The Voynich Ninja

The likely answer is that it is very easy to think you have come to a solution, and probably none are telling the truth.

Thanks, everyone.  I have updated the curated thread to add two theories to the main list and include a segment with links to forum threads on unclear/unidentified language theories.  Middle English is now solely in second place - a legacy of the old Roger Bacon rumour?

(09-08-2024, 04:53 PM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And you want to exclude the only truthful texts from further discussions?  Very interesting.

If you create a post and outline your language theory, I will happily add it to the list.  But your current thread is only about the 116v text, so it would be a bit odd if I linked to that.

(09-08-2024, 05:02 PM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Another thought for TAVI.
Why the number of the theories determines Your golden medals?
Is it not what truth is that is worth golden evaluation.

It is just a bit of fun, and the Olympics is on now.  There are likely a lot of Latin theories because many contemporary manuscripts were written in Latin. 

(09-08-2024, 05:28 PM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Let us say, We have hundreds of researchers, who are pretending to have found the solution of VM. 
If only one of them is telling the truth and all the rest are disillusioned, how do you decide?

None are pretending.  They all believe they have solved it, just as passionately and sincerely as you believe you have solved it.  As to how we decide, we are waiting for the solution that i) provides a sensible translation and ii) is reproducible by others and iii) explains line patterns and entropy and other weird Voynichese behaviour.  No one has managed even one of those.

Quote: I am a Patent Engineer and do not want to disclose everything on a web page. I don't want that in future someone else puts his or her name under my findings...

We've had at least two others say something similar, and I don't understand it.  If you post your solution here and it is recognized as having merit, you have established your academic priority and people will be keen to support you to develop it.  If you post your solution here and it turns out to be like the many others, no one would want to steal it.  But in either case, you would have established yourself as the 'owner'.

(09-08-2024, 04:53 PM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I know who the author is, which nobody seems to dream of. 
Remember, the author is the turning point of all other theories!!!! And you want to exclude the only truthful texts from further discussions?
Very interesting.

Three comments...

I think that the first line should read: "I believe that I know who the author is".
The words "think that" and "believe that" are often forgotten in similar statements from many posters.

"...exclude the only truthful texts..."
What arguments can you present, that your texts are better than those of A.Ardic or Cvetka?
This is a serious question. You will need such arguments if you want to achieve anything.

Tavie is hardly exluding any theory from discussion.

[attachment=8986]
Perhaps one should first ask, am I actually reading correctly?
Just looking at it, you notice inconsistencies. Too many of the same words, distance from the "8"
The sequence of characters is correct, but not the sequence of words.
If the "8" means "de" in French, Alemannic and Latin, why not here too?

(09-08-2024, 12:49 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.when those theories are methodologically equivalent then they are really the same theory repeated again and again. And that is what we tend to see the same theory repeated albeit with different proposed languages.

Has anyone yet tried to develop an example of this type that applies the usual methodology, as persuasively as possible, to some solution that couldn't possibly be correct?

For example, unless we posit the existence of time machines, the VMS couldn't possibly be written in Lojban, since it's known to have existed before that a priori conlang was invented in the late 1980s (or the 1950s, if we factor in its predecessor Loglan).

But how much of the vocabulary of Voynichese could be mapped to Lojban anyway, given enough effort, flexibility, and open-mindedness?

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Grammar and syntax would be another matter, but such investigations rarely if ever get that far.

Or if not Lojban, maybe Klingon or Tolkien's Elvish?  This kind of project might require too much work for anyone to want to undertake it without the usual motivation ("I might really have cracked it this time!"), but it could be useful as a point of comparison for more earnest proposals.  Maybe it could somehow be handled as a group effort, so that it wouldn't place too much of a burden on any one person.  Since nobody would be invested in it as a true solution, it could provide a wholly neutral and non-confrontational case study for criticizing the methodology itself.

(07-08-2024, 11:36 AM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thanks, all.  Two of those were already on the list.  For the other, there were various reasons why I didn't include them. e.g as Rene noted, I didn't include Bess's because there doesn't seem to be anything on it in the forum, only a thread about her thoughts on 116v.  James Child's  thread was excluded because there was a request for this to be only an obituary thread rather than discuss what his system may have been.

For the other, they weren't included unless it was clear what their language was.  I could revisit this and create an "Unclear/unidentified" category in the list? What do people think? I probably shouldn't have included Nikolai in the original list with his "ancient language" but he did write so much stuff!

