Talk:Voynich manuscript/Archive 9

Timeline of ownership
The introduction to the timeline speaks of colors. I see none. Kdammers (talk) 13:45, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I do. Tisquesusa (talk) 14:00, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Where is that? I don't see it on the Wikipedia page nor a link to it on that page. Kdammers (talk) 03:35, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Switch to desktop version if you are on a mobile device and click "show" on the right side. Tisquesusa (talk) 04:25, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I only use desk-top, but the far-right side of the page, which contains nothing but 'show' was off my screen.Kdammers (talk) 10:55, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * There is a timeline (from various sources/collating the various claims and known information) at - which can be made use of (though an element of OR to it). Jackiespeel (talk) 10:14, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
 * That site is user edited and cannot be used here. At best, we can use the sources it cites (to the extent the meet WP:IRS) and cite those sources directly. - Sum mer PhD v2.0 16:02, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The list is based on WP and other VM-related sources: as I said a convenient starting point (and 'author's permission to use'). Jackiespeel (talk) 09:40, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Whatever it might be based on, it is user edited and not reliable. There is no question of any "permission" to use the information. We can look at any sources it cites, but that's pretty much it. - Sum mer PhD v2.0 04:33, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The 20th and 21st century entries are the most sourced - articles on the wiki and with linking to relevant WP articles.
 * As I said - linked for convenience of the VP timeline-constructors rather than as 'a definitive source.' Jackiespeel (talk) 11:25, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Voynich as author
The article says that also Voynich himself may be the author, but it also says that there are many evidences the manuscript existed before Voynich birth. Isn't this an inconsistency? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fab1can (talk • contribs) 08:33, 13 August 2020 (UTC)


 * "It depends". :-) Assuming that Voynich himself forged the VM requires a lot of other assumptions, eg that he planted some of the letters which apparently alluded to the existence of the VM in renaissance times. Also, while it's conceivable that Voynich acquired a batch of old unused vellum for his forgery, it's quite a coincidence that this should carbon-date to the middle of the 15th century, exactly the period to which the handwriting and illustrations seem to point as well. My personal view is it's not impossible, but would require an extremely complicated backstory. Rich Santa Coloma is one of the foremost proponents of Voynich as the creator of the VM, you find his blog here. --Syzygy (talk) 10:06, 13 August 2020 (UTC)


 * My understanding of the Voynich authorship theory is that he knew there were vague, not-very-specific references to an undeciphered manuscript that had since gone missing, so he thought it would be a fun hoax to create a manuscript to match.
 * The big question is the letter from Marci that Voynich allegedly found with the manuscript. Voynich authorship theories require either that he forged it outright, or he discovered it on its own and decided to use it as a foundation for his hoax.
 * In this theory the original manuscript or manuscripts was probably not nearly as weird as the VM, just weird enough that the people who owned it didn't know what it was. That would have been relatively common. ApLundell (talk) 17:28, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * (Incidentally, even if the Voynich Manuscript is a genuine antique, there's still questions about the Marci letter. It may still be a forgery added by Voynich to increase the value of the book.) ApLundell (talk) 22:49, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Given Voynich's training, revolutionary past, and being in the 'historical book' trade trying to 'recreate and copy historical documents' to understand them better is plausible, as is 'putting (seemingly) related items together (see auction lots). Jackiespeel (talk) 13:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Rudolf ownership
The article and the timeline claim that the manuscript was owned by Rudolf II for a while. However, as far as I know, that was only a claim that "Dr. Raphael" (believed to be Raphael Sobiehrd-Mnishovsky) made to Marci, as reported in the 1665/1666 letter. There is no reason to trust that claim, especially considering that he also claimed that the author was believed to be Roger Bacon, and that Marci himself noted that he was "suspending his judgement" on the matter. Rudolf II abdicated in 1611 and died in 1612, and Raphael was born in 1580 and died in 1644. Thus Marci was reporting something that Raphael told him more than 21 years earlier, about a book that Rudolf purchased at least 54 years before the letter. (And there are even those who claim that Marci's 1665 letter to Kircher was a forgery by Wilfrid Voynich...) So, unless more independent evidence has been found in recent years, I propose changing the mentions of Rudolf's ownership from fact to mere rumour... --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 06:45, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

"Rudolf II abdicated in 1611 and died in 1612, and Raphael was born in 1580 and died in 1644. Thus Marci was reporting something that Raphael told him more than 21 years earlier, about a book that Rudolf purchased at least 54 years before the letter."

And? Most history bools were written decades if not centuries after the fact. Dr. Raphael was a cryptographer who worked under Rudolf II, which makes the "rumor" even more plausible. ConfusedEnoch (talk) 06:28, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Cheshire, again.
I think this edit is undue weight. I have reverted it, so we can discuss it here.

1) Academia dot edu formats its articles like a journal would, but it is not a journal. It's a social publishing platform like Medium.com. Such publications are not normally usable as sources on Wikipedia. (per WP:RSSELF)

2) Everyone involved in this source is an amateur, (Like Cheshire himself.) so it should not be used to imply that he has support within academia.

2b) Specifically, the primary authors are : A highschool student and his science teacher. (There are also a handful of other co-authors with no listed credentials. Probably classmates.)

ApLundell (talk) 20:26, 24 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Go with the revert. I see neither how this is advancing our understanding of the VM, nor has it found resonance anywhere. --Syzygy (talk) 13:58, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Comparable Book-Idea?
The chinese Artist Xu Bing had created a book, which was made from 4000 meaningless ´chinese´ symbols: A Book from the Sky. This is an example, to show that books might exist - with a meaningless content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:D4:736:819:65E7:7FC:77CE:80CE (talk) 15:51, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

First sentence
The first sentence of the article does also include a statement that the manuscript was written using a "possibly meaningless writing system." The debate about this question is still ongoing. Therefore I would suggest a more neutral start.

