VOYNICH RIDDLE SOLVED... AGAIN?
Has the world’s most mysterious manuscript finally been decoded? The experts are unconvinced...
There are certain mysteries and puzzles that are forever being ‘solved’. Every few months, someone locates Atlantis or identifies Jack the Ripper, or spots Noah’s Ark on a Turkish mountain. On 16 May 2019, dramatic headlines appeared in British dailies such as this one in the Daily Telegraph: “Medieval text too tough for Turing is cracked at last”. Dr Gerald Cheshire, a research associate from the University of Bristol, claims to have solved the mystery of the celebrated Voynich Manuscript (VM), which has flummoxed linguists and cryptographers (including Bletchley Park hero Alan Turing and the FBI) ever since it was acquired by Polish book dealer Wilfrid M Voynich in 1912. The 235-page vellum codex has been carbon-dated to the 15th century.
Cheshire claims to have solved the riddle in a mere fortnight in May 2017. In his peerreviewed paper, ‘The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained’, published in the journal Romance Studies, Cheshire describes how, using lateral thinking and ingenuity, he ‘deciphered’ the manuscript and revealed the only known example of proto-Romance language, ancestral to today’s Romance languages, including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan and Galician.
Voynich acquired the manuscript the same year Castello Aragonese changed hands, suggesting to Cheshire it might have been part of a house clearance. Castello Aragonese is on Ischia, a volcanic island in the Gulf of Naples. It was the seat of Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon, hence Cheshire claims the VM was compiled by Dominican nuns as a source of reference for the Queen – and is the only known example of the language of the common people of Ischia. Awkwardly, however, the Prague alchemist George Baresch, writing to Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher in 1639, mentioned that he had found the manuscript in his own library; and Voynich discovered it in the archives of the Villa Mondragone near Rome.
Judging from the imagery, many scholars consider the work to be a compendium of herbal remedies, therapeutic bathing and astrology. Danish botanist Theodore Holm tentatively identified 16 plant species. Others have found in it the last rites of the Cathars or a war epic in vowel-less Ukrainian (see “Maze of Madness” by Mike Jay, Jan 2000, FT130:42-46; also “Voynich Under the Microscope” by Barbara Barrett, Apr 2010, FT260:58-59 and “Manuscripts of Mystery” by Ian Simmons, Oct 2016, FT345:38-43). Or the text was written in Old Turkish, in a poetic style; or in Old Cornish, or in the Aztec language of Nahuatl, or in Manchu. Ultimately, a consensus emerged: the VM was either impossible to solve or else written in gibberish, as an elaborate practical joke.
“It uses an extinct language,” Cheshire asserts. “Its alphabet is a combination of unfamiliar and more familiar symbols. It includes no dedicated punctuation marks… All of the letters are in lower case and there are no double consonants… It also includes some words and abbreviations in Latin.” A bath time scene, showing two women bathing five children (shown above), describes a range of emotions: tozosr (buzzing, too noisy); orla la (on the edge, losing patience); tolora (silly, foolish); noror (cloudy; dull, sad); or aus (golden bird; well behaved); and oleios (oiled, slippery). Variations of these survive in modern Catalan ( tozos, or aus); Portuguese ( orla, tolos, oleio); and Romanian ( noros). The words orla la may be the root of the French phrase ooh là là, which has a very similar sentiment.
Mediæval experts are extremely sceptical. “Sorry folks, ‘proto-Romance language’ is not a thing,” tweeted Dr Lisa Fagin Davis, executive director of the Medieval Academy of America. “This is just more aspirational, circular, self-fulfilling nonsense.” Dr Kate Wiles, a mediævalist, linguist and senior editor at History Today, said a new theory on the VM’s meaning happened “on a six-monthly basis at least… there have been at least two in the past year,” adding: “[Cheshire’s theory] takes liberties with how we understand languages to work. He is arguing for a language built of words drawn from lots of places and periods, but together they don’t create something that is convincing as a workable language.”
Following such comments, Bristol University deleted its website article on Cheshire and distanced itself from him, commenting: “The research was entirely the author’s own work and is not affiliated with the University of Bristol, the school of arts nor the Centre for Mediæval Studies”. Cheshire, however, was bullish, saying: “There is no need to persuade anyone, as the solution will be used to study the manuscript by linguists and historians in due course.” dailymail.co.uk, 15 May; D.Telegraph, theguardian.com, 16+17+18 May; Times, 18 May 2019.
For the reaction of experts, see: https://voynichportal. com/tag/gerard-cheshirevoynich-theory/ and https:// ciphermysteries.com/2017/11/10/ gerard-cheshire-vulgar-latinsiren-call-polyglot.