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| initial characters, to be last? right-to-left handwritting? |
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Posted by: quimqu - 16-05-2024, 07:14 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (2)
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As I imagine, all of us have been through René Zandbergen's magnificent website.
I read the chapter called Non-sequential writing on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I was a bit surprised by the conclusions of this part of the text: "In a few places, it appears as if the first characters of lines were written in a vertical column first, possibly to create a straight left margin. The remainder of the text was then added later. The following example is one paragraph on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Especially in the last two lines of this fragment, there is a strong suggestion that the initial characters were written first, and the remainder of the line was written later."
I always try to imagine the scriba who was writing the manuscript, and I do not agree with this conclusion. If you are writing from left to right, the overlapping of the characters of rows 5 and 6 in the paragraph, in my opinion, can only have two different root causes. For me, it is not that the initial characters were written first. It makes no sense. If they were already written first, the scriba should have plenty of space at the right to write, so why should he overlap the first and second characters? 
In my opinion, there are two different hypotheses: (first, imagine that the drawing was already there before the writing)
- The initial characters were written last. So, there was first the whole paragraph (or the whole row of the paragraph), written from left to right. Then, at the end, the initial character was written there to avoid overlapping the drawing. He left no space enough between the last two lines and the drawing, so he overlaps the characters.
- The scriba was writing from right to left, so at the last character, he had no space and had to overlap the first and second character.
I think both hypotheses open new theories. The first hypothesis makes me wonder what kind of scriba would not write the first character first. Why should he leave that character at the end of the writing? The second hypothesis might make us consider more deeply the possibility of right-to-left text writing (such as Arabic).
If everything here has already been discussed, sorry for my entry.
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| High ammount of bidirectional pairs |
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Posted by: quimqu - 16-05-2024, 03:34 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (3)
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Hello all,
I have just started working with the intriguing Voynich Manuscript, attempting to shed some light on its text analysis. I conducted some basic text analysis using the V101 v. 2a transliteration file.
I programmed a bidirectional pair detection algorithm. By "bidirectional pair," I mean a pair of words that appear in both directions, such as "AAA BBB" and "BBB AAA." I found 1,284 bidirectional pairs (or 642 unique pairs, each counted twice due to the direction).
I understand that this phenomenon is not commonly found to such an extent in known languages. As far as I know, no known natural language routinely produces as many bidirectional pairs as I have identified. This could suggest either a highly artificial or constructed language or perhaps some unique feature or quirk of the manuscript's text.
I apologize if this finding has been reported before; I was unable to find any previous entries on this topic.
Looking forward to reading your thoughts.
Here are the top 20 bidirectional pairs I have found:
BIDIRECTIONAL PAIRS
1284 bidirectional pairs
TOP BIDIRECTIONAL PAIRS:
Pair 1: ('oy', 'am'), Count: 50
Pair 2: ('am', 'oy'), Count: 6
Pair 1: ('s', 'am'), Count: 47
Pair 2: ('am', 's'), Count: 3
Pair 1: ('1oe', '1oe'), Count: 21
Pair 2: ('1oe', '1oe'), Count: 21
Pair 1: ('am', 'oe'), Count: 13
Pair 2: ('oe', 'am'), Count: 20
Pair 1: ('ay', 'ae'), Count: 25
Pair 2: ('ae', 'ay'), Count: 7
Pair 1: ('1oe', '8am'), Count: 24
Pair 2: ('8am', '1oe'), Count: 5
Pair 1: ('ay', 'am'), Count: 26
Pair 2: ('am', 'ay'), Count: 3
Pair 1: ('8am', '8am'), Count: 11
Pair 2: ('8am', '8am'), Count: 11
Pair 1: ('oe', 'oe'), Count: 11
Pair 2: ('oe', 'oe'), Count: 11
Pair 1: ('oy', 'oe'), Count: 11
Pair 2: ('oe', 'oy'), Count: 11
Pair 1: ('oe', '1c89'), Count: 19
Pair 2: ('1c89', 'oe'), Count: 3
Pair 1: ('4oe', '1c89'), Count: 10
Pair 2: ('1c89', '4oe'), Count: 10
Pair 1: ('s', 'ay'), Count: 17
Pair 2: ('ay', 's'), Count: 2
Pair 1: ('8am', 'oe'), Count: 6
Pair 2: ('oe', '8am'), Count: 13
Pair 1: ('4ohan', '1c89'), Count: 8
Pair 2: ('1c89', '4ohan'), Count: 11
Pair 1: ('oe', '1c9'), Count: 13
Pair 2: ('1c9', 'oe'), Count: 5
Pair 1: ('ay', 'ay'), Count: 9
Pair 2: ('ay', 'ay'), Count: 9
Pair 1: ('ay', 'oy'), Count: 8
Pair 2: ('oy', 'ay'), Count: 9
Pair 1: ('4ohae', '1c89'), Count: 10
Pair 2: ('1c89', '4ohae'), Count: 7
Pair 1: ('4ohc89', '4ohc89'), Count: 8
Pair 2: ('4ohc89', '4ohc89'), Count: 8
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| Hapax Legomena - A Word Game |
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Posted by: HermesRevived - 15-05-2024, 08:48 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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Here is a simple word game for Voynicheroes. I'II call it HAPAX LEGOMENA.
