The Voynich Ninja

(02-11-2022, 08:42 PM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Every vord has a subject. It is the element of the stem around which other elements revolve. In the default vord QOKEEDY the subject is [k]. The [k] is the core of the stem that is modified by the other elements. Specifically, it is modified by [ee] and by [qo].

The subject of a vord is usually a gallows, or bench, but in any case almost always a consonant corresponding to the [k] in QOKEEDY (and only rarely a vowel corresponding to [ee] with the consonant empty.)

For my personal taste, this is an improvement with respect to the previous iterations.
I particularly like that the gallows is referenced to as the 'core' of the word, adopting Stolfi's terminology. Stolfi's grammar splits each words into five optional parts:

crust,mantle,core,mantle,crust

Where the core corresponds to a gallows character and the two mantles (mostly) correspond to benches and e-sequences.

shedy is parsed as :
crust:- mantle:- core:- mantle:she crust:dy

So the three parts A/B/C fit well with Stolfi's crust/mantle+core+mantle/crust. Of course, they also fit well with the three syllables in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

The archetype word "qokeedy" is a reasonable choice: for instance, it conforms to the "Currier B loop" You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. It is also comparable with the word that Emma chose as an example for her Body Rank Order system: qokedar.
The most complex part of Emma's system is that it is based on her ideas about the equivalence of 'a' and 'y' and 'y deletion'. In order to bypass these difficulties, I will pick a slightly different example: oteodaiin (which also occurs more than 5 times). Emma's system parses it as three syllables:

o,teo,daiin

If one matches this word to qokeedy, it becomes clear that a slot for the "coda" is missing: one must allow that the vowel of the last syllable is followed by consonants.

o(qo) teo(kee) d(d) aii(y) n(coda)

I believe it is better to parse the 'd' as the consonant of the third syllable (as from Emma's model). Similarly, 'laiin' is best regarded as a single syllable: a model that follows the CV pattern (with an optional final coda resulting in CVC) is clearer than two syllables CV-C as in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. example parsing of 'laiin'.

A final coda will also allow for a parsing of pchdar consistent with Stolfi's:

pchdar:
crust:- mantle:- core:p mantle:ch crust:dar

-(qo) pch(kee) d(d) a(y) r(coda)


Finally, I think it would be better to drop the idea that "every vord has a subject": this leads to "daiin" being parsed very differently from "qokedaiin", which does not make sense, in my opinion. I would prefer an empty subject for daiin, like this:

qo(qo) ke(kee) d(d) aii(y) n(coda)

-(qo) -(kee) d(d) aii(y) n(coda)

[attachment=6915] 
I'll just give you an example to think about. And there are a few examples.

[attachment=6916]
Let's put one more on top.
I'll take the gallows and just put it on an end.

You can't force it, you have to learn it by playing.

(03-11-2022, 01:26 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.We don't know how the MS was created, and for me, the option that it is a fair copy by scribes who did not understand what they were copying, remains a possibility. In such a case, errors are likely to be abundant.

Even in normal manuscripts that are perfectly legible, and that were copied by professional scribes, there are some typical mistakes like copying a piece of text twice in a row, or jumping to the wrong source line while copying. The scribe should have noticed this as he could understand what he was copying, but in the end he is human and can make mistakes.

The text floats around the illustrations and the lines fill out the available space. No text was scraped out or crossed out. No helper lines were drawn to prevent sloped text lines like on folio 105r in lines 9a and 10. This either indicates that the scribe did made the layout during writing or that the original text layout was copied. 

In the first case the scribe was knowing enough to adapt the text. In the second case we still see the original layout. If this is indeed the case the length of a line would work like an error detector. By copying a piece of text twice the scribe would run out of space at the end of a line and by missing out something some unused space would be left over. This means the scribe didn't made any errors and we still see the original layout or the scribe was able to adapt the text to the new layout. Therefore I find the idea of a scribe who did not understand what he was copying as explanation for weird words unconvincing.

Here is another possible development of this vord paradigm.

The paradigm vord QOKEEDY is unsatifactory at both ends. A high proportion of vords end in a consonant and a good proportion begin with a vowel.

I propose, therefore, not merely QOKEEDY but a cycle of four variations on that vord. The variations are:

qokeedy
qokaiin
olkaiin
olkeedy

The consonants and vowels go like this:

A: CV CV CV
B: CV CV VC
C: VC CV VC
D: VC CV CV

The full cycle goes:

CV CV CV CV CV VC VC CV VC VC CV CV

A sequence of twelve syllables.

