14-02-2026, 09:34 AM
Quoting Stolfi's paper:
"...word spaces in the SPS are quite variable, and there is a substantial number of ambiguous gaps which may or may not be word spaces. Moreover there is evidence that the Scribe(s) who penned 6 the text sometimes omitted a word space altogether, or inserted one where it did not belong....The most common Chinese character in the SBJ is 主 (zhˇu) with the general meaning of “main”, “principal”. It occurs 398 times in our SBJ file, or about 1.11 times per parag on average...The most common Voynichese word in the SPS is daiin, which occurs 306 times, or 0.93 per parag. (In this count and in the rest of this section we are ignoring word spaces in the SPS, so that kydaiin and daiiny count as occurrences of daiin.) When considering the hypothesis that the SPS is some version of the SBJ, it is natural to investigate whether the daiin may be the Voynichese equivalent of the Chinese character 主."
Looking at Stolfi's transcription (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.), 'daiin' does indeed occur 306 times as a 5-gram ignoring spaces. Taking spaces into account that breaks down as follows:
Ignoring uncertain spaces:
108 as word by itself (7th most common word)
192 as word suffix
4 as word prefix
2 as "...d aiin..."
Treating uncertain spaces as spaces:
129 as word by itself (9th most common word)
167 as word suffix
2 as word prefix
8 as "...d aiin..."
Qualitatively Stolfi's observations about scribal error are perfectly reasonable. Quantitatively I'm concerned that we're getting into special pleading territory here, especially because Stolfi's numeric comparison with the count for 主 implies that essentially all those prefix/suffix cases are errors to make it work. I also worry that this implies scribal error rates large enough to make any kind of argument involving word counts or lengths questionable at best -- best case scenario here is that only 129/306 = 42% of the instances of the word 'daiin' are properly delimited by spaces (including uncertain ones).
But there is another, bigger problem here -- why, in crowning it as "(t)he most common Voynichese word in the SPS," is 'daiin' treated as privileged? The actual most common word in the Stolfi's transcription of the SPS is 'chedy' (175 occurences) if uncertain spaces are ignored, and it's the second most common word if uncertain spaces are treated as spaces (205 occurences). It you ignore spaces 'chedy' occurs 545 times -- well over the 306 times for 'daiin.' So why isn't 'chedy' "(t)he most common Voynichese word in the SPS"? "Because the spacing of five of the 306 instances of 'daiin' fit fairly well with the spacing of five of the seven instances of 主 in one paragraph out of 365 in the SBJ" is not a good answer to that question.
I will, however, grant that the paragraph length histogram comparison is an at least mildly interesting result. I just think Stolfi is way out over his skis with the 'daiin' = 主 claim.
"...word spaces in the SPS are quite variable, and there is a substantial number of ambiguous gaps which may or may not be word spaces. Moreover there is evidence that the Scribe(s) who penned 6 the text sometimes omitted a word space altogether, or inserted one where it did not belong....The most common Chinese character in the SBJ is 主 (zhˇu) with the general meaning of “main”, “principal”. It occurs 398 times in our SBJ file, or about 1.11 times per parag on average...The most common Voynichese word in the SPS is daiin, which occurs 306 times, or 0.93 per parag. (In this count and in the rest of this section we are ignoring word spaces in the SPS, so that kydaiin and daiiny count as occurrences of daiin.) When considering the hypothesis that the SPS is some version of the SBJ, it is natural to investigate whether the daiin may be the Voynichese equivalent of the Chinese character 主."
Looking at Stolfi's transcription (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.), 'daiin' does indeed occur 306 times as a 5-gram ignoring spaces. Taking spaces into account that breaks down as follows:
Ignoring uncertain spaces:
108 as word by itself (7th most common word)
192 as word suffix
4 as word prefix
2 as "...d aiin..."
Treating uncertain spaces as spaces:
129 as word by itself (9th most common word)
167 as word suffix
2 as word prefix
8 as "...d aiin..."
Qualitatively Stolfi's observations about scribal error are perfectly reasonable. Quantitatively I'm concerned that we're getting into special pleading territory here, especially because Stolfi's numeric comparison with the count for 主 implies that essentially all those prefix/suffix cases are errors to make it work. I also worry that this implies scribal error rates large enough to make any kind of argument involving word counts or lengths questionable at best -- best case scenario here is that only 129/306 = 42% of the instances of the word 'daiin' are properly delimited by spaces (including uncertain ones).
But there is another, bigger problem here -- why, in crowning it as "(t)he most common Voynichese word in the SPS," is 'daiin' treated as privileged? The actual most common word in the Stolfi's transcription of the SPS is 'chedy' (175 occurences) if uncertain spaces are ignored, and it's the second most common word if uncertain spaces are treated as spaces (205 occurences). It you ignore spaces 'chedy' occurs 545 times -- well over the 306 times for 'daiin.' So why isn't 'chedy' "(t)he most common Voynichese word in the SPS"? "Because the spacing of five of the 306 instances of 'daiin' fit fairly well with the spacing of five of the seven instances of 主 in one paragraph out of 365 in the SBJ" is not a good answer to that question.
I will, however, grant that the paragraph length histogram comparison is an at least mildly interesting result. I just think Stolfi is way out over his skis with the 'daiin' = 主 claim.
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