Here's a great state-of-the VMS piece that was published today in Discover Magazine:
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The reporter cites Claire and Luke frequently, and includes links to several other published sources, including the 2022 conference, my work, and Rene's website.
A good summation, and the Voynichese writing, of course, still remains uninterpreted. What it doesn't discuss is the last decade worth of investigation into the VMs illustrations. While it is true that a lot of botanical investigation has provided little progress, even a valid botanical identification provides no historical connection. That is not true, however, for a select set of illustrations derived from various investigations into specific examples from the VMs Astro, Zodiac, and Balneological sections. The reality of the VMs is built on these illustrations. Interpretation is based on knowing the same historical information <compatible with the first half of 15th C.> that the VMs artist knew and then *uniquely* represented. It starts with the VMs cosmos compared to the cosmic illustrations in BNF Fr. 565 and Harley 334.
The article contains several mistakes. The most problematic statement is the following one:
Quote:As with writing in any familiar language, the separate sections of the Voynich Manuscript show a certain clustering of words according to their topics: There are words in the manuscript that only appear in the botanical section or the pharmaceutical section of the manuscript or so on, Bowern said to Knowable Magazine in 2021, making the text look a lot like meaningful language.
It is unfortunate that incorrect statements about the Voynich manuscript like that by Claire Bowern are spread out. Bowerns statement obviously refers to the well known observation that certain glyph combinations occur more frequently in certain sections. For instance EVA-edy is more common in Currier B than in Currier A. However, this does not imply that words are systematically organized around topics. On the contrary, a word dominating one page may be rare or absent on the next. Furthermore, if a word is common in one section, it always can also be found in other sections. An example of this behavior is the use of the word 'chedy' in the botanical section. If you look solely on the word frequency for the whole Herbal section it seems as if 'chedy' is common there. However, in the Herbal section in Currier A 'chedy' appears only once, whereas it is frequently utilized in Herbal in Currier B. Yet, even though 'chedy' is common on certain pages in Herbal in Currier B, it remains rare or absent on others. Therefore the detailed observations clearly contradict the notion of a relationship between words and topics.
The usage of words in the Voynich text becomes even more strange if you take into account the finding that certain Voynich characters and character combinations tend to be found at either the beginning or the end of a line. Even Bowern concludes that at least the changes within a line "seem typographical rather than linguistic in nature" [Bowern & Lindemann] It strikes me that a linguist like Bowern isn't aware that this level of variation within a single text is unprecedented for natural languages. Thus, Bowerns conclusion that "the higher structure of the manuscript itself is completely consistent with natural language" is evidently incorrect.
There is no doubt that the Voynich text is structured in some way, but simply because the text has some structure does not entail that it is likely that the Voynichese text would "form sentences in consistent ways that impart meaning," or that Voynichese should possess "phonology, morphology, semantics, and syntax" as suggested by Bowern.
Torsten, although I do believe that the VM has a meaning, I agree with you in rejecting the linguistic solution. There is an almost fetishistic adherence to this solution.
It seems only logical to me, if we are dealing with an herbal (or pseudo-herbal), the text would ostensibly consider the medical properties of plants. For the various plants there are different parts that are used, for example, the roots. When the roots are relevant, they are mentioned; and when not, they are ignored. If 'chedy' were the word for some useful part of the plant, like the root, how would that be different?
Suppose the Currier B scribe did the certain set of plants that were medically significant because of their roots, but missed one.
Granted there are a lot of other problems.
You can't make that judgement. You have to be sure that it is the same writer. Characteristics also change due to the person and not just the subject.
It also depends on which type of writing someone prefers.
It doesn't work in English in this example, but that's what it looks like.
Example:
Es hat grüne Blätter oder sie besitzt grüne Blätter.
It has green leaves or it has green leaves.
The meaning is the same in both cases.
Furthermore, a narrative is not the same as an explanation.
Example:
Ich habe es so gemacht / Du sollt es so machen.
Wir haben es so gemacht / Ihr solltet es so machen.
I did it like this / You should do it like this.
We did it this way / You should do it this way.
Now not only the person singular and plural changes, but also the time.
It changes from the past to the future. This also changes the ending and the prefix.
This creates a different image depending on the person. Hand A and hand B write differently, but have the same language.
If you are clever, you can not only count letters but also prefixes and endings.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
(12-03-2024, 06:27 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It seems only logical to me, if we are dealing with an herbal (or pseudo-herbal), the text would ostensibly consider the medical properties of plants. For the various plants there are different parts that are used, for example, the roots. When the roots are relevant, they are mentioned; and when not, they are ignored.
Bear in mind the two other observations mentioned in my post: Firstly, a word common in one section can always be found in all other sections as well. Secondly, there are considerably more word types containing EVA-edy in sections using Currier B than in sections using Currier A.
