<![CDATA[The Voynich Ninja - Analysis of the text]]>

<![CDATA[The Voynich Ninja - Analysis of the text]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/ Sat, 12 Sep 2026 15:15:00 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum = Stars?]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6058.html Sat, 05 Sep 2026 15:32:29 +0000 JoJo_Jost]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6058.html
I came across it in Sir Alexander Croke’s 1830 edition. According to Croke, these are Latin didactic poems associated with the medical school of Salerno that deal primarily with the preservation of health.

Its subject matter is health in the medieval sense: eating and drinking, sleep, air, the properties of individual foods, wine, and herbs; the four bodily humors (blood, bile, phlegm, and melancholy) and their corresponding temperaments; and an extensive section on the practice of bloodletting.

Much of the text is written in rhymed hexameter, often in the tradition of Leonine verse, which presumably contributed to its mnemonic character and popularity.

The work has not been preserved as a single, fixed text. Various manuscripts contain very different numbers of verses, as well as different additions and arrangements. Croke’s base text comprises 363 lines of verse (That's why I thought of the stars first), but then he mentions manuscripts with 183, 664, 1,073, 1,096, and 1,239 verse.

Modern scholarship generally regards the “Regimen” as a composite and evolving text rather than the work of a clearly identified author. Its exact date of origin and early development are disputed; the core tradition dates to the Middle Ages—roughly the 12th century—and was already widely disseminated long before the 15th century.

Sources:
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.txt

regimen_salernitanum_thematic_latin_english.txt (Size: 55.25 KB / Downloads: 8)

Note: It was too time-consuming for me to extract them all, so I had an AI do it, double-checked the results, found some errors, ran it again, and again. I hope it’s at least somewhat correct now—the English translations were also done by the AI. I include the URL of the original, after all...]]>
I came across it in Sir Alexander Croke’s 1830 edition. According to Croke, these are Latin didactic poems associated with the medical school of Salerno that deal primarily with the preservation of health.

Its subject matter is health in the medieval sense: eating and drinking, sleep, air, the properties of individual foods, wine, and herbs; the four bodily humors (blood, bile, phlegm, and melancholy) and their corresponding temperaments; and an extensive section on the practice of bloodletting.

Much of the text is written in rhymed hexameter, often in the tradition of Leonine verse, which presumably contributed to its mnemonic character and popularity.

The work has not been preserved as a single, fixed text. Various manuscripts contain very different numbers of verses, as well as different additions and arrangements. Croke’s base text comprises 363 lines of verse (That's why I thought of the stars first), but then he mentions manuscripts with 183, 664, 1,073, 1,096, and 1,239 verse.

Modern scholarship generally regards the “Regimen” as a composite and evolving text rather than the work of a clearly identified author. Its exact date of origin and early development are disputed; the core tradition dates to the Middle Ages—roughly the 12th century—and was already widely disseminated long before the 15th century.

Sources:
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.txt

Prefix	Core midfix	Rare midfix	Suffix
a	l, r, i	a, o, d, ch, sh, e, y, s, m, n, x, c, f, k, p, t	d, l, sh, y, s, r, m, n, g, i, p, t
o	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, s, r, i	y, q, h, m, g, x, c, f, k, p, t	o, d, l, sh, e, y, s, r, m, n, g, x, c, f, k, p, t
d	a, o, ch, sh, e	d, l, y, s, r, x, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, sh, e, y, s, r, m, g
l	a, o, d, ch, sh	l, e, y, s, r, q, m, g, x, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, sh, e, y, s, r, m, g, k, p
ch	a, o, d, e	l, ch, sh, y, s, r, h, x, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, e, y, s, r, m, g, x, k
sh	a, o, d, ch, e	l, sh, y, s, h, x, c, f, k, t	a, o, d, l, e, y, s, r, x
e	a, o, d, e	l, ch, sh, y, s, r, h, m, g, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, ch, e, y, s, r, m, n, g, f, k, p, t
y	a, d, ch, sh	o, l, e, s, r, q, h, c, i, f, k, p, t	o, d, l, y, s, r, m, k, t
s	a, o, ch, sh, e	d, y, s, q, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, e, y, s, r, m, n
r	a, o, ch	d, l, sh, e, y, r, x, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, ch, e, y, s, r, m, g, k
q	o	a, l, ch, e, y, s, c, f, k, p, t	o
h	—	a, o, d, ch, e, y, s, h, c, i, k	a, o, d, l, y, s, r, h, g
m	—	a, o, d, ch, sh	o, d, y, m, g
n	—	a, o, d, r	o, d, e, y, m, n
g	—	a, o, e	l, y
x	—	a, o	y
c	s	o, sh, c, f, k, p, t	o, y, s, f, t
i	d, r, i	a, o, l, ch, sh, e, s, h, m, n, c, f, k, p, t	o, d, l, y, s, r, m, n, x, i, p, t
f	—	a, o, d, ch, sh, e, y, s, h, c	o, y
k	—	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, y, s, r, h, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, y, h, g
p	—	a, o, d, ch, sh, e, y, s, h, c, i	a, o, ch, y
t	—	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, y, s, h, g, c, i, k	a, o, l, ch, sh, e, y, s, h

And here's the ledger with gallows stripped from words.

All scribes: gallows stripped + hapax

Prefix	Core midfix	Rare midfix	Suffix
a	l, r, i	a, o, d, ch, sh, e, y, s, m, n, x, c	d, l, sh, y, s, r, m, n, g, i
o	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, s, r, i	y, q, h, m, g, x, c	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, y, s, r, m, n, g, x, c
d	a, o, ch, sh, e	d, l, y, s, r, x, c, i	a, o, d, l, sh, e, y, s, r, m, g
l	a, o, d, ch, sh	l, e, y, s, r, q, m, g, x, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, y, s, r, m, g
ch	a, o, d, e	l, ch, sh, y, s, r, h, x, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, e, y, s, r, h, m, g, x, c
sh	a, o, d, ch, e	l, sh, y, s, h, x, c	a, o, d, l, e, y, s, r, x
e	a, o, d, e	l, ch, sh, y, s, r, h, m, g, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, e, y, s, r, m, n, g
y	a, d, ch, sh	o, l, e, y, s, r, q, h, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, y, s, r, m
s	a, o, ch, sh, e	d, y, s, q, c, i	a, o, d, l, e, y, s, r, m, n
r	a, o, ch	d, l, sh, e, y, r, x, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, e, y, s, r, m, g
q	o	a, l, ch, e, y, s, h	o, e
h	—	a, o, d, ch, e, y, h	d, y, g
m	—	a, o, d, ch, sh	o, d, y, m, g
n	—	a, o, d, r	o, d, e, y, m, n
g	—	a, o, e	l, y
x	—	a, o	y
c	s	a, o, ch, sh, e	a, o, y, s
i	d, r, i	a, o, l, ch, sh, e, s, h, m, n	a, o, d, l, y, s, r, m, n, x, i

The above ledgers are for the full corpus. But each scribe had their own subset of this ledger so it became much easier to work with.

Scribe 1 core ledger

Gallows and hapax words do use the core transitions from the ledger, but they also expand the ledger. So, if we make a simple assumption, that the scribe begins with just the ledger for the core words and adds in transitions as they're needed, Scribe 1 starts with this very simple ledger.

Prefix	Core midfix	Rare midfix	Suffix
a	i, l, r	d, m	l, m, n, r
o	a, ch, d, e, i, l, o, r	s, sh	d, g, l, m, r, s, y
d	a, ch, e, o, sh	d	y
l	a, ch, d, o	e, s, sh	o, s, y
ch	a, d, e, o	—	a, l, o, r, s, y
sh	a, e, o	d	e, o, y
e	a, e, o	d	e, n, o, s, y
y	ch, d	o, s, sh	—
s	a, ch, o	—	y
r	a	d, i, o	l, o, y
q	o	—	—
h	—	—	—
m	—	—	o
n	—	—	—
g	—	—	—
x	—	—	—
c	—	—	—
i	i	d, r	m, n, r, s

While there isn't enough room to show a ledger for each scribe, this heatmap shows how many scribes use each transition. The scribes clearly share a large common set of transitions, but their ledgers are not identical. Each scribe also uses some transitions that the others do not.

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Gallows as lipstick - why I chose to strip gallows

The gallows-stripping decision was not arbitrary. It came from several independent tests that all pointed in the same direction. And I'm very likely reproducing some work of others that I'm unaware of, my apologies if I am.

Copies and ED1 from other words

First, if you strip the gallows from words you find these results

9,907, or 56.79%, were exact copies of a word already occurring earlier in manuscript order.
6,784, or 38.89%, were ED1, specifically Damerau-Levenshtein distance 1, from an earlier word.
Only 754, or 4.32%, were neither.

95.68% of all stripped gallows tokens were either an exact earlier word or only one edit away from an earlier word.

