The Voynich Ninja

In terms of classifying theories get the impression that three types are:

1. Symbol represents a word.
2. Symbol represents a letter of the alphabet
3. Hidden microscopic features to a symbol can be read(As we see with Newbold's theory)

The kind of simple substitution that we see in 2 appears to be the most common with quite a few variants such as multiple languages/dialects, anagram giving the scope and flexibility for various readings.

I haven't mentioned meaningless text theories such as we see with hoaxes as nobody has claimed, as far as I know, to have a procedure for generating the hoax text.

I suppose when it comes to translation/decipherment theories I am not really thinking of examples where someone has produced a small crib. I, myself, for example think EVA-asal on the T/O map on the Rosettes folio means "asia", but I don't consider that a translation/decipherment theory as I don't try to explain how the Voynichese text maps onto that word. So when someone like Stephen Bax claims to have identified/translated 10 words given its limited scope I am not sure that could be considered a decipherment theory as it is so partial and incomplete. Using the "Voynich prize" idea as a reference I have suggested that this would be for a complete decipherment and certainly not for just 10 words. The theories like the Cheshire theory or the Turkic theory are complete decipherment theories. It is true I think that Bax proposed a mapping of symbols for his 10 words thereby starting to construct a translation/decipherment theory and was on the road to building a simple substitution theory on the basis of source words from multiple languages which would put his theory in the Cheshire category. However such a theory by its limited nature and limited claims is much harder to debunk, if it is indeed mistaken, than a complete decipherment theory.

Referring to Nick Pelling's not quite up to date list of Voynich theories and focusing on decipherment theories we have the following:

• Tim Ackerson says the VMs was written in Early Welsh / Old Cornish

• Zbigniew Banasik claimed that the VMs is written in the Manchu language

• Robert S. Brumbaugh thought the alphabet was a lossy number cipher, with each glyph basically standing in for an Arabic numeral.

• Dan Burisch claims that the VMs was written down in enciphered Hebrew by Roger Bacon.

• Jim Child, sees Voynichese as a pronounceable early German language.

• Jim Comegys says that the VMs was written in Nahuatl

• Joseph Martin Feely constructed what he believed to be a partial decipherment of page f78r.

• Beatrice Gwynn thinks it’s written in left-right mirrored Middle High German.

• George Hoschel Jr thinks that the VMs is in “Old Latin”

• Leo Levitov‘s Cathar Theory(I think this is a translation theory)

• Jody Maat believes that the VMs is readable as a (vaguely polyglot) Old Dutch.

• Ursula Papke has a kind of NLP-like transcendental interpretation of the Voynich glyphs, wherein each glyph gets decomposed into constituent strokes, and the kind of “stroke harmonies” that implicitly make up individual words are interpreted to tell a kind of rising/falling/looping narrative.

• Rolando Hernandez Rivero posted that the Voynich Manuscript was written in “Old Spanish” (but with bits of Latin and English thrown in).

• Richard Rogers claims that the VMs is an ultra-terse Renaissance drawing language, to describe  heretical symbols without actually drawing them.

• John Stojko‘s vowel-less Ukrainian theory

• Dr Leonell Strong believed that he had deciphered the two pages of the VMs he had reasonable reproductions of, using a base alphabet local to a section of ciphertext but with an offset cycling through the set [0]135797531474.

• An anonymous Greek individual has proposed a Jewish Arabic Voynich theory, which claims to map Voynich letters to Hebrew equivalents, to produce an Arabic text

I don't know which amongst these are complete decipherment theories and which are just I think it must be German, but I can't read it, theories. 

This list excludes more recent theories like the Hannig theory etc.

The putting of different false theories into different classifications in terms of the nature of the theories, not in terms of the languages suggested, is what I am interested in here.

I don't see the language choice as being all that relevant. The process of reading, in other words, the methodology is what seems important to me. There is also the question of whether Voychinese is a natural language. Or is it something else: encoded, encrypted, gibberish, hoax or whatever? Something other or more than a version of natural language.