Note: I'm not neutral in this matter. I support the hypothesis that the text is meaningless and that the intention behind the writing system is indeed to write something meaningless. Together with Andreas Schinner I have recently published a paper about the Voynich manuscript. In this paper we are arguing: "Beyond this coarse classification several potentially promising cross-overs are conceivable, e.g., the usage of 'random' strings as container for steganography; or the VMS could be a medieval scholar’s 'notebook', written in an individual combination of cipher and shorthand. Why are we then convinced that the hoax hypothesis can be the only correct interpretation of the VMS? Most likely, it is impossible to devise an exact mathematical proof that an arbitrary set of strings is truly meaningless, or not. This would involve a general method to compute upper boundaries to the Kolmogorov complexity. However, in the case of the VMS many statistical properties have been uncovered that, in their entirety, are incompatible with any known human language." (see Timm & Schinner p. 16; URL: https://www.kereti.de/pdf/TTAS.pdf) Kadmos (talk) 20:41, 12 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I think "possibly meaningless writing system" is appropriately inconclusive. Obviously, it is written in sth that may be called a "writing system", but just stating that might be taken to imply that it is meaningful, so the modifier "possibly meaningless" is necessary.--Nø (talk) 10:01, 13 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm also of the opinion that the manuscript is probably gibberish and the seeming patterns are just what happens naturally when you try to create randomness off the top of your head.
 * But I don't see the problem with the intro sentence. There is *some* system of writing. If nothing else there's a rough alphabet and rough word/sentence grouping.  So, I think the intro sentence nicely summarizes what's interesting about the manuscript : Nobody knows how the writing works, and it might be gibberish. ApLundell (talk) 21:35, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Sphinx vs Sphynx
A sphynx is a kind of cat: Sphynx cat --Syzygy (talk) 08:24, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, but if the writer of the quote used "sphynx" rather than "sphinx", then so should we. One person's "mis-spelling" is another person's alternative spelling.   Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:45, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Then what about giving it a "sic" flag to point out that it's a spelling thing? --Syzygy (talk) 14:02, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * When citing a 17th century source, I think updating othography is OK. If we are sure he means sphinx, we can write sphinx. As far as I can figure out, Sphynx cats did not exist prior to 1960, and I suppose the name is given as a deliberate variation of "sphinx" anyway.--Nø (talk) 20:08, 8 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Is it an error? Or a correct old timey spelling?
 * From the Manual of style MOS:SIC :
 * * "In direct quotations, retain dialectal and archaic spellings, including capitalization (but not archaic glyphs and ligatures, as detailed below). "
 * * " However, insignificant spelling and typographic errors should simply be silently corrected "
 * ApLundell (talk) 22:03, 8 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Sphynx) seems to suggest the latter. Justin Kunimune (talk) 00:41, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Decipherment claim
Alisa Gladyseva recently claims to have deciphered the whole manuscript, as "written in medieval Castellano and its dialect, using the Latin, old-French, and old Catalan names of flowers". I mention this information simply as having found it in ResearchGate. Errantius (talk) 12:23, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * According to the results of innovative research: the Voynich manuscript was written in medieval Galician (Galician-Portuguese). Its coding algorithm was influenced by the substitution cipher of using a polyalphabetic cipher for the most part of its text, as well as it was definitely influenced by transposition cipher for double ciphered alchemical text.
 * The key to a decipherment of the Voynich Manuscript was a plant Lavandula. Analyzing the text of the Voynich Manuscript was found paleography of its characters:‘L’ ‘A’ ‘V’ ‘A’ N’ ‘D’. It was made possible to the conception of decipherment: to find out the whole alphabet, with the help of other names of plants. Ability to analyze text of the Voynich Manuscript to recognize which information was relevant (in this case names of plants), made possible to determine at what point there was sufficient information to solve decipherment. There are only a few flowers that have its Latin names in the Voynich Manuscript, for e.g. ‘Capsella bursa-pastoris’ (other names of plants carry culture-specific ethnobotanical vernacular meanings). Detailed analytic studies the paleography of its characters was made possible to definite the letters ‘B’ “U’ ‘R’ ‘S’ ‘P’ ‘S’ ‘T’ for further successful accessible reading of the whole Voynich Manuscript text. The whole alphabet of the Voynich manuscript is deciphered as well as the whole text of the Voynich manuscript. [DECIPHERING THE WHOLE TEXT OF THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT BY ALISA GLADYŠEVA. The linguistic basis of the text, index and analysis. October 2020  Edition: THE 1ST Publisher: ALISA GLADYŠEVA GGISBN: ISBN: 978-609-475-419-7] — Preceding unsigned comment added by ManuscriptVoynich (talk • contribs) 17 March 2021 17:55 UTC (UTC)
 * Dated in 2019, if Gladyseva's work was as successful as it claims, secondary sources should be easily available by now.--Nø (talk) 19:05, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

But according to Alisa Gladyseva:"Because the deciphered text of the Voynich manuscript is easy to read and as a result, it is possible plagiarism, secondary sources are not available due to copyright law and restrictions on preprints of scientific journals." — Preceding unsigned comment added by ManuscriptVoynich (talk • contribs) 23:07, 17 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Isn't "Capsella bursa-pastoris" a Linnean taxonomy name which wouldn't have been in use before the eighteenth century? Also, I don't understand the thing about the copyright. --Syzygy (talk) 07:41, 18 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Most proper sience is published in copyrighted (and peer reviewed!) publications. So what? It will still be reviewed, referenced, evaluated, discussed by the scientific community, and if significant eventually make its way into reliable sources. If the author, for commercial reasons or whatever, hinder that process, so be it - the work will not be part of the body of human knowledge, as repoted by Wikipedia.--Nø (talk) 11:07, 18 March 2021 (UTC)


 * You can download her thesis (?) https://archive.org/details/111-the-deciphering-the-whole-text-of-the-voynich-manuscript-by-alisa-gladyseva for free, but all the explanations about the decipherment are missing, as are her plant identifications. Leaving nothing but her claim of spectacular decipherment. WTF? I'm under the impression she hasn't understood that to establish priority for her research it is only necessary that she publishes her results as the first person, not that it is passing through peer review. If this is an academic work, I wonder about her teachers/sponsors. Also, much of her terminology is beyond me ("the first to use lexicology" -- what is that supposed to mean?) --Syzygy (talk) 12:53, 18 March 2021 (UTC)


 * This isn't even a new claim. She's been claiming to have translated the VM language since at least 2018. This is just her latest PR push. ApLundell (talk) 19:58, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Following the above link eventually leads to the paper which is the nothing but the usual, mistaken claim. The paper (released under CC v4) basically points to selected parts of the VM and asserts that each selected part is written in some clear-text, known language or in some trivially decrypted form of one. The paper has zero predictive power, i.e. apart from the claimed, self-explanatory segments, there is no actual decoding taking place. A nothing burger, consistent with the absence of reporting in any (serious) secondary sources. Lklundin (talk) 20:38, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Of course, the bursa pastoris has been known since medieval times. See the scientific work of MICHAEL S. DEFELICE "Shepherd's-purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Medic.", Weed Technology, 15 (4), 892-895, (October 1, 2001).

