The Voynich Ninja

There are thousands of pages of analysis, theory, speculation and pure ranting about VMS out there.  Some of it conflicting, some of it taken as fact just because it's been taken as fact for decades, some of it interesting but impossible to prove.

What I want to do here is outline some things about VMS which everyone can agree on, mainly so that I have a starting point for my analysis but maybe long term so that when we are discussing VMS someone can say "that's not a point of common agreement" and have a place to reference the claim.  I'm limiting myself to the text itself, if someone wants to do something similar for images, the physical manuscript and so on that's fine but I don't want to put any of that in this post. 

I'm going to try to limit myself to the facts we know.  I may occasionally say that it's reasonable to assume or speculate something.  If I start claiming things are "possibly" something, feel free to shoot me down in a comment; there are so many things that are possibilities listing them isn't helpful.  I will edit this post if I need to add, modify or delete items on my list.

VMS is written in a set of distinct characters.
There are 25 characters in the set. (attach jpg illustrating each character)
It is not know what any character represents. 
More than one character is written in the same place on some pages.
The character set is used to encodes information in strings of these characters.
Character distribution in these strings is ordered, i.e not random.
There is no string of these characters with a known meaning.   
The strings are written left to right.
Individual strings can be organized into arrays separated by spaces.
Arrays are permitted to span lines.
Arrays can be used to label images.
Not all arrays are aligned with the left margin.
A blank line can be used to separate arrays.
None of the characters are used as punctuation.
None of the characters are used only as representations of numbers.

Lets see what discussion those generate, if any.  I can add more if anyone actually cares enough to comment

(31-01-2016, 11:35 PM)crezac Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There are 25 characters in the set. (attach jpg illustrating each character)

I'm not sure you'll get agreement on this point.

We don't even know which ones might be ligatures and, since there appears to be more than one hand that has contributed to the main text (excluding marginalia), we're not even sure whether the "other hand" (or hands) has introduced additional glyphs or has misinterpreted or miswritten them.

Also, the more you study the characters, the more one realizes there are two or three glyphs that may have been overlooked as meaningful but uncommon characters and a couple that may not be two characters but may be intended to represent one.

We're not even sure if 4o is one character or two. These characters are usually written together, in this order, but there are exceptions. Are the exceptions mistakes? Are they exceptions (in the sense of the scribe needing to express something different) or is this a ligature?


You also need to define a "set". Do you mean the total number of unique glyphs or the total number of glyphs with individual meaning possibly related to sounds or letters? There may be null characters that contribute nothing linguistically.

There doesn't seem to be much interest in defining a good set of accepted facts for discussion so I'm not going to add more.

Although since it is worth discussing I will observe that most people working on a linguistic solution seem to make too many working assumptions with nothing in VMS to support them.

Hi crezac, I had no idea that this post was here, so let me give you my opinion belatedly.

Quote:VMS is written in a set of distinct characters.

By distinct do you mean "discrete" or "unique". I would broadly agree that the characters are discrete, but certainly not that they are unique.

Quote:There are 25 characters in the set. (attach jpg illustrating each character)

There's a core set accounting for most of the text and a bigger set of all characters. The number of characters in the core set is anywhere from high teens to low twenties. As JKP points out though, we certainly could have the count wrong. But beyond [e] and [i] sequences, I personally think we're broadly right.

Quote:It is not know what any character represents. 

It depends on if you mean this exactly or broadly. I have ideas, which I can support with arguments, that certain characters represent certain things. I can't be sure of any exact values, however.

Quote:More than one character is written in the same place on some pages.

I don't know what this means.

Quote:The character set is used to encodes information in strings of these characters.

I would agree with this, and most would. But some (Rugg, Timm) would definitely object.

Quote:Character distribution in these strings is ordered, i.e not random.

I think everybody would agree with this.

Quote:There is no string of these characters with a known meaning. 

Again, it depends on how exactly you mean "known". None of the strings have been read, in my opinion, but some definitely refer to the images.

Quote:The strings are written left to right.

Yes. I haven't seen any recent objections to this.

Quote:Individual strings can be organized into arrays separated by spaces.

Broadly, yes. They can be organized in this way and that such division is likely meaningful. But I'm increasingly unsure how much strings on either side of a space are truly separate. Marco's recent statistics make me wonder that each string may contain, at the beginning and end, traces from neighbouring strings.

Quote:Arrays are permitted to span lines.

I'm not sure that everybody would agree with this. Even though I agree that arrays do span lines, I believe they only do so with the addition of new information. A new line is in itself an informative or encoding event.

Quote:Arrays can be used to label images.

Yes.

Quote:Not all arrays are aligned with the left margin.

Yes.

Quote:A blank line can be used to separate arrays.

I don't know how much it is a blank line rather than vertical space. Even then, arrays seem to be separated without any vertical space whatsoever.

