@ Torsten
Quote:In the end, the most plausible hypothesis for the Voynich manuscript is that the text generation method described in this paper was used to generate a meaningless pseudo text.
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I have to disagree here in the vein of the entirety of the VMS. If this is your belief, I don't think you have applied enough statistics for the possibility that Gematria is the underlying meaning for the VMS. Yes mixed letters that add as numbers for every word could be an invented language, privy to the Author and that is possible; so why not run your numbers again on some my suggestions.
In the text what I define as "label text" the letter q occurs ca. 288 times.
The pattern of the text in the labels follows the exact same rules as the text, although there are minor differences such as frequencies shift.
But those are normal because the label text is 1469 and contains much less words. (text is 3905 lines)
The discussion should not be here on numbers. Because we probably all have the same numbers and understanding of the text thus far.
What is interesting about Torsten's theory is that he saw patterns. If I understood it well, you wrote a large set of rules and that can mimic the VMS text, correct?
A ruleset is very interesting as a solution if it is simple and can be applied easily.
Such a ruleset could be as rigid as a formula (possibly not here) but can also be intuitive.
For example: start writing: based on the first word you come up with, you are forced by the rules to write down a word from a pool that consists of x words.
Mixed with specific lettering rules such as, if you write an ch you can make it sh, if ... etc.
What the meaning of such a ruleset is, is not interesting at this point.
Any language has such ruleset, because it has been agreed upon by the people that use that language.
If we can focus on that set of rules, and really define it, the meaning will (hopefully) follow after that,
because we can see which other language has a similar ruleset and decipher and translate the VMS text.
@ Torsten and David
I apologize, I can see it is correct that the underlying text is not understood, if letters are arranged in such a manner, where it would be interpreted as just another text similar to eva! Even if we changed, "eva" to the exact table used by the Author and lets say it is using a form of words as numbers instead of a system which a language follows; how can one scientifically solve the VMS and find the language?
After looking over your work I decided to use excel as an extraction tool for Voynich eva and convert 809 common words of it to my cipher! This will give me the average word number from the total. As in words equaled to numbers!
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Then I will compare it to the average number totals of Latin, Middle German, Middle English and Eva to see which language has a higher or lower numeric value when compared. This is different analysis then average word length. I'm looking to see if there is a relationship in the languages to see if one of these has a closer average word number to my cipher.
The thing that I keep coming back to is the fact that, if Voynich was like English, the word list would look like:
brick
blick
bwick
bruck
brock
brack
bryck
brin
brit
brip
brim
brin
bren
bran
brap
drick
orick
arick
erick
urick
yrick
ifick
ofick
efick
enick
anick
ofin
arin
brol
brug
bring
bris
brib
grick
gris
obruck
ebrack
abreck
ubrin
ubrit
And so on...
But what you would not find is a completely unrelated word like "apple"
Although if you did find "apple," you'd also find:
appel
appil
appul
grapple
gramle
adel
amel
afel
avil
tavil
tamil
rapil
gepple
lupple
pepplu
And so on...
Note that, occasionally, you would get some false positives—some things that looked like meaningful words. After all, in just making autocopying substitutions above, I did come up with some real English words ("bran," "brim," "bring," "grapple"). So it's not like it's totally unprecedented for languages to have some words of theirs that are similar to each other. What you don't see, though is where ALL of the words are similar to each other.
I see you make the same point in your latest paper, Torsten, with "the" also generating words like "phe" "khe" and "theee" if the VMS were like English.
The shaded percentage tables really seal the deal.
If you look at the Arabic example, already by the time you move to looking at words 1 edit distance away, there is hardly any discernable pattern, except for a tendency to not use similar words right after one another, and a slight tendency to use similar words at the same position in earlier lines (you see this in poetry—for example, if the ends of lines rhyme, you are going to see the line endings look like "ball," "fall," "tall," etc., or "cat," "sat," "hat." I don't know if the Quran was written a bit poetically, but it wouldn't surprise me. I bet if you had looked at words with edit distances of two in the Quran, the patterns would have disappeared entirely.
Whereas, with the VMS, the wider you cast the edit-distance net, the stronger the pattern becomes—like throwing a stone onto the page and seeing the similar words ripple out around it. Amazing.
(10-01-2017, 02:21 PM)Psillycyber Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I see you make the same point in your latest paper, Torsten, with "the" also generating words like "phe" "khe" and "theee" if the VMS were like English.
The shaded percentage tables really seal the deal.
