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| Scorecards, Quasicrystals, "Medical Witch"'s Manual |
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Posted by: kgladman - 02-07-2020, 04:32 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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Hello all,
I am new here so forgive me if this has already been thoroughly discussed.
Has anyone explored the possibility that the text might be neither plain text nor a cipher, but a kind of text that is generated in the course of some activity? I know that people have speculated that one section contains recipes, which are a different kind of text than ordinary connected prose, but I am thinking about things like scorecards one keeps in bowling or other games, tic-tac-toe, and so on. . . not because the text looks like any of those in particular. But it occurred to me (as it may have done to others) that if one were to come as an alien to Earth and look at tic tac toe sheets or tally sheets and things like that, it might not be obvious at first that they differed radically from pages full of words.
I don't know enough about the culture of the time and place that produced the book to speculate what the activity would be that in this case produced text. Maybe abbreviations for prescriptions? Or medical records of people who had been treated by a medical person (levels they had received of this or that drug at different times and counts of how often different symptoms occurred before and after, etc.)? This is just wild speculation, but could it possibly have been the records of a gynecologist/obstetrician, who was not just creating an herbal, but creating a medical theory, with evidence to back it up of actual patients treated, of how and why various herbals worked (so that the drawings were metaphorical, and meant to illustrate principles, like: this composite-plant shows you at a glance the key features--in terms of type leaves, taste of tincture, etc.--that plants which are usable for a given purpose--like abortifacients or aphrodisiacs or what have you---tend to have. No matter where you are on earth. It might even include theoretical explanations of why this is so, like because the plants co-evolved or whatever. But that the point is a practical one: so that you can use this manual if you are a wanderer, like the Roma or Sinti. Maybe Sinti--not sure of the difference.)
Anyhow I wonder if this might explain why it is done with costly materials but the artist's hand is not highly accomplished as an illustrator, and its in a small portable size, and looks like it has been rebound multiple times and had pages lost, and yet has plants and constellations that seem fanciful (the constellations are maybe common mis-rememberings of foreign skies by travelers from another hemisphere; or they are records of dimensional travel. Is it true that the constellations are earth-inaccurate, and if so, has anyone checked whether the constellations actual exist if you were standing on the surface of some other planet, like the one the Dogon allegedly came from? This no longer sounds as impossible as it did before 2017, when the Pentagon announced it thought aliens could be real.) Many of those things would be consistent with it being a Sinti physician's set of professional documents--this person needed all these things as reference, because they used herbs for medical care, also let the stars help them decide on which remedy to use when, etc. I think it's generally agreed it's a reference work, correct?
It also makes me think that if it were some kind of a text like that, it would make sense that it always seems like a language the reader does not speak. Because it is language-like, "linguistic" without being a natural language. It is TOO regular, as a number of commentators including I think Lisa Fagan Davis (who so kindly made me aware of this forum) have said. As it would be, if it is not an attempt to commit to writing a natural language (which always struggles back against attempts to tame it by punctuation and other typographical conventions), but rather a kind of text dominated by record-keeping abbreviations and conventions of shorthand. It is, perhaps, to language as quasicrystals are to crystals, in the sense that it "fools you" at first glance.
Anyhow I would LOVE to hear from anyone here about what has already been done in this area. I bet there has been some great stuff, but that there is also a lot more to be done, and I would love to help (I am a former CompLit scholar now teaching finance at BU and just checking in here for pleasure, but would love to help any academics for whom this is professionally useful).
I also dream of involving the European Roma and Sinti communities, especially those who have a continuous cultural connection to the region of Italy in which the artifact's initial manufacture took place (bearing in mind that it may have been written "on the road,") in the quest to decipher it, given that I am far from the first to have theorized they might have created it. (Perhaps this has been started?) There is an article on the internet about Romani "witches" of the modern day who claim to be practicing both healing and aggressive magic for clients, in a physician-like way. They might be a thought partner to explore this further: could it be the records of a "medical witch" they count among their forbears?
If needed, I believe we could get crowdfunding and possibly other support from the socially responsible investment community in the United States and England for this work (for reasons I can explain later).
Anyhow let me know if any of this is of interest to others. It is wonderful to be here.
Thanks----Kimberly
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| Guillebert de Lannoy |
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Posted by: R. Sale - 02-07-2020, 01:16 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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The recent discussion about the Black Sea may have seemed to some as being at a geographical arm's reach. Guillebert de Lannoy is the Burgundian connection that ties this in with other items of provenance, which generally include or specifically focus on Burgundy.
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Focusing on Philip the Good, Richard Vaughan does have a bit more to say about Guillebert. He did make the trade circuit to the Baltic, to Russia, south by river to the Black Sea, out to the Mediterranean, and back to Burgundy.
