The Voynich Ninja

As far as I understand limited analysis has been conducted on the subset of Voynichese termed by some as labelese.

It would be nice to rerun many of the statistical or other analyses of the text just for labelese, so as to see where there are similarities and differences between labelese and non-labelese text. In addition I am interested in the study of labelese in its own right as I contest this ought to be Voynichese in its simplest form and so the most amenable to efforts to decipher it.

However I wonder how easy it is to distinguish between labels and non-labels in whichever file the complete text in stored. Presumably single word labels could be viewed as sentences or paragraphs with only one word in them. Then I don't know if it is easy to get hold of the source code for the various tests the seem as possibly being relevant and modifying the code to run just for the labelese subset; reproducing all the code could prove to be quite a hassle, so it would be nice if I can avoid that. I don't doubt this is more difficult to do than my description, but at some stage, when I have the time, I would like execute as many relevant tests as possible on labelese.(It may at times be unclear as to what is sentence text and what constitute single word labels).

I have not worked yet with the Voynich text file (s) or database or however else the text is stored and am pretty ignorant on EVA etc. However I am perfectly happy working with code, databases etc. so I am not daunted by that.

Any opinions on how easy/hard it will be to do this given the way data is stored and existing code made available, would be worth knowing.

Marco Ponzi has done analysis of labelese which would be worth reading before you start your own. I'm sure he will respond here before long.

Thanks Emma, I did not know that!

Hi Mark,
labels are a great subject: I am sure there are numberless interesting things that await to be discovered in this area.
The thread mentioned by Emma is this one:
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If you happen to replicate something of what I did, that will also be welcome, since errors are always possible and double checks can only improve things.

If I remember correctly, when I researched the subject, I was not familiar with the ZL You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. They make it easy to select labels (e.g. you can search for strings like "Lc" "Lf" in each line header).

Unfortunately, I fear that statistical analysis will not be enough on its own and some kind of crib or what Nick Pelling terms a block-paradigm in the end will be needed as well. I have what I think is maybe a small crib, 7 words, but that is going to enough even with excellent statistical analysis. However it is worth doing the stats anyway.

Great Marco, thanks a lot for your input

(14-04-2019, 02:37 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have not worked yet with the Voynich text file (s) or database or however else the text is stored and am pretty ignorant on EVA etc. However I am perfectly happy working with code, databases etc. so I am not daunted by that.

Mark,

as several others have already noted, it is very easy to extract all labels or specific types of labels from the existing transcription files.

Now it is understandable that you don't yet have much knowledge / experience with Voynich MS transcriptions in any form.
However, given this, I wonder how you can make statements about the likely type of cipher that is behind the MS text, and ignore the opinions of the several people who are very familiar with this topic.

Rene: I have read what has been documented as to the properties of the text. Running my own tests and being aware of the results of other tests are two quite separate things. For example being aware of the presence of repeated words doesn't require me to have coded up some program to search the text for repeated words. Similarly knowledge of EVA is not necessary to understand existing results. I have read up on the aspects to the text for example on your website as well as other places. I have also made some observations of my own of the text. However running a more detailed analysis of labelese than has been done before should help me learn more that I wish to know.

Rene: Paying attention to the raw facts of results of analysis and relying on the opinions of others are two quite separate things. Opinions are opinions and facts are facts. Anyway, I have asked for your opinion. I have no problem with other people's opinions as long as they are justified. But if someone were to say "it is not a diplomatic style cipher" and then provide no adequate justification then that's not going help me much. I have a variety of reasons that I believe it to be so, some relating to the structure of the text some due to other reasons.

Rene: Anyway this thread is all about me asking for an opinion on a topic, so I am not averse to getting other people's opinions, but I also form my own opinions on matters.