Voynich Manuscript

Courtesy of the Daily Grail, here's a wonderful article in the Daily Mail (!) on the Voynich Manuscript:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...olved.html

It brings news of a new decipherment (of the first sentence only, so far) by a computer scientist from the University of Alberta, who believes the language of the manuscript is Ancient Hebrew, written in a code that involves "shuffling the order of letters in each word and dropping the vowels". That crucial first sentence reads "She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people". Probably the reason it sounds slightly stilted is that "After unsuccessfully seeking Hebrew scholars to validate their findings, the scientists turned to Google Translate." (It's not April 1 yet, is it?)

The article also mentions another recent theory that the manuscript is a gynaecological manual written using medieval abbreviation signs, which elicited this tweet from a library curator at Harvard: 'We're not buying this Voynich thing, right?' There's an article commenting on that theory, and on the manuscript in general, here:
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-tur...e-internet

It's interesting that there's a familiar tension here between medievalists and non-specialists proposing unconventional theories, often propagated through the Internet.

By the way, exact replicas of the manuscript will soon be available for 7,000-8,000 euros from a Spanish publishing house called Siloe.

Courtesy of the Daily Grail, here's a sceptical comment about the new claimed decipherment, from a cryptographer:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/527744/re...-skeptical

The Anomalist mentioned a new claimed decipherment, which led me to this round-up of some recent theories by Nick Pelling at the Cipher Mysteries website. There's a video link for each one. The new one is the first - phonemic, poetical Turkic (but if it were that, wouldn't it have been obvious from the start? ):
http://ciphermysteries.com/2018/02/28/vo...ing-hearth

Another claimed decipherment of the Voynich manuscript has been published. That's a regular occurrence, but this one is certainly different from most, as it is by a postdoctoral research associate at Bristol University named Gerard Cheshire, and has been published as a peer-reviewed paper in a reputable academic journal (not that that necessarily means much these days).

Here is the Bristol University press release:
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/may/v...cript.html

Here is the paper itself, in the journal Romance Studies (that's Romance languages, not imaginative fiction):
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....19.1599566

And here's an article at Ars Technica on the swift sceptical reaction to Cheshire's claims:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/...anuscript/

I looked at Cheshire's paper, and it's pure drivel.

Perhaps the most frightening thing is that part of the evidence he presents is the absolutely standard opening of a Latin charter from another manuscript, which reads "Alfonsus dei gracia Rex Aragonu[m]" - "Alfonso by the grace of god King of the Aragonese".

Cheshire can't transcribe it correctly (he thinks the last word is "Aragome") and he certainly can't translate it correctly (he thinks it begins "Alfonzo of the gracious"), because he doesn't even realise it's Latin - he thinks it's "Italian, Spanish, Old Portuguese", and that the king "uses words now found in various Romance languages, as he was Spanish by birth".

When he suggested that one of the phrases in his mythical 15th-century "proto-Romance" decipherment, "orla la", which he translated as "on the edge", "may well be the root of the French phrase ‘oh là là’, which has a very similar sentiment", I started to wonder whether this might be one of those hoaxes designed to expose the folly and gullibility of the academic world. But I'm afraid it isn't.

The frightening thing is that such nonsense could pass any kind of peer-review, or that Bristol University would issue a press release trumpeting it as a remarkable scholarly achievement. Something has gone very wrong with academic standards.

The frightening thing is that such nonsense could pass any kind of peer-review, or that Bristol University would issue a press release trumpeting it as a remarkable scholarly achievement. Something has gone very wrong with academic standards.

The bizarre press release has now been removed - following the link gives "Document not found". Gerard Cheshire's personal page on the Bristol University website also appears to have been removed.

In case anyone is curious, the bombastic press release is still available here:
https://m.phys.org/news/2019-05-bristol-...y-old.html

The bizarre press release has now been removed - following the link gives "Document not found". Gerard Cheshire's personal page on the Bristol University website also appears to have been removed.

In case anyone is curious, the bombastic press release is still available here:
https://m.phys.org/news/2019-05-bristol-...y-old.html

It appears that the last  link you posted ,has gone down the memory hole as well.

It appears that the last  link you posted ,has gone down the memory hole as well.

In a way it's a shame that the university has been able to erase that press release. But it was largely composed of self-congratulatory quotations from Cheshire, and a lot of it was quoted in the press coverage.

It's now been replaced by an "updated statement," which concludes:
Following media coverage, concerns have been raised about the validity of this research from academics in the fields of linguistics and medieval studies. We take such concerns very seriously and have therefore removed the story regarding this research from our website to seek further validation and allow further discussions both internally and with the journal concerned.
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/may/v...cript.html

It appears that the last  link you posted ,has gone down the memory hole as well.

Try the Wayback Machine archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/2019051609143...y-old.html

There's also a comment on the published paper by J. K. Petersen at the Voynich Portal. It's probably all the more damning for being scholarly and restrained:
https://voynichportal.com/2019/05/16/cheshire-reprised/