It is based entirely on the DAIIN text that runs throughout the Voynich manuscript. This text is based on the paradigm CHOLDAIIN, without any elements from the other paradigm, QOKEEDY. So there is no Q or gallows glyphs or E or Y.
The DAIIN text dominates in the sections of the text called Currier A or Text A. How well do you know the A Text?
The objective is to find rare words that appear in - are attested in - the Voynich corpus.
The best outcome is to find a hapax legomenon. Finding these is the direct object of each turn of play.
Play proceeds by selecting sequences of bigrams from the following key:
Rule: The last glyph of each bigram must be the first glyph of the next bigram, but you can stop at any point.
The word CHOLDAIIN therefore is made by selecting: CHO + OL + LD + DA + AIIN
As it happens, this word - even though the paradigm - is a hapax legomenon. It occurs once and once only, on f17v. CHOL and DAIIN are prolific, but there is only one attestation of them together as a single word.
Can we find other hapax legomena?
To this end the bigrams in the KEY are arranged from common to rare going left to right. OL is common. OD is less common. OIIN is less common again. OA is even less common, then OCH and finally OO which is valid but very rare.
The words created by our selections are either ATTESTED or UNATTESTED. The fewer attestations - without encountering an unattested combination - the better. We are seeking attested words that are rare.
Play might start by selecting any of the bigrams by chance - tiles from a hat.
An example:
We start with the bigram LO.
Since O is the final glyph in the bigram we have the options: OL, OD, OIIN, OA, OCH, OO.
We know that if we select OL, this will be a common combination. If we select OA, this will be relatively rare.
We select OD. So we have: LOD.
Now what glyph joins with D?
Our options are: DA, DO, DCH, DL, DD.
We know that if we go too wide and select, say, DCH, and our word becomes LODCH we are in danger of combining too many rare combinations and will hit a 'Does not occur in the manuscript.'
We decide to play safe and select DA.
Now we have LODA.
At this point we decide to finish it off and select IIN to follow A, even though we know that this is a common combination.
It is a good strategy to combine relatively rarely bigrams with common ones.
Our word is: LODAIIN.
Attestations: Three.
This is an excellent result - a valid but very rare word.
If we had overplayed it and gone further to, say, LODCHAIIN, we would have found a word that is unattested in the corpus. Fail.
* * *
This is Round One. It uses only the standard glyphs of the CHOLDAIIN paradigm.
In the second round, though, substitute glyphs are permitted in the search for rare but attested combinations.
At any point we can choose to call the glyph CH the glyph SH instead, or S. And L or N can be R or M.
For example, if our selection is the bigram CHO, we can nominate to call it SHO instead. If our selection is OL we can call it OR if we choose, or OM (realising that OM is rarer than OR.) .
This strategy will always make our word less common.
As a third round, it is permitted to introduce ONE glyph from the QOKEEDY paradigm that can be substituted for any glyph in the Key.
In our example, LODAIIN, we can substite any one glyph from QOKEEDY. So we might decide to substitute Q for the L making QODAIIN. But this has 42 attestations - not a common word, but not as good as LODAIIN with only three.
(We know that LOQAIIN or LODAQ and so on are unattested. To avoid this it is a good strategy to substitute glyphs in the same place. Use Q at the start of words and Y at the end.)
Seasoned players know that substituting EE for CH is a good move, and so is substituting Y for O.
* * *
The game can be played as a solitaire or by two competing players. In that case, players take it in turns.
If a player hits an UNATTESTED they are forced to play again. If a player happily hits a HAPAX their opponent is forced to play two rounds.
Scoring is like in golf. A HAPAX is like a hole-in-one!
The player with the lowest score at the end of a set number of rounds wins.
* * *
While I have cast this as a game for fun, it does demonstrate a way to isolate the DAIIN text and a useful template of bigrams. As Rene has remarked, in some ways the Voynich text can be characterized as the DAIIN text, into which another stream intrudes. I also suspect there is some significance to hapax legomena and this game draws attention to that phenomenon. The game is a device to help us learn Voynichese.
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R.B. |
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| [split] BessAgritianin's reading of 116v |
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Posted by: BessAgritianin - 13-05-2024, 06:45 AM - Forum: Marginalia
- Replies (48)
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Hello everybody, I have a truthful interpretation of 116V .
My work is in Acrobat format. How and where may I post it?
Second question is the authorship. What about the copyrights of the works published on your page?
Best regards!
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| Different scribes, similar plants? |
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Posted by: Bernd - 08-05-2024, 02:35 AM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (4)
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Looking at the flowers in the VM for quite some but not nearly enough time, I have made some interesting observations.
