The Voynich Ninja

Well, I guess this proves it. I was wrong about the spaces and will have to start from square 1 again!  

Translation: I still think I'm totally correct about the spaces

(12-09-2016, 03:35 AM)ThomasCoon Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, I guess this proves it. I was wrong about the spaces and will have to start from square 1 again!  

Translation: I still think I'm totally correct about the spaces

Hi Thomas, I am really sorry you find my efforts both useless and deserving of sarcasm. This is unexpected.

As Rene clearly wrote, this exercise does not "prove" anything. But these numbers could be evidence, and evidence is relevant to the formulation and evaluation of ideas.

These numbers could be explained as errors on my side (this should be easy to check and could provide more reliable evidence).

Another possible explanation is that "space defined words" and labels are significant and (in most cases) have the same meaning (as we can observe in the manuscripts we can read). 

I am looking forward to different and better explanations. I am in the fortunate position of not thinking I am totally correct about anything

It is a pattern in Voynich studies that it's often very hard to prove something, yet I think this is at least a good indication. I'm looking forward to the results of a scatter matrix if you find the time to make it.

(11-09-2016, 11:17 AM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think this is good work. I'm happy that labels aren't as divorced from the text as sometimes stated.

I don't know who feels that the labels are divorced from the text but my observation is that they are related but different, the difference being in how they map to various sections of the manuscript.

Marco, problem is that you used the TT transcription. This excludes the Rosette page. If you need it, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
If you use that as well , you get some different values, that is why i did not compare your list with mine.

If i have some additional time i will publish on that page (scroll down) the unique & compared words compared to the whole text and compared to specific other pages.

(11-09-2016, 12:35 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Many thanks Marco,

this is indeed a very helpful result.
If 172 labels are not found back in the text, then 332 are. Of these, 70% are found back as a single word separated by spaces, and this is indeed a very high percentage, suggesting that the spaces as we see them in the main text are intentional.

This isn't water-tight proof of course, but very strong evidence.

One has to keep in mind that the list of labels in the MS do not follow Zipf's law at all. While the label words aren't exactly unique, they are "almost unique". Among the labels, there are only few repetitions.

The label words  *could*  be repetitions of words in the main text, after the text was written with arbitrary space insertion, but then one should not expect such a flat word frequency distribution in the labels.

This conclusion is wrong with respect to the basic stemming of the words, here considered as labels, change as they become a noun or label.
I wrote this before: the "grammatical case" is in effect when we look at the words. The consequences are that only the stem remains the same.

(12-09-2016, 09:21 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(12-09-2016, 03:35 AM)ThomasCoon Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, I guess this proves it. I was wrong about the spaces and will have to start from square 1 again!  

Translation: I still think I'm totally correct about the spaces

Hi Thomas, I am really sorry you find my efforts both useless and deserving of sarcasm. This is unexpected.

As Rene clearly wrote, this exercise does not "prove" anything. But these numbers could be evidence, and evidence is relevant to the formulation and evaluation of ideas.

These numbers could be explained as errors on my side (this should be easy to check and could provide more reliable evidence).

Another possible explanation is that "space defined words" and labels are significant and (in most cases) have the same meaning (as we can observe in the manuscripts we can read). 

I am looking forward to different and better explanations. I am in the fortunate position of not thinking I am totally correct about anything

Marco, I'm sorry - I didn't mean to come off as sarcastic or to insult your work (I actually have no desire to attack anyone personally) - but I see how my post reads that way, so I definitely apologize. My intention was to reply to the whole discussion about spaces happening here and in other threads. When I said "Well, this proves it", I meant "this [whole thread/discussion]" and not "this [specific task that Marco did]." Either way I could have definitely worded my post more carefully and I accept responsibility for that. For the record, I am impressed by your massive efforts here (I "Thanked" your post long before writing in this thread) and all the work you've done on the VMS. Every so often I'll watch a VMS presentation, and the speaker will say, "I received this information from a fellow named Marco Ponzi, who..."

(12-09-2016, 10:37 AM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Marco, problem is that you used the TT transcription. This excludes the Rosette page. If you need it, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
If you use that as well , you get some different values, that is why i did not compare your list with mine.