Stripping gallows adds almost nothing to the underlying ledger.

With gallows intact, the ledger has 288 midfix transitions and 186 suffix transitions. After stripping f, k, p and t, that drops to 187 midfix transitions and 148 suffix transitions. More importantly, the core and rare transition inventories don't change at all. The core remains 53 midfix and 40 suffix transitions, and the rare remains 31 midfix and 23 suffix transitions.

Stripping can create a new transition where a gallows used to sit between two letters, but across the entire ledger it adds only four new ordered pairs: C→A, C→CH, C→E and Q→H. By comparison, leaving the gallows intact requires 185 gallows-specific midfix and suffix transitions.

So this is what I mean when I say stripping the gallows exposes the underlying ledger. Almost all of the extra transition machinery comes from the gallows themselves. Remove them and nearly all of it disappears while the core and rare ledger remains unchanged.

Gallows swapping

If you look at the ledger above with gallows included, you may notice that the midfix and suffix transitions for K & T and P & F are very similar. So I asked, if I took all gallows words and swapped the gallows with it's 'pair' how many ledger legal words would that create.

Swap	Tested	Still legal	Rate
K → T	9,608	9,599	99.91%
T → K	6,224	6,215	99.86%
P → F	1,411	1,403	99.43%
F → P	421	419	99.52%
Combined	17,664	17,636	99.84%

The result is about as close to interchangeable as you could expect. Out of 17,664 possible sibling swaps, 17,636 remain legal, or 99.84%.

It gets even stronger when we look at position. Every initial swap works, 2,377/2,377. Internal swaps work 13,914/13,919 times, or 99.96%. Almost all of the failures are near the end of the word, where suffix restrictions come into play.

And this isn't just something the ledger allows. ZLZB and TTLI independently disagree on a single gallows 113 times. 102 of those 113 disagreements, 90.27%, are exactly these sibling swaps: 85 K/T and 17 P/F. They occur in both directions, K→T and T→K, P→F and F→P.

So the ledger says K/T and P/F can almost always occupy the same structural position, and when the two transcriptions disagree over a single gallows, the disagreement is overwhelmingly K/T or P/F.

One other oddity I noticed in the gallows words is initial i. Across all five scribes there isn't a single retained core word beginning with i. The only six i-initial words are all gallows-bearing. I don't know what that means, but it is another indication that gallows constructions have some peculiarities of their own.

Now, I do personally tend to think of them as decorative but that's just my opinion and it was convenient for me to think of them as such. But, that doesn't mean gallows are meaningless. It doesn't even tell us whether the gallows were added before or after the rest of the word. And while my use of the word lipstick may be a tad dramatic, there are probably a bunch more tests that should be run before Estée Lauder could claim a trademark.

Scribal Ledger Comparisons

Scribes 4 and 5 do have a limited vocabulary compared to the other scribes so that should be noted. I won't go into extreme depth on these comparisons but suffice it to say that while the scribes did share a large common transition set, they were not identical.

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Codex Image Aug 23, 2026, 06_20_12 PM.png (Size: 34.9 KB / Downloads: 145)

This compares the pooled all-scribes ledger with the five individual scribe ledgers. The numbers show how many scribes use each transition. The orange P marks transitions that enter the core + rare inventory only when the scribes are pooled together. Most of the pooled ledger is therefore made up of transitions already present in one or more individual core + rare ledgers, with only a small number changing status through pooling.

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Codex Image Aug 23, 2026, 06_05_31 PM.png (Size: 34.2 KB / Downloads: 144)
This compares the actual core + rare transition inventories of each scribe using Jaccard similarity. Scribes 1–4 are fairly close to one another, with Scribe 2 and Scribe 3 the most similar at 0.75. Scribe 5 is the clear outlier, sharing only about 0.40–0.53 of its transition inventory with the others. So the scribes are clearly using the same general transition system, but not identical copies of the same ledger.

Hapax

Hapax look more irregular than repeated words, but most of that irregularity appears to be local to the individual scribe.

Across the five scribes there are 1,817 nongallows scribe-specific hapax. Only 664, or 36.54%, are completely covered by that scribe's own core ledger. But when those same hapax are tested against the pooled all-scribes core, 1,297 of 1,817, or 71.38%, are completely legal. So in most cases the "new" structure in a hapax isn't actually new to the manuscript. It is simply something that particular scribe only used once.

There is also a very nice control using gallows words. If you split stripped gallows words according to whether they occur once or repeatedly:

Population	Own-scribe core	All-scribe core
Nongallows hapax	36.54%	71.38%
One-off gallows	43.59%	69.03%
Repeated gallows	73.18%	90.32%

Prefix	Core midfix	Rare midfix	Suffix
a	l, r, i	a, o, d, ch, sh, e, y, s, m, n, x, c, f, k, p, t	d, l, sh, y, s, r, m, n, g, i, p, t
o	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, s, r, i	y, q, h, m, g, x, c, f, k, p, t	o, d, l, sh, e, y, s, r, m, n, g, x, c, f, k, p, t
d	a, o, ch, sh, e	d, l, y, s, r, x, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, sh, e, y, s, r, m, g
l	a, o, d, ch, sh	l, e, y, s, r, q, m, g, x, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, sh, e, y, s, r, m, g, k, p
ch	a, o, d, e	l, ch, sh, y, s, r, h, x, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, e, y, s, r, m, g, x, k
sh	a, o, d, ch, e	l, sh, y, s, h, x, c, f, k, t	a, o, d, l, e, y, s, r, x
e	a, o, d, e	l, ch, sh, y, s, r, h, m, g, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, ch, e, y, s, r, m, n, g, f, k, p, t
y	a, d, ch, sh	o, l, e, s, r, q, h, c, i, f, k, p, t	o, d, l, y, s, r, m, k, t
s	a, o, ch, sh, e	d, y, s, q, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, e, y, s, r, m, n
r	a, o, ch	d, l, sh, e, y, r, x, c, i, f, k, p, t	a, o, d, l, ch, e, y, s, r, m, g, k
q	o	a, l, ch, e, y, s, c, f, k, p, t	o
h	—	a, o, d, ch, e, y, s, h, c, i, k	a, o, d, l, y, s, r, h, g
m	—	a, o, d, ch, sh	o, d, y, m, g
n	—	a, o, d, r	o, d, e, y, m, n
g	—	a, o, e	l, y
x	—	a, o	y
c	s	o, sh, c, f, k, p, t	o, y, s, f, t
i	d, r, i	a, o, l, ch, sh, e, s, h, m, n, c, f, k, p, t	o, d, l, y, s, r, m, n, x, i, p, t
f	—	a, o, d, ch, sh, e, y, s, h, c	o, y
k	—	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, y, s, r, h, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, y, h, g
p	—	a, o, d, ch, sh, e, y, s, h, c, i	a, o, ch, y
t	—	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, y, s, h, g, c, i, k	a, o, l, ch, sh, e, y, s, h

And here's the ledger with gallows stripped from words.

All scribes: gallows stripped + hapax

Prefix	Core midfix	Rare midfix	Suffix
a	l, r, i	a, o, d, ch, sh, e, y, s, m, n, x, c	d, l, sh, y, s, r, m, n, g, i
o	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, s, r, i	y, q, h, m, g, x, c	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, y, s, r, m, n, g, x, c
d	a, o, ch, sh, e	d, l, y, s, r, x, c, i	a, o, d, l, sh, e, y, s, r, m, g
l	a, o, d, ch, sh	l, e, y, s, r, q, m, g, x, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, e, y, s, r, m, g
ch	a, o, d, e	l, ch, sh, y, s, r, h, x, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, e, y, s, r, h, m, g, x, c
sh	a, o, d, ch, e	l, sh, y, s, h, x, c	a, o, d, l, e, y, s, r, x
e	a, o, d, e	l, ch, sh, y, s, r, h, m, g, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, e, y, s, r, m, n, g
y	a, d, ch, sh	o, l, e, y, s, r, q, h, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, sh, y, s, r, m
s	a, o, ch, sh, e	d, y, s, q, c, i	a, o, d, l, e, y, s, r, m, n
r	a, o, ch	d, l, sh, e, y, r, x, c, i	a, o, d, l, ch, e, y, s, r, m, g
q	o	a, l, ch, e, y, s, h	o, e
h	—	a, o, d, ch, e, y, h	d, y, g
m	—	a, o, d, ch, sh	o, d, y, m, g
n	—	a, o, d, r	o, d, e, y, m, n
g	—	a, o, e	l, y
x	—	a, o	y
c	s	a, o, ch, sh, e	a, o, y, s
i	d, r, i	a, o, l, ch, sh, e, s, h, m, n	a, o, d, l, y, s, r, m, n, x, i

Prefix	Core midfix	Rare midfix	Suffix
a	i, l, r	d, m	l, m, n, r
o	a, ch, d, e, i, l, o, r	s, sh	d, g, l, m, r, s, y
d	a, ch, e, o, sh	d	y
l	a, ch, d, o	e, s, sh	o, s, y
ch	a, d, e, o	—	a, l, o, r, s, y
sh	a, e, o	d	e, o, y
e	a, e, o	d	e, n, o, s, y
y	ch, d	o, s, sh	—
s	a, ch, o	—	y
r	a	d, i, o	l, o, y
q	o	—	—
h	—	—	—
m	—	—	o
n	—	—	—
g	—	—	—
x	—	—	—
c	—	—	—
i	i	d, r	m, n, r, s

9,907, or 56.79%, were exact copies of a word already occurring earlier in manuscript order.
6,784, or 38.89%, were ED1, specifically Damerau-Levenshtein distance 1, from an earlier word.
Only 754, or 4.32%, were neither.

