Quote:I talk about observation and not assumption.
The main difference is that an observation should be made objectively; of course when I see a tree, there are always people that say: no that is a bush. I will quickly give up then, because I can spend my time better than convincing those people.
An assumption would imply that you start somewhere, without showing exactly why you start there or have no underlying metrics.
I agree that an assumption is most of the time a scientific mistake, sometimes it leads to new paths however.
google says: Assumption - the act of taking for granted, or supposing a thing without proof;Observation - the act or the faculty of observing or taking notice; the act of seeing, or of fixing the mind upon, anything.
This is something I already had in mind to write something about.
My train of thoughts can be well described by using the example of the similarity of Voynich MS f68v3 with an illustration from Nicole d’Oresme’s Livre du ciel et du Monde (1377) as pointed out by Ellie Velinska.
Let's start with:
Evidence.
Evidence is first of all the Voynich MS itself, but there is much more. It is also the combined set of other medieval manuscripts that have come down to us, and lots of other historic material. Evidence is mostly 'objective'. However, evidence can include subjective material, for example historic letters expressing opinions. For the above example, the evidence is the Voynich MS on the one hand, and the Oresme MS on the other hand.
Observation.
An observation is something that can be made by someone. It can be a spoken or written statement. In the above example, the observation is: "the two drawings are similar". This case is clearly subjective. Similarity is an opinion, and different people may see it differently. An observation isn't necessarily either true or false, but it may be.
Hypothesis.
The hypothesis will try to explain the observation (or more directly some evidence). Here, for example: "the drawing in the Voynich MS derives from some copy of Oresme". Many different hypotheses can be derived from a single observation. A hypothesis is more likely to be either true of false, even if we may not know which of the two it is.
Making hypotheses is not a bad thing. One simply has to remember that they have to be tested, and ideally proven. One should not start taking them for granted, or as some form of evidence. (This last point may seem obvious, but it is a surprisingly common flaw).
Assumption.
An assumption is like a hypothesis, but the word implies that this hypothesis does not derive directly from anything, except, perhaps, what one might call common sense.
An assumption in the current case could be: "the Voynich MS drawing could not have been made independently by someone, who never saw any of the Oresme (or similar) drawings".
Assumptions abound, and again, they are not a bad thing, as long as one is fully aware of them, and ready to drop them if this becomes necessary.
The problem with assumptions is that one tends to make them all the time, without being too much aware of it.
Good assumptions are the ones that are clearly stated. Even if they can still be wrong.
It is not my intention to go into a never-ending discussion about the recent Judaeo-Greek translation proposal by Geoffrey Caveney. However, there are a number of general points related to this that are worth bringing up, and do not specifically concern only this example.
It is important to keep in mind that any decryption or translation is not a process by itself, but it is an inverse of a process that has already taken place.
It is the act of reversing what the person did who wrote the text.
If one proposes a decryption (even when it is just simple substitution) it must be possible to describe the original encryption process reasonably accurately, and in some detail.
The reverse process may in some cases be more complicated.
It is not sufficient to:
1) Take a transcription file
2) apply some more or less arbitrary transformation of it
3) claim that this is the meaning (i.e. the plain text).
One has to describe how this plain text was converted into the text we see in the MS.
If one has the right solution, this will be possible.
If one is doing something very different, i.e. not the right solution, but just trying to squeeze meaning out of the transcription using the incorrect method, this will not be possible.
Also a detailed description of how the decryption is done may not be possible, or if it is attempted, may clearly show the weaknesses of the method.
In recent cases where some document was decrypted successfully, there was never any discussions whether it is correct or not. Take for example the Codex Copiale.
In the case of the Judaeo-Greek example, while we alternatively hear that it is consistent, or that it does not have to be consistent, this detailed description is not given.
The translation goes into two steps. The first is from Voynichese to "Greek written in Hebrew characters", and the second is from this to more standard Greek. In both steps changes are made.
In the first case, there is a many-to-many mapping of characters. In the second, parts of words are added/deleted and some more characters are modified.
What we need to see is:
- the Greek text that is proposed to be the plain text
- the method how this is represented using Hebrew characters
- the method how this new text is then mapped to the Voynich text
Both would normally involve a table.
We then need to see an explanation why the resulting text in the Voynich MS exhibits the typical word patters and the low entropy values.
This is true for any solution, of course.
