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| Lingua Volgare Shorthand |
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Posted by: ginocaspari - 02-03-2025, 11:33 AM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
- Replies (55)
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Dear Forum Users,
we have recently elaborated on a possible solution proposing lingua volgare written in shorthand. The preprint has been posted on SocArXiv.
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The Supplementary Information can be found here:
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We are looking for specialists in lingua volgare shorthand to replicate our solution and mitigate our confirmation bias. In our humble opinion, the difficulty of Voynich lies in the layered nature of the problem. We propose that the Voynich is a single substitution cipher applied to a medieval shorthand. The single substitution cipher is algorithmic and reproducible. However, the underlying text is written in shorthand and this is the real issue. Lingua volgare shorthand texts are notoriously ambiguous and even with proper language knowledge, they can remain hard to understand. The shorthand nature of the text is also why the Voynich exhibits such strange statistical properties (namely the low entropy of bigrams). Again, it is crucial to understand that a shorthand displays very different statistical properties in comparison to its source language.
We address the entropy problem in a longer explanatory text and we also identify grammatical material. We have reached out to specialists in lingua volgare shorthand personally, in order to allow for a replication by someone other than the authors (Caspari & Faccini). But of course we very much appreciate attempts by lingua volgare experts outside our immediate circle. The explanatory text can be found in the supplementary information section. We use seven criteria established by Prof. Claire Bowern to guide our argument.
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Furthermore, we provide a list of 400+ words which can be read in lingua volgare. The words form part of a consistent vocabulary featuring a plethora of terms related to plants and horticulture. All words can be found in the texts of authors roughly contemporary with the creation of the Voynich. Each word in the list of the supplementary information is joined by a remark and context of the word in a source of the time. Often the example sentences feature additional words we also read from the Voynich. Here is the link to the vocabulary list (for convenience we have also supplied PDF files of the same list separated into vocabulary and comments):
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Our proposed solution also identifies agglutinating characteristics of the Voynich including the identification of relative pronouns and articles which we find are key to understanding the mechanisms behind the text's creation. This phenomenon finds frequent correspondences in the lingua volgare manuscripts of the time.
We look forward to constructive criticism and a well-informed discussion.
Sincerely,
Gino Caspari & Agnese Faccini
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| Full Voynich Solution -- Deceptive Fundraising |
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Posted by: asteckley - 01-03-2025, 03:08 PM - Forum: News
- Replies (19)
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A new Voynich "solution" has just been posted on a Facebook group "Decoding The Voynich Manuscript".
It is presented as a complete decoding and accompanying description of the entire Voynich Manuscript produced by a large language model. As a data scientist and research engineer who has worked with and developed these AI models, I can assure all that the solution is complete nonsense. To the extent any of it might be "accurate", it will be a hallucinagenic compilation of the hundreds of observations extracted from all the Voynich enthusiasts' written claims in blog, posts, and books.
There is certainly nothing wrong with producing and publishing the kind of document that he has done-- the document is fun to read and is really very entertaining. And it is obvious that his solution does not match the contents of the manuscript.
HOWEVER, he has also posted a GoFundMe page to raise funds.
I believe this "crosses the line". (He actually dares to say "
No scams here, just a dream to expand".)
Many people, hopeful about these kinds of solutions to the Voynich, may not recognize that the claims within the document are technical nonsense and that it is describing "research" that never really took place. They may believe that the "further work" that he is wanting funds for has some legitimacy and hope.
Hopefully, this will be recognized and reported to GoFundMe.
His document:
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His GoFundMe page:
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| AN OPTICAL APPROACH FOR DECODING THE MYSTERIOUS VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT |
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Posted by: Scarecrow - 25-02-2025, 07:28 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (3)
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A novel (?) approach from Bucharest university reseacher Costin-Anton-Boiangiu et.al.
