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+--- Thread: Which plaintext languages to try? (/thread-4468.html)
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Which plaintext languages to try? - oshfdk - 19-01-2025
I'd like to test a few potential ciphers to check whether one of them could be it. If Voynichese is a cipher and the manuscript was created in Europe in the 15th century, which languages and which flavo(u)rs of them would be the most likely for the plaintext? Let's assume there is nothing exotic and unexpected about the language, and it's one of the normal languages that manuscripts were written in.
According to ChatGPT, the list of the most popular written languages in the XV century Europe is: Latin, Middle French, Middle High German, Middle English, Various Italian dialects (doesn't sound very helpful), Castilian, Middle Dutch.
Is this list reasonable? What about Greek and Arabic, were they used in parts of Europe at that time?
Could someone suggest a good resource to find samples of each of these language variants, preferably both transcribed and as a photo? I think a short text of about 50 words for each of the languages will be enough, I'm just interested in basic statistics.
As far as I understand, it's quite possible that common abbreviations could have been encoded separately. I've checked the cipher tables from Francesco Tranchedino's list to get some understanding of which abbreviations might get their own codes. (I'm not suggesting these ciphers have anything to do with the Voynich Manuscript, I'm just trying to understand the way the plaintext would be tokenized before encoding.)
It appears that scribal abbreviations were used in the plaintext part of the cipher tables. E.g., I have trouble understanding the parts I circled below, what do these abbreviations stand for? Is there some good list of abbreviations? As far as I have seen, mostly people are referred to Cappelli for the scribal abbreviations, but there are probably hundreds of abbreviations in Cappelli's book, I'm mostly looking for a list of 5-10 most popular ones, like -9 for -us.
RE: Which plaintext languages to try? - nablator - 19-01-2025
(19-01-2025, 02:30 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.E.g., I have trouble understanding the parts I circled below, what do these abbreviations stand for?
7: ch with macron: not Latin. Maybe Italian-specific?
13: quod
14: quam
Quote:As far as I have seen, mostly people are referred to Cappelli for the scribal abbreviations, but there are probably hundreds of abbreviations in Cappelli's book
Thousands.
Quote:I'm mostly looking for a list of 5-10 most popular ones, like -9 for -us.
I don't have statistics (they vary a lot with time, origin and scribe) but I guess some of the most common Latin abbreviations of the 15th century are:
- vowels with macron omitting the following n/m
- apostrophe for er/re
- a small tilda (~) for -ur
- "2/" for -rum
- small 9 for -us (also -ost) and a bigger 9 for con/com (sometimes the same size).
- quod, que, quem, quam, qui...
- per/par/por, pre, pro...
- et
Quote:Is this list reasonable?
Looks good. No idea if Occitan and Provençal were more or less written than some German, Italian, Spanish dialects.
Quote:What about Greek and Arabic, were they used in parts of Europe at that time?
Last time I checked Greece is/was in Europe.
Not much remained of Al-Andalus until the 15th century, in the south of Spain.
Quote:Could someone suggest a good resource to find samples of each of these language variants, preferably both transcribed and as a photo? I think a short text of about 50 words for each of the languages will be enough, I'm just interested in basic statistics.
Some datasets were shared by researchers, incomplete and of variable quality. I'm not sure if I should recommend any of them.
RE: Which plaintext languages to try? - MarcoP - 19-01-2025
(19-01-2025, 04:56 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.7: ch with macron: not Latin. Maybe Italian-specific?
Yes, it's "che" (=that).
From the Vermont Herbal (the University site is down at the moment).
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RE: Which plaintext languages to try? - oshfdk - 19-01-2025
Thank you for the answer!
(19-01-2025, 04:56 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:What about Greek and Arabic, were they used in parts of Europe at that time?
Last time I checked Greece is/was in Europe.
Yes, but I was thinking more in terms of how popular Greek was for creating manuscripts. I was under impression that Greece for the most of the 13-15th centuries was occupied by various fractions until falling under Ottoman Empire later on. On the other hand I vaguely remember Kircher using Greek sometimes?
(19-01-2025, 04:56 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not much remained of Al-Andalus until the 15th century, in the south of Spain.
So, probably Arabic is not very likely, which simplifies things a bit.
RE: Which plaintext languages to try? - nablator - 19-01-2025
(19-01-2025, 05:54 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, but I was thinking more in terms of how popular Greek was for creating manuscripts. I was under impression that Greece for the most of the 13-15th centuries was occupied by various fractions until falling under Ottoman Empire later on. On the other hand I vaguely remember Kircher using Greek sometimes?
