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RE: geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory - ChenZheChina - 18-04-2019
(continued)
4. Other statistical properties.
As stated by MarcoP You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., the VMS has a lot of well-known statistical properties like entropy and others.
I think word structure, line as a functional unit and word frequency might be somehow explained by solving common words as separated prefixes and suffixes. Since I don’t know Greek words or grammar, I’m not going to pursue further at these points.
However, entropy, Currier A vs B and reduplication and quasi-reduplication has nothing to do with whether we write prefixes and suffixes joined or separated.
I saw your answer to the entropy question You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., but it would be better if we could see some pieces of actual texts, converting from plaintext Greek to Voynichese and getting the similar statistical results. I don’t think this question could be answered just by some qualitative descriptions. We need quantitative data.
For other questions (Currier A vs B and reduplication and quasi-reduplication), as I said above, I’m not expecting to see an answer soon, either. But, again, when you have finished translating the whole manuscript, there should have already been an answer to these questions.
(to be continued…)
RE: geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory - ChenZheChina - 18-04-2019
(15-04-2019, 11:33 AM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.…
I have in mind of course a late medieval Greek speaker and reader for whom reading and using such a pharmacopoeia was a regular part of their daily life experience and practice. It is more difficult for us in modern times, even for a native speaker, since we no longer need to use such pharmacopoeias on a regular basis. But if you lived in the 15th century, and the life and health of your family members depended on your ability to read and understand the pharmacopoeia, I bet you could learn to become surprisingly proficient in reading and understanding the meaning of such a text even in a 10-letter alphabet form.
Geoffrey
(continued)
5. Pharmacopœia?
My last concern is quite simple.
If the pharmacopœia is so important that the lives of your whole family is depending on it, why the writer had to obscure it in the first place? If I were the writer, I would make the book as clear as possible.
Yes, it is possible for me to read something like this, as long as I was the encrypter and I knew the context. But, everyone makes mistakes, especially when they are in a hurry. I don’t want to make any mistake when my family member gets sick and needs me to give them treatments as soon as possible (reads: in a hurry).
I wonder if there is any firm evidence that such [font=Noto Sans Display, Noto Sans, Calibri, sans-serif]obscured pharmac[font=Noto Sans Display, Noto Sans, Calibri, sans-serif]opœia has really existed[/font].[/font]
RE: geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory - -JKP- - 18-04-2019
Passing on trade secrets from father to son would be more likely. I have encountered a number of manuscripts that were apparently created by fathers for their sons. Unfortunately, this was early in my VMS research and I did not record the links, I was simply trying to understand the culture better.
RE: geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory - ReneZ - 18-04-2019
JKP, I wonder if you mean 'trade' in the meaning of 'profession' rather than 'commerce'.
RE: geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory - -JKP- - 18-04-2019
In this case, yes, Rene, that's a better term. It seems more like a "book of knowledge" for professional use (e.g., apothecary, physician, or something along those lines). It doesn't strike me as strongly as a merchant's manual, although that's one of the possibilities.
RE: geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory - geoffreycaveney - 18-04-2019
Dear Chen Zhe:
Thank you again for all of the clear and detailed critical points that you raise. I appreciate this constructive criticism very much.
To address the last point first, clearly there was some intention to conceal the contents of the MS. If it was written in Greek, in any form, the writer had to know that simply the script alone would obscure its meaning, simply by not being written in Greek letters, Hebrew letters, Latin letters, or any other generally known script. The ambiguity of the sound values of the characters is a separate issue, but the script alone indicates an intention to conceal the contents.
On the question of reduplication and quasi-reduplication, this question actually arose in a discussion between Marco and myself in a separate thread recently, "Experimental replica of VMS properties with a given corpus", on page 5 of the thread. Marco's post was #48 in the thread; my reply was #49 in the thread. You can read You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. My main point is brief, so I can quote it again in full right here:
"If many syllables are written separately, and if sequences such as /ten/, /dyn/, and /thain/ can be written identically as homographs, then it is much more likely that these syllables will occur consecutively in a text, creating the appearance of reduplication of Voynichese words."
