Language Query
USER: FringeDr | POSTED 5-6-1990 7:15:54
SUBJECT: Language Query
Hey guys - hoping that someone might be able to give me a hand identifying a strange language. I have a subject in the lab who is repeatedly exhibiting automatic writing under high thaumic conditions and the correct hypnagogic, but the writing being produced is - well, it is indecipherable to me, and to anyone I've shown it to. I shopped it around the foreign language faculty here, and none of them have been able to pin it down, or even be sure that it is a real language; they say that it looks like language; it is used consistently and seems to be formed into words and sentences, but the script is just alien to them. If I can't pin down what the language is or what it might mean, it could just be complete gibberish my subject is generating; that would be a big disappointment, but I'd rather know than not.
Anyway, we have a bunch of big brains on this system, so I figured I would throw some samples of the text out there and see if anyone had an idea. Obviously, there are no letters on the keyboard for this script, so I had one of my postdocs put together an ASCII representation of the characters. It's not quite as elegant looking as they are in person, but I think they get the idea across. Thanks!
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USER: Moloch | POSTED 5-6-1990 9:08:28
SUBJECT: RE: Language Query (FringeDr)
Wow, I bet your postdoc loves working for you.
USER: AngelBlsd | POSTED 5-6-1990 9:09:21
SUBJECT: RE: Language Query (FringeDr)
I don't like the look of those - they seem unnatural to me.
USER: Raven | POSTED 5-6-1990 9:13:04
SUBJECT: RE: Language Query (FringeDr)
Fringe - your subject, have they been to Yale?
Those look a lot like characters out of the Voynich Manuscript. I interned at the Beinecke Library, and got the opportunity to see it up close. I would have to see your subject's handwritten work to be sure, but that's where I'm leaning based on these recreations.
USER: wilmarose | POSTED 5-6-1990 9:25:13
SUBJECT: RE: RE: Language Query (FringeDr) (Raven)
what's the voynich manuscript?
USER: Raven | POSTED 5-6-1990 9:28:30
SUBJECT: RE: RE: RE: Language Query (FringeDr) (Raven) (wilmarose)
The Voynich Manuscript is one of the strangest and most mysterious documents in history. It was probably written some time in the late medieval period, by a group of people using a script that nobody can read. It's never been deciphered. The structure looks like a language, not just random scribbles, but if it is a language it is one that is completely lost to history. We don't know who wrote it, or why, or what it says. There are illustrations in parts of the book, like you would find in a medieval herbal - but the plants it depicts don't exist. There are sections that appear to depict zodiac signs and other astrological concepts, but their exact meaning is hard to determine. Some people think the whole thing is an ancient hoax, or some kind of art project. It's been in Yale's Beinecke Library since the sixties - Fringe, if your subject could have seen it, they might be reproducing parts of the manuscript, either consciously or unconsciously.
On the other hand, if they are producing text in the same language as the Voynich Manuscript it without ever having seen it, that might lend support to some of the more...out there theories about it. There are a few people who think it presents the Adamic language - the one that humanity would have spoken before the Tower of Babel. Or possibly it is an ancient language that existed during the so-called "Atlantean Age" that's been transmitted forward in time. And then there is the ever-popular theory that it is alien in nature; either extra-terrestrial or extra-dimensional.
Honestly, I have always leant towards the hoax theory. But if you have someone who is legitimately writing in the Voynich Manuscript's language, that - well, it raises a lot of questions.
USER: FringeDr | POSTED 5-6-1990 9:46:52
SUBJECT: RE: RE: Language Query (FringeDr) (Raven)
Wow - I have heard of the Voynich manuscript, but I would never have thought to check for a match with this. OK. I'll have to do some checking into whether my subject could ever have seen excerpts from the text - I think sections of it were printed in Omni, so she wouldn't have had to go to Yale - although the amount of text produced would make it hard to get it from just the excerpts in the magazine. I'd like to have you take a look at what she produced and see if the handwritten version still makes you think Voynich. If there's a fax number I can use, that'd be fastest, but I can also ship you some Xeroxed sheets if the fax quality is too poor. I'll reach out in a private email to get the fax number.
