(11-03-2016, 03:17 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The biggest 'problem' with the Voynich alphabet, in my opinion, is the funny behaviour of Eva 'ch', I could imagine many things, for example in case the text is a phonetic rendition of some language foreign to the author/scribe:
Eva-'ch' could just be aspiration, like the 'h' in English. 'ch' and 'sh' could be different types (real or perceived) like the two different sipritus symbols in Greek.
ckh and cth could be aspirated versions of unaspirated consonants k and t. (all Eva)
I know Vogt has this set up in his theory, but I'm not sure how like such clusters are, or how likely they are given clusters tend to by rare in the Voynich text. Given that [ch, sh] make up the second half of the bulk of the clusters we see, I think we're looking at something much more simpler, such as [ch, sh] being semivowels like /y, w/. It would also explain why vowels are sometimes absent after them, as they can become vowels in ordinary speech. And it would explain why they're not really found in syllables codas.
It would mean, however, that a vast number of words begin /ya-, wa-/ or the like. Maybe instead they're some other approximant like /l, r/? As lots of words beginning /la-/ would be wonderful. But then you're left with some rare, but possible, clusters of the type mostly seen in...Slavic languages.
/braindump
(11-03-2016, 10:00 AM)Sam Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Speaking of that, do you know whatever happened to Jacques Guy?
At some point he stopped contributing to the old mailing list and I did not hear from him since.
It seems that, after that time, he was briefly in contact with Gerry Kennedy in preparation for the latter's book, but that's all really.
(10-03-2016, 11:08 PM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Everything I see points to alphabet (i.e. 1 glyph = 1 segmental phoneme, basically)
- Number of glyphs matches alphabets
- Apparent pronounceability and consonant/vowel alternation when viewed as alphabetic
- Apparent derivation from Roman alphabet and Latin abbreviation means the script creator was familiar with alphabetic writing
- Structure and symmetry of the glyph set is similar to what is seen in phoneme inventories of natural languages
- Word length
The only other possibility is that glyphs represent sub-alphabetic units
Thanks, I'm so much happier that this has all been reduced to two possibilities. Damn, there went my New Year's resolution to stop being sarcastic. Oh well, at least I lasted longer than last year.
The assertion that the number of glyphs matches alphabetic is a weak assertion since we aren't sure how many glyphs there are or what they encode. Even if we accept that some of them encode phonemes we don't know how many is enough for the language. Even in English we don't have a one to one correspondence. This looks like an excuse to call it an alphabet more than it does evidence. I will translate "Apparent" on your next two points as "I'm guessing", correct me if that wasn't what you meant but the pronouncability is only there because you have decided vowel and consonants need to alternate. And seeing something similar to an alphabet as proof of a specific origin is like saying a chihuahua is a rodent because it's similar to a rat to anyone familiar with mammalian phenotypes. I'm not sure I understand your fourth point, but the word similar makes me dislike it a little. I'm afraid the fifth point needs a bit more development as well.
The point of Emma's question seems to have been to ask for alternatives to an alphabet. I'm sure she's already familiar with all the arguments for an alphabet and wants to consider other possibilities. It's really not a matter of what everything you see points to, it's whether you're not seeing something obvious or if you've stopped looking because you are already seeing what you want to see. With that in mind could you explain what you mean by sub-alphabetic units. Surely you aren't suggesting that two or more glyphs combine to represent a single phoneme?
On a different topics, but still part of this thread, the possibility of symbolic representation wasn't intended to indicate a code or an artificial language. I'm still suggesting a written encoding that the scribe could have read aloud from the page with no need to calculate or convert anything. Just because the written language might have incorporated information like gender or plurality with position or a special glyph doesn't mean the spoken language didn't use special words, tonal emphasis, phonemic suffixes or something else to indicate the same things Every written language is by definition artificial*. I doubt even Chomsky would argue that how language is
written is encoded in deep structure.
My point in offering alternatives is to contribute to a discussion, not to push forward a particular theory or kill anyone's sacred cows. But I don't mind pointing out that some of those cows haven't moved in a while and don't smell so good.
*if you don't believe written language is artificial explain the reason for the spellings and pronunciations of hinge and hung or through and throw and thorough, explain why English uses ye as an archaic form of the (hint: ye ole th sound used to be represented by a single character), research why an ampersand is called an ampersand and you'll realize that and used to be a letter of the alphabet. I would argue that many of the tools we use to perform analyses such as count word distribution or phoneme frequency do not always accurately distinguish between the complexity of spoken language and the simplification and shortcuts used to write things down in English. They do not work as well as they should with known languages.
If the text is linguistic in nature, then the script is an alphabet. That is the original question.
And the immediate reply is the numerical alternative.
The problem is that despite some serious attempts at translation, nothing has really worked to satisfy the consensus.
