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Interesting Vwords - chok |
Posted by: -JKP- - 31-07-2017, 10:35 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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chok might be a plant-section Vord, except there aren't enough instances to be sure.
- It first appears on the last line of f1r, between two other mostly-plant vords.
- It then appears on 3 big-plant folios—the first two times in the company of other plant vords, the third time oddly sandwiched within four general-purpose (common) vords.
- Then, like the previously posted vord, it shows up in a spoke of the "Pleiades" folio.
The latter point is something I noticed quite a long ago and it made me curious...
To people in the middle ages, everything was interconnected. The stars and planets governed parts of the body, the shape of a plant expressed what kind of illnesses it cured, the stars governed the qualities of the plants. Body/stars/medicine/shapes/influence... they simply weren't separable from one another.
It is assumed by many that star shapes in the VMS are always stars, but I'm not certain that is always so. It's possible, for example, that some of the little stars in the rosette pages are plants/bushes, rather than stars.
When I saw that quite a few primarily-plant vords turn up on star pages like the "Pleiades" page, I wondered, could these pages be something a little different? perhaps an aerial plan for a section of an herb garden for plants that are governed by a certain constellation? Planting guides, rather than pictures of the heavens? Zodiac-based gardens did exist.
Another possibility (I'm always trying to think of alternative interpretations) is that these specific plants have words in common with celestial bodies (there are many plants with words like Saturn, star, Venus, etc., as part of the plant name) and perhaps that is why they show up on both plant and star pages. But then one might expect them on the zodiac pages, as well, and that doesn't always happen.
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Interesting Vwords - okor |
Posted by: -JKP- - 31-07-2017, 09:46 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (6)
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okor is a plant- and rosette-section Vord.
It makes its first appearance on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. near the end of the first paragraph, sandwiched between two common vords and two unique vords.
In other words, right from the beginning it differs from the pattern I posted for oKeedg.
- okor occurs once each on 10 of the big-plant pages. There is no apparent morphological similarity among these 10 plants.
- It is found once on a spoke of the "Pleiades" page f68r2.
- It occurs twice on the "douche bag" page, in the first paragraph.
- It occurs on rosette 1 outer ring twice, on a rosette 5 ring, and on the Africa/south portion of the drawing that resembles a T-O map.
- It is on several of the small-plant pages (once per folio).
- It is on the third and second-to-last starred-text pages.
okor is not found in the zodiac section and only on one pool page and one star page.
It likes to keep company with plant vords, plant/pool vords, and general-purpose (common) vords, and only occasionally with others.
Most of the time, it is buried within paragraphs rather than being first or last in the line.
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Conventions |
Posted by: ReneZ - 31-07-2017, 09:30 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (7)
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Several points were brought up recently, that suggested to me that the point and usefulness of 'conventions' may not be understood in the same way by all.
The point of 'conventions' (in a way: agreements) is for everybody to talk the same language, and facilitate communication.
The terms used don't have to be 'the best' and they don't even have to be 'very good'. As long as they are 'usable'.
So, for example, one may wonder if 'biological' is the best possible term to use for quire 13. As already pointed out, this term is used in the Beinecke's old MS description, and it probably derives from D'Imperio. If one just thinks about it, it really doesn't matter whether the contents of this quire are biological or not. Nobody knows anyway....
Trying to agree on what is the best possible term is not practical, it would probably change over time, and people would never agree about it.
People may use their own terms, but then others may not necessarily understand what they mean.
Similarly with a recent post by Anton. One may have one's personal feelings about which letter best represents which Voynich glyph.
However, readers are likely to understand Eva, possibly also Currier or v101, but not someone's personal interpretation.
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Interesting Vwords - xkccdg |
Posted by: -JKP- - 31-07-2017, 08:55 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (5)
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Pardon me for departing from EVA, but there are some reasons why I prefer a different system. It's similar, and not difficult to adapt to and I use it for a number of reasons.
I prefer using "x" rather than "l" (ell) for EVA-l because the VMS glyph is not an ascender and writing it with x preserves the upper-lower-case balance and makes it easier to distinguish from the number 1 (especially in certain fonts). I also prefer using "c" for the glyph that looks like "c" and not using "e". I use "g" to represent EVA-y. I would prefer to use the number 9, because that's what the glyph is based on, but it's hard to write it with a descender (to subscript it), so I use "g". I go back and forth between using d or 8 for EVA-d. I'm comfortable with either one. I think 8 looks more like the actual VMS glyph.
