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| Time to retire Currier languages? |
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Posted by: Emma May Smith - 26-07-2021, 06:28 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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The concept of Currier languages - that the statistics of the text vary in different parts of the manuscript - has been very useful for research. It has allowed us to compare the text with itself and understand more about the structure and variety of words.
But for several years it has been apparent that the difference between Currier A and B were not binary but a spectrum, with features growing or diminishing in strength across the manuscript. The two Currier languages only represent broad categories which themselves contain diversity.
We've always been able to analyse the text of the manuscript in sections, but the more recent work by Lisa Fagin Davis on scribal hands provides another way to divide the text. (Acknowledgement that, like for many things Currier was here first. But the recent work is much more secure than Currier's.)
Given this, is it time for researchers to retire speaking about Currier languages and instead talk exclusively - or mostly - about Scribes?
Is there any benefit from continuing with the distinction of Currier languages?
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| Spaces and word cases |
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Posted by: Barbrey - 26-07-2021, 02:17 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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Hi all, a quick, maybe stupid, remark re the spaces. I've run into a few quotes in my research talking about spaces or space in the world, but the medieval philisophers say not to think of it as empty because it is always filled with aether or air. And I've seen a few small symbols in the images where elements occur that have a iii___iii___iii pattern. Air appears to be characterized by blank white space, not a 4th mark.
I noticed because of the aiii sequences, but also mention this because there seems to be a distinct lack of variety in Voychinese word endings so cases cannot possibly be included. But I consider the author quite tricky and Latin if it's Latin has quite a few words for air. One of them is aeris. It occurred to me if you threw those letters into the spaces you could account for the majority of case endings. 9 might just mean pick your poison.
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| Symbols, 40, Quintessence and Friedman's "a priori" hypothesis |
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Posted by: Barbrey - 25-07-2021, 11:19 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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Hi all, I'm hoping our cryptologists and linguists can help me out. One of the reasons I've worked hard on rosettes page symbolism is I've believed the text symbols might actually operate as symbols when in certain positions, particularly at the start of "vords". If, as Friedman says in his final conclusion, this could be an attempt to construct an " a priori" lexicon or language, then it seemed to me that the writer might make use of his/her personal hieroglyphs in constructing the script, and/or that the way original alphabets stemmed from actual objects - A from Aleph or Ox, for instance - might play a role.
I've got a fairly cohesive schemata of the Rosettes page now, with labels for its constituent parts, based on Aristotelian natural philisophy and Christianity, and moreover a kind of "index" for the VMS as a whole.
I think it's a sound diagram and I am struggling to put it into a paper that explains it properly.
But I don't know if my glyph matching is true, nor whether it would make a difference to entropy, or how it might work in expansion with actual letters/numbers to create true words. I feel I'm onto something but that could yet again be a chimera. And I don't want to even hypothesize it at the end of my paper as a possible avenue for script/language decryption if it would not even work.
Part of my analysis includes the balneological section as primarily concerned with the distillation of quintessence. I arrived at this independently, but discovered this was Brumbaugh's opinion in the 70's too, though he doesn't explain how he came to this conclusion.
So that was a long preamble for this: on the rosettes there is a symbol (low bottom left outside the main core, looks like a clock) that, if turned, is a v-shape, and included in one of Valentinius's alchemical charts as "aqua vitae". I don't have earlier provenance on it but it could have been around. It is inside a circle, and aether/aqua vitae was considered to move in a circle unlike the other four elements. I have some support from other symbols and nimbi to support this hypothesis, but won't go into here.
Now aqua vitae/aether is also identical to quintessence, which also has an an alchemical sign. QE.
Quintessence means the fifth element.
My rosettes schemata matches " o" to Spiritus or some variation of Primus, and the 4 symbol - the upright one (I think eva "L"?) - to Mineralis or Elementa. And of course, it was a form of 4 in earlier days.
