The Voynich Ninja

Here is an example of the beginning lines of the oldest extant prose text in Old Polish, the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., from the 13th-14th c., rendered into my Slavic VCI interpretation and into the standard EVA transcription of Voynichese as well.

The text from which these lines are taken You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Note that this version of the text appears to be printed in a more modernized Polish orthography, rather than in the original more ambiguous and inconsistent Old Polish orthography.


Original text in modern Polish spelling (as found in the version above):

"... [ży]dowskiego [w jego] mieście wsze [?] 
sława krola wszechmogącemu i [mowi 
krol asy]rski do króla Ezechijasza, króla 
żydowskiego i do l[uda jego]: a wiem, 
prawi, pwacie w moc Boga waszego wadzący 
[się z mocą króla moc]niejszego."


The same text in my Slavic VCI alphabetic interpretation:

<z ido w sc# iego w iego mie# sc# ie# w sze#>
<sw w c# ro l w szech mo go cé# mw i# mo w i#>
<c# ro l as ir sc# i# do c# ro l iez iech ias z c# ro l>
<z ido w sc# iego i# do lw d# iego # wie# m#>
<prz# w i# pw cie# w mo c# bo g# w szego w go ci#>
<sze# z mo co c# ro l mo c# nie# szego>


The same text in the standard EVA transcription of Voynichese:

[ol chokaiin or ldy cheodaiin or cheodaiin qocthey ldy chey or lchey]
[lor or dy saiin r or lcheo qotaiin odaiin deey qotor chy qotaiin or chy]
[dy saiin r al chs ldy chy okaiin dy saiin r cheol cheo chal ol dy saiin r]
[ol chokaiin or ldy cheodaiin chy okaiin ror oky cheodaiin y orchey qoty]
[cthy or chy tor dchey or qotaiin dy otaiin ody or lcheodaiin or odaiin dchy]
[lchey ol qotaiin daiin dy saiin r qotaiin dy qockhey lcheodaiin]

One thing I will give to you: you are really putting a serious effort in this.

In the mean time, the translated text from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has been reviewed by a Polish historian, and his comments include:

Quote:The "transcribed" text does not look
like anything similar to Polish, while the "transformed" version makes
no sense to me.

and

Quote:... whether individual words appeared in medieval Polish -- but for some of
them I am quite convince they are modern, not earlier than the 19th c.
(eg. laluś or biedactwo)

(19-10-2020, 04:18 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.One thing I will give to you: you are really putting a serious effort in this.

In the mean time, the translated text from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has been reviewed by a Polish historian, and his comments include:

Quote:The "transcribed" text does not look
like anything similar to Polish, while the "transformed" version makes
no sense to me.

and

Quote:... whether individual words appeared in medieval Polish -- but for some of 
them I am quite convince they are modern, not earlier than the 19th c.
(eg. laluś or biedactwo)

Thank you for the feedback from the Polish scholar; I appreciate it.

For now I would just like to make a few preliminary comments in light of the Polish historian's comments on my interpretation of the passage.

First of all, I appreciate the fact that Rene sought out this feedback from a Polish scholar. 

Second, insofar as the discussion is at the level of my opinion vs. that of a Polish historian, obviously I cannot expect anyone to believe me against the Polish scholar. Of course that much is quite clear to me.

Nevertheless, I believe it remains possible that my interpretation may still reflect the presence of some actual West Slavic language or dialect in the text, whether it be Polish or Silesian or something even more obscure (or perhaps unknown). A combination of the obscurity of the language, the difficulty and archaic nature of the text, and my own mistakes in some details of the interpretation could very well make it seem unrecognizable or nonsensical to a Polish scholar. When Ventris first claimed to have deciphered Linear B as Mycenaean Greek, even many Greek scholars did not believe him and claimed that his deciphering did not look like Greek. Please note: I am not trying to compare myself to Ventris! I am just making an observation about the initial stages of scholarly reaction to his claims. 

