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| Almanacs: Ptolemy's Phases |
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Posted by: HermesRevived - 27-04-2024, 03:33 AM - Forum: News
- Replies (3)
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New posts at Lingua Nympharum, now pursuing astrological and astro-meteorological themes, including this post concerning solar/stellar 'phases' and almanacs as a model:
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| New Paper: Subtle Signs of Scribal Intent... |
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Posted by: asteckley - 26-04-2024, 09:48 PM - Forum: News
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Our recent paper, “Subtle Signs of Scribal Intent in the Voynich Manuscript” may be of interest to those of you analyzing the Voynich text for its possible underlying language and meaning.
The preprint version can be found on ArXiv: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Abstract:
“This study explores the cryptic Voynich Manuscript, by looking for subtle signs of scribal intent hidden in overlooked features of the “Voynichese” script. The findings indicate that distributions of tokens within paragraphs vary significantly based on positions defined not only by elements intrinsic to the script such as paragraph and line boundaries but also by extrinsic elements, namely the hand-drawn illustrations of plants.”
The paper is a bit technical, so here is a summary of the more interesting results: - Certain word tokens exhibit a propensity to occur –or to be avoided– in certain positions such as the top line of paragraphs or at the beginning or ends of lines. That is not too surprising as it’s been observed to some extent before.
- The more surprising find is that there is also a propensity for certain word tokens to occur immediately before, or immediately after, the hand drawn plant illustrations.
The propensities were analyzed in detail to ensure the statistical significance.
A reference catalog of word tokens with propensities was compiled. Only a couple of the tables could be included in the paper due space limitations, so below are a few more of them.
The whole catalog of tables is included in the Supplemental Online Material at:
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Note that the entire analysis was restricted to the portion of the manuscript believed to be written by a single scribe (Scribe 1 as identified by Lisa Fagin-Davis).
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| Dijon 1433 |
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Posted by: R. Sale - 25-04-2024, 07:52 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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Historical events and beliefs - in Borgogna, none the less. Philip the Good was Duke of Burgundy in 1433.
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| Extension to the Currier languages |
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Posted by: ReneZ - 23-04-2024, 03:51 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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As should be well known to everyone, in the 1970's Prescott Currier identified two languages ("A" and "B") in the Voynich MS text.
I have been looking at consolidating and extending that work off and on in the past, and just recently completed a first iteration of such a consolidation and extension.
Most of the pages that Currier did not classify appear to be in some intermediate form, which I have decided to call "C" language. Furthermore, using quantitative criteria, all pages have now been classified into these three languages, and a number of sub-categories or dialects.
I consider this not a closed activity. There are still important properties of the text that have not been taken into account.
The details of this first stage are described briefly You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
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| Paths to Decipherment |
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Posted by: Mark Knowles - 19-04-2024, 06:34 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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I like to be goal focused and I am interested in the key goal of deciphering and therefore unlocking the Voynich. A question that I always have in the back of my mind is which are the best strategies to move towards decipherment. These are my thoughts:
1)A crib or more likely what Nick Pelling calls a block-paradigm. Such a block-paradigm may or may not exist. That would be a parallel and identical document or piece of text to what we find in the Voynich. The question then becomes what is the best avenue to finding such a document.
2)The discovery of a related cipher. This has been a goal I have been interested in, though it is a challenging one as so many cipher records from the early 15th century are lost.
3)Some AI based approach to decipher the script. Statistical analysis on its own I doubt will be nearly sufficient. If AI is used it will need to be highly sophisticated to find the answer from the solution space.
4)Some lost pages or document which will illuminate the script. Finding anything of the kind seems unlikely.
I daresay there are others that I have forgotten to mention.
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| Voynich Talk Episode 1, part 1: A plant is not B plant |
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Posted by: Koen G - 17-04-2024, 02:02 PM - Forum: News
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I have hinted at it a couple of times, but finally it is done. I present to you the first episode of Voynich Talk! I wanted to make more videos like the interviews David and I did before, but also I wanted some more freedom in the format.
Instead of interviews with a single guest, I would like to invite one or more guests to talk about a selected topic.
As for the expected publication schedule, there is none. I don't expect to put out more than one video a month, since these take a lot of my spare time, and also I don't want to wear down potential (recurring) guests and topics too quickly. If I can approach some semblance of long-term regularity, I will be happy.
Normally, the talks will be focused on the guests and their input on the topic, and I will just guide the conversation.
However, for this first episode, we did something different. Together with Cary Rapaport, I have been researching the Herbal section (large plants). We studied different elements of the plant drawings, and noticed that many of them were near-exclusively found in either Herbal A or Herbal B. As it turns out, there are many more consistent features indicating the typical A-style and B-style than were previously known.
We developed the system to such a degree that we could now easily classify most plants as A or B by looking at the picture alone.
I even thought that we could probably teach someone else, thereby testing the validity of the system in the process. And so the idea for the first episode of Voynich Talk was born.
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Thanks to Lisa Fagin Davis, Lars Dietz (@Oocephalus), Michelle Lewis and David Jackson for their participation!
For a more in-depth discussion of distinctive plant features, see:
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| The Voynich Manuscript, Dr Johannes Hartlieb and the Encipherment of Women’s Secrets |
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Posted by: MichelleL11 - 16-04-2024, 04:06 PM - Forum: News
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Very pleased to announce the publication of Keagan Brewer's and my work below:
The Voynich Manuscript, Dr Johannes Hartlieb and the Encipherment of Women’s Secrets
Social History of Medicine, hkad099, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Published: 22 March 2024
Abstract
The Voynich manuscript is a famous European enciphered manuscript of the early fifteenth century featuring herbal, pharmaceutical, astrological and anatomical illustrations, including hundreds of naked women. Some hold objects adjacent to or unambiguously pointed towards their genitalia. This paper therefore investigates the culture of self-censorship, erasure and encipherment of women’s secrets, with a focus on Dr Johannes Hartlieb (c. 1410–68). Hartlieb had enduring apprehensions about the propagation of women’s secrets in vernacular Bavarian, which culminated in a call for ‘secret letters’ to hide recipes for abortifacients and contraceptives. Other cases of encipherment relating to sexual intercourse and genitalia will be described. On the basis of this evidence, we propose that the Rosettes, the largest and most complex illustration in the Voynich manuscript, represents coitus and conception. This hypothesis explains many of the illustration’s features and establishes a variety of future research possibilities.
Because of licensing fees, this is behind a paywall, but a broader summary is available You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. at The Conversation.
This work expands on what Keagan presented at the Malta Conference.
For those who do not know Keagan and his work, a summary can be found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Keagan is scheduled to present on this at our upcoming Voynich Day celebration and we're happy to discuss on this thread.
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