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The current paper presents several optical approaches used for investigating the decoding of the Voynich Manuscript. Over the past century, there have been numerous decipherment claims, but none of them can be accepted as the true solution. Most of them focus on the syntax analysis of the text, trying to correlate the Voynich text with well-known languages. In the current paper, we present a short history and description of the manuscript, as well as an innovative technique used for attempting its decoding. Our paper presents the use of several optical approaches, such as various distortions, words and character scrambling, in the attempt of correctly identifying voynichese words with the help of OCR
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| Words get more unusual as they get longer (from 2 characters) |
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Posted by: Addsamuels - 22-02-2025, 06:33 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (5)
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Jacquard Similarity
===For 1-grams
Average 1-gram similarity among least common words: 0.25570049296453057
Average 1-gram similarity among most common words: 0.21682838534999466
===For 2-grams
Average 2-gram similarity among least common words: 0.06423834336923202
Average 2-gram similarity among most common words: 0.06670467758507431
===For 3-grams
Average 3-gram similarity among least common words: 0.016802481467017006
Average 3-gram similarity among most common words: 0.02217942907311669
===For 4-grams
Average 4-gram similarity among least common words: 0.004504037054205818
Average 4-gram similarity among most common words: 0.007278612262000938
===For 5-grams
Average 5-gram similarity among least common words: 0.000987486273694194
Average 5-gram similarity among most common words: 0.0019374143958861578
===For 6-grams
Average 6-gram similarity among least common words: 0.0002422555676235787
Average 6-gram similarity among most common words: 0.0003965759779713268
Levenshtein Similarity
Length 2:
Overall average Levenshtein distance: 1.8191
Least common words: (freq = 2) -> Avg distance: 1.8333
Top 40 most common words: -> Avg distance: 1.8115
Top 10 most common words: -> Avg distance: 1.7778
Length 3:
Overall average Levenshtein distance: 2.6262
Least common words: (freq = 2) -> Avg distance: 2.6473
Top 40 most common words: -> Avg distance: 2.4744
Top 10 most common words: -> Avg distance: 2.4667
Length 4:
Overall average Levenshtein distance: 3.4458
Least common words: (freq = 2) -> Avg distance: 3.5212
Top 40 most common words: -> Avg distance: 3.2308
Top 10 most common words: -> Avg distance: 3.1556
Length 5:
Overall average Levenshtein distance: 4.1917
Least common words: (freq = 2) -> Avg distance: 4.2958
Top 40 most common words: -> Avg distance: 3.8141
Top 10 most common words: -> Avg distance: 3.8667
Length 6:
Overall average Levenshtein distance: 4.8464
Least common words: (freq = 2) -> Avg distance: 4.9734
Top 40 most common words: -> Avg distance: 4.3154
Top 10 most common words: -> Avg distance: 3.9778
Length 7:
Overall average Levenshtein distance: 5.4544
Least common words: (freq = 2) -> Avg distance: 5.6087
Top 40 most common words: -> Avg distance: 4.7000
Top 10 most common words: -> Avg distance: 4.5333
Length 8:
Overall average Levenshtein distance: 5.9280
Least common words: (freq = 2) -> Avg distance: 6.1097
Top 40 most common words: -> Avg distance: 5.3397
Top 10 most common words: -> Avg distance: 5.1333
N.B: Ignored hapax legomena
Note this is consistent with natural languages but I believe it is more common in the Voynich
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| Mansions of the Moon/f69v |
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Posted by: davidma - 21-02-2025, 05:30 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (8)
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Hi all,
I was reading an interesting thread (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) on cribs and ReneZ mentioned You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as one of the clearest ones for the VM. I thought it would be interesting to have a look at the supposed lunar mansions names and if/when they occur throughout the VM. I used Voynichese for all of the analysis and checked every single occurrence individually using the VM Voyager. Some of the labels differ from the EVA vord given on Voynichese. This is my personal interpretation of these vords so I am absolutely not certain it is right and in fact would be happy to get the rest of the forum's opinions on the few (re)interpretations of certain EVA vords.
