The Voynich Ninja

(28-08-2021, 01:36 PM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[quote="cvetkakocj@rogers.com" pid='47081' dateline='1630026414']
Koen, thank you for this favour. 
Although EVA was not perfect, I was able to recognize enough words to convince me that the language of the VM was medieval Slovenian, which was much different than Slovenian language today. 

I don't see how you can be certain without a translation of a decent chunk of text to back up your theory.  All I see on the site are "translations" of individual words or at most a couple.  It is incredibly common to spot resemblances between Voynich words on the individual level words in a language - especially when you make tweaks to enhance that resemblance - and then get excited about it.  This site is littered with examples.  Check out the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. theory, and there's at least three separate theories by Geoffrey on 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 most recently You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  And those are only some very recent ones.  

All these different theories encompass different languages from different families, assigning different letters to the Voynich characters.  But they all have something in common:  the person with the theory rapidly becomes "convinced" it is true on the basis of isolated words.  They believe it can't possibly be a coincidence.  But any subsequent "translations" of full sentences result in a nonsensical word salad, or the translation is never done at all because it proves to be too hard.

If you want to distinguish your theory from those, you need to:

1. Work towards "translations" of full paragraphs, if not pages, ideally spread out across the different sections of the manuscript.  The aim would be to show that the text makes sense in context:  both in relation to the content in nearby paragraphs but also in relation to any imagery.  This should also provide you with evidence that the changes you make in order to find a Slovenian equivalent are part of a pattern, consistent with grammar and phonology.
   
2. Explain how your theory deals with the unusual behaviour of Voynichese.  You've put a lot of work into that site but I haven't found anything that covers this.  It looks like another simple substitution theory to me.  How does your theory explain how some letters are almost always found at the end of a line; how some are only word-initial; why most paragraphs begin with only one or two letters; why certain letters or pairings dominate line-initials and others are massively underrepresented at the start of a line or even virtually non-existent?  How does it explain why some initials seem "attracted" to following certain finals, or why there are long sequences of similar words?  How does it explain the Currier/scribal differences?  It's not enough to ascribe the latter to inflection in abstract terms. 
   
3. Be sceptical of yourself and your findings.  Avoid You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.   Being convinced from so early on sets you up for massive confirmation bias.  This has happened to every "Voynichese is Language X" theory that I can remember and has been fatal for it.  Actively force yourself to think of reasons why each conclusion could be wrong. 
   

[Be sceptical of yourself and your findings]
Thank you for your questions that will give me a chance to answer some of the concerns you and others have about my theory. Let me answer point by point:

1. Translation of the VM should be the last step, not the first step. Many of those who boasted about the translation of a page or even a sentence, have been discredited right away. The Stična Codex, written about the same time as the VM (between 1428 and 1440) in Slovenian language in Latin letters, had been studied by many linguists before the translation was accepted. Hopefully I will acquire a group of Slovenian linguists who will tackle this. For now, I am very grateful to Dr. Alenka Čuš, for her advice on Slovenian language, as well as to Dr. Duša Krnel Umek for her expert advice on Slovenian ethnology.
Because the Slovenian language is so complicated, and in the Middle Ages, it was even more so, I started with the basic alphabet I borowed from EVA and some from Stična Codex.  In my long Grammar article  (which is probably too boring for those who want translation, rather then explanation how I had adopted EVA alphabet, how Slovenian language relates to other languages) I already answered on many questions you are raising.