So, I write EVA-lkeedy lkeedy as xkccdg or as xkcc8g. (Bummer, I have to fix everything, I didn't realize the EVA capital letters were benched.)
Now, to the subject of this thread, which is Vwords with interesting characteristics... let's look at lkeedy...
lkeedy doesn't appear on the first 75 folios. It begins on f76r, which is a dense-text page with column text, after some of the green-pool pages. It's buried unobtrusively in the first big chunk of text and the second-to-last.
- In the first instance, its neighbors are common general-purpose words (those that appear frequently in all sections, or almost all sections) and one word that is common to the plant and pool pages. This is not common, however. It's one of the few places where it keeps company with general-purpose vords.
- In the second instance, all its neighbors are plant/pool vords. In other words, even though these two instances are on the same folio, they are wedged between neighbors that function differently.
lkeedy shows up next on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (nymph with "douche bag").
- It's buried in the fourth paragraph and has entirely different neighbors this time, a couple of words that are almost exclusive to pool pages.
Next is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (the one with nymphs and "parasols").
- It's in the last paragraph at the end of a line, following several plant/pool vords.
Next is f82r, the "mummy nymph" page.
- It's buried in the second paragraph in company with pool vords and plant/pool vords.
Then there's a jump. It passes over the small-plant pages and shows up on the first page of dense starred text, about halfway down at the end of the line, in company with plant and plant-pool vords. From then on it shows up once on most of the first-half of the starred-text pages, usually in the company of plant vords or plant/pool vords... until you get to the 11th starred-text page and then the neighbors are a little more varied.. By "neighbors" I am referring to vords that come directly before and after (usually three or four of them in total).
***On 108v, starred-text, the pattern of one-instance per folio changes to multiple instances per folio:
- On 108v, it shows up three times in the first short paragraph, and twice in the second, longer paragraph, still in the company of plant/pool vords.
Subsequently, there are numerous instances and the neighboring vords are unusually varied. Something has changed. Near the end, it reverts back to one instance per page.
So what we have is an interesting vord that is not found on the big-plant, zodiac, cosmology or small-plant pages, but for most of the instances in which it is found, it shows up once-per-folio directly next to other vords that are mostly on the pool and plant/pool pages. It does not like to be next to pure zodiac or cosmology words and, surprisingly, is rarely next to the common general-purpose words.
It breaks this pattern halfway through the starred-text pages and suddenly shows up not just multiple times per folio, but multiple times per paragraph and starts keeping company with vords that are more varied.
What changed?
- Is there a change of subject matter halfway through the starred-text pages?
- Or is it possible that whatever the vord lkeedysignifies is dealt with in more detail on the pages where it becomes more frequent?
- Or did the system for laying down the VMS text suddenly change halfway through the starred-text pages?
- If it has any linguistic significance, what kind of word that is not a general-purpose word would enjoy the company of plant/pool and pool vords and mostly avoid being next to others?
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Why so puzzling? |
Posted by: R. Sale - 30-07-2017, 09:14 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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The VMs has often been characterized as intriguing, confusing, puzzling, and so on - particularly by those who expect it to make sense in the same way that other texts of the alchemical-herbal/hausbuch of standard comparison are expected to make sense. Of course, there is the problem with the language, which doesn't make sense, but then, it is the expectation that a bit of effort will solve that problem. Even if the text is encrypted, it is expected that the result will make sense. But then, that is yet to happen.
We expect the VMs to be constructed as a normal text, putting forth information in generally plain and consistent manner, as best one might expect from a person of that era. And yet the VMs is confusing, puzzling, equivocal and ambiguous. What is the problem? Perhaps the problem is in the basic assumption that the VMs was constructed as a method to communicate according to a standard expository model where the purpose is to make a series of statements and discussions. Perhaps the VMs is constructed in another manner, one in which the VMs poses a number of perplexing questions, which, of course, are predominantly visual initially.
Where did this book come from? Where is the land of the inverted violets? The matters, questions, difficulties and problems of interpretation go on and on. Why is the VMs so puzzling? Because it is a puzzle; because it is *constructed* as a puzzle? What this does is to free the content of the text from the limits of factual constraints. It now allows the content of the text to be influenced by elements of obfuscation, deception, illusion and disguise. Ambiguity and equivocation are allowed. What is not allowed is contradiction - well, validated contradiction, that is. Ambiguous contradiction is fine, that's just obfuscation. Behind this, however, there must be a valid truth. Blue stripes *cannot* be red or green. They can only be blue.