Quote:None of the characters are used as punctuation.

Pelling would contest this, for sure.

Quote:None of the characters are used only as representations of numbers.

Some of the rare characters may be. It's wholly possible that the design of the script was borrowed from one already existing, in which (like many of the time) characters were used for numerals, but that characters representing certain sounds were left out except for their numeral use.

Quote:Although since it is worth discussing I will observe that most people working on a linguistic solution seem to make too many working assumptions with nothing in VMS to support them.

Can you give me some examples? I'm personally happy to make assumptions, but I would like to be aware of them and their possibility to invalidate my research.

OK, I'll wade in.

• VMS is written in a set of distinct characters. Yes
  
• There are 25 characters in the set. Yes and here's my You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.- are we in agreement as to the actual glyphs?
  
• It is not know what any character represents.  Yes
  
• More than one character is written in the same place on some pages. Not sure what you mean here
  
• The character set is used to encodes information in strings of these characters. No - see 1 below
  
• Character distribution in these strings is ordered, i.e not random. No - see 2 below
  
• There is no string of these characters with a known meaning.    Yes
  
• The strings are written left to right. Yes
  
• Individual strings can be organized into arrays separated by spaces. Yes (visually at least)
  
• Arrays are permitted to span lines. Not sure off the top of my head, examples?
  
• Arrays can be used to label images. Yes (visually, at least, there is a case for this unless it is a deception by the author)
  
• Not all arrays are aligned with the left margin. Not sure off the top of my head, examples?
  
• A blank line can be used to separate arrays. Yes
  
• None of the characters are used as punctuation. Yes, to a certain degree of probability
  
• None of the characters are used only as representations of numbers. Unknown - see 3 below
  

1. This is unknown, as we don't know what the text says. Whilst there is a case to be made for gibberish or random information, we can't say it encodes information. There is also the "one way encription" scenario which could mean the information is lost - and so we can't say it encodes information. We'll know the answer when - we can read the text!
   
2. Actually, see 1 above.
   
3. Unknown. The text could be a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
   

I'm also quite curious about arrays spanning lines - wasn't aware of that.

I agree with most of the above, except for David's "yes" on the 25 characters in the set. For example, I see EVA "iin" as either one or two sounds, and quite a number of possible different characters while some people would see three separate sounds and only two characters. 

Also:  

Quote:None of the strings have been read, in my opinion

 
I think they have   
But I agree there's no way to be sure about any reading at the moment.

"...Arrays are permitted to span lines...."

I'm not going to say this never happens, because I don't know what the text means, but it appears (at least on the surface) to not happen or to happen less often than in documents of the time.

There are rules as to how the word-tokens are structured and I've seen at least one instance where an expected glyph was left out rather than carried over to the next line because the text butted up tight against a drawing and there wasn't space to add it.

(09-03-2016, 02:30 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi crezac, I had no idea that this post was here, so let me give you my opinion belatedly.

Quote:VMS is written in a set of distinct characters.

By distinct do you mean "discrete" or "unique". I would broadly agree that the characters are discrete, but certainly not that they are unique.

CR:  Perhaps what I meant was a distinct set of characters.  Some of the glyphs look like they might have been borrowed from or influenced by early Latin, Maltese or Etruscan alphabets, to name some possibilities, but we don't have another document which uses the complete set to encode information.

Quote:There are 25 characters in the set. (attach jpg illustrating each character)

There's a core set accounting for most of the text and a bigger set of all characters. The number of characters in the core set is anywhere from high teens to low twenties. As JKP points out though, we certainly could have the count wrong. But beyond [e] and [i] sequences, I personally think we're broadly right.

CR: I used a number I found in another post here.  I'm not certain of the 25, hence the edit, but it would be useful to narrow it down as much as we can if only to avoid ongoing discussion of whether 2 character are the same or different.

Quote:It is not know what any character represents. 

It depends on if you mean this exactly or broadly. I have ideas, which I can support with arguments, that certain characters represent certain things. I can't be sure of any exact values, however.

CR:  I mean that while many people have speculated and some have found "vowels" or things they think correspond to what they believe are specific consonants whe aren't even certain that this alphabet encodes sound as opposed to pure semantics.  The numbers and punctuation comments were struckout out for the same reason. if we don't know what the text says we don't know that there aren't glyphs which are used for numbers and have some other value too.  Or that a glyph meaning stop isn't slipped in where we would use a period. 

Quote:More than one character is written in the same place on some pages.

I don't know what this means.

CR:  There are characters that have other characters written over top of them.  Possibly they are unique and distinct from their component parts.  Possibly the component parts are each separate glyphs.

Quote:The character set is used to encodes information in strings of these characters.

I would agree with this, and most would. But some (Rugg, Timm) would definitely object.

