The Voynich Ninja

(15-05-2021, 03:24 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Perhaps an illustrative way of looking at this, is to try to follow what the person did, when composing the Voynich MS text. This is from one of the most recent examples, in post #103.

The proposal is that the following plain text was encoded into the MS:

Quote:" kirche-eek -- irour-isynge, picchynge, path-isynge -- is also accitynge tir-biri "
" siest side, lo! sis dis-lisynge "

Now the fist question is whether this is valid Middle English. I am no expert, but it looks extremely weird to me. The explanation of this text in modern English is proposed to be:

Quote:" The Church also -- seeing wrath, equipping with weapons, seeing the path -- is also summoning the three regions "
" You fall down sideways, lo! [your] good fortune being ruined "

This raises two more problems: first of all this is not really a completely sensible text. It looks like the earlier mentioned "word salad" to me. The second is, that, if one really translated this into middle English, one would not end up with the proposed plain text.

It is complex English syntax, but it is grammatical and sensible to me as a native English speaker. The three phrases between the dashes in the first line are present active participial phrases that modify the subject "Church". The remaining portion of the first line is a simple, sensible, grammatical English sentence: "The Church is also summoning the three regions." Again I can not only explain the meaningful context of such a statement, but also even relate it to political events in English in 1405: The Archbishop of York famously participated in the rebellion against Henry IV that year. This is a well-known historical episode. Even Shakespeare includes it in the plot of Henry IV, Part 2. And the "three regions" refer to the three parties to the Tripartite Indenture of 1405, who proposed to divide up England and Wales among themselves after deposing Henry IV. In all of this historical context, "The Church is also summoning the three regions" makes perfect logical and historical sense from the perspective of the Duke of York and his allies in 1404-1405, who were part of the rebellion against Henry IV.

The second line above is addressed to Henry IV (Bolingbroke) directly. It insults him by using the familiar, "disrespectful" singular "thou" form of the verb, "siest". Again, although the English syntax is complex, it is grammatical to me as a native English speaker. The second part of this line is an adverbial present passive participial phrase modifying the verb and the entire action of the first part of the line, as an adverbial phrase does. One may compare the grammatical role of the phrase in the second part of the second line above to that of an "ablative absolute" phrase in Latin. Although non-native speakers of English may not often be able to compose or to easily comprehend English sentences with such complicated and complex syntax, linguistically talented native speakers and writers of English -- such as Edward, 2nd Duke of York, or such as myself -- do have the ability to do so.

Quote:However, when encoding:

Quote:" kirche-eek -- irour-isynge, picchynge, path-isynge -- is also accitynge tir-biri "
" siest side, lo! sis dis-lisynge "

it is first transformed by the encoder into:

Quote:" KrcheeeK  irOrisK  pYcK  pthisK  isOsl  KtisK  tir  iriB "
" sYOs  Ydis  lO  sis  dislisYeK "

This involves:
- numerous deletions: i, u, ch , a , a , ac , i , t ,  (maybe not complete)
- numerous changes: ynge -> K (while K is also K) , i -> Y , cc -> K , y -> i , ie -> YO , e -> Y ,
- at least one introduction of an e.

Yes. I believe this is a rather small number of changes to have to make in order to produce a text with as much not only meaningful and grammatical text but also moreover historically relevant text to political events in England in 1405. I do not believe that it is possible to produce such relevant text, with such a small number of changes, purely by random chance coincidence alone.

A few notes on the deletions and changes you cite:

