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+--- Thread: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? (/thread-4996.html)
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 23-10-2025
I made a mistake there. I only mentioned the code to explain how I came across it, not to say, “Hey, I have a code.” I didn't realize that it would ruin the actual topic. But seriously, do you think I would notice something so strange when I enter the text into the AI? It would write me a great sentence in the most beautiful words, no matter what it said. Even if two-thirds of it were pure fantasy...
I don't understand why the actual topic of this thread is less popular than one user's very questionable thesis: I have a code...
This theory would have massive consequences for decryption! Something like this can ruin many serious attempts of decryption. Imagine if sequences were simply repeated in many lines, in a slightly different form. If you don't know that, it ruins a lot of meaningful attempts... that's what this thread is about.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 23-10-2025
(23-10-2025, 12:22 PM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Are you talking about language A or language B, or are you comfortable in both?
Are duplicates quite common in both languages?
I'm still at A and I'll be staying there for the foreseeable future.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - oshfdk - 23-10-2025
(23-10-2025, 12:24 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Something like this can ruin many serious attempts of decryption. Imagine if sequences were simply repeated in many lines, in a slightly different form. If you don't know that, it ruins a lot of meaningful attempts... that's what this thread is about.
I'm not sure what you would like to discuss. Is it possible that the scribe would repeat unclear parts of text? Yes, why not. I can't see any specific evidence of this, but I'm not sure what it should look like either. Nowadays alternative readings would be usually put in parentheses. I think it would have made sense for the scribe to highlight them somehow, write over/under an unclear word, etc.
General problem of an unreliable source or errors introduced in transcribing/retracing the original can lead to problems with deciphering, but this is not new. This is the reason I'm so attentive to Jorge Stolfi's retracing and multiple actors hypotheses, if true, they can affect decoding attempts. I'm not sure repeating some patterns several times with minor variations would be a huge problem, but this depends on how the cipher works.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - Rafal - 23-10-2025
I am a bit lost.
I believe that Voynich Manuscript has some single words repeated two or more times in a row but not whole sentences.
Did you find longer sentences repeated?
And of course I would be curious to see some example of your reading/decipherment of the text. Do you have any idea what language is it written in?
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 23-10-2025
okay, an example:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Zeile 9: otchol octhol
Only one letter is different here. Otherwise, it's exactly the same word. It looks like a repetition where the writer wasn't sure which version to write, whether the t is inside or outside the ch ligature.
I suspect Latin, as I said...
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - Rafal - 23-10-2025
You said:
Only one letter is different here. Otherwise, it's exactly the same word. It seems like a repetition, where the writer wasn't sure which version to write: is the t inside the ch ligature or outside it? I suspect Latin, as I said...
Personally I wouldn't call it a repetition but a similar word.
It was observed several times that VM contains many clusters of similar words appearing in a close proximity.
But we aren't sure how to interpret it.
One option is "autocitation theory" which says that Voynich text is nonsense and the scribe was creating new words by altering already written ones.
But it isn't universally accepted.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 23-10-2025
Or another example that shows the full potential scope, although I'm not so sure if it really fits here.
doiin choky shol qoky
The only difference between “choky” and “qoky” is one letter—if you look at the whole sequence from a distance, ‘doiin’ and “shol” also look similar. Maybe he wasn't sure what to write here...
Of course, this is just a vague assumption in this case—but it fits with the theory.
And since cases like the first example occur very frequently, that would be very serious indeed.
But maybe it was just a short-sighted copyist...
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - ReneZ - 24-10-2025
(23-10-2025, 12:24 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I made a mistake there. I only mentioned the code to explain how I came across it, not to say, “Hey, I have a code.”
The point is that, if your idea arose from an invalid translation, then the idea has no basis.
Certainly, it is possible that the text we have is a copy of a draft, or another original.
Certainly, it is also possible that errors were made during this copying.
(Both things are known to have happened in other manuscripts.)
However, the evidence for it, or the places where it may have happened is not valid (if the translation is invalid).
For me, it is not even certain that the 'words' in the MS represent words.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - Mark Knowles - 24-10-2025
(23-10-2025, 01:28 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.One option is "autocitation theory" which says that Voynich text is nonsense and the scribe was creating new words by altering already written ones.Or as I would say partial-autocitation which says that some of the Voynich text is nonsense filler words and in the case of those filler words sometimes the scribe created new filler words by altering already written filler and real words. Also, I think some of the most common filler words don't need to be viewed as autocitation, but rather words picked from the standard stock of filler words that the author used. I would say having studied the most distinctive words in detail that autocitation cannot and does not explain them, so such a theory cannot explain all words in the Voynich manuscript. To reiterate it seems to me that Voynich words are words, but can be divided into two types real and filler words where the majority are filler words. I have guessed that very roughly about 80% of words are filler words and about 20% of words are real words.
But it isn't universally accepted.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 24-10-2025
(24-10-2025, 12:34 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The point is that, if your idea arose from an invalid translation, then the idea has no basis.
Certainly, it is possible that the text we have is a copy of a draft, or another original.
Certainly, it is also possible that errors were made during this copying.
(Both things are known to have happened in other manuscripts.)
However, the evidence for it, or the places where it may have happened is not valid (if the translation is invalid).
For me, it is not even certain that the 'words' in the MS represent words.
Yes, that's a good point, of course. But how can you know that you have a truly “valid translation” until you have translated large parts of the text using a consistent “code” that is comprehensible and logical to everyone? And this is where the vicious circle begins.
For example, on one of the first pages of the Herbal section, I have the following sequence within a sentence:
duo folia ora foliis folia ora cum foliis
This is complete nonsense—the code is producing garbage. What does that tell me? Get rid of it and start over, especially given the frequency of such nonsensical passages in the text.
Then I had an idea, precisely with this sequence: Here, the writer has written a sequence in two variants.
Duo: folia ora foliis
Duo: folia ora cum foliis
These are still not particularly great sequences, but they are no longer garbage...
And that was the background to my question: It was important for me to know whether it could actually be possible that such duplications could be an indication of different variants that were simply written one after the other - and according to my research over the last few days, this has been common practice, but not in the quantity in which it appears in the Voynich Manuscript. So was a very difficult-to-read text copied down?
But I understand that it may not have been wise to ask this question in this way. It just bothered me. So I'll retreat back to my little working-chamber, take it as a working hypothesis, and hope that something meaningful remains in the end
If so, I'll be sure to post it here. But I'm less and less convinced PS: I don't believe that the words are words either...