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| A brief summary of Voynichese spelling and grammar |
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Posted by: davidjackson - 05-03-2017, 12:13 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (11)
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This post attempts to collate distinct discussions of observed tendencies within Voynichese which could be called spelling and grammar.
I include links to the different threads where each phenomenon is discussed. Please do not discuss the phenomenon here but in their respective threads - use the reply feature exclusively to alert me to phenomenon I have missed, or where I have made a mistake. Replies will be deleted once they have been dealt with in order to keep things tidy. I am linking to discussions that have appeared on this forum, not to third party websites.
Disclaimer: I use the word "rules" lightly here. We are discussing patterns in the text, not proposing any definitive rules.
I'm sure I'm missing quite a few so let me know what to add - this is my first draft.
Spelling rules
Vord rules - y appears either mainly as a suffix (in more than one third of the corpus) and occasionally as a prefix; rarely as in the middle of vords.
- q is a prefix followed by o in about 90% of all appearences. It is often followed by a gallows character, or if not, by d or l. It sometimes appears prefixed by another o (oqotar f10r, shoqoky f49r, etc). It can rarely appear by itself in the middle of vords. qo appears as an unique vord 29 times. However, almost all vords prefixed by q appear elsewhere in the corpus without that prefix. No label uses that prefix.
- Glyph i is followed by another i or n in 90% of all occurrences, and almost all n will be preceded by i. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
- q almost always appears at the beginning of a vord before o . It is also common after a vord ending in y. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Paragraph rules- f and p appear predominantly in the first lines of paragraphs (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Furthermore, Currier Prescott (1976) notes that neither glyph are ever followed by c.
- m appears predominately at the end of lines but not paragraphs – and when it appears in the middle of lines, it has a tendency to cluster groups of words ending in m (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
Character classes- Certain bigrams can be substituted within vords to create (almost always) a new valid vord. (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). These are grouped into character classes:
[ch] [sh]
[t][k]
[L][R]
[y][o]
[o][a]
[l][m]
For a fuller list and percentages of valid words returned, click here - Asymmetric vord pairs. For example, the word or occurs 366 times and the word aiin occurs 470 times. But the phrase or aiin is much more common than aiin or. (Taken from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) Word order is important for several other "phrases" - the list is omitted for brevity here but can be found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Editor's note: Care should be taken to distinguish between genuine vord pairs and single vords that have been mis-transcribed with a space.
- Line initial words. There are no popular words used to start lines. In the entire corpus (excluding one word lines) ychor starts 16 lines, followed by dcheo which starts 6 lines. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.| You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. | You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
- Bigrams. It has been suggested that parts of the corpus can be broken down into 26 bigrams. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
- Repetition. The same vord can be repeated in sequence for no apparent reason (this may simply be dittography caused by scribal eyeskip). The same word is repeated three times in 35 different phrases (T. Timm).
- Currier languages. There are statistical differences in the appearance of vords between quires. These differences have been collated into two "languages" by Currier. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Glyph rules- A table showing how glyphs are constructed is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
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| There is evidence of corrections within the text |
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Posted by: davidjackson - 04-03-2017, 11:33 PM - Forum: Positions we can agree upon
- Replies (17)
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Statement
There is evidence that corrections to the text have been carried out.
Explanation
It has been asserted in the past that the text was written fluidly in one pass and that there is no evidence of amendments to the text.
This is incorrect, as demonstrated in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. We can safely say that the text appears to have been corrected, possibly in an attempt to proof-read.
