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• What are labels?

• RE: What are labels?

  DONJCH > 03-10-2020, 04:43 PM

  Thinking about previous discussions on labels,and otol in particular, I reckon nouns do not fit, adjectives seem more likely but its got to be a fairly general property that fits both stars and plants.
  
  Possibilities might be something like "white" or "bright" or maybe it's the fact that the star/plant appears in the month of "otol"!

• RE: What are labels?

  Anton > 03-10-2020, 05:33 PM

  (03-10-2020, 04:20 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Namely that the Voynich contains "filler" text which conforms to a certain structure. So words like otol, okol, otor, okor... are essentially what I term "null" words. Since I first learnt about repeated words I suspected that they were fillers. So I stand somewhere between the people who think all the text in the Voynich is nonsense and people who think none of the text in the Voynich is nonsense. I think some is meaningful and some meaningless. Anyway if we put such "otol" like words to one side we have a number of unusually rare words, such as we find with plant labels, and the question is then how we explain those as adjectives or numbers.

  
  Unfortunately, I'm not closely following all discussions in the Forum these days, so I'm not acquainted with this theory of yours. However, it would be strange to have "null" labels, would not it? Consider the "Voynich stars" (f68r1 and f68r2). How many of those would be null labels, according to your theory? f68r2 has some stars unlabeled, instead of null-labeled. Why? You can't but notice that this immediately shifts away from the "best odds" approach. Actually, the null-label theory in itself is not "best-odds", I guess
  
  

  (03-10-2020, 04:43 PM)DONJCH Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thinking about previous discussions on labels,and otol in particular, I reckon nouns do not fit, adjectives seem more likely but its got to be a fairly general property that fits both stars and plants.

  
  My idea has been that prefixes such as o-, qo-, y- serve as relational operators, this discussion is found elsewhere in the forum. In that case, many labels would be nouns-operated-upon, rather than simply nouns in nominative case.

• RE: What are labels?

  -JKP- > 03-10-2020, 06:08 PM

  (03-10-2020, 03:44 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.When some suggest labels could be adjectives or numbers I would be surprised if that in general, historically, that is not an unusual scenario compared to the scenario that they are nouns. ...

  
  I'm one of the people who has frequently suggested they might be something other than nouns. I say this based on studying the structure of the "labels".

• RE: What are labels?

  Mark Knowles > 03-10-2020, 06:11 PM

  (03-10-2020, 05:33 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (03-10-2020, 04:20 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Namely that the Voynich contains "filler" text which conforms to a certain structure.

  
  Unfortunately, I'm not closely following all discussions in the Forum these days, so I'm not acquainted with this theory of yours. However, it would be strange to have "null" labels, would not it? Consider the "Voynich stars" (f68r1 and f68r2). How many of those would be null labels, according to your theory? f68r2 has some stars unlabeled, instead of null-labeled. Why? You can't but notice that this immediately shifts away from the "best odds" approach. Actually, the null-label theory in itself is not "best-odds", I guess  

  I think the Voynich stars is an excellent example. Some stars have no labels, therefore it is not necessary for every star to have a meaningful label. The reason for having meaningless labels is to confuse the person trying to break the cipher, so in ciphers the reason to have "null" symbols/characters is to confuse the person trying to break the cipher as to what are "real" symbols/characters and what not. So "meaningless" star labels would be there to confuse the person trying to break the cipher as to what are the "real" labels. Counting and distinguishing "null" words from "real" words becomes hard and if I could perfectly partition the set at this time that would be great. However, generally, I view rare and distinctly spelled words as being much more likely to be "real" words than very common words with spellings very similar to other very common words. Note the repeated labels tend to be spelled very similarly to each other, whereas the "unique" labels tend to be spelled much more differently from one another; this should be statistically verifiable, which is on my list to do.
  
  In some ways I agree that it shifts away from the simple best odds approach as we can't find any contemporary cipher which contains "null" words. However it is the scenario that seems most likely or the best odds in this context to me, personally.

