The Voynich Ninja

Actually, what Ruby is doing is not very different from what Geoffrey is doing.

In Ruby's translations, vowels are fairly interchangeable, and in the most recent one, s can be z in one case and s in another, e or ee can be various vowels (i or o or omega).

And that's just one word. If you were to string four VMS tokens in a row and treat them the same way, many interpretations of the phrase would be possible (not all would be valid, but there would definitely be a number of choices such that coming up with something readable is more likely).

Geoffrey: could you say how you would transcribe the labels into Greek, without necessarily having to interpret them the correct way?

(29-03-2019, 05:10 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Linda Wrote:

(29-03-2019, 03:33 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I've created 4 transcripts, so I have looked at every character in the VMS many times.

I'm not convinced it's otal. I think it might be a blobby okal, not a loop. In cases like this, I record it in the transcript with both alternatives and I step away from choosing one or the other.

I could see that getting very bulky, but i appreciate it as an extension of your open mind philosophy.

It's not especially bulky. It may happen a couple of times per folio, but that's not a lot.

I think it's more important to acknowledge and even preserve an ambiguity than to make an incorrect assumption. There's enough text that the ambiguities would eventually be resolved by discovering how the text is constructed.

Agreed, and given the tricky nature of the imagery, it wouldnt surprise me if such an ambiguity turned out to be purposeful, and possibly even key to a solution.

(29-03-2019, 01:39 AM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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.

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Geoffrey Caveney

This one did not sit right with me upon first impression.

Is there any example of JudaeoGreek, or any language that has ever used sevenths interchangeably with sabbaths? 

I tried looking it up and found sevenths are favoured, but in relation to everything from kings to sons to worlds (the first mentioned) lands to years to cycles to months to days, but without mention of a sabbath except in relation to years, However in that sevenths or sevens are favoured, your statement becomes true without issue if you change sabbaths back to sevenths.

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Otherwise i could see your conclusion as possibly being projection based, ie you know the sabbath is on the seventh day, which resulted in your final translation, but its Jewish cultural content was intertwined with that translation of sevenths, ie you put it there by translating it in the way you did, but if that was not intended, then it wouldnt be there. I dont think you can use a parameter you used to translate it as proof of further meaning or correlation. 

Also, it doesnt seem right that sabbaths would be referred to as being in the mythos, which upon quick check in greek usage means stories of the unreal, ie mythology. one would think the sabbath would not be equated as such to one who holds it as holy. If anything it would be in the ethos, the characteristic spirit of the culture. Unless it is being discussed by someone outside the culture, then i can see it being used as is.

If it was the seventh world, that might fit in more with being in the mythos, ie seventh heaven.

Linda, I agree 100% with what you say on both counts. Nobody talking about their Sabbath would link it to the term mythos.

But Perseus gives the alternate definition of μῦθος as You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., the latter "without distinction of true or false". Geoffrey, why did you decide it meant mythos? I'm not coming across that definition, but my Greek is basically nill.

(29-03-2019, 08:12 PM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(29-03-2019, 01:39 AM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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

This one did not sit right with me upon first impression.

Is there any example of JudaeoGreek, or any language that has ever used sevenths interchangeably with sabbaths? 

I tried looking it up and found sevenths are favoured, but in relation to everything from kings to sons to worlds (the first mentioned) lands to years to cycles to months to days, but without mention of a sabbath except in relation to years, However in that sevenths or sevens are favoured, your statement becomes true without issue if you change sabbaths back to sevenths.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Otherwise i could see your conclusion as possibly being projection based, ie you know the sabbath is on the seventh day, which resulted in your final translation, but its Jewish cultural content was intertwined with that translation of sevenths, ie you put it there by translating it in the way you did, but if that was not intended, then it wouldnt be there. I dont think you can use a parameter you used to translate it as proof of further meaning or correlation. 

