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+--- Thread: Currier A and B (/thread-120.html)
Currier A and B - Anton - 16-01-2016
The original Currier's explanation can be found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
"Currier A" and "Currier B" "languages" have been distinguished from each other by statistically significant peculiarities in formation of sequences.
Of course, it was made clear from the beginning that Currier A and B are not languages in the common sense of the word, the term "language" is used only formally for brevity. We do not know what is the real underlay mechanism or phenomenon that leads to the differences observed.
The problem is that while A and B are different, they are not totally different. Namely, there are vords that occur both in Currier A and B. In the course of working upon my latest blog post, I made some initial screening on the "Voynich stars" occurrences in the botanical folios with respect to Currier A and B. This was not included in the paper and the examination was far from comprehensive, but off-hand I did not see any strong correlation between star occurrences and Currier language. E.g., "dayside" (f68r1) and "nightside" (f68r2) stars on general may occur both in Currier A and Currier B. A given star may occur both in Currier A and B. E.g. the most frequent star of "otol" occurs mainly in Currier A, but has two occurrences in Currier B (these stats are limited to plant folios only). "otor", if I am not mistaken, happens roughly equally between Currier A and B.
The question is whether there has been any investigation of vords with respect to Currier languages. Which vords do occur only in Currier A or only in Currier B? Which vords occur both in A and B? Do all labels with significant frequency count occur both in A and B? The latter question, as you understand, is aimed at establishing whether labels are Currier-invariant.
RE: Currier A and B - Emma May Smith - 16-01-2016
I think one problem with saying whether a label or a word occurs only in Currier A or B, is that you may not be capturing the real difference.
For example, [okedy] occurs 113 or so times, but only in B. And [otedy] occurs about 150 times, again only in B. Yet the Currier B "feature" is not either of those words but rather the bigram [ed], which is over 125 times more common in B than A.
It is better to start with these two character combinations as they are more fundamental to whether a word appears in one language or another. They are also, hopefully, more diagnostic of what the difference between A and B will turn out to be.
RE: Currier A and B - Anton - 16-01-2016
(16-01-2016, 06:53 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think one problem with saying whether a label or a word occurs only in Currier A or B, is that you may not be capturing the real difference.
Well that's no problem if we have a prior agreement upon which folios are A and which are B (those folios which are uncertain may be left off).
(16-01-2016, 06:53 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yet the Currier B "feature" is not either of those words but rather the bigram [ed], which is over 125 times more common in B than A.
It is better to start with these two character combinations as they are more fundamental to whether a word appears in one language or another. They are also, hopefully, more diagnostic of what the difference between A and B will turn out to be.
I think that's precisely what's the fundamental problem with the A/B definition, unless those differing n-grams (for n=2 or whatever is essential for A/B) are elementary units of Voynichese. In the latter case we could suppose that one set of n-grams is used in A exclusively, another set of n-grams is used for B exclusively, and some n-grams are used in both A and B. But even that is probably not the real case, because, AFAIK, the stats are not about complete absence of certain n-grams in A or B, just about they are to a certain extent more or less frequent.
The reasoning is as follows:
a) We have labels in the VMS;
b) A label should be an expression in itself (unless a really sophisticated encryption mechanism is in place) - in other words, it represents a certain word or a phrase, in whatever way;
c) if a label (hence - a given word or phrase) is met both in A and in B, then no matter what are the n-grams stats, I don't see what's the real linguistic difference in the underlay.
If language A/B border is not the same as the folio border, the situation might have been considered in another light, but, AFAIK, that's not the case either.
RE: Currier A and B - Davidsch - 09-06-2016
Currier talks about different "hands" which is something real physical.
I would like to check these findings but where are the pages versus the hands tables?
Quote:Table A. Voynich Manuscript foliation-pagination concordance with an indication of ‘language’ and ‘hand’ where known.
Rene, i could not find a link to the pagination and the Currier A & B anymore....
Where are they please ?
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for people that are still looking: you can find it here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
RE: Currier A and B - ReneZ - 09-06-2016
Currier's entire paper can be found here:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
The identification per folio is included in Table A.
