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Computational Attacks on Abbreviated Text |
Posted by: -JKP- - 16-08-2017, 01:52 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (14)
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D. O'Donovan [corrected] posted an excerpt of Latin text on her blog and included the interlinear expansion of the abbreviations You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
The original manuscript is BSB CLM 13031 f12r], but I didn't see a credit for the expansion, and I noticed there are mismatches between the original and the expanded text, so here is my version, which I believe is more true to the original (note that letters in red in the original are likely intended to be capital letters).
Praepositio* et praeterea per dyptongon scribitum. Pene vero, quod est coniunctio, per E. Pena quod est supplicium per OE Q. littera tunc recte ponitur, cum illia statim .U. littera sequitur et alia quelibet una plures ve vocales iunguntur. ita ut una syllaba fiat. Cetera per .C. scribuntur. Que [Quae] pronomen cum .A. scribendum. que coniunctio sine .A.
[*I'm not sure why the scribe has written this as Pre perpositio as I'm fairly sure Prepositio/Praepositio was intended.]
My version is not intended as a criticism of the one posted on O'Donovan's site, I just feel it should be as accurate as possible if it's going to be discussed on the forum (and I enjoy expanding the abbreviations).
I've been wanting to write in more detail about the way Latin was expanded in the 15th century, and have touched on it in some of my blogs, because it does dramatically change the statistical properties of word-frequency and other computational attacks, but can't seem to find enough time, so I thought this short excerpt might be enough to provide a start for a thread on the computational properties of medieval texts (note that the example above is about three centuries before the VMS).
[Latin abbreviations are old news to some members, but if you are not familiar with them yet, Cappelli is an excellent resource.]
Even if you study Latin abbreviations, and attempt to break the VMS text out into Latin (as has been tried by a number of researchers, and as has been recently attempted by P. Lockerby), that doesn't mean the correspondence between VMS glyphs or glyph-combinations is consistent. One can see in this short excerpt that "quod" was abbreviated in two different ways. It was not uncommon for words to be abbreviated four or five different ways. By the 15th century, long after the above excerpt was written, handwriting was messier, abbreviations more frequent, and consistency in the abbreviations even less than one sees in the above example.
These abbreviation systems were not limited to Latin. Scribes used many of the same conventions in their native tongues. If the VMS were Greek or Italian, for example, many of the same abbreviation conventions would apply except that the symbols are expanded into letters appropriate to that language.
So... AFA computat'nal attacks on lett'r frequency, et al, r concern'd...even if the VMS were a substitution code, the odds of it being one-to-one substitution are not very good. The use of abbreviations was deeply ingrained in the thinking of medieval scribes and the VMS has many short word-tokens (more than some of the transcriptions indicate).
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Interesting Vwords - those pesky 4o vords |
Posted by: -JKP- - 13-08-2017, 05:46 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (2)
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I am not convinced that there is meaning behind the VMS text, or that it's natural language or has any linguistic significance, but I'm keeping an open mind because someone spent a lot of time creating it and it's clearly not random text. So, I try to look for patterns that reveal how it was constructed.
While looking through the text, I noticed this interesting contrast...
Each of these is a unique vord, with the exception of keeey which occurs twice:
Plant 5r Plant 49r Plant 50v Plant 38v Folio 116r Sagittarius
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qoykeeey oykeeey ykeeey keeey [font=Verdana]> keeey eeey[/font]
It looks exciting if viewed as a deliberate pattern, possibly a "connector" between folios, but... is it?
In contrast, another 4o vord behaves like this:
275 times 87 times 50 times 2 times 2 times 106 times
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qokeedy okeedy keedy eedy edy dy
Superficially, qoykeeey and qokeedy appear similar, but they behave very differently. The first (qoykeeey) is a unique vord that breaks down into more unique vords by removing the first letter. One might almost suspect a system of pointers, as are used in programming languages to connect data in different places. In contrast, the second (qokeedy) is common, and breaks down into additional vords that are not unique.
So it's not as simple as looking at unique vords with morphological similarities (length, glyphs) to see if they have a connecting function. Might there be a linguistic explanation?
In linguistic terms, there are situations that might explain the first pattern. For example, in English, the sequence nascent > ascent > scent > cent resembles the first set of Vwords. They are all words in their own right, and don't necessarily have to have any relationship to one other in terms of meaning—only the letter patterns are similar.
IF (this is a big "if") qoykeeey and qokeedy are linguistic and IF (this is an even bigger "if" and one of which I am very skeptical) the VMS were a substitution code, then one could look for patterns in a variety of languages where some letter combinations are rare (as in the first example) and others are common (as in the second) in terms of breaking down into viable words if the leading letter is dropped.