Swap	Tested	Still legal	Rate
K → T	9,608	9,599	99.91%
T → K	6,224	6,215	99.86%
P → F	1,411	1,403	99.43%
F → P	421	419	99.52%
Combined	17,664	17,636	99.84%

Population	Own-scribe core	All-scribe core
Nongallows hapax	36.54%	71.38%
One-off gallows	43.59%	69.03%
Repeated gallows	73.18%	90.32%

One-off gallows words behave almost exactly like ordinary hapax, while repeated gallows words behave much more like core words. That suggests rarity is doing more of the work than whether the word contains a gallows.

Again, I have a good bit more data on this but this is the core of what I'm seeing.

In the final post on this topic, I'll provide the repo for my python files so you can reproduce any of these findings with Takahashi or Zandbergen/Landini transcriptions.]]> <![CDATA[Textual relationship between matching Herbal and Pharma illustrations]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6044.html Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:50:52 +0000 Karlov]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6044.html
First of all, I am an amateur when it comes to both the Voynich Manuscript and historical linguistics. English is also not my first language, so apologies in advance if I misuse some terminology.

I am not proposing a decipherment, and I am not claiming that Voynichese represents any particular kind of language.

I would like to ask whether the following kind of controlled experiment has already been attempted, and whether there is an obvious methodological problem with it that I am overlooking.

The basic question is:

Quote:If a Herbal plant and a Pharmaceutical plant fragment are matched independently from the illustrations, does the associated text preserve a statistically detectable relationship between the two?

More specifically, instead of asking whether exactly the same complete Voynich "word" occurs in both places, I am wondering whether one could compare recurring sub-word glyph structures — for example bigrams or trigrams — while giving relatively little weight to very common sequences and more weight to comparatively rare ones.

Why I thought this might be worth testing

As I understand it, one unusual feature of Voynichese is its relatively low conditional entropy. Within a token, the preceding glyphs strongly restrict which glyphs or glyph sequences are likely to follow.

There also appears to be considerable positional structure within Voynich "words". Glyphs and short recurring glyph sequences have preferred positions: some occur disproportionately near the beginning of a token, others near the middle or end, and many tokens appear to be constructed from a relatively limited repertoire of recurring components.

I am not assuming that these components are morphemes or that this proves Voynichese represents a synthetic natural language.

The same surface structure might potentially arise from several very different mechanisms:

genuine morphology
phonological or syllabic restrictions
a cipher or another encoding system
a system of abbreviations
an artificial procedure generating word-like forms from a limited set of components

For the experiment I have in mind, the actual meaning of these components would not matter. The only requirement would be that recurring sub-token structures can be identified statistically.

Herbal–Pharmaceutical correspondences

What made me think about this is the limited number of proposed correspondences between plants in the Herbal section and plant fragments in the Pharmaceutical section.

Some of these proposed matches seem considerably stronger to me than simply saying that two drawings happen to look vaguely similar.

One particularly interesting case is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in relation to f102r2.

The two Herbal plants occur on the same physical bifolium, while the plant fragments proposed to correspond to them appear next to each other again on f102r2.

There are several other proposed Herbal–Pharma correspondences, particularly in the f102 material.

This also creates an important methodological problem. Several proposed Pharmaceutical matches occur on the same page or panel, so they cannot simply be treated as independent pairs of complete texts.

For that reason I was thinking of carrying out the experiment on two separate levels.

1. Individual Pharmaceutical labels

First, the strongest Herbal–Pharma correspondences would have to be selected using only the illustrations, before looking at textual similarity.

Where a particular Pharmaceutical fragment has a sufficiently localized label that can reasonably be associated with that object, that label could then be compared with the text on the corresponding Herbal page.

Instead of searching only for an identical complete word, the label could be decomposed into shorter recurring glyph sequences — for example sequences of two or three glyphs.

By this I mean sequences of actual transcribed glyphs, rather than arbitrary groups of two or three ASCII characters produced as an accidental consequence of the EVA transcription system.

For each such label, one could then ask:

How strongly are its characteristic short glyph sequences represented on the visually corresponding Herbal page?
How frequently do the same sequences occur on other comparable Herbal pages?

A sequence that is extremely common throughout Voynichese would tell us relatively little. Potentially more informative would be comparatively rare sequences that occur unusually often on the Herbal page selected in advance from the illustration.

So the test would not simply be:

Quote:Does the exact same word occur in both places?

It would be closer to:

Quote:Does the visually corresponding Herbal page contain an unusually high concentration of the same relatively rare sub-word elements that occur in this Pharmaceutical label?

This would provide an object-level test wherever sufficiently well-localized Pharmaceutical labels exist.

2. The f102 Pharmaceutical material as a larger textual unit
The second level would use the larger textual context rather than individual labels.

Several of the most interesting proposed Herbal–Pharma correspondences occur together in the f102 Pharmaceutical material.

Since several matching plant fragments may share the same Pharmaceutical page or panel, it may be more useful to compare the complete text of a relevant f102 panel — or eventually the f102 material as a whole — with the group of Herbal pages whose plants are visually represented there.

For example, if one part of f102 contains plant fragments apparently corresponding to several particular Herbal pages, the combined textual profile of those Herbal pages could be compared with the text of the relevant f102 panel.

The question would then be:

Quote:Is the text in this part of f102 statistically more similar to the group of Herbal pages visually associated with its plant fragments than it is to other comparable Herbal pages or groups of pages?

The same principle could eventually be applied at a broader level to the f102 Pharmaceutical material as a whole.

In simplified form:

Code:
textual profile of the relevant f102 material
            vs.
combined textual profile of the Herbal pages
selected independently from the illustrations
            vs.
comparable alternative groups of Herbal pages

Again, I would expect extremely common Voynichese components to carry relatively little information, while comparatively rare and informative glyph sequences would be more useful.

Why use both levels?
The two tests seem to me to answer slightly different questions.

The label-level test asks whether a particular illustrated object has a detectable textual fingerprint.

The f102-level test asks whether a whole group of visually associated Herbal entries leaves a detectable statistical fingerprint in the Pharmaceutical material where those objects reappear.

Several of the correspondences that interest me also appear to belong to Currier A and to the same proposed scribal hand. I would hope that restricting comparisons appropriately might reduce the risk of simply rediscovering already known differences between Currier A and B, or between different scribes.

Suitable control pages would presumably also need to be matched as closely as possible for these factors, as well as for text length and section.

What would a positive result actually mean?

I would not interpret such a result as a decipherment, and I would not claim that a particular sequence means "root", "plant", or anything else.

The narrower question is simply:

Quote:Does the text contain statistical information about relationships between objects that can be identified independently from the illustrations?

Suppose that visually corresponding Herbal and Pharmaceutical objects consistently shared more rare sub-word components than unrelated combinations, and that the same effect could also be detected when comparing the f102 Pharmaceutical material with the group of Herbal pages represented there.

I can think of at least several possible explanations.

Meaningful text.
If both entries concern the same plant, some lexical, morphological, or otherwise object-specific component might survive in both contexts even if the rest of the text is completely different.
Artificial or self-referential pseudo-text.
Some form of artificially generated text would still be possible. However, the generation procedure would apparently have to be more complicated than simply producing locally similar words or drawing from a general "plant vocabulary".
It would somehow have to preserve object-specific relationships across different parts of the manuscript.
A common source or exemplar.
Both the illustrations and some of the associated textual elements might have been copied from a common source.
In that case, the person producing the Voynich Manuscript would not necessarily even have to understand the repeated textual elements. It would be sufficient to reproduce information that was consistently associated with the same object in the exemplar.

In all of these cases, I think a positive result would still be interesting.

At minimum, it would suggest that the textual system contains information statistically associated with particular recurring visual objects, even if we remained completely unable to read a single word.

What would a negative result mean?
Probably much less.

Failure to find such an effect would obviously not demonstrate that Voynichese is meaningless.

