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+--- Thread: The Voynich Manuscript as an Iberian-African Voyage Record (/thread-5001.html)
RE: The Voynich Manuscript as an Iberian-African Voyage Record - Kaybo - 30-10-2025
(30-10-2025, 06:37 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(28-10-2025, 10:06 PM)Kaybo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.When I looked at the EVA translation, one thing that I don't understand is, why K and T should be different Symbols
Well, these are the most common words with k (left) and t (right) in the Bio section:
163 0.02387 qokedy 49 0.00718 otedy
153 0.02241 qokeedy 47 0.00688 qotedy
150 0.02197 qokain 39 0.00571 qoteedy
112 0.01640 qokal 27 0.00395 qoty
86 0.01260 qokaiin 25 0.00366 otain
86 0.01260 qokeey 25 0.00366 qotal
61 0.00893 qoky 24 0.00351 otar
45 0.00659 okedy 24 0.00351 oteedy
45 0.00659 qokar 22 0.00322 chcthy
43 0.00630 qokey 22 0.00322 tedy
42 0.00615 chckhy 21 0.00308 otal
41 0.00600 okain 21 0.00308 qotain
35 0.00513 okeedy 19 0.00278 oty
33 0.00483 okaiin 17 0.00249 checthy
28 0.00410 shckhy 16 0.00234 oteey
24 0.00351 olkain 15 0.00220 otey
22 0.00322 okal 14 0.00205 qotar
21 0.00308 kedy 13 0.00190 qotaiin
21 0.00308 qokol 13 0.00190 shcthy
21 0.00308 sheckhy 13 0.00190 shecthy
20 0.00293 olkedy 12 0.00176 otaiin
19 0.00278 checkhy 11 0.00161 tal
19 0.00278 keedy 11 0.00161 tchedy
19 0.00278 okar 11 0.00161 tol
19 0.00278 olkeey 9 0.00132 otol
17 0.00249 okeey 9 0.00132 qotol
16 0.00234 olkeedy 8 0.00117 qotey
16 0.00234 sheky 8 0.00117 tar
13 0.00190 kain 7 0.00103 qoteey
13 0.00190 oky 7 0.00103 ytedy
13 0.00190 olky 6 0.00088 sheety
12 0.00176 okey 6 0.00088 teey
12 0.00176 qokchdy 5 0.00073 chety
10 0.00146 cheeky 5 0.00073 otchedy
10 0.00146 ykeedy 5 0.00073 teol
9 0.00132 cheky 4 0.00059 shety
8 0.00117 chckhey 4 0.00059 tain
8 0.00117 kaiin 4 0.00059 tor
8 0.00117 qokshedy 4 0.00059 tshedy
7 0.00103 kal 3 0.00044 cthdy
7 0.00103 lkedy 3 0.00044 cthedy
7 0.00103 olkaiin 3 0.00044 otaly
7 0.00103 qokor 3 0.00044 otchey
7 0.00103 ykeey 3 0.00044 otchy
6 0.00088 lkain 3 0.00044 oteol
6 0.00088 okol 3 0.00044 otshdy
6 0.00088 olkar 3 0.00044 qotchedy
6 0.00088 qokaly 3 0.00044 qotchy
6 0.00088 qokam 3 0.00044 taiin
6 0.00088 qokchedy 3 0.00044 tchdy
While words with one of the two gallows also exist with the other one with roughly proportional frequencies (qokedy and qotedy, qokeedy and qoteedy, qoky and qoty, etc.), there are also many words that have very inconsistent frequencies (okedy and otedy, okar and otar, etc.)
Thus the claim that k and t are just calligraphic variants of the same letter does not seem likely.
Voynichese words are notoriously shorter than words in "European" languages, and as a consequence there are more pairs of words that differ only in one letter.
All the best, --stolfi
I am not sure, you are right. But I dont get your reasoning completely. Because we have a very high count of the K variants and a lower count of T variations. All words with a high word counts have T variant. Because K to T is not the only substitution there could be words that have a lower count have more or less pairs or even no no pair.
However, there is another reason why I think its the same character. But I can't verify this at the moment.
RE: The Voynich Manuscript as an Iberian-African Voyage Record - Bluetoes101 - 30-10-2025
If you look at individual cases it might become more apparent.
Using the Voynichese website so this will be wrong, but ballpark..
lk = 1079
lt = 107
RE: The Voynich Manuscript as an Iberian-African Voyage Record - Kaybo - 31-10-2025
(30-10-2025, 07:35 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If you look at individual cases it might become more apparent.
Using the Voynichese website so this will be wrong, but ballpark..
lk = 1079
lt = 107
Sorry, I don't understand your answer. I am new into this, so probably I miss a lot of information you all have. If you look at the words K and T are exchanged the most, that could have multiple reasons. One could be that it is the same character, but of cause there could be other reasons.