According to the book THE DECIPHERING THE WHOLE TEXT OF THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT BY ALISA GLADYŠEVA, Chapter 7.1 THE COMPLETE LIST OF ALL THE BOTANICAL NAMES DETERMINATED IN THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT WITH LATIN TAXONOMY, VERNACULAR BOTANICAL NAMES AND LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE ORIGIN OF NOMENCLATURES WITH THEIR SOURCES IN THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD. All botanical names that have been identified in the Voynich Manuscript have been deciphered and read in the very text of the Voynich Manuscript. It is the only research of the Voynich Manuscript that is primarily and generally based on its linguistic source – the lexicology, but not on the analysis of phytomorphs’ similarities with herbarium specimens that were always made by other researchers ( J. Janick, A.O. Tucker, 2017; Stephen Bax, 2014) that led to wrong encompassing of plant species due to difficulty of determination. Therefore, less than 10 percent of plants that were determined by other researchers are correct. Some of the researchers for e.g. Gerard Cheshire (G. Cheshire, 2019), even suggested that there are no botanical names at the whole Voynich manuscript due to their absence in the medieval period, therefore his research results are double incorrect. Important that these innovative research results are succesfull. All 131 plants have been deciphered. pages 139-172 Information for publishers and editors of the scientific journals, the author is open to publish any chapter of "Decoding the whole text of the Voynich manuscript by Alisa Gladyseva".

This means that Alisa Gladysseva not only found all 131 plant names, but also proved “THE ORIGIN OF NOMENCLATURES WITH THEIR SOURCES IN THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD”.

Since the submission of scientific articles for publication in scientific journals must not have been previously published nor has it been submitted for consideration by any other journal, the information on the content of some chapters is omitted in the preview of this book "Decoding the whole text of the Voynich manuscript by Alisa Gladyseva".

According to ANY scientific journal, it is impossible to prepublish a scientific work, before its publishing. Alisa Gladyseva is in the process of publication, and due to the coronavirus, some research journals are out of print since 2019. She is looking for scientific journals to publish various articles (linguistic, historical) on the deciphering of the full text of the Voynich manuscript. . For now it is absolutely true that Alisa Gladyseva has read marginalia of months and other marginalia in medieval Galician. See her scientific article At first it is important to READ Alisa Gladyseva's decipherment, because she really deciphered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ManuscriptVoynich (talk • contribs) 23:25, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * That just reads like a whole bunch of noise. If she deciphered it, let reliable sources make that determination. We need reliable sources, not convenient explanations or excuses. Until then, it's just another in a very, very long list of claims to have deciphered it. Actually deciphering it is a very bold and exceptional claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources; right now it looks like a wait and see for those sources, we can't post anything related to a decipherment claim into the article without reliable sources making some note of it. - Aoidh (talk) 01:06, 22 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a place for publicizing your theories. Wikipedia only reports on what existing reliable secondary sources already say.  No exceptions. ApLundell (talk) 03:18, 22 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm a bit surprised that it should have been impossible for next to three years now to at least have a preprint of her theories published in Cryptologia or the like. I'm sure any peer review would turn out rave results. As for the sheperd's purse, I was referring to the Linnean designation, which postdates the accepted date of the VMs creation by centuries.--Syzygy (talk) 07:56, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

You are wrong User: Syzygy, about the shepherd's purse, do you mean linnean ?? If you cannot read the research paper by MICHAEL S. DEFLIS "Shepherd's Wallet, Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Medic.", Weed Technology, 15 (4), 892-895, (October 1, 2001), where it is written, that Bursa pastoris was known as bursa pastoris in the Middle Ages. So, the history of plants does not interest you, why do you need a transcript and a translation of the Voynich manuscript? (You don't know plant history, Latin and medieval Galician languages as well.)

Alisa Gladiseva is a scientist, that is, not a populizer for those who do not eager for knowledge, she is still in research.

As for me Cryptologia is not the best place for publishing, in reason of 1 year period of acceptance. There are existing RELIABLE PRIMARY sources, f.eg. where Alisa Gladyseva has read marginalia of months and other marginalia in medieval Galician.: «ANALYSIS CODING ALGORITHM WITH THE KNOWN IN MEDIEVAL PERIOD METHODS OF CIPHERING AND RESULTS OF THE UNENCRYPTED MARGINALIA OF THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT.» Manuscrito de Voynich - Análisis del algoritmo de codificación con los métodos de cifrado conocidos en la época medieval y resultados de las marginalias que no fueron encriptadas.January 2020Revista Científica Arbitrada de la Fundación MenteClara 5 DOI: 10.32351/rca.v5.128 https://fundacionmenteclara.org.ar/revista/index.php/RCA/article/view/128 DECIPHERING THE WHOLE TEXT OF THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT BY ALISA GLADYŠEVA. The linguistic basis of the text, index and analysis. October 2020 Edition: THE 1 STPublisher: ALISA GLADYŠEVA Editor: GG ISBN: ISBN: 978-609-475-419-7 it is absolutely true that Alisa Gladyseva has read marginalia of months and other marginalia in medieval Galician. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ManuscriptVoynich (talk • contribs) 14:57, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

ːːFor the recordː No plausible claim for any immediate changes to the article has been made here. The purpose of this talk page is to discuss such changes, not to discuss ongoing or unpublished research. It's amazing if we can all finally read the Voynich manuscript soon, and rest assuredː That day (or week), the article here will include that important fact, and probably, eventually, reduce a lot of the content now in the article to a much briefer summary of failed attempts and speculations. Until that day, there is no need or relevance in expanding this talk section any further.--Nø (talk) 16:33, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

ːːI've added a reflist to this section --Thereisnous (talk) 14:49, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

A Voynich transcription with a free license?
I've tried to find a transcription published under Creative Commons (or similar) license, but without success.