I'm not sure how fruitful this line of investigation would be. I see the ok "prefix" as far too common to mesh with natural language patterns, but I decided to post it anyway because a pattern of patterns, studied over time, might lead to other insights.
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Voynich theories and Voynich solutions |
Posted by: ReneZ - 12-08-2017, 10:20 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (58)
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The last sentence in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. from JKP is one thing among several that made me finally write the present post, about Voynich theories, how to prove or disprove them, and the question: whom are we trying to convince.
There are different types of Voynich theories. For the sake of this argument I classify them into three groups.
1. Unspecific / non-controversial
This is what I'd consider the 'easiest' group. It includes proposals like: "it could be the diary of a travelling monk", the "notebook of a student" and in fact many of the suggestions that are proposed and discussed in fora like this.
Most of the time, it is hard to say anything against them, and it is often a matter of taste how convincing the arguments for or against it are. They are rarely the subject of heated debate. One could often say: "not sure but could be".
2. Translations
These form a very specific group. There are far more proposed translations coming up than is visible to the various fora. The thread to which I linked above is just one of five or six that I have been confronted with in the last half year.
The "good" part of proposed translations is that they are susceptible to quantitative arguments.
The people proposing translations (or similar types of solutions) come in all possible forms. Some are reasonable. Many are adamant. Some are not reasonable (spamming, annoying the staff of Yale, suspecting conspiracies, etc.).
3. Controversial provenance
This vague group includes theories that usually do not include a way to interpret the text, but they are not conforming to all or part of the evidence related to the history of the MS.
This includes (among others) the several different versions of "Kelly did it", the Meso-American theory defended by several partly independent people, and the modern fake theory, which recently showed up again in Koen's blog.
Again, the people proposing these theories come in all possible forms.
The question I really wanted to address in this post is: how much effort and energy should one put in trying to show that any theory is wrong?
Is it worth the effort?
The sentiment of JKP in the post I linked is a very understandable one: people may be misled in believing things that are, in reality wrong. This especially seems a problem if they are in no good position to judge it for themselves.
Usually, the proponents of new theories are asking for feedback. Not rarely, they are expecting acceptance.
Going into this discussion is always reasonable.
It is depending on how this discussion evolves, that one should wonder whether it is useful / worthwhile to continue it.
There are indeed people who refuse to accept any argument against what they are proposing. Without giving names, we have seen that here in the forum too. Outside the forum, this is also happening, and not infrequently.
If the proponent of a theory cannot be convinced of being wrong, is it still worth to argue, in order to convince the "rest of the world"?
As for me, personally, I am confronted with so many different cases, that I don't even have a chance to do it.
I will read all proposed solutions. After all, who knows...
But apart from that I simply have to prioritise what to do with my limited "Voynich time".
Other opinions on this topic are very welcome.
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The Takeshi Takahashi transcription |
Posted by: ReneZ - 10-08-2017, 08:46 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (18)
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I just noticed two days ago that the version of Takeshi's transciption that is in the interlinear file is quite different from the version on his web site.
First five line in interlinear file:
Quote:<f1r.P1.1;H> fachys.ykal.ar.ataiin.shol.shory.cthres.y.kor.sholdy-
<f1r.P1.2;H> sory.ckhar.o!r.y.kair.chtaiin.shar.are.cthar.cthar.dan-
<f1r.P1.3;H> syaiir.sheky.or.ykaiin.shod.cthoary.cthes.daraiin.sa-
<f1r.P1.4;H> o{&o'}oiin.oteey.oteos.roloty.cth*ar.daiin.otaiin.or.okan-
<f1r.P1.5;H> dair.y.chear.cthaiin.cphar.cfhaiin=
His version:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(I am not concerned about the comments and the wrappings, just the transcribed text.
I know that his transcription is being used by several people, and I wonder which of the two sources people tend to use.
I will try to contact him, to find out if he updated it in the meantime.
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f34v |
Posted by: Koen G - 07-08-2017, 09:15 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (65)
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I'd like to offer a possible explanation for at least part of this folio. The story goes as follows:
Over at the comments on my blog, Rene was talking about weasels. My mind kind of drifted off at this point, and I ended up wondering which funny stories medieval bestiaries would tell about the weasel. It appears that one of the things weasels do is conceive through their mouths and give birth through their ears. According to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Isidore wrote about this behavior but added that these claims are false, which implies that he is not the origin of this tale.
A graphic representation of two weasels mating in this fashion is a marginal drawing in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (England, 1310-1320). The weasels have clearly different body lengths, which makes them a fine parallel for the zoomorphic root of our plant:
weasels.jpg (Size: 50.65 KB / Downloads: 380)
Now I would have let this slide if it weren't for one thing: the root animals' genital appendages are intertwined. Which is mating-but-not-really-mating while joining their heads.
