(08-06-2026, 09:40 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(07-06-2026, 04:39 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It sounds strange that you know the source text but can't guess the language, especially in the context of language theory.

Why is it strange? The way I got to that conclusion does not depend on the language, and does not give any information about it.  Except the meaning (but not the sound!) of one Voynichese word.

Quote:... you have a huge amount of materials on the phonology of that time (thanks to the comparativists).

But I don't know Mandarin or any other "Chinese" language. So I will leave that part of the work for others...

Quote:... if the author were writing Chinese using an invented system, then this system should be at least easy for Europeans to understand, but at the same time, he clearly sought to convey the phonetics most accurately.

Try to imagine the situation.  The most pressing concern must have been to record what the Dictator was saying, without slowing him down too much.  Only in second place, the notation should let him later read what he wrote and (if he had the time) ask some doctor to please explain what "bèn tún" meant, so that he could put that in his glossary.

Quote:... the Voynich manuscript was created not only for one author, but also for someone else).

But what we have is not what the Author created when he was in "China".  It is a clean copy that he had created back in Europe. Possibly when he has old and almost but not quite poor.  

This copy was indeed created for others.  By that time he still must have ignored the meaning of most words and compounds. But maybe he hoped to sell it to some curious scholar or doctor. Or created the copy for such a friend or heir.

Quote:If the book turns out to be incomprehensible (because, as you say, the author could be incompetent in the field of Chinese medicine), then why did he write it at all? Where can it be used in this form?

As Baresch himself wrote to Kircher, "From the pictures of herbs, of which there are a great many in the codex, and of varied images, stars and other things bearing the appearance of chemical symbolism, it is my guess that the whole thing is medical, the most beneficial branch of learning for the human race apart from the salvation of souls. This task is not beneath the dignity of a powerful intellect. [...] In fact it is easily conceivable that some man of quality went to oriental parts in quest of true medicine (he would have grasped that popular medicine here in Europe is of little value)."

Quote:the author has written about 270 pages in total, drawn many diagrams, charts, and plants... without understanding what he is writing about?

He certainly knew that it was the most revered book of pharmacy in "China", and must have been fluent enough in the language to know that it listed remedies for many diseases that he could identify.  

He probably understood what "xìng hé rén" and "ē jiāo" were, and what condition "jīn chuāng" was. He may even have tried "má fén" himself when he was there, and as a result knew well what "jiàn guǐ" meant.

But the only drawings that were in his original draft were probably the plants parts of Pharma, the organs and vessels of Bio, and maybe rough sketches of some of the Cosmo diagrams, including the nine-rosette map.  Al the plants in Herbal were probably made up, except for the few parts that he had sketched in Pharms; perhaps because he realized that no one in Europe, at that time, would buy a herbal without full-page drawings of the whole plants.

The only meaningful information in each Zodiac page is probably the circular text and the list of 15 or 30 labels; and that may be all that there was in his draft. The meaningful information contents of the nine-rosettes map diagram, apart from the text and labels, is probably only the arrangement of nine "islands" connected by causeways or bridges, with the bare "facts" (probably noted only in the text of his draft) that there was a volcano here, a castle there, six towers over there, etc..  

Everything else, including the nymphs and the details of the "islands" and castles, was probably made up by the Scribe in Europe, with "inspiration" from other European books.

Quote:It may be shorthand, but that doesn't change the fact that you need to check the text itself rather than just speculating.

And I am checking the text of each recipe against the candidate parags.  As shown in my PDF paper. 

Quote:The point of this objection is that even if Voynich is readable, it would be completely incomprehensible to an ordinary European, even a merchant who had visited Asia, because it would be unclear how to read it.

An ordinary European would not understand a word from a book in Hebrew, Arabic, Armenian, or even Greek.  But many scholars would acquire such books and learn the language and script just to read them.  Moretus, the Jesuit priest in Prague who carried the first letter by Barsch to Kircher, himself asked Kircher to identify the language and script in a bookled that he had. (It turned out to be Illyrian, which may be old Slovenian, in the Glagolitic script.)

