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+--- Thread: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against (/thread-4746.html)
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against - oshfdk - 11-02-2026
(11-02-2026, 02:56 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is not just that the number of occurrences of daiin (5) or daiin|dair|laiin (8) in the longest SPS parag is similar to the number of occurrences of 主治 (6) or 主 (7) in the longest SBJ recipe. The main point is that the relative positions of those occurrences, with are quite irregularly spaced, are remarkably similar in the two parags. The five occurrences of daiin match five of the seven occurrences of 主, while the eight occurrences of daiin|dair|laiin match all seven, with one left over.
They are somewhat similar, but I have no idea whether this is significant or not mathematically. How likely is this to be a coincidence?
Is the below an adequate visual representation of the argument?
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against - oshfdk - 11-02-2026
I wouldn't really consider the second match (lowermost line of the three on the chart), because the decision to include laiin and dair, but at the same time ignore dain and daim and kaiin and taiin seems completely arbitrary.
(edit to add an updated graphic)
So, the argument to consider is the following:
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against - nablator - 11-02-2026
(11-02-2026, 11:00 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.How likely is this to be a coincidence?
298 daiin, 60 dair, 36 laiin. Arbitrary choice of daiin, dair, laiin and not other similar words as you noticed. Any Chinese character allowed for the identification (主 is arbitrary, there could be a better match with some other character, in many paragraphs instead of one). Any offset allowed. Qualitative assessment of how well the positions match... enough said.
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against - Antonio García Jiménez - 11-02-2026
Responding to DG97EEB:
I have a lot of respect for Jorge Stolfi as a person, but I have little respect for his theories about the Voynich Manuscript.
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against - Jorge_Stolfi - 11-02-2026
(11-02-2026, 08:10 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have marked the words that appear twice or more with the respective colors. However, I don't see any consistent correspondence in the Voynich manuscript that seems to fit.
First, you must pay attention to the diacritics, that indicate the tones.
The word zhǐ 止 in line 2 is a completely different word than the zhì 治 in the compound zhǔ zhì 主治 = "main use" = daiin.
Likewise the word pì 辟 in line 2 is a completely different word than the pí 肶 and the pí 皮 in line 5.
This last case shows another problem: different characters may have the same sound in modern Mandarin, but may have different meanings, and thus may have had different sounds in another language/dialect, or in Mandarin of the 1400s. On line 5, the first pí 肶 in my SBJ file is in fact is a "traditional" character which is used today only in traditional medicine (and got omitted from that page 8 figure because of bug in by TeX macros.), while the other pí is a recently "simplified" character whose general sense is "skin". Google translates the five characters pí chī guǒ huáng pí 肶胵裹黄皮 into Cantonese as "bei2 ci3 gwo2 wong4 pei2" (note that the first and last syllables are different). It translates the same five characters into Vietnemese as "Da vàng bao quanh lớp lót bụng" (7 syllables), into Thai as "k̄hị̂ thịfxyd̒ mī xākār h̄nāw s̄ạ̀n læa k̄hị̂ s̄ūng" ผิวหนังสีเหลืองห่อหุ้มเยื่อบุช่องท้อง (duh, lots of syllables), and into English as "Yellow skin wrapped around the ventral lining" (7 words 11 syllables).
The character bái 白 has the general meaning "white", and it occurs three times: in the middle of line 2, at the end of line 6, and near the end of the last line. This last one should have no Voynichese correspondence because the last two sentences of the SBJ entry (veterinary uses?) seem to be omitted from the SPS; see below. But on line 2 it is part of the compound bái wò 白沃, which in this context is translated as "leukorrhea" (whitish vaginal discharge), or of chì bái wò 赤白沃 ("reddish leukorrhea"), whereas on line 6 it really means "white" (shǐ bái 屎白 must be the white part of bird poo, which is uric acid from the kidneys). So, again, the translations of those terms into another language may have no sound in common.