Such transcription would be a valuable contribution to the article (and to the decipherment of the manuscript).

Dear fellow editors, have you encountered such a free transcription? --Thereisnous (talk) 14:44, 15 April 2021 (UTC)


 * http://voynich.freie-literatur.de/index.php has all the information you're seeking. The extractor allows you to download samples of the VM or the whole MS in various transcriptions. --Syzygy (talk) 12:43, 16 April 2021 (UTC)


 * That doesn't seem answer the question? The question is is there a free license version of the transcription?
 * I can't find license information on that link.
 * Copyrights of transcriptions is tricky, but since the alphabet is non-standard, and the handwriting is open to interpretation, these transcriptions are derivative creative works, not simple copies. So it's a question worth knowing the answer to. ApLundell (talk) 21:35, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You're right, the question is about a free license version of the transcription. It seems that not a single author of a VM transcription has published their transcription under such a license (I hope I'm wrong!) --Thereisnous (talk) 05:46, 17 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure there is a license at all, or if there is one required -- is a transcription a creative act? If I transcribe a document which is in the PD (say, for Jules Verne's "80 Days Around the World") and publish the transcription, would it be possible to restrict the transcription's use through any kind of license? --Syzygy (talk) 06:59, 19 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Just through following the citations in the article, I found this downloadable version: . Imaginatorium (talk) 07:28, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
 * A transcript can be a creative act, yes. The transcripts we're talking about are more than simple copies (otherwise they'd all match), they're interpretations of an ambiguous source. ApLundell (talk) 12:14, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Suggested possible cultural Influence reference point.
The 2018 Crytech videogame Hunt Showdown has a library of two lore books within it. Some of the articles (i.e. Liber de Monstrorvm/armored/entry 2) are said to be translated from Voynich. This is likely a reference to the unique language used in the manuscript, but I am unsure if it is too vague to be considered a cultural influence reference point. 69.174.157.101 (talk) 20:59, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Do you have any reliable sources that show this to be a relevant cultural influence, like any articles talking about this or anything? - Aoidh (talk) 22:40, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Header image
Usually the image in the infobox on a book is the cover of the first edition; right now the image here is page 32. The cover of the Voynich Manuscript doesn't have any visible markings, so I'm not suggesting we use that, but would anyone object to me replacing p. 32 with p. 1 as the infobox image? The only problem I can see is that it's currently being used in the "Natural language" subsection. Tisnec (talk) 01:44, 17 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I'd prefer to see p32 remain. The VM is not a real publication, and the image is not meant to show how it would look like in a bookshop, but more as a representative "sample" of what the contents look like, for which p32 would be a better candidate. But I don't feel strongly about it. --Syzygy (talk) 06:55, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Left to right?
Here is a question for someone who knows more than I about ancient manuscripts -- the article states at least twice that the text is written in an unknown language, "left to right". If the language is unknown, how was it concluded that it reads left to right? The answer (if there is one) should probably be included in the article. Thanks, DoctorJoeE  review transgressions/ talk to me!  14:54, 28 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The basic argument is than in coherent text paragraphs -- see the recipe section, for example -- the majority of lines are "justified", ie the left and right margin are pretty much flush. The exception to this is the last line of the paragraphs, which is left-justified. If the text were written right-to-left, then the author, starting that line, would have had to calculate the length of the last line so that the last (leftmost) character in the line would match with the left margin of the paragraph. But I have no source handy for that reasoning. --Syzygy (talk) 07:18, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, wouldn't it be able to tell from changes in the thickness of the ink? Nardog (talk) 07:25, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * That's an indicator, too, but not quite as clear-cut. --Syzygy (talk) 12:43, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

New article Bowern & Lindemann (2021)
Hi all! I haven't contributed to this article and have no in-depth knowledge about the topic, but I wanted to suggest a new source that I have come across: Since the article gives space to amateurs whose only notability stems from a mention in CNN, an article co-authored by Claire Bowern (an eminent historical linguist, executive editor of Diachronica) might have its merit for inclusion too, in spite of immediate negative reactions to it. –Austronesier (talk) 09:11, 22 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Both the article and the critique are behind pay walls -- so unless someone has subscriptions to those journals, or can otherwise share copies of the full texts with us, it will be difficult to draw on them for new content in this article. DoctorJoeE  review transgressions/ talk to me!  15:20, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

A preprint of the article is here.

Of the review, here.

Both backed up on Wayback. — kwami (talk) 17:41, 2 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the links. While I have not yet had time for a deep dive, a cursory reading suggests that these papers might be a bit too technical for a lay article such as ours.  But I'll do a more detailed reading as time permits -- as will, I assume, other interested editors.  DoctorJoeE  review transgressions/ talk to me!  21:16, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

== [correction - I just realized the author/researcher I reveal is known to those discussing this page] Voynich Manuscript Language Cracked? - It's written in a lost proto-Romance language and the author published his research into the parts he has translated. ==

I figured I would give the interested followers a heads-up on this discovery [correction - possible enhancement to prior research/speculation]. I won't be be following up on this, but here is the link I found.

initial article I encountered, dated May 15, 2022. https://www.techexplorist.com/voynich-manuscript-code-cracked-bristol-academic/23202

The study it references. I think this has a paywall. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02639904.2019.1599566 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.54.15.214 (talk) 20:00, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Citation needed tags
There are citation needed tags going back to 2013 and 2017. I am going to remove the text associated with those tags, except in one case where there was a cn tag associated with every sentence preceding a sentence with a citation. In that case, the one cited sentence by itself doesn't make sense (i.e., I think someone was cn tagging indiscriminately).