A plant name might not occur in the Pharmaceutical section at all. Different abbreviations might be used. The Herbal and Pharmaceutical texts might discuss completely different properties of the same object. A Pharmaceutical label might refer to something other than the nearby plant fragment. While the absence of such a correspondence does reduce the likelihood of the text being meaningful, as we know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

So I would interpret a negative result only as:

Quote:This particular method failed to detect an object-specific textual relationship.

My questions
Has anyone already carried out this particular kind of controlled comparison?

I have found discussions comparing identical labels or complete words, as well as broader studies of vocabulary similarity between the Herbal and Pharmaceutical sections. However, so far

I have not found an analysis that combines all of the following:

Selects Herbal–Pharma correspondences in advance using only the illustrations, without looking at the text when deciding which objects match.
Tests object-level relationships by comparing individual Pharmaceutical labels with rare or informative sub-word structures on the corresponding Herbal pages, rather than only searching for identical complete words.
Separately tests the f102 material at the page, panel, or section level against the group of Herbal pages visually represented there.
Compares the observed similarities against suitable alternative Herbal pages or groups, rather than simply identifying interesting matches after the fact.
Takes into account the fact that several corresponding Pharmaceutical fragments may occur on the same page or panel and therefore should not necessarily be treated as statistically independent observations.

Quote:If a Herbal plant and a Pharmaceutical plant fragment are matched independently from the illustrations, does the associated text preserve a statistically detectable relationship between the two?

genuine morphology
phonological or syllabic restrictions
a cipher or another encoding system
a system of abbreviations
an artificial procedure generating word-like forms from a limited set of components

For the experiment I have in mind, the actual meaning of these components would not matter. The only requirement would be that recurring sub-token structures can be identified statistically.

How strongly are its characteristic short glyph sequences represented on the visually corresponding Herbal page?
How frequently do the same sequences occur on other comparable Herbal pages?

Quote:Does the exact same word occur in both places?

It would be closer to:

Quote:Does the visually corresponding Herbal page contain an unusually high concentration of the same relatively rare sub-word elements that occur in this Pharmaceutical label?

This would provide an object-level test wherever sufficiently well-localized Pharmaceutical labels exist.

Quote:Is the text in this part of f102 statistically more similar to the group of Herbal pages visually associated with its plant fragments than it is to other comparable Herbal pages or groups of pages?

The same principle could eventually be applied at a broader level to the f102 Pharmaceutical material as a whole.

In simplified form:

Code:
textual profile of the relevant f102 material
            vs.
combined textual profile of the Herbal pages
selected independently from the illustrations
            vs.
comparable alternative groups of Herbal pages

Again, I would expect extremely common Voynichese components to carry relatively little information, while comparatively rare and informative glyph sequences would be more useful.

Quote:Does the text contain statistical information about relationships between objects that can be identified independently from the illustrations?

Meaningful text.
If both entries concern the same plant, some lexical, morphological, or otherwise object-specific component might survive in both contexts even if the rest of the text is completely different.
Artificial or self-referential pseudo-text.
Some form of artificially generated text would still be possible. However, the generation procedure would apparently have to be more complicated than simply producing locally similar words or drawing from a general "plant vocabulary".
It would somehow have to preserve object-specific relationships across different parts of the manuscript.
A common source or exemplar.
Both the illustrations and some of the associated textual elements might have been copied from a common source.
In that case, the person producing the Voynich Manuscript would not necessarily even have to understand the repeated textual elements. It would be sufficient to reproduce information that was consistently associated with the same object in the exemplar.

Quote:This particular method failed to detect an object-specific textual relationship.

Selects Herbal–Pharma correspondences in advance using only the illustrations, without looking at the text when deciding which objects match.
Tests object-level relationships by comparing individual Pharmaceutical labels with rare or informative sub-word structures on the corresponding Herbal pages, rather than only searching for identical complete words.
Separately tests the f102 material at the page, panel, or section level against the group of Herbal pages visually represented there.
Compares the observed similarities against suitable alternative Herbal pages or groups, rather than simply identifying interesting matches after the fact.
Takes into account the fact that several corresponding Pharmaceutical fragments may occur on the same page or panel and therefore should not necessarily be treated as statistically independent observations.

If something like this has already been done, I would be very grateful for a reference.

If it has not, I would be equally interested in hearing whether there is some methodological problem that makes either of these tests less informative than they appear to me.

In particular, I would appreciate criticism concerning the choice of sub-word features, suitable control groups, statistical independence, or anything else I may be overlooking.
As mentioned above, I am very much an amateur here, so corrections are very welcome.]]> <![CDATA[Do Split Gallows have rules?]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6043.html Wed, 26 Aug 2026 21:40:39 +0000 Grove]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6043.html Paragraph initial words primarily, but not always, begin with a plain gallows (K, F, T, P) and almost never a benched gallows - but…

When a paragraph does start with a benched gallows it is most often going to be a split gallows.

Bear with my slight variation of transliteration for the peculiarities of a split gallows.

Not split:
F1r cpho
F65v cphy
F76v cphdar
F101r cphoar

Split:
F8r ctho-cthey
F8v cthod-soocth
F30v: cthscthain
F35r cthoo-r-choly-cthy
F42r stho-ofaiin-cthaihcthy
F80r: cthcthey
F86v6: ctholcthy
F90v2 cphdaithy
F100v: cthdeecthy
F102r2: cthol-dcthody

Not quite a bench:
F101r: etolctheol
F111v: psalar (not split either)

Non-bench split gallows:
F56r: Otchal-chchsty
F68r1: poeeodcthy (label)
F68r2: opol-chcthy (label)
F95v1: polteedy-ctho
F99v: oteol-socthey

The other ‘decorative’ paragraph initials where a P extends over one or more words before returning to cross the leg might also wrap those words into one highlighted segment. Of course, we may never know if they mean something at all, but I still like to think there’s more to these markers than just decoration.]]> Paragraph initial words primarily, but not always, begin with a plain gallows (K, F, T, P) and almost never a benched gallows - but…

When a paragraph does start with a benched gallows it is most often going to be a split gallows.

Bear with my slight variation of transliteration for the peculiarities of a split gallows.

Not split:
F1r cpho
F65v cphy
F76v cphdar
F101r cphoar

Split:
F8r ctho-cthey
F8v cthod-soocth
F30v: cthscthain
F35r cthoo-r-choly-cthy
F42r stho-ofaiin-cthaihcthy
F80r: cthcthey
F86v6: ctholcthy
F90v2 cphdaithy
F100v: cthdeecthy
F102r2: cthol-dcthody

Not quite a bench:
F101r: etolctheol
F111v: psalar (not split either)

Non-bench split gallows:
F56r: Otchal-chchsty
F68r1: poeeodcthy (label)
F68r2: opol-chcthy (label)
F95v1: polteedy-ctho
F99v: oteol-socthey

The other ‘decorative’ paragraph initials where a P extends over one or more words before returning to cross the leg might also wrap those words into one highlighted segment. Of course, we may never know if they mean something at all, but I still like to think there’s more to these markers than just decoration.]]> <![CDATA[Deconstructing the VMS : A positionless ledger (part 1)]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6040.html Mon, 24 Aug 2026 03:57:01 +0000 Dunsel]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6040.html Register or Login to view.

Well, I have discovered why it didn't exactly inspire anyone. My logic was way off. I have since been improving on my methods and digging deeper into the possibilities of the ledger and I believe I have something that works MUCH better. Before I bury you in data I'll have to state that I have a LOT of information to impart so it will take several posts to explain all of this. I'll start with the big news first then the explanations.

Before I go any further, I want to give credit where it is due. This work follows and expands on the work of Torsten Timm and Andreas Schinner. Their self-citation model proposes that Voynich words were produced by copying existing words and modifying them. This is the foundation of what I have been calling “copy and mutate.” So if you're hoping for a decoding, TLDR; it's not here.

Positionless ledger

Prefix	Core midfix	Rare midfix	Suffix
A	L, R, I	D, M	L, S, R, M, N
O	A, O, D, L, CH, SH, E, S, R, I	—	D, L, Y, S, R, M, G
D	A, O, CH, SH, E	D, L, Y	O, L, Y, R
L	A, O, D, CH, SH	L, E, Y, S	O, D, L, Y, S, R, G
CH	A, O, D, E	L, CH, SH, S	A, O, D, L, E, Y, S, R, G
SH	A, O, D, CH, E	L, S	O, D, L, E, Y, S, R
E	A, O, D, E	CH, Y, S	O, D, E, Y, S, R, N, G
Y	A, D, CH, SH	O, L, S	S, R
S	A, O, CH, SH, E	D	O, E, Y
R	A, O, CH	D, SH, E, I	O, L, Y
Q	O	E	—
H	—	—	—
M	—	—	O
N	—	D	O, Y
G	—	—	—
X	—	A	—
C	S	—	—
I	D, R, I	L, N	L, S, R, M, N

This simple ledger is capable of creating and verifying any word in the Voynich, written by any scribe, with the exception of gallows words and hapax. I have intentionally removed those two categories in order to hopefully simplify and explain how this ledger works.