The Author must have compiled a glossary of the language, not just for the book but by his own use while in "China".  But it must have been on paper -- and most paper manuscripts of the time have rotted away, or were used by cooks and maids as fire starters.

Quote:if you've discovered something for one part of the manuscript, you'll need to try to apply it to all the other parts as well.

No I don't. 

You are still thinking of the VMS as if it was a cryptographic puzzle.  It is more like a "lost language" puzzle, like deciphering Etruscan or Linear A. The complete "solution" may take deecades, will be obtained a few words at a time, and my never be known in its entirety.

Comparison of the SPS with the SBJ should eventually give us several hundred words used in the latter -- mostly the names of diseases and Chinese plant and animal products, and the major organs.  With luck, the Herbal and Pharma sections may be in the same language, and many of those words will be used there, too. 

But that probably will not be of much help for Cosmo and even Bio.  Unless we can identify other "Chinese" books that were the sources for those sections...

Quote: then you can potentially say more about the similarities between Voynichese and Chinese.

I can already say with some confidence that the SPS matches the Chinese text of the SBJ almost one word for one character.  

But that would be the case for any of the 50+ Chinese "dialects".  And even if "China" was actually (say) Vietnam, a doctor there would still have read the SBJ from a Chinese text, either with some pseudo-Chinese sound or by translating each character literally into Vietnamese, without regard for the (very different) Vietnamese grammar and word order.

Quote:The book doesn't contain a topic that is clearly related to China or, at least, to Chinese culture.

Medicine, herbalism, and astrology were much more important in Chinese culture than in the European one.  The main medical books used in the 1400s had been composed with heavy State support and were widely available as woodblock prints.  

What other books would the Author have chosen to transcribe? He would not have cared for Chinese mythology, philosophy, religion, history, ...

Quote:what do Rosettes mean in the context of Chinese culture?

I do not know what the nine-rosettes is meant to depict.  It is not from the SBJ.  Maybe someone will care to scan Chinese books that locals could have been recommended to the Author, and find the original source. 

Maybe it was meant to be a schematic diagram of the world as known by locals.  Perhaps the two "islands" with volcanoes represent Japan and the Philippines...  

Maybe it depicts a mythical faraway archipelago with gold-paved streets and trees that yield rubies and emeralds and armored pigs that dig burrows and fierce people who make tortillas from a strange yellow wheat with foot-long ears...

Quote:Why, if the Rosettes are a map, do we see patterns on it that resemble European architecture?

We don't see any "European patterns".  Is there any place in Europe that could be depicted as nine-islands connected by causeways in that pattern?  Or any depiction of an imaginary place like that in an European book?

The castles look European, but the draft probably said only "draw a castle here" and the Scribe made up the rest.

And in fact one of the towers looks like an Islamic minaret, and the six towers at the center look  Russian or Persian, not European...

Quote:Or the balneological section?

Unlike European books, Chinese books did not avoid anatomical descriptions and drawing; which is probably the true topic of Bio.

Quote:all the sources tell me that it's not an encyclopedia, but a book about plants and agriculture.

The SBJ is indeed a materia medica: a terse list of remedies and their indications. There are only a few mentions of alchemical uses of the substances (for instance, it says that chicken eggs can be turned into amber.) Without methods of preparation (which presumably would be the job of pharmacists) or dosages (which would be decided by each doctor for each case). 

The original (from ~300 BCE) said nothing about cultivation or harvesting of the herbs.  Brief notes about the latter were added to it over the next 800 years, and were included in the massive medieval encyclopedias; but were apparently omitted by the Author.

Quote:It may not be a reference book, but it is at least a book that can be used regularly.

The big medieval encyclopedias that included the SBJ surely were working reference books -- in "China".  It seems that in Korea the SBJ was even an obligatory subject in medicine courses.

