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A Tricky Opening to the Voynich Manuscript

Voynich Manuscript (32).jpg

I've written about the Voynich manuscript here only once, years ago. Here's a quick review:

Wilfred Voynich was an early 20th century ms dealer, and the manuscript that bears his name was a mysterious book he bought from the Jesuits, a book that originated in the 15th century (something carbon dating has confirmed). In the century since Voynich made its existence known to the world, nobody has been able to make hide nor hair of it, except for the guess -- based on the illustrations -- that its a medical or pharmacological text.

The usual guess has been that the author performed some sort of cryptographical trickery upon Hebrew, although even that still isn't a matter of consensus. And, even if it were, that wouldn't get the job done. What trickery?

Now some new information. A team of Canadian scientists think their algorithm has worked it out. Or at least parts of it.

They derive this as the first sentence of the text, translated and decoded, "She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people."

Unfortunately, that's a very odd sentence, and it inspired in me a sense that this team is on the wrong track. Yes, the sentence is grammatical. I suppose it passes some Chomskian protocol on such things. But it is weird.  

 Here's the link. 

 Not just beginning a ms with a pronoun (which sounds like Nabokovian trickery), but the list of the supposed recipients of mystery woman's recommendations.  Presumably she made recommendations (about the medicinal use of herbs?) to various people, including the priest, the man of the house, and our narrator, "me." Would the above ordering be idiomatic anywhere?  


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