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Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
- Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
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RE: Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
Anton > 22-01-2016, 09:58 PM
Don:
Thx for adding the star labels file. Yes, what would be interesting to see is the sequence of the group numbers for each conforming star - to see whether there is some repeating pattern or not.
My reading of some stars differs from yours, as listed below. Could you please advise whether the following readings are conforming or non-conforming:
f68r1:
otcheody
okoaly
chocphy
octhey
okeor
okoldy
f68r2:
otolchthy
todarailly
okcheody
otoseol
Thx in advance!
Emma:
For a natural language this may be true, but if we speak of a cipher or of a synthetic language, then missing detail might be quite detrimental. Actually, decomposing Voynichese into most basic units looks a very interesting effort to me (if the matching level is high, of course), notwithstanding the exact "meaning" that is attributed to the text (by Don or anyone else). -
RE: Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
don of tallahassee > 23-01-2016, 12:02 AM
No, it won't. It just obfuscates things.
It is not necessary. It is not called for. It is not correct.
Plate is not the same thing as blade unless you are a novelty plate-skater or like eating off of long, skinny, sharp edged, blade-plates.
The VMS shows neither.
What you want to do is wrong. And it doesn't make sense.
How would you like somebody doing that to your words - mixing up the letters and/or substituting others? What would that get the reader except confused?
Thank you. (Khant you?)
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
-JKP- > 23-01-2016, 03:26 AM
(23-01-2016, 12:02 AM)don of tallahassee Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.No, it won't. It just obfuscates things.
It is not necessary. It is not called for. It is not correct.
Plate is not the same thing as blade unless you are a novelty plate-skater or like eating off of long, skinny, sharp edged, blade-plates.
...
There are manuscripts where p and b are sometimes transposed even if other words are consistent with local spellings. This happens when English speakers try to speak Korean, as well. Depending on the region, there is a sound in Korean which is in between b and p and which English speakers often assume is one or the other and thus pronounce with an accent. Or take the German word for Capricorn the goat, which is spelled Steinbock but in 15th century manuscripts is sometimes written steinpock or sometimes stainbock or stainpock. Even when the writer swaps p for b, it doesn't mean all the p words were changed to b (or vice versa) because some words, depending on the sounds around them, might sound more like a p or a b to the listener and thus be written "correctly" for the region.
Yiddish has many examples of sound transpositions, as well, where the German word is closely or loosely substituted with something adapted from Hebrew either due to Hebrew grammatical construction or due to what may have been a medieval immigré's unfamiliarity with certain sounds in a new region. In German, thank you is danke shön. In Yiddish, it's dank a sheyn (a sheynem dank). A similar example is German ein which was sometimes written (and was probably pronounced) ain.
We don't know to what extent substitutions might be present in the VMS, but we have to stay open to the possibility that if it's a natural language (or a formulaic cipher of a natural language), it might be nonnative to the writer and sound transpositions (maybe even inconsistent ones) may have been applied. It's also possible that the VMS author made up letters to represent sounds that didn't exist in the local language where the manuscript was created. -
RE: Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
don of tallahassee > 23-01-2016, 04:35 AM
Dear JKP,
I don't think it is a natural language.
If it is a formulaic cipher of a natural language and it acts as shown in the Voynich Lite deconstruction list of words, then it is a code system, with syllables or the like being represented by the codes.
The reason I formulated the Voynich Lite proposed solution for the 505 most commonly used Voynich words was only to show that structure is indeed present in a heretofore mostly unrecognized form in the Voynich words. I have laid out the general form of the structure and the sequence in how those words must be deconstructed and given most of the codes with which to work.
All I am trying to do with Voynich Lite is to get people to recognize that the structure and sequence and codes do exist and work as they are said to work by me. I have given the entire list and deconstructed each as proof that my proposed solution methods can give organization to how to deconstruct the words.
I am willing to discuss meaning with those of you reading ahead, but this part is just supposed to be about Voynich Lite and the reasons why people won't accept it.
Can anyone else do anything similar with a large group of VMS words? Can anyone find evidence that I've fudged anything? Is the proposed solution too early for the Fifteenth Century? 503 out of 505 is pretty convincing to me. Why do others resist...because they don't like the idea? Is it too simple a scheme to have fooled people for this long? Is it too easy?
When I get a bit more public acceptance that my ideas and sequence work, then I would like to go on to the proposed meanings.
For right now, I'd really like to concentrate on this part of my campaign for acceptance. It doesn't have anything to do with meanings, only the glyphs and how they are formed into words. That makes it harder to argue against - it isn't opinions and/or guesses, just evidentiary facts and proof...
I think.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee.