The first thing you'll notice in that table is likely that I have combined CH and SH into one atomic unit. There's also reasons for that which I'll explain later.

How to use the ledger:

Let's assume you want to create the word daiin.

Look at the prefix column for the row that contains D.
In the core midfix column you'll see you can choose A. You now have D→A
Now look in the prefix column for the row that contains A.
Look in the core midfix column and you'll see you can choose I. You now have D→A→I
Look in the prefix column for the row that contains I.
Look in the core midfix column and you'll see that you can also choose I as a midfix. You now have D→A→I→I
You'd again look in the I prefix row and in the suffix column you can choose N
You now have the word D→A→I→I→N

The ledger contains everything needed to reproduce:

393 core word types
412 rare word types
805 total word types
12,564 manuscript tokens

That is around 36% of the total Voynich tokens.

Prefix Stacking.

Consider these Voynich words

aiin
daiin
odaiin
chodaiin

All four appear in the manuscript.

What immediately stands out is that they share the same ending: aiin. The difference is what has been added in front of it:

aiin
d + aiin
od + aiin
chod + aiin

This is what I mean by prefix stacking. Instead of creating five completely unrelated words, the system appears to reuse the same base while building a longer structure to its left.

The longest word can be written as:

Code:
CH → O → D → A → I → I → N

The shorter words reuse parts of that same chain. This gives us transitions such as:

CH→O
O→D
D→A
A→I
I→I
I→N

If you look how the ledger works, each time you pick a new midfix, you go back to the prefix column. It is essentially stacking prefixes in front of each new midfix you choose.

The ledger does not need a separate rule for every complete word. The same transitions are reused as prefixes are added to familiar words. This does not prove that the words were created in this exact order. It shows that the words form a clear family built around the same ending, with progressively larger prefixes.

And for those of you who suspect that the Voynich has Hebrew roots, I have good news: the ledger also works from right to left.

Start with a suffix. Find a prefix row that permits that suffix, then continue working backward by adding permitted midfixes until you reach the prefix where you want to stop.

For example:

N
I → N
I → I → N
A → I → I → N
D → A → I → I → N

You have now built daiin backward. Every word covered by this ledger can be reconstructed in this direction. Naturally, this proves absolutely nothing about Hebrew. But the joke was sitting there, and I was not going to waste it.

Another example of prefix stacking

Consider this family:

chedy 500 occurrences
lchedy 108 occurrences
olchedy 34 occurrences
dolchedy 3 occurrences

All four words appear in the manuscript. None is a hapax or gallows word. At each step, one new atom is placed in front of the previous word:

chedy
L + chedy = lchedy
O + lchedy = olchedy
D + olchedy = dolchedy

In ledger form:

CH → E → D → Y
L → CH → E → D → Y
O → L → CH → E → D → Y
D → O → L → CH → E → D → Y

The complete chain requires only:

D→O
O→L
L→CH
CH→E
E→D
D→Y

Every one of those transitions appears in the core ledger. This is a particularly clear example of prefix stacking. The word chedy remains intact while L, then O, then D are stacked in front of it.

Thats is exactly the kind of nested word family that prefix stacking would produce and the word families everyone keeps seeing in the Voynich.

Missing Letters?

You may have noticed some dashes in the ledger and some letters with no midfix or suffix and, that is correct. H for example. It has no midfix as it never appears as a prefix. And it has no suffix as it's never the letter before the suffix. Now you would think that choldy would give it a midfix of o. However, H never appears without a C or an H in front of it (keep in mind, no gallows and no hapax tokens). But, it's included because in the full ledger, which I'll describe in the next post, that is going to change.

Which brings me to the next section:

Why I treat CH and SH as atoms

In my earlier ledgers, I treated every transcription character separately. That meant CH was represented as C followed by H, and SH was represented as S followed by H.

For example:

chedy = C → H → E → D → Y
lchedy = L → C → H → E → D → Y
olchedy = O → L → C → H → E → D → Y
dolchedy = D → O → L → C → H → E → D → Y

This created a problem in my original table. Every time another prefix was stacked onto the word, C and H were pushed one position farther into the midfix:

chedy H in the first midfix position
lchedy H in the second midfix position
olchedy H in the third midfix position
dolchedy H in the fourth midfix position

I therefore had to keep track of first midfix, second midfix, third midfix and so forth. The ledger became larger and more complicated as words became longer. Eventually I realized that much of this apparent midfix depth was being created by the way I had divided CH and SH. I was splitting units that behaved more cleanly when kept together.

I changed the atomization so that CH and SH are each handled as one ledger atom:

chedy = CH → E → D → Y
lchedy = L → CH → E → D → Y
olchedy = O → L → CH → E → D → Y
dolchedy = D → O → L → CH → E → D → Y

Now the same word family can be described with a few reusable transitions:

D→O
O→L
L→CH
CH→E
E→D
D→Y

The ledger no longer needs to know whether CH is in the first, second, third or fourth midfix position. It only needs to know which atoms can follow CH and which atoms can lead into it.

SH works the same way.

This does not mean that C, S and H have been removed. They remain separate atoms when they occur separately. Only the exact sequences CH and SH are kept together. “Atom” here simply means that the ledger handles the sequence as one unit. The important result is that once CH and SH are treated this way, the positional midfix columns are no longer necessary. The same information can be represented by a much smaller positionless ledger. What had looked like complicated midfix depth was, in large part, the same units being pushed farther to the right by added prefixes.

Eliminating the first argument: Wouldn't any language look like this?

Yes, a positionless ledger can be constructed from any language. For comparison, I chose Finnish. Finnish is an agglutinative language: it commonly builds words by joining smaller elements together. That makes it a useful control for the kind of word-building process I am proposing for Voynichese.

I used the first 12,564 non-hapax Finnish tokens, the same number of tokens represented by the Voynich ledger above.

Ledger	Word types	Core midfix transitions	Rare midfix transitions	Suffix transitions
Voynich	805	53	31	63
Finnish	3,919	277	20	140

So yes, Finnish can be placed into the same kind of ledger. But it requires far more word types and far more transitions to describe the same number of tokens. The ledger format itself is not unique to the Voynich Manuscript. What is unusual is how much of the Voynich vocabulary can be described by such a small set of reusable transitions.

Finnish positionless ledger: Seitsemän veljestä

Prefix	Core midfix	Rare midfix	Suffix
A	A, D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, U, V	—	A, I, N, R, S, T
D	A, E, I, O, Ä	—	A, E, O, U, Ä
E	A, D, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, Y, Ä	J	A, E, H, I, N, R, S, T, Ä
F	R	L, Ö	—
G	A, I, O	E	—
H	A, D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, T, U, V, Y, Ä, Ö	—	A, E, I, O, T, U, Ä
I	A, D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, Ä	—	A, E, H, I, N, O, S, T, Ä
J	A, E, I, O, U, Y, Ä	—	A, U, Ä
K	A, E, I, K, M, O, R, S, U, Y, Ä, Ö	N	A, E, I, K, O, S, U, Y, Ä, Ö
L	A, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, O, P, S, T, U, V, Y, Ä, Ö	—	A, E, I, L, O, U, Y, Ä
M	A, E, I, M, O, P, S, U, Y, Ä, Ö	—	A, E, H, I, O, U, Ä
N	A, E, G, H, I, K, L, N, O, P, S, T, U, Y, Ä	J, M, V	A, E, I, O, Ä
O	A, D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V	—	A, H, I, N, O, S, T
P	A, E, I, O, P, S, U, Y, Ä, Ö	L, R	A, I, O, U, Ä
R	A, E, H, I, J, K, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, Y, Ä	Ö	A, I, O, S, Y, Ä
S	A, E, I, K, O, P, S, T, U, V, Y, Ä, Ö	M, N	A, E, I, O, S, T, U, Y, Ä
T	A, E, H, I, K, O, P, R, S, T, U, Y, Ä, Ö	V	A, E, I, O, U, Y, Ä, Ö
U	A, D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V	—	A, E, I, N, O, S, T, U
V	A, E, I, O, U, Ä	Y, Ö	A, E, I, O, U, Ä, Ö
Y	D, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, V, Y, Ä, Ö	—	I, N, S, T, Y, Ä, Ö
Ä	D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, V, Y, Ä	—	E, H, I, N, R, S, T, Y, Ä
Ö	H, I, J, K, M, N, R, S, T, Y, Ö	D, L, P, V	I, N, S, T, Ä