So the animals might be mating weasels.
Next, which plants are associated with weasels?
Pliny mentions the herb rue, but in my opinion this does not look like the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. plant at all.
But there was something else. I remember that when we were discussing the enigmatic Trinity herbal, I saw a plant with an anecdote about birds and weasels: sticados citrinum. Marco kindly translated the passage as follows:
Some call it "herb of the birds" because a certain bird puts some of this herb in its nest. Similarly, also the weasel does the same in its nest, because the weasel and that bird know | its [of the plant] virtue.
Again, the image does not look much like the VM plant (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f.74r).
But, and now I get to the point, sticados apparently means lavender. This does not explain the VM plant's round leaves at all, but strangely it does explain the flowers - remember that the VM does not utilize a lavender-like color.
lavender.jpg (Size: 86.32 KB / Downloads: 375)
Image top right credited as: Lo sticados, dal codice “Historia Plantarum”, fine XIV secolo
Bottom: Lavandula stoechas
So if there is a link with weasels and lavender here (and that's a big if), then it would mean that the plant image is composite... any ideas?
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Listen to the violets. |
Posted by: R. Sale - 06-08-2017, 06:51 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (3)
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There are many discrepancies and incongruities in the VMs. Can it be a valid historical artifact approximating the parchment dates? Or is is a modern forgery? Clearly there is a certain cumulative uneasiness with calling these odd illustrations a clear and accurate representation of reality, but is there sufficient evidence to substantiate invalidation?
Everyone knows that there is an illustration of violets early on in the VMs. Unlike many of the other botanical illustrations in the VMs, the violets are quite realistic, with the single caveat that the flowers are all upside down. Why are the flowers inverted? Either they have wilted or there is some other reason.
Virtually anyone who would try to draw a violet, would have seen an actual violet (or an illustration of an actual violet) and therefore would know the proper orientation of a violet blossom. And a person who intended to draw an accurate representation of a violet would probably draw the blossoms in their natural (not inverted) orientation. The depiction of violets in a wilted condition is an unexpected representation.
Is there another reason to depict inverted violet blossoms? Are the blossoms inverted in the attempt to create something of an exotic appearance? Considering the rest of the botanical illustrations, that might be a possibility. There are these stories coming out of the early medieval era as to whether the Earth was flat or round. Whether things in the southern hemisphere were upside down and so on. This might be part of an attempt to create a document that appears to come from an exotic and unknown culture and location. If so, then the VMs is a hoax. It may not have been verifiable at the time, but the land of inverted violets is not real. It is imaginary. And as a text purporting to originate in an imaginary location, the VMs is a hoax.
Is the VMs a modern forgery? I think of a forgery as a copy or imitation of something, like a work of art, that is similar enough in its replication, that it can pass as authentic. The intent of imitation is to enhance similarity and to avoid what is different, unexpected and exotic, to make something that is indistinguishable from the genuine. The difference in the inverted violets may be subtle and easily overlooked. The difference in the VMs Zodiac is plainly blatant. How hard could it be to simply use the traditional zodiac sequence and structure, rather than Pisces first, Aries and Taurus split, etc., etc? This is not forgery by imitation.
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A possible source for the "modern italian copy" |
Posted by: voynichbombe - 05-08-2017, 06:05 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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I can't find the thread atm which mentions one or two "copied pages" (sometimes assumed to be the one's Kircher received) aquired by an italian copyshop owner, who subsequently got them tested and dated contemporarily.
While watching the "Austrian Documentary" for the nth time (I always find something new that bugs me), I clearly saw a recording of someone doing a copy. Who knows what happened with the film props after production stop?
This is just a thought.. as said I'm out of time to locate the thread, see which folios appeared on that italian market, and compare them to the pages being copied in the video.
Anyways I couln't help a slight chuckle at Rene Zandbergen interviewing Richard Santa Coloma.
That documentary may have moved a lot, but sometimes "good intention" is the opposite of "good".
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Interesting Vwords - qokeedy |
Posted by: -JKP- - 31-07-2017, 10:22 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (2)
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On the lkeedy thread, MarcoP wrote this, so I thought I would start a follow-up thread on qokeedy
Quote:MarcoP:
Another observation is that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. qokeedy (a much more common word) correlates with both lkeedy and olkeedy: 69% of the pages that contain qokeedy also contain at least one of lkeedy / olkeedy
The two words sequence qokeedy.olkeedy occurs three times (79v, 112r, 112v).
olkeedy.qokeedy occurs twice (f82v, f113r)
lkeedy.qokeedy occurs once (f112v)
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