Also, it doesnt seem right that sabbaths would be referred to as being in the mythos, which upon quick check in greek usage means stories of the unreal, ie mythology. one would think the sabbath would not be equated as such to one who holds it as holy. If anything it would be in the ethos, the characteristic spirit of the culture. Unless it is being discussed by someone outside the culture, then i can see it being used as is.

If it was the seventh world, that might fit in more with being in the mythos, ie seventh heaven.

The point about the significance of "seventh" ones in general in Jewish culture is a good point. This underscores the broader significance of the word εβδομες in this context.

But the Greek word is also used to mean "sabbath" specifically. Liddell & Scott's A Greek-English Lexicon for example under the entry for εβδομος (the basic dictionary entry form of the same word) specifically cites the definition "sabbath" and gives the citations "Ph.I.675, Ep.Hebr.4.4". Further, there is the related word εβδομαζω with the definition "keep the Sabbath" and the citations "Lxx Ez.21.23(28), Tz.H.10.675".

About the meanings of the Greek word "mythos", there are many:

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"1. something said: word, speech, conversation
     1. public speech
     2. (mostly in plural) talk, conversation
     3. advice, counsel, command, order, promise
     4. the subject of a speech or talk
     5. a resolve, purpose, design, plan
     6. saying, proverb
     7. the talk of men, rumor, report, message
2. tale, story, narrative
     1. tale, legend, myth
          1. (in Attic prose) a legend of the early Greek times, before the dawn of history
     2. a professed work of fiction, fable, such as those of Aesop
     3. the plot of a tragedy or comedy"

And "mythos" in English likewise has the definitions "anything transmitted by word of mouth, such as a fable, legend, narrative, story, or tale (especially a poetic tale)" and "a story or set of stories relevant to or having a significant truth or meaning for a particular culture, religion, society, or other group; a myth, a mythology"

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I don't see any reason why the original Greek word, based on the set of definitions above, cannot also have the connotation of "a story or set of stories relevant to or having a significant truth or meaning for a particular culture, religion, society, or other group".

Geoffrey

 The Septuagint (translation of old testament into Greek, 2nd century BC) has ἑβδομάζω meaning to keep the sabbath, and the epistle to the Hebrews 4.4 has ἡ ἑβδόμη meaning the sabbath. So the usage has both old and new testament precedents.

Edit: ground also covered by Geoffrey's simultaneous post above. 

(29-03-2019, 06:50 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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).

First of all, I want to thank Rene for his critical comments. If we want to read, interpret, and understand the text of the Voynich MS, we have to be methodical about the process. Criticism is an essential part of the methodical process. I appreciate it.

I also appreciate the specific detailed criticism of the interpretation of the word [chedkaly]. I understand that Rene's specific criticism of one word of course does not mean that he accepts the other words either, but nevertheless it can be productive to focus on one specific thing at a time. And this is a critical word, so it is a good word to begin with.

As Rene often emphasizes, it is important to think about the encryption process, which the author/scribe used, rather than just the decryption process, which we use to interpret the encrypted text. Here is the encryption process that I propose was employed for this word:

plausible late medieval Greek word form: εβδομες

plausible Judaeo-Greek word form: היבדאמש

Voynich MS word form: [chedkaly]

Every letter in every step of this process looks completely logical and plausible to me. 

Furthermore, in terms of the ambiguity in the possible interpretation of Voynich characters as plain text characters, there are two separate layers of this: primarily the consonants in interpreting the Voynich form as Judaeo-Greek, and primarily the vowels in interpreting the Judaeo-Greek form as Greek.

1) The ambiguity of the vowels in interpreting Judaeo-Greek, without the vowel diacritic dots, as Greek, is simply an established historical linguistic fact. I did not invent this ambiguous system myself out of whole cloth; it arose historically from the lack of vowel letters in the Hebrew script.

