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+--- Thread: Similarity of the Bench and Other Cypher Symbols with 15th Century Latin (/thread-4471.html)
Similarity of the Bench and Other Cypher Symbols with 15th Century Latin - Dobri - 22-01-2025
Samples of Latin writings from the 15th century seem similar to the bench symbol and some other symbols in the cypher manuscript (see several examples encircled in orange in the attached image).
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RE: Similarity of the Bench and Other Cypher Symbols with 15th Century Latin - MarcoP - 22-01-2025
See Mary D'Imperio (1978) Fig.17
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RE: Similarity of the Bench and Other Cypher Symbols with 15th Century Latin - Dobri - 23-01-2025
(22-01-2025, 07:18 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.See Mary D'Imperio (1978) Fig.17Thanks for the link, Marco.
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In addition to the similar Latin abbreviations for "ra, ci, cri" listed in the book of Mary D'Imperio, bench-like appearances can be found in Latin texts also for "ri" (for example, in Aprilis") and "ti" (for example, in "gratia").
One particular line of inquiry in deciphering the manuscript would be to assume that the bench symbol represents an abbreviation of three letters, for example "ter", or permutations of three letters depending on the preceding and succeeding symbols in a word token or the benched gallows.
Perhaps the gallows (probably consonants) are tall symbols for the specific purpose of being included between said three letters.
Since the bench symbol appears for the first time in the very first word token in the first page of the manuscript (folio 1r), assuming the three letters to be "ter" would give "Pateris".
Note that certain medieval European manuscripts are mentioning the Trinity in the initial sentence starting with the Father.
RE: Similarity of the Bench and Other Cypher Symbols with 15th Century Latin - oshfdk - 24-01-2025
As far as I remember, the bench symbol shows up in about half of all words. I guess this means that seeing it in any word token shouldn't really tell us much about the meaning of the word.
RE: Similarity of the Bench and Other Cypher Symbols with 15th Century Latin - Dobri - 24-01-2025
What the bench symbol could hint at (if it is an abbreviation for a specific sequence of several letters) is that in the unknown language there is a frequent occurrence of specific 3- or 4-letter arrangements.
The gallows (consonants ?) and several shapes added above the bench (vowels ?) appear nested (benched) in the unknown letter arrangement of the bench.
This observation could be used for comparison with Latin, Greek, German, French, etc. writings of the early 15th century by identifying specific 3- or 4- letter arrangements occurring with high frequencies in said languages.
RE: Similarity of the Bench and Other Cypher Symbols with 15th Century Latin - oshfdk - 24-01-2025
(24-01-2025, 08:21 AM)Dobri Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This observation could be used for comparison with Latin, Greek, German, French, etc. writings of the early 15th century by identifying specific 3- or 4- letter arrangements occurring with high frequencies in said languages.
Why not 2 letter arrangements or a frequent single character? To me the bench looks too frequent for a 3+ letter arrangement in any alphabetic language. Unless the VMS is a story about Peter Piper and his pickled peppers, of course.
RE: Similarity of the Bench and Other Cypher Symbols with 15th Century Latin - Dobri - 24-01-2025
A 2-letter arrangement "ab" gives only two permutation choices, "ab" and "ba".
A 3-letter arrangement "abc" gives 3! = 6 permutations where the selection of each permutation would depend on the symbols adjacent to the bench.
The addition of a fourth benched symbol (gallows or vowel (?) shapes) further increases the number of prospective choices.
RE: Similarity of the Bench and Other Cypher Symbols with 15th Century Latin - oshfdk - 24-01-2025
(24-01-2025, 11:50 AM)Dobri Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A 2-letter arrangement "ab" gives only two permutation choices, "ab" and "ba".
A 3-letter arrangement "abc" gives 3! = 6 permutations where the selection of each permutation would depend on the symbols adjacent to the bench.
The addition of a fourth benched symbol (gallows or vowel (?) shapes) further increases the number of prospective choices.
As far as I can see, this scheme in effect just replaces short sequences of plaintext letters with short sequences of Voynichese letters. This scheme would not be very hard to break with modern computational resources, I'd say it would have been broken by now, unless the plaintext language is exotic or something else is going on. It's not very hard to iterate over possible maps from all frequent 1-3 Latin letter combinations to all frequent 1-3 Voynichese letter combinations and then see whether there is a combination that produces mostly dictionary words from Latin (German, Greek). I think I even tried something like this as an experiment a couple of years ago, for Latin specifically.
The specific mechanism by which the correspondence is produced (e.g., permutations of some sequence specified by adjacent characters) is not really important, I think.
RE: Similarity of the Bench and Other Cypher Symbols with 15th Century Latin - Bluetoes101 - 24-01-2025
With ideas like this I think it is important to zoom out, or you end up with this effect
![[Image: hose.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/NM6n57G8/hose.jpg)
Something to consider in the "zoom out" section is entropy. I would suggest reading the paper done on the VM regarding this, or watching Koen's videos.
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As for this idea specifically
"A 3-letter arrangement "abc" gives 3! = 6 permutations where the selection of each permutation would depend on the symbols adjacent to the bench.".
Only "e" and "i" repeat with any regularity. If you were to assign glyphs to morph the abbreviation eventually you would then need to write another thing that starts or ends with the same glyph, creating repeats.
EVA: "ch" will not be found near "i", before or after, so this just leaves "e", which wouldn't leave anything much more functional than just writing ech or che. It could be that there's some other system at play that hides this, but this is usually a road that splits into more and more roads, then you are left with "what is possible, and what is likely?". Without (preferably time period correct) examples of what you end up with people will find it unlikely, even if possible.