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+--- Thread: Phonetic notation experiment (/thread-5101.html)
RE: Phonetic notation experiment - Rafal - 05-12-2025
Okay, it's time for explanations.
The text is written according to rules of Polish ortography. I am Polish myself and have that info in my profile so it could be indeed a hint
It is written how a Polish man who has no idea about English spelling would write down what he hears. Actually I have seen some pop songs written that way in the 1980s and early 1990s.
As an anecdote I will tell you that when I learnt English in early 1990s I struggled quite a lot with English pronounciation. When you see an English word, you don't know how to say it correctly, you can only suspect. On the other hand Polish is actually quite deterministic, 99% of words are obvious to pronounce.
So when I saw a new English word in a book or computer game (it was an important source of new words for me
) I wasn't sure how to say it. I could checked dictionary but it used that damned IPA (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) thing and nobody could read it so it was totally useless.Many people would really love to have phonetic spelling but, as you may guess, it was beyond their dignity for linguists and they would prefer to eat their dirty socks instead of using some vulgar phonetic stuff. Now it is all past but it was a serious problem then.
So here is the encrypted text. See and let us know if you can understand it
Code:
sertyn plents hef olłejs bin ikstrimly waluajble tu as wi noł łan of wem es jaroł
wis plent bikejm e pałerful aly for as hier on erf e long tajm egoł
es łos klierly riwild baj its prezens in neandertal grejws diskawered in we mediterenijen basin riportedly dejtin bek erałnd siksty tałzend jers
jarł is stiped in myf end ledżend it is e plent wet meni kalczers of we łord hef łajdly juzd end rewired
it is nołn in latin es ahilea milleflorium end łos nejmd in oner of we grik god ahiles hu ekording tu ledżend
hed kors to łajdly imploj wis łond stanczing herb on we batelfild
andabtly e sowerejn rimedy of ałer herbal medisin kabinet es ju łil sun si
jaroł rajtly rimejns e fejwerit of praktiszioners łorking łiw plent medisins
elongsajd dandelions end plentejns jaroł is enawer of ałer globali ewejejble herbal ferst ejd plents
łispy federy folidż łicz superfiszialy risembles we łild karot jarołs lasiniejt liws łiw weir fin
end fajnly diwajded lołbs gejw rajs to its ader komon nejms milfojl end tauzend lif
niu grołf łil riemerdż from its kriping end stedily spreding rizoms in erli spring
wis rut system mins łi regularli fajnd we plent grołing es dens mats we bejzal liws ar samtajms kłajt lardż end sprałling
olłejs on long pesziols end initjaly groł in e rozet łen kaming intu flałer we stem liws bikam szorter sesajl end alternejtly spejsd
jaroł blums from dżun łiw farołd flołering stems typikly riczing hajts of siksti sewenti sentimiters ofen rifered tu es ambel lajki
we untrejnd aj kud inisziali mistejk jaroł flołering strakczer for en ambel end plejs jaroł in we karot femili
hołewer luk klołzly from biloł end ju łil obzerw numerołs flałer stoks kondensd tugeder haj ap we stem end ju łil
si hał wej du not ol oridżinejt from e sentral pojnt on we stem es per ambeliferołs plents
we kompozit flałers tejst biter end hew e karakteristik medisinal oder jużłely jaroł hes krimi łajt rej florets
deliketly frejming we oryndż tinted sentral disk florets bat pink strejns of jaroł łil frikłently bi sin
fajw or siks florets ar typikly fałnd in icz indiwidual flałer hedAnd here is Google Translate trying to say a beginning of it. It struggles with it as it doesn't understand the words and probably is not sure if these are Polish or foreign words spoken in some other way. A human would make it better.
Anyway here is the link. Click on the speaker icon to hear it.
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I will include English original text soon.
RE: Phonetic notation experiment - rikforto - 05-12-2025
(05-12-2025, 03:10 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As an anecdote I will tell you that when I learnt English in early 1990s I struggled quite a lot with English pronounciation. When you see an English word, you don't know how to say it correctly, you can only suspect. On the other hand Polish is actually quite deterministic, 99% of words are obvious to pronounce.
I chuckled because us English speakers find Polish quite difficult to pronounce. It mostly isn't the spelling---though there are a lot of those deterministic rules---but it is quite the mouthful for most of us!
RE: Phonetic notation experiment - Rafal - 05-12-2025
Yes, Polish is considered a hard language to learn for foreigners and Polish words are considered difficult to pronounce.
But when you hear an unknown word, you know how to write it down.
There are no cases when you wonder if to write "fish" or "ghoti"
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RE: Phonetic notation experiment - oshfdk - 05-12-2025
If anyone is interested, here's how this cipher could have been broken very quickly with the tools and techniques available in the XV century (I have no idea how they actually would have approached a problem this, but nothing in the method below requires any modern math or cryptology).
