(12-06-2025, 06:51 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Stolfi, have you actually measured the entropy of monosyllabic languages? How do they need to be written down to achieve a conditional character entropy that's well under 3, while at the same time working with a very limited alphabet?
Hi Koen,
Jorge mentioned the VIQR writing system for Vietnamese. Years ago, I processed a file that was on Jorge's site (VIQR version of the Pentateuch) and I measured a conditional entropy of about 2.2. See also my 06/07/2020 comment on your post here: You are not allowed to view links.
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Here is a plot I computed at that time. I am far from sure that these results are accurate...
(11-06-2025, 11:17 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.OK, it seems I must flesh out my version of the "Chinese" theory.
What I like about this theory: it doesn't cling to overly realistic most likely scenarios of writing a codex. Given the Voynich Manuscript is an oddball, I find nothing wrong with thinking that it was created as a result of some unlikely chain of events. I think the small number of travellers to/from the Orient or using separate Reader, Author and Scribe to explain the unusual combination of the features of the MS is not problematic.
What I find strange in this theory:
1) Total lack of notes in Latin or another native language of the Author. If the Author's goal was not the concealment of information, but spreading/keeping the knowledge, I can imaging each page of the original transcription would be heavily annotated.
2) Lack of any images or inscriptions that would unambiguously link it to the Orient. Even if the Author couldn't draw well, sketching a few important symbols or objects seemed reasonable.
3) Generally, I think this would have been partially solved a long time ago, if this was just a faithful phonetic representation of a natural language, regardless of the language. Start with the labels, try identifying what they mean using images and repeated labels, find these labels in the text, ..., get a solution. There are attempts like this a few times a year, but they quickly break down, because there is no consistency in labels and how the same words are used in the text.
By the way, there was a thread about Chinese astrology in VMS last year: You are not allowed to view links.
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Took me a while to find it back: Vietnamese handwritten documents in the Vatican Library.
This is the fondo Borgiani Tonchinesi:
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or with more explanations:
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There is a dictionary at Borg.Tonch.8 of Vietnamese to what looks like Portuguese (?)
Are there any Asian languages (or any languages in general) that can't be captured in the Latin alphabet with a few modifications, like diacritics or use of punctuation symbols, to show elements like tone or non-European phonemes? I.E has a native Latin writer (for want of a better phrase) ever been forced to create a whole new alphabet in other circumstances?
(12-06-2025, 09:02 AM)Pepper Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Are there any Asian languages (or any languages in general) that can't be captured in the Latin alphabet with a few modifications, like diacritics or use of punctuation symbols, to show elements like tone or non-European phonemes? I.E has a native Latin writer (for want of a better phrase) ever been forced to create a whole new alphabet in other circumstances?
I understand the point, but let's also look at it from the other side.
The creator(s) of the Voynich MS were most probably not forced to do anything.
This seems to be something they wanted to do, in the way that they chose to do it.
Back to the question, one could argue that Mandarin Chinese qualifies for this.
The existing systems (let's just concentrate on pinyin) are many-to-one mappings.
All of the following:
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are transliterated as li4 or lì
(12-06-2025, 09:11 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (12-06-2025, 09:02 AM)Pepper Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Are there any Asian languages (or any languages in general) that can't be captured in the Latin alphabet with a few modifications, like diacritics or use of punctuation symbols, to show elements like tone or non-European phonemes? I.E has a native Latin writer (for want of a better phrase) ever been forced to create a whole new alphabet in other circumstances?
I understand the point, but let's also look at it from the other side.
The creator(s) of the Voynich MS were most probably not forced to do anything.
This seems to be something they wanted to do, in the way that they chose to do it.
Back to the question, one could argue that Mandarin Chinese qualifies for this.
The existing systems (let's just concentrate on pinyin) are many-to-one mappings.
All of the following: [...] are transliterated as li4 or lì
I think you're misreading Rene's use of "forced" there. He's not using it in the sense of "someone put a gun (or crossbow :->) to their head", he's using it (I think) in the sense of "none of the Jesuits (say) who worked up Romanization schemes for tonal Asian languages found the Latin alphabet so inadequate for the purpose that they were motivated to invent a new script."
