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+--- Thread: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? (/thread-4996.html)
copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 23-10-2025
I'm working on a translation – yes, yes, big laugh – I know, but it's already working reasonably well. I still have various doubts myself (nothing to do with AI), but I already have several small paragraphs that are even starting to make sense. I know that's what they all say (I've been reading here for some time now) and then the system breaks down in the face of the harsh Voynich reality. It wouldn't be the first time for me either – so it's all good – I'm calm.
On the subject
Now I come across these wretched duplications in the lines, which cause me massive headaches because my decoding breaks down like knocked-over porcelain. Lines without these duplications work, with them – they don't.
Then I noticed something very interesting, which leads me to a theory that I want to question here – in my translation attempts, it seems as if there are often several different versions of a small but very similar section of text, and these variations only concern conjunctions and declensions, which are also similar in the variations.
Thesis: It seems as if the writer himself tried to decode something, or more likely to decipher it, and since he was unsure, he simply wrote the two versions one after the other. Version a / Version b.
Of course, I did some research, and found that this was common practice, especially when copying texts – but only a few times and not as consistently as in the Voynich Manuscript.
So at the moment, I have this idea:
The manuscript is a transcription of a possibly older manuscript that was written in shorthand and was therefore very difficult to read and possibly also smudged or in poor condition, and the writers - who transcribed it - tried different variations that they could recognise in it and wrote them one after the other.
This would also explain the theory that several different scribes tried to decipher this text. It was probably also translated into the language commonly used at the time. That could - by the way - also be the reason why the plants are so difficult to recognise; they are also plants copied from a ‘notebook’.
What do you think, could it be that these are all different variants of a decryption, or is that too far-fetched and I'm just telling myself that to save my translation code? I'm not sure myself right now ?
Thank you for your comments on this!
Jojo
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RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - ReneZ - 23-10-2025
Being very practical, I would argue that:
if you can create a reasonable translation, but to do that, you need to skip duplicated parts, then you have an interesting result, and the question why they would be duplicated really becomes secondary.
This breaks down, of course, if you need to skip very large parts, and the skipped parts aren't really duplications.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 23-10-2025
(23-10-2025, 07:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Being very practical, I would argue that:
if you can create a reasonable translation, but to do that, you need to skip duplicated parts, then you have an interesting result, and the question why they would be duplicated really becomes secondary.
This breaks down, of course, if you need to skip very large parts, and the skipped parts aren't really duplications.
That happens quite often, like that:
through the leaves, causing the leaves, whose leaves... something like that – that doesn't make sense as a sentence... unfortunately...
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - oshfdk - 23-10-2025
(23-10-2025, 07:43 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(23-10-2025, 07:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Being very practical, I would argue that:
if you can create a reasonable translation, but to do that, you need to skip duplicated parts, then you have an interesting result, and the question why they would be duplicated really becomes secondary.
This breaks down, of course, if you need to skip very large parts, and the skipped parts aren't really duplications.
That happens quite often, like that:
through the leaves, causing the leaves, whose leaves... something like that – that doesn't make sense as a sentence... unfortunately...
Hi!
Do labels make sense in your translation? I usually present the image below as the first challenge for new translations. These are some of the labels that appear next to objects or scenes. Do they appear relevant to these objects or scenes in your translation?
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 23-10-2025
Oh my God, no, I'm not that far yet... I'm still in the herbal section—and I'm still a long way from claiming to have a viable solution. I've failed too many times for that... and I'm not one for quick fixes. I have to prove the code to myself first... I think you understand that...
I was just interested in whether the theory that the duplications could have arisen from a series of possible variants really makes sense.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - oshfdk - 23-10-2025
(23-10-2025, 09:09 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Oh my God, no, I'm not that far yet... I'm still in the herbal section—and I'm still a long way from claiming to have a viable solution. I've failed too many times for that... and I'm not one for quick fixes. I have to prove the code to myself first... I think you understand that...
I was just interested in whether the theory that the duplications could have arisen from a series of possible variants really makes sense.
I don't know. But this might work in the context of Stolfi's Reader-Author-Scribe scenario, if either the Author couldn't always perfectly represent phonetically what the Reader was saying and decided to include several variants to figure it out later. Or the scribe had to copy a draft that they couldn't read perfectly, and so decided to include several variants when the original wasn't clear.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - JoJo_Jost - 23-10-2025
(23-10-2025, 09:56 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't know. But this might work in the context of Stolfi's Reader-Author-Scribe scenario, if either the Author couldn't always perfectly represent phonetically what the Reader was saying and decided to include several variants to figure it out later. Or the scribe had to copy a draft that they couldn't read perfectly, and so decided to include several variants when the original wasn't clear.
Yes, that's what I meant—imagine that someone (or several people) copied the text from an illegible source and simply wrote down the various possible sequences, perhaps when almost nothing was legible anymore, just fragments of words—or the same words that they could still read.
My feeling is that these duplications occur in clusters. For this reason, I suspect that the underlying manuscript was destroyed in these parts by age, moisture, and mold, because, for example, it had been left to rot in a monastery cellar for a long time.
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - Jorge_Stolfi - 23-10-2025
(23-10-2025, 07:30 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm working on a translation – yes, yes, big laugh – I know, but it's already working reasonably well.
You will find that more people will pay attention to your effort if you start by explaining how you figured out the right language/encryption.
Like, Champollion guessed that the cartouche in the hieroglyphic text was embellishment for the name of the king, which was Ptolemy in the Greek text; and he could match the hieroglyphs inside it with the consonants of "Ptolmes".
And Hrozny looked at the Hittite sentence "nu ninda-an ezzateni vatar-ma ekutteni", knew that "ninda" was "bread", and observed that the other words resembled "water", "drink", and "eat" in some old Indo-European languages.
All the bestm --stolfi
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - Mauro - 23-10-2025
Is your translation attempt based on a dictionary/nomenclator cipher?
RE: copy of an older, barely legible manuscript? - Ruby Novacna - 23-10-2025
(23-10-2025, 07:30 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Now I come across these wretched duplications in the lines, which cause me massive headaches because my decoding breaks down like knocked-over porcelain. Lines without these duplications work, with them – they don't.
Then I noticed something very interesting, which leads me to a theory that I want to question here – in my translation attempts, it seems as if there are often several different versions of a small but very similar section of text, and these variations only concern conjunctions and declensions, which are also similar in the variations.
Are you talking about language A or language B, or are you comfortable in both?
Are duplicates quite common in both languages?