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Welcome, Guest You have to register before you can post on our site. Username/Email:    Password    Remember me Search Forums (Advanced Search) Online Users There are currently 1342 online users. » 5 Member(s) | 1334 Guest(s) Applebot, Bing, Google, asteckley, Juan_Sali, Mauro, R. Sale Latest Threads Elephant in the Room Solu... Forum: Theories & Solutions Last Post: MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) 1 minute ago » Replies: 77 » Views: 4,174 Has anyone actually made ... Forum: Analysis of the text Last Post: Rafal 32 minutes ago » Replies: 8 » Views: 283 Just a hoax? Forum: Theories & Solutions Last Post: Rafal 45 minutes ago » Replies: 20 » Views: 270 The Modern Forgery Hypoth... Forum: Theories & Solutions Last Post: nablator 1 hour ago » Replies: 373 » Views: 33,124 AI-generated "Voynich man... Forum: Fiction, Comics, Films & Videos, Games & other Media Last Post: Koen G 1 hour ago » Replies: 92 » Views: 49,249 Possible Identification o... Forum: Provenance & history Last Post: nablator 6 hours ago » Replies: 7 » Views: 500 Vessel linework Forum: Imagery Last Post: Koen G 8 hours ago » Replies: 24 » Views: 10,227 A 15th century Swiss manu... Forum: Imagery Last Post: MarcoP 10 hours ago » Replies: 8 » Views: 203 Six onion-roof towers sup... Forum: Imagery Last Post: JoJo_Jost Today, 12:03 AM » Replies: 79 » Views: 3,107 Everything about "pox leb... Forum: Marginalia Last Post: Bluetoes101 Yesterday, 11:33 PM » Replies: 54 » Views: 2,927

Can statistics help crack the mysterious Voynich manuscript? Posted by: lurker - 21-08-2021, 07:19 AM - Forum: News - Replies (14) Can statistics help crack the mysterious Voynich manuscript? Q & A with Claire Bowern Link: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Quote:Bowern created and taught an undergraduate class to explore the possibilities, which she and post-doctoral researcher Luke Lindemann describe in a recent paper in the Annual Review of Linguistics. She spoke with Knowable about some of their insights. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.   Crinoids Posted by: -JKP- - 20-08-2021, 03:07 AM - Forum: Imagery - Replies (3) I have over 1,000 unread posts, I haven't looked at my Voynich research for months, I can't read anything right now, but I wanted to quickly post this image because the textures are so Voynich-like: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. They are crinoid fossils, look it up on a search engine to see more of these awesome relics of the past. Gotta run.   Translation of Wladimir's blog posts on binding analysis Posted by: Anton - 16-08-2021, 11:14 PM - Forum: Provenance & history - Replies (5) Some time ago I tentatively promised to translate Wladimir's blog posts on the binding analysis. Let me fulfill the promise at least partially by providing the translation of the very first post in the series, of April 2020: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (it being the shortest of all ) This I think is the first time the endeavour of the "language assistance" (one of Editor's voluntary tasks, btw) is undertaken in this Forum. It was my idea, so I just came to implement what I invented. These posts abound with specific craftsman terms, such as headband and all that; being not that proficient in English (and in Russian neither) to correctly distinguish headband from tailband, I must have done some mistakes, feel free to correct me where I picked the wrong word. The translation preserves the figures. In some cases I felt need to supply short editorial notes, those in italics. The title is as originally provided in English by Wladimir. Attached Files   Optional ROS and Q15 Mount.pdf (Size: 128.72 KB / Downloads: 83)   F21r - Polygonum aviculare? (knotgrass/knotweed...) Posted by: Koen G - 15-08-2021, 02:31 PM - Forum: Imagery - Replies (18) I've been learning a bit more about local herbs during this summer vacation, and one plant that grows literally everywhere is knotgrass (Polygonum aviculare). It appears especially well adapted to city life, springing up between tiles of many a sidewalk. In Dutch it is called "varkensgras" (pig-grass) and in German "Vogelknöterich" (bird-knotweed). The way it radiates out from a central point is very similar to the behavior of the plant on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . Here it is next to the main image on the wiki:     Apparently knotweed can be eaten and has been used medicinally. The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lists an impressive array of sources: Dioscorides, Pliny, Galen, Pseudo-Apuleius, Pseudo-Dioscorides de herbis femininis, Hildegard (?) and more. Compared to all images presented on the German wiki, I would even say the VM is more true to nature, capturing extremely well how the plant appears when you look down on it. The Vienna Dioscorides does an okay job and depicts a stem-like root just like the one in the VM.   