Emma May Smith > 23-02-2017, 06:47 PM
(23-02-2017, 11:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Suggesting that some symbols represent vowels assumes that the symbols represent either letters or sounds.
Both are natural assumptions, but I have very severe doubts about them.
The following symbols: q f p m y are demonstrably not to be identified with letters.
That's five out of (say) 25. How confident can one be that the others are?
And even if they are, what to make of a mixture of letters and non-letters?
nickpelling > 23-02-2017, 07:14 PM
(23-02-2017, 06:47 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I find absolutely no problem with both q and y being straightforward characters which represent phonemes. The characters f p m can be linked to other characters and have strong positional rules, suggestive of being variants.
Torsten > 23-02-2017, 10:17 PM
Sam G Wrote:I never said that there was no word network. The question is whether such a network demonstrates that the VMS is not a natural language and if not, then how to account for it. I have proposed both that it could be due simply to phonotactic rigidity, or due to a language in which most or all words are compounds of two or three basic elements. Obviously we don't know enough about how the language works to decide which if either of these possibilities is correct (and it could be a combination of factors). I am, however, fairly satisfied that there's nothing about the word network that suggests we're looking at something other than a natural language text.
Quote:Quote:What's more likely is that how the words are structured has influenced the design of the script.
No. For instance 'e' is common after 'k' and 't' but not after 'p' and 'f'. Words like 'peShol' and 'feeedy' are unusually rare whereas words like 'keeedy' and 'teeedy' are common for the VMS.
A second example is that a gallow glyph following 'l' is most likely a glyph 'k' or 'f' but not a 't' or 'p'. An example for a word using 'lk' is 'olkchedy' and an example for a word using 'lp' is 'olpchedy'.
With other words the shape of a glyph has some influence to the selection of the next glyph.
I don't see how any of these points contradict the idea that the structure of the language has influenced the design of the script. Actually this looks like evidence in favor of the idea.
Quote:Quote:Quote:Now, how many of these properties that you have mentioned can be found in sample texts generated by your auto-copying code? My guess is: none.
It is not necessary to guess here. I have published an App to simulate the auto-copying hypothesis. See for instance my post from 08-02-2017, 07:23 PM in the thread. In fact all of the properties I know can be explained with the auto-copying hypothesis.
Yes, as I've already stated I've tried your app and found the text it produces to be nothing like the actual VMS text.
Quote:I'll ask once more: where are the word grids produced from texts generated using your auto-copying code? Can you show that they are complete with no gaps, like the ones you have made for the actual VMS text, or not? If you can't make such grids then I don't see how your auto-copying method can account for even what you seem to think is the most important property of the text, let alone the many other properties that I and others have pointed out.
-JKP- > 23-02-2017, 11:42 PM
(23-02-2017, 02:58 PM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(23-02-2017, 01:12 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.No 'alternative' explanation than 'natural language' for the Voynich MS has ever been demonstrated successfully. but let's not forget at the same time that all attempts to demonstrate 'natural language' as the solution have failed quite miserably.
I don't agree with this. It's true that attempts to connect the VMS to known languages have all failed miserably, but that really just indicates that it's written in some otherwise unknown language.
Koen G > 24-02-2017, 03:50 AM
-JKP- > 24-02-2017, 04:55 AM
(24-02-2017, 03:50 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
I agree though that this may not be enough to explain Voynichese. If you consider other factors though, it may explain some things. Like if the one who converted it to script may not have been a native speaker and oversimplified and overstructured things.
-JKP- > 24-02-2017, 05:20 AM
(24-02-2017, 03:50 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Basque shows that a language can be truly different from its surroundings. If isolates went extinct, a whole lot of unique linguistic information was lost.
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Torsten > 24-02-2017, 07:02 AM
(22-02-2017, 11:44 AM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You found vertical repeats as well. Yes, I can see them but the relation between vertical repeats and the horizontal is imo a far fetch: for example the words have not been aligned vertically. But perhaps I will run stats on those as well in the future.
ReneZ > 24-02-2017, 09:11 AM
(23-02-2017, 11:42 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On the subject of unknown languages... I spent a couple of years looking into extinct languages (I was surprised there were so many and, as an aside, also found out there's a small region in India where more than 100 different languages/dialects are spoken).
Koen G > 24-02-2017, 09:39 AM