quimqu
I like your idea and I don't know if you are suggesting that the voynich might not be a language. How could the voynich be a language by the method you are posing? What I have noticed is that in and around plant stems are shorter vords. Would your system break down if tested near them, I think it would and I don't think you are wrong. I'm betting that the vords might not mean anything.
(8 hours ago)oeesordy Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What I have noticed is that in and around plant stems are shorter words.
The 1-3 words
before plant stems should be shorter than average, for the same reason that the 1-3 words at the end of each line should be. Namely, the Scribe would be more likely to break the line just before a long word than before a short one.
Conversely, the first word after a plant stem or line break should be longer than average.
And, IIUC, several people have noticed both anomalies around line breaks long ago. But, until recently, they did not realize that they were a simple consequence of the trivial line-breaking algorithm.
There may be other factors at play, like a possible tendency of the Scribe to break lines before certain key words, or at the places where the draft itself had line breaks (even if the Scribe was supposed to ignore them). But the natural bias above seems to account for a good part of the observed anomalies.
All the best, --stolfi
(8 hours ago)oeesordy Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What I have noticed is that in and around plant stems are shorter words.
(4 hours ago)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The 1-3 words before plant stems should be shorter than average, for the same reason that the 1-3 words at the end of each line should be. Namely, the Scribe would be more likely to break the line just before a long word than before a short one.
Conversely, the first word after a plant stem or line break should be longer than average.
There are, in fact, particular Voynichese "words" that have a strong affinity for certain positions (such as immediately before or after plant drawing intrusions, as well as at the beginning and ending of lines) -- and others that have a strong aversity for certain positions.
I reported a detailed study, showing the statistical significance of these observation, in a paper at the Internat. Conf. on Historical Cryptology in 2024: You are not allowed to view links.
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(Due to length limitations for the research paper, the results actually shown in the paper are a truncated version of the full analysis.)