The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[chenxiang]

@ Stolfi and chenxiang

Sorry, Stolfi, I actually didn’t want to get involved here anymore because I don’t know enough Chinese. But I have two points regarding your statement:

Stolfi: I now consider the SPS = SBJ claim proven.

1. Your probability calculation isn’t correct as stated, as you yourselves even point out on your page. Because

a. You group several “aiin” forms together as a single unit. This is an unproven assumption, but one you need to establish the “Crip.” At the same time, you exclude other “aiin” variants. The rationale for this was developed after the fact. It was not a prior assumption, and you know how such assumptions—made in hindsight—can be used to distort all sorts of things.

b. If you were to omit this assumption, you would have to include all “aiin” forms, or use only “aiin” (i.e., the raw text); the entire calculation would immediately collapse.

c. You’re comparing two high-frequency words within a limited context; these factors aren’t taken into account in your highly simplified calculation.

d. Even if your calculation were correct, it would still only be a probability, not proof. Even a very low probability leaves both possibilities open. There is NO proof!

2. The strange long-distance effect 

And what you haven’t been able to explain so far- because you don’t speak Chinese, and I understand that - is whether these strange long-range effects exist in Chinese:





If you take the inner glyphs in a word ending in "y" - "sh", "ch" "k" have a significant different effects on how often "q" (=qo) appears as the initial glyph (qo) in the next (!) token.

[*]sh + edy: 51% y->q(o)
[*]ch + edy: 39% y->q(o)
[*]k + edy: 28% y->q(o)


My question for chenxiang

Do such “long-range effects” exist in Chinese?

The question is so relevant for this reason: A Chinese text describing different plants, properties, and active ingredients would have different token sequences for each concept. Instead, the same rule always applies. This means the VMS text is essentially blind to its supposed content—unless it’s a cipher.

And there's more. "sh" generally has a stronger long-distance effect on "qo" than "ch" or "k" do in all tokens. And some of the differences are significant. This does not correspond to any standard Western European language; that much is relatively certain. Of course, I don't know yet how this applies to Chinese.
[*]

"Hi everyone. As a native Chinese speaker, I want to answer the question about 'long-distance effects' in Chinese.

No, Chinese absolutely does not have this kind of long-distance dependency, neither in syntax nor in phonetics. Chinese is an isolating language. Each character stands alone. The strokes, structure, or pronunciation of one character have zero mechanical influence on the next character.

If the Voynich manuscript were a simple phonetic transcription of Chinese (like Pinyin), we still would not see this 51% vs 28% dependency between the end of one word and the start of the next.

The statistical charts shown here (sh+edy -> 51% qo, k+edy -> 28% qo) strongly suggest a mechanical generation process or a complex cipher system, rather than a natural language transcription. Even if Stolfi's 'daiin=主' matching is correct, this long-distance effect is a major problem that cannot be explained by natural Chinese grammar.

I am just a beginner, but I hope this native intuition helps your debate!"