The complete omission of the letter "a" is a universal feature of the cipher as I analyse it, so this deletion is completely regular and in line with the expected cipher rules.
The use of "K" to represent the present active participle ending "-ynge" or "-inge" is also a completely standard feature of the cipher as I have consistently analysed it throughout my readings and interpretations of all lines. It is by no means some ad hoc change that was invented just for these words in these lines. Moreover, this is the EVA [y] or Currier [9] character: As JKP and other knowledgeable people will tell you, this character extremely closely resembles the most common medieval Latin manuscript abbreviation symbol that is used both for suffixes and for prefixes and the preposition "cum". The use of "K" as I propose it in this cipher, in these lines and elsewhere, is quite consistent with the way that the very similar Latin symbol was used.
Writing "ou" as "O" is really an extremely minor alternation.
Representing "cch" with "c" is more of an abbreviation than a deletion, akin to writing a double letter as a single letter.
I read the word "KtisK" backwards as "KsitK", and here I read the consonant cluster "Ks" as "cc", thus producing the interpretation of the entire word as "accitynge". Neither "c" in "cc" is actually deleted according to this analysis. 
Yes, I propose that the final "-t" of the ending of the verb "siest" is not written here. Again, this is a consistent pattern throughout all of the several examples of this verb ending that I analyse in these 11 consecutive lines of text. In each case, "-Os" = "-est". Thus once again this is not some ad hoc change or deletion just for this word or these lines, but a consistent rule that can be applied throughout these 11 lines and I propose throughout the entire MS text. (To be clear, the letters "Os" do not have to represent only "-est". However, the ending "-est" is consistently represented by "-Os".)  
The "numerous changes" that you cite are a list of precisely the regular "Yorkist cipher" rules that I have been consistently describing throughout all the posts in this entire thread! The point in each case is to write as many letters as possible using the letters in the word "YORK". However, I do not see the example of "y -> i" that you claim as one of the changes in these lines. In "accitynge" -> "KsitK" -> "KtisK", the letter "i" remains the same throughout the process. The original letter "y" is part of the ending "-ynge" that is represented by the abbreviation character "K", as explained above. By the way, it is fully possible that the author spelled this ending as "-inge" rather than "-ynge", so it did not seem to him as though he were actually deleting a letter "y" by this process. 

Once again, I do not believe that it would be possible to use such a regular and consistent set of cipher rules to produce such text that is meaningful and even historically relevant to political events in England in 1405 purely by random chance coincidence alone.

Geoffrey

(15-05-2021, 05:00 PM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Although non-native speakers of English may not often be able to compose or to easily comprehend English sentences with such complicated and complex syntax, linguistically talented native speakers and writers of English -- such as Edward, 2nd Duke of York, or such as myself -- do have the ability to do so.

I'll say more on the arbitrariness and random chance points later, but this is worth addressing now.   I might not be so quick as to call myself "linguistically talented" as you are, but I am a native English speaker.  Your sentences do not make sense in modern English.   The complexity of the syntax has nothing to do with this.

(15-05-2021, 05:42 PM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(15-05-2021, 05:00 PM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Although non-native speakers of English may not often be able to compose or to easily comprehend English sentences with such complicated and complex syntax, linguistically talented native speakers and writers of English -- such as Edward, 2nd Duke of York, or such as myself -- do have the ability to do so.

I'll say more on the arbitrariness and random chance points later, but this is worth addressing now.   I might not be so quick as to call myself "linguistically talented" as you are, but I am a native English speaker.  Your sentences do not make sense in modern English.   The complexity of the syntax has nothing to do with this.

Tavie, this assertion you make is simply wrong. The sentences do make sense in modern English, and I already explained every detail of every phrase in each line in my previous post above. You conveniently omitted that part of my post and only quoted my summary statement, not the details that explain why I am right and you are wrong.

If you want to claim that my grammatical analysis of the correctness and meaningful sensible content of my modern English translation of the two lines of text is wrong, you will need to quote and reply to the details of my analysis, not simply quote my summary statement omitting all the details and then make a sweeping statement of your own claiming without any evidence or arguments whatsoever that I am wrong.

Geoffrey

(15-05-2021, 05:00 PM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes. I believe this is a rather small number of changes to have to make in order to produce a text with as much not only meaningful and grammatical text but also moreover historically relevant text to political events in England in 1405.

I understand that you need to make changes in order to convert the Voynich text into something that you consider legible and meaningful, but I am talking here about the process that would have been followed by the composer of the text, according to your proposal.

This person would have changed:

Quote:" kirche-eek -- irour-isynge, picchynge, path-isynge -- is also accitynge tir-biri "
" siest side, lo! sis dis-lisynge "

into:

Quote:" KrcheeeK  irOrisK  pYcK  pthisK  isOsl  KtisK  tir  iriB "
" sYOs  Ydis  lO  sis  dislisYeK "

but for no reason at all.


It can hardly have been to make it end up more Voynich-like.

This is the generic problem of all four-step solutions, that only look at the decryption of the text, and ignore what the composer would have had to do.

(15-05-2021, 05:00 PM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I do not believe that it would be possible to use such a regular and consistent set of cipher rules to produce such text that is meaningful and even historically relevant to political events in England in 1405 purely by random chance coincidence alone.

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(15-05-2021, 07:54 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(15-05-2021, 05:00 PM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes. I believe this is a rather small number of changes to have to make in order to produce a text with as much not only meaningful and grammatical text but also moreover historically relevant text to political events in England in 1405.

