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+--- Thread: A semantic encoding system? (/thread-5704.html)
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RE: A semantic encoding system? - Jorge_Stolfi - 06-05-2026
(05-05-2026, 02:34 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My well-meant suggestion is to first of all start wondering if the character groups separated by spaces in the Voynich MS actually represent words.
As I remember, the main argument is that the labels are often just one "word", which has the same structure as the "words" in the text.
Another (weaker) argument is that the number of distinct "words" is compatible with that theory, and so is their Zipf-like frequency distribution, and hence the entropy per "word".
And of course I have my own variant of that theory, and my arguments for it. But neither seem to be accepted here...
All the best, --stolfi
RE: A semantic encoding system? - ReneZ - 06-05-2026
(06-05-2026, 06:24 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As I remember, the main argument is that the labels are often just one "word", which has the same structure as the "words" in the text.
... which also can have another explanation.
(06-05-2026, 06:24 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And of course I have my own variant of that theory, and my arguments for it. But neither seem to be accepted here...
Well, a theory or hypothesis cannot be used as evidence....
RE: A semantic encoding system? - oshfdk - 06-05-2026
(06-05-2026, 04:25 AM)Jonas Barnun Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anyway, I would think that if it is a conlang of some sort with its own original grammar, there is no way one may decipher it as there is nothing we could use as a reasonable basis to do so. It would be virtually similar with Linear A (although not a conlang) where we do have letters we can actually identify but the language remains obscure… So in the absence of a key to decode it, this hypothesis implies the VMS will remain obscure no matter how much time we spend analyzing it’s structure.
I don't think so.
If this was a conlang designed for better communication (as opposed to a cipher designed for restricted communication), then labelled images would have been an ideal entry point. There are dozens of labels attached to various images in the MS. If Voynichese was a faithful representation of any language at all, no matter if Chinese or from Nibiru, invented or lost, then listing all labels, assigning possible meanings based on images, finding the same words in the text, identifying possible meaningful sentences, assigning meaning to more words, cross-checking with other sentences/images would be a slow but probably very well controlled and ultimately successful approach to deciphering the manuscript. However, quite a few people tried this approach and as far as I know it failed every single time. This failure is usually explained by scenarios like "unskilled scribe", "dyslexic author", "clueless restoration", "irrelevant decorative images", "hard to record language", "multilingual hodgepodge" or a combination of these.
The easiest alternative explanation is a cipher that can encode a word in many possible ways, which would be a sensible thing to do when enciphering a large illustrated text. So, even when two images show the same thing, the labels themselves can be different and still decode to the same word.
RE: A semantic encoding system? - Rafal - 06-05-2026
Quote:So in the absence of a key to decode it, this hypothesis implies the VMS will remain obscure no matter how much time we spend analyzing it’s structure. Am I wrong? Are there ways to translate a totally unknown and unrelated language without any rosetta stone?
Well, you may check my thread about the Rohonc Codex (note: this solution isn't universally accepted):
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In that case you don't have classical Rosetta stone (a text in two languages) but the text tells known stories and has illustrations suggesting the context. It's up to you if you call it "Rosetta stone" or not.
But yes, understanding unknown language, not similar to anything known, is hard. Take Etruscan for example ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ). We can even read it but still can understand only small fragments of it. I would say it's some general pattern - you don't just crack it and suddenly understand 100% of it but rather learn it in small steps, word by word, often through a long period.
RE: A semantic encoding system? - ReneZ - 06-05-2026
Predicting the future based on what happened in the past will not work.
RE: A semantic encoding system? - Jonas Barnun - 06-05-2026
(06-05-2026, 11:15 AM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:So in the absence of a key to decode it, this hypothesis implies the VMS will remain obscure no matter how much time we spend analyzing it’s structure. Am I wrong? Are there ways to translate a totally unknown and unrelated language without any rosetta stone?
Well, you may check my thread about the Rohonc Codex (note: this solution isn't universally accepted):
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
In that case you don't have classical Rosetta stone (a text in two languages) but the text tells known stories and has illustrations suggesting the context. It's up to you if you call it "Rosetta stone" or not.
Waw that’s amazing! I am super impressed, congrats! Do you have an updated paper to download, some of the links I tried were dead.
I guess a text telling the story of Jesus with pictures is helpful and it is a kind of minimal rosetta stone. I love the way he / she writes 40 like four times the sign for 10, a bit rudimentary but efficient!
After you’re done with Rohonc you’ll start tackling the VMS?
I guess I agree with you a language with no context and minimal / ambiguous drawings offers little to build on. Etruscan is indeed another example and it makes sense. Languages are somehow random and the signifier link with the signified is mostly random. Structures and statistics alone don’t allow to assign meaning to a text.