I will save the diff here when I am done if someone would like to work on it.–CaroleHenson (talk) 16:31, 2 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Here is the diff.–CaroleHenson (talk) 01:26, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Author
Should John Dee be listed as possible author? 2600:8800:A86:9300:352E:2B4A:F354:79D7 (talk) 06:46, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Only if there's reputable evidence supporting the claim. Tisnec (talk) 22:01, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Blog source
User:Aoidh removed a link to a blog (my blog) with the edit summary "(Blogs are not reliable sources)". This is of course true when it comes to refer to facts, but not to opinions. According to policy blogs can be used as sources for the opinions of specialists when they are written by "established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications". The blog in question "http://nahuatlstudies.blogspot.com/" is written by me, and I am an established subject matter expert with a good deal of published work (not in "Voynich studies" but in Nahuatl) - and indeed the blog itself has been cited several times in peer reviewed publications. Now, I am not going to edit war to put in a likn to my own blog, which would of course be bad form, but I do encourage other editors to think about whether it is not a benefit to the reader to know that Tucker, Talbert and Janick's proposal of a nahuatl decipherment has been rejected by people who, unlike them, actually know what Nahuatl is. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:21, 20 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes as per WP:RSOPINION, I think the blog post is an acceptable souce here in lieu of better alternatives, though it should be attributed to the specific author rather than just "Nahuatl specialists". That said, has that particular blog post been cited in peer-reviewed publications?  If so, I think it's better to cite those publications than the blog directly.  But if not, I think Maunus's edit is fine.  Justin Kunimune (talk) 15:53, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
 * No, not this specific one - luckily Tucker, Talbert and Janick's proposal has not really generated any scholarly interest. One of the reason's I have only addressed it in a blog post and not for example published a review of the book is that that would likely lend it unwarranted scholarly value.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:34, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Tucker, Talbert and Janick's proposal has 31 cites on Google scholar, most of them in-universe. So if we really must have them here, we should listen to the voice of reason from a subject-matter expert too. –Austronesier (talk) 20:22, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, first I think I should apologize. It seems like 9,999 of the last 10,000 blogs I've reviewed have been random blogs with no authority being used as garbage sources so my knee-jerk reaction was to remove it, especially when I looked into the authorship sections and couldn't really find anything suggesting subject-matter expertise. However, after Googling credentials and digging in a little more I do have to reverse my opinion. I would reinsert it, but it looks like that's already been done, so I just wanted to comment and say that after further review I do not have any real issue with the source, given that we seem to have nothing in the way of a peer-reviewed paper or anything to use in its place. - Aoidh (talk) 20:28, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 * It is certainly not an easy if not impossible task to scrutinize every blog used as source here. And true, most of it is garbage. Will it help in this case for future cleanups to add a comment line next to the source pointing to this discussion? –Austronesier (talk) 20:48, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I think a hidden comment would certainly help. - Aoidh (talk) 20:50, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Supposed "Chinese"
There is an illustration with the following caption: "The first page includes two large red symbols, which have been compared to a Chinese-style book title, upside-down." I can't read the source for this, which may be in German, but in any event this is bizarre wording. "Book title"?? There is a passing resemblance to Han ideogram shapes, so if there were a coherent motivation, this might be claimed to be 大元 upside down. Except it really isn't; much more like the lower part of the second character only. Isn't it amazing how all of these theories are plausible in inverse proportion to how much you happen to know about the specifics. Suggestions? Should this be deleted, reworded, etc...? Imaginatorium (talk) 05:05, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Seems like a perfect example of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect, we take down the ones we know to be wrong and leave up the ones we don't know about. - Aoidh (talk) 05:24, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

For the time being I removed the illustration with the dodgy claim; if you look at the table of letters, you will notice that actually the supposed "Chinese style something-or-other" is more similar to the letter identified as 'x', upside down. Here's the removed text:

File:Voynich Manuscript (3).jpg|thumb|upright|The first page includes two large red symbols, which have been compared to a Chinese-style book title, upside-down. :ref name=Neidhart-2002-11-13:

The Neidhart reference link returns 403 Forbidden. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:24, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Question about Voynich script language
Are you all absolutely sure that it isn’t from some extinct language, like one of the West Baltic languages? I am curious but I don’t know where to ask other than the Wikipedia discussion page 2601:197:780:72E0:0:0:0:1D07 (talk) 22:20, 6 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't think people are absolutely sure about much when it comes to the Voynich MS. But without reasonable evidence, such as a credible translation of more than a few passages (made without scores of arbitrary assumptions to make it fit), this is at best another one of dozens (or hundreds?) of theories that haven't been disproved at this point. To include a theory in the article here, notability of the theory must be documented with reputable sources. A theory doesn't have to be proven to meet that criterion, and it even can be disproven, since part of the history of the Voynich MS is this long list of futile attempts and theories (crackpot or otherwise) - but still, good sources are required.--Nø (talk) 00:16, 7 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Of course the VM might be written in an extinct language of which there is otherwise no remnant. (How would we be able to tell?) Statistical analysis strongly indicates though that the VM is no 1:1 transcription of "natural" language. (For example, some words only ever occur once on a page, some are always followed by the same other word, etc.) It seems a ciphertext "word" doesn't to correspond to a plaintext word, ciphertext letters don't correspond to plaintext letters, etc. Something more complicated is taking place here. If you are interested, you'll find a number of links to other VM research sites on my (sadly, rather neglected) blog, See here about the natural language issue:  --Syzygy (talk) 14:05, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
 * There are two components - 'the language/dialect' and 'the script'. If the language/dialect is known one can, with some study, recognise at least 'words and phrases' and then being able to read more (eg, knowing German learning to read Fraktur from an old dictionary).
 * As a general question (which I have raised previously) - could the scribe(s) have been familiar with a different language and script and then 'transliterated' (as they understood it) a text/'copied' an exiting Latin-script text? (Try copying some of the letters in the various alphabet sets available.)


 * Given that the VM has been recognised as 'a strange document' (written by competent scribes and drawings by competent artists) for over a century there will probably have been some searching in the archives etc for other material of a similar nature - has anything of a similar nature turned up? Jackiespeel (talk) 19:52, 10 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Many of the grammar structures found in the VM suggest that the VM is not a 1:1 transcription of any natural language. For example, there are frequent strings of similar, but not identical words ( and such), which aren't found in natural languages. In general, the VM appears to be constructed of a limited number of "syllables" which are composed to form the "words" (which may or may not be corresponding to plaintext words), in a manner not found elsewhere.