One thing that this particular proposal covers is the appearance of Eva-f and Eva-p in top lines of paragraphs, which is typically overlooked in proposed solutions (because the would-be solver usually is not aware of this feature).
This is a general, philosophical question. It is about Voynich ms research, about all of our research, about all of us, including myself.
Could it be possible that, in some way or in some respect, some of us actually prefer that the Voynich MS remain undeciphered?
This mysterious manuscript is just so much FUN to study! We can all make up our own theories about languages, we can do interesting linguistic and statistical studies on the ms text, we can propose fascinating theories about the possible meanings of the illustrations, etc., etc., etc. It is a fertile ground for our imagination, and for our intellectual inclination to analyze the text, for those of us who are mathematically inclined.
But if the Voynich MS ever were to be successfully deciphered, whether by me or someone else here or someone else anywhere or whomever, ... we would lose all of that. The mystery would be gone. There would be no more puzzle left to analyze and speculate about and research. It would be just another historical document.
Oh, it would still be researched, in detail, for sure. But that work would then be the province of the specialists in whichever language/dialect and in whichever historical specialization the MS happens to belong to. If it's Byzantine Greek or Judaeo-Greek, it would be the specialists in those fields who would study it. If it's a unique method of medieval Latin manuscript abbreviations, it would be the specialists in that field who would study it.
Linear B can still be studied, by those who specialize in Archaic and Mycenaean Greek, in Mycenaean and Minoan civilization, and in the linguistics of the distinct type of syllabary that the script represented. But it can no longer be studied by a broad spectrum of talented and curious intellectuals without those specialized skills, as it was in the 1920's and 30's and 40's in many very interesting and fascinating ways by a wide variety of investigators. I bet many people were actually disappointed when Michael Ventris successfully deciphered Linear B. He had taken their puzzle game away from them.
I don't think many people will admit to feeling this way. But I think it is a philosophical question that is worth asking and worth reflecting on.
I posted a couple weeks ago about the red labels on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 2 , and about medieval medical astrology, and my idea that the labels may represent the body parts that medieval physicians associated with each sign of the Zodiac.
Here is a link to an academic scholar's summary of the traditional medieval associations of body parts and Zodiac signs:
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The relevant table is at the bottom of the page. I have also attached the table to this post.
Now, with my (quasi-Judaeo-)Greek correspondences of Voynich characters, as I have posted regarding the first four lines of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 1, I am able to identify a significant number of Greek body part names in these 12 red labels on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 2 . In particular, the body parts proceed in order from head to toe around the chart, as they do in the attached table.
I only list here the words for which I have interpretations at this stage.
I begin near 12 o'clock position on the chart:
[soy shr ...]
"tos mr ..."
Greek "tous mere ..."
"the parts ..."
Notes: I interpret the [sh] character with a more "closed" loop on top as a Greek "m", as opposed to the [sh] character with a more "open" loop on top as a Greek "t" or "d".
As I noted before, confusion of the grammatical genders of some forms was common in the Greek of the Byzantine period. Here we see the masculine plural article "tous" together with the neuter plural noun "mere".
From here, the body parts now proceed in order from head to toe around the chart, as in the attached table:
I admit I cannot explain the final "s" here, and it is possible the [y] character is serving more broadly as an abbreviation for various word endings, as does the similar-looking medieval Latin abbreviation symbol (often called "9").
[ykeo?y okchy]
no interpretation yet
[?cht?y]
"?hk?s"
Greek "kheires"
"hands"
The difficulty here is more with reading the word in the ms, rather than with the Greek interpretation. VViews has also noted on his blog the difficulty in reading this word.
[chkchdar]
"hthvar"
Greek "tharre"
I interpret this word to mean the heart and surrounding areas of the body.
The modern Greek word means "courage", "ardor", etc.
[ykar ykaly]
no interpretation yet
[lkshykchy okar]
no interpretation yet
Note: It is not necessarily simple to determine the late medieval Byzantine Greek medical terminology for such body parts as "spleen" and "lumbar region"!
Note: If you look very closely and carefully at the gallows characters in these two words, you will see the faint traces of the top left loops, indicating that they were originally intended to be written as [t], not as [k].
[ykchys ...]
"sthist ..."
Here the ms appears to repeat the term "stethos" ("chest"), already listed in a previous label.