Prefix	Core midfix	Rare midfix	Suffix
A	L, R, I	D, M	L, S, R, M, N
O	A, O, D, L, CH, SH, E, S, R, I	—	D, L, Y, S, R, M, G
D	A, O, CH, SH, E	D, L, Y	O, L, Y, R
L	A, O, D, CH, SH	L, E, Y, S	O, D, L, Y, S, R, G
CH	A, O, D, E	L, CH, SH, S	A, O, D, L, E, Y, S, R, G
SH	A, O, D, CH, E	L, S	O, D, L, E, Y, S, R
E	A, O, D, E	CH, Y, S	O, D, E, Y, S, R, N, G
Y	A, D, CH, SH	O, L, S	S, R
S	A, O, CH, SH, E	D	O, E, Y
R	A, O, CH	D, SH, E, I	O, L, Y
Q	O	E	—
H	—	—	—
M	—	—	O
N	—	D	O, Y
G	—	—	—
X	—	A	—
C	S	—	—
I	D, R, I	L, N	L, S, R, M, N

Look at the prefix column for the row that contains D.
In the core midfix column you'll see you can choose A. You now have D→A
Now look in the prefix column for the row that contains A.
Look in the core midfix column and you'll see you can choose I. You now have D→A→I
Look in the prefix column for the row that contains I.
Look in the core midfix column and you'll see that you can also choose I as a midfix. You now have D→A→I→I
You'd again look in the I prefix row and in the suffix column you can choose N
You now have the word D→A→I→I→N

The ledger contains everything needed to reproduce:

393 core word types
412 rare word types
805 total word types
12,564 manuscript tokens

That is around 36% of the total Voynich tokens.

Prefix Stacking.

Consider these Voynich words

aiin
daiin
odaiin
chodaiin

All four appear in the manuscript.

What immediately stands out is that they share the same ending: aiin. The difference is what has been added in front of it:

aiin
d + aiin
od + aiin
chod + aiin

Code:
CH → O → D → A → I → I → N

The shorter words reuse parts of that same chain. This gives us transitions such as:

CH→O
O→D
D→A
A→I
I→I
I→N

N
I → N
I → I → N
A → I → I → N
D → A → I → I → N

chedy 500 occurrences
lchedy 108 occurrences
olchedy 34 occurrences
dolchedy 3 occurrences

All four words appear in the manuscript. None is a hapax or gallows word. At each step, one new atom is placed in front of the previous word:

chedy
L + chedy = lchedy
O + lchedy = olchedy
D + olchedy = dolchedy

In ledger form:

CH → E → D → Y
L → CH → E → D → Y
O → L → CH → E → D → Y
D → O → L → CH → E → D → Y

The complete chain requires only:

D→O
O→L
L→CH
CH→E
E→D
D→Y

chedy = C → H → E → D → Y
lchedy = L → C → H → E → D → Y
olchedy = O → L → C → H → E → D → Y
dolchedy = D → O → L → C → H → E → D → Y

This created a problem in my original table. Every time another prefix was stacked onto the word, C and H were pushed one position farther into the midfix:

chedy H in the first midfix position
lchedy H in the second midfix position
olchedy H in the third midfix position
dolchedy H in the fourth midfix position

chedy = CH → E → D → Y
lchedy = L → CH → E → D → Y
olchedy = O → L → CH → E → D → Y
dolchedy = D → O → L → CH → E → D → Y

Now the same word family can be described with a few reusable transitions:

D→O
O→L
L→CH
CH→E
E→D
D→Y

Ledger	Word types	Core midfix transitions	Rare midfix transitions	Suffix transitions
Voynich	805	53	31	63
Finnish	3,919	277	20	140

Prefix	Core midfix	Rare midfix	Suffix
A	A, D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, U, V	—	A, I, N, R, S, T
D	A, E, I, O, Ä	—	A, E, O, U, Ä
E	A, D, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, Y, Ä	J	A, E, H, I, N, R, S, T, Ä
F	R	L, Ö	—
G	A, I, O	E	—
H	A, D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, T, U, V, Y, Ä, Ö	—	A, E, I, O, T, U, Ä
I	A, D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, Ä	—	A, E, H, I, N, O, S, T, Ä
J	A, E, I, O, U, Y, Ä	—	A, U, Ä
K	A, E, I, K, M, O, R, S, U, Y, Ä, Ö	N	A, E, I, K, O, S, U, Y, Ä, Ö
L	A, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, O, P, S, T, U, V, Y, Ä, Ö	—	A, E, I, L, O, U, Y, Ä
M	A, E, I, M, O, P, S, U, Y, Ä, Ö	—	A, E, H, I, O, U, Ä
N	A, E, G, H, I, K, L, N, O, P, S, T, U, Y, Ä	J, M, V	A, E, I, O, Ä
O	A, D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V	—	A, H, I, N, O, S, T
P	A, E, I, O, P, S, U, Y, Ä, Ö	L, R	A, I, O, U, Ä
R	A, E, H, I, J, K, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, Y, Ä	Ö	A, I, O, S, Y, Ä
S	A, E, I, K, O, P, S, T, U, V, Y, Ä, Ö	M, N	A, E, I, O, S, T, U, Y, Ä
T	A, E, H, I, K, O, P, R, S, T, U, Y, Ä, Ö	V	A, E, I, O, U, Y, Ä, Ö
U	A, D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V	—	A, E, I, N, O, S, T, U
V	A, E, I, O, U, Ä	Y, Ö	A, E, I, O, U, Ä, Ö
Y	D, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, V, Y, Ä, Ö	—	I, N, S, T, Y, Ä, Ö
Ä	D, E, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, V, Y, Ä	—	E, H, I, N, R, S, T, Y, Ä
Ö	H, I, J, K, M, N, R, S, T, Y, Ö	D, L, P, V	I, N, S, T, Ä

The hook to read the next post: Gallows are lipstick!

And, I'll also present the full ledger, explain why gallows words and hapax words are omitted from the ledger above and hopefully, give some convincing evidence as to why they were omitted.

Thanks. I have donned my flame retardant clothing, fire away.]]> <![CDATA[[split] Measure uncertain spaces?]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6037.html Sat, 22 Aug 2026 15:22:51 +0000 Koen G]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6037.html (22-08-2026, 03:59 PM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But they also report finding that "certain" spaces tend to fall between their study's learned units, while "uncertain" spaces tend to fall within them. That seems potentially more meaningful in terms of supporting the idea of a hierarchy of "strong" and "weak" spaces.
Thank you for your contributions in clear language, Patrick, I find this very informative.

About these uncertain spaces: the phenomenon you describe here could still be attributed to subconscious split-second decisions by the transcriber, right? The manuscript trains your brain to recognize certain patterns, and as soon as something deviates from those patterns, you have to mark it as uncertain. In my opinion, there is a good chance this effect influenced the results. When transcribing regular medieval handwriting, we need to rely on expected sequences to determine spacing all the time, especially in kind of chopped-up scripts like these. Only, in regular MSS this is non-controversial because we understand the meaning of the words.

So I wonder: let's say we take this crucial sequence of [r] followed by [a], and plot them all according to the distance (pixels?) between the [r] and [a]. Will the no-space variants be all on the left, and the space variants on the right, and the uncertain ones neatly in between? How much overlap is there? Is it a continuum? If this could be measured objectively somehow, we would have a better idea of what space, no space and uncertain space actually stand for.

(Edit: this would actually be informative for other reasons as well, like when we split up by scribe).]]> (22-08-2026, 03:59 PM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But they also report finding that "certain" spaces tend to fall between their study's learned units, while "uncertain" spaces tend to fall within them. That seems potentially more meaningful in terms of supporting the idea of a hierarchy of "strong" and "weak" spaces.
Thank you for your contributions in clear language, Patrick, I find this very informative.

About these uncertain spaces: the phenomenon you describe here could still be attributed to subconscious split-second decisions by the transcriber, right? The manuscript trains your brain to recognize certain patterns, and as soon as something deviates from those patterns, you have to mark it as uncertain. In my opinion, there is a good chance this effect influenced the results. When transcribing regular medieval handwriting, we need to rely on expected sequences to determine spacing all the time, especially in kind of chopped-up scripts like these. Only, in regular MSS this is non-controversial because we understand the meaning of the words.

So I wonder: let's say we take this crucial sequence of [r] followed by [a], and plot them all according to the distance (pixels?) between the [r] and [a]. Will the no-space variants be all on the left, and the space variants on the right, and the uncertain ones neatly in between? How much overlap is there? Is it a continuum? If this could be measured objectively somehow, we would have a better idea of what space, no space and uncertain space actually stand for.

(Edit: this would actually be informative for other reasons as well, like when we split up by scribe).]]> <![CDATA[Is that normal?]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6035.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 18:06:27 +0000 JoJo_Jost]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6035.html
Letters were highlighted if they accounted for more than 40 per cent of the characters in a column.