Here are a couple potential examples, from a passage of Dioscorides' original Greek text of De Materia Medica (which name is of course the well-known title of the Latin translation): One Greek word in the text is "επικλυσθεντων". First of all, I think that the author of the Voynich MS in many cases simply chose to place "word breaks" after certain characters, such as Voynich [y], [n], [l], and [r], when they occur at the end of a syllable. In this long Greek word, the sigma in the middle of the word ends a syllable, and it is written with Voynich [y], so here the author places a Voynich word break. Likewise the following two syllables end in Greek nu, which would be written here as Voynich [l] or [(i)in], so again it is likely that each syllable would be written as a separate Voynich word. Now given the ambiguous nature of the script in my theory, there are several ways that each syllable could be written, but the last two syllables could be written as identical Voynich words: [shol shol], for example.
In the "pharmacopoeia" exercise that I posted recently in this thread, in this case I actually chose to encrypt Dioscorides' Greek word "επικλυσθεντων" as [odcthardy shaiin shol]. Furthermore, the Greek article/pronoun "των" occurs immediately before this word, so I encrypted the whole phrase as [shol odcthardy shaiin shol]. But it could also be written as [shol odcthardy shol shol] in my system.
Here is another example from Discorides: in the text, the Greek word sequence "απλουσθαι, δυνοντος" occurs. I have written about the phenomenon in Greek grammar known as You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. In the Voynich MS text, I conclude that the author used this movable nu even more extensively than it typically would be used in classical Greek, which would explain the large number of Voynich words ending in Greek nu (Voynich [l] or [(i)in]) rather than a Greek vowel. So in the case of this word sequence, the Voynich author would write it as if it were "απλουσθαι([font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]ν), δυνοντος[/font]". As in the above example, the sigma in the middle of the first word at the end of a syllable would prompt a Voynich word break, so that the syllables "θαι([font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]ν[/font])" at the end of one word, and "δυν" at the start of the next word, would each be written as separate, consecutive Voynich words. These syllables could appear in the Voynich MS text as the Voynich word sequence [shaiin shaiin].
In my pharmacopoeia exercise, I actually chose to encrypt these two words "απλουσθαι([font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]ν[/font]), δυνοντος" as [odar ody shaiin ckhaiin olky].
The exercise of encrypting such actual Greek texts into Voynichese according to my system has taught me that in order to express the rhyme (vowel + coda consonant, that is, syllable-final consonant) "/-in/", the author must have used Voynich [a(i)in], because [chl] and [el] are too rare to account for this common Greek rhyme. In this instance the Voynich character [a] has no phonetic value in the syllable; it is simply a placeholder, apparently for aesthetic reasons, because the author never wanted to write such sequences as [sh(i)in], [s(i)in], or [k(i)in]. (Although in fact [kiin], [kin], and [sin] do occur in the MS, albeit very, very rarely, as does [kil].)
I note that the use of [-aiin] to express Greek "/-in/" was not a barrier to Koffee's reading and comprehension of the other passage posted earlier in the thread.
Likewise Voynich [a] is simply a placeholder in the words [odcthardy] and [odar] in the phrases above, since according to my system the Greek clusters "/kl/" and "/pl/" must be written with a placeholder Voynich [a] in between them in the MS, since for example the sequence [dr] is rare, [cthr] is very rare, and [tr] is non-existent.
I will follow Chen Zhe's example and address separate points in separate posts. More to come.
Thank you very much again Chen Zhe for your thorough and constructive criticism of all of these points in my theory.
Geoffrey
RE: geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory - geoffreycaveney - 18-04-2019
(18-04-2019, 08:52 AM)ChenZheChina Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(continued)
3. [d] as a substitute for [p] and [f]
From You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., it seems that you propose [font=Eva]d as a possible (but not purely) substitute for p and f, because of:
[/font]
Quote:
- d may be representing /u~v/, while
- p and f may be representing /b~f~p/, and
- Betacism may caused the writer to write /v/ for /b/, and from where it was extended to writing /v/ for /f~p/
The last line does not seem likely to happen to me, but I cannot say it’s impossible. However, Emma then posted these statistical facts:
Quote:
- [d] is common on the first line of a paragraph, which would need to be explained.
- [p, f] are shorter when written away from the first line of paragraphs and [k, t] are taller when written on the first line. The scribe was capable of adjusting the glyph height.