[ykecho ols eesydy]
I have an interpretation only for the middle word:
"ost"
Greek "osta"
"bones"
I now have a (Judaeo-)Greek reading of the 3rd line of the passage at the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 1. I present it here together with the first two lines.
Again, in my rendition of the quasi-Judaeo-Greek text below, I am going to use the transcription "A" to stand for a letter that could have been represented in a Judaeo-Greek text by the Hebrew letter "aleph". As I noted in my post about the historical text earlier, when Greek was written in the Hebrew script, the Hebrew letter aleph could be a placeholder letter under which a rather wide variety of vowel diacritic dots could be written, but the diacritics were not written in this ms. Thus in this place there could often occur Greek alpha, but also omicron or epsilon or upsilon. I do not use this symbol anywhere near that freely in my interpretation below, but I do use it in some places.
first three lines of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 1 in the Voynich ms text:
Now "normalizing" this Judaeo-Greek text into a more standard Greek form:
eipan tis ipeirous otan skiais tis , eipan oun
para autous & autes tora oikous ouk eisi tes , tis t'-eipes
sou tes etan auttoi aules , deite [te] vasein , phes
Very literal word-for-word English translation in the same word order as the Greek:
"they said the continents when in the shadows , they said then"
"beside them (masc. & fem.) now [astrol.] houses not are they , to them it-you said"
"to you they were these houses/courts , you see the foundation, you say/assert"
Idiomatic English translation:
"They said when the continents are in the shadows, then they said
now there are not (astrological?) houses by them, you said to them
these houses/courts belonged to you , you see the foundation, you claim"
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Comments: As I pointed out in my post about historical Judaeo-Greek, some ambiguity in the representation of Greek vowels is inevitable in such a script. Neither Hebrew nor Voynichese can possibly render all the Greek vowels as precisely as the Greek script itself does.
First of all, I have fixed the end of the 2nd line: since I am finding more and more evidence that Voynich [l] is more likely to be Greek "s" than Greek "n", I now read the last two words of this line as "tis t'-eipes", meaning "to them you said it". It is common in Greek, as in other Balkan languages (the "Balkan Sprachbund"), to use a pre-verbal clitic object pronoun. This explains the "t'-" (short for "to") prefixed to "-eipes" ("you said"). Thus I do not have to explain away the gallows letter here as a pilcrow-like glyph strangely placed in the middle of a paragraph.
Further, I now have a *consistent* use of the form "tis" as a dative plural pronoun/article in two different phrases in the first two lines: "skiais tis" meaning "in the shadows", and "tis" here meaning "to them". The Ancient Greek dative plural form was masc/neut "tois", fem "tais", but Modern Greek just has an accusative plural (feminine) form "tis" or "tes". In this ms text we see the author trying to use the classical dative plural, but using the more modern form "tis" to do so.
This identification of "tis" as the dative plural pronoun/article, consistent with the historical change from Ancient to Modern Greek, but distinct from both, may be the most significant grammatical feature of Voynich Judaeo-Greek that I have identified so far. If I am able to interpret the entire ms in this way, I hope that I can produce an accompanying work on "The Grammar of Voynich Judaeo-Greek" to explain as many such forms as possible.
===
About the third line in general: I rather like the poetic flow of the Greek in this line in its final form:
"sou tes etan auttoi aules, deite vasein, phes"
One can even hear the meter:
"sóu tes étan áuttoi áules, déite vásein, phés"
The grammatically consistent phrase and clause breaks, after "aules" and after "vasein", even fit with the poetic meter of the line.
===
More detailed comments about the individual words:
The phonetic spelling of "sou" as "shio[u]" is consistent with modern pronunciation of Greek, which late medieval Byzantine Greek resembled much more than Ancient or Koine. If you hear for example the basic modern Greek greeting "geia sou" ("hello"), it sounds more like "yeia shou". There is no *phonemic* distinction of [s] and [sh] in Greek, but there is variation in the pronunciation of the phoneme /s/. For a Judaeo-Greek writer, who was familiar with Hebrew in which there is a distinction between /s/ and /sh/, it would have been natural to write Greek "s" as Judaeo-Greek "sh" in many such cases.
The Voynich vords [s oeeg] are somewhat difficult to read on the ms page, but the most natural Greek interpretation "t-Aees" = "tes" fits very well with both the meaning of the line, the grammar of the line, and even the poetic meter of the line. "tes" simply means "they".
