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Near-monosyllabicity and Voynich: a Bavarian comparison - JoJo_Jost - 19-12-2025
The current discussion concerns Stolfi’s remarks about “phonetic Chinese” as a possible explanation for the Voynich Manuscript’s extreme syllable compression (the almost monosyllabic “feel” of the text).
While looking at the Herbal section from a purely structural angle (role-based segmentation rather than word readings), and later while thinking about f116 (the “pox liver” line), I had an idea I would like to put up for discussion. I am not presenting this as a theory, and I do not have the statistic background to assess it properly. It may well be nonsense. But it seems at least worth asking.
In spoken Bavarian (and related Upper German dialects), there is a well-known tendency toward strong reduction: unstressed vowels weaken, many endings are dropped or compressed, and meaning is often carried by consonants and position. This can create an impression of “near-monosyllabic” speech in practice, without tonality. The point is not that Bavarian is literally monosyllabic, but that it can become extremely syllable-light under rapid, informal speech.
A quick example (but see below too):
(Modern) Bavarian (spoken-like): I hob g’sagt, i kimm heit ned, weils z’spät worn is. (only monosyllabic words)
Standard German: Ich habe gesagt, ich komme heute nicht, weil es zu spät geworden ist.
English: I said I’m not coming today because it’s too late.
This led me to wonder whether some of the statistical/structural features that motivate “phonetic Chinese” comparisons could also be compatible with a Central European “phonetic compression mindset,” especially if a text is written in a speech-near way (and further compressed by a coding). In other words: do we really need to assume an East Asian phonological profile to get this kind of surface behavior, or could similar compression arise in a medieval Central European setting?
To be clear: I am not claiming “Voynich is Bavarian,” and I am not proposing any lexical readings.
To show the “compression” , I took a real Middle High German medical/recipe passage (Bamberger Arzneibuch) and rewrote some words of it in a speech-near, reduced form, the most words (except plant names) are now monosyllabic. Bavarian speakers will forgive inaccuracies; I can understand Bavarian, and I can adapt it the way I did, but I can't speak it perfectly myself. The point is simply to demonstrate how a Central European text can begin to look “token-short” and highly repetitive in a way that feels Voynich-like?
My question to the forum is therefore simple: is this comparison class linguistically meaningful?
Structure:
Line number
Bavarian Middle Ages in brief
German today
2v,16
nim driu bintl marrubii
nimm drei Bündel Andorn,
2v,17
und vlieht deſ beneboumes
und die Rinde des Benebaums,
2v,18
und dri mez win
und drei Maße des Weines,
2v,19
und siud ez in emo niw huan
und koche es in einem neuen Gefäß,
2v,20
vn laz ez kuln
und lass es abkühlen,
2v,21
un gib ez dem Siechn dri dag so er vast.
und gib es dem Kranken drei Tage lang nüchtern.
2v,22
[… Latein…] Nim die mittl rind der sale widn
nimm die mittlere Rinde der Salweide,
2v,23
ain hant vol
eine Handvoll,
2v,24
und siud si in nem niuen huan
und koche sie in einem neuen Gefäß,
2v,25
mit dem rain wine
mit reinem Wein,
2v,26
biz ze dem dritt deil (teil)
bis auf ein Drittel eingekocht,
2v,27
druck s uil guat uz
presse es sehr gut aus,
2v,28
und gib ez dri dag dem daz milz surit.
und gib es drei Tage dem, dessen Milz schmerzt.
RE: Near-monosyllabicity and Voynich: a Bavarian comparison - rikforto - 19-12-2025
This runs into the same problem most solutions do, namely that the set of letters is just too small and their order too restricted. This might be solvable with a clever encoding, but it's hard to motivate it based on 15th Century linguistics
By contrast, the original motivation for speculating an origin in Northeast or Southeast Asia is the way phonology was encoded in Mandarin Pinyin; the strong CVT arrangement greatly decreases the conditional entropy of letters in those texts. Interestingly, though I'm not sure I've seen Stolfi talk about it, the way they were recorded in rime dictionaries is also suggestive. It varies by period and compiler, but you can look up characters through a hierarchy of vowels, place of articulation, manner of articulation, tone, and medial. If you recorded Chinese characters as "coordinates" in any of these systems, you would get something akin to Voynichese's positional variation. (I've taken a few stabs at it, but nothing tremendously convincing.)