Of course it is obvious that I will have to find Polish or West Slavic scholars who agree with me, in order to expect anyone to take my theory seriously. That necessity is and always has been completely clear to me.

It is understandable that the "transcribed" text does not look much like Polish. Likewise, the literal transcription of Linear B does not look much like Greek either: For example, the Greek word "skhoinos" appears literally as "ko-no" in Linear B! The Greek word "basileus" appears literally as "qa-si-re-u" in Linear B; the Greek word "grawes" appears as "ka-ra-we". 

Whether the "transformed" version makes sense or not is the much more serious issue. Again, it is my responsibility to convince a Polish or West Slavic scholar that it can make sense, in order for the theory to receive more serious consideration.

It is possible that my interpretations of the words "laluś" and "biedactwo" are mistaken. In the case of "biedactwo" it was perhaps already rather a stretch to derive this meaning from the literal text of "bec~wo" or "bec~ w o". It is possible that the text reflects some older word with a similar root and meaning, without the same middle syllable as the more modern word. And perhaps "laló" may reflect a different word, perhaps a proper name or simply an archaic word or term that is unknown now. 

Again I wish to thank Rene and the Polish historian for providing this critical feedback on my interpretation of the passage.

Geoffrey

Speaking of Ventris, another minor difference is that he was less obsessed with four-letter words.

(16-10-2020, 05:02 AM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.English translation:

"he threw and fucked her cunt five inches, the man completely sober rode with lust
When his sword threw off her cunt, her gorget held his cock like a branch

(19-10-2020, 06:42 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Speaking of Ventris, another minor difference is that he was less obsessed with four-letter words.

When an author very carefully and deliberately prefaces the presentation of obscene or profane language in a text with a long and detailed cautionary advisory warning note to readers, then to quote only the obscene language, and omit the prefatory cautionary advisory note to readers, is a textbook definition of a deliberately misleading quotation out of context. In this case it is the person who posts the misleading quotation out of context, rather than the original author, who is actually the one who is demonstrating an obsession with the obscene language.

For the record, here is the cautionary advisory note that actually preceded the obscene language that Marco quoted entirely out of context from my earlier post:

"CAUTION: Readers should be advised in advance that my reading of the first three lines of this paragraph has revealed that this is a rather bawdy medieval Silesian / Old Polish verse (Silesian is a southern dialect of Polish along the Czech border). It contains the obscene language and vocabulary that one would expect in a bawdy verse. Naturally, to present an accurate reading and interpretation of the language and content of the text as I have analyzed it, it is necessary to include the obscene Silesian / Polish words and their most accurate colloquial English translations that preserve the spirit of the original text as I read and interpret it, without censoring the text or using euphemistic or neutral scientific biological translations of the words that do not convey the real idiomatic sense and meaning of the original. I hope that readers and members of this forum understand that the interpretation I present below is my honest best reading of the ms text according to my West Slavic theory of the script, and not by any means an attempt to produce an obscene interpretation of the text for its own sake."

Geoffrey

Yes, what strikes me is that both 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 results are so similar to what You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. does. She also shows an appropriate red warning before her translations:

Monica Yokubinas Wrote:CAUTION: if you are easily offended by strange medical practices, medical procedures, offensive terminology, or descriptions of the human body, functions and intercourse, than please read no further.

Since we know that the process you both follow is arbitrary, the content you obtain is 100% the result of your own minds. You could choose any kind of subject, but the results tend to focus on specific words and meanings.
The internet is so full of this stuff that it is not surprising that it finds its way to Voynich fora as well. I guess that Monica's advice to "read no further" is the best possible option in these cases.

(19-10-2020, 08:17 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, what strikes me is that both 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 results are so similar to what You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. does. She also shows an appropriate red warning before her translations:

Monica Yokubinas Wrote:CAUTION: if you are easily offended by strange medical practices, medical procedures, offensive terminology, or descriptions of the human body, functions and intercourse, than please read no further.

