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----- Original Message ----- From: "Rafal T. Prinke" <rafalp@xxxxxxxxxx> To: <vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2003 2:07 PM Subject: Re: VMs: Re: over troubled water... > > DANA SCOTT wrote: > > > Any further investigation into W.M.Voynich's youth would > > probably best be served by investigations in Telsze. It is a bit beyond my > > reach from here and I would be lost not being able to speak the local > > dialects. > > I do not really see the point of investigating it further > in so much detail. I profess that this investigation may have gone a bit beyond the necessary, but it helps, I think, to add credibility to Voynich's own character and integrity. Both he and Reilly were apparently rather interested in chemistry and the chemical composition of inks. From "Trust No One, The Secret World of Sidney Reilly", by Richard B. Spence, we learn that "There
were,
of course, other applications for such knowledge and skill, notably
the
counterfeiting of currency." While the opportunity may have existed to print off one's own fortune, I see no real evidence to suggest
that
Voynich would have dipped into the till to help establish his
antiquarian
business in rare books and manuscripts.
Trust No One, The Secret World Of Sidney Reilly, by Richard B. Spence, Feral House, Los Angeles, CA, 2002, ISBN: 0-922915-79-2, pp.34-35. I will try to find more printed sources, > however. Actually, I have already gathered quite a lot but > want to check more. It appears that he did not study at any > of the universities usually mentioned - only a local pharmacy > school and later worked in a chemist's shop in Sandomierz > (central Poland) for a short time before he was arrested. > > BTW: The Lithuanian language can hardly be called a "dialect" > - it is, together with Latvian and (extinct) Prussian, one > of the Baltic languges. Some linguist think it is the most > achaic of present day Indo-European languages (ie. the closest > to original). I guess this refers to the old Lithuanian, > or Samogitian (the area where Voynich was born), as > the present day Lithuanian is a 19th c. reconstruction > during the national revival. Here I plead ignorance. I chose the word "dialect" because I really didn't know what variation, if any, of Lithuanian was spoken in Telsze. I did not mean that Lithuanian in its entirety was a "dialect". Sorry for the confusion and thank you for the clarification. > > > Spanish I can handle, which I see Wilfrid listed as a language > > that he spoke in one of the immigration logs. It seems to me that Wilfrid's > > command of languages and his interests in ancient manuscripts found all over > > Europe probably served him well in his political endeavors. > > I also noticed that - but concluded that this: > > http://hum.amu.edu.pl/~rafalp/HERM/VMS/ellis/w23-1.gif > > shows Voynich's entry on languages with "several", while > the long list refers to the person above him - Moriz Rosenthal, > a pianist. Otherwise the word "several" doesn't make sense. Yes, I think you are absolutely correct. The entry for Voynich is "Several", not including Spanish. These investigations may also help to put to rest any nagging questions about Voynich's past and any role that it might have had concerning its influence on the discovery of the VMs. BTW, I believe that I have read that it was not Voynich who came up with the original idea that the VMs was written by Roger Bacon, in which case it seems to me that Wilfrid was just expanding on this previously ascertained "stepping stone" on the path to its origin. Regards, Dana Scott > > Best regards, > > Rafal > ______________________________________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying: > unsubscribe vms-list > |