What are the steps in the investigator's methodology? In the process of reading, glyphs represent phonemes, and phonemes combine to make words, of a given language. How does the proposed interpretive product attach itself to this process? Is EVA - o really a phonetic "o" or is it something else? <Trickery has already been demonstrated.> Which comes first, the glyphs or the language?

The whole idea of Newbold's microscopic "edge phenomenon" is a total hoax. The was no mechanism by which that could be accomplished - at that scale. Any edge phenomenon that might be present would be due to the differential movement of ink on a fibrous surface. Depending on magnification, irregularities will be found because the surface is irregular. At least Newbold's cosmic interpretation served to support WMV's Roger Bacon hypothesis, but this too has been shown to be highly irregular.

(06-12-2021, 08:21 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't see the language choice as being all that relevant. The process of reading, in other words, the methodology is what seems important to me. There is also the question of whether Voychinese is a natural language. Or is it something else: encoded, encrypted, gibberish, hoax or whatever? Something other or more than a version of natural language.

What are the steps in the investigator's methodology? In the process of reading, glyphs represent phonemes, and phonemes combine to make words, of a given language. How does the proposed interpretive product attach itself to this process? Is EVA - o really a phonetic "o" or is it something else? <Trickery has already been demonstrated.> Which comes first, the glyphs or the language?

The whole idea of Newbold's microscopic "edge phenomenon" is a total hoax. The was no mechanism by which that could be accomplished - at that scale. Any edge phenomenon that might be present would be due to the differential movement of ink on a fibrous surface. Depending on magnification, irregularities will be found because the surface is irregular. At least Newbold's cosmic interpretation served to support WMV's Roger Bacon hypothesis, but this too has been shown to be highly irregular.

As I said, I don't think the language choice is important, but rather the methodology. I was trying to start to assemble a list of different theories and potentially classify them into groups with commonalities; in listing them and so identifying them I felt it necessary to specify the language or code the author claimed was the basis of text.

I am not trying to discuss what Voynichese is, but rather draw common threads between false decipherment solutions. I am working on the basis that none of these theories are correct and so not specifically trying to disprove any of them. There seem to be common patterns and methodologies.

One thing I have noticed from Gerard Cheshire's theory as well as others is:

1) Spelling variation; being tolerant of many different spellings of the same word.
2) Spacing between words arbitrarily included; allowing for many possible spacing and so many different words.

These provide further degrees of freedom and so flexibility in Voynichese solutions.

I think often people start with an idea for a language they think the Voynich might be written, because it is a language they have interest in.

They probably take a few words they have an idea for a crib from and then assign Voynich symbols accordingly. Then to make the other words fit they fall back on variable spelling, arbitrary spacing, no grammar(word salad), various related languages/dialects, words that vaguely plausibly could be consistent with the pictures we see in the Voynich and limited selective text translations. All together these provide the degrees of freedom necessary to make a theory fit.

Now they may arrive at their primary language of choice directly from their crib or from some similarity to symbols from another language. The likelihood that they crib words are correct is most likely high debatable and so their assignment of symbols.

Obviously there are variations on this method and other degrees of freedom like anagrams.

Spelling variation is a fact. Can't get rid of that. C-14 dates are in advance of most all relevant attempts at spelling standardization, if my scanty knowledge is correct. However there is the matter of quantity as to how many spelling variations might exist. Alternatives certainly do exist but, given the limited and roughly fixed phonetic set in a natural language, there are only so many ways to spell sugar.

The VMs has spaces between vords, some apparently intentional ranging to others more questionable. If this is a natural language then the probability is that a vord is a vord. If spaces are artificially inserted, then it's something else - again involving trickery.