Since we know that the process you both follow is arbitrary, the content you obtain is 100% the result of your own minds. You could choose any kind of subject, but the results tend to focus on specific words and meanings.
The internet is so full of this stuff that it is not surprising that it finds its way to Voynich fora as well. I guess that Monica's advice to "read no further" is the best possible option in these cases.

Just so that readers can fairly compare my methods with those of Monica Yokubinas, allow me to quote a very typical example of Yokubinas' methods. I take this example directly from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:

" ‘spquzr’ is “spq” means entrance + “zr” means to vex awake, hence the word East. "

You cannot seriously compare my methods in this thread with the method of Yokubinas, who reads the literal meaning of a word as a compound "entrance+vex awake" and decides that this means "East". There is clearly and obviously a vast difference between such a method and anything I have done in my method in this thread.

I may also note that I would not be the first person named "Geoffrey C." to have an interest in obscene literature of the late 14th and early 15th centuries 

I do wonder if the author(s) of the Voynich manuscript were familiar with the Miller's Tale...

"Thus swyued was this Carpenteris wif"

(If John Wycliffe could inspire Jan Hus in Bohemia, perhaps Chaucer could have inspired the authors of the Voynich manuscript in Central Europe as well!?)

(19-10-2020, 09:59 PM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You cannot seriously compare my methods in this thread with the method of Yokubinas, who reads the literal meaning of a word as a compound "entrance+vex awake" and decides that this means "East". There is clearly and obviously a vast difference between such a method and anything I have done in my method in this thread.

Sorry, I forgot that many people don't like to read the work of other researchers so you are not familiar with how Monica's translations are done. Maybe You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. will clarify things. I think she is quite accurate in describing what she does, so hopefully the basic concepts will be easy to grasp. The core of your method is identical and is based on throwing away morphology and syntax.


Step1: like yourself, Monica uses a mapping table to convert from EVA to a target alphabet (the Latin alphabet in your case, the Hebrew alphabet or Hebrew transcribed into Latin for Monica). This step is reasonably reproducible.

Monica:
EVA You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Lines 1 /2:
<f2v.1,@P0>      <%>kooiin.cheo,pchor.otaiin,odain.chor.<->dair.shty
<f2v.2,+P0>      kcho,kchy.sho.shol.qotcho.loeees.qoty.<->chor.daiin

Voynich Phonetic, Line 1: Haash ypapyan achusharush yan ruttAyaychg
Voynich Phonetic, Line 2: Hyahyyg ydya ykyaz kachya zafqb kachg yan rutta

You:
EVA transcription:

[podaiin  shdar  ypchdar  dar  ypchdy  qopol  dar  keshor  dchdal  cholairy]
[ytor  chol  shdy tody  qotchdy  otchol  chees  ar  eeodaiin  or  aral  alkam]

Slavic VCI reading and interpretation:
<Pdzo  rzcal  #Pical  cal  #Pic#  Mz  cal  terzw  cicas  izál#>
<#pw  iz  rzc#pdz#  mic#  brz  jér  al  égo  w  alas  astá(s)>

You both have produced strings of letters that are more or less pronounceable, but nothing like your supposed target language. By now, you should know that what you get from Step1 "does not look like anything similar to Polish". Like Cheshire's proto-Romance this language (Caveneyse B) does not exist, yet Monica's method allows you to translate it into grammatical English!
You were equally successful with Judaeo-Greek (Caveneyse A) translating
EVA: teeodaiin shey epairody osaiin yteeoey shey epaiin oaiin
into
English: "When the whole Earth and all the continents are in the shadows, as they said"


Step2: Here you hammer the meaningless output of Step1 into a word salad from your target language. Monica does this with Biblical Hebrew and (following my suggestions) included for each word Strong’s Concordance number.