On Eleonora, I mentally had her in the unidentified category since there seemed to be confusion at the time of her recent talk around what she is and isn't claiming. And after reading so many threads to do this, I didn't have the patience to go through all the docs again.  But if there's consensus she is proposing Voynichese is a German dialect, I am happy to add that to the list.

I agree with Prof. Eleonora Mataresse in terms of Bavarian Dialect. However I do not assign the language to the Southern Bavarian dialect group but both to the Central Bavarian group and to Alemanic. (scribes from various dialectal regions). Also there a remains of Middle High German. 
I hope to be able to present a publication at academia.edu in autumn this year (with my alphabeth!).

(10-08-2024, 02:36 PM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Has anyone yet tried to develop an example of this type that applies the usual methodology, as persuasively as possible, to some solution that couldn't possibly be correct?

Hi Patrick,
several years ago, I worked on a translation project based on modern English, which I nicknamed LES (Lost English of the Smurfs - the idea was to create a background story suggesting that the Smurfs were inspired by a lost English-speaking historical community).

It was based on the method used by most translators and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

A simple substitution based on the character frequency of the target language; then hammering whatever garbage you get into target-language words (I used a dictionary and edit distance).

I ran the process on the whole text, but 3 lines are enough to get the idea:

EVA<f1r.P1.1> fachys ykal ar ataiin shol shory cthres y kor sholdy
LES<f1r.P1.1>    riced erit in ilis fat fane bnod e ran fatthe
  <f1r.P1.1>      rice exit in ills fat face body ran cattle
<>
EVA<f1r.P1.2> sory ckhar or y kair chtaiin shar are cthar cthar dan
LES<f1r.P1.2>      dane vin an e riedn clis fin ino bin bin thi
  <f1r.P1.2>        done in and red clip fin in bin bin the
<>
EVA<f1r.P1.3> syaiir sheky or ykaiin shod cthoary cthes daraiin sa
LES<f1r.P1.3>      deisn fore an eris fath baine bod thinis di
  <f1r.P1.3>    deity for an(d) era swath bane god things did

At the time LLMs did not exist, but now one can ask ChatGPT to do the last step and use the words for some creative writing:

ChatGPT Wrote:In a time of hardship, bodies weakened by illness and hunger. Cattle were lost, and the land's bounty faded. A deity watched as red-tipped fins flashed in dwindling waters. A dark force cast its shadow over the era, shaping the fate of both gods and mortals.

Modern English makes it easy to see the amount of cheating required to create anything grammatical with this method. Knowing the grammar of the target language is necessary to understand what is happening. In the end, I don't think I ever published LES, since I concluded that translators would be totally undeterred.

There is a lot said of Confirmation bias. I think it is important in this regard to think of the Semmelweis effect, that is the rejection of evidence precisely because it challenges your beliefs.

(10-08-2024, 03:37 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A simple substitution based on the character frequency of the target language; then hammering whatever garbage you get into target-language words (I used a dictionary and edit distance).

There are some tricks, often used, that ease the "hammering" step:
- reduce the target alphabet: confusion of some vowels, similar sounding consonants, or allow the omission of some vowels (abjad),
- map similar-looking glyphs (with or without tiny differences) to different letters,
- creatively decide where to add and remove spaces,
- use not one but many dictionaries, several languages, dialects, also match roots of words (shorter = easier to match).

[attachment=8987]

Nice example from Marco. That immediately tells me to stay away from EVA.

EVA<f1r. P1.1> fachys ykal är ataiin shol shory cthres y kor sholdy.
The TRANSLATION is simple...it means "bullshit".

Nablator is also right.
It needs a bit more than a few forced words.
You can't be afraid to put in the work.

I specifically chose "8g 8g 8g" here. Just doesn't make sense.
But once I separate the "8" from "g" with an apostrophe, it can make perfect sense. But this way I have to write out the abbreviations for the AI "de unum".  "g" = "um or us" written out "unum/unus" number word "one".
Possible: Standing alone, prefix and suffix.
What I don't know is whether it is always a "t". Spelling "t or d".... "tum or tuum".
In the end I have a lot of possibilities, but I checked the words before feeding them to the AI to discuss the possibilities of "8g 8g 8g".
A lot of work for 3 words. But it has to be done.
Example of the variants.