2. In that article, I also explained some Slovenian grammatical features that would show in certain glyphs being more at the beginning or at the end. Somebody who is not familiar with Slavic language, would have hard time understanding how one sentence can have a string of EVA 'dy' endings, and the other sentence EVA 'am' or 'em'. Certain prepositions require certain ending, like K, S, V  written together with the noun, requires the noun to have certain ending, determined by number, gender.  I intend to get back to that in my future blogs, illustrating on particular VM passages how the endings work. In one of my past posts, I discus the most likely letters at the beginning of the VM words. I had discussed the prepositions O and PO (EVA QO), which indicates finish action of the verb. Slovenian language is highly inflective language, so the endings and prepositions are formed by a pattern, consistent with Slovenian grammar.
The unusual behaviour of the Voyniches that defy the computer analysis could be attributed to the complicated Slovenian grammar. Also, the improper reading of minims and ligatures could reduce the number of vowels, so do the semivowels which were often not written, creating a long string of consonants. 
As for the strings of similar words: Some similarities originate from the same root, like SVEČAR SVETI SVEČO (a priest is blessing a candle. Some are spelled the same, but have different meaning. 
Scribal differences:  Having used steal pen that needed to be dipped into ink I know how the different pens can change the handwriting and how temperature, time difference and other condition can affect handwriting. I also allowed the possibility that the manuscript was stitched together by the pages copied from the original of one author. I do not see as drastic differences in handwriting as I see in some other manuscripts and documents from that period. But then, again, I believe that the VM was written by a prior of the Carthusian monastery. It was his duty to teach other monks writing and religion, so that it would be understandable that they would imitate his style. What I reject most is Currier's reasoning to claim the VM is written in different languages. There are certain topics that require different style of writing: poems are usually written in the first person singular, or in a form of a dialogue with God; the instruction and recipes would most likely be written in second person, imperative; the story would most likely be told in past tense. All these could change the endings in the words.
I am working on posts that will address these peculiarities in greater detail.
3. Although I am quite convinced the VM is Slovenian, I do not take anything for granted. I did not just decide the language was Slovenian, based on a few words.  I am aware that the word in one language can mean a different thing in another language, or that the same spelled or pronounced word could mean the same think in a language in some distant country. My first task was to pinpoint if the language was Croatian or Czeck. In spite of the similarities, there are some of the distinct features that eliminated those language, or in some cases, the words from those languages are used which was normal, since all three languages originated from the OCS). I am examening any new idea and theory that appears on the internet, comparing them to mine, or defending mine against theirs. Sometimes even the most off-the-wall idea presented on the internet leads me to a new understanding and to confirmation of  some aspect of my theory. It would take some time to organize all my notes, particularly since English is not my first language and I have limited knowledge of computer technology. 
It would take several books to answer all these questions, but my intention is not to chase for the glory, but rather to prepare a way that others can continue.

(28-08-2021, 08:36 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Somebody who is not familiar with Slavic language, would have hard time understanding how one sentence can have a string of EVA 'dy' endings

The best way to help us understand is sharing some actual evidence; in this way, things can also be kept short and clear. In Takahashi's EVA transliteration I find two 10-word long -dy sequences:


You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lines 38/39 qokeedy qokeedy qokedy qokedy qokeedy ldy / yshedy qokeedy qokchdy olkeedy
[attachment=5772]


You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lines 14/15 cheedy otedy cthedy otedy qoteedy shcthedy qoeekeedy deedy / tchedy lsheedy
[attachment=5771]

Could you please show images of the longest similar sequences you have seen in Slovenian manuscripts?

(28-08-2021, 08:36 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.1. Translation of the VM should be the last step, not the first step.  Many of those who boasted about the translation of a page or even a sentence, have been discredited right away. The Stična Codex, written about the same time as the VM (between 1428 and 1440) in Slovenian language in Latin letters, had been studied by many linguists before the translation was accepted. Hopefully I will acquire a group of Slovenian linguists who will tackle this. For now, I am very grateful to Dr. Alenka Čuš, for her advice on Slovenian language, as well as to Dr. Duša Krnel Umek for her expert advice on Slovenian ethnology.

No one is asking for a complete translation, or even a polished partial one.  If it is ever solved, no doubt the solution will contain mistakes that are eventually ironed out by experts in the language. This is what happened with decipherments in the past.  But no Voynich theory will ever be viewed as credible based on only identifications of individual words. 

In particular, you mention grammar on your website and here.  But how can the grammar of your solution be tested without having sentences to analyse to see if the grammar corresponds to medieval Slovenian?

(28-08-2021, 08:36 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Many of those who boasted about the translation of a page or even a sentence, have been discredited right away. 

That's exactly my point.  These theories were discredited precisely because they were put to the test and they failed the test.   Working through sentences is how to test a theory.  What you have said here makes it sound as if you want your theory to avoid being tested.  Fair enough if it's because you want to wait until the theory is more developed and robust...but then why promote it and say you are certain about your identifications if it's not ready for testing?

