Finding patterns in Voynich words via a Hidden Markov Model

[Jorge_Stolfi]

This may be relevant,  Application of Hidden Markov Modelling  --> You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Thanks! I had not seen that analysis.

So the HMM optimization consistently identifies o and a as "vowels", but adds other glyphs that depend on the transcription alphabet used.   It seems consistent with my own mostly-by-hand analysis of the first level of the VMS word structure:

   

In that formula, the O with superscript '?' means "zero or one glyph from the set O = {a,o,y}"

The HMM optimization probably failed to recognize y as a "vowel" because (IIRC) it occurs mostly at the beginning or end of the word (a further constraint that is not captured by the formula above), and therefore does not alternate with "consonants" often enough.

Were the Sukhotin and HMM optimization algorithms instructed to keep at least four glyphs in the "vowel" set?  That could explain why various other glyphs besides a and o were included in the "vowels", and why they vary according to the transliteration alphabet.

I wonder what HMM optimization would do with Arabic or Hebrew?  Arabic has only three "long" or "strong" vowels (I,A,U), which are always written in the standard script, and their "short" or "weak" versions, which are usually not written.  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a sample of Arabic with both short and long vowels ("bīsmī allāhī alrrāµmānī alrrāµymī") and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the same text with long vowels only ("bsm allh alrµmn alrµym").  The files are in the iso-latin-1 character set, using an You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of Arabic letters as single iso-latin-1 characters.

All the best, --jorge