RE: Currier A and B - don of tallahassee - 11-06-2016
I did a very rough word count of the words in the herbal section according to GC's list of the words found in the herbal section, with the following (rough count) results.
There are approximately 444 repetitions of 162 different words with the sequence EVA = ed in them.
Of the 162 different words, 96 end in EVA = edy, 14 end in EVA = ed and the other 52 end in something else.
Of the 444 repetitions of the of the 162 different words, 371 end in EVA = edy, 16 end in EVA - ed and the other 57 end in something else.
When deconstructed in accordance with my proposed method, sequence and code groups, the following are true for ten of the most repeated of the 162 different words:
chedy 52 repetitions che/d/y
I V VI
shedy 29 repetitions she/d/y
I V VI
okedy 25 repetitions oke/d/y
I V VI
otedy 21 repetitions ote/d/y
I V VI
qokedy 35 repetitions qoke/d/y
I V VI
qotedy 15 repetitions qote/d/y
I V VI
ykedy 8 repetitions yke/d/y
I V VI
ytedy 8 repetitions yte/d/y
I V VI
kedy 9 repetitions ke/d/y
I V VI
tedy 8 repetitions te/d/y
I V VI
where all seem to show only a Group I code ending in EVA = e, a Group V code and a Group VI code. The same seems to be true for most of the other repetitions ending in EVA = edy. There may be a few with a Group III code also included (probably either EVA = ee or che).
The 16 repetitions of the 14 words ending in EVA = ed seem to show they end with a Group V code preceded by a Group IV code. Most show only a Group I code, a Group IV code and a Group V code.
All code groups are found in sequential order (Groups I, II, III, IV, V, VI).
As I said, it is only a rough count for the herbal section. I didn't want to make a month-long study of them.
If someone would like to work up the stats for the entire manuscript, I think they will show similar results. Whatever they show, I'd like to see them.
It looks to me that the main difference of words with EVA = ed in them in the herbal section of the VMS, might be that the EVA = d part of the pair might be something that might be only present in the list of Group V codes in language B words (for the most part). To make a rough check on my theory about this, see how many of the words ending in EVA = edy are also words in the VMS if the EVA = d is left out (and is thus 'understood'?). (Hint - there are a whole bunch of 'em.)
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
RE: Currier A and B - don of tallahassee - 12-06-2016
- From looking at Table A of the Currier document at Rene's site, it seems that most of the Language A pages were written by Hands 1 and 4, most of the Language B pages were written by Hands 2, 3 and 5.
This may be earlier scribes/authors including it, while later scribes/authors find that it can be omitted without the meaning of the word losing clarity.
In my larger proposed solution, this is the numerical quantity of one (EVA = d, group V) - which is not really needed when following the EVA = e glyph at the right end of a word, before an EVA = y glyph - because there are no Group V codes or Group VI codes with an EVA = e glyph in them. Thus, if no other Group V code (or part of Group VI codes EVA = chy, sy or ny) is found in this mandated position, the numerical quantity can be, and is, understood to be one.
If correct, it would probably mean the Language B pages were originally written before the Language A pages. I don't know of any way to check this.
It is an unexpected result to me - just came up with it - never thought about it before.
Unless the original two scribes/authors (1 & 4) thought the omission idea worked while the later three scribes/authors (2, 3, & 5) decided to go ahead and add it in for clarity and/or to prevent mistakes. (Doing a little cover-all-possible-outcomes work here.
)It's my take on what it possibly means.