- [d, l, r, s] all lack significant number of [e] following them.
- [p, f] take relatively good numbers of [ch, sh] following them, which [d] does not, especially away from the start of the line.
So, it seems that the [font=Eva]d cannot replace p and f freely, as they have distinct stats.
Again, the question arises in the first line of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., where the same Greek word είπαν (eípan) appear twice, but the same Greek letter π (p) are written in Voynichese as d and p, respectively.
Since the stats are different for d, p and f, it would be great if we could have a general rule about when to use d. I guess the final answer must be based on very large amount of texts, so that the rule could be general enough to cover most cases. Therefore, I’m not expecting to see an answer soon, but when you have finished translating the whole manuscript, there should have already been an answer to this question.
(to be continued…)[/font]
Dear Chen Zhe:
Thank you again for raising this question, which is clearly a critical issue, as Emma, Marco, nablator, and others have pointed to as well.
Your observation of the contrast of the same word in the same line written once as [teeodaiin] and once as [epaiin] prompted me to consider and test the following hypothesis:
[d] is written as a substitute for [p] or [f] in the following cases:
(1) anywhere other than the first line of a paragraph
(2) in any position in which one of the gallows characters [k], [t], [p], [f] has already been written earlier in the word
To test this second and latest hypothesis, I performed the following statistical analysis:
Using the data available at voynichese.com, I calculated the total number of Voynich words in which each significant Voynich character [a, ch, d, e, f, k, l, o, p, r, s, sh, t, y] occurs in medial position, using the string [*x*]. (Medial position is relevant because [p] and [f] are rare in final position in any case, and for this hypothesis we are only considering a position somewhere after a gallows character in the word.)
Then I calculated the amount of such words in which each character occurs in medial position somewhere after, but not immediately after, a gallows character in the word, by using the strings [k*x*], [t*x*], [p*x*], [f*x*], and adding the four values together. ("Not immediately after" is relevant, since we are investigating substitution for [p] and [f], and we know from the work of Emma and others that two gallows characters almost never occur adjacent to each other in a word in any case in the MS.)
Then for each character I divided the latter value by the former value, to produce a percentage of medial occurrences of each character that occur somewhere after, but not immediately after, a gallows character in the same Voynich word.
Here are all the data on all 14 of these Voynich characters for each of these three calculations:
medial [o] : 14441
medial [e] : 14209
medial [a] : 11749
medial [k] : 9633
medial [d] : 8606
medial [t] : 5864
medial [ch] : 4933
medial [l] : 3198
medial [r] : 1299
medial [sh] : 1243
medial [p] : 1076
medial [y] : 471
medial [s] : 445
medial [f] : 360
-------
5236 [gallows*e*]
4705 [gallows*d*]
3053 [gallows*o*]
1641 [gallows*a*]
899 [gallows*l*]
465 [gallows*r*]
451 [gallows*ch*]
248 [gallows*k*]
167 [gallows*sh*]
139 [gallows*s*]
127 [gallows*t*]
111 [gallows*y*]
45 [gallows*p*]
41 [gallows*f*]
-------
gallows*[x]* / all medial *[x]* for each character:
[d] : 54.7%
[e] : 36.8%
[r] : 35.8%
[s] : 31.2%
[l] : 28.1%
[y] : 23.6%
all glyphs : 22.3%
[o] : 21.1%
[a] : 14.0%
[sh] : 13.4%
[f] : 11.4%
[ch] : 9.1%
[p] : 4.2%
[k] : 2.6%
[t] : 2.2%
-------
We see from the data that medial occurrences of [d] after, but not immediately after, a gallows character in the same word, constitute a much higher proportion of all medial occurrences of [d], more than half of them, than is the case for any other Voynich character.
We also see that [p] in particular is extremely rare in medial position after, but not immediately after, a gallows character in the same word, with only 45 of its 1076 total medial occurrences being in such a position.
The data is so extreme, in fact, that the question becomes not whether [d] is a substitute for [p] and [f] in this position, but rather, whether [d] is not also a substitute for all gallows characters in this position!?
However, I hope that is not the case, because that would be taking the ambiguity of the value of [d] a bit too far, to the point where we might never be able to hope to read and correctly interpret the text.