Following Koen's thread and blog post about differences in A and B plants, I also looked at different scribal hands as proposed to Lisa Fagin Davis.
Most plants were drawn by scribal hand 1 which covers all of Currier A and also shows the greatest variability.
The Currier B pages are divided between scribal hand 2, 3 and 5
Scribal hand 2 draws the cleanest and most 'sophisticated' flowers, it is hard to describe but they have a certain vibe to it. This scribe appears to have the best drawing skills. Most 'VM-daisies' and the enigmatic rosette- like flowers of f33v, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are drawn by this hand. But also some quite simple and messy ones like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or f31r.
Scribal hand 3 appears to be closer to 2 than to 1 and overall has pretty well drawn flowers.
Scribal hand 5 appears rather messy, closer to 1 than to 2.
The most bizarre feature is that while some plants of scribe 2 stand out, most plant drawings fall within the same spectrum of VM oddities and show very similar quirks and share patterns which I find very hard to explain if we assume these drawings were made by different people. When I learned botanical drawing at university (I was always terrible at it) I was baffled how differently students would draw the exact same plant before them. People not only differ in drawing skills but also perception and pay attention to or miss details that others don't. In the VM this mostly is not the case, on the contrary. Different scribes draw plants that have eerie similarities. Some appear to be copied but that again raises the question why different people would copy a plant or parts of plants and rearrange them.
So without further ado, let's look at some examples:
Plant duplicates in the pharma section are well known but few have flowers or fruit. Here we see 2 clearly identical plants by scribal hand 1 except for the root system.
Also well known the 3 plants with thee red berries
The same scribal hand 1 draws the same plant 3 times in the VM. Despite the slightly different leaves and bifurcated stem in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and the missing terminal tendril and extra branch in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. we clearly see the strong similarities in root, leaves and fruit.
Let's look at the plant with campanula-like flower:
It is drawn 3 times, 2 times by scribal hand 1 which are perfectly similar and once by scribal hand 5 which shows stylistic differences and a moderately different root but still is very recognizable.
My favorite are those strange flowers with bulbous calyx, no idea what this is supposed to be.
We again have 3 plants from 3 different scribal hands. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by hand 1 and f95r1 by hand 3 share extremely strong similarities down to the coloration of flowers. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by scribal hand 2 has somewhat different leaves and differently colored flowers but still it is hard to believe that this drawing evolved independently from the others. So we have 3 scribal hands bit extremely similar flowers.
From here things get a bit odd. Let's look at the 'mosses'
Again 3 plants from 3 scribes. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by scribal hand 2 is an odd plant or rather an odd flower which doesn't match the plant at all which appears to be either a monocot or bryophyte. We find an almost exactly similar plant with similar root table in f95r2 drawn by scribal hand 3 but instead of a flower it has capsules or sporangia typical for mosses. In comparison we have another 'moss' in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. drawn by scribal hand 1. It looks vastly different, has no root table and serrated leaves but the 'flower' appears to be a sporangium with a toothed peristome typical for a moss like Polytrichum. See more here:
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There is one more triad although more doubtful and strangely it contains the third plant on the foldout of f94v-f95r1-f95r2
All 3 plants by scribal hands 1, 2 and 3 share a composite flower, arrow-shaped leaves arranged in a fan. The root system is less clear but vaguely similar. I do not believe these drawings necessarily depict the same plant but they share a common design. I am not really sure what to make of it. It should be noted that apart from the campanulas, all of the duplicate plants have at least 1 member in Q17.
Last but not least, we close with another peculiar composite plant where scribe 1 recycles overall plant shape and inflorescence but swaps out the leaves to a pinnate version.
I find it highly likely that these 2 plants and especially the inflorescence are a copy, maybe even autocopy. There appears to be a general tendency to copy and recycle plant parts and my feeling is they were constructed from a stock of shapes or themes. This also would explain the similarities between some flower shapes and the rosette page.
[attachment=8510]
Honestly I really don't know what to make of all this but to me the most striking discovery are the similarities between scribal hands. Why did they draw such similar plants? Did they copy each other? Even then I find it hard to imagine how one would end up with such similarities. I think like with the text we must not make the mistake tho throw everything in the same pocket. The plants may very well have very different origins, some being faithful drawings of living plants, some copies or autocopies and others creations of imagination. Probably even a mixture.
One giant task would be to divide all VM plants into flower, leaves and root system and compare them independently as well as the overall plant shape. Also We should look for similar drawings in contemporary herbals, not necessarily in whole but at least in parts.
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| Hardest plants to identify? |
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Posted by: Koen G - 05-05-2024, 05:22 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (12)
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I was reading parts of the thread about most certain plant ID's, and came across You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by DONJCH:
(13-01-2019, 11:39 PM)DONJCH Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I just wanted to say that this is a really useful thread.
Equally useful might be a thread about those plants that nobody has any clue about whatsoever.
So for people who have tried identifying the plants - which are the ones that really make the least sense from a botanical perspective? Which ones require the most nudging and squinting to get them to resemble anything that actually exists?
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