I'm repeating myself from earlier but:  it is incredibly easy to find meanings of Voynich words in isolation without context.  That's why the first hurdle for a theory is to provide the words in context, aka the full sentences.  The aim is to show that the proposed identification is consistent with the target language's grammar and most importantly...that it makes sense.  For the few theorists who have tried to tackle this hurdle, the result is always the same:  a word salad that makes no sense in English, and likely neither in the target language.  And that's why the second hurdle - translating the full context of those sentences via their paragraph/page - is seldom attempted.

But many don't even tackle the first hurdle of producing even a sentence.  The reason is because they find their individual word identifications don't make sense when put together in a sentence.  And then they rationalize this away by telling themselves "of course my discoveries are still correct; it's just that experts in the language are needed to put them all together".

I might be unfairly mischaracterizing your approach, but it sounds awfully reminiscent of the above.  It sounds like you are saying here and on your site that while you have sufficient expertise for your identification of individual words to be certain, experts in medieval Slovenian are needed to read full sentences.  If you are finding it hard to apply the system to full sentences, you should consider that it is not your knowledge of medieval Slovenian that it is at fault:  it is the system. 

Again, the crux of the issue is:  full sentences and paragraphs are needed in order for a theory to gain credibility.  This is the only way to demonstrate the system produces meaningful text consistent with both the target language's patterns and Voynichese's quirks.  Any identifications of individual words, no matter how many, could always be coincidence.  And not recognizing this sets you up for confirmation bias.  You say theories have been "discredited" by early translation, but nothing discredits a theory more than confirmation bias. 

I'll go through the first main findings in your article to illustrate this and the point I was making with #3 about being certain far too soon.

On point #3, it may help if I work through the beginning of your introductory/grammar article.  The beginning of the article sets out how you developed the theory.  Near the start, after spotting the words "dal" (give) and "daly", you say:



"This was more than a coincidence."  I'm afraid it wasn't demonstrably more than a coincidence. Let me explain why, and how this kind of thinking at the early stage undermines your methodology.

1. Firstly, you've started off with only 8 isolated words, some with a possible space.  8 isolated identifications is not enough to discount coincidence.
   
2. Secondly, 5 out of the 8 you propose to be inflections or variations around the concept of giving:  "you give!"; "down I gave", "a gift", "gift I gave", "a giver".  The remaining 3 are around the concept of "down":  "down"; "Down you put!"; "down I gave".  So, really, there are only two broad identifications here.  That makes coincidence more likely.
   
3. Thirdly, two of those 3 are the same word "dol,dy" and indeed judging by the image you've added the same instance of the word, but you have translated them in two entirely different ways.  One way is as "dol dj", which you reshape into "dol d(a)j" and identify with "Down you put!" or "put down!".  The second is as "do ldi", which you say is a dialect for "do ljudi" and identify with "to people."  This means this identification is not at all robust and cannot be used to argue against coincidence.
   
4. Fourthly, for half of those identifications, you have added or removed characters.  You have changed "dej" to "daj", "ldi" to "ljudi", "dj" to "d(a)j", and "daror" to "darovalec".  Only for two of those do you ascribe the change to "dialect".  For at least two of these (further down in the article you say ldi is a declination in the Dolenjska dialect) it's not completely clear if this is because this is a known pattern in the medieval Dolenjska dialect...or if you are assuming there must be, in order to make the theory right.  The biggest change is from "daror" to "darovalec", and I cannot find any explanation given for this.  There's also no mention of whether the unamended words are also consistent with the medieval Dolenjska dialect, rather than medieval/modern Slovenian.
   
5. Fifthly, for three of the eight, you have had to reorganize and in some cases reinterpret the words in order to provide an English translation.  You have changed the literal "Down (you) put!" into "put down!"; "gift (I) gave" into "I gave a gift", and lastly "down (I) gave" is transformed into "I put down."  Perhaps this reordering, and indeed the meaning change for the latter, is regularly required in order to translate from medieval Slovenian to English.  But without providing this evidence, it could appear that you've been forced to rework these in order to claw sense out of your system. 
   
6. Sixth, two of the eight identifications are imperatives.  You translate dey as "(You) give!" and dol dy as "Down (you) put!" or "put down!".  These are rather odd translations!  It's possible to have such imperatives in a text...but it seems unlikely.  Since you have not provided their context (i.e. their home sentence, if not paragraph), this increases the probability that the identifications are mere coincidence.
    