Also the ch. Why it has been transcribed as two characters, while it appears to be one symbol. It is also sometimes transcribed as ee that leads to transcription into eee in combination with a real e because everything looks like a c.
RE: The Voynich Manuscript as an Iberian-African Voyage Record - Bluetoes101 - 31-10-2025
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If you type in "k" you will see 10845 results, "t" has 6872. If we look at the pairings "lt" and lk" you get the results I showed.
If they were the same you wouldn't expect this.
Why specifically "ch" I don't know, but it would make sense that if we have cXh (X being f,p,k,t) then you would expect two characters (start-end), and so this logic likely applies to the "ch" glyph without the "X".
RE: The Voynich Manuscript as an Iberian-African Voyage Record - nablator - 31-10-2025
(Double post)
RE: The Voynich Manuscript as an Iberian-African Voyage Record - nablator - 31-10-2025
(31-10-2025, 06:06 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If they were the same you wouldn't expect this.
Latin printed books of the Renaissance and later used æ and ę indiscriminately, but æ was much more common (ę disappeared around the 9th century IIRC in manuscripts and it became fashionable again at the Renaissance). No difference whatsoever, you could see a different choice in a different edition. Equivalent letters/symbols/abbreviations don't have to be nearly equiprobable.
RE: The Voynich Manuscript as an Iberian-African Voyage Record - Bluetoes101 - 31-10-2025
That's true, though is it not odd that more or less 60% of "k" are "ok" and 60% of "t" are "ot", yet in other common(ish) pairings the stats are not like this. I think it would at least make it hard to use the first comparison as a "for" argument and not have the others be "against". . but I do tend to default to thinking of the text as a code with symbols rather than a language so this may make no sense at all for language, as you allude to.
Another thing that would be odd, in my eyes.. more "code" than "language" would be this
RE: The Voynich Manuscript as an Iberian-African Voyage Record - Kaybo - 31-10-2025
(31-10-2025, 08:06 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That's true, though is it not odd that more or less 60% of "k" are "ok" and 60% of "t" are "ot", yet in other common(ish) pairings the stats are not like this. I think it would at least make it hard to use the first comparison as a "for" argument and not have the others be "against". . but I do tend to default to thinking of the text as a code with symbols rather than a language so this may make no sense at all for language, as you allude to.
Another thing that would be odd, in my eyes.. more "code" than "language" would be this
Thinking about this too. Even if I don't want to get into the text translation too much, because I missing so much information and it would to years to read through everything here, but I one possibility could be the use of substitution tables (nomenclators).
To combine it with my theory, you have very few words in nautical reports. Maybe around 1400-1450 Henry the Navigator used a very long substitution table to encode the reports. The words in the voynich manuscript are numbers that then refer to a word in a substitution table. Thats why we find a lot of similar words in the voynich manuscript that differ only in one letter. Then also the K and T variations would make sense. If one ist 108 and the other maybe 114, because K adds 2 to the sum and T adds 8.
Probably everyone here knows this and I think it looks even from the symbols a bit similar.
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But also with this kind of code you could encrypt things with very few signs.
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So probably everything is discussed here already and checkt over and over again. If you have just a substitution table with words, it will be very hard if you don't know the context of the book.
RE: The Voynich Manuscript as an Iberian-African Voyage Record - Bluetoes101 - 01-11-2025
I do joke with potential solvers sometimes "numbers!", as for some reason they think anything that can work must be right. List of numbers then..
There's no reason its not really, it would just be weird and probably not advance us in understanding (or be provable). Also as you say, if it is a cipher that uses a look-up book.. we are likely doomed without the book.
On the general line of thinking though, which seems to be reductionist, I think you may find this worthwhile to read - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. It's at least good food for thought.
RE: The Voynich Manuscript as an Iberian-African Voyage Record - Kaybo - 01-11-2025
(01-11-2025, 12:32 AM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I do joke with potential solvers sometimes "numbers!", as for some reason they think anything that can work must be right. List of numbers then..
There's no reason its not really, it would just be weird and probably not advance us in understanding (or be provable). Also as you say, if it is a cipher that uses a look-up book.. we are likely doomed without the book.
On the general line of thinking though, which seems to be reductionist, I think you may find this worthwhile to read - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. It's at least good food for thought.
I tried to understand some parts of the text in your link, but I think if it is a rule...why there are exceptions? But its the same with the cz (ch), sometimes the writer puts a dot (or something) on top of it and sometimes not.
I also give away some more information about my theory that it is an African journey report.
The animals:
The animal on page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a Manis tricuspis. Thats so obvious for me, not sure why others have not seen it. Maybe thats my biology background? But bias makes you the opposite of blind ;-) However, its a very important animal of West Africa, has a lot of ritual meaning.
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Also other animals have a lot of similarity to animals from West Afrika. Like a monitor lizard.