Tradition and history form the semiotic environment that was present for VMs creation.
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| oiin? |
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Posted by: Koen G - 01-07-2020, 09:51 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (20)
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I'm working intensively with Takahashi's transliteration of Q20 right now. I noticed that there are quite a number of [oiin] there. But upon closer inspection, many of those look like they might actually just be "regular" [aiin]? What do you think?
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| Vord length distribution |
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Posted by: Anton - 27-06-2020, 11:54 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (44)
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Due to the discussion in another thread, I was re-reading the 20 years old article by Stolfi on the VMS vord length distribution:
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In short, its results are as follows. If we abstain from the vord frequencies in the corpus and focus just on the Voynich "vocabulary" and calculate the distribution of vord length of this vocabulary, we will find out that a) unlike at least some natural languages (English, Latin), it's symmetrical, and b) it's neatly approximated by binomial curve.
Of course, generally, the results may depend on the exact transcription. So it must be said at once (which Stolfi does) that he used Currier's approach (EVA ch and sh counted as single symbols, and so are EVA cth, ckh, etc.).
For those not deeply in probability theory, the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the probablility distribution law which holds in a series of N statistically independent "tests" which yield one of two outcomes with known probablilities p and q. The values p and N are parameters of the binomial law, and q, as it is obvious, is just equal to 1-p. Let's call the test result with probability p a "success" for brevity. Then the probability that you will have K successes out of N tests is B(K), where B(x) is the binomial law formula, including N and p as parameters.
So Stolfi approximated the distribution with the binomial curve with parameters p = 0.5 and N = 9 (I don't know why he took N=9, most probably because that was the best fit), only he needed to shift this whole curve by the value of 1 to the right.
Based on this, Stolfi developed some considerations about what technique may have led to produce such vord length distribution.
What Stolfi omitted or maybe missed, is that with large values of N the binomial distribution becomes close to normal (Gaussian). So what he observed may have been not binomial in nature, but Gaussian in nature (or maybe something that becomes close to Gaussian with large values of N), only because the vocabulary size is quite large, the two would look the same and he mistook it for binomial.
So what I did I built the vord length distribution (used the Voynich Reader tool, Takahashi transcription (mind it uses EVA and thus it's different from Currier used by Stolfi), excluded vords with dubious characters), calculated estimates of EV (= 6.2) and RMS ( = 1.64), and built the normal curve with the same EV and RMS, and what do you think I got?
What would that mean? 
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| Experiments with interpretation of the labels. The label otol. |
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Posted by: Searcher - 26-06-2020, 09:43 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (32)
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Hi!
I want to share my experiments with you. I wrote earlier that the VMs “word” otol (otol) is interesting for me, as it is a label for a few different illustrations in different sections of the manuscript. In particular, it appears in the “cosmological” section, in the “anatomy”-section and in the “small plants”-section (f102v2). From time to time, I try to choose words in different languages for this word. There were many approaches, but I want to write about two of them, as I count them the most interesting. Perhaps, trying to find a correct meaning for the label, we will find a solution. I'm not sure, but I hope so.
The first experiment is based on Greek language approach. I promised to write about this recently. I must say that I don’t have unique interpretation for this, as this is just an experiment. I don’t know Greek, so I just play with substitutions. Conditions: if it is a separate lable, I take it for a separate word.
Fortunately, this word contains only three characters: o, t and l.
Substitution # 1:
o = o
t = p
l = s
We’ll get the Greek word opos. In Latin transliteration it may mean:
1)[font=Times New Roman] [/font]You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – as, like (adv.)
2)[font=Times New Roman] [/font]You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – such as, just as, etc. (adv.) (see the link)
3)[font=Times New Roman] [/font]You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – juice, plant/vegetable juice; fig-juice (noun)
The most interesting interpretation is, of course, “juice”. I don’t say it is ideal, but it marks some parts of the “anatomical”-like pipes on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f77v, besides almost every page (at least, the most of them) of the herbal section contains at least one otol. While I don’t imagine what it can mean, as an inscription to a star on f68r1.
Substitution # 2:
o = o
t = r
l = s
In Latin transliteration, it is oros, that can be:
1)[font=Times New Roman] [/font]You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – limit, boundary, term, end, aim, etc. (noun)
2)[font=Times New Roman] [/font]You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – a mountain, hill, section, etc. (noun)
3)[font=Times New Roman] [/font]You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – serum, pus (noun). Old dictionaries also give such definitions, as whey, serum of blood.
As for me, this result is even more interesting, as these words may be used in all those sections of the VMs. Nevertheless, I made one more substitution.
