15-04-2016, 08:24 PM
Anton just posted an observation about my readings of the plant labels in another thread. Since I appreciate input and criticism and would like to know possible objections to what I'm doing, I thought it would be neater to move this to a new thread. This is what he wrote:
Anton, I understand your objections, but there are some factors that could explain your findings:
- The first label in a row is always attributed to a jar. I think these are geographical names related to trading (like ports or local trade centres), which may not be repeated elsewhere, but I have only a number of proposed readings, which I haven't published yet. The interpretation is very tentative, but they do belong to the jars. The more ornate jars just don't have their label written on them because that would ruin their appearance and make the label hard to read.
- A core part of my interpretation is that the labels are the local names for the plants, i.e. the names that were foreign to the reader. They may be repeated in other sections, but don't need to. It's like if you had a book in English about French plants, with first a botanical description of the plant, and then a list of the French names. The first part can mention the French name, but doesn't need to since its focus is not linguistic.
- I read the gallows as "ornate" forms of sounds that can also be expressed in ligatures (like the "bench"). I don't understand this well enough yet to describe how it works entirely. In the root and leaf section, ornate glyphs are used to stress certain sounds. So it's possible that the same plant name appears in two different forms, in which case I would expect the less ornate form in the "large plant" section. I have found one example of this, which I will gladly explain if so desired.
- It cannot be denied that there are plants that appear in both the "large plants" as the "small plants" section, but there is definitely no one-to-one correspondence. Many plants from either section can't be found in the other one. I'd be more worried if you found more corresponding words. I'm rather comfortable with the numbers you mention.
- The "more labels than plants" problem is easily explained, usually in the way that you suggested already. The labels often refer to products rather than the actual plant, which may result in a label that reads "wood (of) teak", like in my post about You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I'm rather happy with the label reading there (although it is a bad example of how the plant name is similar to the mythological mnemonic name, but that part is less relevant in this discussion). Similarly, I have recently found out that the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. plant's label refers to the juice of the fruit, rather than the plant's name, so it reads "juice (of) ???". The first word of that label I read as "Ros", which still appears in many Indo-Iranian languages as "ros" or "ras" meaning sap or fruit, just like it did in Sanskrit. At the time of posting, I hadn't discovered this yet, so this isn't reflected in the post. So this would refer to a fruit of which the juice was economically interesting or used as provisions for a ship's crew.
- About some labels being re-used, that is to be expected. We're dealing with foreign plant names, and those names often got borrowed to name different plants, or got assigned to different plants in different places over time. Given the fact that Voynich roots are especially mnemonic, i.e. modified, we can expect roots that look different to bear the same, or a similar name. Also, since we're dealing with a transcription of these names for Greek speakers, some phonological differences in the original languages won't be reflected. For example, to a Dutch speaker who's not used to English, the words "thorn" and "torn" will sound the same, just like "bet" and "bed".
Quote:Since Koen elsewhere expressed his belief that pharma section labels represent plant names, I did some screening checks and then I found this thread in which I would like to state the following discouraging considerations as to the aforementioned proposal.
1) Many of the pharma section labels are unique words. E.g. in f88r, even if we exclude the labels that might be attributed to jars, 38% of labels are unique; in f88v, using the same principle, 50% of labels are unique.
2) Furthermore, not all non-unique labels are mentioned in the botanical folios. In f88r, 25% of non-unique labels, and in f88v, 40% of
non-unique labels, are those which are mentioned only outside of the botanical folios.
Considering 1) and 2), we can state that for the book, the opening part of which is an extensive herbal, it is strange to have so many herbs not mentioned in the descriptive subject section.
3) Some labels are re-used through the pharma section. Like, otoldy is used in f89r1, then in f89r2 (but here it can be attributed to the jar), but also in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. where it labels two roots of entirely different appearance.
4) Here and there there are more labels than plants, even if we provide for the jars. Like in the third row of f99r: tha jar has its own label inside, so to the right of it we have 8 labels for only 7 objects. In the third row of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. we have 7 labels for 5 objects.
Point 4) is not decisive, because there could be plants which names are encoded with multiple vords arranged in an uncareful fashion.
Taken together, all these points, I am afraid, waive the possibility that the pharma section labels are plant names.
Anton, I understand your objections, but there are some factors that could explain your findings:
- The first label in a row is always attributed to a jar. I think these are geographical names related to trading (like ports or local trade centres), which may not be repeated elsewhere, but I have only a number of proposed readings, which I haven't published yet. The interpretation is very tentative, but they do belong to the jars. The more ornate jars just don't have their label written on them because that would ruin their appearance and make the label hard to read.
- A core part of my interpretation is that the labels are the local names for the plants, i.e. the names that were foreign to the reader. They may be repeated in other sections, but don't need to. It's like if you had a book in English about French plants, with first a botanical description of the plant, and then a list of the French names. The first part can mention the French name, but doesn't need to since its focus is not linguistic.
- I read the gallows as "ornate" forms of sounds that can also be expressed in ligatures (like the "bench"). I don't understand this well enough yet to describe how it works entirely. In the root and leaf section, ornate glyphs are used to stress certain sounds. So it's possible that the same plant name appears in two different forms, in which case I would expect the less ornate form in the "large plant" section. I have found one example of this, which I will gladly explain if so desired.
- It cannot be denied that there are plants that appear in both the "large plants" as the "small plants" section, but there is definitely no one-to-one correspondence. Many plants from either section can't be found in the other one. I'd be more worried if you found more corresponding words. I'm rather comfortable with the numbers you mention.
- The "more labels than plants" problem is easily explained, usually in the way that you suggested already. The labels often refer to products rather than the actual plant, which may result in a label that reads "wood (of) teak", like in my post about You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I'm rather happy with the label reading there (although it is a bad example of how the plant name is similar to the mythological mnemonic name, but that part is less relevant in this discussion). Similarly, I have recently found out that the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. plant's label refers to the juice of the fruit, rather than the plant's name, so it reads "juice (of) ???". The first word of that label I read as "Ros", which still appears in many Indo-Iranian languages as "ros" or "ras" meaning sap or fruit, just like it did in Sanskrit. At the time of posting, I hadn't discovered this yet, so this isn't reflected in the post. So this would refer to a fruit of which the juice was economically interesting or used as provisions for a ship's crew.
- About some labels being re-used, that is to be expected. We're dealing with foreign plant names, and those names often got borrowed to name different plants, or got assigned to different plants in different places over time. Given the fact that Voynich roots are especially mnemonic, i.e. modified, we can expect roots that look different to bear the same, or a similar name. Also, since we're dealing with a transcription of these names for Greek speakers, some phonological differences in the original languages won't be reflected. For example, to a Dutch speaker who's not used to English, the words "thorn" and "torn" will sound the same, just like "bet" and "bed".