If the VMs is a puzzle, where is the evidence? We have seen some of it already. In addition, the bisection of Oresme's cosmos, the optical illusion that disguises the orientation of the striped patterned tubs on White Aries, the papelonny pun, the subtle, yet plain as day, introduction of the concept of bisection and pairing in astronomy, astrology, tub patterns, heraldry, and historical tradition . These are all related to the illustrations. And on the linguistic side there is the surprising set of interpretations and interrelationships within the seventeen symbol sequence. None of these constructions is unintentional. These are examples of puzzles contained within the facade of the VMs. This is valid, factual, traditional and historical information hidden on the pages of the VMs. Do we still expect the facade of the VMs to be valid, honest and straight-forward? Perhaps that is the problem?
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[split] Klaus Test |
Posted by: -JKP- - 29-07-2017, 05:40 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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So now Patrick Lockerby can take the Klaus Shmeh challenge:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
And if he really has a solution, he should be able to tell the difference between sense and nonsense and blog about it.
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Some considerations upon Voynich-synth |
Posted by: Anton - 28-07-2017, 11:42 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (5)
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An idea recently occured to me which remains undeveloped, but I want to share it at an early stage.
A while ago Wladimir provided some cross-section page comparisons which suggested that plant names are not mentioned at least in one of the sections - either botanical or pharma (and, possibly, in both). This is, in principle, corroborated by several very promising initial results of plant identification by way of image mnemonics. Quite naturally, if a plant's name is revealed through mnemonics, there is technically no need to mention it in the nearby text. It may or may not be mentioned in other sections of the MS, for the need of reference, but there will be no need to label the plant.
So far, so good. But there's the question: why so heavily rely upon mnemonics at all? Even if the author does need these mnemonics in general (for whatever purpose), why not add textual aid to that - which would be only simple and natural?
One answer on the surface is that the author was not confident in the robustness of his cipher. So he decided to not add textual clues, in order to strengthen concealment. On one hand, this assumption shows the author as an exceptionally smart and forward-looking guy, on the other hand it shows him somewhat stupid, because he writes in a cipher while being sure that the cipher is not difficult to crack.
But suddenly an upside-down explanation came to my mind. If he does not mention plant names, then this might just mean that... they cannot be expressed in Voynichese at all! Voynichese just does not possess means of naming plants.
Likewise, the "aror sheey paradox" can be explained. Why is aror sheey in Voynichese in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. while the rest of the line is in plain text? Because only what's hidden behind aror sheey can be translated into Voynichese, and valden ubren and all that gasmich - just can not!
This suggests that the expressive power of Voynichese is quite restricted, with probably no grammar, which makes Voynichese not even a synthetic language (what does not have grammar cannot be called a language), but a kind of synthetic "notation" - the "Voynich-synth" - something not far from what Don made of it, with his proposed solution (now unfortunately offline, AFAIK) speckling with drams and ounces.
Any messages and concepts which do not fit into the framework of this notation are expressed by way of exceptionally elaborate mnemonics and visual codes (like those nymphs with their legs, papellonny, plant mnemonics, stars, whatever...).
Offhand there are ready counter-arguments to this. For example, consider the chain: plant (botanical section) -> mixture/medicine (pharma section) -> cure (recipe section). Suppose the name of the plant in the botanical section is conveyed by mnemonics. Next, plant names in the pharma section are conveyed by mnemonics as well, since they visually match plants from the botanical section, and the names can be thus reconstructed. Suppose, further, that the mixture is referenced in the recipe section not by the mixture's name, but in some roundabout fashion (dunno, say, folio number/row number). But how would the name of the respective disease be encoded? And if it can be encoded, then how it is that names of plants can not?
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Proposed solution: The Voynich manuscript unzipped |
Posted by: lelle - 28-07-2017, 08:09 PM - Forum: News
- Replies (43)
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The blog post is a bit vague, but it seems the author is claiming to be able to read the text as heavily abbreviated Latin. It's not the first time this approach has been taken - but a cleartext excerpt frome You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which actually makes sense, is given (which is a bit rare).
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
It will be interesting to see the methodology and further development on this as the blog author seems be reasonably scientific and well-versed in medievalia judging from his previous posts.