By the way, welcome back.
(12-06-2025, 09:02 AM)Pepper Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Are there any Asian languages (or any languages in general) that can't be captured in the Latin alphabet with a few modifications, like diacritics or use of punctuation symbols, to show elements like tone or non-European phonemes? I.E has a native Latin writer (for want of a better phrase) ever been forced to create a whole new alphabet in other circumstances?
I am slightly familiar with Chinese. I used to be at HSK3, which is B1 in CEFR or lower intermediate level, but it was decades ago, nowadays I just find it funny when I see a familiar character or overhear a familiar word, I can't really read or speak. So if it was year 14XX (but somehow the language sounded like modern spoken Chinese) and I had to invent a way to write phonetically, it's quite possible I wouldn't use Latin letters, because I would struggle to find a good enough mapping for many popular sounds. I certainly wouldn't consider using Q and X (and maybe a few others) the way they are used in Pinyin. It's possible I would take some existing local phonetic representation and adapt it for the European way of writing. Something like cursive You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. as used in Taiwan. Alternatively, for complex or logographic scripts, I could use the most common syllables or logograms (greatly simplified) to represent the sounds that they usually invoke or associate with.
So, I don't find it totally implausible that a person would invent a new alphabet, or more likely repurpose parts of a local alphabet, and it would be more convenient than using Latin letters.
(12-06-2025, 09:43 AM)kckluge Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (12-06-2025, 09:11 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (12-06-2025, 09:02 AM)Pepper Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Are there any Asian languages (or any languages in general) that can't be captured in the Latin alphabet with a few modifications, like diacritics or use of punctuation symbols, to show elements like tone or non-European phonemes? I.E has a native Latin writer (for want of a better phrase) ever been forced to create a whole new alphabet in other circumstances?
I understand the point, but let's also look at it from the other side.
The creator(s) of the Voynich MS were most probably not forced to do anything.
This seems to be something they wanted to do, in the way that they chose to do it.
Back to the question, one could argue that Mandarin Chinese qualifies for this.
The existing systems (let's just concentrate on pinyin) are many-to-one mappings.
All of the following: [...] are transliterated as li4 or lì
I think you're misreading Rene's use of "forced" there. He's not using it in the sense of "someone put a gun (or crossbow :->) to their head", he's using it (I think) in the sense of "none of the Jesuits (say) who worked up Romanization schemes for tonal Asian languages found the Latin alphabet so inadequate for the purpose that they were motivated to invent a new script."
By the way, welcome back.
More in general, I find most arguments along the lines of: "that would have been an unusual / unnecessary / illogical thing to do" too subjective and really too weak an argument to let it affect my thinking.
For one it is subjective, an another thing is that what would be illogical (did I forget: inefficient?) nowadays would not be so in the later middle ages...
(12-06-2025, 09:51 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.More in general, I find most arguments along the lines of: "that would have been an unusual / unnecessary / illogical thing to do" too subjective and really too weak an argument to let it affect my thinking.
For one it is subjective, an another thing is that what would be illogical (did I forget: inefficient?) nowadays would not be so in the later middle ages...
I come at it from the other side. I find the "the author did it this way because X Y Z" are often the weakest part of an argument, and definitely felt this for Jorge's post above. Not that it affects whether the solution is right or wrong, but including it weakens the whole argument IMO.
(12-06-2025, 09:43 AM)kckluge Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think you're misreading Rene's use of "forced" there. He's not using it in the sense of "someone put a gun (or crossbow :->) to their head", he's using it (I think) in the sense of "none of the Jesuits (say) who worked up Romanization schemes for tonal Asian languages found the Latin alphabet so inadequate for the purpose that they were motivated to invent a new script."
By the way, welcome back.
I think you mixed our names up but if I read this right yes, that's what I meant.
(12-06-2025, 10:04 AM)Pepper Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think you mixed our names up but if I read this right yes, that's what I meant.
And that is also what I meant. 'Forced by circumstances'.
What the Voynich authors did has all the looks of something unusual, no matter what it was based on.
(My opinion of course).