• RE: What are labels?

  Mark Knowles > 03-10-2020, 06:26 PM

  If they are numbers what kind of numbering system could produce the variety of spellings that we see with labels? A numbering system hardly fits the structure of labels.
  
  We see many "unique" labels, how many "unique" adjectives are likely to have been used compared with "unique" nouns? Nouns are normally rarer words than adjectives. Adjectives do not seem to fit the structure labels. Is one saying that all labels are adjectives or just some? What sense can be made of "adjective" labels on the rosettes foldout? To me the default assumption has to be that they are nouns and for me the question is what are the consequences of that assumption that need to be explained such as the repeated "simple" words like EVA-otol? As someone who was already suspicious that there were "null" (repeated) words and also someone who was of the opinion that diplomatic ciphers which contain null symbols were an Influence on the Voynich it was natural to suspect those simple repeated labels were nulls.

• RE: What are labels?

  Linda > 03-10-2020, 06:55 PM

  Otol is made up only of glyphs in the listing on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. so may just be a collection of symbols and not a word at all, yet acting like an adjective since it is a collection of symbols describing something. I do not think the same associations would occur in the other sections since the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. listing would seem to apply only to quire 13. therefore they would be different associations, if also collections of traits. Different groups of words that look like the same word repeated for different objects.

• RE: What are labels?

  Anton > 04-10-2020, 12:09 AM

  (03-10-2020, 06:11 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Some stars have no labels, therefore it is not necessary for every star to have a meaningful label

  
  Exactly, but it is as well not necessary for every star to have a meaningless label. However, the scribe took effort to label all stars in f68r1, while he left many stars unlabeled in f68r2.
  
  

  (03-10-2020, 06:11 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The reason for having meaningless labels is to confuse the person trying to break the cipher

  
  With labels, it's a way to confuse one's own self. It's not to be forgotten that writing and enciphering is one part. The other part is deciphering and reading. There must be a mechanism then for the reader to distinguish a meaningful label from a meaningless one.
  
  
  No, while (as I said) I'm not familiar with what grounds you build your null-words theory upon, the Voynich stars diagrams do not seem to me to support it out of the box.
  
  

  Quote:I view rare and distinctly spelled words as being much more likely to be "real" words than very common words with spellings very similar to other very common words

  
  Why?
  
  

  (03-10-2020, 06:11 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Note the repeated labels tend to be spelled very similarly to each other, whereas the "unique" labels tend to be spelled much more differently from one another; this should be statistically verifiable, which is on my list to do.

  
  For the Voynich stars, the obvious similarity for the frequent ones is that they mostly begin with "o". Seven out of nine most frequent Voynich stars begin with "o". Here's the list:
  

  • otol (20,3% of all occurrences)
    
  • odaiin (14,7%)
    
  • otor (10,9%)
    
  • olor (7,2%)
    
  • dchol (5,8%)
    
  • okeor (5,3%)
    
  • okchor (4,6%)
    
  • chodar (3,4%)
    
  • ockhy (3,1%)
    

  There's also morphological similarity between some of them, e.g. otol vs otor vs olor.
  
  However, that holds not only for frequent stars. 72% of all star names begin with "o". There is also morphological similarity for certain rare or unique stars, such as otydy vs otys, okodaly vs okoaly, otcheody vs okcheody vs ofcheody.
  
  The fact that 72% of all stars begin with "o", does not very well agree with the idea of noun denominations. Supposing graphical stars represent a homogenous set of notions, 72% of names of those notions would not begin with a single letter, unless most of those are null-labels and "o" is a special marker of a null-vord. Furthermore, there are only six starting letters for the Voynich star names on the whole.
  
  The simplest "best-odds" explanation would be an article, something like Arabic "al", which immediately moves out of the realm of simple nouns.
  
  

  (03-10-2020, 06:55 PM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Otol is made up only of glyphs in the listing on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  
  No, there's no "t" on that list.

• RE: What are labels?