I don't know what happened, linguistically, (nothing?) in what remained of the Byzantine empire until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Ancient Greek became a lot more popular in Western Europe with the Renaissance (for reading, not writing) when many ancient texts were studied and translated, originating from Greece and Egypt (the Corpus Hermeticum). Before that in medieval Europe, Greek and Arabic were important, but only indirectly, because the Bible and many scientific texts were known only through translations from Greek and Arabic. Few scholars could read these languages, so they relied almost exclusively on Latin translations.
RE: Which plaintext languages to try? - MarcoP - 19-01-2025
UPenn LJS 62 is a Greek illustrated herbal made in the 15th Century.
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About the various Italian dialects, I wouldn't worry too much. When written, they were not very different from each other and people could effortlessly read manuscripts written in other regions.
RE: Which plaintext languages to try? - Linda - 19-01-2025
(19-01-2025, 05:54 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, but I was thinking more in terms of how popular Greek was for creating manuscripts.
Emanuel Chrysoloras (c. 1350-1415), a teacher of Greek living in Constantinople, traveled to Venice in 1395. There he met Jacopo d’Angelo (Jacopus Angelus) da Scarperia, who became his student and went back to Constantinople with him. Two years later they returned to Italy, where in 1406 Jacobus Angelus finished his Latin translation of the Geographia from a Greek manuscript that has not survived. This translation, dedicated to Pope Gregory XII, was widely circulated in manuscript.
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From wiki
Georgios Gemistos Plethon (Greek: Γεώργιος Γεμιστὸς Πλήθων; Latin: Georgius Gemistus Pletho c. 1355/1360 – 1452/1454), commonly known as Gemistos Plethon, was a Greek scholar[4] and one of the most renowned philosophers of the Late Byzantine era.[5] He was a chief pioneer of the revival of Greek scholarship in Western Europe.[6] As revealed in his last literary work, the Nomoi or Book of Laws, which he circulated only among close friends, he rejected Christianity in favour of a return to the worship of the classical Hellenic gods, mixed with ancient wisdom based on Zoroaster and the Magi.[7]
In 1438–1439 he reintroduced Plato's ideas to Western Europe during the Council of Florence, in a failed attempt to reconcile the East–West schism. Plethon also formulated his political vision in several speeches throughout his life. The boast in one of the speeches that "We are Hellenes by race and culture" and his proposal of a reborn Byzantine Empire following a utopian Hellenic system of government centered in Mystras, have generated discussion about Byzantine and modern Greek identity.[8] In this regard, Plethon has been labelled both "the last Hellene"[9] and "the first modern Greek".[10]
RE: Which plaintext languages to try? - Addsamuels - 24-01-2025
German, French, Latin, Dutch, Italian, Czech
RE: Which plaintext languages to try? - oshfdk - 25-01-2025
(24-01-2025, 09:00 PM)Addsamuels Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.German, French, Latin, Dutch, Italian, Czech
Is there any particular reason to include Czech? I don't know whether many manuscripts were created in Czech in the early XV century. I'm quite ignorant when it comes to the history of the Middle Ages.
My assumption for this particular test is that the Voynich Manuscript is an enciphered codex created in Europe in the XV century, and as such the most likely plaintext language is Latin, but some of the marginalia looks like Germanic languages and Zodiac names look like a Romance language. So my top list would be: Latin and the medieval versions of German (or maybe Dutch) and French, Italian (maybe, Spanish, Occitan, etc). I'm not sure whether to include Greek.
RE: Which plaintext languages to try? - MarcoP - 25-01-2025
Hi oshfdk, Addsamuels's list covers the three major families of European languages (Germanic, Romance, Slavic).
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One could add examples of some smaller missing families for completeness (e.g. Greek. Hungarian, Welsh, Turkish).
In my opinion, it's possible that European languages are more or less equivalent when compared with Voynichese, until one gets to the "fine tuning" stage. One could as well start working with a single language. Most of the features of Voynichese could depend on the writing system (unless it is an artificial language). E.g. rigid word structure / low character entropy, word repetitions, consecutive similar words, line-effects/LAAFU, paragraph effects (e.g. EVA:p, Grove words), Currier A and B, pharmacese (subvariant of A), uncertain word spaces... I doubt that a writing system that results in these features for (say) German wouldn't generate the same features for (say) Italian.
Therefore, I suggest including English (even modern English) in the list of languages, so that we can follow how the writing system works with a language we all can understand. Working with modern English only could be a good way to start and share ideas, until one arrives at a system that explains most of the weirdness of Voynichese.