![Jennifer Oullette](https://i0.wp.com/arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/arspic300.jpg?w=660&ssl=1)
Medieval scholar: "Sorry, folks, 'proto-Romance language' is not a thing."
The Voynich manuscript is a famous medieval text written in a mysterious language that so far has proven to be undecipherable. Now, Gerard Cheshire, a University of Bristol academic, has announced his own solution to the conundrum in a new paper in the journal Romance Studies. Cheshire identifies the mysterious writing as a "calligraphic proto-Romance" language, and he thinks the manuscript was put together by a Dominican nun as a reference source on behalf of Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon. Apparently it took him all of two weeks to accomplish a feat that has eluded our most brilliant scholars for at least a century.