18-09-2026, 07:24 PM
(This post was last modified: 18-09-2026, 07:25 PM by npcompl33t.)
I have actually been using this approach myself, and unfortunately there are multiple confounding things that end up popping up. I can share my list of candidate terms and the analysis i've done so far if that is helpful.
I assembled several historical reference texts to test against, and sure enough, these all show significant enrichment of botanical terms like root, seed, flower, etc. Root in particular tends to occur in about 50% of entries in comparable herbal mansucripts. Seed can end up having different spellings, but is also common. Flower is less so, but does appear to be more likely on pages that show a flower.
I have tested training a model, based on some established blind translation research, trained against historical works, to identify these terms. while overall absolute accuracy is lopw, it is capable of recovering some of them based on context and frequency analysis alone.
The issue is that when i try to apply this to voynich, the certainty in classifications drops to almost 0.
The first major barrier to this analysis is that there aren't really enough candidates that overlap between Herbal A and Herbal B, with the frequencies you would expect, while also not appearing in non-botanical sections. Frankly, this is a huge issue -- its possible that the word for 'root' is not the same between Herbal A and Herbal B, but in general, the lack of this shared botanical specific vocabulary between the two is extremely concerning.
The second is that 'root' and 'seed' tend to also occur in anatomical, recipe, and biological sections in my historical comparisons. Root is frequently used to describe anatomy, and seed is also often used in reproductive contexts. The issue is that the actual subject matter of the two largest non-botanical sections is not clear. THe bio/balneological section and the stars section could very well use these terms, which would make discriminating them quite difficult.
The top candidates for most botanical categories are: ckhy, chckhy, dam, and oky , however none of these really occur as frequently as i would expect for root, and they appear as likely terms for virtually all botanical concepts.
ykchy is a candidates for flower and seed
yty, and ytey for fruit
This list is not comprehensive -- i can provide more detailed information if that is helpful.
I think this is definitely an avenue worth pursuing, just the major confounding factor is the lack of expected overlap between A and B with the frequencies i'd expect for these terms, based on my historical comparisons.
I assembled several historical reference texts to test against, and sure enough, these all show significant enrichment of botanical terms like root, seed, flower, etc. Root in particular tends to occur in about 50% of entries in comparable herbal mansucripts. Seed can end up having different spellings, but is also common. Flower is less so, but does appear to be more likely on pages that show a flower.
I have tested training a model, based on some established blind translation research, trained against historical works, to identify these terms. while overall absolute accuracy is lopw, it is capable of recovering some of them based on context and frequency analysis alone.
The issue is that when i try to apply this to voynich, the certainty in classifications drops to almost 0.
The first major barrier to this analysis is that there aren't really enough candidates that overlap between Herbal A and Herbal B, with the frequencies you would expect, while also not appearing in non-botanical sections. Frankly, this is a huge issue -- its possible that the word for 'root' is not the same between Herbal A and Herbal B, but in general, the lack of this shared botanical specific vocabulary between the two is extremely concerning.
The second is that 'root' and 'seed' tend to also occur in anatomical, recipe, and biological sections in my historical comparisons. Root is frequently used to describe anatomy, and seed is also often used in reproductive contexts. The issue is that the actual subject matter of the two largest non-botanical sections is not clear. THe bio/balneological section and the stars section could very well use these terms, which would make discriminating them quite difficult.
The top candidates for most botanical categories are: ckhy, chckhy, dam, and oky , however none of these really occur as frequently as i would expect for root, and they appear as likely terms for virtually all botanical concepts.
ykchy is a candidates for flower and seed
yty, and ytey for fruit
This list is not comprehensive -- i can provide more detailed information if that is helpful.
I think this is definitely an avenue worth pursuing, just the major confounding factor is the lack of expected overlap between A and B with the frequencies i'd expect for these terms, based on my historical comparisons.