The Voynich Ninja

Geoffrey, how does your method do with labels? For example those on f88-89? Or do you really need a paragraph for context?

Koen, you beat me to that question.
Geoffrey, I would like to know also about your method with labels on f88-f89.
Thanks

(28-03-2019, 09:40 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Geoffrey, how does your method do with labels? For example those on f88-89? Or do you really need a paragraph for context?

Koen and Carl, this is a very good question, and we will have to study it in more depth.

In a sense we are very lucky that the MS is in Greek, because we have such a rich and well-documented history of Greek plant names, herb names, root names, etc., going back three millennia. In other languages it might be impossible to track down and identify obscure late medieval plant names; in Greek we have a much better possibility to identify many more of them.

For example, an expert in the subject could learn the letter correspondence system, study the illustrations, and go through the works of Galen, Dioscorides, Theophrastus, etc., and compare Greek plant names to the Voynich MS label names. It is likely that there will be many people who will be more qualified to do this research than I am. But of course I will be happy to assist in the process in any way that I can.

In the meantime, this evening I must focus on preparing the second line of the last paragraph of the MS on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for posting here. I can see that it is going to be very significant in terms of identifying the cultural origin of the MS.

Geoffrey

Reading, interpretation, analysis, and translation of the second line of the last paragraph of the Voynich MS, folio page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. :

text:
[ odain  sh2ky  qorain  chckhey  qokey  lkechy  okeey  otal  chedkaly ]

Note: The final word of the line [chedkaly] is a hapax legomenon in the MS. The character sequence [chedk-] occurs only four times in the MS, all in the final section: on folio pages You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , and here on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . Remember this word; it is important.

reading:
" OpAm  miths  kOrAm  ithes  kOtis  mtheis  Oteis  OkhAm  hebdAms "

Note: This line compels me to include the Voynich character, final [-(i)in], as a representation of Greek mu as well as of Greek nu. As in the word εθελομ[εν] in the first line of the paragraph, this mu is not actually word-final in Greek, but it is the final character written in the Voynich MS representations of the words. They all represent the same 1st person plural verb suffix in these lines, as does the final letter of [otal] in the penultimate word of this line. I note that Hebrew has a special final form for the letter mem as well as for the letter nun, so the use of a distinct character for these letters in final position is consistent in this respect, although in the Voynich MS the use of this form is not mandatory in final position as it is in Hebrew.

interpretation:
" e(i)pom[en]  myth[ou]s  ka'-[ei]rom[en]  ithes  ka'-tis  m[y]theis  auteis  ekhom[en]  hebdom[e]s "

" ε[ι]πομ[εν]  μυθ[ου]ς  κα'-[ει]ρομ[εν]  ηθ[ο]ς  κα'-τοις  μ[υ]θοις  αυτοις  εχομ[εν]  εβδομ[ε]ς "

Analysis: The most striking phenomenon in the phonology and the morphology here is the preservation of the classical Greek dative case in the dative plural phrase -τοις  μ[υ]θοις  αυτοις, with the locative meaning "in these mythos", but the representation of the vowel in the classical Greek masculine dative plural suffix -οις exclusively with Voynich front vowel characters in [-ey], [-echy], [-eey], reflecting the iotacism sound change such that classical Greek "οι" is pronounced the same as iota, as /i/! This made the forms difficult to recognize, as their phonetic spellings make them appear to look more like feminine forms without the "ο"!
Ancient Greek grammars note that an aorist form such as ε[ι]πομ[εν] often occurs together with a present tense form such as [ει]ρομ[εν] in narrative.
If you know some Greek, you may recognize the well-known words "mythos" and "ethos" in this line already. If you know a lot of Greek and Latin, you may also recognize the word "hebdom[e]s", better known as "hebdomas". This is the hapax legomenon [chedkaly] that I mentioned above. I interpret the final vowel as "e" here because it must be in the accusative case as the object of εχομ[εν], "we have", and the only way I can interpret a form such as "hebdomVs", rather than a form such as "hebdomadas" or the like, is as the modern Greek feminine accusative plural form εβδομ[ε]ς.

literal translation:
" we-told mythos and-we-tell ethos and in those mythos we-have the sevenths "

freer translation:
" we tell our mythos and we tell our ethos, and in these mythos we have the sabbaths "


Definitions:

Ancient Greek εβδομας : 
"A group of seven, especially a week of seven days or a group of seven years."