How woud an attack work? Spiral text as Rev. 6:14. Posted by: Koen G - 11-08-2021, 12:44 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk - Replies (71) In the "sky" part of the top-right rosette, there is a line of Voynichese text in a spiral. Some time ago, by coincidence, I noticed a similar "spiral in the sky" in depictions of Revelation 6:14: "The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up". I didn't pursue this any further since depictions of the event are really rare and it I didn't think Revelation as a whole was relevant to the Rosettes page (I still don't think so, but that's beside the point). But now I'm thinking: no matter what one's view is on the Rosettes page, we are looking at a medieval document and a quote from the Bible is always possible. So even if I wouldn't know what to do with this on the level of the analysis of the whole page, it may still be interesting to consider this line of Voynichese in isolation and compare it to the bible verse. Since there are a lot of variables involved and I believe in the power of collaboration, I wonder if you guys are interested in trying this exercise here together. There are a number of advantages why this particular parallel is suitable: It is a theory-neutral proposition. I am just putting the possibility out there that a particular line of scripture is used, which can be applied to many contexts. It stands alone to be tested neutrally. For example, various people believe the foldout to depict cosmic events, and/or the top right some kind of disaster like flooding. This line from revelation about a rolled-up-scroll-sky may have come to mind to the maker even if the page has no religious meaning overall. The text spirals itself, imitating the movement of the heavens being rolled up and reinforcing the parallel with a scroll. Assuming this interpretation is correct, the line of text itself does what it is about.  This means that we can compare an isolated line of Voynichese: the one that rolls like a scroll... ... to a concrete, limited piece of plaintext. The fact that we have a whole line of text may provide a whole different dynamic than trying to match individual words separately. It means not only nouns but verbs! Grammar! Even if it is all for nothing, we may still learn something. There are a number of difficulties as well: Various bible versions and languages This is a limited version of what Nick Pelling calls the Block Paradigm: you take a chunk of Voynichese and try to (force)match it to an expected plain text. How does one do this? How do you call (partial) success? How do you call defeat? We know which piece of scripture must certainly be included, but we don't know which surrounding verses may have been included as well, if any. Just for reference, here is a larger passage: Quote:12 I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13 and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. 14 The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” Anyway, I would love to undertake this as a forum project if some people are interested. I personally see it as a test of how to tackle a problem like this more than a surefire way to cracking the VM, but the process may still be interesting. Edit: I will add A screenshot of the relevant VM text spiral as well as my attempt to "straighten it".       "En" as "ein" Posted by: Anton - 09-08-2021, 09:33 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk - Replies (13) This is a question stimulated by a couple of observations. The first one is that we don't have any "ein" in all the Germanic marginalia throughout the MS, but we have quite a few occurrences of "en" there. The second one is a statistics observation which may be of importance if some kind of Germanic dialect is the language of the plain text. Since that's far from certain, I hold it back for now. In short, in my latest pursuit of numericals, I've been in search for "ein". The question is: I recall from discussions in this forum, and from certain sources that I saw, that there have been medieval variants of the German word "ein", such as e.g. "ain" and, notably, "en". I wonder whether there was/is a dialect which would substitute "en" (or something similar) not only for the distinct word "ein", but also for "ein" as prefix and suffix. For example, "Stein" would become "Sten", while "einander" would become "enander" Something that immediately comes to my mind is Dutch, where "ein" is "een", and "Stein" is "Steen", but this is only "partial match", since e.g. there is no "reen" instead of "rein". The empty throne Posted by: R. Sale - 09-08-2021, 07:56 PM - Forum: Imagery - Replies (13) Regarding the VMs rainbows and whether or not the double rainbow is a throne that is unoccupied. And further as to whether this was an example of apophasis, of making note of something through the use of a literary device. Not to mention literary, because it does not appear to function visually. There must be some sort of visual representation chosen <by the artist> to illustrate the artist's intention. A crown may be used to symbolize a king in both literary and visual examples. And if one knows the details of crowns, potentially there is much more to learn. Likewise a throne may symbolize a certain set of interpretations and both classical and Christian illustrations show rainbow thrones in the range of the medieval examples. This type of representative symbolism is metonymy and works in both literary and visual interpretations. And so, the question is which interpretation might best apply. Is there a specific event that was relevant to such conditions? There was the papal gift of La Sainte Hostie de Dijon. It was a big deal! There were annual celebrations. But does this apply to the VMs? Is the VMs rainbow an empty throne? Is the idea of the 'empty throne' a valid one? Are there other examples? Three examples where an empty throne is the central focus of the illustration occur in different versions of a book by Christine de Pizan, Le livre du chemin de long estude.  