Dear JKP,
I just noticed the line in your email that reads, 'It's also possible that the VMS author made up letters to represent sounds that didn't exist in the local language where the manuscript was created.'
Do you mean like some of those shown in Table VII - The sounds of the VMS Glyphs - the ones identified so far, at my fumblydiddles.com site?
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
don of tallahassee > 01-02-2016, 06:01 PM
Dear Ms. Smith,
I don't believe Voynich Lite identifies any sounds of glyphs.
Voynich Lite is shown only to outline my deconstruction process and how it seems to work for almost every VMS word.
I invite others to try it for the words that only appear 8 or 9 times in the VMS. I predict the deconstruction groups and sequence will also work for most of them. It should work for almost all VMS words.
For the others, the words not deconstructing in accordance with Voynich Lite, I predict they should also deconstruct properly - if more of the proposed codes from the tables at my fumblydiddles.com site are added.
Only the codes found in the 505 most common VMS words are listed in Voynich Lite.
Voynich Lite is meant to be the simplified, but limited, proof of my proposed deconstruction process. That's all.
No sounds. No meanings. No complications. Only two exceptions out of 505 words.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
don of tallahassee > 02-02-2016, 05:46 PM
(22-01-2016, 06:25 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(21-01-2016, 11:40 PM)don of tallahassee Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.E and F in the Latin alphabet are similar letters - do you think of them as the same thing or interchangeable for some reason?
Hi Don, I think that it would be perfectly acceptable, in the Roman script used for English, to consider words containing say, a voiceless consonant such as p/t/k to have some fundamental relationship with those containing similar voiced consonants such as b/d/g. They are not the same sounds, but they behave in very similar ways. Words like "puck" and "bug" are related in their structures, as are "blade" and "plate". To make separate rules to describe how each of these six sounds works would be redundant when they are so alike.
How about C and G and O?
They are similar in shape, but they are different letters. The glyphs are the same way. Each one has its own sound and identity.
Nobody gets to trade/substitute one for another for some unknown reason.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
The same goes for Voynich words, where [t] and [k] are similar, or where words beginning [qo] don't seem vastly different from [o]. Generalizing may well miss some detail, but it may also reveal a fundamental link.
No.
They are different letters. They are treated as different letters in English, Latin, German and a bunch of other different languages.
Do you know of any languages where different letters are grouped together and treated alike when spelling words? Okay, except u/v and i/j (and possibly s/z in American/British English).
They aren't used any differently in the VMS that I can see. (And the u/v thing happens in Voynichese, too, although I think the i and j are separate glyphs.)
In Voynich words, they are found alone or in groups as glyph codes, the spelling (order and identity of the glyphs) of which is of vital importance in parsing/deconstructing accurately the information in each of the words. Changing a glyph to another would require giving its code group a different meaning. This means they aren't interchangeable.
I think you are mistaken.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
Botis > 07-09-2016, 07:04 AM
(02-02-2016, 05:46 PM)don of tallahassee Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Do you know of any languages where different letters are grouped together and treated alike when spelling words? Okay, except u/v and i/j (and possibly s/z in American/British English).
In medieval languages, defo. i/j/y plus sometimes e, w/u/v, c/k, g/c, sometimes s/c plus probably others depending in the particular language (I'm using English tendencies here.) -
RE: Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
-JKP- > 07-09-2016, 07:34 AM
(23-01-2016, 04:35 AM)don of tallahassee Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Dear JKP,
I don't think it is a natural language.
...
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee
I don't think it's a natural language either, because of the way it's structured, except... I still have a small level of doubt because I can think of one or two ways a natural language could have this kind of structure artificially imposed. I am, however, about 80 to 85% in the not-natural-language camp—I just like to keep an open mind until I'm 100% sure. -
RE: Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
don of tallahassee > 08-09-2016, 02:23 AM
Dear Botis,
I agree with your examples.
But Ms. Smith is trying to (seemingly arbitrarily) group p, t and k together and also b, d and g together, neither grouping with any historical precedent that I am aware of.
They are not interchangeable groups in any language or alphabet with which I am familiar.
Without a good reason, I do not want to speculate they are the same or interchangeable glyphs.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Deconstruction of Voynich Manuscript words
Diane > 08-09-2016, 03:31 AM
Hi Don,
As you know, I've been pointing people to your work now for a few years. It's great to see all these responses from people able to comment from a background in this field.
It's just the sort of to-and-fro sort of discussion everyone hoped for when the forum started.
And - don't know if you saw it - I've referred to your work again recently in talking about forms of text that are not structured as formal "book-text" sort of prose, or formal poetry.
Thanks to all who've joined the discussion; it's about time!