Voynich manuscript
Lance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript
http://voynichthoughts.wordpress.com/stroke-theory/
On another group a programmer is attempting to write a program to test
the stroke theory. I'm not betting on his success. I'm inclined to
think it was either a private (manufactured) language (so no
decipherment will work) or a hoax.
Lance
Peter Brooks
why it isn't a hoax.
The stroke theory sounds one of the sillier ones to me.
If by a private language, you mean the writings of a mad person, then
I think that would be a very good explanation. Something like
C.S.Lewis Narnia world with different invented planets, plants and so
forth and an invented language like Tolkein's. A private fantasy book.
Not necessarily even a mad person - an imaginative and inventive child
might produce just such a thing. I'd say that the plants that show
characteristics of real ones fit that exactly - you can see a clever,
artistic, child copying out a bit of this, melding it with a bit of
that and then naming it in his secret langauge.
That seems to fit all the facts to me.
It's almost a normal part of development - I remember exchanging notes
in runes with a friend of mine at school after reading the Lord of the
Rings. A lonely and energetic child might go as far as writing a whole
book. Given the levels of infant mortality, such a child (probably a
sickly child anyway, to have so much time alone) may have died and the
book saved from his possessions.
Lance
LOL. I think we will have to call that the sick child theory. And yes,
I think you right - it is a plausible explanation.
Thanks
Lance
Lance
Of course the sick child would have had to be very rich because in the
1400s vellum was expensive (the equivalent of thousands of pounds
today) and few people had access to a library...
Lance
Peter Brooks
>
> > Lance
>
> Of course the sick child would have had to be very rich because in the
> 1400s vellum was expensive (the equivalent of thousands of pounds
> today) and few people had access to a library...
>