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| f and p appear predominantly in the first lines of paragraphs |
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Posted by: davidjackson - 04-03-2017, 04:38 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (8)
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I decided to test the statement
Quote:f and p appear predominantly in the first lines of paragraphs
I define a paragraph as a purely visual item - when in right justified text one line ends before its predecessor. Therefore, I count apart those occurrences when the word appears as a label or in a circular band of text, as paragraphs by definition cannot exist there.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. finds f appearing 499 times. I list below the occurrences :
where f does not appear in the first line of a paragraph/ total number of occurrences. Entries marked * are either circular bands of text, entries marked ** are labels and only the total count is included for those pages:
- f1r: 3/5
- f8r: 1/4
- f10r 1/1
- f17r 1/1
- f24r 1/1
- f26v 2/2
- f31r 1/3
- f32v 1/2
- f34r 1/3
- f46v 1/2
- f47r 1/2
- f57r 1 /3
- f57v 0/12 *
- f58v 4/7
- f66r omitted from study as it appears to be a list of sentences
- f66v 2/6
- f67r2 0/8 *
- f67v2 0/5 **
- f68r1 0/1 **
- f68r2 0/1 **
- f70r1 0/2 *
- f70r2 0/1 *
- f71v 0/1 **
- f72r1 0/3 **
- f72r2 0/1 **
- f72r3 0/5 **
- f72v1 0/5 **
- f72v2 0/2 **
- f72v3 0/3 **
- f73r 0/1 **
- f73v 0/3 **
- f77r 1/1
- f77v 2/3
- f78r 1/3
- f78v 2/5
- f79r 2/2
- f81v 1/2
- f84v 1/4
- f85r1 2/9
- f85r2 0/4 *
- f86v4 0/3 *
- f86v6 4/8
- f87r 1/1
- f87v 1/1
- f88r 1/4
- f89v2 1/5
- f90r1 1/3
- f90v1 1/1
- f93r 2/3
- f94r 1/1
- f95r2 1/4
- f95v1 1/4
- f95v2 1/3
- f96r 1/1
- f105r 2/7
- f105v 3/7
- f106v 1/6
- f107r 2/10
- f108r 1/8
- f111v 2/3
- f112v 1/4
- f116r 1/3
Out of 499 total ocurrences, glyph f does not appear in the first line of a paragraph in 63 ocurrences (12.6% of all ocurrences).
The glyph appears in circular text or labels in 61 ocurrences. Out of the reminder paragraph text (438 ocurrences) then the glyph does not appear in the first line 14.4 % of the time.
In summary, when glyph f is present in a paragraph block, it will appear in the first line 85.6% of the time.
-----------------------------------
Voynichese.com finds p appearing 1620 times. This is too many to count by hand so I took a sample of Currier A and Currier B pages (listed below) and extrapolated for each.
I list below the occurrences:
where p does not appear in the first line of a paragraph/ total number of occurrences.
- f1r 6/12
- f1v 1/3
- f2r 2/3
- f14r 0/2
- f22r 0/8
- f26v 4/10
- f28v 0/3
- f30v 2/3
- f37v 0/3
- f41v 0/4
- f45r 0/6
- f58r 5/17
- f77r 4/9
- f80r 3/13
- f86v4 0/14 (circular text)
- f89r2 0/5
- f99v 0/2
- f101r1 0/7
- f106v 0/27
- f116r 5/18
Conclusion: p is line-initial 81% of the time.
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| [split] "Plants of the Alchemists" |
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Posted by: MarcoP - 02-03-2017, 10:56 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (17)
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Edit KG: this thread was split from another one in the news section, for the original thread see here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(02-03-2017, 09:14 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I mostly expect her not to be aware of a number of pitfalls us "regulars" know all too well. One of those pitfalls is that certain herbal traditions make for easy pickings, but don't stand the test upon closer scrutiny. Case in point is when one of the experts who wrote an essay for the facsimile edition concluded that there was probably no significant link with the alchemical tradition.
Hello Koen,
I guess that your point is that experts are sometimes wrong and can disagree with each other. I certainly can agree with that.
I find the way you present your argument worth commenting.
First of all, you didn't quote, not even mention, the researchers you are talking about. Secondly, you give the impression of not really having read what they wrote: you seem to be discussing what you grabbed from what “the regulars” wrote about these ideas.
The "facsimile edition" reference seems unambiguous: Jennifer M.Rampling, who, in her essay “Alchemical Traditions” states that “the content of this manuscript [the VMS] is almost certainly not alchemical in nature.” Since, you are talking about the plants, it should be mentioned that her analysis is only limited to “the so-called biological or balneological section.”