Thus we find the first Greek epsilon in the word written as Hebrew he+yod, and the second Greek epsilon in the word not written in Hebrew letters at all. The second epsilon would have been indicated only by Hebrew vowel diacritic dots, which are not written in the Voynich MS. The initial Hebrew he is perfectly logical, as the representation of the Greek initial "rough breathing" in the historical etymology of the Greek word. As for the Hebrew yod, it is possible that this glide is written because the vowel precedes a voiced fricative consonant, whereas it is not written for the second Greek epsilon because this vowel precedes a voiceless consonant.

2) Now let us consider the ambiguity of the consonants in interpreting the Voynich form as Judaeo-Greek. First of all we can easily deal with cases such as the "ambiguity" of Voynich [y] as Judaeo-Greek shin / Greek sigma or Judaeo-Greek zayin / Greek zeta. Could you please provide me with a list of native Greek words that end in final zeta? I think it will be a short list. The consonant value of this Voynich character is not ambiguous at all here. Not at all.

Voynich [d] is a critical letter. I understand JKP's concern about the status of this character as either a vowel or a consonant, but in fact this also arises naturally from Greek and Hebrew phonology. The Hebrew letter vav can likewise be either a glide /w/ that functions to signify the place of a vowel, or a consonant pronounced /v/. Moreover, the Hebrew letter bet is very often pronounced /v/ as well. This coincidence of the pronunciation of the Hebrew letters vav and bet provides a natural explanation for the use of Voynich [d] to represent either Hebrew letter. In native Hebrew words, the historical etymology clearly distinguishes and determines where to write vav vs. where to write bet. But in using the script to write Judaeo-Greek words, no such etymological basis for the distinction would have existed. In fact, the most natural counterpart for vav in the Greek script would have been digamma, but that Greek letter famously disappeared from the standard language even before the Iliad and the Odyssey were written down. If one considers Voynich [d] as the equivalent of Hebrew vav/bet and thus of Greek digamma/beta, its status as either a vowel/glide or a consonant makes much more consistent and logical sense within the entire phonological system as presented in the Greek : Judaeo-Greek : Voynich letter correspondence table.

The point is, even if the [d] in Voynich [chedkaly] were interpreted as the Judaeo-Greek vowel/glide letter vav rather than the consonant letter bet, it would still be pronounced the same way, and it could still derive from Greek beta in either case - since we know it didn't derive from Greek digamma!

Thus, the remaining ambiguity of the consonants in interpreting Voynich [chedkaly] as Judaeo-Greek is really all about whether Voynich [d] and [k] represent voiced or voiceless stops or fricatives. But first of all, Judaeo-Greek using the Hebrew script doesn't even distinguish the voiceless stop /p/ from the voiceless fricative /f/ ("ph"), nor the voiceless stop /t/ from the voiceless fricative /th/. And neither the Hebrew script nor the Greek script distinguishes the voiced stop /b/ from the voiced fricative /v/, nor the voiced stop /d/ from the voiced fricative /dh/ ("th" in English "the"). Thus, the only real ambiguity in interpreting these consonants Voynich [d] and [k] lies in whether they represent voiced or voiceless consonants.

I interpret them here as voiced consonants, thus representing Judaeo-Greek -בד- and by extension Greek -βδ-. But what if one wanted to argue that one could equally well interpret them as voiceless consonants, as Judaeo-Greek -פת- and by extension Greek -πτ-?

Well, in this case the root of the word would change from Greek εβδομος "seventh" to ... Greek επτα "seven"! All of the supposed ambiguity of the consonants in my proposed encryption/decryption system, as applied to this word, amounts to the simple alternation between the Greek stems for "seven" and "seventh".

=======

As for the supposed ambiguity of Voynich [l] in [chedkaly] as either "m" or "n", you can look up every single Greek word beginning with εβδ- or επτ- in Liddell & Scott's A Greek-English Lexicon and not find a single form where the next consonant is nu. Once one has identified the root of this word, the consonants of the rest of the word are completely clear and unambiguous.