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16.png (Size: 139.27 KB / Downloads: 135) ]]> <![CDATA[cTh is a eTe?]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6020.html Sat, 15 Aug 2026 17:50:49 +0000 ololololo]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6020.html
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Takahashi has this ShcTHey. But for some reason, it seems to me that interpreting the word here is more difficult. It could be sheTchy, sheTHHy, or sheTeey.
Given the possible relationship between the symbols e and c, as well as ee and ch, I would suggest that cTh (like other gallows on the pedestal) is simply a stylistic embellishment of the spelling ete, with the addition of a line crossing the gallows.

Interesting cases of spelling e and hangings can be found on f67r1:

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In two cases, ep stands before a. If a = ei, then a good combination of epe would result.

What do you think?]]>
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In two cases, ep stands before a. If a = ei, then a good combination of epe would result.

What do you think?]]> <![CDATA[This damn EVA z]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6006.html Fri, 07 Aug 2026 18:22:33 +0000 ololololo]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-6006.html z looks like a small version of k and appears very rarely in the manuscript. I counted it 3 times; only 2 are present in the transcription by Tahakasi.
It appears once in Botany (f17r), f58r–f58v, and on the diagram f67v1, and it is repeated twice in the word.

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And this is definitely not k, since the scribe of Astrology has no problem writing this gallows. This is also not a distorted ch à la Ih, because there is a loop there.
However, this sign does not appear on f57v, where x is featured.
Of course, ch doesn’t appear there either, but still…

I suggest that this letter is similar to i/n or r, because in all cases (except for f17r) it comes after a.

What do you think about this letter? What can it tell us about the manuscript’s cipher?]]> <![CDATA[VMS stats: YT video]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5974.html Tue, 28 Jul 2026 06:00:23 +0000 elemental]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5974.html Enjoy.

]]> Enjoy.

]]> <![CDATA[Paragraph layout]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5970.html Mon, 27 Jul 2026 20:20:04 +0000 davidjackson]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5970.html If we look at standard manuscripts or incunabula (usually agreed to be visually the same as their hand written equivalents) from, say, 1450 - 1500 we see text written in blocks, not paragraphs.
Many manuscripts will have clear paragraph markers -pilcrows-, usually distinguishable by a different colour or size, to break up information units, rather than the modern usage of using a line break, as I am doing in this post. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

The Voynich, from the very first page, uses the line break format accompanied by a pilcrow.
[Image: image.jpg?ref=f1r&q=f1r-256-202-1027-123...&caption=1]

[Image: image.jpg?ref=f1r&q=f1r-256-202-1027-123...&caption=1]

This habit is clear throughout the manuscript and all scribes follow the same layout instruction
[Image: image.jpg?ref=f43v&q=f43v-417-164-982-60...&caption=1]

[Image: image.jpg?ref=f43v&q=f43v-417-164-982-60...&caption=1]

It is striking that the same layout instructions were applied by all scribes across all sections of the manuscript. A template, even if only verbal instructions, was given for layout and this was applied across the manuscript. The same layout was used for page after page, this indicates a conscience decision and even a group instruction issued if indeed multiple scribes were used
[Image: image.jpg?ref=f115r&q=f115r-101-66-1181-...&caption=1]

[Image: image.jpg?ref=f115r&q=f115r-101-66-1181-...&caption=1]

How did paragraphs work?

Quote:But while distinction of words was disregarded in early literary texts, distinction of important pauses in the sense was recognized from the first. The papyrus of the Persae of Timotheus of Miletus, the oldest MS. of a Greek classic in existence, of the end of the 4th century B.C., is written in independent paragraphs. This is a natural system, the simplicity of which has caused it to be the system of modern times. But, in addition, the Greek scribe also separated paragraphs by inserting a short horizontal stroke, παράγραφος, between them at the commencement of the lines of writing. It should be noted that this stroke indicated the close of a passage, and therefore belonged to the paragraph just concluded, and did not stand for an initial sign for the new paragraph which followed. The dividing stroke was also used to mark off the different speeches of a play. Besides the stroke, a wedge-shaped sign or tick might be used. But to make every paragraph stand distinctly by itself would have entailed a certain loss of space. If the concluding line were short, there would remain a long space unfilled. Therefore, when this occurred, it became customary to leave only a short space blank to mark the termination of the paragraph, and then to proceed with the new paragraph in the same line, the παράγραφος at the same time preventing possible ambiguity. The next step was to project the first letter of the first full line of the new paragraph slightly into the margin, as a still further distinction; and lastly to enlarge it. The enlargement of the letter gave it so much prominence that the dividing stroke could then be dispensed with, and in this form the new paragraph was henceforward indicated in Greek MSS., it being immaterial whether the enlarged letter was the initial or a medial letter of a word. As early as the 5th century there is evidence that the παράγραφος was losing its meaning with the scribes, for in the Codex Alexandrinus of the Bible it is not infrequently found in anomalous positions, particularly above the initial letters of different books, as if it were a mere ornament.
Encyclopedia Britannica - Manuscript entry

Quote:The paragraph mark, enlarged initial, and disposition of text on the page formed part of an integrated system for indicating textual articulation. Medieval scribes indicated divisions in a text by combining graphic devices such as enlarged initials, paragraph signs, and the arrangement of lines on the page. These visual cues enabled readers to recognise the structure of the text without relying solely on punctuation. Malcolm B. Parkes — Pause and Effect p.65

Quote:Colometry. A modification of the practice of writing the text continuously was allowed in the case of certain works. Rhetorical texts, such as the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and the text of the Bible, might be broken up into short clauses or sense-lines, apparently with the view of assisting reading aloud. Instances of MSS. so written are still extant. This system, to which the name of “colometry” has been given, is the arrangement by cola and commata referred to by St Jerome in his preface to Isaiah. It will be found more fully explained under the heading of Stichometry; where also is described the mechanical computation of the length of a text by measured lines, for the purpose or calculating the pay of the scribe. Encyclopedia Britannica - Manuscript entry

Medieval scribes were extremely reluctant to waste expensive parchment, so paragraph identification was almost always redundant. They combined several cues:

new line,
enlarged initial,
rubrication,
paragraph mark,
marginal projection.

A new line by itself was generally considered "too subtle" unless for the reason of Colometry.

The Voynich often signals a paragraph by:

beginning on a fresh line,
using an enlarged "gallows" glyph,
leaving a visibly short final line in the previous paragraph without bothering about justification or waste of parchment.

Notably, it does not employ coloured initials or rubricated pilcrows, which were among the commonest medieval paragraph markers and which would have been instantly identifiable to any medieval reader. That makes its paragraphing visually simpler than many contemporary manuscripts while still conforming to the broader medieval practice of marking new textual units through line breaks and paragraph-initial emphasis.

What am I getting at?

If we discard the idea that the Voynich was designed to be read aloud - clearly most of it was not - then what influence caused the authors to choose and stay with this particular layout throughout the whole of the book?

I think the closest structural comparators are not illuminated or library books but plain working manuscripts—medical recipe books, university notebooks, and practical handbooks copied between about 1400 and 1450. We often see new-line paragraphing with minimal decoration and no attempt at justification.

What style could the scribes have been influenced by?

Medical recipe books (Receptaria)
Astrological almanacs with prognostications
Practical herbals – especially those copied by working physicians rather than produced as luxury manuscripts

This habit is clear throughout the manuscript and all scribes follow the same layout instruction
[Image: image.jpg?ref=f43v&q=f43v-417-164-982-60...&caption=1]

How did paragraphs work?

Quote:But while distinction of words was disregarded in early literary texts, distinction of important pauses in the sense was recognized from the first. The papyrus of the Persae of Timotheus of Miletus, the oldest MS. of a Greek classic in existence, of the end of the 4th century B.C., is written in independent paragraphs. This is a natural system, the simplicity of which has caused it to be the system of modern times. But, in addition, the Greek scribe also separated paragraphs by inserting a short horizontal stroke, παράγραφος, between them at the commencement of the lines of writing. It should be noted that this stroke indicated the close of a passage, and therefore belonged to the paragraph just concluded, and did not stand for an initial sign for the new paragraph which followed. The dividing stroke was also used to mark off the different speeches of a play. Besides the stroke, a wedge-shaped sign or tick might be used. But to make every paragraph stand distinctly by itself would have entailed a certain loss of space. If the concluding line were short, there would remain a long space unfilled. Therefore, when this occurred, it became customary to leave only a short space blank to mark the termination of the paragraph, and then to proceed with the new paragraph in the same line, the παράγραφος at the same time preventing possible ambiguity. The next step was to project the first letter of the first full line of the new paragraph slightly into the margin, as a still further distinction; and lastly to enlarge it. The enlargement of the letter gave it so much prominence that the dividing stroke could then be dispensed with, and in this form the new paragraph was henceforward indicated in Greek MSS., it being immaterial whether the enlarged letter was the initial or a medial letter of a word. As early as the 5th century there is evidence that the παράγραφος was losing its meaning with the scribes, for in the Codex Alexandrinus of the Bible it is not infrequently found in anomalous positions, particularly above the initial letters of different books, as if it were a mere ornament.
Encyclopedia Britannica - Manuscript entry

Quote:The paragraph mark, enlarged initial, and disposition of text on the page formed part of an integrated system for indicating textual articulation. Medieval scribes indicated divisions in a text by combining graphic devices such as enlarged initials, paragraph signs, and the arrangement of lines on the page. These visual cues enabled readers to recognise the structure of the text without relying solely on punctuation. Malcolm B. Parkes — Pause and Effect p.65

Quote:Colometry. A modification of the practice of writing the text continuously was allowed in the case of certain works. Rhetorical texts, such as the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and the text of the Bible, might be broken up into short clauses or sense-lines, apparently with the view of assisting reading aloud. Instances of MSS. so written are still extant. This system, to which the name of “colometry” has been given, is the arrangement by cola and commata referred to by St Jerome in his preface to Isaiah. It will be found more fully explained under the heading of Stichometry; where also is described the mechanical computation of the length of a text by measured lines, for the purpose or calculating the pay of the scribe. Encyclopedia Britannica - Manuscript entry

Medieval scribes were extremely reluctant to waste expensive parchment, so paragraph identification was almost always redundant. They combined several cues:

new line,
enlarged initial,
rubrication,
paragraph mark,
marginal projection.