The character zǐ 子 has the general meaning "child". It occurs twice, on line 2 and on line 8 (bottom). But on the first line it is part of the compound nǚ zǐ 女子 which means "woman"; on line 8 it is part of jī zǐ 鸡子 meaning "eggs". Again, it is quite possible than in another language or dialect the translation of these two compounds does not use the same syllable. However, still, there are indeed two occurrences of qoee in the SPS text, at about the right places...
Finally, on line 7 (2 from bottom) there is a repeated character hán hán 寒寒. In about the same position the SPS has ytaiin.otair. Note that the ending in with a raised n could be confused with an r with a low plume; and y seems to have a function similar to o, and the two are often confused -- by the transcribers, by the BEEPs, and presumably by the Scribe. And then there may be You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. going on...
Here is a better version of that page 8 figure, showing the parts that seem to have been omitted in the SPS version, and with the original EVA spaces:
Code:
[0] 03 丹雄鸡：
[0] 03 dān xióng jī:
[0] 02 poar.keeo
[1] 04 味甘微温。
[1] 04 wèi gān wēi wēn.
[1] 00 ---
[2] 25 主治女子崩中漏下，赤白沃，补虚，温中，止血通神，杀毒，辟不祥。头，
[2] 25 zhǔ zhì nǚ zǐ bēng zhōng lòu xià, chì bái wò, bǔ xū, wēn zhōng, zhǐ xiě tōng shén, shā dú, pì bù xiáng. tóu,
[2] 23 daiin.qoair.ar.acphhey.qoeedeody.qokaiin.qotedair.apo,rair,apy // lsheody.tair.oteey.oteeo.ol.otaiin.okeey.qokaiin.or.aiir.al.dar // sheeo.
[3] 04 主杀鬼。肪，
[3] 04 zhǔ shā guǐ. fáng,
[3] 03 daiin.chsd.qokeeey.
[4] 05 主治耳聋。肠，
[4] 05 zhǔ zhì ěr lóng. cháng,
[4] 03 dair.okaiin.otaiin.che-->>
[5] 09 主治遗溺。肶胵裹黄皮，
[5] 09 zhǔ zhì yí nì. pí chī guǒ huáng pí,
[5] 10 daiin.olkal.lkl,dain // doee.okcheeo.ltaiin.otcheedy.chor.aiin.o-->>
[6] 06 主治泄利。屎白，
[6] 06 zhǔ zhì xiè lì. shǐ bái,
[6] 05 daiin.chedy.otaiin.al.kaishd //
[7] 10 主治消渴，伤寒寒热。翮羽，
[7] 10 zhǔ zhì xiāo kě, shāng hán hán rè. hé yǔ,
[7] 09 laiin.sheod.okeeody.qoaiin.ytaiin.otair.chdal,dy,daim.ch-->
[8] 18 主下血闭。鸡子， 除热火疮，痫痓，可作虎魄神物。
[8] 18 zhǔ xià xuè bì. jī zǐ, chú rè huǒ chuāng, xián chì, kě zuò hǔ pò shén wù.
[8] 18 daiin.ockhhy // yshey.ckhy.sheo.qoeeo.lkaiin.chs,okol.tchdy.sheeey.okaiin.ar.aildy // cheody.oaiir.ain.okshey
[9] 08 鸡白蠹，肥猪。 生平泽。
[9] 08 jī bái dù, féi zhū. shēng píng zé.
[9] 00 ---As before, the entry is split into segments at the occurrences of 主. The numbers in brackets are segment numbers for reference. The numbers after that are the count of Chinese characters and the count of SPS words according to the EVA punctuation. The mark "//" means a line break in the SPS. The mark "-->" means that the segment boundary is in the middle of a word; e.g. from [7] to [8] the EVA text was ...daim.chdaiin.ockhhy....
All the best, --stolfi
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against - Rafal - 11-02-2026
I feel very sorry to say that but like some others I feel it is weak.