The [ch] at the beginning of [cheos aiin] is natural, because many stages and dialects of Greek have naturally added an "h-" "breathing" sound at the beginning of words that are written with an initial vowel. So here we find written "heAt-an" for phonetic [hetan], which is more recognizable as the Greek word "etan", the basic verb form "they were".
The next word [okesoe] I read as Judaeo-Greek "Atitoi", representing Greek "aut(i)toi" or just "auttoi" or "autoi". It is possible that this form is some kind of compound of "aute(s)-" ("these") and "-oi" ("the" plural).
The next word [aram] is the heart of the whole line, like "oikous" in the line above it. I read it as Judaeo-Greek "AlAs", representing Greek "aules", meaning "houses, courtyards, courts" (as in the court of a kingdom). It could also mean the "courtiers" of a monarch.
Thus we now have a very grammatical sequence in this line: "sou tes etan autoi aules", as long as we understand that "autoi" is not a classical form but rather a compound like "aute(s)-oi". It is also possible that the author simply confused the grammatical genders of some nouns in this ms text. This is not unheard of in Byzantine Greek: Even in probably the most famous Byzantine Greek epic poetic work, Digenis Akritis (also transliterated as Digenes Akritas, which only proves my point about the ambiguous vowel qualities of medieval Greek!), one scholar identified numerous examples of participles with "non-agreement of case or gender" throughout the work. Other grammatical anomalies in this epic work included "hanging nominatives", "inaccurate use of genitive absolutes", "accusative absolute where genitive required", and so on.
So, if you want to debate me about Byzantine Greek grammar and my Voynich Judaeo-Greek grammar, you are at least going to have to study the grammatical forms as found and used in Digenes Akritas, to say nothing of more obscure Byzantine Greek works.
(By the way, I did some of this research on Digenes Akritas while researching medieval texts in general as part of my successful effort to decrypt Don's Voynichese ciphertext.)
Thus we have the smooth grammatical phrase "to you they are these the houses/courts". In more idiomatic English, it reads "These houses/courts belonged to you."
===
Moving on to the final phrase in the last three words of the line, we see that the author likes to end lines with short phrases with simple verbs: "eipan oun", "tis t'-eipes", and here "deite [te] vasein, phes". The verbs include "they said", "you said", and here "you see" and "you say" (or more precisely "you assert", "you claim").
It is true that "deite" is a plural "you" form, whereas the other forms are singular "you". Perhaps this was a set formulaic phrase "you see", rather than a reference to an individual specific person as in the 2nd person singular forms. Or perhaps a better explanation is that the "-te" is actually the definite article that goes with the following word "vasein", "foundation". The phrase "te vasein" is a consistent grammatical feminine accusative singular form. (The "pure" Attic Ancient Greek form would be "ten basin"; the "pure" Modern Greek form would be "te vase"; the form here "te vasein" is mainly modern but with the "classical" accusative ending "-n" added to the noun.)
This word "vase" by the way is the classical Greek word "basis", borrowed directly into almost every European language. In Ancient Greek it meant "step", "rhythm", "foot", "foundation", "base", and more, but in modern Greek its main meanings are "base", "foundation", "basis". (In the latter, the definition is the borrowing!)
The final word [dam] I read as Judaeo-Greek "fAs", representing Greek "phes", meaning "you say", "you assert", et al. It is also the verb form used when quoting someone, "sometimes after another verb of saying". In this respect, it makes sense that this verb appears in the third line after the use of the other verb "eipan", "eipes" in the first two lines.
Thus, the last three words of the line together constitute the clause "you see the foundation, you claim". It is semantically consistent with the first part of the line, as if the "you" whom the author is addressing, is looking at the foundation which is all that is left of the houses or courts that used to be theirs.
Once again, it is interesting in this respect that the Voynich ms was written only decades, at most, before the fall of Constantinople and the collapse of the entire Byzantine Emipre, when the end was surely already in sight for astute and clear-headed observers. (To give the Byzantine Empire some credit, it lasted arguably longer than the Western Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire put together.)