  Mark Knowles > 04-10-2020, 01:08 AM

  (04-10-2020, 12:09 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (03-10-2020, 06:11 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Some stars have no labels, therefore it is not necessary for every star to have a meaningful label

  
  Exactly, but it is as well not necessary for every star to have a meaningless label. However, the scribe took effort to label all stars in f68r1, while he left many stars unlabeled in f68r2.
  
  

  
  
  I don't see that as a problem, maybe he couldn't be bothered to label all the stars on f68r2 You might ask if he wasn't going to label them, why did he draw them, maybe to fill available space.
  
  [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]

  Anton Wrote:[/font]
  
  

  (03-10-2020, 06:11 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The reason for having meaningless labels is to confuse the person trying to break the cipher

  
  With labels, it's a way to confuse one's own self. It's not to be forgotten that writing and enciphering is one part. The other part is deciphering and reading. There must be a mechanism then for the reader to distinguish a meaningful label from a meaningless one.
  
  

  
  
  I agree. There has to be some relatively easy way for the reader to determine what is null and what not. This could be some kinds of word formula or formulae by which null words are constructed. It could be that in some case we have null sequences of symbols, so for example EVA-otol could be null and likewise EVA-otolredy equal to EVA-redy.
  
  

  Anton Wrote:
  
  No, while (as I said) I'm not familiar with what grounds you build your null-words theory upon, the Voynich stars diagrams do not seem to me to support it out of the box.
  
  

  
  
  Well, that OK. For me it is the explanation that makes most sense for explaining that and a variety of other things. I haven't heard another explanation that I, personally, find more plausible.
  
  

  Anton Wrote:
  
  

  Quote:I view rare and distinctly spelled words as being much more likely to be "real" words than very common words with spellings very similar to other very common words

  
  Why?
  
  

  
  
  Well first, if there is a formula(e) that can be used to define null words, as an example all EVA-o#*l words where # is a gallows symbol and * is any symbol, then it makes sense for the null words to be more similar to each other than more different as very different words are less likely to be covered by one formula. In addition it comes down to informational content, distinctly spelled words seem to provide more informational content. Null words like words that are repeated or repeated by one symbol seem to have a lower informational content.
  
  

  Anton Wrote:
  
  

  (03-10-2020, 06:11 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Note the repeated labels tend to be spelled very similarly to each other, whereas the "unique" labels tend to be spelled much more differently from one another; this should be statistically verifiable, which is on my list to do.

  
  For the Voynich stars, the obvious similarity for the frequent ones is that they mostly begin with "o". Seven out of nine most frequent Voynich stars begin with "o". Here's the list:
  

  • otol (20,3% of all occurrences)
    
  • odaiin (14,7%)
    
  • otor (10,9%)
    
  • olor (7,2%)
    
  • dchol (5,8%)
    
  • okeor (5,3%)
    
  • okchor (4,6%)
    
  • chodar (3,4%)
    
  • ockhy (3,1%)
    

  There's also morphological similarity between some of them, e.g. otol vs otor vs olor.
  
  However, that holds not only for frequent stars. 72% of all star names begin with "o". There is also morphological similarity for certain rare or unique stars, such as otydy vs otys, okodaly vs okoaly, otcheody vs okcheody vs ofcheody.
  
  The fact that 72% of all stars begin with "o", does not very well agree with the idea of noun denominations. Supposing graphical stars represent a homogenous set of notions, 72% of names of those notions would not begin with a single letter, unless most of those are null-labels and "o" is a special marker of a null-vord. Furthermore, there are only six starting letters for the Voynich star names on the whole.
  
  The simplest "best-odds" explanation would be an article, something like Arabic "al", which immediately moves out of the realm of simple nouns.