If i have some additional time i will publish on that page (scroll down) the unique & compared words compared to the whole text and compared to specific other pages.

Thank you, David! I agree that including the Rosettes page might be interesting and I am sure the results will be different (given that the Rosettes have a huge number of labels).
In any case, it would be interesting if we could find a way of comparing our results.

(12-09-2016, 10:37 AM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(11-09-2016, 12:35 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

One has to keep in mind that the list of labels in the MS do not follow Zipf's law at all. While the label words aren't exactly unique, they are "almost unique". Among the labels, there are only few repetitions.

The label words  *could*  be repetitions of words in the main text, after the text was written with arbitrary space insertion, but then one should not expect such a flat word frequency distribution in the labels.

This conclusion is wrong with respect to the basic stemming of the words, here considered as labels, change as they become a noun or label.
I wrote this before: the "grammatical case" is in effect when we look at the words. The consequences are that only the stem remains the same.

David, these last sentences are not clear to me: I am afraid you have been too brief. Which conclusion is wrong and why?

---

Thank you for your kind words, Thomas! 
Actually, I was not so much fishing for compliments -but they are welcome  - as trying to stress that the value of ideas depends on their capability of explaining (and predicting) evidence. Your unargumented dismissal of new evidence sounded strange because what I previously read from you seems a serious attempt to be scientific.

I am glad to know that we have no personal issues and that we can see together if labels and spaces can help us move forward

Trying to imagine scenarios where the spaces in the main text are 'arbitrary',  yet the words are found back as labels, I tend to come up only with scenarios where the text isn't meaningful.
In that case, it's a moot point anyway.

I don't quite understand the point of Davidsch related to stems and grammar. I believe that the argument presented here is largely independent of this question. No assumption has been made whether the label words represent nouns, for example. It would start playing a role if one wanted to draw conclusions based on the actual percentages.


Another perhaps open point is that there are two types of labels. In the 'stricter' and original sense of the word, these are single words or small groups of words that are written near one specific drawing element.
Another group is made up of words that are standing alone, but not clearly near a drawing element.

Let me try to explain, and please follow the links and read some more on wikipedia.
Linguistics is a complex area in which i am only exploring and actually i know almost nothing about.

The basis of any language is formed around specific rules.
One of those rules is how word are deformed when using them. That is called You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
If a word changes based on the particular position of a sentence there are different You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

In this particular case of the word spaces, everybody is unaware of the fact that English, and many other Indo-European languages have very limited You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
In this instance i used the word "grammatical case" to explain the matter.

"Languages such as You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 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. have extensive case systems"

That is important if you compare vords.

Example:  take the verb: "flabbermayonaised"

Assume it is unique in the VMS. But it is a verb.
This means there is a stem. In this case I assume the stem is mayonaise. You need to look for that word "mayonaise" also when you compare labels with the text.  

In for example Hebrew it is even worse: the stem will change considerably based on the "case" to a point where you can not recognize it anymore.
For example in this scenario, the stem could be changed to:  "manaized".  You can hardly recognize it.

There are no good techniques to find the stemming in general.
For some languages there is extensive software where all the known nouns and verbs are listed with the inflections. 
That is not really usable here of course, so i tried to find different methods for comparing vords.  I am not sharing that method here, but i just wanted to point out that simply compare the words, is not enough on itself and you need to go beyond that.

Davidsch Wrote:For some languages there is extensive software where all the known nouns and verbs are listed with the inflections.

David, just curious - did you also take into account that if Voynichese is a natural language, then the form in the manuscript will be 600 years different than the forms in the software? For example, here is how English looked when the VMS was written - it's hardly recognizable as the same language:

Wel seyde Salomon in his langage,
`Ne brynge nat every man into thyn hous,'
For herberwynge by nyghte is perilous.
Wel oghte a man avysed for to be,
Whom that be broghte into his pryvetee.
...
If evere sitthe I highte Hogge of Ware,
Herde I a millere bettre yset awerk.
(Canterbury Tales, ca. 1400)