I understand that you need to make changes in order to convert the Voynich text into something that you consider legible and meaningful, but I am talking here about the process that would have been followed by the composer of the text, according to your proposal.

This person would have changed:

Quote:" kirche-eek -- irour-isynge, picchynge, path-isynge -- is also accitynge tir-biri "
" siest side, lo! sis dis-lisynge "

into:

Quote:" KrcheeeK  irOrisK  pYcK  pthisK  isOsl  KtisK  tir  iriB "
" sYOs  Ydis  lO  sis  dislisYeK "

but for no reason at all.

It can hardly have been to make it end up more Voynich-like.

This is the generic problem of all four-step solutions, that only look at the decryption of the text, and ignore what the composer would have had to do.

I want to answer this objection very clearly, and explain very patiently and in precise detail how the composer of the text did have a very good reason to make precisely the changes in these two lines that you claim this person would have made "for no reason at all".

The reason was to make the characters for the letters "Y", "O", "R", and "K" appear as frequently as possible throughout the final form of the text.

The change "irour-isinge" -> "irOrisK" makes the character for "K" appear at the end of the word, just as it does in the word "YORK".

The change "picchinge" -> "pYcK" likewise makes the character for "K" appear at the end of the word, as in "YORK", and it also makes the character for "Y" appear in the word rather than the character for the letter "i". Again, the composer of the text made both these decisions because the goal was to make the characters for the letters in "YORK" appear as frequently as possible throughout the MS text.

The change "path-isinge" -> "pthisK" again makes "K" appear at the end of the word, as in "YORK". Further, the composer of the text omitted the letter "a" from the MS text entirely for two reasons: Because "a" is both of the first two vowels in the word "Lancaster", and because omitting "A" from the alphabet entirely makes "B" the last letter of the backwards alphabet, and putting "B" in last position is a theme of the MS text, the reason being to make the first letter of the hated name "BolingBroke" appear last rather than first everywhere.

The change "is also" -> "isOsl" again omits the letter "a" for the reasons explained above, and further this spelling makes the character for the letter "O" appear in the middle of a word rather than at the beginning or end of a word, which is consistent with the medial position of the letter "O" in the word "YORK".

The change "accitinge" -> "KtisK" again omits the letter "a" for the reasons explained above, and again makes the character for "K", which appears in "YORK", appear as frequently as possible in the text, including at the end of the word, as in "YORK".

The change "biri" -> "iriB" makes the letter "b" appear in the last position in the word and in the line. The letter "B" is thus "banished" (or I should say "dehsinab") to the last position in every way possible in the text, for the reason that the composer of the text desired to make the first letter of the hated name "BolingBroke" appear in last position in every possible way.

The change "siest" -> "sYOs" makes the characters for the letters "Y" and "O" appear in this word where otherwise they would not. This achieves the composer's goal of making the letters of the word "YORK" appear as frequently as possible throughout the MS text. 

The change "side" -> "Ydis" makes the character for the letter "Y" not only appear in this word where otherwise it would not, but also moreover makes "Y" appear as the first letter of the word as written, just as it does in the word "YORK". 

The change "dis-lisinge" -> "dislisYeK" makes the characters for the letters "Y" and "K" appear in this word where otherwise they would not. Moreover, this change makes the character for the letter "K" appear in final position in the word, just as it does in the word "YORK". 

I hope that this detailed explanation of each reason that the composer of the text had to make each and every one of the changes in these two lines of text helps to clarify for readers the process by which my theory proposes that the Voynich MS text was composed.

Geoffrey

(19-04-2021, 06:00 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My favorite ID for this plant is Filipendula. There are several species and many vernacular names for this plant. In English, they include dropwort, meadwort, meadowsweet, bridewort. In Finnish, it's Mesiangervo, Danish [font=Helvetica]Almindelig Mjødurt, Swedish [/font]Älggräs, in German Imenkraut, Mauch kraut, Echtes Mädesüß.

Why I like this ID (I have more pics, they are moderately common in medieval and classical texts, but these are the basics):

Ran into this (f65r) and thought it was interesting. Look! Only three words. And the identification looks reasonable: meadowsweet, and other names. If ever there was a chance that a plant illustration was identified with a name, this could be it.

So, what does it say? What is it called? What is meadowsweet called in French? It is called queen of the meadow = reine des prés.

And if the name is made plural: reines des prés - ? then, ... am i starting to see a letter to glyph correspondence between the French name and the VMs text, particularly referring to the final "s" and the preceding "e"????