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Historical Context
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RE: Historical Context
Anton > 27-02-2022, 10:23 PM
Hi Geoffrey, and welcome to the Forum!
(25-02-2022, 06:46 PM)GeoffreySea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm new here and am prepared to shock you all by announcing that I do NOT have any new translation of the text.
That's a good start!
As Rene points out, the idea of Voynichese being a simple encoding of a natural language plaint text meets certain difficulties, much discussed in this forum as well. You may wish to consult those discussions, prior to delving into (time consuming) deep analysis. -
RE: Historical Context
GeoffreySea > 28-02-2022, 08:11 PM
(27-02-2022, 12:34 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(26-02-2022, 09:33 AM)GeoffreySea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The illustrations in the VM strongly suggest that it is a Turkic alchemical text -- note, NOT Turkish. The VM zodiac is a Hebrew Zodiac.
Both these statements contradict the analyses of experts in both alchemical and astrological iconography.
For alchemy:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1998) "The main 'alchemical' resonance is supposed to be the 'balneological' section, but here I find no parallels with alchemical manuscripts, except in a very general way. If this was an alchemical work one would expect to find some other alchemical manuscript with similar drawings - but I do not know of one."
Alain Touwaide ("Il manoscritto più misterioso, l'erbario Voynich", 2015) - The only similarity with alchemical texts mentioned here is the so-called "Alchemical Herbal", popular in Italy in the 15th century. Note that the Alchemical Herbal is only marginally about alchemy.
Jennifer Rampling ("Alchemical Traditions", in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 2016). I don't have the book with me, but IIRC she finds it impossible to link Voynich images with any specific alchemical tradition.
For the zodiac, one can refer to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., where the points of view of Ewa Sniezynska-Stolot and Dieter Blume are discussed. The zodiac cycle is certainly unique (as were many zodiac cycles of the time) but it can be connected with the late-medieval European tradition. At least one specific feature (the crossbow Sagittarius) is typical of German zodiacs and has not been found anywhere else.
Of course, everything is possible, but a confutation of the opinions of these eminent scholars will require a lot of solid evidence.
I fail to see how any such opinion would apply to Khazar alchemy since there have been ZERO other examples of Khazar alchemical works. I use alchemy in the broad sense of the entire alchemical tradition that extended from China to Spain, and mainly in that direction. I am familiar with the Chinese, Turkic, and Jewish alchemical traditions and I immediately recognized the VM as falling within those traditions. That it does not fall within the Central European tradition is GOOD NEWS because those traditions have little connection if any with the Khazars. It is a Khazar work with the relevant connections being Jewish and Turkic. -
RE: Historical Context
GeoffreySea > 28-02-2022, 08:17 PM
"For the zodiac, one can refer to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., where the points of view of Ewa Sniezynska-Stolot and Dieter Blume are discussed. The zodiac cycle is certainly unique (as were many zodiac cycles of the time) but it can be connected with the late-medieval European tradition. At least one specific feature (the crossbow Sagittarius) is typical of German zodiacs and has not been found anywhere else."
Here again there has been error. The zodiac in VM is a precise copy of another Zodiac --NOT from central or western Europe. I have seen a tremendous number of errors come from the assumption that it is central or western European. Where does that assumption come from? Have the scholars who render such opinions never heard of Eurocentric bias? -
RE: Historical Context
Koen G > 28-02-2022, 08:36 PM
Oh no, here we go...
Please show proof for this statement before throwing around blame: "The zodiac in VM is a precise copy of another Zodiac --NOT from central or western Europe." -
RE: Historical Context
bi3mw > 28-02-2022, 08:38 PM
Well, for my part, I can say that a "European" view has only emerged in the course of time when dealing with the VMS. So it is by no means so that I have assumed a European provenance from the start. With good arguments, I can still be taught better today. However, it is not enough to throw a theory into the room without justification. -
RE: Historical Context
R. Sale > 28-02-2022, 11:02 PM
My Eurocentric argument is that the VMs cosmos is a best comparison with the cosmic illustrations of BNF Fr. 565 and in Harley 334. Both of these manuscripts were produced in Paris in the first half of the 1400s and are thus contemporary with the VMs C-14 dates.