Given the reference to alchemy, the “certain herbal traditions” you mention must include the so-called Alchemical herbals (which are the other traditions you allude to?). The expert who you think fell into the “pitfall”, whose views "don't stand the test upon closer scrutiny", must be Sergio Toresella, who associated the Voynich ms with that tradition in 1996 (“Gli Erbari degli Alchimisti”) and, as far as I know, was the first to systematically study that tradition. The name “alchemical herbals” (erbari degli alchimisti) is a tribute to Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) -who had collected a certain number of these herbals binding them together with the label “Plants of the alchemists”; lacking a better definition I will use this word too.- One could argue that the name chosen by Toresella is not optimal: it certainly can mislead paleography newbies like myself.
Toresella made clear that the references to alchemy are “only incidental,” mostly textual and connected to the various types of “Lunaria”. He notes that the VMS contains “tens of plants similar to those of the alchemists, but that do not belong to the same iconographic tradition.” A similar opinion has been recently put forward by Alain Touwaide: “Several plant illustrations in the Voynich Manuscript present a similarity with botanical illustrations from the XIV and XV Century, in particular -but not only- with the so-called alchemical herbals.”
The fact that the alchemical herbals are now an “easy to pick” tradition is due to the fact that Toresella has done the hard work for us all, studying hundreds of manuscripts on the field for decades. This tradition was not “easy to pick” for him twenty years ago, it now is an excellent pick for Voynich researchers.
The points of view of Rampling and Toresella/Touwaide are perfectly compatible. Of course, at the moment one cannot be certain that the VMS has no alchemical content, nor that it is related with the so-called alchemical herbals: but both opinions have been expressed in a well documented way and I think they are likely both right.
I think that, if our hobby has anything to do with understanding the VMS, a real pitfall is believing that any amount of googling is somehow better than a formal training in ancient languages, art history and paleography: years (sometimes decades) of experience in actually reading and understanding true medieval manuscripts. How many complete pages of ancient manuscript text have I read? In how many languages? How many times have I held in my hands a medieval manuscript? I believe there are many more pitfalls for myself than for Rampling, Touwaide, Toresella or the young Marraccini.
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| Voynich presentation at Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference |
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Posted by: Koen G - 02-03-2017, 08:29 AM - Forum: News
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Nick posted about this presentation here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
The Thirteenth Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference
Merton College, Oxford
March 31 - April 1, 2017
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On April 1st, there is a presentation by Alexandra Marraccini of the University of Chicago: “Asphalt and Bitumen, Sodom and Gomorrah: Placing Yale’s Voynich Manuscript on the Herbal Timeline“.
Quote:Yale Beinecke MS 408, colloquially known as the Voynich manuscript, is largely untouched by modern manuscript scholars. Written in an unreadable cipher or language, and of Italianate origin, but also dated to Rudolphine court circles, the manuscript is often treated as a scholarly pariah. This paper attempts to give the Voynich manuscript context for serious iconographic debate using a case study of Salernian and Pseudo- Apuleian herbals and their stemmae. Treating images of the flattened cities of Sodom and Gommorah from Vatican Chig. F VII 158, BL Sloane 4016, and several other exempla from the Bodleian and beyond, this essays situates the Voynich iconography, both in otherwise unidentified foldouts and in the manuscript’s explicitly plant-based portion, within the tradition of Northern Italian herbals of the 14th-15th centuries, which also had strong alchemical and astrological ties. In anchoring the Voynich images to the dateable and traceable herbal manuscript timeline, this paper attempts to re-situate the manuscript as approachable in a truly scholarly context, and to re-characterise it, no longer as an ahistorical artefact, but as an object rooted in a pictorial tradition tied to a particular place and time.
Since Marracinni is a trained art historian, I am quite curious to see what she's got to say on this matter.
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| Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query |
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Posted by: Diane - 26-02-2017, 01:59 PM - Forum: Imagery
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I'd like to ask members about which sources they have found most helpful in studying the Voynich plant-pictures.
I should also mention that it would be most unwise to rely too heavily on Minta Collins, Medieval Herbals: the illustrative tradition.
To quote from Alain Touwaide's review of 2004:
Quote:Medieval Herbals does not fulfill its promises and falls short of the expectations it ambitiously raises. Moreover, the combination of lacunas and mistakes in the information and the inappropriateness of Collins’s method generates misleading conclusions, particularly on the mechanisms of the creation and diffusion of herbals. Nonexpert readers will probably be favorably impressed by the book because of its lavish illustrations, the quality of its presentation, and the renown of the series in which it appears. They will not be aware, however, that Medieval Herbals reinforces the defects of the earlier literature that it criticizes, introduces many mistakes, and in the end provokes more confusion and presents more misleading information than it corrects.
