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Voynich Decoded
Forum: Theories & Solutions
Last Post: Kris1212
2 hours ago
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Alchemical Symbolism in t...
Forum: Voynich Talk
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3 hours ago
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A good match, perhaps fro...
Forum: Marginalia
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3 hours ago
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Red Herrings are sometime...
Forum: Theories & Solutions
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5 hours ago
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Voynich Manuscript Day 20...
Forum: News
Last Post: Koen G
Yesterday, 10:47 PM
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Zodiac labels
Forum: Theories & Solutions
Last Post: R. Sale
Yesterday, 08:01 PM
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More Germanic influences ...
Forum: Astrology & Astronomy
Last Post: Gioynich
27-07-2025, 10:06 PM
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Decoding the Voynich Manu...
Forum: ChatGPTrash
Last Post: tavie
27-07-2025, 07:52 PM
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[split] Aga Tentakulus' L...
Forum: Analysis of the text
Last Post: Aga Tentakulus
27-07-2025, 06:09 PM
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The VMS as a possible cha...
Forum: Analysis of the text
Last Post: magnesium
27-07-2025, 03:15 PM
» Replies: 25
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| Disambiguating Voynich Manuscript transliterations with word embeddings |
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Posted by: Scarecrow - 18-11-2022, 07:04 PM - Forum: News
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Jirka Lhotka, Francesco Salvi, Liudvikas Lazauskas
Department of Computer Science, EPFL, Switzerland
Abstract
Voynich manuscript is a 15th century document written in unknown language and script.
Consequently, reading and transliterating it to electronic form is equivocal and leads to ambiguities.
We present a way to disambiguate said uncertainties using word embeddings models, which achieves accuracies up to 86% on artificially corrupted texts of the same size.
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| Paula Findlens short article - Father Kircher’s Big Beautiful Books |
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Posted by: Scarecrow - 18-11-2022, 06:58 PM - Forum: Provenance & history
- Replies (1)
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"Publishing the German Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602–80)
has always been a daunting enterprise. By the end of his life, Kircher pro-
duced a vast scholarly corpus. In 1634, he arrived at the Roman College from
war-torn German-speaking lands; by 1641, the Society of Jesus relieved him of
his professorial obligation to teach mathematics and Oriental languages to
focus on his publications. Almost fifty bulky tomes (mostly in Latin but occa-
sionally in German, Dutch, French, Italian, and English) bore his name. Most
were authored by Kircher; key disciples who assisted him and promulgated
his work (Gaspar Schott, Georg de Sepibus, Gioseffo Petrucci, and Johannes
Kestler) also published Kircherian books."
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| Floating gallows |
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Posted by: nablator - 16-11-2022, 12:01 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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When paying attention to how gallows are written in relation to other glyphs, it soon becomes clear that some (many) are "floating" between words, as if they were not part of them. There is no way to tell when these gallows belong to the word on the left or on the right, both or neither. Transliterations don't acknowledge this fact, usually pushing the gallows to the right and (sometimes) inserting a space on the left when the space is larger than usual. Because of the random choice of space insertion in transliterations, most statistics on words are unreliable.
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| Voynich Manuscript - a technical manual in Old Czech by Elena Konovalova |
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Posted by: Ruby Novacna - 16-11-2022, 11:01 AM - Forum: News
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A few days ago Youtube offered me a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in Russian, three weeks old, about a translation of the manuscript by Elena Konovalova.
I confess I didn't have enough patience to follow the video, so I searched for the text and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. To my astonishment the text dates from 2017 and apparently the work has not been followed up, the details have remained without much precision until today. But perhaps Elena Konovalova's ideas can inspire other researchers.
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| Voynich conference - Some questions |
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Posted by: Torsten - 11-11-2022, 01:06 PM - Forum: News
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Since I can not attend at the Voynich conference I publish my questions to some of the papers in this thread. I will also send the questions via email to the authors. I suggest that this thread is not used to discuss the questions at least until after the Voynich conference is over.
Claire Bowern and Daniel Gaskell - Enciphered after all? Word-level text metrics are compatible with some types of encipherment.
In the paper from 2021 Claire Bowern explains the differences in word frequencies in the VMS by a) two different methods of encoding at least one natural language, b) different scribes, and c) different topics.
Did you suggest that these three different interpretations are all true or did you suggest that they contradict each other?
In the paper of Sterneck et al. you warn that "topic modeling relies on word frequencies and expects consistency across texts" [Sterneck et al. 2021, p. 4]. However the Voynich text isn't consistent across its sections. If we look into the text itself it becomes evident that "no obvious rule can be deduced which words form the top-frequency tokens at a specific location, since a word type dominating one page might be rare or missing on the next one." [Timm & Schinner 2019, p. 3].
