A possible way to break down Voynich text

[ThomasCoon]

The issue of constant repetitions of "words" or "word parts " or "letter sequences" in the VMs was in my opinion consistent with two main elements in what I thought of as a "cryptocartographic" interpretation.

Dear David - your idea is a very interesting one! I can definitely see what you're talking about. I would definitely be interested in reading more research on the idea, if you decide to continue working with it!

The recipe section seems to contain more incompatibilities with your system.

I just looked at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (a randomly picked recipe folio) and just in the last two paragraphs see some stuff like:

• polarar lshedy
  
• okeey lr
  
• ssheey l shey
  
• qokeey lchedy loty
  

etc.

By the way (as a far reaching unconfirmed conclusion) this might mean that botanical folios more or less follow a pre-defined template, while the recipe folios are more "loose".

You're right - Here are the breakdowns: 28 good combinations and 4 bad ones, all involving <L>:

• p/ol/ar/ar l/s/he/d/y
  
• ok/ee/y/ lr
  
• s/sh/ee/y/ l /sh/ey
  
• qo/k/ee/y l/ch/e/d/y lo/t/y
  

Taking the approach of deconstructing the text and looking across spaces to find the patterns naturally leads to going in the other direction as well... of putting in spaces where they might be intentionally missing.

That is true, -JKP-. I think, though, that if we get a string of text which clearly spells out German (or Latin, Italian etc.) phrases, we will know where spaces are supposed to be. For example if you saw this string of text:

Weholdthesetruthstobeselfevidentthatallmenarecreatedequal

You would clearly recognize it as English and know immediately where to put spaces.

It's a challenging problem algorithm-wise even if the components are correctly identified since the insertion or removal of spaces doesn't have to follow a regular pattern

E xact ly. I do n't thin k th ere is a pat te rn.
I thin k it 's intent ional ly rand om.

In the topmost scan it is not m but g.

Thank you - I was not even aware that <g> was a different letter than <m>. Alright, I'll have to look more at that situation. I'm not sure I agree with the EVA creators that they are different.

...What I forgot to mention is one very important consideration. At least some EVA characters appear to have standalone significance. Consider  columns in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or circles in f57v. These might represent a negligible percentage of the overall corpus, but it's clear that those cannot be attributed to scribal errors.

That is also fair - I will look into those pages and see what I can find.

Consider e.g. this post, screenshots 2 - 6: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I have seen these <chh> combinations and they may not affect my units - for example:

2. ySKcy= y/s/k/ey

5. ch cKhh y = ch / ek / ch / y

6. ch cKhhy = ch / ek / ch / y (same as 5)

One interesting test would be to somehow try to encrypt a known text into Voynichese using your system, and see to what extent you manage to approach its appearance.

Here is a random phrase that I pulled from Augustine's De Vita Beata:
"Nullo modo dixerunt. Etiam hoc tertium respondete: spiritus..."

Assigning random Latin letters to my 26 units, I can produce:
yolar ar Shaiin seeo Shocsal chetoly qoch qoskeaiin arSheo qochot qosolaiin otchod keesy oeee qochod ...

Now, just for an attempt to recreate Voynich, this looks pretty Voynich-ish Actually, some of these words are vords.
(Key: <y> = N, <ol> = U, <ar> = L, <Sh> or <se> = o, <aiin> = m, <eo> = d, <s> = i, <al> = x, <ch> or <ee> = e, <ot> = r, <qo> = t, <ke> = a, <or> = H, <od> = s)