However, the transcription that the Author brought to Europe could not be used as a reference book. At best, another European author could glean from it some new uses for European herbs, that he would include in his own book.

Quote: Most likely. But this doesn't explain why Voynichese is so resistant to research and why we still have difficulty understanding it. 

On the contrary, it explains it. Most people who have tackled the VMS went down the same wrong path: "The material is European, the glyph shapes and writing direction and text layout are European, the Zodiac signs are European, the castles clothes hats look European -- "therefore" the book was written in Europe by an European Author, and it is either gibberish or in an European language.  And since we have ruled out a simple substitution cipher for the latter, it must be some complicated cipher."

But no cipher is as hard to crack as a natural language that is different from any language you know...

Quote:Perhaps this is true. But why did the author allow the scribe he hired to write something unclear?

I don't understand what you are referring to, sorry.  The Author's handwriting on the draft was probably poor (and that could be one of the reasons for recruiting a Scribe for the clan vellum copy).  He may have had poor eyesight, like Marci had when he sent the book to Kircher (and that could be another reason). 

Even if the Author noticed errors by the Scribe, fixing them would have made the book uglier.

Quote:Let me remind you that you have the opportunity to correct all these mistakes

Thanks, that is quite generous of you.

All the best, --srolfi

(11-06-2026, 11:45 PM)rikforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I've outlined how the fact these are fully realized languages applies to Classical Chinese several times now, and why the differences are so hard on the COT ...

Quote:I think that assumption does not sit with other assumptions you've made or conclusions you've drawn

Quote:Depending on where [the Standard language] it is being taught, it is sometimes realized with the prescribed standard pronunciation from Beijing, but in Guangdong specifically it is taught using a Guangzhou phonetic standard. ... To be fair, I have seen sources word this in a way that really does imply Standard Chinese with Guangzhou's pronunciation is simply Cantonese.

Quote:Languages that are not Mandarin have different vocabulary, syntax, and particles, so regardless of phonology ... The differences exceed the linguistic diversity in the Romance family

Quote:The reason why the popular movements largely agreed to stop using the 2500 year old [written] language of the elite classes was because it was frigging hard to teach. Recitations [in any dialect] are hard to understand, it has remote grammar, and a large proportion (like, 80%+) of the [classical readings of] lexicon [in any dialect] had changed usage and/or meaning.

Quote:It is sometimes hard to tell if they are glossing over the little hitch that Standard Chinese read this way is not mutually intelligible with Cantonese or genuinely in error

(12-06-2026, 12:07 AM)rikforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It passed through "雄鸡", which is an archaism only used in academic writings.

(12-06-2026, 09:58 AM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi, Ololololo!
You don't have to quote an entire message to give your reply.

(12-06-2026, 12:36 AM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As a small tip, you could learn more about the historical context

Quote:compare the grammar of Voynichese with the grammar of Early Modern Chinese

(12-06-2026, 11:52 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I can't do that because I have not yet found how to read the Voynichese script, and I have identified only 3-4 words (and only 2 with some confidence)

(12-06-2026, 03:18 PM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What are [your cribs]?

Quote:Also I had a question about whether you may have developed a page ordering for quire 20 based on any of your crib matches or basic lengths of paragraphs?

(12-06-2026, 04:19 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I need the translation because there are some parts of each entry that were systematically omitted by the Author, like the classification of each drug within Chinese medical theory (like 味甘微温  = "[red roosters] are sweet and slightly warming"), alternative (Chinese) names, its "provenance" (like 生平泽 = "[red roosters] grow on plains and marshes"), and some other occasional information that made sense only locally (like 东门上者尤良 = "[the heads of the red roosters] that were hung above the East Gate are particularly good for repelling demons"). 

(12-06-2026, 11:52 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What specifically do you mean? The publishing history of the Shennon Bencao? Or the history of contacts between Europe and East Asia?

Anyway, It's always useful to learn something new .

(12-06-2026, 11:52 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And I don't speak any of those languages -- not a bit. Not to mention how they were 600 years ago.