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+--- Thread: [Article] New proposed solution (/thread-2133.html)
New proposed solution - ReneZ - 04-10-2017
As I already commented elsewhere, this is an unusually fruitful year for solution attempts.
Here is another one:
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RE: New proposed solution - -JKP- - 04-10-2017
I read through it quickly.
I wouldn't discount the possibility of the underlying language being from that part of the world or that the VMS might be in a language with the kind of history described (in which several sounds came to be represented by one glyph), but I'm not convinced about the similarity in the Pahlavi glyphs to VMS glyphs shown in the chart. I think the similarities are superficial (any character based on loops, lines, and c-curves is going to have analogies in other alphabets).
Every example-glyph listed in the chart has a common Latin character, ligature, or abbreviation that resembles the Voynich glyphs more closely than the proposed Pahlavi glyph (in fact, most of the VMS shapes are identical to Latin-based shapes without having to rotate them, or move the crossbar from the bottom to the top, whereas the Pahlavi examples are only somewhat similar and a few of them not-all-that-similar).
As for the "9" shape in VMS (as well as the "P" shape), there are analogies in many different scripts... these two are particularly common shapes. What is important about the "9" shape in Voynichese, however, is that it completely mimics the placement conventions for this shape in Latin script, such that the similarity goes beyond shape alone.
RE: New proposed solution - Hubert Dale - 04-10-2017
Well, being able to read a bit of Pahlawi as written in the seventh and eighth centuries has been part of my day job for the past fifteen years. I can agree wholeheartedly with the opinion expressed in this article that Pahlawi is often ambiguous and a misery to read, but I'm afraid I struggle to find much else here which I can go along with.
As I understand it, the slightly modified version of the Arabic alphabet which is still used today had replaced Pahlawi during the ninth century for all purposes except pre-Islamic religious texts (which of course will have been familiar anyway) and perhaps other ceremonial formulae. There are a couple of extremely rare coins issued by the Buwayhids in the tenth/early eleventh centuries which have a word or two in Pahlawi alongside the otherwise Arabic legends, and I think I'm right in saying that these deliberately copied Sasanian royal protocols from centuries earlier. But otherwise, as far as I know, Pahlawi was confined to well-known, pre-Islamic religious literature some five centuries before the Voynich Manuscript was created. The idea that an upside-down version of Pahlawi, written from left-to-right instead of right-to-left, would have been used in the fifteenth century AD to write a scientific/medical text seems, in my view, to stretch credibility.
As for the supposed similarities between Voynich characters and Pahlawi...well, you tell me.
RE: New proposed solution - voynichbombe - 05-10-2017
the most interesting thing in connection with psalter-pahlawi seems the practice of zend (or zand). funny things can happen with lost languages. and I have been given that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. before.
RE: New proposed solution - Pahlavi? NOT - voynichbombe - 22-10-2017
Continued from the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., quoting @JKP:
“The interpretation of 116v in this paper is one of the most bizarre things I've ever read. It calls to mind the common phrase, "What drugs was he on?" Even though I read it twice and read it very carefully, and am open to wildly different ideas if they are well-argued and well-supported, I can't see it as anything but... I'm searching for a word to describe it... it has a hallucinatory feel to it.”
I have been thinking hard what struck me so strange about this paper, but couldn’t pinpoint it. It “feels” consistent in itself, good scientific form & all, while.. you know, the obvious reasons.
“Drugs” & “hallucinatory” hit it for me, though (not in an ad-hominem sense, I will explain below).
Firstly, this paper seems a perfect example for linguistic obfuscation in academic publishing (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
While fraudulence would be too strong a word, the paper does evoke interest in the reader and suggests a considerable famework, yet very elegantly disguises the absence of substantiality at large.
In linguistic style there are certain identifiable key-phrases, words etc. which point in this direction.
The author kind of gives it away in the colophon section when using phrases like “With this bias, we propose to read(…)”, “Although there is evidence elsewhere for this corruption, it is clearly a weak point of the interpretation.”, “(…) a date of 1429 is implied, which is, however, highly speculative and contradicts the use of the Zoroastrian calendar for the month […] cannot be decided from the available scans of the VM.” and finally: “(…) in contrast to most of the awkward Latin script on this page[…]”. etc, etc.
Now the elaboration on the claims staked in the abstract and in the introduction do not sound at all that convincing anymore. All the little stretches done and tiny patches applied which are needed to keep it together are disguised in the academic necessity to name possible counter-proof (which does, in reality, not happen here).
We may deduct: there is nothing to it, at all. Full stop.
Regarding the seeming consistency, I feel forced to quote Karl Marx: “Religion is the opium of the people”.
Religious systems almost always are self-consistent from the inside view, hallucinatory experiences included.
It is rather fascinating that exactly such a thing seems to take place here. In my above post I mentioned “Pa-Zend” or “-Zand”, a misnomer for reading Avestan, which is the religious practice of interpreting zoroastrian Avesta scriptures written in Psalter- or Book-Pahlavi.
It is a bit hard to explain what happens here, I hope not to over simplify:
In the scriptures Psalter-Pahlavi was used to write Avestan, closely related to Old Iranian and Old Persian, which is an almost completely extinct language, only a few words survive. But:
“Avestan's status as a sacred language has ensured its continuing use for new compositions long after the language had ceased to be a living language.”
The phonetic values are known, to a certain extent, so the interpretation then takes place mostly in modern Iranian, which, as the author of the paper and also @Hubert Dale mention, will lead to A LOT of possible ambiguity.
I am unable to tell to which extent the amount of ambiguity resembles interpreting Hebræic Gemmatria, etc.
What strikes me is that the author could have jumped on the cursive Pahlavi form, “Book-Pahlavi” instead, which offers far more “false cognates” to VMS-ese script than P-Pahlavi does, without flipping or mirroring.
Anyways, different Pahlavi fonts are in use today to print contemporary Avestan copies, and have their respective Unicode blocks (Inscriptional Pahlavi, Inscriptional Parthian and Psalter Pahlavi).
So, ironically there are millions of books out there which “can’t be read”.
Last but not least, it should make us think why the VMS easily lends itself to such a thing.