So to recap:  you have presented this as one of the very first breakthroughs of your journey, and yet it consists of only eight identifications, seven if we remove the one with different meanings, with 5/8 all variants around the root "give" and the other 3 around the root "down".  And you conclude by saying "this was more than a coincidence" and describe it as a confirmation of the Voynich characters you'd focused on. 

I haven't had time (nor do I have the knowledge of Slovenian) to properly assess the changes you've made to the words and their order, and also the strangeness of the two imperatives.  But even if we discard the uncertainty over those points, the above shows the problem I was trying to convey in #3. 

From some extremely weak identifications at the very start of your journey, your article implies you have become convinced about the theory's foundations.  After that, it's too late to escape confirmation bias infecting all the work you've done subsequently, no matter how interesting it is.  There is a methodological problem in your work from the very outset, and from that point, your brain is primed to ignore and discard evidence that doesn't fit in with the theory and over-emphasize the significance of evidence consistent with it.  Of course you will then find more isolated occurrences that have a resemblance to Slovenian!  Which you do.  But at no point is there any examination of whether the resemblances are coincidental or weak.  

It could have been very different if you'd summarised your initial findings along the lines of "Hmmm...I've found seven/eight possible correspondences, but they could very easily be a coincidence due to their limited range of meaning and how much I've had to alter them.  However, it's still worth testing to see if my proposed identifications make sense in context, and if I can establish a clear pattern for the changes I'm making."

Lastly, on #2

(28-08-2021, 08:36 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In my long Grammar article  (which is probably too boring for those who want translation, rather then explanation how I had adopted EVA alphabet, how Slovenian language relates to other languages) I already answered on many questions you are raising.

Perhaps they are in the other articles but I cannot find anything in your main Grammar article that deals with most of these points.   In your discussion about gallows glyphs, I haven't found anything about why p and f start paragraphs so often.  I also cannot find anything that references the phenomena we see at the beginnings and ends of lines.  In particular, in the section I've found where you say how you identified m, there is no reference to its most frequent location at the end of lines. 

(28-08-2021, 08:36 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Somebody who is not familiar with Slavic language, would have hard time understanding how one sentence can have a string of EVA 'dy' endings 

On dy, the bits I found in the article are as follows: 

• dy can be read as as dj = give
  
• and "the –DY suffix in Slovenian language is used for infinite verbs, as well as for imperative mood, and occasionally for the 3. person, singular, present tense.  In the VM, the imperative mood is used for instructions rather than for commands"
  

Infinitives and imperatives are not usually frequent words in most texts.  Even combined with "give", I cannot see how this could produce the strings of text Marco showed.  And those are only two of the most extreme examples of 10 successive instances.   The text is littered with multiple successive "dy" words, particularly for Scribe 2. 

Again, this shows how important it is to work on sentences and paragraphs, rather than isolated words with no context.  I don't see how you can address this point without sample sentences.

(28-08-2021, 08:36 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What I reject most is Currier's reasoning to claim the VM is written in different languages. There are certain topics that require different style of writing: poems are usually written in the first person singular, or in a form of a dialogue with God; the instruction and recipes would most likely be written in second person, imperative; the story would most likely be told in past tense. All these could change the endings in the words.

A couple points on this.  Firstly it's worth noting that Currier meant language in a way that could include dialectal differences as well.  Secondly, the differences are not limited to just endings.  There are key differences in the middle of words and also word initials.  So if your theory ascribes the Currier differences to inflection, it will have to explain why differences are found in all locations of the word.  If your theory also ascribes the differences to topic variation, it should also account for why some of the biggest differences are between Herbal A and Herbal B. 

Again, all this simply re-emphasizes how important it is to work on sentences and paragraphs, rather than isolated words with no context.  I don't see how you can possibly draw these points out without having full sentences.

(29-08-2021, 09:45 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(28-08-2021, 08:36 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Somebody who is not familiar with Slavic language, would have hard time understanding how one sentence can have a string of EVA 'dy' endings

The best way to help us understand is sharing some actual evidence; in this way, things can also be kept short and clear. In Takahashi's EVA transliteration I find two 10-word long -dy sequences:


You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lines 38/39 qokeedy qokeedy qokedy qokedy qokeedy ldy / yshedy qokeedy qokchdy olkeedy



You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lines 14/15 cheedy otedy cthedy otedy qoteedy shcthedy qoeekeedy deedy / tchedy lsheedy


Could you please show images of the longest similar sequences you have seen in Slovenian manuscripts?

