[Article] New Paper: Subtle Signs of Scribal Intent...

[asteckley]

Our recent paper, “Subtle Signs of Scribal Intent in the Voynich Manuscript” may be of interest to those of you analyzing the Voynich text for its possible underlying language and meaning.

The preprint version can be found on ArXiv:  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Abstract:
“This study explores the cryptic Voynich Manuscript, by looking for subtle signs of scribal intent hidden in overlooked features of the “Voynichese” script. The findings indicate that distributions of tokens within paragraphs vary significantly based on positions defined not only by elements intrinsic to the script such as paragraph and line boundaries but also by extrinsic elements, namely the hand-drawn illustrations of plants.”

The paper is a bit technical, so here is a summary of the more  interesting results:

• Certain word tokens exhibit a propensity to occur –or to be avoided– in certain positions such as the top line of paragraphs or at the beginning or ends of lines. That is not too surprising as it’s been observed to some extent before.
  
• The more surprising find is that there is also a propensity for certain word tokens to occur immediately before, or immediately after, the hand drawn plant illustrations.
  

The propensities were analyzed in detail  to ensure the statistical significance.
A reference catalog of word tokens with propensities was compiled. Only a couple of the tables could be included in the paper due space limitations, so below are a few more of them.
The whole catalog of tables is included in the Supplemental Online Material at:
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Note that the entire analysis was restricted to the portion of the manuscript believed to be written by a single scribe (Scribe 1 as identified by Lisa Fagin-Davis).