If you look at the Arabic example, already by the time you move to looking at words 1 edit distance away, there is hardly any discernable pattern, except for a tendency to not use similar words right after one another, and a slight tendency to use similar words at the same position in earlier lines (you see this in poetry—for example, if the ends of lines rhyme, you are going to see the line endings look like "ball," "fall," "tall," etc., or "cat," "sat," "hat." I don't know if the Quran was written a bit poetically, but it wouldn't surprise me. I bet if you had looked at words with edit distances of two in the Quran, the patterns would have disappeared entirely.
Whereas, with the VMS, the wider you cast the edit-distance net, the stronger the pattern becomes—like throwing a stone onto the page and seeing the similar words ripple out around it. Amazing.
All this really shows is that Voynichese is not like English or Arabic. By contrast, look at a table of allowed syllables in Mandarin Chinese, for instance:
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The possible syllables of Mandarin certainly do form a "network". It is not exactly the same as Voynichese in every respect, of course, but this is getting us a lot closer.
I think the point about similar words having similar frequencies would be at least partially true of Mandarin syllables as well (it is also only partially true of Voynichese). Off the top of my head, xian/jian/qian are all very common in Mandarin but xiong/jiong/qiong are relatively rare. This is true despite the fact that there is no relationship between these syllables in terms of meaning.
It's not just that all vords are similar to all other vords (which perhaps pinyin can match). It is that vord similarity has spacial patterns on the pages of the VMS. If you took a random Mandarin text written in pinyin and applied the spatial test, would you really see a similar pattern to the VMS?
Also, isn't one reason that pinyin words are spelled similarly to other pinyin words the fact that pinyin is not a native script for Mandarin, and thus similar but distinct sounds get lumped together under the romanization of the script? Also, do we want to entertain the possibility that the VMS is written in Mandarin? I mean, I guess anything is possible at this point, but in any case Mandarin would only be a relevant comparison if you think that the VMS could be written in Mandarin.
Quote:Sam G Wrote:
Any chance you'd be willing to expand them further to include:
- Suffixes: eol, eor, eody, o, es, ees, os, eos
aiin (469) daiin (863) odaiin (60) okaiin (212) qokaiin (262) kaiin (65) taiin (42) otaiin (154) qotaiin (79)
ain ( 89) dain (211) odain (18) okain (144) qokain (279) kain (48) tain (16) otain ( 96) qotain (64)
air ( 74) dair (106) odair ( 5) okair ( 22) qokair ( 17) kair (14) tair (13) otair ( 21) qotair ( 6)
ar (350) dar (318) odar (24) okar (129) qokar (152) kar (52) tar (43) otar (141) qotar (63)
ail ( 5) dail ( 2) odail (--) okail ( 1) qokail ( 1) kail ( 1) tair (--) otail ( 1) qotail ( 1)
al (260) dal (253) odal (13) okal (138) qokal (191) kal (23) tal (20) otal (143) qotal (59)
am ( 88) dam ( 98) odam ( 6) okam ( 26) qokam ( 25) kam ( 9) tam (--) otam ( 47) qotam (12)
os ( 29) dos ( 1) odos (--) okos ( 8) qokos ( 1) kos ( 3) tos ( 4) otos ( 4) qotos ( 1)
or (363) dor ( 73) odor ( 8) okor ( 34) qokor ( 36) kor (26) tor (23) otor ( 46) qotor (29)
ol (537) dol (117) odol ( 2) okol ( 82) qokol (104) kol (37) tol (48) otol ( 86) qotol (47)
y (151) dy (270) ody (46) oky (102) qoky (147) ky (25) ty (16) oty (115) qoty (87)
ey ( 1) dey ( 1) odey ( 1) okey ( 63) qokey (107) key (14) tey (11) otey ( 57) qotey (24)
eey ( 3) deey ( 7) odeey ( 2) okeey (177) qokeey (308) keey (44) teey (20) oteey (140) qoteey (42)
cthaiin ( 13) ckhaiin ( 3) chkaiin (18) chtaiin ( 4) chaiin ( 45) chdaiin ( 16) chodaiin (44) cheodaiin (11) chedaiin ( 32)
cthain ( 4) ckhain ( 1) chkain (12) chtain ( 3) chain ( 18) chdain ( 9) chodain ( 9) cheodain ( 8) chedain ( 19)
cthair (---) ckhair (--) chkair (--) chtair ( 1) chair ( 1) chdair ( 2) chodair ( 2) cheodair (--) chedair ( 1)
cthar ( 20) ckhar ( 3) chkar (12) chtar ( 3) char ( 72) chdar ( 20) chodar (14) cheodar ( 4) chedar ( 30)