Why do you assume that different word frequencies indicate topics if noticeable frequency changes even occur between folios?
Tokens containing the sequence 'ed' are common in Currier B and an exception in Currier A.
If you assume that the word frequency changes are caused by different topics, how do you explain the differences between folios sharing the same illustrations like Herbal A and Herbal B?
In Timm & Schinner 2019 the Voynich text is analyzed beyond the paragraph level. The paper comes to the conclusion that by reordering the sections with respect to the frequency of token <chedy> replaces the seemingly irregular mixture of two separate languages by the gradual evolution of a single system from "state A" to "state B".
Why this alternative explanation is not addressed?
You argue that some codes could increase the predictability of word formations.
Have you tested if some of the codes would result in text with statistical properties similar to the Voynich text?
In your paper from 2021 you argue that full reduplication is still in the realm of plausibility for for natural language text. The paper states that number of full word repeats goes up to 4.8 % for natural languages.
Given that you now describe the text as extreme predictable (whatever that means), did you still stand behind your statement about full word repeats in natural languages?
Jürgen Hermes - Polygrahia III: The cipher that pretends to be an artificial language.
The Voynich text is changing from page to page, since a token dominating one page might be rare or missing on the next one, they even depend on there postion within a page or line.
How did you explain that the words depend on the page if as you say the words were randomly selected from a code book?
How do you explain that words containing /ed/ like <chedy> are far more common in Currier A than in Currier B?
Kevin Farrugia, Colin Layfield and Lonneke van der Plas: Demystififying the scribes behind the Voynich Mansucript using Computional Linguistic Techniques.
An alternative model is a gradual evolution of a single system from "state A" to "state B", namely be reordering the sections with respect to the frequency of the word <chedy> [see Timm & Schinner 2019].
Why such an alternative model was not used for cross-checking the results?
Andrew Caruana, Colin Layfield and John Abela - An Analysis of the Relationship between Words within the Voynich Manuscript.
You mention the fact that skewed word pairs exists in the Voynich text.
How many of the skewed word pairs result in an existing word, e.g. like the words <ol> <chedy> would result in <olchedy>?
How many of the skewed word pairs consists of similar words like <chol>/<shol>, <daiin>/<dain> or <chedy>/<shedy>.
Massimiliano Zattera - A new transliteration alphabet brings new evidence of word structure and multiple "languages" in the Voynich manuscript.
Only a very limited number of letters occur with each other in certain positions of a 'word. For instance EVA-q is followed in 97.5 % of the cases by EVA-o, and EVA-n occurs in 97.4 % of the cases after EVA-i. A common idea is therefore to interpret glyph sequences like /qo/ and /iin/ as ligatures or letters. But even then the resulting glyph set is very predictable. For instance a group of EVA-i occurs in 94 % of the cases after EVA-a and a sequence /qo/ is followed in 84 % of the cases by a gallow glyph.
Didn't this behavior suggest that these restrictions are a feature of the Voynich text rather than a question of the transliteration alphabet?
Lisa Fagin Davis - Voynich Paleography
At the BSA Annual Meeting in 2020 you used the fact that "The very common character combination qo is almost completely absent in the zodiac pages and the rosettes page, but appears everywhere else" from René Zandbergens website as second method to cross check your identification of scribe four.
Why did you not mention this fact in your paper written later in 2020? Why did you instead announce to ask Prof. Claire Bowern to search for a pattern, which you already knew?
In your publications from 2020 you claim that you used the software Archetype to identify the five different scribes.
However, your screenshot for Archetype shows only 44 (43 +1) as the number of pages uploaded into Archetype. How did you identify the scribes for the other 180 pages without uploading them into Archetype?
In your paper from 2020 you argue that EVA-k is sometimes written in one stroke and sometimes in two strokes and that only the scribes 2 and 4 wrote EVA-k with two strokes.
How do you explain the observation of instances for EVA-k where an overlapping crossbar or an gap indicates that EVA-k was written in two strokes for your scribes 1, 3, and 5?
By applying Latin paleography to the Voynich manuscript it is assumed that scribes with some experience in writing that script. However, the text in the VMS is the only known example of its kind and represents an unique writing system. It is therefore possible that the writing system was only used to write the text we see in the Voynich manuscript.
Isn't it therefore a possibility hat the scribes were unexperienced in writing Voynichese at the start? Shouldn't we check for a scribe writing slowly and carefully at the start and is becoming more fluent during writing?