Red hats and blue stripes connect to historical and traditional events of the Catholic papacy.
Melusine was ancestral to the Valois.
The Golden Fleece tied ancient Greece to Burgundy (1430). Then they switched to Gideon. -
RE: Historical Context
Ahmet Ardıç > 25-03-2022, 10:49 PM
[quote="GeoffreySea" pid='49070' dateline='1645811161']
[I will add, if it's helpful, that there is new information that Khazar language was close to Crimean Tartar and Karachay language but ancestral to both of those. It would not be very close to Turkish except in general structure.]
Hello everyone,
The Crimean Tartar (Tatar) and Karachay languages are not separate languages, and they (and all the other languages mentioned here as Turkic) are simply different dialects of Turkish. There was a people whose language you define as "Khazar language". These were mainly Turks living in the Caspian region. They adopted the Jewish religion long ago. Later, they learned Hebrew of their own accord and taught their children Hebrew so that they could read religious texts. So over time (in hundreds of years) these people used their language as a mixture of Turkish and Hebrew. Of course, Persian and Arabic language also gave words to many languages in this region. Likewise, there are many Turkish words in these languages. The Khazar people voluntarily assimilated over time and began to identify themselves as Jews rather than Turks. In other words, they are mostly Turks in origin, but they have forgotten their mother language mostly.
There is no information that we can say that the author of the VM is Turkish nationally or not. But there are Turkish words in the VM content for sure. In addition, there are sections where we read Turkish as many full sentences and some full pages (because of this work is our free time work only). After a while, if academies and other independent researchers start to contribute, the reading process will accelerate.
We made presentations to Turkish language experts at 3 different universities in Turkey. In addition, In Azerbaijan, we explained the subject to the academicians in the Department of Turkish Language and Literature of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences. Reactions were very positive and supportive. In all of these presentations, we discussed almost all the details of ATA transcription together.
There was not even a single person who said that the texts we showed were not in Turkish. At the same time, they do not understand the dialect spoken by the author and why she/he used such a complex alphabet.
In other words, they could not understand why an alphabet with more than 100 characters was chosen when it was possible to write each word by choosing an alphabet with 29 or 33 letters. They also could not accurately predict the author's dialect. These issues were questioned as confusing, but no conclusion was reached. We, on the other hand, think that the author used such a complex alphabet because she/he wanted the book to be especially difficult to read. Because there is no other logical explanation for it.
The head of the Department of Turkish Language and Literature at Istinye University (Istanbul) indicated to me the possibility that the author might be speaking from minority dialects. Other stronger possibilities are that the author may have deliberately used mixed dialects, or that the author was a speaker of one of the sub-dialect groups that is now forgotten.
On the other hand, the majority of the local words used by the author are the words that are more common in the dialects of the Black Sea area and Thrace regions, and most of them are still used words. We see these most words in both past and present dictionaries.
Therefore, it cannot be said that there is no possibility that the author could be a Turkish-speaking Khazarian.
Likewise, the author, could be a native speaker of Greek, Italian or one of the European languages, who may have used the Turkish language in this book. In other words, it is not important what nationality she/he is from, but what language she/he used to wrote the work in VM.
However, I think that academics who are busy with the Turkish language avoid making hasty explanations on this issue because they cannot define the dialect of the author. However, of course, this situation cannot always continue and one day a university will emerge and announce with an academic statement that the content is in Turkish. In any case, we will continue our VM related works to read more page.
However, in our VM related article, we defined the language not as Turkish, but as Turkic. Because we also do not yet know which dialect of the author is using.