I will give below the EVA names for the labels. I started with the "low" station okeyd (which funnily enough is given as "okey d" on Voynichese) and moved around clockwise.
Mansions:
- okeyd (Voynichese has it as okey d however my personal opinion is that the d is very close to the preceding y, making it likely to be a single vord). OCCURS 1
- okead (Voynichese has it as okeod, which other have pointed out would have it appear 3 times on this single folio. However, the o looks quite clearly like an a and very different from the initial o). OCCURS 1
- okodchy OCCURS 1
- okeody OCCURS 37 of which 2 in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (more detail on this further down)
- okcheys OCCURS 1
- oar alys OCCURS 16 and 2 (more detail on this further down)
- okeey sar (Voynichese has the first vord as okchy but there is a lack of the typical connector between c and h very clearly there in the rest of the folio, so I am inclined to see the first vord as okeey)
- okeo dy OCCURS 37 (this is a repetition, further analysis down)
- ochoyk OCCURS 1
- ykeey OCCURS 58
- ytary OCCURS 1
- oeesy (Voynichese has it as oeesa but the last letter is clearly a y with the distinctive tail) OCCURS 1
- ytody OCCURS 9
- okody OCCURS 16
- otody OCCURS 14
- okeal (Voynichese has it as okeol but the o looks more like an a, even has the little tail typical of a) OCCURS 12
- okeod//lkeod (Voynichese has it as okeod which already appears once on the page if we assume my correction above, however the first letter looks like an l to me with really faded legs. This is the change I am the least certain about so would welcome comments) ASSUMING Lkeod, OCCURS 1
- oteeys OCCURS 2
- oteol OCCURS 42
- ykeydy OCCURS 1
- okeod (occurs either 6 or 4 times depending on above corrections, either 3 times or just once on f69v) OCCURS 4
- saral OCCURS 6
- saiir OCCURS 6
- okolar OCCURS 2
- ykeody OCCURS 16
- sarydy OCCURS 1
- otchy OCCURS 48
- okeeydy (Voynichese has it as okchy dy but it looks a lot like okeey sar further along. Could be potentially 2 vords?) OCCURS 1
Once I was happy with my transliteration of the labels, I went and checked every occurrence, starting with the ones that appeared twice and going up. I did not check ykeey, otchy, oteol, and okeody since they appeared in excess of 30 times and it would take me a long time to go through every single occurrence and assess it qualitatively, though I might do so another time, or maybe someone else could help 
Below is the qualitative analysis of the occurrences. I wanted to also check if there was a pattern in scribes using the vords on f69v, but not had the time to do that yet.
I had two assumptions: 1- vords should not appear twice on the labels in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. UNLESS we're dealing with some sort of cipher/abbreviation system where two different Mansions can be written the same way. This does not seem to be the case. 2- we should see the Mansions names potentially pop up more in the astrological sections, especially the Zodiacs, since they are dependent on the Moon's position in the sky.
- okolar: occurs 1 outside of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (the MAY Zodiac) underneath a figure with a star. It is on a different position than on f69v.
- oteeys: occurs 1 outside of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in f68v2 (star map with 8 sections) in the outer ring of text.