CR: Anyone who thinks it's a hoax would disagree.  A string can be as short as a single character so string length doesn't invalidate the statement.  The only point I think open to general debate is whether information is being encoded.

Quote:Character distribution in these strings is ordered, i.e not random.

I think everybody would agree with this.

Quote:There is no string of these characters with a known meaning. 

Again, it depends on how exactly you mean "known". None of the strings have been read, in my opinion, but some definitely refer to the images.

CR:  Yes.  I think it's clear some of the strings are labels and that provides a context for some of the strings.  But I haven't seen any work where someone has sad this character string means, to pick a totally non-random example, "coriander" and I can say "Yes, I agree with that interpretation"

Quote:The strings are written left to right.

Yes. I haven't seen any recent objections to this.

Quote:Individual strings can be organized into arrays separated by spaces.

Broadly, yes. They can be organized in this way and that such division is likely meaningful. But I'm increasingly unsure how much strings on either side of a space are truly separate. Marco's recent statistics make me wonder that each string may contain, at the beginning and end, traces from neighbouring strings.

CR:  I still think the spaces are meaningful as separators, but I expect the glyph groups to be more meaningful and I think there is meta-semantic structure within and among glyph groups.

Quote:Arrays are permitted to span lines.

I'm not sure that everybody would agree with this. Even though I agree that arrays do span lines, I believe they only do so with the addition of new information. A new line is in itself an informative or encoding event.

CR:  I think there's an example of a label that is on three lines.  I'll see if I can find it this evening.  Although it's three words on three different line so it might be one word on three different lines making it a string rather than an array.  Nothings ever simple ;-)

Quote:Arrays can be used to label images.

Yes.

Quote:Not all arrays are aligned with the left margin.

Yes.

Quote:A blank line can be used to separate arrays.

I don't know how much it is a blank line rather than vertical space. Even then, arrays seem to be separated without any vertical space whatsoever.

Quote:None of the characters are used as punctuation.

Pelling would contest this, for sure.

CR:  Strikeout

Quote:None of the characters are used only as representations of numbers.

Some of the rare characters may be. It's wholly possible that the design of the script was borrowed from one already existing, in which (like many of the time) characters were used for numerals, but that characters representing certain sounds were left out except for their numeral use.

CR:  It's also possible that it's like hieroglyphics and that the word for for example, Ox can also represent 100.  Or like Roman numerals.  But you're right I can't support this statement either, hence the strikeout.  Strikeout indicates that all or part of the idea was considered and rejected.  It's kept on the list to prevent having to discuss it 6 months from now as a new idea.

Quote:Although since it is worth discussing I will observe that most people working on a linguistic solution seem to make too many working assumptions with nothing in VMS to support them.

Can you give me some examples? I'm personally happy to make assumptions, but I would like to be aware of them and their possibility to invalidate my research.

I don't think there's anything wrong with starting with an assumption as a starting point.  The danger comes when someone makes a whole series of assumptions, and never finds evidence that supports any of them.  Anyone starting where they left of has a bunch of assumptions to work with and usually makes a few more to keep the ball rolling.  Some things that are still assumptions, like that glyphgroups have a pronunciation based upon a sound associated with each glyph, seem to have some general support but they are still assumptions.  To move beyond that to start searching for syllable structure seems, in my non-professional opinion, to be a bit premature.  If you can prove phonological encoding you have a basis for syllabification.  As it is you're going to have to prove both before anyone will accept that you have syllables anyway.

I think Bax has a valid starting point in working with the labels, but I think he's tried to find specific solutions rather than a ranked list of possible solutions for his selected labels.  It feels too much like hearing hoof beats moving away and trying to prove zebras came through when you're standing in a pile of horse droppings on asphalt.  Those hoof beats mean something, but rather than imagining some pretty patterns on the street and connecting them to ancient Arabic stylized drawings of zebras to tell the BBC it was zebras that did it, someone really needs to dig through the crap, do some unpleasant analysis and get some better results.

There are people looking for narrative structure, which I think is probably pointless.  The document has aspects of an herbal, a cookbook, a ledger, and an academical or philological work.  But I don't see any parts of it that I would say looks like a novel, poem, diary or anything else that would definitely contain a story.

Obviously my opinions aren't too important, but that doesn't make them wrong.  Lots of research gets published that I find suspect.  Lots of theories get public support that I don't accept.  And I'm not going to be peer reviewing anything even if I were asked; it's not on my bucket list.  But I would ask you to do this.  Look at what your research uses as a starting point.  Based on that add more items to the list of common points of agreement.  From that you'll be able to see how many other things need to be proven before starting a discussion of narrative structure, syllabification or the entomology of the Voynich language.  I'm not saying that all this work isn't worth doing or that it definitely is built on too many assumptions, I'm say that as worthwhile as it is, it sure looks like there are lots of assumptions behind much of it.