But that may be the main difference between Language A and Language B - just an understood glyph or a written-out glyph, EVA = d, in Group V.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
RE: Currier A and B - don of tallahassee - 13-06-2016
I have done a quick count of the repetitions in the herbal section of the revised editions of the ten words listed above with the following results when the EVA = d code is removed:
chedy 52 repetitions che/d/y chey 61 repetitions (46 Language A, 15 Language B)
I V VI
shedy 29 repetitions she/d/y shey 32 repetitions (27 Language A, 5 Language B)
I V VI
okedy 25 repetitions oke/d/y okey 8 repetitions (3 Language A, 5 Language B)
I V VI
otedy 21 repetitions ote/d/y otey 4 repetitions (2 Language A, 2 language B)
I V VI
qokedy 35 repetitions qoke/d/y qokey 7 repetitions (4 Language A, 3 Language B)
I V VI
qotedy 15 repetitions qote/d/y qotey 1 repetition (1 Language A, 0 Language B)
I V VI
ykedy 8 repetitions yke/d/y ykey 4 repetitions (2 language A, 2 Language B)
I V VI
ytedy 8 repetitions yte/d/y ytey 5 repetitions (2 Language A, 3 Language B)
I V VI
kedy 9 repetitions ke/d/y key 5 repetitions (3 language A, 2 Language B)
[font=Calibri]I V VI[/font]
tedy 8 repetitions te/d/y tey 2 repetitions (2 Language A, 0 Language B)
[font=Calibri] [font=Calibri]I V VI[/font][/font]
If my ideas are correct, the above numbers of occurrences might mean the conversion from showing to omitting (or vice versa) the EVA = d glyph from Group V happened sometime during the writing/copying of the Language B pages. This is because there are almost no words ending in EVA = edy in Language A, only those ending in EVA = ey, while there are numerous occurrences of words ending in both EVA = edy and ey in Language B.
Is anyone following all this?
(In my larger proposed solution, this would be the difference between something like 'sorrel, one, grain' and 'sorrel, (one, understood), grain' or 'ispaghul, one, grain' and 'ispaghul, (one, understood), grain'. Notice the EVA = e in each shortened word is located where there should be a Group V code glyph, and isn't. EVA = e is not a Group V code glyph or part of a longer Group VI code. This let's the reader know there is no (required*) Group V code glyph present, therefore the number 'one' (EVA = d in Group V) is understood between the EVA = e and the EVA = y.)
This only works with Voynich words longer than two glyphs in length. For two-glyph words ending in EVA = y, the EVA = d is always understood to be present in the middle of the word. (But, since, in my proposed solution, it is a quantity and that quantity is one, it's physical presence is not really needed - and Voynich words are always the shortest strings of coded parts strung together that clearly show the meaning of each word.)
I hope I'm explaining this well enough that others can follow my chain of thought/reasoning. It doesn't seem too difficult a concept to understand, but maybe that's because I'm the one who thought of it.
If anyone has questions, I'll try to answer them.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
*See my VMS deconstruction scheme for the rules for what parts are where in Voynich words and how to differentiate the parts in each word by following the deconstruction sequence.
RE: Currier A and B - Anton - 09-09-2016
Recent revival of the Currier A vs B discussion by Julian led me to the following idea.
1. Take all Currier A folios and Currier B folios.
2. Any folios not clearly belonging to A or B are left aside.
3. Any folios featuring distinct successive blocks of A and B are divided in such blocks and included into the respective subsets of item 1.
4. This way one has the "A" subcorpus and the "B" subcorpus.
5. Find all vords occurring only once in the "A" subcorpus. Exclude any vords that occur only once in the VMS on the whole.
6. Find all vords occurring only once in the "B" subcorpus. Exclude any vords that occur only once in the VMS on the whole.
7. Compare the results of items 6 and 7.
The degree of overlapping between the two resulting sets will allow to make conclusions as to the roots of the difference between A and B. No (or little) overlapping will speak towards different underlay languages or different procedures applied to the same underlay language.
What do you think? Could anyone please do the check?
RE: Currier A and B - Davidsch - 09-09-2016
It does not matter if you reverse lookup between A&B as a whole / or A first and then B language words and compare them, the resulting words are the same.
B2way: and then what ? Unique words were presented many times before.
For example, recently i presented a list of words only one time in the Rosette, and asked for suggestions or conclusions. Nothing came.
Performing such exercises are very easily done. What matters is the resulting conclusion and what to do with that.
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Concerning the A&B there is only a small shift if you take the text as a whole (minus rosette) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. and showed the position shift per frequency.
![[Image: shift-ca-to-cb.jpg]](http://voynich.webpoint.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/shift-ca-to-cb.jpg)