Automatic Transcription
Mark Knowles > 28-02-2022, 04:28 PM
I think I may have addressed this before. However I think it worth mentioning again given that Beata Megyesi and the people at the DECODE database, who I am often in contact with, are looking at potentially creating an automated transcription of the ciphers in their very large collection. I think this is the likely future of the transcription of the Voynich manuscript. As with most automated processes this would be much faster than could be done by a human being. I can foresee an advantage in this in that the user could potentially provide parameters to the transcription program which would affect the way it transcribed the text. For example one might specify that two glyphs are to be treated as the same or alternatively to be treated as different or for example certain glyphs are to be treated as a series of microglyphs or alternatively as one whole glyph. In short multiple different transcriptions could be produced each with different user defined preferences.If you don't like EVA then you could create your own transcription quickly and easily. However the program could potentially suggest which would be a better way to transcribe it e.g. suggest that these two glyph should be treated as one given that they verge into one another with no clear distinction. It could do this by analysing a vast number of instances of a glyph shape in a way that would be difficult for a human to do. I guess it could even some day potentially analyse the text to distinguish between the different authors.
Like many other areas of AI image recognition is progressing a pace and some day will catch up with the Voynich.
As others have already noticed I am quite interested in what the future of Voynich research will be like and how technological advances will continue to revolutionise it as they have in the past with new technologies like the internet.