realized on vellum - without strict uniformity of glyphs, and with variations between scribes - all the textual forensics - is a secondary matter and not the main game. 

As it happens, we live in times that are good at textual forensics but dismally bad at grasping traditional conceptual systems like astrology. 

R.B.