So a 4 connected by ligature to a 1 could quite easily be symbolized by 40 in our author's script and mean the fifth element, or quintessence, the " spiritual" element, goal of alchemy. And I think I read somewhere this symbol 40 most often appears in the balneological section, where I contend distilling it as pure alcohol from wine (a la Rupescissa 1360's, and it subsequently becomes the basis for chemistry and most medicines) - is a major theme.
It all rather handily works out, in theme, in number, with my schemata, with everything really, though I try to keep my mind open. Brumbaugh's mistake was, in my opinion, jumping to text analysis too soon when he had a lot to offer on the images, particularly the Aristotelian and neo-Platonic concepts
So, hypothetically, if 40 stands for quintessence, how might that work with the rest of the letters following it? I guess 40 might always stand for the whole word and the letters following describe or are connected to it. But as a concept, it might just sub in for the kw sound, like a for aleph (ox) did, or perhaps some kind of scribal syllable thing to do with root words, so sub for "quin" maybe? And its positioning at start of word might mean that's where most of the glyphs, when operating as symbols, might appear? Don't know.
My question to you is how, as a symbol in the text, it might work best to solve problems of entropy and line structure? Even if you didn't follow me, or didn't buy in, the answer will help me with all the other glyphs, too, so would really appreciate any answers!
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| VMS author from big data |
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Posted by: byatan - 25-07-2021, 07:29 PM - Forum: Provenance & history
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VMS author(s) (or at least scribe(s)) apparently learned to write some time (many years) before the ms was written. So there is the non zero chance that additional writings from at least one person who created the ms survive.
Additional support for this might be found in the possible application of crypto to the ms writing--it is not hard to imagine that the author could have been employed at some point by the type of organization with big archives.
The creation of the vms was probably extremely expensive for its day, so the author is probably more likely than most to have corresponded privately with the types of bigwigs who might also keep archives.
One point against is the vast amount of written documents from that area presumably lost. Are there any estimates for how many documents (define it as you will) might survived out of all written in 15th century europe? I could not find this on google.
So, what we could envision happening is a mass-digitization and aggregation of basically everything written that still exists from the time period and region most likely encompassing the author's life. Then automatically ML looks for handwriting matches to the vms. This might turn up some information about the author.
I understand very few of the relevant documents are currently digitized. Is this because there is a comparative, if not general lack of interest and funding in this field or are other things involved?
edit: while writing this I had forgotten that the MS was rebound and is missing pages. Additional impacts of a "total old documents digitization" project might be finding these missing pages, or even other totally separate documents with related writing.
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| Correlation between line-initial letter and words on that line? |
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Posted by: nickpelling - 25-07-2021, 04:36 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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Has anyone looked for statistical evidence of a correlation between the first word of a line of text and words on that same line?
Plenty of people (myself included in 2006) have wondered whether the first letter on a line of Voynichese might somehow affect or control the words on that line. (For example, I wondered whether it might be a transposition cipher working with one of the gallows.)
Has anyone tried looking for this kind of thing?
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| Is the VMS homogeneous or a composite work? |
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Posted by: bi3mw - 21-07-2021, 12:38 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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It is not clear to me whether the VMS is a work that contains a coherent overall theme from the first to the last page and must therefore be considered homogeneous, or whether it is a matter of self-contained, separate chapters (sections) that were copied from different templates (from different authors). In the latter case the chapters (sections) would have nothing to do with each other. What do you think ?
There are, of course, recurring representations of certain illustrations, e.g. the naked nymphs, across sections, but that could also just be the interpretation of the illustrator of the VMS, suggesting a homogeneity that is not thematically present at all.
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| Apophatic theory |
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Posted by: R. Sale - 20-07-2021, 06:53 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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I wasn't going to mention it, but ...
A theory is just a theory, if there is no example. But if a theory has an example, then what is it?