 * The "transcription of an existing text into VM script" idea suffers from the fact that the VM script is found nowhere else, but it seemingly was invented for the VM manuscript. All in all, we don't know what went on in the enciphering of the VM, but most certainly there was an extra step more than a simple transcription involved. --Syzygy (talk) 12:35, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I meant in the sense of eg someone familiar with (extended) Latin alphabet (or the manusicript-timeframe equivalent) attempting to transcribe a text in a different script (Cyrillic, Korean etc) without comprehending the detail (eg some people 'cross their number 7s' others don't, or manuscript and print 'g').
 * A major issue - the author(s) write the text competently/with minimal corrections - so there must have been drafts/practice and intermediate texts, which it seems improbable were all destroyed. Jackiespeel (talk) 11:27, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

"I meant in the sense of eg someone familiar with (extended) Latin alphabet (or the manusicript-timeframe equivalent) attempting to transcribe a text in a different script (Cyrillic, Korean etc) without comprehending the detail (eg some people 'cross their number 7s' others don't, or manuscript and print 'g')." It's still difficult to explain how those grammar features found in the VM crept in when they weren't in the original language and only a transcription, but no translation took place. If there was a translation, the question is which target language would have features like the ones observed now in the VM. --Syzygy (talk) 12:18, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Unsubstantiated claim (Cheshire)
I removed this claim from the section on Gerald Cheshire:

As Alfonso and his army originated from Iberia and he was the one who replaced Latin by the local dialect as official language in nearby Naples in 1442(*1), and as dialects of the southern italian peninsula are an amalgam of languages of the entire mediterranean area(*2), finding linguistic influences from a broad geographic area in a manuscript from the proposed time and place(*3) would not be unexpected.

References:
 * 1
 * 2
 * 3

This has three references, which (partly) justify some of the factoids scraped into the early part of the sentence, but not its conclusion. There are various facts about the way in which the various dialects ("languages" for those with an army) of southern Italian include lots of loan words from various other places (as is true of pretty much any similar set of regional variants). But it looks as though the sentence is trying to justify as plausible Cheshire's mish-mash of anything he can find in a set of dictionaries. This does not follow: a dialect such as Siciliano, might include many words from Arabic. But a single writer does not sit down and make up a new dialect by plucking words at random from here and there.

The references are not really valid anyway: two are WP, and one is Cheshire himself. Imaginatorium (talk) 12:10, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Good removal.
 * We shouldn't be synthesizing new history claims to make Cheshire seem more plausible. ApLundell (talk) 21:10, 17 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The whole paragraph about a volcano is a bit much as well. First, we shouldn't be stating in Wikipedia's voice that page 158 portrays a volcano. That's far from an established fact. I can't even tell which of the nine illustrations on that page Cheshire thinks is a volcano.
 * And the bit about the king's "female entourage" seems entirely like minutia at best, or padding at worst.
 * Any objections to reducing the whole volcano paragraph down to a single sentence? : "Cheshire claims the fold-out illustration on page 158 depicts a volcano, and so posits that it places the manuscript's creators near the island of Vulcano which was an active volcano during the 15th century."
 * ApLundell (talk) 21:31, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

It seems that some removals done here recently fall into a trap of "fact-checking": Some now removed text here pointed to standard literature, namely citing long established works on Proto-Romance language and medieval latin that contradict and invalidate some of the derogatory comments offered by other specialist in interviews and repeated here. The latterthus should bee seen as personal opinion of those persons. Wikipedia is not a platform for repeating derogatory comments like the ones in the Cheshire paragraph, without substantial factual or literature evidence, while at the same time suppressing arguments that support a theory, even if a majority considers it as fake. Just keep scientific controversy as what it is: controversial standpoints, each with arguments.145.250.209.1 (talk) 13:19, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * What experts think about a lay-person's theory is absolutely relevant.
 * Anyway, referencing "standard literature" to support a fringe theory is not really the correct thing to do. Wikipedia is not the place to build a case for Cheshire, or to advocate for Chesire. Wikipedia is the place to report what mainstream academics think about Cheshire.  (Relevant policies : WP:SYNTH and WP:NOR.) ApLundell (talk) 17:05, 21 June 2021 (UTC)


 * And if the opposite of "fact-checking" is "any old rubbish can go in, just as long as it's been copied from a book", then I'm on the side of fact-checking. The point was that the "standard literature" supports the fact that (for example) Sicilian has lots of loanwords from Arabic, etc etc; it does not support the apparent conclusion of the sentence that it would be perfectly reasonable to find a scribe just picking words from various languages in order to fit some preconceived idea of what it might be saying. FWIW, which were the references to "standard literature", particularly about Proto-Romance? Imaginatorium (talk) 17:14, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * "What experts think about a lay-person's theory is absolutely relevant."
 * I agree with you entirely. The only problem I have is that I don't know of any expert.  It would seem to me that an expert should be able to translate the text just as you would expect an expert in historic German to be able to do.  Am I off base here?  Keith Henson (talk) 02:40, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
 * We do not know the Answer. VM could be anything from genuine to hoax, and at base could (in principle at least) be any language. A relevant expert can therefore only be someone who does know about the bits relevant to Cheshire's theory (Galician-Portuguese, for example), who could confirm Cheshire's theory if true, but if they find his arguments (any degree of) unpersuasive, can only say that they cannot translate it. More generally intelligent people can assess the plausibility by looking at Cheshire's claim to have solved it in two weeks with "lateral thinking and ingenuity", rather than a lifetime study of southern Romance dialects. So I do not quite understand your point, but yes, perhaps you are off base. Imaginatorium (talk) 04:37, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, do let me know when someone besides Cheshire has translated some of the manuscript I am not all that surprised that an outsider could have a flash of insight into this long running mystery.  If he is right, it's fairly simple if you happen upon the right path.  Keith Henson (talk) 23:43, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

For what it is worth, Cheshire has a further detailed publication https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/006087

"Initially the language was thought to be an anachronistic or outdated form of proto-Romance, but further research has revealed the language to be the Medieval Iberian variant of Romance known as Galician-Portuguese (G-P), with the inclusion of some Latin, Greek, and occasional Arabic. The writing system is phonetic but is heavily abbreviated with enclitics, clitics, and plosives so that silent and junctural consonants and vowels have often become omitted altogether. Thus, the text was written in direct imitation of speech rather than obeying rules of spelling, grammar and punctuation – thus, it is a pronuncial writing system. In addition, Latin stock words and phrases are abbreviated to initial letters."