If you know that the underlying language is English (even somewhat phonetically mangled), you can look for some easy cribs. Most useful cribs in English are combinations of some very short words with repeated letters. My favorite and the easiest is the following combination:
AB AC (two two-letter words one after another with the first letter being the same)
especially if you can also find:
AB AC D (same two words followed by a one letter word with a letter that is not present in the first two)
Overwhelmingly these will be "it is" and "it is a". There are other possibilities, like "in it" or "at an", but these are usually much rarer.
In the original ciphertext "hm hc" appears a few times, at least once as "hm hc b". After you substitute h => I, m => T, c => S, b => A, the result looks plausible (when I do exercises like this I normally keep the ciphertext in lowercase and the plaintext in uppercase to tell them apart easily and make the automated replacement work without any problems).
Then there are a number of short words with some of the letters already substituted, the most common are lA and I@. While lA is not immediately clear, I@ is most likely IN, since IT and IS are already taken.
The following is the full transcript of replacements I made. I had to adjust and remap a few times, but overall it was an easy process and I think one that a person from the XV century would be able to follow easily too.
hm hc b => IT IS A
h => I
m => T
c => S
b => A
common short words: ft, lA. Also, Tr, lI, I@ (in?)
@ => N
Very common lA and also lIS => the/this? let's make it phonetic Z
l => Z
IT IS A inANT ZAT eANI => that many?
e => M
AN% => and
% => D
A => E (better phonetic fit)
SIpSTI SEZENTI SENTIMITEwS => Z is V (phonetic TH & V), w is R, p is K
Z => V
w => R
p => K
DISK$VERED IN VE MEDITERENI#EN z$SIN => $ is A, z is B, # is J?
At this point the text is almost fully readable.
The exercises like this are the reason I'm almost absolutely certain that the Voynich Manuscript cannot be a simple substitution cipher over any plaintext language. Even for obscure languages certain grammatical structures would be very easy to identify and reverse engineer. These structures seem absent in the Voynich MS, mostly the text of the MS looks like a randomized combination of chunks of various lengths.
RE: Phonetic notation experiment - Jorge_Stolfi - 05-12-2025
(05-12-2025, 03:10 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I struggled quite a lot with English pronounciation.
Me too. When I went to the US to get my PhD I was sufficiently fluent at reading and writing, but I discovered that all the pronunciations I had unconsciously made up were terribly wrong. To the point that I could barely communicate. The 13 years that I lived there were not enough to undo the damage...
All the best, --stolfi
RE: Phonetic notation experiment - ReneZ - 06-12-2025
(05-12-2025, 03:10 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On the other hand Polish is actually quite deterministic, 99% of words are obvious to pronounce.
This surprised me, because the same can definitely not be said about the relatively similar language Czech.
Then again, Czech pronunciation is quite consistent. Once you know the rules, you can pronounce word correctly. The pronunciation is, however, IMPOSSIBLE to guess if you don't know these rules.
Is that the same with Polish?
RE: Phonetic notation experiment - Bluetoes101 - 06-12-2025
I work with a Polish guy who studied English language in Uni, so he is pretty good, but what he struggles with the most is things like place names, which is not ideal as I work doing Logistics
The thing here is that the ways you are taught to speak English get thrown out the window, the place name pronunciation is basically decided by the people who live there, their dialect, and very old words mingling with modern pronunciation. "Yee oldy pub!" anyone?..
We were in a meeting and he said "can-nock" for Cannock which got some puzzled looks - It's "Cannuk". A more familiar one would be London "Lon-don", its "Lund'n".
A funny one is people trying to say "Worcestershire sauce" (especially Americans). It's "Wustersher sauce".
Honestly I am so impressed by anyone who manages to speak English as a second language, it's a mess.
RE: Phonetic notation experiment - Jorge_Stolfi - 06-12-2025
(06-12-2025, 01:15 AM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Honestly I am so impressed by anyone who manages to speak English as a second language, it's a mess.
Dearest creature in creation, you surely know You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.?
All the best, --stolfi
RE: Phonetic notation experiment - ReneZ - 06-12-2025
Leave the scone alone while I'm gone...
(06-12-2025, 03:53 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Dearest creature in creation, you surely know You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.?
I note it's written by a Dutchman.
I think he's just trying to divert from the issues in his own language.
RE: Phonetic notation experiment - Malatin_1 - 06-12-2025
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m e byfo bc ofc pnhbwnj whlhn z hmc iwbbc h b a bwmn ywb lc hcp lbwb h lb eb hmbwb hb b zch whifwmb nj bmh zbp bwo chpcmj
mo b bwc wo hc cmhib h ejt b nbgb hm hc b inbm lbm ebh pnbwc ft lb ofw sbt o nj r b wl hwb hm hc fo h nmh bc
shnb ehnnbtnfwhre b ofc be h f bw ft lb ywhp yf shnbc sr bpfwhy mr nbgb sb pfwc mf o nj heinf lhc of cm hhy sbwz f
lb zmbnthn zmnj b cflbwb whebj ft obw sbwzn ebhch pzhbm bc r ohn cr ch wfo wmnj whebc b tblbwhm ft iwpmhchf bwc