Rather, we also see that [s] is quite frequent in the same such position as well, and my theory already proposes that [s] is an alternate character for [k].
Accounting for the rarity of [t] in this position is more challenging, but I may propose the following:
First of all, in Greek the letter kappa is not nearly so frequent in medial position, or as the second consonant of a root, as tau is. Words and roots like "kata" and "okto" are common; words and roots like *"taka" and *"otko" are not. That's why we have Greek borrowings such as "category" and "octagon" in our languages today, but not words like *"tacagory" or *"otcagon". (Note: in my analysis of Voynich word breaks, the second parts of words such as these could be written as separate Voynich words, so that "-gory" and "-gon" would be distinct Voynich words, and the Greek gamma would still occur as the first consonant of the Voynich word, not as a medial letter somewhere after another Voynich gallows character consonant in the same word.)
Second, in some cases we may have Greek gamma pronounced as a y-glide, as in "gyro", in which case it could be written in the Voynich script as [e], as I have already accounted for in my letter correspondence table. In this case, the relatively high frequency of medial [e] somewhere after, but not immediately after, a gallows character in the same word, as my data presented above clearly show, could also be the result of the substitution of [e] for [t] to represent Greek gamma.
The main point of this study, in any case, is to highlight the environment of medial position after a gallows character in the same word, in which position [p] and [f] are very rare, and in which position [d] is extremely common, much more so than any other character in the Voynich MS, in comparison to all of its medial occurrences. The substitution of [d] for [p] and [f] in this position would explain this data, and it would also explain additional occurrences of [d] in the first lines of paragraphs, where we would otherwise expect more [p] and [f] and fewer [d], but where we in fact still find plenty of occurrences of [d].
Geoffrey
RE: geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory - geoffreycaveney - 19-04-2019
Following up my observation in the previous post about the extreme frequency of medial occurrences of [d] after, but not immediately after, a gallows character in the same word, and the rarity of such occurrences of [p] and [f], I have now researched and can present here much more substantial specific evidence in support of the hypothesis that [d] is a substitute for [p] or [f] in such positions:
I have researched each of the 86 such occurrences of [p] and [f] in the MS, in medial position and somewhere after another gallows character in the same word. In a substantial number of cases, which I present below, such words are apparent doublets of the exact same word with [d] in place of [p] or [f], which usually appears more frequently with [d].
There are three categories of such words:
- [d] as a substitute for [p] or [f]
- [d] as a substitute for [ep] or [ef]
- [d] as a substitute for [cph] or [cfh]
The most striking example of all actually has an extraneous [c] after the [f] in that form of the word, but this does not detract from the example:
[qokeefcy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[qokeedy] occurs 305 times
This is not an isolated example. In fact, there are almost two dozen more examples of such words, with a more precise substitution of [d] for [p]/[f], [ep]/[ef], or [cph]/[cfh]. (In two cases only there is [cfhh] for [cfh], or [cphh] for [cph].) Many of the words in question are quite long, and unlikely to occur in such pairs by coincidence or chance.
Here are the numerous examples of this substitution phenomenon in Voynich MS words:
[d] for [p] or [f] :
[opchepy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[opchedy] occurs 50 times, and 35 more times as part of a longer word
[oteofy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 1
[oteody] occurs 39 times, and 14 more times as part of a longer word
[topaiin] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[todaiin] occurs 9 times, and 11 more times as part of a longer word
[qokopy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[qokody] occurs 9 times
[kolpy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[koldy] occurs 7 times, and 16 more times as part of a longer word
[shckhefy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[shckhedy] occurs 6 times
[chepchefy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[chepchedy] occurs 2 times
[pchofar] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[pchodar] occurs 2 times
[cphhofy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[cphody] occurs 2 times, and 1 more time as part of a longer word
[ykofar] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[ykodar] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 1
=======
[d] for [ep] or [ef] :
[okcheefy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[okchedy] occurs 25 times, and 42 more times as part of a longer word
[qokeoefy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 2
[qokeody] occurs 32 times
[qofcheepy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[qofchedy] occurs 8 times
[cthoepain] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 1
[cthodaiin] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
=======
[d] for [cph] or [cfh] :
[qopchcfhy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[qopchdy] occurs 15 times
[fchecfhy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[fchedy] occurs 11 times, and 28 more times as part of a longer word
[fchcfhy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 5
[fchdy] occurs 4 times, and 17 more times as part of a longer word
[pcheocphy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[pcheody] occurs 7 times, and 5 more times as part of a longer word
[ckhcfhhy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
[ckhdy] occurs 4 times, and 24 more times as part of a longer word
[ykocfhy] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 1
[ykody] occurs 2 times
[pchecfhey] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 6
[pchedey] : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
=======
Geoffrey
RE: geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory - RenegadeHealer - 15-10-2019
Geoffrey, thank you for a highly enjoyable read; I've spent pieces of the last 5 days savoring this thread up to this point. Pro sports fandom has never been my thing, but the vicarious thrills of seeing you present and defend your theory give me some idea of what this must feel like. Whether it pans out or not, for now I'm rooting for your theory, and am certain that even if it turns out to be wrong, it will serve as a valuable stepping stone to the correct theory.
