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To: Little Bill
Still doesn’t explain the languages, I believe two, the thing is written in.

Perhaps a native American language written phonetically by an European author?

14 posted on 01/25/2014 4:49:37 PM PST by LoneRangerMassachusetts (The meek shall not inherit the Earth)
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To: LoneRangerMassachusetts
Perhaps a native American language written phonetically by an European author?

The botanists propose that the author was an Aztec who was educated by Spanish priests:

Axiomatically, the Spanish priests established schools for children of the Aztec elite, teaching them European writing methods, painting, and Latin. Probably one of the most famous products of these schools, the Codex Cruz-Badianus, was completed by two students educated at the College of Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco. It was written in Nahuatl by Martin de la Cruz — a native convert and practicing physician at the College of Santa Cruz — and translated into Latin by Juan Badiano, another native convert and student of the College. Two versions of this manuscript exist, the original Codex Cruz-Badianus, formerly in the Vatican, returned in 1990 by Pope Paul II to Mexico (now at the Biblioteca Nacional de Antropologie e Historia in Mexico City [F1219 B135 1940]), and a later copy at the Royal Library of Windsor Castle (RCIN970335).9-12

If this theory is correct, one big question about the manuscript becomes resolved: it is not a European hoax. Very few people in Europe could have known native American plants in such detail; those who went to Americas had no need, or skill, to write books - they were busy hauling gold.

Once that is determined, it should be relatively easy to interpret the language. As Mr. Legrand explained:

"In the present case --indeed in all cases of secret writing --the first question regards the language of the cipher; for the principles of solution, so far, especially, as the more simple ciphers are concerned, depend on, and are varied by, the genius of the particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative but experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to him who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained. But, with the cipher now before us, all difficulty is removed by the signature. The pun on the word 'Kidd' is appreciable in no other language than the English. But for this consideration I should have begun my attempts with the Spanish and French, as the tongues in which a secret of this kind would most naturally have been written by a pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I assumed the cryptograph to be English.

Looks like very few researchers of the Voynich Manuscript were willing to accept that the language of the cipher is a dead dialect of a regional language - and an Aztec one. The book surfaced in Europe, so it was logical to suspect Latin and a cipher (considering religious persecution.) Perhaps there is no cipher at all, and the writer simply made up his alphabet on the spot, starting with glyphs from Latin and other european alphabets and modifying them to signify phonems of his own language (if the writing is phonetic, which it appears to be.) This language would not need a cipher; it would have been understood only by a few educated Aztec elites anyway.

15 posted on 01/25/2014 7:31:42 PM PST by Greysard
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