As a potential VMs example, there are the VMs rainbows of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f83v. And there is, or at least there could be, that ever persistent question: Who dat *NOT* sitting on their double rainbow throne?!
Multiple medieval works of art depict Christ on such a throne. However that is not the only possibility, as the works of Christine de Pizan show classical deities seated on rainbows. And perhaps there was no intended occupant. So there's nothing really there to narrow down the possibilities. But listen to the VMs. There are only a few areas, a few peaks that rise above the fog of VMs obfuscation.
First is the VMs cosmos - tied by comparison to Paris from 1410, to the library of the Duke of Berry (d. 1416) by BNF Fr.565, and to the years around 1430 by Harley 334. While historically during the Hundred Years war, England, allied with the Duchy Burgundy, held control of Paris form 1420 to 1435.
Second is mythical Melusine, the mermaid-like, Luxembourg interpretation believed ancestral to the Valois rulers of France, etc. including the Dukes of Burgundy. Her presence still represented (and historically noted) at the Feast of the Pheasant, celebrated by the Duke of Burgundy in 1454.
Then there is the matter of the Golden Fleece: Rather ambiguous, many interpretations both pro and con. One clear fact: that it originated in 1430 from the Duke of Burgundy. One potential representation associated with Melusine, the other known as the VMs 'critter' on f80v. Here the ambiguous representation has a three-part structure of the creature itself, a nebuly line, and potential droplets. This structure is known to repeat in the 1313 Apocalypse of S Jean : Agnus Dei, cosmic boundary, droplets of blood. The golden fleece image has merged with the Agnus Dei lamb, like Melusine with the generic mermaid. Provenance indicates that the 1313 text was later a part of the library of the Dukes of Burgundy.
In light of the above then, reconsider the original question: who dat? Who is not sitting on their rainbow throne? Is there a significant religious event that is compatible in both time and place? Indeed, there is! La Sainte Hostie de Dijon.
This set of interpretations would seem to reveal a fairly detailed familiarity with a specific, historical period of time, that is also compatible with the C-14 parchment dating. Such information could be gathered through life experience, or by knowledgeable research. Dumb luck seems unlikely to encompass so many mutually compatible details.
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| 1400s amateur crypto and human puzzle tendencies |
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Posted by: byatan - 18-07-2021, 01:24 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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I understand that during the time period the ms was written, it is well documented that crypto was in common use for general government written communications that might foreseeably be subject to inspection by one's adversaries.
This has the implication that knowledge of the existence and use of crypto, if not of the specific methods themselves, would have been reasonably widespread beyond those who actually used or computed crypto for official purposes. I don't know how well this is documented; namely: how much evidence is there for the use of cryptography outside of government in the early renaissance?
What are some estimates of the contemporary distribution of literacy in terms of profession?
If today's humans are any indication, some of those with writing ability would have had the tendency to create or explore various written puzzles. Crypto is an obvious option here. What kind of written puzzles did the literate engage in?
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| Contemporary knowledge of the ms |
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Posted by: byatan - 17-07-2021, 07:02 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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It should be easy to think that the creator(s) of the ms were not the only individual(s) to have seen it when now lost context concerning use and contents remained within living memory.
Not having seen any, what are your imagined probability distributions for:
1) the number of people who could decipher it or knew definitively that it is not readable and why (not necessarily the same as number of creators)
-max at any one time
-in total
2) the number of people who had seen at least part of the ms (or a copy) in person, in conjunction with someone from 1); in other words, number of people who had seen at least some part of the ms "demonstrated" or "used" by someone who could decipher it or knew definitively that it is not readable and why.
-max at any one time
-in total
3) the number of people who were aware of the existence of the ms, but had not seen it (or a copy) in person, while at least one person from 1) was alive
-max at any one time
-in total
4) the maximum number of complete copies of the ms at any given time while at least one person from 1) was alive
5) the maximum number of partial copies of the ms at any given time while at least one person from 1) was alive
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