14-04-2019, 01:05 AM
Another exercise, this one hopefully closer to an actual Voynich MS reading scenario:
You have a text which you know is a pharmacopoeia. You have the following illustration together with Voynichese text on a page:
And you have the following Voynichese text with it:
[ pchor ros ochepshod rosy oaiin ochepsho chaiin olaly aiin s chkas ]
[ shol odcthardy shaiin shol dsheol tory chys s shod cthalod aldary ]
[ otol olshy rchcthol cheocthy tar chaiin ody chaiin tos shy olkory ]
[ shod char chod odar ody shaiin ckhaiin olky she sh2aiiin toraiin ]
[ kaiin tshol tar dkeey shaiin aiin s chkas dar chaiin s dary kaiin olkor aiin ]
[ shod char chod chedar tedshaiin ]
"[sh2]" is the Voynichese character [sh] with a closed loop on top. All other [sh] characters in this passage of text have an open loop on top.
To help readers get started with the process of reading and understanding this Greek text, I will do the first step of converting the text into the "10-letter Greek alphabet" here:
" pior rot oiiptou rot's oan oiipto `ian onan's an t `itat
ton opikarus tan ton ption kor's `ist t tou kianou anpar's
okon ont's riikon `iioik's kar ian op's ian kot t's ontor's
tou `iar iou opar ous tan tian ont's ti nain koran
tan kton kar ptiis tan an t `itat par ian t par's tan ontor an
tou `iar iou `iipar kiptan "
And here is this same text in the 10-letter Greek alphabet in Greek letters:
" πιορ ροτ οιιπτου ροτ'ς οαν οιιπτο `ιαν οναν'ς αν τ `ιτατ
τον οπικαρυς ταν τον πτιον κορ'ς `ιστ τ του κιανου ανπαρ'ς
οκον οντ'ς ριικον `ιιοικ'ς καρ ιαν οπ'ς ιαν κοτ τ'ς οντορ'ς
του `ιαρ ιου οπαρ ους ταν τιαν οντ'ς τι ναιν κοραν
ταν κτον καρ πτιις ταν αν τ `ιτατ παρ ιαν τ παρ'ς ταν οντορ αν
του `ιαρ ιου `ιιπαρ κιπταν "
Note 1: As a reminder that Voynichese final [-y] may often represent a "vowel+s" word ending, I have marked each such case as <'s> or <'ς> in the 10-letter text above.
Note 2: As a reminder that Voynichese initial [ch] may represent either a Greek front vowel or the "rough breathing" /h/ sound, I have marked [ch] in Greek word-initial position as <`i> or <`ι> in the 10-letter text above.
Note 3: This text of 64 Voynichese words represents 52 Greek words.
Note 4: This text is in a Koine Greek dialect, which is more than a millennium earlier and thus much more archaic than the late medieval Greek dialect that the author of the Voynich MS would have spoken and written in. Thus, not every form in this text will precisely match the forms that we would expect to find in the Voynich MS itself. Nevertheless, I think that this text still looks very much like the actual Voynichese of the Voynich MS text.
Note 5: Recall that one of the most important steps in reading the 10-letter Greek text as actual Greek, is to recognize and identify where the letters rho and nu should actually be lambda and mu. In practice I believe that the identification of the lambda's is usually the most critical step, and I find that to be the case in this text as well. It is a universal linguistic tendency for the sounds /l/ and /m/ to be relatively more common in word-initial and syllable-initial position, while /r/ and /n/ tend to be much more common in word-final and syllable-final position. This tendency definitely holds true in Greek, probably to a greater degree than in most other languages, so knowing and using this tendency to help identify lambda's and mu's can potentially be of great assistance to the reader.
Note 6: Remember how "gyro" is pronounced in Greek.
Note 7: The Greek consonant cluster "k+liquid" is written with an unpronounced Voynichese vowel character between the two consonant characters in Voynichese (akin to the way in which Linear B represented such Greek consonant clusters).
Note 8: There is a well-known phenomenon in Greek grammar called "movable nu", by which an optional letter nu is added to the ends of some third person verb forms and dative plural noun forms. In this passage the Voynichese text includes such a movable nu in a few third person verb forms.
Note 9: About a dozen Greek word-final vowels are still deleted in this Voynichese text, but I do not believe this will be an absolute barrier to comprehension. (It is possible that additional "movable nu's" could retain some of these word-final vowels in Voynichese, but I want to proceed sparingly with the use of such movable nu's until I have a more complete understanding of how and to what extent Voynichese may or may not reflect this phenomenon.)