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| Analysis of the relation between words within the Voynich Manuscript |
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Posted by: Torsten - 08-11-2022, 08:28 AM - Forum: News
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There is a new paper published about the VMS: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
The author is Andrew Caruana from the University of Malta. (Note: Andrew Caruana will present a paper under the same name at the Conference @ Malta)
The paper compares word pairs and their frequencies in natural languages and the VMS. The paper comes to the conclusion:
Code: the results for the Voynich were a little more even with the randomised version only scoring roughly half as much as the normal variant. This may suggest that the manuscript is not randomly generated text, however it could point to the Voynich being some sort of code or cipher.
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| How Many Scribes? |
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Posted by: Torsten - 03-11-2022, 11:19 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (4)
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In her paper "How Many Glyphs and How Many Scribes? Digital Paleography and the Voynich Manuscript" [Lisa Fagin Davis, 2020, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.] Lisa Fagin Davis identifies five different scribes. (Note: Back in 2020 I had already You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about some odd points in Lisa Davis paper.)
As evidence for different scribes some different shapes for the glyphs EVA-k and EVA-iin/in are listed. The paper lists numerous smaller variations for both glyphs like "a very slight foot at the base of the second vertical" for EVA-k. However, the text is handwritten and it is not expected that each character is exactly written the same every time. In a response Lisa Davis explained this as: "My conclusions are based on tendencies visible over the length of a scribe's corpora" (see this You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
However, as one of the main differences for EVA-k the paper lists the shape of the crossbar for EVA-k:
"Is the glyph formed by one or two strokes? Is the crossbar bowed, or is it horizontal? This is directly related to the previous question, since a bowed bar tends to result from a smooth directional change from the top of the first vertical, while a horizontal crossbar is the result of lifting the quill after completing the vertical." [Davis 2020, p. 172].
For <qokalshedy> and <okaral> in f103r.P.19 and P.20 it is indeed possible to observe that the crossbar in EVA-k crosses the first vertical (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
This can only mean that in this cases of EVA-k the glyph was indeed formed in two strokes. However, the paper assigns You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to scribe 3 and mentions that a bowed crossbar would indicate that the glyph was formed in one stroke. This is obviously not the case here. But also for other pages assigned to scribe 3 it is possible to find instances for EVA-k written in two strokes (see for instance <kaiin> in f104r.P.32). In my eyes this result is interesting and requires at least an explanation.
Also interesting is figure 4 on p. 171 (see Davis 2020, p 171). This figure shows an image of the software Archetype. Davis writes that she used Archetype for identifying the scribes. I have installed my own copy of Archetype and therefore I know that the number in the "Other Images"-Tab plus one is the number of pages uploaded to Archetype. Figure 4 shows as number 43 which means that 44 pages were uploaded to Archetype. However, the VMS contains far more pages than just 44. There are more than 200 pages which include text. Unfortunately the paper didn't explain why only 44 pages were uploaded into Archetype.
However, earlier in 2020 Davis presented her findings in a talk at the BSA Annual Meeting. At minute 25 the video shows a slide with four groups for EVA-k (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). In this slide in the column to the right 6 instances of EVA-k from the stars section are shown. A little bit odd is that all 6 instances belong to folio 114r. Did that mean that Davis uploaded only a few folios for the Stars section into Archetype since she was starting with the assumption that all folios of a certain quire belong to the same scribe? But this wouldn't fit with her statement that "conclusions are based on tendencies visible over the length of a scribe's corpora".
Even more odd is that also the first column contains an instance of EVA-k associated with scribe 3. It's labeled as f94r. However, the other glyphs in the first column belong to folio 10r, 89r, 88r and 93v and the paper associates them with scribe 1. Also the second column lists glyphs associated with two different scribes: this are f40v (scribe 2) and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (associated to scribe 4). Unfortunately Davis only mentions the similarity for EVA-k for scribe 1 and 3 but is not mentioning or discussing the similarity she sees for EVA-k for the scribes 2 and 4.
The third column contains the biggest group of glyphs. They are all associated to scribe 4. For scribe 4 nearly all folios from the Zodiac pages were uploaded into Archetype. This rises the question why Davis has uploaded all the pages for the Zodiac section but not for the other quires? Davis explains the importance of the Zodiac section at minute 31. She quotes Renè Zandbergens website: "The very common character combination qo is almost completely absent in the zodiac pages and the rosettes page, but appears everywhere else" (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. minute 31 and Zandbergen 2019: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Davis argues that the zodiac pages are important since the zodiac pages and the rosette page correspond exactly to the pages she has identified as scribe 4 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Davis sees this as confirmation of her work.