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f57v and the Catalan Atlas |
Posted by: Koen G - 27-07-2017, 10:26 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (13)
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In another thread, Searcher mentioned compass roses (or wind roses). When one looks for info on these, the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is unavoidable, since it contains the first compass rose on a map. I'll select some info from the wiki for those who are unfamiliar with the work:
Quote:The Catalan Atlas is the most important map of the medieval period in the Catalan language (drawn and written in 1375). It was produced by the Majorcan cartographic school and is attributed to Cresques Abraham (also known as "Abraham Cresques"), a Jewish book illuminator [...] The Catalan Atlas originally consisted of six vellum leaves folded down the middle, painted in various colors including gold and silver. The leaves are now cut in half. Each half-leaf is mounted on one side of five wooden panels. n overall size of 65 × 300 cm.
The first two leaves contain texts in Catalan covering cosmography, astronomy, and astrology. These texts are accompanied by illustrations. The texts and illustration emphasize the Earth's spherical shape and the state of the known world. They also provide information to sailors on tides and how to tell time at night.
[...]
Unlike many other nautical charts, the Catalan Atlas is read with the north at the bottom.
Now, you might notice I placed this thread in the Voynich forum instead of "Non-Voynich medievalia". That is because at just a glance I saw two indications which link this map to f57v.
The first one is that on this chart, several rulers are depicted, and ones who have a lot of gold are shown in a rather specific pose, holding up a gold nugget. I attach Mansa Musa, the 14th century king of Mali who, according to legend, brought along so much gold that he caused massive inflation where he went. The text on the Atlas reads:
mansa.jpg (Size: 65.93 KB / Downloads: 322)
Another such figure is queen Sebba. The legend reads: Arabia Sebba. Province that had queen Sebba; now it belongs to the Arabs Sarracens, and in it there very good aromas, as well as myrth and frankincense. Gold, silver and precious stones are plentiful, and there you can find a bird named Phoenix.
Now the second thing. In the other thread, I noted that the "North" on the compass rose is marked with an emblem for, according to the literature, the pole star. I have often said that at least in quire 13, this type of line denotes the northern polar region in the sky, so that's when my internal alarm went off.
Untitled-2.jpg (Size: 52.23 KB / Downloads: 178)
But there's something else. On the first panel (cosmological) there is again a wind diagram, again topped with the curious pole star symbol. But here the symbol has been circled with a line, creating (or rather, bringing to the fore) a familiar shape, one very similar to the one in the centre of f57v. Just to show how similar they are, I have traced both (bottom).
cosmos.jpg (Size: 41.33 KB / Downloads: 180)
I must say I haven't been following many discussions about this folio since it seems somewhat separate from the main sections. For all I know this is old news, though I haven't found anything in the forum search, apart from Diane mentioning the Atlas' relevance in more general terms.
I do think that it might hold more relevant information. For example, there is something to the way it draws cities (also found in some manuscripts). A city is basically a political symbol (flag, tower, dome...) placed inside cylindrical city walls.
Any thoughts?
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The Bull's Basket |
Posted by: -JKP- - 27-07-2017, 06:15 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (17)
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I touched on this in a blog, but didn't go into it in detail because I was more concerned about zodiac imagery at the time and didn't have time to talk about baskets, but maybe it's a good topic for the forum.
In the two depictions of "Taurus" (a red long-horned animal), the animal is eating from a basket with green stuff in it (or walking next to a basket with a green interior). I had noted earlier that one of the baskets has a diagonal weave (which is much less common than horizontal weaves) and that it's unusual for bulls to eat from baskets (this usually only happens in hot countries and not often).
Another thing I had noticed about the basket, but wasn't sure, is that it might be the kind that narrows at the bottom. It's hard to tell because it butts up against the edge of the circle that surrounds the drawing.
Here is a detail from f71v:
TaurusCalathus.png (Size: 369.81 KB / Downloads: 138)
Here is an example of what I mean by a basket that narrows (I can't be sure it's this kind but I offer it as a possibility). I chose this one because it has a diagonal weave:
CalathusDetail.png (Size: 79.1 KB / Downloads: 132)
These were general-purpose baskets but seem to have been mainly used for items associated with women, such as spinning and sewing tools, flowers, and sometimes fruits. It's called calathus, qualus, quasillus. Slaves who spun were called quasillaria.
This one from Tacuinum Sanitatus is narrower at the bottom (used for harvesting chives/shallots), but it doesn't have a diagonal weave:
So... is the diagonal weave significant?
Is it a basket with a narrow bottom?
Were diagonal (and possibly narrowed) baskets used for other purposes?
Are there any examples of bulls feeding from this specific kind of basket?
It's quite difficult to find images of bulls eating from any kind of basket (I only saw two or three) and especially difficult to find this in zodiac imagery (I can't remember whether I was able to locate any) but maybe the Voynich community can unravel whether the weave and shape of the basket has any significance.
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