Re: Oh no, it's Voynich again

Gerard Cheshire still seems to be doing the rounds of various scholarly
lists, trying to find someone to accept his theory.

However, the consensus among linguists, medieval scholars, and cryptography
experts familiar with the Voynich manuscript seems to be... negative... to
put it politely.

Lisa Fagin Davis, executive director of the Medieval Academy of America,
summed it up:

"As with most would-be Voynich interpreters, the logic of this proposal is
circular and aspirational: he starts with a theory about what a particular
series of glyphs might mean, usually because of the word's proximity to an
image that he believes he can interpret. He then investigates any number of
medieval Romance-language dictionaries until he finds a word that seems to
suit his theory. Then he argues that because he has found a
Romance-language word that fits his hypothesis, his hypothesis must be
right. His "translations" from what is essentially gibberish, an amalgam of
multiple languages, are themselves aspirational rather than being actual
translations.
In addition, the fundamental underlying argument=E2=80=94that there is such=
 a thing
as one 'proto-Romance language'=E2=80=94is completely unsubstantiated and a=
t odds
with paleolinguistics. Finally, his association of particular glyphs with
particular Latin letters is equally unsubstantiated. His work has never
received true peer review, and its publication in this particular journal
is no sign of peer confidence."

Even the Journal of Romance Studies where it was published (Cheshire makes
a big deal about it being peer-reviewed) now seems to have withdrawn his
paper. It seems to be a kind of post-modernist literary theory journal,
more comfortable with papers like "Beckett and French war propaganda",
"Toward a progressive cosmopolitanism", "Gender, body, and archive in the
work of Mariona Giner", and "Male nudity and trauma in Marc Recha=E2=80=99s=
 Pau i
el seu germ=C3=A0 and Dies d=E2=80=99agost".


There's a detailed example of Cheshire's (ahem!) 'translation' here:

https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fcipherm=
ysteries.com%2F2017%2F11%2F10%2Fgerard-cheshire-vulgar-latin-siren-call-pol=
yglot&data=3D02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40lsv.uky.edu%7Cfcc000e7d8e343e0069a0=
8d77ec0ac3c%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C1%7C637117238294141867=
&sdata=3DQgHECdOpjj1Dw%2BUXJK4Kvno4rpUdGujhqKfuptNykfM%3D&reserved=
=3D0



And a careful and thorough evisceration of Cheshire's theory in the
following two links:

https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fvoynich=
portal.com%2F2019%2F05%2F07%2Fcheshire-recast%2F&data=3D02%7C01%7CCLASS=
ICS-L%40lsv.uky.edu%7Cfcc000e7d8e343e0069a08d77ec0ac3c%7C2b30530b69b64457b8=
18481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C1%7C637117238294141867&sdata=3DNjYVpV2jKPyhY%2FJh8=
Szk9SgUiO1r7uMYkuxtip6m278%3D&reserved=3D0

https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fvoynich=
portal.com%2F2019%2F05%2F16%2Fcheshire-reprised%2F&data=3D02%7C01%7CCLA=
SSICS-L%40lsv.uky.edu%7Cfcc000e7d8e343e0069a08d77ec0ac3c%7C2b30530b69b64457=
b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C1%7C637117238294141867&sdata=3D9sxYHB98vUGwsLBIw=
rqBg05edxVffTrHnVUrrpZ9qk8%3D&reserved=3D0

Mark D