Geoffrey
You have a text which you know is a pharmacopoeia. You have the following illustration together with Voynichese text on a page:
And you have the following Voynichese text with it:
[ pchor ros ochepshod rosy oaiin ochepsho chaiin olaly aiin s chkas ]
[ shol odcthardy shaiin shol dsheol tory chys s shod cthalod aldary ]
[ otol olshy rchcthol cheocthy tar chaiin ody chaiin tos shy olkory ]
[ shod char chod odar ody shaiin ckhaiin olky she sh2aiiin toraiin ]
[ kaiin tshol tar dkeey shaiin aiin s chkas dar chaiin s dary kaiin olkor aiin ]
[ shod char chod chedar tedshaiin ]
"[sh2]" is the Voynichese character [sh] with a closed loop on top. All other [sh] characters in this passage of text have an open loop on top.
To help readers get started with the process of reading and understanding this Greek text, I will do the first step of converting the text into the "10-letter Greek alphabet" here:
" pior rot oiiptou rot's oan oiipto `ian onan's an t `itat
ton opikarus tan ton ption kor's `ist t tou kianou anpar's
okon ont's riikon `iioik's kar ian op's ian kot t's ontor's
tou `iar iou opar ous tan tian ont's ti nain koran
tan kton kar ptiis tan an t `itat par ian t par's tan ontor an
tou `iar iou `iipar kiptan "
And here is this same text in the 10-letter Greek alphabet in Greek letters:
" πιορ ροτ οιιπτου ροτ'ς οαν οιιπτο `ιαν οναν'ς αν τ `ιτατ
τον οπικαρυς ταν τον πτιον κορ'ς `ιστ τ του κιανου ανπαρ'ς
οκον οντ'ς ριικον `ιιοικ'ς καρ ιαν οπ'ς ιαν κοτ τ'ς οντορ'ς
του `ιαρ ιου οπαρ ους ταν τιαν οντ'ς τι ναιν κοραν
ταν κτον καρ πτιις ταν αν τ `ιτατ παρ ιαν τ παρ'ς ταν οντορ αν
του `ιαρ ιου `ιιπαρ κιπταν "
Note 1: As a reminder that Voynichese final [-y] may often represent a "vowel+s" word ending, I have marked each such case as <'s> or <'ς> in the 10-letter text above.
Note 2: As a reminder that Voynichese initial [ch] may represent either a Greek front vowel or the "rough breathing" /h/ sound, I have marked [ch] in Greek word-initial position as <`i> or <`ι> in the 10-letter text above.
Note 3: This text of 64 Voynichese words represents 52 Greek words.
Note 4: This text is in a Koine Greek dialect, which is more than a millennium earlier and thus much more archaic than the late medieval Greek dialect that the author of the Voynich MS would have spoken and written in. Thus, not every form in this text will precisely match the forms that we would expect to find in the Voynich MS itself. Nevertheless, I think that this text still looks very much like the actual Voynichese of the Voynich MS text.
Note 5: Recall that one of the most important steps in reading the 10-letter Greek text as actual Greek, is to recognize and identify where the letters rho and nu should actually be lambda and mu. In practice I believe that the identification of the lambda's is usually the most critical step, and I find that to be the case in this text as well. It is a universal linguistic tendency for the sounds /l/ and /m/ to be relatively more common in word-initial and syllable-initial position, while /r/ and /n/ tend to be much more common in word-final and syllable-final position. This tendency definitely holds true in Greek, probably to a greater degree than in most other languages, so knowing and using this tendency to help identify lambda's and mu's can potentially be of great assistance to the reader.
Note 6: Remember how "gyro" is pronounced in Greek.
Note 7: The Greek consonant cluster "k+liquid" is written with an unpronounced Voynichese vowel character between the two consonant characters in Voynichese (akin to the way in which Linear B represented such Greek consonant clusters).
Note 8: There is a well-known phenomenon in Greek grammar called "movable nu", by which an optional letter nu is added to the ends of some third person verb forms and dative plural noun forms. In this passage the Voynichese text includes such a movable nu in a few third person verb forms.
Note 9: About a dozen Greek word-final vowels are still deleted in this Voynichese text, but I do not believe this will be an absolute barrier to comprehension. (It is possible that additional "movable nu's" could retain some of these word-final vowels in Voynichese, but I want to proceed sparingly with the use of such movable nu's until I have a more complete understanding of how and to what extent Voynichese may or may not reflect this phenomenon.)
Geoffrey