  
  As a general point I said nouns, that does not necessarily mean "simple nouns", I have no problem in principle with an article being included in the name. However, if I am honest, I don't think that is what we see here. Do I think otol, otor and olor are null? Yes that would be my opinion. My guess is that [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]odaiin is null given that it "daiin" a very common word with an "o" in front. The other words I am not sure about. It could be that in all words that start with an o followed by a gallows one should ignore those first two symbols. I am also comfortable with the possibility that 72% of star names are null; I don't know if that is the case or not, but it is not inconceivable to me.[/font]
  
  [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]For me it is difficult there are labels/words that I am pretty confident are null and also words I am inclined to think are not null. The difficulty for me is demarcating the ground between the two extremes. So when you point out [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]morphological similarity even amongst words that are less common I have concerns about those quite possibly being nulls. I can entertain the possibility that part of a longer word might be null, that seems conceivable, though if there is morphological similarity to another word it makes it more doubtful to me as we are still left with morphological similarity after shortening. Having looked at stars there are certainly those with distinctive spellings.[/font][/font]
  
  From my perspective producing a formula by which all null words can be defined is the trick, but that is not something I have as yet done. My guess is that it is a more complex formula than all words beginning with "o" are null, though again that is something I am prepared to entertain.

• RE: What are labels?

  Anton > 04-10-2020, 01:17 PM

  (04-10-2020, 01:08 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You might ask if he wasn't going to label them, why did he draw them, maybe to fill available space.

  
  Yes, that's a very good question. Considering the Herbal section, we find the plants unlabeled, which is in contrast to some contemporary herbals which contain plant names as labels. Moreover, a couple of attacks with different approaches (my search for "potential plant names" and Wladimir's cross search against the Pharma section) did not succeed to indicate that plant names are there at all. After all, they may be there somewhere, but at least that's far from explicit. On the other hand, the way the plants are depicted strongly suggest conveyance of mnemonical message, which (as I argued) would point towards the plant name. In other words, information of "what's this plant?" is to be derived not from any explicit label, but from the image itself by way of visual mnemonics.
  
  Expanding this concept to the charts of f68r1 and r2 which resemble star maps, we may well suppose that, likewise, information of "what's this star?" is to be derived not from explicit labels, but from other pointers, of which, of course, the only one could be the position of a star in the map. One may object that these "maps" look somewhat disorganized and messy, but if they were copied from some other contemporary map well known to the author, he would have no difficulty to recognize from looking at his, albeit messy, depiction, which star is what. So then, if not star names, what are their labels? They are left to be certain references or relations, in general - certain associations of stars with some other objects or notions, whether about use, governance, reasoning or whatever. In this light, some stars, although members of a star map, would be of no "practical" (that is, alchemic, magic etc.) use or no reference, hence they are unlabeled. It is the nightside chart, which would correspond to the southern hemisphere, where some stars are unlabeled, and this is in line with common sense - the southern hemisphere stars would be less incorporated into magical practice of the time, because they are generally less observable for the inhabitants of the then civilized world.

• RE: What are labels?

  Mark Knowles > 04-10-2020, 05:15 PM

  (04-10-2020, 01:17 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, that's a very good question. Considering the Herbal section, we find the plants unlabeled, which is in contrast to some contemporary herbals which contain plant names as labels. Moreover, a couple of attacks with different approaches (my search for "potential plant names" and Wladimir's cross search against the Pharma section) did not succeed to indicate that plant names are there at all.

  
  Are you saying that you think there are no names in the Voynich? Are you saying that you think there are no nouns in the Voynich?
  
  I have seen what Wladimir has done and I am undertaking something very similar, but on a significantly larger scale as I am most interested in the small plant labels as these are the most clearly matched to specific detailed drawings and so, I think, the best for trying to understand labels.
  
  I am very much approaching the subject as the labels being nouns and then trying to explain the peculiarities we see. Whereas it seems to me that you are interpreting the peculiarities we see as meaning they are not nouns and then are left trying to resolve what I see as the problematic implications of that.
  
  In my own pre-existing analysis of the 9 rosettes page I was of the opinion that the labels were nouns and I still am.
  
  I think labels are the key to understanding the strangeness that is Voynichese.
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