A new line by itself was generally considered "too subtle" unless for the reason of Colometry.

The Voynich often signals a paragraph by:

beginning on a fresh line,
using an enlarged "gallows" glyph,
leaving a visibly short final line in the previous paragraph without bothering about justification or waste of parchment.

Medical recipe books (Receptaria)
Astrological almanacs with prognostications
Practical herbals – especially those copied by working physicians rather than produced as luxury manuscripts

These genres routinely consist of dozens or hundreds of short, self-contained entries beginning on a new line, and they are among the closest surviving medieval layouts to the Voynich's "recipe" section. We also see many clues to the Voynich being influenced by these working books, for example, many years ago we chased down examples of the Zodiac being influenced by the German hausbach calendar tradition, especially the crossbowman. This forum contains many examples.

In short, the layout and visual clues in the Voynich points to the authors being influenced more by working books than by library books.

However, in many ways the Voynich has a much higher "production value" than these working books. It is much longer than most working books, many of which would have been produced by just one scribe.

The images are of a higher quality. The layout of the text is much clearer and more professional. There appear to have been a team of production scribes working on the book. The quality of the parchment is higher and there is no real attempt to maximise the use of the parchment real estate. Multiple colour inks are used with care and attention to detail.

We are, once again, faced with a paradox. The Voynich layout and style is influenced by working books; its use of materials and multiple scribes suggests high end resources were available for its production.]]> <![CDATA[Word boundaries "dl"]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5957.html Sat, 25 Jul 2026 12:03:51 +0000 ololololo]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5957.html Register or Login to view., I noticed a peculiar feature when comparing words with You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. with the text of f104r.28: sometimes the boundary between words was the combination of dl. Of course, my work is still somewhat questionable, but I found this observation interesting.
I decided to test the behavior of this combination in a manuscript. It appears in both Currier A and Currier B. In both cases, the combinations behave in the same way - either they stand alone or they are combined with words like ch (e.g., chdlety f47v).
In the recipe section, this combination is often found next to d. Examples: daindl, dlchd, opcheddl, ckhddl, oteeodl.
Before dl, there may be an o, and in one case they form one word together (odl, also often in the recipe section), while in the other case the previous word ends with o (examples: tocheo dlchy; oteeodl)
Of course, these observations are not enough to draw any conclusions, but we can make some assumptions.
It is possible that the combination of dl carries the meaning of distinguishing between words. It is also possible that this combination arises from the division of text into combinations of letters (as in many classical ciphers, the text is first divided into bigrams or trigrams).

What do you think?]]> Register or Login to view., I noticed a peculiar feature when comparing words with You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. with the text of f104r.28: sometimes the boundary between words was the combination of dl. Of course, my work is still somewhat questionable, but I found this observation interesting.
I decided to test the behavior of this combination in a manuscript. It appears in both Currier A and Currier B. In both cases, the combinations behave in the same way - either they stand alone or they are combined with words like ch (e.g., chdlety f47v).
In the recipe section, this combination is often found next to d. Examples: daindl, dlchd, opcheddl, ckhddl, oteeodl.
Before dl, there may be an o, and in one case they form one word together (odl, also often in the recipe section), while in the other case the previous word ends with o (examples: tocheo dlchy; oteeodl)
Of course, these observations are not enough to draw any conclusions, but we can make some assumptions.
It is possible that the combination of dl carries the meaning of distinguishing between words. It is also possible that this combination arises from the division of text into combinations of letters (as in many classical ciphers, the text is first divided into bigrams or trigrams).

What do you think?]]> <![CDATA[The o's in VMS]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5947.html Wed, 22 Jul 2026 01:11:57 +0000 bvanheu]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5947.html
I can't help but notice there are different kind of ways O's are drawn in VMS. I always starts my O from the top going counterclockwise. I've exagerated the traits in KolourPaint to show the starting point and direction. There doesn't seem to be a pattern (e.g. whole page written with O from bottom). The most common O seems to be starting from the top.

Starting from the top

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Starting from bottom

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In two quill traits

These could be EVA a though?

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I can't help but notice there are different kind of ways O's are drawn in VMS. I always starts my O from the top going counterclockwise. I've exagerated the traits in KolourPaint to show the starting point and direction. There doesn't seem to be a pattern (e.g. whole page written with O from bottom). The most common O seems to be starting from the top.

Starting from the top

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top_o_1.png (Size: 28.79 KB / Downloads: 228)

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top_o_2.png (Size: 19.39 KB / Downloads: 337)

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top_o_3.png (Size: 78.94 KB / Downloads: 227)

Starting from bottom

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bottom_o_1.png (Size: 16.52 KB / Downloads: 335)

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bottom_o_2.png (Size: 62.33 KB / Downloads: 224)

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bottom_o_3.png (Size: 38.59 KB / Downloads: 228)

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bottom_o_4.png (Size: 25.67 KB / Downloads: 337)

In two quill traits

These could be EVA a though?

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weird_o_1.png (Size: 26.28 KB / Downloads: 334)

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weird_o_2.png (Size: 37.41 KB / Downloads: 231)

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weird_o_3.png (Size: 21.59 KB / Downloads: 337)

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weird_o_4.png (Size: 25.55 KB / Downloads: 336) ]]> <![CDATA[Non-linear line ordering]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5943.html Sun, 19 Jul 2026 15:41:08 +0000 bvanheu]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5943.html Register or Login to view. and f58v, there seem to be evidence that some lines were written after the immediate bottom line, with glyph from the top line being written over the glyph from the bottom line?

If the gallow was written after the top line, why make it so big that it extends over the above glyph?

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f58v_2.png (Size: 136.83 KB / Downloads: 202)

Why start the gallow line so that it's *over* the glyph above?

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20260719_11h20m51s_grim.png (Size: 105.36 KB / Downloads: 204)

It seems to me the tail has been made in one continuous trait?

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20260719_11h19m26s_grim.png (Size: 113.14 KB / Downloads: 201)

Is there a concensus around line ordering, beside that "block of text" were written before/after others?

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20260719_11h35m25s_grim.png (Size: 121.22 KB / Downloads: 184) ]]> Register or Login to view. and f58v, there seem to be evidence that some lines were written after the immediate bottom line, with glyph from the top line being written over the glyph from the bottom line?

If the gallow was written after the top line, why make it so big that it extends over the above glyph?

.png

f58v_2.png (Size: 136.83 KB / Downloads: 202)

Why start the gallow line so that it's *over* the glyph above?

.png

20260719_11h20m51s_grim.png (Size: 105.36 KB / Downloads: 204)

It seems to me the tail has been made in one continuous trait?

.png

20260719_11h19m26s_grim.png (Size: 113.14 KB / Downloads: 201)

Is there a concensus around line ordering, beside that "block of text" were written before/after others?

.png

20260719_11h35m25s_grim.png (Size: 121.22 KB / Downloads: 184) ]]> <![CDATA[m on side for Michał f42v, W on side for Wojnicz 1r]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5926.html Thu, 16 Jul 2026 04:08:46 +0000 conlangyalesbaby]]> https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-5926.html .jpg

M for Michal.JPG (Size: 6.79 KB / Downloads: 259)

The sh glyph has an m on its side You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Is the evidence for Michał Habdank-Wojnicz?

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W for x.JPG (Size: 25.17 KB / Downloads: 258)

Also for You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there is a w on it's side for Pi upside down. Could it be Wojnicz? That would be the x glyph!]]> .jpg

M for Michal.JPG (Size: 6.79 KB / Downloads: 259)

The sh glyph has an m on its side You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Is the evidence for Michał Habdank-Wojnicz?

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