[Blog Post] Ruminations on the Voynich Manuscript

[MarcoP]

Hello MarcoP,

I'm wondering how much of the downward slope can be ascribed to the inconsistencies in vocabulary between pages, most of it I guess. Without it the peak at +2 would then be only a bias against "stuttering", which is normal in natural languages.

Hi Nablator,
my superficial opinion is that the 20-word window is too small for a great impact of variability between pages. As a cause, I think more of intra-page phenomena, like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. But it would certainly be interesting to look more into this.

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Your observation about normal natural languages made me curious to see what happens with English.

   

Apparently, the lines are quite flat, with the exception of a rising slope at positions 1,2,3 (the no-stuttering effect). Interestingly, the very repetitive King James Genesis shows a peak at position 3. I counted that identical words at distance 3 occur 800 times; at distance 2 they occur 315 times. Most of the distance 3 cases appear to be of the form Article, Noun, Preposition, Article:

and the name of the second river
shall keep the way of the lord to do
you give me a possession of a buryingplace
ye shall eat the fat of the land 

while N+2 cases tend to be and...and sequences:

the sheep and go and feed them 
himself and jacob and jacob fed 
with the ass and i and the lad will
without form and void and darkness was