1)  Harley 4431, fol. 192v, which is 'The Book of the Queen'  2) Ms Paris 836, folio 15r  3) KBR Ms 10982 folio 33v, which is a CdP autographed version from the library of the Dukes of Burgundy The idea of the empty throne clearly exists in association with other evidence and events having Parisian and Burgundian connections and was in part coincident with the Anglo-Burgundian occupation of Paris from 1420 to 1435.   yto ailch Posted by: davidjackson - 09-08-2021, 03:57 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text - Replies (5) On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there are two vords written on a leaf, half way down the right hand side. Right up against the trimming; it is possible that a glyph might have been trimmed away here. You would expect such an annotation to be one of three things: Scribal instruction (green leaves; smooth edge; out of paint; etc) Plant name Plant characteristic (poisonous leaves;good for nausea; etc) In this post alone I shall refer to these vords as an instruction, to distinguish it from a label or text piece. The reason I call it an instruction is because I think we can discard (2); if this were a name, the two vords would be unlikely to act as they do below. Let us look at the instruction. yto ailch yto appears five times (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.): f1r: daicthy [line break] yto shol    daicthy yto shol f37v: chocthey [line break] yto chol  chocthey yto chol f67r1: yto daiir    (label?)  yto daiir f67r2: yteoor yto ykor  yteoor yto ykor f69v: chese yto odair  chese yto odair ailch does not appear in the manuscript according to Voynichese.com (however, the instruction in question isn't included in the transcription used there!) What if we separate the suffix ch? ch appears as a suffix You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the text. It is unusual as a suffix - it either appears as a difficult word (chfaikch etc) or as a unique / almost-unique vord. IE, lkch You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.; lk You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Can ch be a stand-alone word? It appears You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as a vord. Therefore, I treat ch as another vord and continue. ail likewise You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (drop the ch), all in the text heavy section at the back: f105r: dor ail cheky f105v: okeed ail kchey f106v: chodar ail dal dar f108r: ar ail odaiin f115v: shor ail chodaiin ch has You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Yes I am aware there is an argument for saying that ch by itself is nothing but a pre/suffix that the scribe didn't join up and so the transcriber assumed it was a vord, but we can also postulate that it is a floating modifier (which fits in with its function as a pre/suffix). f68v1: okeey ch ek chekeys f72r3: okar ch ches f76r: fchedy ch sal f100r: cthdaoto ch qeos f108r: qokar ch okeey Now for the fun bit! In theory, if this is an instruction, one vord will be a verb (predicate) and the other will be a noun (subject). I started by assuming that there were two vords - it now appears likely there are three vords. We thus have a noun, verb and modifier (subject, predicate). Given that yto appears in a label on f67r1 and twice at the beginning of a line, and ail always appears in the middle of sentences, we can assume (for a thought experiment) that yto is the noun. Futhermore, the well-know attributes of ch (acting as a common prefix suffix) lends itself to it being a modifier. Noun: yto Verb: ail Adverb: ch Imagine this says something like "leaf paint not" or "plant venomous much" or "Joe ate, dead [now]". But we must leave any attempt at translation to one side for the minute. Already, my assignation of noun, verb and adverb is nothing but supposition and hearsay. QUESTION & NEXT TASK: Are there similar examples of apparent "instructions" (not labels) elsewhere that can be examined in a similar fashion? Although we cannot expect a translation from this approach, if other "instructions" appear to follow the same N_V_A approach, it could be a crib towards identifying possible underlying language families.   The question of concatenation Posted by: Anton - 08-08-2021, 10:13 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text - Replies (3) Suppose that the plain text character sequence P1...Pn maps to the Voynichese character sequence V1...Vm, where n and m are 1 or more. Suppose that, likewise, another plain text sequence P'1...P'x maps to another Voynichese sequence V'1...V'y. Would then one expect P1...PnP'1...P'x map to V1...VmV'1...V'y? Or is there anything in the observable properties of Voynichese that would immediately preclude that?   Are we taking the pictures too literally? Posted by: ekorre - 08-08-2021, 04:06 PM - Forum: Imagery - Replies (14) So I watched this video today: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  .. And it made me think that some stuff people depicted in the past looked nothing like what they actually look like, it made me wonder if it's similar with the Voynich manuscript... Maybe this has been pointed out in the past but I've never seen anyone talking about it, I'd like to know if anyone has any view on it. First Previous Next Last