Jewish Arabic Voynich theory
Here’s another (sort of) “plaintext” Voynich Manuscript reading, that I first found back in 2006: having corresponded briefly with the Greek author (who wishes to remain anonymous) at the time, I then managed to completely forget about until a few days ago.
He claims that the Voynich Manuscript is a transliterated Arabic document written down “using a kind of [old-fashioned] Jewish script”, and that it contains incantations to fulfil “all kinds of human desires”, addressed to the goddess “Siit” as part of cult worship ultimately deriving from the Mesopotamians.
René will be pleased to hear that the author gives extensive equivalence tables showing how to map Voynichese letters onto Hebrew letters, as well as a pronunciation guide. (Though note that you will need to resize your browser window to be 1024-pixels wide in order for the left-hand “Gabelsberger Shorthand Symbol” column to line up).
There is also a long section on f116v (the “michiton oladabas” page), as well as comments on other pages:-
Cotton is depicted on page 17, and cannabis sativa on page 16; these are plants used to make fabrics, like the one on the right of cotton, which is flax. On page 11 it is, I think, a lemon tree.
He finishes up by noting that the first few lines of folio 56 (which he says depict an eggplant) read as follows (“aqith” = “eternal”), and comments that ”I cite this passage for anyone who knows Arabic well to offer a tentative reading of the whole page“:-
s(tbqd bbk)n sTn rkran bn nbsMb.n bsl bn bn
bstbrn bsd bsdn tsl bn bn trn bsTn hstqSθ
sd brn bstbsd brn ten usten bsten bstkn
usT bsl bsl bst sl btsl bn stql ban
bs bsl bs bsaqdn aqiΘ
ntbs an abrn ten aqiΘ n
Is this the answer we have been looking for? Confidentially… I don’t really think so. As claimed plaintexts go, it appears to have quite a few, errrm, ’problems‘, let’s say. But perhaps some Arabic-literate Cipher Mysteries reader reading the above will know how to make the Philosopher’s Stone, who knows? 
Incidentally, the author also refers to a (previously unknown?) VMs book by “Ethan Ashmole Jones” called “The Voynich Manuscript – Who Is Who of a Riddle”, published by Ellinika Grammata (I believe), though I couldn’t see a copy in WorldCat. Anyone seen this before or heard of Ethan Ashmole Jones? Sounds a bit like a pseudonym to me, but (as always) you never know! 
June 8th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
“Ethan Ashmole Jones” gets exactly two Google hits– one is this blog post, and the other is the page you linked. Maybe it’s a Borgesian made-up citation?
Also, from what I know of Arabic word structure, those vowel-less words in the “plaintext” could be interpreted in several ways by adding different vowels(though the words you’d get would all be related in meaning, as are Islam and Muslim). This feature of Arabic provided some difficulties for those who transcribed the Quran from shorthand(which was used as a memory aid to recitations and not as a text for silent reading). Hence I suspect that someone literate in Arabic could, with a little imagination, read many things into that deciphered text.
June 8th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Here is the proper translation of the Voynich passage interspersed with the original
s(tbqd bbk)n sTn rkran bn nbsMb.n bsl bn bn
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
bstbrn bsd bsdn tsl bn bn trn bsTn hstqSθ
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
sd brn bstbsd brn ten usten bsten bstkn
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
usT bsl bsl bst sl btsl bn stql ban
But there is no joy in Mudville
bs bsl bs bsaqdn aqiΘ
ntbs an abrn ten aqiΘ n
Mighty Casey has struck out.
Okay, okay, just tryin’ to lighten things up a bit.
Seriously, several years ago I read about a connection between the Voynich and HINDI. Has any work been done in this area? The written language is hauntingly reminiscent of the Voynich manuscript.
June 9th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Hi Joey,
Mighty Casey – who’d have thought it, eh? And in Hebraicized Arabic, too. Life is so full of surprises.
It’s true that there’s a brief reference to “miscopied Hindi” in the Above Top Secret forum, but that might itself be miscopied. So… nope, sorry, you got me there – I can’t think of any Voynich theory involving Hindi. Feel free to make it your own!
Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….
June 9th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
The book by “Ethan Ashmole Jones” would almost certainly have been in Greek, and the publisher is still apparently going strong – so someone could probably track this down if they were at all interested.
And as far as Arabic goes, I cited the transliterated passage (as did the original author) to see if any Arabic-reading reader might make any sense of it. The only significant difference is that he has rather more hope than me that someone will indeed be able to read it!
December 21st, 2009 at 9:10 pm
I think the author is on the right track, and only wish I’d seen this before writing a recent paper.
January 15th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
I’m afraid the translation makes no sense in Arabic (at least standard Arabic), despite trying to be imaginative. However, I can’t help feeling that the Voynich alphabet has something vaguely Arabic/Hebrew about it.
January 15th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
I can’t say I’m hugely surprised – but thanks for having a look anyway!
February 5th, 2010 at 11:47 am
Anyone competent in the Judeo-Arabic dialects of North Africa and Spain?
February 5th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Here’s a page that starts with a list of well-known Judeo-Arabic researchers, might be a start for whatever you’re thinking of.
February 12th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Anyone know any Sufis on the order of Idries Shah?
What I am very curious about is the recent VM dating to 1404-1438. Accurate? Thoughts?
Cheers, Bob
philon@cox.net
or Facebook Robert Mylne
February 14th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
A summary of the state of play in Voynich research after the recent radiocarbon dating is here: but in short, we’re still waiting for the raw data, rather than just the potted results.
Personally, I don’t think there’s any Sufi influence on the VMs – for all its pecularities, it seems to be a tree grown in distinctively European soil. The furthest East I can get is that it seems influenced more by Byzantine herbals than by European herbals. But there have always been other opinions on it, so what do I know?
April 25th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Nick, did this author ever stop being anonymous?
I’m concerned about possibly having stumbled over the same things about which he or she might have written somewhere, at some time, under … what name?