For instance the pharmaceutical section, written in Currier A, includes illustrations of plant parts, especially roots, but is rarely using the word 'chedy' (there is only a single instance on f89r1). Conversely, the balneological and stars sections, which lack plant illustrations but are written in Currier B, not only more frequently feature 'chedy' but also contain a greater variety of 'edy' word types, such as 'shedy', 'sheedy', 'cheedy', 'okeedy', and so forth. To me, this indicates that glyph combinations are preferred in a certain location and not word types: "all pages containing at least some lines of text do have in common that pairs of frequently used words with high mutual similarity appear" [Timm & Schinner, p. 3].
Additionally, in natural languages there will be frequent words distributed equally over the entire text, the so-called function words (like conjunctions, articles etc.). They do not appear contextual, but rather serve to implement grammatical structures, and they normally do not have co-occurring similar words of comparable frequency [You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. p. 6]. Therefore for a text using a natural language it would be expected that the most frequent words are functions words and therefore appear equally distributed. Surprisingly, equally distributed words do not exist in the Voynich text. In other words, grammatical structures are absent in the Voynich text.
Between linguistic and non-linguistic is quasi-linguistic. The text is not linguistic, but it sure looks like it is. Which is fascinating in itself. Why present non-linguistic information in a distinctly linguistic form? (Hoax scenarios should be a last resort.) We could present numbers or music or other data in this way, perhaps, but why?
The higher levels of the text display some linguistic features, but under the hood it is thoroughly non-linguistic. How does that happen? By design or accident?
I think linguistic-solution researchers took succour from the Bowen-Lindemann account, but their conclusion that the text is probably linguistic was, I thought, too hasty and unsupported. It depends upon a faulty heirarchy of evidence. (Stephen Bax gave them succour too, and reasons to proceed with confidence.)
Of recent times, I don't think anyone has made any significant advances towards a linguistic solution, whereas in recent decades the evidence for non-linguistic solutions has been impressive, Torsten's research included.
(12-03-2024, 01:06 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The article contains several mistakes. The most problematic statement is the following one:
Quote:As with writing in any familiar language, the separate sections of the Voynich Manuscript show a certain clustering of words according to their topics: There are words in the manuscript that only appear in the botanical section or the pharmaceutical section of the manuscript or so on, Bowern said to Knowable Magazine in 2021, making the text look a lot like meaningful language.
It is unfortunate that incorrect statements about the Voynich manuscript like that by Claire Bowern are spread out. Bowerns statement obviously refers to the well known observation that certain glyph combinations occur more frequently in certain sections. For instance EVA-edy is more common in Currier B than in Currier A. However, this does not imply that words are systematically organized around topics. On the contrary, a word dominating one page may be rare or absent on the next. Furthermore, if a word is common in one section, it always can also be found in other sections.
...
As far as I am concerned, the description at the end of the second paragraph:
Quote:For instance EVA-edy is more common in Currier B than in Currier A. However, this does not imply that words are systematically organized around topics. On the contrary, a word dominating one page may be rare or absent on the next. Furthermore, if a word is common in one section, it always can also be found in other sections.
is not in contradiction with the statement in the article:
Quote:As with writing in any familiar language, the separate sections of the Voynich Manuscript show a certain clustering of words according to their topics: There are words in the manuscript that only appear in the botanical section or the pharmaceutical section of the manuscript or so on, Bowern said to Knowable Magazine in 2021, making the text look a lot like meaningful language.
For me, both are correct.
The latter was already argued in the paper by Montemurro and Zanette. Now while their argument is not proof of meaning, the article also does not say that. Instead,
Quote:making the text look a lot like meaningful language.
is a completely defendable statement.
Yes, there are some inaccuracies in the article, but for me, this isn't one of them
(13-03-2024, 01:29 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For me, both are correct.
The statement "There are words in the manuscript that only appear in a certain section" and the statement "common words can always be found in other sections" are directly contradictory.
Furthermore, Bowern argues for a "certain clustering of words according to their topics," whereas I contend that there is a clustering around Currier languages and per page. You have already described this contradiction yourself back in 2019: "This does not demonstrate ... that the text variations are caused by different subject matter (as suggested in by Montemurro and Zanette). If that were the case, the difference between herbal A and herbal B should not exist." [You are not allowed to view links.
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(13-03-2024, 01:29 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The latter was already argued in the paper by Montemurro and Zanette. Now while their argument is not proof of meaning, the article also does not say that. Instead, Quote:making the text look a lot like meaningful language.
is a completely defendable statement.
Actually, the article even states: "But beyond the word level — at the level of large sections of text — Voynichese is, in fact, similar to familiar languages." Anyway, if there is no clustering around topics, then the assertion that clustering around topics indicates similarity is obviously incorrect.