Keith Henson (talk) 19:56, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Puzzle
4000 year old board game has similar symbols to the book 72.73.115.87 (talk) 20:27, 30 August 2022 (UTC)


 * This would be more useful if you gave us a link to a useful source.
 * Or at least told us which board game you're talking about. ApLundell (talk) 20:35, 30 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Would it be this? Jackiespeel (talk) 15:22, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Propose Page Move to "Cipher manuscript"
Yale University Digital Archive saves this Codex as "Codex Manuscript". Do any users oppose a page move to that article name? (I'll check back in a week) -- Sleyece (talk) 14:41, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The current title is by far the WP:COMMONNAME for the subject; I would absolutely oppose moving this to such a generic title just because one institution names it differently in a single archive. - Aoidh (talk) 14:46, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * FWIW:. –Austronesier (talk) 14:59, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah that's pretty compelling evidence that even Yale calls it the Voynich manuscript, further evidenced here. It may be referred to as "Codex Manuscript" in some context at some page somewhere by Yale (what I'm more seeing is "Cipher manuscript"), but even within Yale itself this article's current title is the more commonly used title, and in general usage by reliable sources it's not even close; Voynich manuscript is the WP:COMMONNAME. Every part of WP:CRITERIA supports the current title. A codex manuscript is generally a descriptor for a type of work, it is not the name of a specific work and renaming it to that title would be way too ambiguous even if it were the common name, which it is not. "Cypher manuscript" (which again you'd have to ignore WP:COMMONNAME to consider) would equally be confusing as there is already Cipher Manuscripts, so it would need disambiguation anyways, and a natural disambiguation would be preferred, leading us back again to this current title. Per Article titles, there's no reason to move the article from its current title. - Aoidh (talk) 15:30, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I oppose a page move.
 * "Codex Manuscript" or "Cypher Manuscript" are just descriptions, not names. And certainly not common names.
 * "Beinecke MS 408" is the manuscript's other, more official-sounding name, but you'd have a hard time arguing that it was the common name. It's almost always referred to in sources as "The Voynich Manuscript" ApLundell (talk) 15:41, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oxford comma was moved to Serial comma even though Oxford comma is easily the common name because "Serial" is the ACTUAL name, just like "Codex Manuscript" is the actual name of this work. Also, calling it "Voynich Manuscript" is arguably Synth because we're crediting someone for a work they did not write just because people on mass call it that. (See WP:Not) -- Sleyece (talk) 14:36, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You've provided zero evidence that "Codex Manuscript" is the actual name of this work and the serial comma comparison is very much apples-to-oranges; for one, that article has been at Serial comma for eighteen years without a single RM discussing a move to Oxford comma. Further, there has been little to no discussion on that talk page about moving it to Oxford comma, but what little discussion there is indicates that the rationale for it being at its current title is because Serial comma is much more widely used and recognised, not because "Serial" is the ACTUAL name. That article is at its currently title because there is a WP:COMMONNAME argument for it being at that title; your proposed move here has no such basis. Even if you could provide evidence that "Codex Manuscript" is the actual name of this work, that's not how we determine article titles on Wikipedia, per WP:COMMONNAME (see the examples listed). You cited WP:SYNTH and WP:NOT, but neither of those apply in any way to why the article is at it's current title or why it should be moved; calling it "Voynich manuscript" is not WP:SYNTH under any reading of that policy, as sources directly and unambiguously use that title to describe the work. - Aoidh (talk) 15:31, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It's only "arguably synth" if you're looking for an argument. Using the common name is obviously, blatantly, not synth. ApLundell (talk) 18:21, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It's listed as "Codex Manuscript" in the the Yale archives. Very weird genuflecting on this. There's a lot of WP:IDONTLIKEIT in response to this, which means I'm right, but I may not get the consensus this year. -- Sleyece (talk) 23:48, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:IDONTLIKEIT? You're citing a Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions entry in a discussion about a page move; WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a hashtag, it's a link to a page which has no applicability here. It is as relevant to this discussion as WP:SYNTH is; not at all. You say It's listed as "Codex Manuscript" in the the Yale archives but you haven't provided a source for that at any point, and that's ignoring the fact that even if that were true, per Wikipedia policy that is not a determinative factor in what the article's title is in any way. You are welcome to think that you are right, but Wikipedia policy very directly says otherwise; waiting until next year to bring up the same flawed argument will not change the outcome. - Aoidh (talk) 00:39, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I was wrong. The Yale Archive has it listed as "Cipher Manuscript". "Voynich Manuscript" is listed there as the "Alternative Title" https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2002046 -- Sleyece (talk) 00:54, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

"Roger Bacon Cipher Manuscript" was the name chosen by Voynich as a "marketing strategy". It soon also became known as "Voynich Cipher Manuscript", but eventually most if not all later sources until now have simplified it to "Voynich Manuscript". It's not authorship that determines WP:COMMONNAME, but usage in specialist and non-specialist sources. A cursory glance at the reference list might help. –Austronesier (talk) 10:49, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You're just backtracking because I dropped an extremely official source. -- Sleyece (talk) 17:18, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Nobody is backtracking. Everybody has repeatedly told you that the common name is more important than how it's indexed in various databases.
 * I can't tell if you're trying to pick a fight, or if you're honestly not following this conversation.
 * Either way. There is a clear consensus, and it has been explained. I think we're done here. ApLundell (talk) 18:00, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