Sorry Jorge but I think you may prefer to hear an honest opinion instead of silence.
And it felt for me quite disappointing after all these riddles, anagrams and "fact not theory" claims. "So is this the big thing?" I asked myself.
When you build a hype you need to live up to it.
Some comment:
- daiin, daiir, laiin are supposed in an arbitral way to mean the same but for example aiin or qoaiin are different
- in several cases these words don't even appear in the text but are parts of longer words which is ignored because it suits the theory.
It is like saying word "cat" appears twice in the sentence: "Cat is a category of animals"
- the matching possitions of "zhǔ" and "daiin/daiir/laiin" are still quite approximate
- "zhì" word which appears after "zhǔ" (supposed to be "daiin") is common in Chinese text but is absent in Voynich
- "hán hán" repetition is absent in Voynich
- on the other hand several repetitions in Voynich text aren't explained at all and don't match the Chinese text:
And this Chinese theory misses the fundamental thing - supposed nature of the Voynichese script. Is it phonetic or logographic? Is it alphabetic or syllabic?
If "zhǔ" is "daiin" then "d" is "zh" and "aiin" is "ǔ" ??? How is it supposed to work?
And come on, just one word? It's like claiming you solved VM because you read the word close to Pleiades as Taurus.
I am not totally negative, this theory could be examined further which would give more data supporting or contradicting it.
Check more paragraphs, give meanings to more words, explain why a lot of paragraphs begin with gallows
With the current data I will remain unconvinced.
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against - Jorge_Stolfi - 11-02-2026
(11-02-2026, 11:08 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.the decision to include laiin and dair, but at the same time ignore dain and daim and kaiin and taiin seems completely arbitrary.
It was not arbitrary. After marking the five daiin in the SPS entry and the seven 主 in SBJ entry, I saw that there were a laiin and a dair at positions that closely corresponded to the two unmatched 主.
All the best, --stolfi
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against - oshfdk - 11-02-2026
(11-02-2026, 01:51 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It was not arbitrary. After marking the five daiin in the SPS entry and the seven 主 in SBJ entry, I saw that there were a laiin and a dair at positions that closely corresponded to the two unmatched 主.
Yes, but there are also dain and daim and other similar strings, which didn't correspond to anything, so they were not included in the graph. To me this makes the graph misleading and fooling the audience into thinking the match achieved is much more interesting than it actually is. Frankly, I'm a bit frustrated, because if it was as it's shown on the graph, this would be actually an interesting find.
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against - oshfdk - 11-02-2026
So, this is the way I see it:
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against - nablator - 11-02-2026
(11-02-2026, 02:56 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is not just that the number of occurrences of daiin (5) or daiin|dair|laiin (8) in the longest SPS parag is similar to the number of occurrences of 主治 (6) or 主 (7) in the longest SBJ recipe.
Is it "the longest SPS parag" though? The one starting at f105r.17 would be longer if you didn't shorten it artificially with two paragraphs that have no star in front. If you identified them as paragraphs because of some p, there are instances of them, of course, on lines that are not the first lines of paragraphs.
(EDIT) I just found the detailed explanation. Well, I disagree.
Quote:Considering only the obvious breaks, lines 17-23 would be a single 7-line parag, with starlet S05. That would make it the longest parag of the SPS. While that alone would not make it uspicious, it also fails to be perfect because it has puff words below the head line: @paiir and olfaiin, both on line 20, and @ypair, @oepaiin, and @opail on line 22. It also has @opchey and @chefchedy on the short tail line (23).You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Thus it seems likely that lines 17-23 are actually two or more parags, all but the first without starlets. We decided to break before lines 20 and 22. That created the parags 17-19 (3 lines), 20-21 (2 lines) and 22-23 (2 lines), none of them perfect. But these lines too should be excluded from parag-sensitive analyses.
About the length of the SBJ recipes: the next recipe looks longer to me in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Should they be simplified by removing what is between parenthesis and brackets?