For a 100 theVoynich Manuscripthas attracted code - ledgeman , cranks , and medieval scholars in an attempt to decode the document ’s meaning . claim to have solved it fare stocky and fast , only to be discredited , but a new peer - review hypothesis may have more going for it . If confirmed , its scholarly value would be immense , let out both an important confused language , and the mediaeval world from women ’s point of view . However , many former claims to have translated the manuscript have n’t suffer up , and so far experts on the new possibility have responded with a mix ofskepticismand outright skepticism .
The ms amount to light when Polish playscript monger Wilfrid Voynich buy and publicize it in 1912 . Even with some pages missing , it is 240 page long fulfil with writing and drawings on calfskin dated to the early 15th hundred , ruling out theories of forgery . The parole are not in any speech we experience , so is assume to be a elaborate computer code , which suggests the manuscript includes information someone want to hide .
Previous claims to “ transform ” the writing have produce individual intelligence that fit with the picture on the same page , but sentences thatmake lilliputian sense . Dr Gerard Cheshiredescribes in a field put out in the journalRomance Studieshow late possibility assumed the author was a military man , embarrass attempts to make sense of a document Cheshire believe was write by and for women .
Cheshire claims that , rather than code , the manuscript is written in a local idiom ofproto - Romance , from which many modern European language , include Spanish , French , and Italian sprang . “ The voice communication used was ubiquitous in the Mediterranean during the Medieval period , but it was rarely written in official or authoritative documents because Latin was the nomenclature of royalty , church , and government , " he said in astatement . " As a result , proto - Romance was lost from the record , until now . ”
The authorship has puzzled so many people , Cheshire argues , not only because we have n’t understand the language before , but because “ Its ABC is a combination of unfamiliar and more conversant symbol . It include no dedicated punctuation mark marks , although some letters have symbol version to indicate punctuation or phonic accents . All of the letters are in lower display case and there are no treble consonant . "
Cheshire ’s account is less alien than the diary of a cast of characters - away extraterrestrial being , but scholars will be excited by the possible action the manuscript was spell by nuns as a reference book to Maria of Castile , Queen of Aragon ( great - auntie to Catherine of Aragon ) . Cheshire describes it as a “ collection of data on herbal remedy , healing bathing and astrological readings touch matters of the distaff mind , of the torso , of replica , of parenting and of the heart . ” One section perchance tell a mission launched by Maria to rescue victims of a volcanic eruption in 1444 while her hubby the king was absent .
Cheshire relinquish some of his call prior to publication , and the response from many other Voynich scholars hasnot been kind , with accusations of conform to his findings to his possibility , words to images that may not be related , and inventing " proto - romanticism language " based on the recognition of the uneven Son , not an integral spoken language . Whether Cheshire really has unlocked this famous conundrum stay to be learn , but we have so few records of charwoman ’s perspectives from the era this would make the contents even more academically valuable than the sixth sense declare oneself into speech .
