Voynich Manuscript

[balson]

saw an article today i though some of you may enjoy. the writing in this manuscript is gorgeous.

 

http://hyperallergic.com/159228/new-scans-of-the-voynich-manuscript-a-medieval-book-no-one-can-read/

[dogpoet]

Beautiful book, whatever it was, you're right. i do sometimes think that August Derleth rather cheapened the whole thing by suggesting it might have something to with Lovecraft's Necronomicon...

[Gloucesterman]

I think I'll wait for the movie, although the book does look interesting.

 

Seriously, there are many languages today that are "dying" out. It's entirely possible that at various places around the world languages have become extinct along with native speaker.

[estie1948]

A friend of mine was an entomologist. He often bemoaned the fact that there were insects that were becoming extinct due to habitation loss before they could be noted and cataloged. I believe there are several scientists who have suggested that the same has happened to human populations, as Brgmarketing suggested. This manuscript is certainly thought provoking, if nothing else. Not only a language that has disappeared but the strange plants.

 

While I have not read any, I am sure there have been those who suggested that this manuscript is some alien's plant catalog used to search for similar plants on the earth. This botanist alien was a rather careless sort and left the manuscript behind when he/she/it left.

 

Or perhaps one monk was left too long in his scriptorium and, being not too sound of mind to start with, produced such a manuscript (sort of a 1400s twist on Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman).

 

It will be exciting if someone does explain this manuscript, but I am reasonably certain that it is not going to be me that does it. Thanks for posting the link.

 

-David.

[NinthSphere]

Somewhere I imagine there's a long-dead dude rolling around in his grave laughing at people's interpretations of his doodles.