===
I want to close by returning to the strikingly smooth poetic meter of this third line in my interpretation:
"sóu tes étan áuttoi áules, déite vásein, phés"
The first two lines are not quite so smooth, but their poetic meter is not too bad either:
The Digenes Akritas Byzantine Greek epic poem had the popular and standard medieval and modern Greek so-called "political verse" or "decapentasyllabic verse", which is 15-syllable iambic blank verse. We do not exactly have that in these three lines, but actually these lines are pretty close. If most of the Voynich ms text is composed in such a verse or something similar, it might explain the rigidity of the line lengths, the types of syllables in certain parts of the lines, the types of letters in certain parts of the lines, and so on. (Perhaps the author was using types of letters and syllables repetitively in certain parts of lines, to help him stick to the required meter? Keep in mind, it doesn't have to be *good* poetry to be an attempt to compose poetry!) Again, I am not claiming it is all going to be exactly this decapentasyllabic verse, but perhaps it is something along similar lines.
In fact, looking back at the second line, the omitted vowels in the ms text at the ends of "para", "tora", and "ouk-eisi" may make sense as the author's effort to reduce the number of syllables in the line, to make it fit within a reasonable length for the poetic meter of the line. As written in the ms text, the 2nd line reads as follows:
This gives the first and second lines each 14 syllables. The third line has 13 syllables; however, recall that extra vowel in the middle of "aut(i)toi". With the extra vowel included, all three lines have 14 syllables each. Since the first and third lines seem to begin with the stress on the first syllable, not the second, perhaps this is decapentasyllabic verse but with the first syllable omitted. In any case, there do seem to be 7 stressed syllables in each line, which is again in line with traditional Byzantine Greek verse. Once again, it doesn't have to be good poetry, to be an attempt to compose poetry.
As I understand it, this year's HistoCrypt (International Conference on Historical Cryptology) conference is open to submissions on the subject of the Voynich Manuscript. If they get enough on the subject, the Voynich may have it's own "track". As it is, René Zanbergen is one of the invited speakers, so there will be Voynich discussion for certain.
The conference will be held from June 23-26, 2019 in the Mundaneum, Mons, Belgium. I am not related to the event, but I do hope to go. And I wanted to mention it here, among my "Ninja friends", because I was hoping that there may be some of you also interested in submitting a proposal for a Voynich talk.
There is still time to submit a proposal for a talk, as I write this. The deadline for submissions is March 22nd. Here is the submission site, or as it is said, the "call for papers":
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And here is the official main site of the event: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Hopefully there will be varied Voynich talks at the event. If this happens, I'm sure it will be a huge success, and those of us with an interest in the Voynich will have many opportunities over the span of the conference... both officially and unofficially, as often happens, to meet and discuss "all things Voynich".
While researching a related topic, I stumbled across a copy of John Wycliffe's (Tractatus) De Ecclesia (1378) in the original Latin, and the edition happened to include an illustration of the first page of the manuscript of the text. I was struck by the way that certain letters and combinations on this ms page resemble certain Voynich ms characters.
Now I am not saying that Wycliffe had any connection to the Voynich ms, not at all. But I do find it interesting that so many letters in this particular style of Latin ms writing look like certain Voynich ms characters.
The first two attachments are the first part of the Wycliffe ms page. The third attachment is the same Latin text in its printed form.
Take a look at the following letters and combinations on the Wycliffe ms page:
A combination that looks like the Voynich [-iin] ending appears in multiple places on this page. For example, 2nd attachment, 3rd line, middle of the line. The actual word is "ipsam", as found in the middle of line 9 of the printed text. The preceding word in the ms looks like "quo" with a curved line over it, but that represents the actual word "quomodo". The following word, which looks like "pfc?" (hard to read the part after "f"), represents the actual word "perfecte".
In the last line of the 2nd attachment, notice the single symbol by itself in the middle of the line. It looks like Voynich [s]! And guess what, Voynich [s] is the only character that frequently appears as a separate word by itself. In this Wycliffe ms, the symbol is an abbreviation for "est", as found in line 16 of the printed text.
In the next-to-last line of the 2nd attachment, the end of the 2nd word looks like Voynich [r]! This ms word represents the actual word "Christus" in line 15 of the printed text.
There are numerous "figure 8" shaped letters on this ms page that look like Voynich [d].
In the 1st attachment, there are several examples of a letter that looks like Voynich [g]: for example, in the middle of the 3rd line. It is the "d" in the word "quiditate", which looks like "quid" with a small superscript abbreviation after it. Believe it or not, that very short 3rd line of the ms represents all of the following actual words: "materia de quiditate ecclesie, et fi"!