Latin hebdomas (a borrowing from Ancient Greek) : 
"1. the number seven
 2. seven days; a week
 3. the seventh day"


The interpretation of this line confirms that not only was the Voynich MS script based on Judaeo-Greek, but also the Voynich MS text contains Jewish cultural content as well.

-----
Geoffrey Caveney

For completeness' sake, here is the updated Greek : Judaeo-Greek : Voynich letter correspondence table with the inclusion of Voynich final [(i)in] as a reflex of Greek mu and Judaeo-Greek mem as well as of Greek nu and Judaeo-Greek nun :

[attachment=2742]

-------
Geoffrey Caveney

Regardless of what language or system it turns out to be, I've actually been crossing my fingers almost since I first saw the VMS that the manuscript held Jewish or Pagan cultural content because so much of these cultures has been lost and it would be very interesting to learn more about them in a medieval context.

It's part of the reason I tried so hard to resolve the VMS text into Ladino or Yiddish, but I didn't have much success with those languages (I could find scattered words but not too full lines of text).

.
I'll be honest. I tried very hard to turn it into Greek, as well (I could get many many phrases, all over the manuscript, but with chunks of nonsense in between each of the somewhat-viable phrases). I had more success with this (and two other languages) than anything else.

I knew nothing about Judaeo-Greek (not sure how I missed it), so if it turns out to be Judeao-Greek, I'm going to be kicking myself for a long time.

But, if it is, then the analysis of the contents will be culturally very interesting.

My original objections are just being confirmed at each post.

- The Voynich text is converted into a string of text that is not really meaningful.
- This conversion includes a large number of inconsistent changes.
- The not really meaningful text is then adapted to a string of words in some language (here: Greek, but really a mixture of classical and medieval Greek).
- This final text is not grammatical and needs to be further explained.

A correct interpretation immediately leads to a reasonable plain text.

It would also be possible to clearly describe how this plain text resulted into the Voynich MS text.

What we have here is a proposed solution that behaves exactly like all the failed solutions we have seen in the past, namely:
- a great amount of freedom in converting characters
- a plain text that does not really mean anything

At the same time we are told why this solution that does not look right is still right, namely:
- it is a mixture of various levels of Greek
- there is deliberate obfuscation by the original author

The identification of a word that points to hebrew culture is also not at all convincing.
This is a word (in Voynichese) of which it is pointed out that it only appears once in the entire MS.
This word in Voynichese also has several characters that can be mapped to many different plain text characters. I count the number of options below:


[ch][e][d][k][a][l][y]  : [5][4][6][3][5][2][2]

(Mistakes not excluded).

The substitutions in Geoffrey's chart are rational.

• For example, I do see substitutions like t/th/d (both hard d and soft d, as in thorn) quite frequently in manuscripts.
  
• Also, k and chi are frequently substituted.
  
• Likewise pi and beta, and not just in Greek, but in numerous languages (psi I'm less sure of).
  

The most discomfiting part is the great flexibility in the vowels, and the status (in Geoffrey's chart) of d as both vowel and consonant (this happens with "y" in English but it makes it difficult to know if the substitutions are real or chosen for convenience to create words).

In other words, it's hard to check the integrity of a system that has that much freedom. It needs to be done on the basis of a large block of text. I don't think it will help much on labels, I can turn the labels into several languages without too much difficulty. It needs to be something where the grammar can be evaluated in some reasonable way.

Unfortunately, it's only a small amount of text, and some of it has been ruined, but I thought this 4th-century text in a Judaeo-Greco synagogue might be of interest to those following this thread:

[attachment=2743]

(29-03-2019, 07:46 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In other words, it's hard to check the integrity of a system that has that much freedom. It needs to be done on the basis of a large block of text. I don't think it will help much on labels, I can turn the labels into several languages without too much difficulty. It needs to be something where the grammar can be evaluated in some reasonable way.

It could be possible to get away with a few labels, but I don't think a bogus system can ever satisfactorily explain all the star labels, especially when we kindof have a target language, and this particular chart. Let's wait for him to try it first