I appreciate several things about Geoffrey Caveney's Judeo-Greek Theory (GCJGT) that I think we all could learn from:
- While the merits of taking a bottom-up, tree-view approach to a mystery needs no explanation to any serious scientist or historian, taking a forest-view, top-down approach nevertheless has its place.
- It takes a thick skin — and a readiness to learn lots, lots more about lots of different subjects — to propose and defend any grand overarching theory of anything. Geoffrey stands out among most Voynich.ninja users who have attempted the same.
- The proposed steps from human speech to Voynichese are plausible, and explained in a logically coherent way. (Note that I didn't say "likely", just "plausible".)
- The theory is testable, and I think a lot of contributors to this thread have already brainstormed some good ideas about ways to test it, which are very doable, and transferrable to similar theories.
- A transliteration table that assigns each vord: A likely Yevanic word in Hebrew script, Greek script, and Romanized transliteration, and a confidence score for the latter. I'm picturing a system where a using a degree of freedom to get from one written symbol to another incurs a point, and the vords with the fewest points are assigned the highest confidence. I'm still trying to work out the list of point-incurring violations, but I'd want it to systematically account for all the instances where a guess or an unclear choice was made. Then focus translation / decryption efforts on the paragraphs of the VMS that seem to have the highest confidence scores.
- Bolstering support for GCJGT by listing out all of the assumptions it rests on in a flowchart, and finding data to support each one in turn. For example, David Jackson correctly pointed out that GCJGT assumes that Yevanic writers used an inconsistent and ad-hoc mishmash of matres lectiones and vowel dots in the writing of spoken Judeo-Greek. Maybe. A further assumption that rests upon this one (and is no less crucial to the validity of the theory), is that often these "intended" vowel markers of either type were left out entirely by Yevanic writers. Maybe. If this were my doctoral thesis, I'd probably be tracking down pretty much every piece of written Yevanic known to exist, with highest priority given to specimens contemporaneous with the VMS's composition. If nothing I found remotely supported the assumptions that David Jackson pointed out, I'd seriously reconsider the theory.
- Reconciling the final version of the crib for GCJGT with the well-documented differences in Currier A and Currier B, and speculating on what in the spoken and written Yevanic language might explain this discrepancy.
I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none, who has long had an interest in languages and linguistics, and might have gone into this field if I hadn't chosen medicine instead. I've long thought that I'd love to find someone who has worked seriously with many foreign languages, show them the VMS, and ask them to just filter it through all they've learned and see what jumps out at them. In a sense, this is exactly what Geoffrey did, in noticing [epairody] in the first line of f67r, and seeing "iperious" jump out at him. Proving this is the hard part of course. But it's struck me that it may take someone with a very broad and non-traditional fund of knowledge to stare at the VMS and see a viable pull-string.
RE: geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory - Stephen Carlson - 15-10-2019
I would absolutely love it if the VM were written in Greek, of any time period. I've been working with Greek for decades and this would mean that I could read it if we only could decipher the writing system. But ... I don't think the Judeo-Greek theory is viable. Every purported translation on this thread is bad, ungrammatical Greek with nonsense words. Unless the theory is that the VM is written in Greek by someone who doesn't know Greek, this theory is a dead end.