Coming back to the opening post, it is also possible to plot, instead of the Hapax ratio, the absolute number vs. the number of word tokens. This is done below, first for word types vs. word tokens, and then for hapax vs. word tokens.
We see that for both quantities, the values decrease for increasing number of spaces, i.e. increasing nr. of word tokens.
This is counter-intuitive, and tells us something (but what?) about the Voynich text.
The purple lines give the same two ratios for the text of Dante's Divina Commedia. They were generated by cutting the text after "N" word tokens from the start, and computing the two values for this partial text. These lines therefore represent the effect of a 'growing text'. The values increase, though not monotonously, which indicates some repetitiveness.
On the other hand, the individual points all refer to a text of the same length, but we just don't know for sure how many words this text has.
One important observation is that the variation due to this uncertainty is bigger than the variation from Dante's text length. This again underlines the importance of the transliteration errors we have. Rather than errors, we may also call them 'uncertainties'.
Another observation was already made just before: the nr. of word types and nr. of hapax goes down when the nr. of word tokens increases. Of course, this may just be a side effect of the fact that the average word length decreases, but it deserves a closer look.
Finally, for the case of word types, the different transliteration options match the Dante plain text for the case of GC's transliteration with all spaces taken into account. So, if the Voynich MS plain text were Dante-like, this would be the most accurate option. But we don't know that, and to make it worse, the cross-over point for Hapax is even further to the right.
However, that interesting question is a different one than the topic of this thread, which is specifically about transliteration errors.
We see that for both quantities, the values decrease for increasing number of spaces, i.e. increasing nr. of word tokens.
This is counter-intuitive, and tells us something (but what?) about the Voynich text.
The purple lines give the same two ratios for the text of Dante's Divina Commedia. They were generated by cutting the text after "N" word tokens from the start, and computing the two values for this partial text. These lines therefore represent the effect of a 'growing text'. The values increase, though not monotonously, which indicates some repetitiveness.
On the other hand, the individual points all refer to a text of the same length, but we just don't know for sure how many words this text has.
One important observation is that the variation due to this uncertainty is bigger than the variation from Dante's text length. This again underlines the importance of the transliteration errors we have. Rather than errors, we may also call them 'uncertainties'.
Another observation was already made just before: the nr. of word types and nr. of hapax goes down when the nr. of word tokens increases. Of course, this may just be a side effect of the fact that the average word length decreases, but it deserves a closer look.
Finally, for the case of word types, the different transliteration options match the Dante plain text for the case of GC's transliteration with all spaces taken into account. So, if the Voynich MS plain text were Dante-like, this would be the most accurate option. But we don't know that, and to make it worse, the cross-over point for Hapax is even further to the right.
However, that interesting question is a different one than the topic of this thread, which is specifically about transliteration errors.
![[+]](https://www.voynich.ninja/images/collapse_collapsed.png)