So what other works do members recommend and rely on, themselves?
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| Black ink fading |
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Posted by: Koen G - 26-02-2017, 01:22 PM - Forum: Physical material
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VViews posted an interesting resource about ink production in the library. I checked it hoping to find a clue to something that can be observed in the VM. The fact that the ink used for drawing and writing has faded considerably, but that certain other parts are still quite black.
Iron gall ink generally has the drawback that it fades over time. So is this unfaded ink from a different recipe? I found the following fragment about this:
"And note, that ink made with wine is good for writing books upon the sciences,
because, when books are written with it, the letters do not fade, and can hardly be scraped out or
discharged from parchment or paper. But if they are written with ink made with water, it is not so, for
they can easily be scraped out, and it may happen that the letters written with it will fade."
From the manuscripts of Jehan Le Bégue, composed in Paris in 1431, which are found in Original treatises, dating from the XIIth to XVIIIth centuries on the arts of painting, in oil, miniature, mosaic, and on glass; of gilding, dyeing, and the preparation of colours and artificial gems; preceded by a general introduction; with translations,prefaces, and notes. By Mrs. Merrifield. v.1, Merrifield, Mary P. (Mary Philadelphia), London, J. Murray, 1849, p. 68.
What I find interesting here is that apparently the "fading" ink was very easy to erase (!). Also, that non-fading ink was apparently of a finer (more expensive?) quality.
Some examples are quite striking, for example in the later Zodiac pages where "dark diadems" have been added. Everything has faded apart from these few black details and the month name (!)
fading.jpg (Size: 183.97 KB / Downloads: 330)
Does this mean that the person who added or traced the dark lines also wrote the month names? It looks like the same pen to me (line thickness).
Thoughts?
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| Tables without vertical columns? |
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Posted by: Koen G - 25-02-2017, 11:13 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (21)
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In another thread, JKP mentioned the following in response to Diane presenting a table.
(24-02-2017, 11:45 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I've often wondered if some of the pages were calendrical pages (or something similar, like moon tables) minus the rigid vertical columns.
I, too, have wondered at times whether the text of some Voynich pages actually belongs in columns. It would surely explain some things, like repetition and, depending on the kind if table, low entropy.
Why does it explain low entropy? Well, in a table the position of the entry also carries information, not just the entry itself. (This is an intuitive proposal, I'll probably get slapped by Anton and Nick for saying stupid things about entropy  )
The reason why this had also crossed my mind is because the type of manuscripts that contain star-related information also often contain mostly tables (Ptolemy). Additionally, these tables can be accompanied by images from other astronomical traditions.
And finally, if you look at such a table and imagine that there are no borders and no decent alignement, won't it look a bit like Voynichese? For example in this one (and the following folios) all line-initial words start with either "o" or "T".
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This is also the kind of script where one might expect a somewhat structured introduction of "false" spaces.
I'm not saying that this is the solution, but it might be worth its own thread.
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| [split] The Zipf law and the Voynich Manuscript |
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Posted by: Sam G - 25-02-2017, 09:21 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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Basically the labels don't obey Zipf's law. Most of them only occur once. But that's actually normal since lists and other kinds of data are known not to obey Zipf's law.
If you think about the labels in a visual dictionary, for instance, nearly all of them are only going to occur once. I would guess that labels accompanying illustrations in scientific textbooks would have a similar distribution.
That the main text obeys Zipf's law and the labels do not is not going to be easy to explain if you think it's something other than a meaningful text. Maybe someone in the early 15th century had already discovered Zipf's law and consciously created a nonsense text to emulate these properties?
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![[Image: elecampane-inula-helenium-and-gentian-sp...hhm90k.jpg]](http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/179f970692c944fb82f40794e5c98da2/elecampane-inula-helenium-and-gentian-species-handcoloured-woodblock-hhm90k.jpg)
![[Image: Elecampane%20(Inula%20helenium).jpg]](https://cumuseum-archive.colorado.edu/Research/Botany/Pemberton/images/artwork/full/Elecampane%20(Inula%20helenium).jpg)