Unfortunately Davis did only mentioned the fact that the Zodiac pages behave statistical differently at the BSA Annual Meeting but not in her paper published later in 2020. In the paper Davis writes "I have sent my preliminary results to a professor of linguistics who is running several different linguistical analyses on the Voynich as part of a long-term class project and her own research" (Davis 2022, p. 179). This is unfortunate since someone not aware of the BSA Annual Meeting can get this way the impression that Davis wasn't knowing of the qo-pattern while identifying Scribe four. In 2021 Claire Bowern published together with Sterneck and Annie Polish the paper "Topic Modeling in the Voynich Manuscript" and as expected Bowern writes: "the astrological section is always clustered next to hand 4, although it is worth noting that both hand and illustrative topic classifications come from Lisa Fagin Davis’s work" [Sterneck et. al. 2021, p. 15 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.]. Needless to say that a reference to Renè Zandbergens statement about the Zodiac pages is also not given in Claire Bowerns paper.
In a recent You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Lisa Davis explains why Scientific evidence-based methodologies are important in Voynich research. Decide yourself if her paper in Manuscript studies is indeed based on scientific evidence.
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| [Poll for Mark Knowles] Explanation for Voynich text? |
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Posted by: Koen G - 31-10-2022, 07:22 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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I am making this thread for Mark, who (due to a forum issue?) is unable to make a poll. This is what he writes:
Quote:What in your opinion is the most likely explanation for the nature of the Voynich text? I appreciate that you might think there are a variety of possibilities, but by the nature of the poll I want your top guess/choice. If you prefer you can list the items in order of likelihood as you see it. If you are unhappy with that you could put percentage likelihoods or probabilities for each option.
1) It is written in a known or unknown natural language in an unknown script
2) It is written in a cipher
3) It is meaningless text
4) It is written in some system of shorthand
5) It is written in an invented language
6) Other - please specify
These are the standard options that occur to me, though you may suggest others and I will change the poll according.
As someone who would firmly answer (2) in this poll I am curious how many others think the same. This is interesting to me as determining how many people have a similar perspective to my own gives me and idea of what level of interest there is in cryptography in the Voynich community.
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| Vord paradigm tool |
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Posted by: Hermes777 - 29-10-2022, 12:02 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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This is the template I am using for exploring vords and the Voynich text. It is based on Thomas Coon's Voynich Vord Verifier, compared, contrasted, expanded and amended from various other paradigms available. It is a study tool, not an attempt to replicate the exact procedure by which the text was generated. It identifies some persistent patterns and allows the study of vords that do and do not conform. Non-conforming vords - and the ways they deviate from the pattern - are the most interesting.
The basis of the model is that the default vord (QOKEEDY) is tripartite with each of its three parts consisting of a simple consonant-vowel structure. Thus: qo - kee - dy.
In a default vord there are three parts, prefix, stem and suffix, here marked as compartments A and B and C. A combination consonant-vowel (CV) is made from the available glyphs in each compartment.
However, in most cases vords are consonant final, so there is an extra class of consonant final glyphs in compartment C. These typically require a word-break after them.
There is also a class of glyphs in compartment A that allow vowel/consonant prefixes.
We can speak of the first consonant, second consonant, third consonant and final consonant. And the first, second and third vowels, with [y] being a final vowel in this model.
Bench gallows (KTPF) are not shown but can intrude into any of the benched glyphs (in red).
Vords can be made from the compartments A+B+C, A+B, B+C or A+C, or sometimes just one compartment, most often compartment C. A surprising number of vords can be made just from compartment C, daiin for instance.
Often, vords could be made to comply to the template in several ways. There is then the question as to which of the possibilities is most consistent and viable.
In many cases, non-conforming vords only deviate from the paradigm in a single compartment or in a single glyph, sometimes a single stroke. Abberations are few.
The objective, though, is not to try to match as many vords as possible. The model works well enough. It is a remarkable fact that it works at all. It is especially useful to observe the behaviour of non-conforming vords and to see what has happened to make them deviate from the flow.
Here is a star label from pg 68r: DOARO
We see it conforms and is parsed: do - a - ro. It deviates in that compartment B - the middle stem - lacks a consonant, and there is no final consonant in compartment C, although final -o is acceptable.
Here is a non-conforming vord, from the red-inked text on 67r: LYSHYKCHY
We can locate the problem. An additional [k] has intruded into the consonants in compartment C. Otherwise, it conforms. (It is an interesting vord with an interesting symmetry. It seems the [k] has been imported into compartment C - against the rules - in order to make the symmetry.) It is parsed in this model: ly - kshy - kchy.
Needless to say the paradigm is a work in progress. It can be improved, but it can only ever be a useful approximation.
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