The Voynich Manuscript through an Intersemiotic Approach: A translation by Angelica Garel

Abstract

The Voynich Manuscript is known as the world’s most mysterious manuscript. With that taken into consideration, it will be highly unlikely that it will be decoded by myself as there have been many intellects who have done so or rather, have tried to do so, in the past. In regards to the analysis of the Voynich Manuscript, a sense-for-sense approach to translation helps aid in the deconstruction, since I am not able to translate this piece through a word-for-word process, as there is an untranslatable linguistic problem present. The methodology that I will utilize in regards to translating this work of history, precisely, the untranslatable, will involve a close and detailed analysis of specific parts of the manuscript in order to try and conclude whether or not this manuscript is a hoax or not. I try to translate the untranslatable by using what is familiar within the illustrations and linking this to the unknown text through filling in the incomprehensible parts of the text with the information I do have from the illustrations. The close analysis of the six categories within the manuscript helps decode the unknown to determine how my art piece is created and why. I do so by comparing each of the sections of the manuscript to health and the body in a modernistic view, as I believe this theme all links together. By incorporating Fitzegerald’s method of translation into my own, archaizing this manuscript is where “the SL text is perceived as the rough clay from which the TL product is moulded” (Bassnett, 75). It can also be looked upon as “an adaptation” (ibid, 75) as this is my take on a manuscript that still has yet to be decoded.