Thanks,
Ahmet Ardıç -
RE: Historical Context
Ahmet Ardıç > 25-03-2022, 10:57 PM
[quote="GeoffreySea" pid='49077' dateline='1645820024']
[I am trying to get clear on what they mean when they say "Turkic" or "Old Turkish" -- neither of which is a language. Turkic is a huge language family. Do they mean:
a. an old form of Turkish
b. the Old Turkic language which would correspond to the Gokturk language.
c. some vague form of early Turkic that they have not yet figured out.]
None of the options you show here.
Since we could not define the dialect of the author, we used the word Turkic.
It is also possible to use the word Turkic to define the languages developed depending on the Turkish language as a whole as a family. -
RE: Historical Context
Ahmet Ardıç > 25-03-2022, 11:21 PM
(25-02-2022, 09:37 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[I think the name 'Turkic' has been used because nobody has successfully deciphered the text of the manuscript to know exactly which one. This is a broad theory, not a specific one.
I suppose that, historically, you're probably looking at a Kipchak language. But that's just speculation upon speculation. The evidence should lead.]
Hi Emma,
Kipchak language is one of the dialects of Turkish. This, of course, is not a separate language.
For example, I read the Codex Cumanicus manuscript like an old newspaper and understand about 70% of what is written.
In addition, we still reached many clear findings during our research.
Thinking that EVA transcription works is to me the same as falling in love with your position in VM solution. We advise anyone working on this topic to consider that EVA transcription variants are not work to read this book.
In any case, the texts could not be read because the correct transcription was not done until the ATA transcription was made. We would also like to note that our transcription is not complete, especially in syllabic characters. We eliminate the sound variants with the deductive method and simplify the syllable characters as the reading progresses. But the basic alphabet characters work clearly. The logic of reading syllable characters has been analyzed and known.
We did a lot of drawing word matches with our own ATA transcription and successfully read some complete sentences. Moreover, to call them speculation, scientists would have to change the definition of speculation. Because we don't just read a word with the same sound value, but we also show it in old and new dictionaries.
Using ATA transcription, you may be also find some Latin or ancient Greek words in VM texts with Turkish words together in some sentences, and this can really add to our reading. Because we do not claim that we can translate the whole book into today's language without the help of linguists. When there are some words that we do not know in many sentences, we have difficulty in translating these sentences as a whole. But if we can find all the words in a sentence in Turkish dictionaries, we translate them.
Thanks -
RE: Historical Context
Ahmet Ardıç > 25-03-2022, 11:39 PM
(26-02-2022, 11:10 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[All translations proposed so far have one of two problems.
1) It only works for a few words, translating a paragraph is impossible. This is because the beginning is easy. Pick a random language, and you will be able to start translating select Voynichese words. This works with any language. The true test is making sense of larger pieces of text.
2) If they do manage to translate a larger text, the infamous "interpretative step" is involved. This is a step in the translation process where the translator uses the law of large numbers in his favors. For example, he may allow himself to add or change vowels. He will look for enough freedom to be able to turn any input into a string of existing words. The result is often still garbage.
Changing to a related language does not fix the problem. There are fundamental properties of the Voynichese system we do not understand yet. Like why is entropy so low? As long as these problems aren't addressed first, you can plug in any language and you will fail, or end up in one of the two scenarios described above.]
Dear Koen,
If you don't mind, I would like to write clearly that both of the items you mentioned cannot belong to our work. We have explained all the details that are expected to be explained as the main problem, by showing their proofs. We respond to specific details by showing evidence. It is interesting and thought-provoking that you can write this down while none of the evidence we have put forward in our previous comments has been disproved.
To this day, clearly drawings & word overlaps have been searched and not found except for a few anagrams. Today, we showed more than 90 matches and proved that some of them did not have a single phonetic change in 600 years by sharing the dictionary links. We also presented evidence of many structural matches, such as word repetitions, absence of some sounds at the beginning and end of words. So shouldn't the evidence we present be refute first? If this cannot be disproved when we show a proof, it is not possible to ignore them with such generalizations, it will just be a waste of time.
Thanks