The paradigm of translation from the VMs language to a known language, plain or encrypted, has not worked. That would enhance the recommendation to consider numbers. But what numbers, from where, to do what???
In the alphabetic paradigm, symbols in VMs text are turned into letters and words, either from some unknown language or through some unknown cryptic method. The numerical system can be used the same way, but numbers can also combine to designate numbers other than their individual, direct equivalents. They may designate another number that is part of a mathematical or harmonic sequence or an arithmetical combination.
Johannes Trithemius described an interesting encoding method in his book Polygraphiae in 1508. Trithemius´ method uses a code table to assign multiple words to each letter:
a = pasa | mastra | ....
b = pase | mastre | ...
c = pasi | mastri | ...
...
(see You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
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The method is interesting since similar words would encode different letters whereas non similar words would stand for the same letter.
exactly!
Everybody is always talking about alphabet and letters, the question is which letters we see.
I don't like a numeral presentation either because then the transcription is "hard-coded" as well.
We need to "soft-code" the transcription. That means: 1 letter can mean more than 1 thing.
Soft code
Currently i am working (a.o. many things) on diplomatic handwritten text from between year 1450-1500.
What you also see there that 1 letter can be represented differently not only at beginning-middle-end but also also in relation to other letters.
That is the reason the "Torsten" theory is interesting at this moment for me, because he also writes something like that. (but i'am still examining the pdf).
Q: Has anybody got diplomatic letters from the Vatican by any chance?
Pen strokes
About a year ago i broke down the letters into pen-strokes. (This subject is discussed somewhere else on this site as well)
Then i shifted letters around and try to find a match with other languages. The conclusion was: no possibilities.
Reading about the Bacon cipher and his examples, where he uses very tiny differences in font types to cipher,
made me realize the small error there: i simply took a transcription and replaced the letters by pen-strokes.
That is wrong because if you look closely there are major and also small letter-differences. If you really want to do a good job,
you compare the pen strokes at microscopic level and transcribe it using those.
Hey David, could you show an example of this kind of script where "1 letter can be represented differently not only at beginning-middle-end but also also in relation to other letters"? This also ties in to the way I understand the Voynich script, so I'd be very interested to see what you mean.
Edit: by the way, I remember Diane wrote about papal correspondence on her blog, did you check there already?
Made a quick pic which shows some of these letters; rr and r, s and a on 1 piece of paper.
(You could think the s like a 8 is a stroke-slip, but it isn't, it is actually more like a B later on)
![[Image: d_example.jpg]](http://ms.webpoint.nl/img/favadiani/d_example.jpg)
Quote:Edit: by the way, I remember Diane wrote about papal correspondence on her blog, did you check there already?
I prefer a direct link...
(15-03-2016, 02:45 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view......
What you also see there that 1 letter can be represented differently not only at beginning-middle-end but also also in relation to other letters.
...
Yes, or along the same line of thinking, letters could be represented differently depending which word it is in the sentence.
Think about it... what's the longest line of text in the VMS? Most lines are only about a dozen words long. The author appears reluctant to break a word across lines.
Word position could determine coding. If it person enciphering it used charts only about a dozen plus a few extra charts would be needed to encode each word differently, which is less than some of the unwieldy chart systems that were invented in the 16th and 17th centuries. If more variety were desired, a marker at the beginning of each paragraph could indicate a shift or starting point within the same system.
One of the consequences of this kind of encipherment scheme is that words with identical letters next to each other would be different words. There would also be more subtle pattern variations between the beginnings and ends of lines (which is something that does occur in the VMS).
I'm not saying this is how it was done, because there is a pairing element to the VMS letter combinations that would not be adequately explained by this method, but I have been interested in looking at the
structure of the words and what might result in the kinds of patterns that are prevalent in the VMS because one-to-one substitution codes (and some of the other kinds of codes people have been trying) don't LOOK or behave like VMS text once they are enciphered. Different encipherment methods have an overall look-and-feel just as the patterns of geological crystals have an overall look-and-feel that distinguishes them from others.
Quote:JKP
...
Word position could determine coding. If it person enciphering it used charts only about a dozen plus a few extra charts would be needed to encode each word differently, which is less than some of the unwieldy chart systems that were invented in the 16th and 17th centuries. If more variety were desired, a marker at the beginning of each paragraph could indicate a shift or starting point within the same system.
One of the consequences of this kind of encipherment scheme is that words with identical letters next to each other would be different words. There would also be more subtle pattern variations between the beginnings and ends of lines (which is something that does occur in the VMS).
Nice idea, but such coding is way too complex for that exact time according to several cipher books (i will remain in the years 1400-1475)
Anyway following the question of this threa
d, "Alternatives to alphabet?" what do you propose ?