u/According-Ad8211

I'm not a professional researcher

just someone who stumbled into this rabbit hole and noticed some things I haven't seen discussed together before. Happy to be corrected.

Background

I recently looked at the Voynich Manuscript for the first time with no prior deep knowledge of existing theories. What I noticed led me down a chain of observations that I want to share, because when I checked the literature, some pieces are supported by existing researchers — but a few seem to be new angles, especially the Socotra connection.

I'll lay it out as a chain of observations, not conclusions.

Observation 1 : The plants look like they're from Socotra Island

The first thing that struck me was that the botanical illustrations don't look like invented plants. They look like real plants drawn badly from memory . specifically, plants with swollen caudex bases, minimal upper foliage, and unusual succulent proportions that don't exist in European or Mediterranean flora.

The closest match I could find anywhere: Socotra Island (Yemen), which has 37% endemic plant species found nowhere else on Earth. Specifically:

Dorstenia gigas : swollen base, small leafy crown, flowers directly on the stem. This exact silhouette (large base, narrow top) is the most repeated plant shape in the Voynich botanical section, and it doesn't exist in European flora of the period.

Jatropha unicostata : similar swollen trunk, lobed leaves matching several Voynich illustrations

Nirarathamnos asarifolius : low cushion-like globular form, appears in high-altitude Socotra, similar rounded shapes appear in Voynich

Important note: The author didn't need to visit Socotra to know these plants. Socotra was documented in Arabic medical literature . Ibn al-Baytar (an Andalusian botanist) and Ibn Sina both referenced plants from the Arabian Sea trade routes. A learned Andalusian or Arab scholar could know Socotra's flora through manuscripts and trade contacts without ever leaving Spain.

Observation 2 : The drawing style is Islamic, not European

The human figures in the manuscript look like someone tried to draw Europeans using an Islamic miniature painting training.

Specifically:

Faces are flat, frontal, with large almond eyes and neutral expression . consistent with Islamic manuscript tradition, NOT Italian Renaissance style (which dominated Europe in 1404–1438, the carbon-dated period)

Figures are arranged in horizontal registers, not in perspectival space

There is no shading, no depth, no anatomical detail . again, inconsistent with contemporary European art

The clothing is absent or generic . and this seems deliberate. Clothing would immediately identify cultural origin. Faces and body arrangement betray Islamic artistic training; the clothing was neutralized.

This isn't someone imitating Islamic style. This is someone trained in Islamic visual tradition trying to pass as European , and their hand betrayed them.

Observation 3 : The script looks like phonetic transcription, not a cipher

Most decipherment attempts treat the Voynich script as an encryption of a known language a substitution cipher, anagram, etc.

But what if it's not a cipher at all?

What I noticed: the script has the rhythm and flow of a natural language written phonetically in an invented alphabet. It feels familiar but modified like watching someone write Arabic sounds using invented letterforms.

This matches what researcher Robert Edwards (2025) found: Arabic is an abjad where short vowels are often omitted in medieval manuscripts, leaving only consonants and a reader fills in pronunciation from memory and context. The Voynich text follows statistical patterns (Zipf's law) consistent with natural language, not random generation.

My hypothesis: The script is not a cipher. It's a phonetic notation system an invented alphabet used to write a real Semitic language (likely Arabic or Andalusian Arabic dialect) as it was pronounced. The reader needed to already know the spoken text; the script was a memory aid, not a standalone readable document.

This would explain why professional codebreakers failed for a century they were looking for a substitution key that doesn't exist.

Observation 4 : The book may have been designed for oral recitation, not silent reading

Following from above: if the script is phonetic notation for a spoken text, then the illustrations are not diagrams for a reader they are cues for a speaker.

Each plant image = a reminder of which remedy to recite

Each astronomical diagram = a timing cue (when to apply the treatment)

Each bathing scene = a method of application

The knowledge lived in human memory. The book was a performance script, not an encyclopedia.

This matches a well-documented tradition in Islamic medicine and Sufi transmission where a master transmitted knowledge orally, and written notes served only as mnemonics for initiates who already knew the system.

Observation 5 : The Andalusian context makes all of this coherent

Carbon dating places the manuscript at 1404–1438. Stylistic analysis suggests northern Italy.

This period coincides exactly with:

The progressive fall of Andalusian cities to Christian forces (Reconquista reaching its final stages)

The Spanish Inquisition beginning to target Muslims and Jews with forced conversion or expulsion

A documented wave of Andalusian scholars fleeing to North Africa, Egypt, and Italy

An Andalusian scholar arriving in northern Italy in this period would:

Have Islamic artistic training (explaining the drawing style)

Know Arabic botanical literature including Socotra plants (explaining the flora)

Have strong motivation to hide the content from Inquisition authorities (explaining the script system)

Not have fully absorbed European artistic conventions (explaining why the "European" disguise failed)

Supporting evidence already in the literature:

Researcher Fletcher Crowe argues the manuscript is written in Arabic using invented characters, to hide content from the Inquisition

A paper on ResearchGate identifies the word "qadi" (Arabic/Andalusian for "judge") in the text a term specific to Andalusian Arabic usage

German Egyptologist Rainer Hannig (2020) concluded the language structure is Semitic, not Indo-European

Observation 6 : The manuscript shows signs of being written in haste

The handwriting is fast and confident no hesitation marks or corrections typical of someone inventing a cipher in real time. This suggests the author was writing from memory or copying quickly from a source under time pressure.

The illustrations are unpolished relative to what a careful scholar would produce. Some plants are incomplete.

A person fleeing persecution, preserving knowledge before it was destroyed, would write exactly like this.

But this is just what i think

I am not claiming this is a definitive decipherment

I am not claiming the author was definitely Andalusian

I am not claiming Socotra is proven , only that the plant morphology is the closest real-world match I've found, and that an Andalusian scholar could plausibly have known these plants through Arabic botanical literature