[Article] Statistical regularity of European languages and Voynich Manuscript analysis

[Anton]

This is a recent (2016) article in the "pre-print" status, available here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The text is in Russian.

Abstract (original orthography & grammar are preserved):

The statistical properties of letters frequencies in European literature texts are investigated. The determination of logarithmic dependence of letters sequence for one-language and two-language texts are examined. The pare of languages is suggested for Voynich Manuscript. The internal structure of Manuscript is considered. The spectral portraits of two-letters distribution are constructed.

Authored by nine (!) authors, some of them from the Keldysh Applied Maths Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Unfortunately, this seems to be yet another example of not so convincing intrusion of academics into the field of Voynich. After I read, in the Introduction, that the VMS is dated to XVI century, I lost half of my wish to read further; after I read, two paragraphs later, that they contrapose "EVA" and "Takahashi" transcriptions, I lost the other half.

The non-Russian sources cited are the catalog record and materials analysis @ Beinecke, Pelling's book, paper by Landini and Zandbergen, Levitov's solution, and Takahashi's transcription.

Judging by conclusion, the authors claim that the VMS is written in mixed language - 60% in English or German, and 40% in Italian, Spanish or Latin, all this with vowels omitted.

One day I may read this paper in full, but sorry - not now.

[coded]

I guess the Russians don't trust the Carbon Dating, I wonder how ReneZ feels about that.  Unless we are dealing with a Palm Set.

[davidjackson]

No doubt the daily mail will pick up on this as another attempt by Russia to undermine western civilisation and unity via false news and propaganda 

Seriously, obviously I can't read this so I shouldn't comment. But based on Anton's review, it seems a poor show from this lot. I thought RAS was a respectable institute? No way to complain on the inaccuracies if it's still in pre-print?

[Anton]

RAS is not an institute, but contains many institutes. In this case the institute in question is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I have no doubt that the authors are OK with their subject (applied mathematics), but inter-disciplinary research is probably not their strongest quality.

Of course the matter is not lack of trust in carbon dating (as suggested above), but just little attention to details. In other words, this is a mistake (probably a typo) that went unnoticed past nine auhtors and don't-know-how-many peer reviewers. Which is, of course, lamentable, and does not add to their scientific reputation. And, together with insufficient attention to contemporary sources and inability to comprehend the state-of-the-art, this is (unfortunately!) too often a vivid marker of a poor research. This does not mean that there might not be some interesting points or raw data in the paper - but, as I said above, I have not read it in full yet.

As it turned out upon closer examination, the "pre-print" is not a real pre-print status in this case. In this case, this means that the paper has been published in the peer-reviewed ( : sigh : ) journal entitled You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

As of complaints, I'm 10+ years out of academia, with no desire to return back, so I have no wish to complain on inaccuracies or enter into any polemics. I do my own business, and let academics do theirs.

[nickpelling]

Another academic paper on Voynichese that tries to draw conclusions?

More bones for the charnel pit, I fear. :-(

[Davidsch]

It's a paper in a language that we not read, about a language that can not be read ?
And now, something completely different. 

[Anton]

There is no problem with the Russian language which is one of the UN languages and is ranked sixth among the most widely spoken languages in the world. Those who are interested in the article but don't speak Russian will for sure find an inexpensive  local possibility of translation.

But I will add a summary of its proposals and findings as soon as I have time to read it in full.

[Wladimir D]

Date 16th century not a misprint. In the article is written several times 16 in different contexts.

It is unclear what tools were used to analyze statistics (were their own new ones used?). It is strange that in the article the number of characters in the alphabet EVA is = 22, as in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , (even w = ^).
Then dropped two rare symbols to get the number 20 (the number of consonants in many European languages). And in fact threw out 5 characters of EVA. (The authors believe that the vowels are omitted in MV)

For the analysis of statistics took texts in modern European languages.

In calculating the Hearst distribution exponents (the distance between identical symbols), the possibility iii, i + ii, eee, e + ee was not even considered.


My conclusion is that there are many clever formulas, and in fact only one of the theories, which does not advance us to deciphering.

[ReneZ]

The paper is beginning to hit the headlines:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

[Anton]

That's normal, every new academic paper about the VMS will, of course, excite the media. Actually I learned about the paper from the (Russian) news feeds.