At the top of the 1st attachment, in the "title" text, the word in the middle of the 2nd line somehow reminds me of some of the writing on the very last page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of the Voynich ms.
I could go on with further examples. Suffice it to say, many letters in this Wycliffe Latin ms text look like Voynich ms characters.
Posted by: R. Sale - 17-03-2019, 12:36 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- No Replies
The matter of the nebuly lines is an explicit example of something that comes from the historical past, but which is not commonly known in the current era. And yet things of this sort were commonly known by educated persons from the time of the VMs parchment dates – and beyond. Nebuly lines are clearly used in the VMs, but there has been a long period of investigation where they were not recognized as such. This failure to recognize something that was known in the past results in an imperceptible, but not insignificant gap, a lacuna in relevant, historical knowledge. The test for these informational gaps is simple. Name it and claim it. The nebuly lines are another example of things that sit in plain sight but are, or have been until recently, ‘undiscovered.’ And this illustrates the importance of being able to interpret these elements from the perspective that is relevant to the proper time. When certain line patterns have traditional names that were in use at the time of the VMs parchment dates, then is it too much to suggest that something important might be missing if none of the present or previous investigations were in possession of the proper, traditional name. It is simply impossible to fully understand the function of the nebuly line without knowing the name. And it turns out that knowing the name is useful in better understanding for other areas of the VMs as well.
So here is a problem with certain aspects of historical investigations. If ‘name it and claim it’ is one investigational option. Then ‘not name it and <whatever>’ is the other. Obviously, without the name, any attempted research is stuck with the second option of potential investigation and relegated to a set of inferior possibilities. Either the unknown line is a strange leaf margin, or these are nebuly lines disguised as leaf margins. Having the traditional name makes a significant difference in developing the proper interpretation, which is of particular importance in the VMs cosmos. The naming of the nebuly line opens up the investigation of the nebuly line, a totally new (at the time) pathway. And this led to the investigation of ye olde wolkenband, which is significant because they are etymologically connected.
The recovery of historical information, in the form of traditional names, opens up old perspectives of interpretation and new lines of investigation, previously missing. The recovery of historical information, as in the naming of the nebuly lines, is only the first part of VMs investigation. The second part involves the discovery of how this traditional information has been hidden in the VMs illustrations. Nebuly lines used as leaf margins, in this example. The visual alterations in the cosmic comparison show a much greater level of complexity. Cloud bands were placed in the rosettes. Patterns corresponding to armorial heraldry are found in the tub illustrations in the outer ring of Pisces. A paly, a chevrony, a semy of roundels, a papelonny, and others. Red and white galeros of ecclesiastical heraldry are worn by some of the figures on White Aries.
The recovery of traditional names, the filling of historical gaps, can open new perspectives of interpretation that must either enhance or supersede those investigations that existed previously. The creator of the VMs took what was traditional at that time, then made some efforts to disguise those representations in the cosmos, the zodiac, the rosettes and so on. Past VMs researchers have long taken certain investigative pathways without benefit of these recent recoveries. The recoveries include; naming the nebuly line, making the cosmic comparison, examining the structure of cloud bands, recognizing the ephemeral nature of text banners, knowing the ordinaries, sub-ordinaries, and tinctures of heraldry, and knowing the armorial connection to the origins of a tradition in the ecclesiastical heraldry of the Roman Catholic Church that continues from the 13th century to this day. VMs investigation without benefit of these recovered facts has produced a series of fanciful misapprehensions.
These recoveries, by filling in this missing information which has been validated by tradition, then reveal previously unknown gateways that open up alternative paths of investigation, pathways where a better knowledge of tradition would have led somewhat sooner, and ones that will provide new perspectives on VMs content. These interpretations need to be evaluated by discovering their purpose. Why is it that things in the VMs seem to be hidden? Why is that each part of the VMs cosmos seems to have been drawn in a way which presents the same cosmic structure as BNF Fr. 565 fol. 23, but has been given an appearance that seems to intentionally have sought out an artistic representation with the greatest visual diversity? The purpose of alteration is disguise. The purpose of disguise is deception. And that is the nature of the VMs. There is ambiguity and obfuscation in the illustrations. But the disguise has reached its perfection when the element being hidden cannot be named or recognized by those who examine the VMs pages. And that applies to examples from nebuly lines to the papelonny tincture. Neither can the name of some image be used in heraldic canting when that traditional name is lacking. So, what significance should be attributed to VMs investigations formed before these gaps in historical information were filled in? The ones so far. What use is the result of a solution set that does not include basic information of potential significance? What happens when the recovery of historical names, the restoration of historical lacunae, creates an altered interpretation of the VMs creator’s purpose and reveals what has been hidden by intent and all but erased by circumstance?