 
Marko, I know it would be most simple to copy a sentence from Slovenian manuscript and compare it to this line, however this is not possible, becaus the subject matter is different. The Stična Codex consists only of three pages - a formula for a public confession and two songs that were used in Slavic liturgy. That was about the only Slovenian part in the Latin mass, the rest was in Latin and sermons in German. I am still building my Voynich-like vocabulary from the 16th century, when the words were first used in the books by the Protestant writers, and any other sources I can get. The SC was useful to me mostly to develop the alphabet, to see how the minims were used and how archaic Slovenian language was at that time.
As far as I know, there has not been any transliteration from Old Church Slavonic to Latin letters, and even in Croatian sources, I was only able to find transliteration of the Rules of St. Benedict, which Carthusians also used. In that particular document I noticed the R being separated, and many missing vowels. This was also problematic for the Slovenian writers of the 16th century who insisted the vowels should always be used instead of phonetic semivowel. 
I just recently obtained a scanned copy of a manuscript in Czeck from the mid-15th century, and I am sure I would find more comparable words.
Now, to answer your question about the strings of the same ending. A comma between them would be the most obvious solution. However, I also always look for all other possibilities.
When I see a string words with the same one- or two-word ending, my immediate assumption is that either nouns or verbs are repeated.
The Slovenian ending -DY in the VM is not specified, since Y is used for either 'i' or 'y' at the end of the words (Slovenian alphabet has no Y letter, although in the Middle ages was still quite often used.) As a matter of fact, in the Latin manuscript written in Slovenia in 1440 that I just recently found, two different shapes of Y are used, one exactly like VM 9).
Later, From DY eventually the word DEJ was formed, which was eventually changed to contemporary DAJ (meaning - you give!). Many Slovenian verbs, formed from nouns, would start as a combination of a noun + dej, and in some cases, the two forms have been in use until the present time, something like English 'look' and 'take a look'.
DI is also ending of some verbs, 3. pers. singualar, when the root word ends with D, like in the word KADI , HUDI , HODI. 
DI is also the ending of some Slovenian nouns, such as LUDI - people.


There are also some words that end with DI, such as TUDI (also)

Since I cannot provide you with a string of such words for the reasons above, I will try to explain them. 

Now, let me try to explain the VM quotations you chose:
f75r lines 38/39 qokeedy qokeedy qokedy qokedy qokeedy ldy / yshedy qokeedy qokchdy olkeedy

Like Petersen, I read Q as P. This is totally in agreement with Slovenian language which does not have the letter Q. In some medieval words it was still occasionally used, but was dropped by the 16th century.
In the first two words, the 'ee' seems to stand for 'u'. This would be Croatian word KUDI  which means scold, criticize, condemn; in archaic Calvinism, it also means a person who is not elect, but condemned (My presumed author had some connections with Valdensians, the forerunners of Calvinism). The word KUDI has an equivalent in Slovenian, which is spelled HUDI (angry, evil), because both words were spelled in Italian as CUDI. To add to the complication, the Czeck word KUDI means where, which has an equivalent in Slovenian as KOD or KODI.
In the third word, it is not clear if it should be read as POKODY.   
Next word could be transliterated as POKEDY or as Y POKEDY. 

The last two words in this line are: POKUDI LDY, which in Slovenian would mean 'criticize people' or 'scold people'. The word LDY is definitely in the accusative case.

There are too many words that could have different meaning. POKEDY could mean in dialectical 'smoke', 'bless'. The KEDY could mean 'when', and POKEDY could also stand for the word POGLEDI since GL sounds like G and there is no clear G letter in the VM, as Tim King and his team also observed.


The string of the endings DY in Slovenian language is quite possible. Since the personal pronoun is indicated by the verbal ending, the sentence would have subject, object and verb. It is also possible that the verb and object have the same ending.




f76v lines 14/15 cheedy otedy cthedy otedy qoteedy shcthedy qoeekeedy deedy / tchedy lsheedy

My transliteration: čudy otedy ct/e/dy otedy pokudy poukudy dudy

(29-08-2021, 04:26 PM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(28-08-2021, 08:36 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.1. Translation of the VM should be the last step, not the first step.  Many of those who boasted about the translation of a page or even a sentence, have been discredited right away. The Stična Codex, written about the same time as the VM (between 1428 and 1440) in Slovenian language in Latin letters, had been studied by many linguists before the translation was accepted. Hopefully I will acquire a group of Slovenian linguists who will tackle this. For now, I am very grateful to Dr. Alenka Čuš, for her advice on Slovenian language, as well as to Dr. Duša Krnel Umek for her expert advice on Slovenian ethnology.