It's not inconceivable that it's European and monosyllabic, but there really is a sense in which languages in the Sinosphere weren't just built different, they were understood by their speakers to be built in a way that's amiable to the proposal of the Chinese theory
RE: Near-monosyllabicity and Voynich: a Bavarian comparison - JoJo_Jost - 19-12-2025
Yes, I know that the limited alphabet and strict rules of order are the real problem—that's precisely why I didn't suggest “Bavarian plain text.”
What prompted me to ask the question is something much simpler and probably more boring:
If you reduce spoken Bavarian (or the Upper German dialect) to what actually has meaning in fast, informal speech, surprisingly few sounds remain. Endings disappear, vowels become blurred, and much of the information is conveyed by position and repetition rather than by fully articulated words.
My question was not “Is this written in Bavarian?” but rather:
Is it really necessary to assume an East Asian phonological background to explain the degree of compression we see, or could a European language tradition, once aggressively reduced and then encoded, lead to a similar alphabet size? If it was then used schematically, wouldn't this result in structures similar to those in VN`?
Unfortunately, I don't speak Chinese at all and don't have an overview of how the language (and its phonological transcription) works in detail – which is precisely why I'm asking the question here. If the comparison is nonsensical from a linguistic point of view or fails due to clear facts, I will of course accept that.
RE: Near-monosyllabicity and Voynich: a Bavarian comparison - Jorge_Stolfi - 19-12-2025
(19-12-2025, 06:33 PM)rikforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This runs into the same problem most solutions do, namely that the set of letters is just too small
Most traditional scripts will use two or more letters to represent one phoneme. See for example the German use of "oe" for "ö" or "sch" for "ʃ", or English "ch", "sh", "oo", "th", etc. Thus the "fact" (more precisely, "consensus theory") that the Voynichese script uses fewer letters than most European scripts does not directly imply that the Voynichese language has fewer phonemes than most European languages.
Quote:and their order too restricted.
But his point is that, if Bavarian is indeed mostly monosyllabic, the order of phonemes in each word (syllable) will be restricted too. Some consonants can only appear at the start of the syllabe, some only at the end, some only in the middle...
All the best, --stolfi
RE: Near-monosyllabicity and Voynich: a Bavarian comparison - JoJo_Jost - 19-12-2025
The “Bavarian alphabet” in a functional sense could, if desired, be reduced to 20-22 letters.
I am not a language expert for Bavarian! But as far as I can tell, the consonants p/b and t/d as well as k/g are often neutralized or at least weakened depending on their position and context and are more or less interchangeable; the contrast is weak phonemically at best. The consonants could be reduced without greatly affecting language comprehension. This would leave the following consonants:
Plosives: p/b, t/d, k/g = effectively 3–4
Fricatives: f/v, s, sch, h = 4
Nasal: m, n, ng = 3
Liquid: l, r = 2
Semivowels: j, w = 2
Affricates (functionally relevant): z/tz, pf 2
Total consonants (functional): approx. 15–16
In spoken Bavarian, vowels are highly neutralized, so here too, this could be reduced:
a / o = often not stably separated
e / i = frequently contracted
u = mostly independent
Weak reduction vowel = 1 (similar to e)
Remaining realistic: total vowels: approx. 4/5
i.e. an alphabet of 20 to 22 letters if these were to be contracted.
And so that you can see that this is not made up:
Examples
Blossom:
Middle High German bluome / blüete
Bavarian variants: bluad, pluat, plüat, pluet
Example: t / d
Middle High German tac (day)
Bavarian pronunciation: tog / dag
The initial sound can be realized as t or d without any difference in meaning. For the speaker, it is the same root; voicing depends on position.
tun / getan (t /d)
Middle High German tuon, getān
Bavarian: tuan / duan, tan / dan
krank
Middle High German kranc
Bavarian: krank / grank
However, k/g is less variable.
This also applies to vowels:
A / O
haben
Middle High German: hab
Bavarian hob, hab
hat / hot
machen / mochn
lassen / lossn
dann / donn
etc.
e / i
wenig / weng / wing
There are also known variations in e/ai (e.g., ein/ain).