The Voynich Ninja

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The article covers "the strange lack for parallel context surrounding different occurrences of the same word." (D'Imperio 1978, p. 30)

The method used in the paper depends on punctuation. But this only means that the paper underrates context dependency in the case of texts using natural languages.  In the case of the VMS no punctation exists. Therefore, the handling of punctation doesn't do any harm.

In natural languages words depends on their context. We refer to this type of context dependency rules as grammar. For the VMS it is not possible to describe rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases, since clauses or phrases doesn't exist (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., p. 82). 

It is is only possible to find a few repetitive phrases in the VMS. In fact there are only 35 word sequences which use at least three words and appear at least three times. Only for five of these sequences is the word order unchanged for the whole manuscript, whereas for 30 out of 35 phrases the word order does change. An additional observation is that in 24 out of 35 cases these repeated sequences use at least two words which are either spelled the same or very similarly. This means sequences in the VMS occur repeated since the words are similar. (see Timm 2014, p. 3)
You mention two features of Voynichese that you believe suggest a relationship with Latin:

(31-01-2020, 11:38 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The use of suffixes as shown in the VM.

It is likely that languages without suffixes exist somewhere in the world, but I don't know which they are. For instance, English, German, Hungarian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Hebrew use different suffixes for different functions. Suffixes do not support Latin in particular.

(31-01-2020, 11:38 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Application at the beginning of words like ( o, 8, 9, 4 ).

Prefixes are not frequent in Latin: I would say that less then 10% of words include a recognizable prefix. On the other hand, more than 50% of Voynichese words begin with one of o d y q. This is one of the many macroscopic differences between Voynichese and Latin.

Nothing in Voynichese suggests that it could be Latin.
(31-01-2020, 01:56 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The article covers "the strange lack for parallel context surrounding different occurrences of the same word." (D'Imperio 1978, p. 30)

The method used in the paper depends on punctuation. But this only means that the paper underrates context dependency in the case of texts using natural languages.  In the case of the VMS no punctuation exists. Therefore, the handling of punctation doesn't do any harm.

It could be that it is as you say, yet it would be nice to have a way of computing plots that so cleanly separate Voynichese from other texts. If we could reproduce their results, we could also experiment with other texts with no punctuation and verify that this really is irrelevant. My preliminary attempts (using the networkx Python library) are not being very successful: in particular, scrambled texts appear to result in higher mean clustering C than original texts, while in the paper the opposite happens. I guess I must have misunderstood or mis-implemented their graph-scrambling method or some other side of what they did. I will be unable to work on this for a few days, but I could resume my attempts in the future.
From a Latin perspective, o,8,9,4 may not make sense. From an Alemanic point of view it does.
This is also not evident in High German.
Possibly the description ( wrong prefix ), it rather describes an addition to the context of the word.
I bring an example:
In the past: "brings zlaufä"
today: "bring's z'laufä"
German: "bring es zum laufen". It's actually 4 words.
It's usually two words in one. Not only s, and z, have a meaning. Also e, i, a, d, etc.
Therefore a connection German Latin is well possible, (from the alemanic view).
Why do you think so many words begin with o ?
I am sure he uses alemanic style in connection with Latin.
So the statistics alemanic german-latin should be closer to the VM than latin from the Italian region.
(31-01-2020, 11:23 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I bring an example:
In the past: "brings zlaufä"
today: "bring's z'laufä"
German: "bring es zum laufen". It's actually 4 words.
It's usually two words in one. Not only s, and z, have a meaning. Also e, i, a, d, etc.
Therefore a connection German Latin is well possible, (from the alemanic view).

As You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., low conditional entropy suggests that Voynichese words result from expansion. Your example is the opposite: some kind of compression / contraction, resulting in new digraphs like 'gs' and 'zl'. You are again providing evidence that contradicts your idea.

Anyway, I didn't say (and I don't think) it is impossible that it is German Latin. I think it is just as possible that it is English, Italian, Hungarian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Urdu or Chinese.

(31-01-2020, 11:23 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why do you think so many words begin with o ?

I have no idea.

Scholars like Stephen Carlson and Jürgen Hermes have pointed out that the algorithmic-gibberish theory by Timm and Schinner is the best available. I think that, until we found an actual written text that exhibits something like Voynichese o-, qo-, qot-, qok-, Currier A/B, reduplication, quasi-reduplication etc., things will not change. I would like to fully understand this paper by Cárdenas et al. because I hope it could help us understand more of the relationship between Voynichese and other written texts.
I'm sorry, but it's not coming back.
The example I brought you is a normal writing style. Daily use and is variable from person to person.

It doesn't contradict what Rene said either.
Your statement could be Hungarian, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Urdu or Chinese. Yes it can, if you are satisfied with a probability of 1-3%.
33% of the world's population speaks Chinese, 33% Indian.
Even if the statistics speak, I don't think it comes from the Far East.
(31-01-2020, 11:23 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.From a Latin perspective, o,8,9,4 may not make sense. From an Alemanic point of view it does.
...

Why do you think so many words begin with o ?
...
[/quote]

I do not think of them as words. I think of them as glyph-patterns arranged into tokens with strong positional characteristics. Maybe some of them are words... and maybe not.
It makes sense when I tie it to the word. In french. ( d' l' a' ) in alemanic ( d, n, s, e, i, ä )
(13-02-2020, 11:02 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It makes sense when I tie it to the word. In french. ( d' l' a' ) in alemanic ( d, n, s, e, i, ä )
French d' l' m' n' s' t' stand for de le me ne se te when followed by a vowel.
Thank you nablator
I never paid much attention in French.
Your information tells me that it is normal in french, and not just in alemanic.
What about in Latin?
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