Monica:
Voynich Phonetic, Line 1: Haash ypapyan achusharush yan ruttAyaychg
Voynich Phonetic, Line 2: Hyahyyg ydya ykyaz kachya zafqb kachg yan rutta

becomes:
Hebrew: Ha ash Ypypyh an achshvrvsh ynh  rht yay chg
Hyh ygh ydyh ykch az kch yah zap qb kch ynh rht

Strong’s #1888 #786/787 #3304 #204,* #325 #3238 #7298 #3273 #2282
#2422 #3014 #3042 #3198 #227 #3581/* #3261 #2196 #6894 #3581/* #3238 #7298

You:
VCI: <Pdzo  rzcal  #Pical  cal  #Pic#  Mz  cal  terzw  cicas  izál#>
<#pw  iz  rzc#pdz#  mic#  brz  jér  al  égo  w  alas  astá(s)>

becomes:
pizdą rzucał, pizgał cal pięć, mąż cał trzeźwy chcicą-s jeżdżał
po zrzucił pizdę miecz, bryż dzierżał jego wała-s astą-s

Similarly to Monica, you have matched the output of Step1 to legal words. In order to do that, like Monica, you had to modify 90% of the words. But, differently from Step2, now you are not bound to any fixed set of rules or tables: you can just pick up a dictionary and choose at will any word that seems more or less "similar" to the meaningless characters. Of course, the list of Polish words you get "makes no sense" to someone who speaks Polish. But the individual words are meaningful and this meaning is at least 90% arbitrarily chosen by the translator.


Step3/4: you go through the word salad picking a corresponding English word for each source word. The miracle is that from the meaningless output of Step2 both you and Monica produce grammatically correct English!
Monica has been careful to introduce an intermediate Step3, where she just translates into an ungrammatical English word-salad. This makes it easy to understand what you both are doing. You jump to Step4 (grammatical English) directly. Here it is important to understand that 100% of the syntax of the final output is arbitrarily created by the translator: the output of Step2 has no syntax.

Monica:
Step3: Look there is/foundation beautiful wheel/in Ahasuerus (possibly, brother Lotus). Take advantage of watering trough/pond sweep up religious feast,
Lively to remove God favored discipline at that time, recipe to take away, rage dry measure (curb urges) recipe to take advantage of pond/watering trough.

Step4: Look at Ahasuerus the beautiful foundation wheel. Take advantage of the pond to gather a religious feast.
God favored discipline, a recipe to take away urges in measure and a recipe to take advantage of the pond.

You: 
Step4: he threw and fucked her cunt five inches, the man completely sober rode with lust
When his sword threw off her cunt, her gorget held his cock like a branch

---

From a slightly different angle, Step2 assumes that words are arbitrarily modified, there is no space for morphology. 

• Why is 'cunt' expressed as podaiin/pizdą in line1 and tody/pizdę in line2?
  
• How do you get pizdę from tody if 'y' is a null? Couldn't it mean 'pizdą' again?
  

You, like Monica, are not interested in these details. You take it so far that you are happy to assume that word endings can be freely dropped (or replaced with nulls) even in a heavily inflected language like Polish, where suffixes bear much of the content.
While Step2 does away with morphology, Step3 and 4 butcher the very notion of syntax. This is of course an unavoidable consequence of Step2. Monica was explicit about this:

Monica Yokubinas Wrote:I do not know the language or structure, I can only pull out Hebrew root words.

On the other hand, I doubt that you are aware of this feature of your method: the ability to transform gibberish into grammatical English is the essence of it. If you knew what you are doing, you could not seriously say that it is much different from what Yokubinas does.

Other things you have in common is that you don't address many of the features of Voynichese, like Currier languages, line effects, or word-boundary effects. But these are details, really.

Of course I know you will keep doing this, as Monica does. The great power of this method is that you always get something meaningful to you in the end. You can try proto-Romance, Hebrew, Judaeo-Greek or Polish and you can never fail. Many people find this irresistible.
I understand that these translations give you the possibility of expressing things that are important to you and this is an almost totally harmless way to do so.