New Voynich manuscript hypothesis: Proto-Romance

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Doitsujin
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New Voynich manuscript hypothesis: Proto-Romance

Postby Doitsujin » Thu May 16, 2019 10:52 am

There's a new Voynich manuscript hypothesis. According to University of Bristol researcher Gerard Cheshire, the language of the manuscript is a mix of Vulgar Latin and other Mediterranean languages. For more information see his paper.

According to Ars Technica: No, someone hasn’t cracked the code of the mysterious Voynich manuscript
Last edited by Doitsujin on Thu May 16, 2019 4:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Dragon27
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Re: New Voynich manuscript hypothesis: Proto-Romance

Postby Dragon27 » Thu May 16, 2019 12:07 pm

A very critical thread on Voynich Ninja about this proposed solution. And another two-years-old one. Apparently, this isn't the first Gerard Cheshire's attempt at cracking this century-old mystery.
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Re: New Voynich manuscript hypothesis: Proto-Romance

Postby Querneus » Thu May 16, 2019 1:00 pm

A guy in another forum I'm in wrote a long takedown/rant about how terrible this is...

When the author says "Proto-Romance" he apparently means a haphazard hodgepodge of Romance and Latin words, sometimes made up. That's why this "Proto-Romance" is from the 1400s, several centuries after the medieval Romance languages are first attested. He deciphers the phrase "o'quo nana" and declares it to be o' ("Italian" for 'of', but isn't this English-y?), quo (Latin for 'where') and nana (Italian for 'small', when it's actually 'female dwarf'). Therefore, the author says, it means 'of where small'. Oh yeah, his translations are of individual small phrases and make no sense anyway.

The fact that this was published in an allegedly peer-reviewed journal, Romance Studies, published by Taylor & Francis (I just verified it was indeed published there), is a matter of utter, utter shame.
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Re: New Voynich manuscript hypothesis: Proto-Romance

Postby Cainntear » Thu May 16, 2019 8:47 pm

Ser wrote:"o'quo nana"

That sounds like something from a party song. I can picture crowds of drunken people singing it shamelessly across Europe.
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Re: New Voynich manuscript hypothesis: Proto-Romance

Postby dampingwire » Thu May 16, 2019 10:24 pm

Cainntear wrote:
Ser wrote:"o'quo nana"

That sounds like something from a party song. I can picture crowds of drunken people singing it shamelessly across Europe.


Sounds like a potential Eurovision hit to me ... just needs a Finnish rock group to pick it up to guarantee success :-)
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Re: New Voynich manuscript hypothesis: Proto-Romance

Postby dampingwire » Fri May 17, 2019 7:06 pm

Ser wrote:The fact that this was published in an allegedly peer-reviewed journal, Romance Studies, published by Taylor & Francis (I just verified it was indeed published there), is a matter of utter, utter shame.


Shame indeed ....
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Doitsujin
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Re: New Voynich manuscript hypothesis: Proto-Romance

Postby Doitsujin » Fri May 31, 2019 5:07 am

In the latest episode of the Lexicon Valley podcast, John McWhorter talked about Gerard Cheshire's hypothesis. (He said that Cheshire's translations reminded him of Pedro Carolino's infamous book English As She Is Spoke.)
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