The sequence is continuous because:

Qokeedy – qokaain = the word break is [y.k]

Qokaiin – olkaiin = the word break is [n.o]

Olkaiin – Olkeedy = the word break is [n.o]

Thus: qokeedy.qokaiin.olkaiin.olkeedy. And so on. The line of least resistance.

This allows four models for parsing, with every Voynich vord conforming as nearly as possible to one of the four. QOKEEDY (and a cycle of its variations) is the paradigm.

Nabbing some vords at random, we find:

QOKEEDY

qopchy
sheedy
opchdy
shotchey
otedy

QOKAIIN

shosaiin
ytaiin
chodar
tchar
opal
shokal
cheedar

OLKAIIN

lkaiin
olkeees
olcham
chtaiin

OLKEEDY

lkchedy
olky
lkeeeody
arshey
alkedy

PROBLEMATIC

tolos
okaral
pokar
kedshedy
alodar


Once again, the problematic ones are the vords of interest.

(03-11-2022, 06:34 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Therefore I find the idea of a scribe who did not understand what he was copying as explanation for weird words unconvincing.

I'm not trying to convince anyone, and I am not even convinced myself. However, for me it remains a possibility that I am not yet ready to discard.
(While this question is only marginal to the topic of this thread, the whole issue about corrections or not is a big issue in itself. I don't want to go into it here)

There are two separate questions:
- is the MS that has come down to us a copy from a draft?
- if it was a copy, could the scribe understand the text?
I think that most of the arguments presented address the first question, and especially some of the more complicated diagrams would have been easier to make in two stages. There is nothing in the arguments that suggests whether or not the scribe could read the text.

This question allows for a lot of speculation, and in fact, even if at some point the text has been translated, we might still not know the answer to this question. It could be a topic for another thread.

The question of why QOKEEDY might cycle through variations is a bit like Epicurus’ swerve: an atom just gets it in its mind to swerve and suddenly there’s a universe. Minimum deviation.

The reason here seem to be that [y] is a ‘soft’ ending, being a vowel, (or vowelish) and a consonant is a more emphatic ending. 

The hard ending then provokes a vowel at the vord break: [n] is followed by [o] and the prefix [ol] appears.

The usual pattern of CV is reversed at both ends.

In the process, the stem vowel [ee] hardens to [a] in sympathy with the final emphatic consonant and the [q] in the prefix (being quite strictly initial) softens into [l] and its group of consonants. These are harder than [y] but softer than [q].

The reason for the ‘swerve’ then would be a preferred euphony.

(04-11-2022, 12:22 AM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The reason here seem to be that [y] is a ‘soft’ ending, being a vowel, (or vowelish) and a consonant is a more emphatic ending. 

The hard ending then provokes a vowel at the vord break: [n] is followed by [o] and the prefix [ol] appears.

The word counts suggest that there is a relation between [-y] and [-ol]. At the end of a word /a/ and /o/ are normally avoided. Instead /y/ is written in this position.

char ( 72)  dar (318)  odar (24)  okar (129)
chal ( 48)  dal (253)  odal (13)  okal (138)
chor (219)  dor ( 73)  odor ( 8)  okor ( 34)
chol (396)  dol (117)  odol ( 2)  okol ( 82)
cho  ( 68)  do  ( 16)  odo  (--)  oko  (  8)
chy  (155)  dy  (270)  ody  (46)  oky  (102)

Therefore it is also possible to find not only <qokeedy> but also words like <qokeedar> and <qokeedal> in the VMS.

qokeedy  (305)  qokedy  (272)
qokeedar (  6)  qokedar (  8)
qokeedal (  3)  qokedal (  3)
qokeedol (---)  qokedol (  1)

(03-11-2022, 11:54 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There are two separate questions:
- is the MS that has come down to us a copy from a draft?
- if it was a copy, could the scribe understand the text?

It should be possible to test this hypotheses by copying some folios manually and to compare the layout. Have you tried to execute such an experiment?

(03-11-2022, 11:36 PM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The sequence is continuous because:

Qokeedy – qokaain = the word break is [y.k]

Qokaiin – olkaiin = the word break is [n.o]

Olkaiin – Olkeedy = the word break is [n.o]

Thus: qokeedy.qokaiin.olkaiin.olkeedy. And so on. The line of least resistance.

Do you see evidence of a sequence of those four forms recurring continuously in that specific order, or could a model like the following one also express the pattern you have in mind?

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