The Voynich Ninja

Hello
Did anyone seen this:

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I read a lot of the translations so far; none of them made me believe, they did it right. But this one could make the break-point.
Anyone here familiar with the described language? Unfortunately, the author in the video did not translate so much.

Not having an hour of my life to waste, I flipped backwards and forwards through the video, so my understanding of the theory is basic. Still, I now know a lot more about Indo-Aryan languages than I did before, so not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.


He appears to basing his theory on an assumed pronunciation of Voynichese (I fail to grasp how he has come to any decision on how to pronounce Voynichese; I suspect he is back-forcing known modern pronunciations onto Voynich glyphs). The author does not, unless I missed this slide, go into how pronunciation of the selected languages have changed over the last half millennium, which I would think should affect his theory quite a bit.

From this spoken Voynichese he then brings it back into no fewer than 6 Indian languages (@32:40): Landa, Brahmi (which is the origin script for the Brahmi set of languages and went extinct by 300BC - I fail to see how the author thinks he can know how this was pronounced), Multani, Mahajani, Khoki, Gurmukh.

I am unfamiliar with all of these languages, but Wikipedia says that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.is another now-extinct origin script and some of the other cited scripts developed from it. I'm not sure whether he meant You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., which is a group of Indo-Aryan dialects spoken in the Punjab province in Pakistan. (Note: No he doesn't, see @25:34). However, Landa was in use in the 10th century and Brahmi even earlier, which means the Voynich was based on some pretty damn ancient languages. This problem is dismissed with a cheerful "based on an even earlier work".


The author says that "yes there are multiple languages but their pronunciations are almost same". I am not qualified to judge, but surely if the pronunciation is almost the same in all cases, why do we need 6 different languages? My assumed answer: Because no one alone lets his theory work. 


At 33:50, he claims that the 8 glyph has three different interpretations: A pause, a Ch sound or a Ha sound. He does not explain why the same character in the same position in different vords has different meanings, nor how to understand its significance. For example from page 77 (no folio reference, which is annoying), 8alch8 (first 8 is a Pause, last 8 is Ha) and 8arcc8ar (first 8 is Ch, second 8 is Ha).
Again, in the second word a is Ga in the first instance, Ma in the second instance.
As a point of interest, vords are assumed to be sentences, except when they aren't and sentences are split across several vords. Personally I feel that although this is common in Indo-Aryan languages cited (although these are usually space-less run-on character lines with sense and punctuation encoded as characters), the author has taken the entropy levels to an unsustainable level in this theory, and fails to explain why Voynichese is organised into regular vords that are not self-contained sentence units.
In an abugaida (which is what these cited languages are), you have a consonant and vowel pairing in a segmental writing system. It's a halfway house between a full alphabetic system (English) or an abjad (Arabic). In the languages cited here, vowels are indicated with diacritics. You have the main letter and diacritics dancing around the main letter modifying its meaning, which is why these scripts are so beautiful and flowing.
From the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.article:

Quote:In many of the Brahmic scripts, a syllable beginning with a cluster is treated as a single character for purposes of vowel marking, so a vowel marker like ि -i, falling before the character it modifies, may appear several positions before the place where it is pronounced.

And

Quote:Modern Gurmukhī has thirty-five original letters, hence its common alternative term paintī or "the thirty-five,"You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. plus six additional You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., nine You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., two diacritics for nasal sounds, one diacritic that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. consonants and three subscript characters.

This is far more characters than the Voynich can supply, so the author has quite some work to explain why this is happening. I suspect that the only way his system can work is by forcing glyphs to take on multiple meanings. 
Given that he spends the first 30 minutes on suppositions of what pages mean, and extensive explanations of how his target languages work, I think we could have a bit of information on how this ciphering system works. We get a lot of random words being deciphered, and a lot of history and supposition being forced onto the book, but very little meat on how his system works. We also have translations of some of the rare glyphs, such as x.

And, in my experience, when we get this combination, it's because the theory proponent has invested a lot of time in his theory, but can't quite make it work and is hoping that by putting it out in an unfinished form somebody else might make the final leap to put it all together.

(18-04-2021, 02:33 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And, in my experience, when we get this combination, it's because the theory proponent has invested a lot of time in his theory, but can't quite make it work and is hoping that by putting it out in an unfinished form somebody else might make the final leap to put it all together.

That is exactly what I thought. Also, that he urgently needs a course on how to make a good powerpoint.

One of my high school lecturers used to say that when one does not know how to explain something, the phrase "it is easily shown that ..." comes to rescue.

I'm also not familiar with any of these languages (i'm electro-engineer), but the type of writings is very close to the voynichese.
If it's Landa or Brahmi, or Multani, Mahajani, Khoki, Gurmukh or an old dialect of any of these, i don't know. But if we try to decipher the VM, i guess this is worth a try.

Here's a pdf i found by googling for Landa:
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This looks very close to the script in the VM.

Realistically, as JKP will demonstrate, there is no glyph in the VM that can't be derived from medieval European script. There's nothing odd about the script, just the way it is put together.

(18-04-2021, 06:04 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Realistically, as JKP will demonstrate, there is no glyph in the VM that can't be derived from medieval European script. There's nothing odd about the script, just the way it is put together.

There is no glyph in the VM that can't be generated by a slimy slug trail.

(18-04-2021, 09:06 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is no glyph in the VM that can't be generated by a slimy slug trail.

True. But given that we are trying to figure out a provenance trail for the VMS, that sort of comment is hardly helpful.

(18-04-2021, 09:11 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(18-04-2021, 09:06 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is no glyph in the VM that can't be generated by a slimy slug trail.

True. But given that we are trying to figure out a provenance trail for the VMS, that sort of comment is hardly helpful.

There is a point to my comment, namely that it is easy to find a provenance if one allows oneself the flexibility to interpret their construction in a way that suits one's narrative. Ultimately every big line is composed of little lines and little lines can be found.within many scripts.