No one is asking for a complete translation, or even a polished partial one.  If it is ever solved, no doubt the solution will contain mistakes that are eventually ironed out by experts in the language. This is what happened with decipherments in the past.  But no Voynich theory will ever be viewed as credible based on only identifications of individual words. 

In particular, you mention grammar on your website and here.  But how can the grammar of your solution be tested without having sentences to analyse to see if the grammar corresponds to medieval Slovenian?

(28-08-2021, 08:36 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Many of those who boasted about the translation of a page or even a sentence, have been discredited right away. 

 


That's exactly my point.  These theories were discredited precisely because they were put to the test and they failed the test.   Working through sentences is how to test a theory.  What you have said here makes it sound as if you want your theory to avoid being tested.  Fair enough if it's because you want to wait until the theory is more developed and robust...but then why promote it and say you are certain about your identifications if it's not ready for testing?

I'm repeating myself from earlier but:  it is incredibly easy to find meanings of Voynich words in isolation without context.  That's why the first hurdle for a theory is to provide the words in context, aka the full sentences.  The aim is to show that the proposed identification is consistent with the target language's grammar and most importantly...that it makes sense.  For the few theorists who have tried to tackle this hurdle, the result is always the same:  a word salad that makes no sense in English, and likely neither in the target language.  And that's why the second hurdle - translating the full context of those sentences via their paragraph/page - is seldom attempted.

But many don't even tackle the first hurdle of producing even a sentence.  The reason is because they find their individual word identifications don't make sense when put together in a sentence.  And then they rationalize this away by telling themselves "of course my discoveries are still correct; it's just that experts in the language are needed to put them all together".

I might be unfairly mischaracterizing your approach, but it sounds awfully reminiscent of the above.  It sounds like you are saying here and on your site that while you have sufficient expertise for your identification of individual words to be certain, experts in medieval Slovenian are needed to read full sentences.  If you are finding it hard to apply the system to full sentences, you should consider that it is not your knowledge of medieval Slovenian that it is at fault:  it is the system. 

Again, the crux of the issue is:  full sentences and paragraphs are needed in order for a theory to gain credibility.  This is the only way to demonstrate the system produces meaningful text consistent with both the target language's patterns and Voynichese's quirks.  Any identifications of individual words, no matter how many, could always be coincidence.  And not recognizing this sets you up for confirmation bias.  You say theories have been "discredited" by early translation, but nothing discredits a theory more than confirmation bias. 

I'll go through the first main findings in your article to illustrate this and the point I was making with #3 about being certain far too soon.

Yes, my the words DAL and DAR attracted my attention, since they were also used in reversed order. I was not surprised that I found out that DAL in Armenian also means 'give'. What can the words alone tell about the language? I was not able to find infinitive DATI in the VM, but I found many forms of this word with similar prefixes and grammatical endings, as well as the strange combinations and phonetically written words, such as DY for DAJ, DEJ. It was not my manipulation of this word. In the VM, y stands for I and J (I just recently found another manuscript where two forms for final Y are used - 9-like for I, and Y-like for J. The semivowel was pronounced in different dialects differently, as it was observed by the Protestant writers of the 16th century. It is also not clear if any other larger texts in Slovenian in Latin letters existed, but in the first Slovenian grammar book in mid-15th century it was pointed out that the vowels had to be used. This is how DY  became DEJ, DAJ.  When you see a combinations  DAR DAL (gift give) or DAR DAM (one way of reading Eva IIN is M, as Dr. Bax and some others pointed out). DAM (I give) is  one of the most common VM words (over 600). 
It is true that the root word is DATI, but various other words derived from this and the combinatios, prefixes, suffixes and grammatical endings all indicate Slovenian grammar 
I did start with DAL and DAR, and began looking for other words, such as DOL (down), DOM (home), and after some changes to EVA, I found over 100 Slovenian words. 

