Re: Voynich letters

["Don Latham" <djl@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I ran across this string some time ago, don't remember when.  There is a
star connecting the "fish" called " the flaxen thread uniting Pisces", in
Arabic H'ait al Kattani'yy or something like that.   At any rate, I thought
that otolal was possibly the name for the hinge (thread) star.
D
Don Latham
Six Mile Systems/ Lightning Forensics
Street Address:     17850 Six Mile Road
Mailing Address:  POBox 460134
Huson, MT 59846
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djl@xxxxxxxxxxx
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Pelling" <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <voynich@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2001 10:33 AM
Subject: Re: Voynich letters


> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm moving forward (I think). Looking again at the astrology pages (that I
> have), I was surprised to find that there was only one really obvious crib
> - on the Pisces page (f70v2), which is the first one of the astrological
> set, there is a nice clear label next to the two fishes - in EVA,
> "otolal"  (some see it as otalal, etc).
>
> Now, fitting this into my current VMS picture:-
> the initial "o" --> "the"
> the gallows "t" --> one of [ p t s k]
> (and the remaining letters would be mapped according
>   to the translation map for the selected gallows. These
>   would likely be high-frequency letters, like vowels and "s")
>
> However, what I also find interesting is that there are *no* similar cribs
> for any of the other astrological pages.
>
> My hunch is that the author wrote something like "Pisces" in, then thought
> to himself - "what a donkey I am, if I do the same for the other 11 signs,
> it'll be far too easy to crack!". He then tried to make it look as though
> it was a star name.
>
> Which would mean that it should be easy to crack, if we remember to keep
> our eye on the ball.
>
> So: if we make even a completely simplistic guess at the letters based on
> the constraints I've built up above, we come up with:-
>
> EVA "otolal" --> "<the> pises"
>
> I also suspect that EVA "da<in>" --> "kai" [Greek "and"], so I'm
> comfortable with EVA "d" --> "k". And also because of the Greek lettering
> idea, I'm comfortable with EVA "y" --> <eta>, which is very much like <e
> acute>, if we're transliterating between languages.
>
> This is interesting, because on f67r1, there's the big astrological
> diagram, one of which is labelled as "otaldy"... which would translate as
> "<the> pesk<e acute>" -  "the fish". This appears very nearly identically
> on f70v2 as well, as "otaldar" - "<the> peske<?>"
>
> "Lou Pescadou", a very nice fish restaurant in Marseillan in the South of
> France, is named after the Oc word for "fisherman". So at the time of the
> VMS, there were numerous active languages with pesc- as a root for fish
> [never mind the precise grammar for now]. :-/
>
> If even these two fragments are in some way correct, it points to the VMS
> having probably *no* underlying language as such - it would be a
hotchpotch
> of words from multiple Mediterranean languages (old and new), chosen so as
> to avoid repetition.
>
> But perhaps this is progress! :-)))))
>
> All comments welcome!
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>