Like so much else in the VMs that exhibits a pattern of pairing, the text interpretation <if it is a natural language> seems to have two major parts. One is the conversion of glyphs to phonemes. And the other is converting phonetic vords into words, which implies a known language. Apparently we need one to inform the other, but we have neither. That doesn't stop people from making the attempt, even though those efforts may be flawed.

(07-12-2021, 07:44 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Spelling variation is a fact. Can't get rid of that. C-14 dates are in advance of most all relevant attempts at spelling standardization, if my scanty knowledge is correct. However there is the matter of quantity as to how many spelling variations might exist. Alternatives certainly do exist but, given the limited and roughly fixed phonetic set in a natural language, there are only so many ways to spell sugar.

My own person strong opinion is that the Voynich is written in cipher. However I am not focused on my theory here, but rather the false decipherment theories of others. These theories seem to tend to be largely natural language theories sometimes with very simple cipherish elements such as the anagram. I am interested in how to classify and distinguish between these false theories and identify common elements in both how the theory was constructed and the structure of the theory. I am much less interested in this thread in working on the construction of a correct theory.

I agree that spelling variations, spacing variations, limited grammar, multiple languages and the other items I listed are all possibilities, but when combined together they make for a huge amount of flexibility. I hypotheses that with this approach I could also construct a theory of this kind that is distinct from other false theories.

(07-12-2021, 08:07 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I agree that spelling variations, spacing variations, limited grammar, multiple languages and the other items I listed are all possibilities, but when combined together they make for a huge amount of flexibility. I hypotheses that with this approach I could also construct a theory of this kind that is distinct from other false theories.

Do you mean something like this?

[al] = all, ale, ail, awl, al[cohol], Al[exander]; (read backwards) law, lay
[am] = am, aim, ham, âme; (read backwards) may, ma [i.e., mother]
[alam] = a lamb, a lame, a lam[p]; (read backwards) mala [Latin, "cheekbone"]
[ok] = oak, o'c[lock]; (read backwards) cow
[ot] = oat, ought, aught, out, hoot; (read backwards) toe, tow, too, two
[ar] = are, ar[tichoke], our, hour; (read backwards) raw
[otar] = otter, other, author; (read partly backwards as [to-ar]) tower
[air] = air, ear, er[ror], Ire[land]; (read backwards) ray, wrai[th]
[or] = or, ore, oar, whore, Or[pheus]; (read backwards) row
[oror] = horror; (read backwards) "row, row" (as in "row, row, row your boat")
[chor] = chore, core, chor[us]; (read backwards) roach
[chol] = coal, cool; (read backwards) loch, lock, look
[shor] = shore, sure, sore, soar, shower; (read backwards) rush
[shol] = shoal, school, shoul[d], sol[d], sho[ve]l; (read backwards) lush
[fachys.ykal.ar.ataiin.shol] = Fact is, I color it in school
[dam] = dam, damn, dam[p]; (read backwards) mad, made, maid, Mad[eleine]
[dar] = dare, there, dar[k], dar[t]; (read backwards) raid, read
[dal] = dale, they'll, dal[ly]; (read backwards) lad, lad[y], lad[der]
[ches], [chees] = cheese, chess; (read backwards) such
[chesy] = cheesy
[chedar] = cheddar; (read backwards) radish
[alchedar] = all cheddar
[cheky], [cheeky] = cheeky
[chedy], [shedy] = shady
[ol] = ol[d], hole, whole, owl; (read backwards) low
[olkedy] = old kitty, whole kiddie
[sain] = sane, sayin[g], seen, sign; (read backwards) nice, niece
[ain] = one, haying, eyeing, ane [Scottish, "own"]; (read backwards) nay
[dain] = done, down, town, dean, Dane; (read backwards) need, need[le]
[aiin] = one! (emphatic)
[daiin] = done! down! (emphatic)
[daiin.daiin.daiin] = done downtown! (emphatic)
[aiiin] = one!! (very emphatic)
[daiiin] = done!! (very emphatic)