Substitution # 3:
o = o
t = l
l = s
Latin transliteration: olos, in Greek may be:
1)[font=Times New Roman] [/font]You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – whole, entire, absolute, generally, actually, etc. (noun)
2)[font=Times New Roman] [/font]You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – whole, entire, all (not Ancient Greek noun)
3)[font=Times New Roman] [/font]ὅλος – muddy liquid (noun) (it is noted in some dictionaries)
Unfortunately, I can’t find a solution working with the main text. First of all, I don’t know Greek and Ancient Greek, and I couldn’t find a proper Greek word for the most part of the VMs words that contain [-otol-] in itself.
The second experiment was absolutely accidental. It led me to Hungarian language, also interesting one, to the point. I used only one way of substitution:
o = e
t = r
l = k
With this, we’ll get “erek”. In Hungarian it means “veins” or “streamlets” (nom.plur.). Undoubtedly, this result got me interested. And I was greatly surprised how many words with the same repeated vowel (from two to four times) can be found in this language. Thus, otol, okol, orol, ofol, opol, ochol, odol could be erek (veins), elek (edges; I live), evek (years), egek (heavens), etc. Nevertheless, I can’t say that this substitution really works in the main text, at least, for me.
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| What Will It Take to Solve the Voynich Manuscript? |
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Posted by: Torsten - 25-06-2020, 08:45 PM - Forum: News
- Replies (26)
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There is a new paper from 2020 about the VMS: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
The paper from Lisa Fagin Davis is available You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Lisa Davis argues: "The Voynich manuscript is written using an otherwise unknown collection of symbols known as 'Voynichese,' with linguistically identifiable roots, prefixes, and suffixes, as well as repeating orthographic and grammatical patterns (see Figure 1)" (Davis 2020, p. 73). It seems as if Figure 1 is referring to a figure on the following page p. 74. This figure shows the upper part of folio f84r. Based on the idea that the Voynich text represents natural language Lisa Davis comes to the conclusion: "An acceptable proposal must result in a reading that makes sense semantically, chronologically, and logically." (Davis 2020, p. 81).
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| The sequence of images |
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Posted by: R. Sale - 24-06-2020, 08:28 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (32)
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From davidjackson: [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]You have to look at the sequence of images, not each one individually! [/font]
[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]And more than just images, it is sequence itself that needs to be investigated.[/font]
[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]Several folios are being discussed:[/font]
[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]VMs You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as Melusine would imply a connection with Valois ancestry.[/font]
[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]VMs You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as a combination of the Golden Fleece and the 1313 Agnus Dei (Golden Agnus) -more focused on Burgundy[/font]
[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]VMs You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as the empty rainbow throne for la sainte Hostie de Dijon. (an obscure historical event and a perfect chronological fit)[/font]
[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]If this is a series, what about VMs f80v? The page does't look that exciting. There is a large pool, with women wading in two rows, Eight in each row. Sixteen nymphs in a sea green pool. Is there anything particular about that? (Secondary interpretations or a deeper meaning?) Does You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. have something to continue the sequence Or does this break it?[/font]
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| Burma Shave |
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Posted by: R. Sale - 22-06-2020, 07:47 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (24)
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In a recent series of postings, someone made a comment using the term "Burma Shave". Since then I have wondered how many of the ninja group might actually have an accurate cultural interpretation for this old, rural American tradition.
So, a question to everyone: Did you know about it *before* you looked it up? Sure there are those signs and poems and so on. But that's not it. The thing is that along country roads and highways, these signs were nailed to fence posts, sometimes a quarter mile apart. What matters in the interpretation of tradition is understanding the situation on the ground.
The tradition of Melusine in the Valois dukes of France is confirmed in the evidence of the Duke of Berry and continued two generations after in his brother's line in Burgundy. This is the situation on the ground. Research has recovered the images in the de Metz text from Paris (Harley 334). Who is it that was pictured on f57? According to the tradition on the ground, this is Melusine. There is no alternative, unless 'anonymous' is satisfactory.
So now, if we come to the VMs with an adequate background in established tradition during the historical period provided by the C-14 parchment dates, then who is Ms. Ladyfish on VMs f79v? It is Melusine! And the exact details of the representation are not relevant. The time and the difficulty involved in this recognition are an indication of the magnitude of the cultural gap in the interpretation of tradition.
These signs are clear:
Harley 334 is dated to the second quarter of the 1400s, (1425-1449), or, alternatively, 1430-1440.
The Golden Fleece is 1430 and after in Burgundy.
La sainte Hostie de Dijon starts in the early 1430s, probably 1433.
...
And the last sign says; "Burma Shave".
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![[Image: 2020-06-27-14-10-38-Voyage-the-Voynich-Manuscript.png]](https://i.ibb.co/F0Msm2r/2020-06-27-14-10-38-Voyage-the-Voynich-Manuscript.png)