- saiir: occurs 4 outside of f69v, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. it is saiis rather than saiir so I have excluded it, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (botanical), in f68v3 (astrological, on one of the "streams" moving towards the centre), f101v2 (pharmaceutical) and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (stars/recipes)
- saral: occurs 5 outside of f69v, in f67r2 (the 12 zodiac signs?), in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (balneological), 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. (pharmaceutical)
- ytody: occurs 8 outside of f69v, in f6v, f37r, f51v, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (botanical), in f67r2 (the 12 zodiacs signs? it is 8 spaces distant from saral, as on f69v!), twice on f86v5 and once on f86v6 (Rose)
- okeal: occurs 11 outside, 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. and twice on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (botanical), on f70v1 although it reas as okealar to me rather than okeal so I have excluded it, once on f72r2 (the GEMINI zodiac) next to a star figure, and in f103r, twice on f108v, once on f111r, on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and on 112r (recipes)
- otody: occurs 13 outside, f16r, f29v, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (botanical), f70r1 (within inner circle, similar position as on f69v), f70v2 (PISCES zodiac) next to a figure, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (SAGGITTARIUS zodiac) in circle of vords, f85r2 (in rose inner ring), f94r, f94v, f95v1 (pharmaceutical) and f104r, 112r and 114v (stars/recipes)
- okeey sar, as seen above this looks like 2 vords: I checked every occurrence of sar to see if it was preceded by okeey and it happnes 1 outside of f69v, in f67r1, another stars/moon chart, in a similar position as on f69v)
- oar alys, as seen above 2 vords: no occurrence one after the other, although oar is followed by al in 2 cases (although this is probably has nothing to do with the Mansion of the Moon in question)
- okeod: as seen above, occurs 6 times according to Voynichese and 3 times on f69v! Although I am fairly certain one is actually okead, the other 2 are extremely similar. As discussed above, I have interpreted one as lkeod and the other as okeod since the starting o in the former looks a lot like a faded l glyph. Assuming it is lkeod and okeod, we have 3 occurrences outisde of f69v: one on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the SAGGITTARIUS zodiac next to a star figure and one on f101v1, although I could not find it on Voynichese, so potentially only one match on a Zodiac chart. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has it too but it is clearly okeodsho rather than okeod.
- ykeody has 15 occurrences, f14r, f43r, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (botanical), f67r2 (12 Zodiac signs? in red ink outside circle), f68r2 and f68v2 in paragraphs (astrology), once in f70r1 in the outer circle of vords, once in the APRIL zodiac on f70v1 in the outer circle of vords, and 2 on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the SAGGITTARIUS Zodiac, 1 in the outside circle and 1 next to a star figure, then once on f89r2, f89v2, f90r1, f102r2, and interestingly on f102v1 as a label? (pharmaceutical)
- okody occurs 15 times, in 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. (botanical), You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. twice (in same section of drawing as well) and 2 in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (one is the label, the other is on the outer circle although the k is very weirdly written), 1 on f70v2 (PISCES zodiac) next to a star figure, 2 in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the outer and inner circles, once on f95v2, f101v2 (looks like it could be united with another particle but unsure), f102r2, f102v1 has been excluded since it is more like otady, and f102v2 (unsure about this one too, looks like okydy or okady) (pharmaceutical) and 1 in f112 and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (recipes)
- okeody, which occurs 37 times, but more interestingly twice on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. labels: the first okeody is undebatable, however the second has a lot of distance between okeo and dy, and okeo could also be okoo. There is another okoo written by the same hand on f68r2 and it looks nothing like this one, so I am inclined to think this is oke, which would be problematic since it goes against our assumptions about non-repetition on the labels, unless the space is significant. I looked for okeo followed by dy in the rest of the VM and it doesn't occur apart from the label.
I am unsure what to do next but wanted to share with everyone, I definitely think it is interesting how some labels only appear again on specific Zodiac signs next to stars, and generally there seems to be a lot of affinity between these labels and the astrological section. It is also curious how saral and ytody both appear on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as labels and on f67r2 (the 12 zodiac signs?) and on both folios are separated by exactly 8 spaces.
I will try and see the scribe's distribution for the labels and if I have time analyse the 4 labels I haven't done yet because of the quantity of vords to check. I really doubt the VM is a one to one cipher (if it even is a cipher) but it would be interesting to compare the labels with the 28 Mansions' names or their main Stars, as well as using the labels present in the zodiacs to restrict the search to the Mansions pertinent to that specific sign.
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