In any event, the suggestion is ridiculous: "cipher manuscript" is simply a generic description. It might as well be titled "Ancient book". Imaginatorium (talk) 18:30, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It's titled "Cipher Manuscript". When should I put it up for an RfC? -- Sleyece (talk) 21:43, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Nobody needs permission to start an RFC. Do what you like. You don't need to start a debate over whether or not you should start an RFC. ApLundell (talk) 22:35, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I believe what you're looking for is Requested moves (specifically Requested moves/Controversial), because RfC is not the correct venue for a requested move. - Aoidh (talk) 02:03, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I am looking for Controversial Requested moves, thank you. I'll put it up sometime this week. -- Sleyece (talk) 23:33, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Strongly oppose any such move. Our job is to list the page at the title that's reflected in the preponderance of reliable sources written about the topic. They virtually all refer to it as the Voynich Manuscript. We don't change the title because a librarian decided to catalog it with a different title at Yale. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 01:27, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You make a valid point. However, this is not the venue to do that. This isn't an RfC, and I haven't opened the move discussion just yet. -- Sleyece (talk) 17:14, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The article's talk page, on a section opened specifically to discuss a proposed article title change, is absolutely the correct venue for their comment. That you haven't made a formal RM yet doesn't mean they cannot state their opinion. - Aoidh (talk) 17:36, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * They didn't state an opinion. They casted a random vote into the aether. Don't gaslight me. -- Sleyece (talk) 01:54, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Sleyece, I most certainly did state an opinion and I will state it again when/if you open a formal move request, which you are welcome to do if you feel more outside feedback is needed. Accusing other editors of misbehavior with no grounds is sanctionable behavior on your part, and I fear you will be heading for an indefinite block if you keep it up, given your history. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 02:26, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Don't worry about me. Your fears are unfounded. -- Sleyece (talk) 16:54, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It's completely fine to state an opinion in !vote form. !Voting on wikipedia is not a very formal procedure, it's another form of consensus-finding where people are encouraged to summarize their arguments with support/oppose/etc. There's not even a hint of a rule that you can't summarize your arguments in that style at other times. It's often useful to respond that way to informal "proposals" in talk pages. ApLundell (talk) 21:12, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I won't be starting a controversial move debate at this time, as it would not be worth the effort per WP:CRITERIA. Thank you all for the input. -- Sleyece (talk) 17:03, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * When I state an opinion in vote form informally an admin jumps down my throat, but okay. -- Sleyece (talk) 22:14, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Authorship statement
I want to add a sentence stating who I believe to be the author of the Voynich manuscript. I have stated this publicly on the Voynich Ninja forum. I added this sentence anonymously to this page, but I assume it has since been deleted. MarkRKnowles (talk) 17:15, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Feel free to add anything that is supported by a WP:reliable source and ideally not written by yourself (s. WP:COI). Although this isn't a guarantee for inclusion if fellow editors think it adds WP:undue weight to an isolated view that hasn't got much attention from other scholars. –Austronesier (talk) 18:11, 16 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but a forum post does not meet that sourcing requirements for Wikipedia.
 * You can read the requirements here WP:RS, but in this situation, what we'd really want would be research from a noted expert in the field, or a theory with a significant amount of independent press coverage. ApLundell (talk) 18:49, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * FWIW, it lingered here unsourced and unnoticed. –Austronesier (talk) 19:16, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The forum discussion mentioned is here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:58, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Putting the XKCD comic here

 * https://xkcd.com/593/

because it's so sad it was removed from Cultural Influences. The only other source I found for it was another wiki, which isn't considered reliable either. So it goes! https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/593:_Voynich_Manuscript — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiredmeliorist (talk • contribs) 13:27, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

"Apparent" writing system
Xover, I quite agree that our discussion from the Fringe noticeboard belongs here, and also that my solution of adding a qualifier to the term "writing system" is a bit kludgy. But as I mentioned, I think it is important as non-language is still a possibility floating in the reliable sources, if you will. If you can think of a more euphonious way to put it, I am all ears! Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:24, 16 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Well, as I'm quite happy with the current wording I'm not sure I'm the right person to suggest changes. I think the level of precision (vs. brevity) needed in the lead is such that both bare "writing system" and the qualified "apparent writing system" are sufficient for our needs. I prefer the former for brevity and elegance, and think the rest of the lead and the rest of the article amply explains the necessary nuance. See the guidance at MOS:FIRST, MOS:LEADNO, and MOS:LEAD in general. We're introducing the article's subject for the non-specialist reader, and the distinction between a writing system an an apparent one puts way too much emphasis on this subtlety that is addressed in full in the article proper.BTW, for the benefit of others, the referenced discussion is at WP:FTN#Voynich manuscript (permanent link). Xover (talk) 14:46, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Got it. I understand the issue of style and brevity, but for me, it's important enough that I think those are trumped by accuracy in this case.  While I do think the rest is fine, I don't like the sort of "priming" of introducing the contents as a "writing system."  As I say, it seems to me a presupposition of a question which is very much still up in the air.  Given that I think we disagree here, I would invite anyone and everyone to chime in, and I will happily go wherever consensus takes us.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:51, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Personally I don’t see an important distinction between "writing system" and "apparent writing system" and feel like there’s nothing wrong with calling this a "writing system" even though we don’t know for sure it’s representing a real language. Unfortunately I’m failing to come up with any more euphonious alternative phrasing. But similarly to Xover, I would not object if someone made the change anyway. Justin Kunimune (talk) 15:33, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I guess the complaint is that if it was Glossolalia, or something similar, there might be some repetition and seeming patterns, but there wouldn't actually be a system.
 * I agree, but I'm not sure just replacing "writing system" with "apparent writing system" really clarifies that. It's a weird phrase. If it's important to get that across in the first sentence (is it?) maybe it could be reworded. "What seems to be an unknown writing system" would probably be more clear, but also more wordy.  Perhaps there's another wording that would be better. ApLundell (talk) 21:33, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is exactly my point. It could be Glossolalia or a self-conscious fraudulent enterprise, as proposed by figures like Gordon Rugg.  Given the real possibility and position that there is "no there there," I think we give this bit of debate short shrift by phrasing the lead this way.  Maybe we could say "an unknown script?"  Perhaps a distinction without a difference, but taking "system" out of the semantic equation would go a long way toward making me feel better (and after all, isn't that what Wikipedia is about?).  Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 21:46, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I think unknown script is a brilliant way to phrase it, actually. When I think of a script, I'm not assuming intelligibility or even that there's an actual language behind it. It could just as easily cover Russian written in Cyrillic and a made up alien language used on signs in some pulp tv. It nicely dodges a question best handled in full in the article and not the lede while also being accurate and concise. --(loopback) ping/whereis 18:33, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the endorsement! If no one objects, I'll go ahead and make the change later today.  Happy Friday! Dumuzid (talk) 18:38, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Since it had been a while I went ahead and made the change. Apologies if you feel like your toes were stepped on. --(loopback) ping/whereis 12:28, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Quite the opposite! I am thankful you picked up the idea I fumbled.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 18:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)