I did not list all the words in my article, which was meant to be an introduction. I thought that some grammar comparison would give the readers an idea how complicated Slovenian language is. I thought it would be better if I explain some of the grammar and peculiarities of Slovenian language first and give some political and religious background, since Slovenian language was influenced not only in vocabulary, but also in writing convention. To be honest, the writing in Slovenian up to the mid-15th century was a mess, because different foreign priest even used different Latin letters in their writing. 

I will think of how to answer your questions better and give you some examples, including sentences.

I would like to inform all those interested in floral imagery in the VM that I had just posted an extensive article on my blog under the heading The Language of Flowers. In it I explained some uses of flowers in art, religion, medicine, folklore and alchemy. In particularly I focused on the use of flowers in medieval esoteric communication and its effect on Slovenian folklore and literature. It might give you a new appreciation for Koen's religious interpretation of VM flowers.
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Some of the supposed Slovenian words I see Cvetka claims are in the Voynich manuscript, make absolutely no sense. How would the word "daror" be formed? There is no "-or" suffix in any Slavic language that would be used here, aside from loaned suffixes.

Another thing I notice is the usual mistake made by Slovenian linguists, which is to try to fit modern Slovenian into an old text. The most infamous example of that is the "Slovenian interpretation" of the Venetic inscriptions, which essentially claims they are in modern Slovenian, which would be impossible given the time they're from. I think the same is here. Is there any evidence that the imperative of "dati" ("to give") in 15th century Slovenian was "daj"?

Also, "ldi" for "ljudi" is specifically the Ljubljana dialect, and at that, the modern Ljubljana dialect. I'm not sure that form existed at all in the 15th century. Granted, Stična is from near Ljubljana, so at least geographically it makes sense. Though it has to be considered that, Ljubljana being a major Urban center, it was likely subject to very rapid language change, so who knows how the Ljubljana dialect of the 15th century even sounded.

I have to say that Slavic is the very first thing I tried with the Manuscript (and I also speak a number of other Slavic languages in addition to Slovenian, and am also a bit familiar with Old Church Slavonic), and I couldn't make any progress in that direction, so I discarded the possibility entirely.

(06-10-2021, 01:08 AM)Battler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Also, "ldi" for "ljudi" is specifically the Ljubljana dialect, and at that, the modern Ljubljana dialect. I'm not sure that form existed at all in the 15th century. Granted, Stična is from near Ljubljana, so at least geographically it makes sense. Though it has to be considered that, Ljubljana being a major Urban center, it was likely subject to very rapid language change, so who knows how the Ljubljana dialect of the 15th century even sounded.

 I had not lived in Slovenia for fifty years so I am not aware that the youth in Ljubljana had adopted this 'pudgurski' speeč, spoken in my youth, and even before me for hundreds of years. 
You say, there is no Slovenian suffix -or, how about major, kolodvor, zapor, odpor, napor, prapor .... I don't think Slovenians used the word DARITELJ in the 15th century, so the foreign writer who wrote VM, would have to invent the word for the one who gives offering from the word DAR. 
The imperative for DAJ was most likely DJ which a foreign writer would write as DY, because J was not yet in use. The vowes in such phonetic words were inserted later.  There were no books written in Slovenian before the VM, and the Stična Codex was certainly not in public display.  No peasant in Dolenjska would even today say DAJ.
As for the Venetic transcriptions: I have read several books, particularly those written by A. Ambrozic, while I was the editor of the Slovenian Canadian publications. He never stated that Venetic language was modern Slovenian; he claimed that it was common pre-Slavic, pre-German, pre-Roman language. I am not discussing Venetic language, but the medieval Slovenian language, which was close enough to Czeck, so that I could understand most of the manuscript, written in Czeck in the middle of 15th century.  There is a lot that there that could help me understand certain things in the VM, that for today sound strange, like the absence of letter G.
Now that more European manuscripts are available in digitalized form, I was able to find most VM letters in them, except for the four tall ones: K and T have different shape, and the other two stand for SV, ZV and CV. The pronunciation of those three by-glyphs was not that clear and the author of the VM used his 'invented' letters interchangeably. 
 Also, in those manuscripts, certain letters are connected at the top (which comes to the middle of the tall glyphs), so that they look like VM strike-through ligatures.
I can also tell you that besides similar script, the VM shares the philosophy of those alchemical Housebuchs, particularly Heinrich of Laufenburg, which take holistic approach to health and interpret Zodiac signs in a way that overlays Christianity on top of ancient myths.