The Voynich word stem [chedk-] determines three things in my system:
1. It begins with a front vowel or diphthong, possibly preceded by rough breathing ("h").
2. It then has a labial obstruent consonant (since the glide vav is pronounced the same as bet / beta in this context).
3. It then has a dental/alveolar obstruent consonant. (The cluster [-dk-] is not common in the Voynich MS text, so I interpret its occurrence here as a specific representation of a consonant cluster without an unwritten vowel in between them.)

In Greek, such a root in the semantic and grammatical context of the rest of the sentence is overwhelmingly likely to be επτα / εβδο- "seven / seventh". One finds not a single entry in A Greek-English Lexicon beginning with ηπτ- or ηβδ-. There is the root υπτι- "lay oneself back, fall back", etc., but neither the semantics of the sentence nor the grammar of the sentence nor the word ending of [chedkaly] provides any truly plausible form of this root as a candidate to be this word. With ιπτ- one finds a modern Greek form such as ιπταμενος "flying ; aircrew, flyer". This is perfect for anyone with a theory about UFOs, flying saucers, and the Voynich MS; not so much for the rest of us.

Moreover, the ambiguities between the various roots [font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]επτα / εβδο-, υπτι-, ιπτα-, etc., may exist in written Judaeo-Greek in the Hebrew script, just as much as they exist here in the Voynich MS script! In such writing systems, readers simply have to use general context and their familiarity and experience with the language in order to figure out the meaning of each word. Experienced readers of Arabic, for example, can even read Arabic texts without the dots marked, and in Arabic the dots distinguish between different consonants, not just the vowels! The point is, a Judaeo-Greek reader of the Voynich MS who knew the encryption and correspondence system that I propose was employed, who knew the language well, and who knew the cultural context of the text, could have figured out that [chedkaly] means "היבדאמש" means "εβδομες", despite the certain amount of phonetic ambiguity in both the Voynich and the Judaeo-Greek forms of the word.[/font]

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It is going to take a long time to go through all 38,000 individual words in the Voynich MS one by one in this way, in order to convince some people that the MS is written in Judaeo-Greek, but I believe that the effort will be worth it.

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Geoffrey Caveney

OK, let's see if I can get this straight.

Your theory is that Voynichese is a transliteration of Judaeo-Greek, which I understand to be known more formally as Yevanic.
Yevanic is a dialect of Greek written using the Hebrew alphabet.

So far, so good. Yevanic is mutually intelligible with Greek; and the conquered Moors of Spain did the same thing with Arabic (the literary tradition of the aljamiadas). No doubt there are some differences, it isn't straight Greek, but I understand that essentially a Greek and a Yevanic can chat perfectly happily together.

Two questions thus occur to me. Maybe I'm just not understanding the system properly.

• Why the additional translation into the Greek alphabet? Essentially, the word is the same in Yevanic and Greek, just that two different scripts are used, unless we are looking at a dialect argot or Hebrew loan word. Are you saying that the user was a Greek writer who transliterated his text twice? Otherwise, we seem to have added an arbitrary layer of transliteration that isn't needed. Voynichese -> Yevanic -> Greek --> English can logically be distilled into Voynich -> Yevanic --> English.
  If the underlying text is Greek, then we don't need Yevanic. If it is Yevanic, we don't need the Greek.
  
  
• The whole point of Yevanic was because the script was sacred to the users. They used the sacred Hebrew characters to write down their (new) mother tongue, ie Greek. Transliterating Hebrew into Voynichese defeats the purpose of this. What's more, I would assume that an orthodox Yevanic (Jew) wouldn't do this - they would go from Greek and keep the sacred script intact. Of course, this is subjective and we can't prove this. It is a consideration however - it seems more likely that the Greek variant word would have been used rather than the Yevanic. It also seems strange that they would not include the diacritics, and would invert the script direction (left to right as per Latin, rather than right to left as per Hebrew / Yevanic).
  

.

I am satisfied on the sabbath seventh issue, a little less so with mythos, but that is ok. 

If you are making a list of pages for translations to soothe the curiousity and/or hope for congruity of others, my request would be for f76r. I hope you try Koen's request first though