cthal ( 7) ckhal ( 4) chkal (13) chtal ( 6) chal ( 48) chdal ( 19) chodal ( 7) cheodal ( 7) chedal ( 24)
ctham ( 1) ckham ( 3) chkam ( 3) chtam ( 1) cham ( 20) chdam ( 10) chodam ( 1) cheodam ( 2) chedam ( 6)
cthos ( 1) ckhos ( 3) chkos (--) chtos ( 1) chos ( 38) chdos ( 1) chodos (--) cheodos (--) chedos ( 1)
cthor ( 45) ckhor ( 9) chkor ( 1) chtor ( 2) chor (219) chdor ( 8) chodor (--) cheodor ( 2) chedor ( 2)
cthol ( 60) ckhol (22) chkol ( 3) chtol ( 5) chol (396) chdol ( 2) chodol ( 2) cheodol (--) chedol ( 6)
cthy (111) ckhy (39) chky (18) chty (13) chy (155) chdy (150) chody (94) cheody (89) chedy (501)
cthey ( 50) ckhey (32) chkey ( 8) chtey ( 1) chey (311) chdey (---) chodey ( 2) cheodey (--) chedey ( 1)
ctheey ( 13) ckheey (11) chkeey (13) chteey ( 1) cheey (174) chdeey ( 1) chodeey (--) cheodeey ( 1) chedeey ( 1)
char ( 72) chear ( 51) cheear ( 1) cthear ( 1) ckhear ( 1)
chal ( 48) cheal ( 30) cheeal ( 2)
cham ( 20) cheam ( 5)
chos ( 38) cheos ( 33) cheeos ( 7) ctheos ( 1) ckheos ( 3) kcheos ( 5) tcheos ( 6) ches (36) chees (33) chs (18) cthes ( 3)
chor (219) cheor (100) cheeor (14) ctheor ( 1) ckheor ( 1) kcheor ( 4) tcheor ( 3) cher ( 5) cheer ( 2) chr ( 9) cther ( 1)
chol (396) cheol (172) cheeol ( 9) ctheol (10) ckheol ( 7) kcheol ( 5) tcheol ( 6) chel (--) cheel ( 1) chl (26)
-eol, -eor, -eody, -es, -ees, -os, -eos occur less frequently since they did not belong to the main part of the network. For this reason we will also find more 'missing' words for this branch of the network. The point for the VMS is that ALL words are part of the network. This is at least true for words occurring four time or more.
The second important fact for the VMS is the reason for the observation that similar words occur with similar frequencies. Similar words occur side by side in the VMS [see You are not allowed to view links.
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okchey okedy qokchedy chedy qokedy okar chdy okar char chkaiin chsy is therefore not a coincidence.
(10-01-2017, 05:08 PM)Psillycyber Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's not just that all vords are similar to all other vords (which perhaps pinyin can match). It is that vord similarity has spacial patterns on the pages of the VMS. If you took a random Mandarin text written in pinyin and applied the spatial test, would you really see a similar pattern to the VMS?
I'm not sure which spatial patterns you're referring to, but there are some posts in the VMS list archives by Jorge Stolfi showing that reduplication in the VMS occurs at a similar frequency as it does in East Asian languages.
Quote:Also, isn't one reason that pinyin words are spelled similarly to other pinyin words the fact that pinyin is not a native script for Mandarin, and thus similar but distinct sounds get lumped together under the romanization of the script?
Mainly in the case of vowels, but I think you could replace pinyin with IPA and see the same basic phenomenon. It's an intrinsic fact about the syllable structure.
Quote:Also, do we want to entertain the possibility that the VMS is written in Mandarin? I mean, I guess anything is possible at this point, but in any case Mandarin would only be a relevant comparison if you think that the VMS could be written in Mandarin.
It's definitely not written in Mandarin, but it's a relevant comparison because Torsten has effectively asserted that these properties of the VMS text prove that it cannot be a natural language text, yet these properties can be found in Mandarin Chinese, at least if we ignore tone and treat each syllable as a separate word. Of course, modern Mandarin has tones and polysyllabic words. So you could argue that representing Mandarin in this way is not "valid", but then again we don't know if the VMS script completely represents its language either. It's fairly common for scripts to be incomplete in some way.
The point is not that it's the same in every respect, just that the same basic properties can be found in other written representations of known languages, so the arguments presented by Torsten that the VMS text can't be a written representation of a human language don't look so strong after all.