USER: wilmarose | POSTED 5-6-1990 12:36:44
SUBJECT: RE: RE: Language Query (FringeDr) (Raven)
wow - that's weird and cool. if it is some old language from atlanntis, does that mean it has instructions for magic and stuff?
USER: CanadaHam | POSTED 5-6-1990 15:02:44
SUBJECT: RE: RE: Language Query (FringeDr) (Raven)
It is probably an ALIEN LANGUAGE!
USER: Moloch | POSTED: 5-6-1990 15:04:13
SUBJECT: RE: RE: RE: Language Query (FringeDr) (Raven) (CanadaHam)
Damn, Canadian Bacon - don't you ever get tired of banging that drum? I'm sure tired of hearing it.
USER: AngelBlsd | POSTED 5-6-1990 15:06:06
SUBJECT: RE: RE: Language Query (FringeDr) (Raven)
I doubt anything written in the language from before the flood is something we are meant to know; that world and that language were destroyed for a reason. These things you are looking into are not a toy or a game, they are dangerous. you should destroy those writings and stop experimenting with the unnatural.
USER: Raven | POSTED 5-6-1990 15:56:55
SUBJECT: RE: Lots
- FringeDr: Got the faxed copy. It looks like Voynichese there too. Can I send it over to my old coworker at Yale? They might be able to try and match it to the original and see if it is an existing section or something new.
- wilmarose: Sadly, it is as likely to be mundane material as anything. The Voynich Manuscript has the look of a workday book used for medical reference - who knows what could be in the new texts, if anything. But if I were going to bet on the content, I'd expect something pretty dull.
- CanadaHam: I suppose aliens are as likely as anything at this point. Well, not really; there are more likely scenarios. But given a broad enough definition of alien? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Moloch: Stop trying to bully everyone who says anything. That's what I'm tired of hearing.
- AngelBlsd: I'm never going to agree with you on this point. I don't think God - if she exists - intends us to close our eyes and our minds to the things in the world around us. If it is an antediluvian script, or Atlantean, or extraterrestial - I want to study it, understand it, and teach people about it.
USER: FringeDr | POSTED 5-6-1990 20:22:58
SUBJECT: RE: RE: Lots (Raven)
Yes, absolutely, send it over to Beinecke Library and have it compared to the original text. If it is a duplicate, I'll have to consider whether it is some form of remote perception, or if it is somehow connected to whatever source originated the original Voynich Manuscript. Assuming this isn't some kind of hoax, of course. I've hired a PI to look into my subject's background to see if there's any red flags - I don't want to publish anything that might turn into a thing once journalists start digging.
USER: Raven | POSTED 5-6-1990 21:19:59
SUBJECT: RE: RE: RE: Lots (Raven) (FringeDr)
Cool. I've faxed it over to my friend at Beinecke, and I'll let you know what he says. I didn't tell him where it originated - I want him to keep an open mind. Let me know what your PI finds out - or if your subject thinks they can decode any of this.
USER: Moloch | POSTED 6-6-1990 0:35:00
SUBJECT: Who Cares?
If you can't read any of this, what's the point? Especially if you think it is mundane garbage anyway?
USER: Raven | POSTED 6-6-1990 9:47:43
SUBJECT: RE: Who Cares? (Moloch)
Some people like learning for its own sake. Not you, obviously.
USER: SilverLeaf | POSTED 6-6-1990 14:05:16
SUBJECT: RE: RE: Who Cares? (Moloch) (Raven)
Moloch: DOWN, boy! AngelBlsd: God never told us to check our brains at the door. God probably wants us to use ALL our gifts, including intelligence and curiosity.
What I know about the V manuscript leads me to tend towards it being a demonstration of the craft of a manuscript-maker. But I dunno. It could be something more. I just tend to go with my old anthropology professor's words: Things change. But also, things don't change. If we go into flights of fancy today, and create D&D worlds (and other gaming worlds), why couldn't people from earlier times?
So, the Voynich manuscript is obviously proof that worldbuilding already has been a thing in medieval times. How else to explain a made up language that doesn't exist anymore?
That’s one of the main theories, and my personal view ;)