Historically, attempts to intepret Voynich have been aimed at discovering the procedure with which one could map Voynichese glyph sequences to meaningful letter sequences in one of existing languages. This approach still prevails up to date. Simple substitution (with slight variations) attempts constitute the vast majority of the proposed solutions, and we are accustomed to hear of new solutions on a more or less regular basis.
Considering Voynich a more complex cipher basically falls into the same broad vein of investigation, - alas, with no success so far.
Of lately, I've been thinking if such approach is efficient after all. The issue is that there are some indications that the Voynichese text, while conveying pretty meaningful message, may not be what we are believing it to be.
One such indication follows from the work by Wladimir which suggests that no plant names are contained within botanical folios. The imagery which is manifesting its mnemonics supports this thesis. In a (supposedly enciphered) text, what reason would there be to exclude plant names? Nothing. The situation is quite different for the representation that relies on a nomenclator. If your nomenclator does not contain plant names, you won't be able to include them.
Another strange thing is the high degree of morphological similarity between vords being members of homogenous sets - such as my favourite "Voynich stars" (f68r1, r2). Of 53 Voynich star labels in total, 39 (or 74%) start with "o". Of those 39, 15 (or 28% of the total) start with "ot", and 9 (or 17% of the total) start with "ok". Those two subsets constitute 45% of all Voynich stars. In other words, notions homogenous in nature are designated by vords similar in morphology. This does not very much look like what we find in natural languages. This could be explained, however, by vords encoding positions in a nomenclator. Homogenous notions may have been grouped in a nomenclator. Encodings of their positions (close to each other) would then appear morphologically similar.
If there is no mapping between Voynichese and plain text on the glyph level but, instead, mapping exists only on the vord-to-word level, then all attempts at "deciphering" would be vain. What one should do instead is to shift from "decrypting" to "translating". Suppose extraterrestrials land and we are presented wtih their writings. We would not try to invent a procedure to decrypt their writings into English or Russian, that would be waste of time. We would seek a way to translate those instead, based on our understanding of what words of theirs map to what notions known to us. This is the direction that might prove fruitful for Voynichese. The problem is with the methodology, as always...
Mostly for fun, but also to improve my understanding of the text, I occasionally play around with methods to generate text that looks like the Voynich MS text.
Just to show an example , the following is a very straightforward 'encoding' of a short piece of Italian.
This can still be tuned a lot, and I'll refrain for the moment from explaining how it was done.
However, it can be inverted exactly, i.e. a very simply process will turn this back into legible Italian (though spaces
are lost).
First in Eva, then in Voynichese:
Quote:oty chey shaiin cheaiin dokaiin ar shy qotsheshaiin dsol chcheol dsar dy
ol chsy dol cthaiin daiin char shchey dy otokchar aiin sain ckhaiin
ckheeaiin sheaiin chcheain okar ototaiin ar qokaiin chesheol shy seaiin dckhear dy
sy cthaiin dokaiin y dcthaiin dokaiin aiin sain dol y dar shokchol qotar dcthain aiin
ol shokchaiin shar sy ctheaiin doty ol dsy qotaiin ddy ain chear dy
oty chey Shaiin cheaiin dokaiin ar Shy qotSheShaiin dsol chcheol dsar dy ol chsy dol cThaiin daiin char Shchey dy otokchar aiin sain cKhaiin cKheeaiin Sheaiin chcheain okar ototaiin ar qokaiin cheSheol Shy seaiin dcKhear dy sy cThaiin dokaiin y dcThaiin dokaiin aiin sain dol y dar Shokchol qotar dcThain aiin ol Shokchaiin Shar sy cTheaiin doty ol dsy qotaiin ddy ain chear dy
Remarkably, the entropy of this text (skipping spaces) is:
1st order: 3.7705
conditional: 1.2110
I have clearly 'overdone' it with the conditional entropy.
I am aware that this is not exactly like Voynichese. Maybe I can do better in the next weeks.
Of course, everyone is invited to present similar experiments,
