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Ruby's Greek Thread
- Ruby's Greek Thread
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RE: How to prove that the B-language is not Greek?
pfeaster > 15-12-2022, 12:52 AM
(14-12-2022, 03:53 PM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In which case do you classify my proposals for identifying the most frequent words?
I just found your You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and some blog posts more relevant to this specific vocabulary -- sorry for having missed them earlier.
Here's an attempt to summarize your main readings of the twelve most frequently occurring words in Currier B.
1. chedy = *γέτος = ϝέτος, variant of ἔτος, most often "year" but also "cycle," "period," etc. (discussed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
2. shedy = σχέδη (or Latin scheda), "papyrus strip, piece of paper"
3. daiin = των, "the" (masculine accusative)
4. qokeedy = δονειται (δονεω), "he/she/it shakes." 6. qokedy, 7. qokain, and 9. qokaiin are also identified with different grammatical forms of the verb δονεω.
5. ol = οἱ, "the" (masculine nominative plural), plus a few other possibilities, some of which are in distinctive dialects, including ἁ for ἡ, "the" (feminine nominative singular).
8. qokeey isn't in the word list but is discussed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as perhaps a part of [Δω]δωνης.
10. aiin = οὖν, "therefore"
11. chey and 12. ar aren't in the word list.
Thus, of the twelve most common words, it looks like you've formally proposed readings of nine -- is that correct?
I see a couple issues with your proposal for chedy. Digamma (ϝ) was pronounced like English "w," so in spite of its name, it seems unlikely to be represented by the same glyph as Greek γ and κ (your usual readings for ch). Moreover, both the digamma sound and letter were already obsolete in mainstream "literary" Ancient Greek. The form ϝέτος turns up in a few early dialect inscriptions, and the pronunciation "wetos" might have survived in Aeolic Greek into the Hellenistic era, but I doubt there's any trace of it being used in writing or speech within a thousand years of the Voynich Manuscript being written. On the whole, this first identification seems a bit improbable.
Your proposals for daiin and ol seem like plausible common words, but if these variants of "the" occur so frequently, then the absence of other variants of "the" among the very most common words might become harder to account for.
I could see "therefore" (aiin = οὖν) being a pretty common word; it's #41 in that other list I shared.
Beyond that, we round out the top twelve most common words with one word for a sheet of paper and four forms of the verb "shake" (a whole lot of shaking going on?).
It makes for an interesting mix. Which of my three categories would you put it in?
We seem to have enough vocabulary here to try deciphering some phrases, e.g., qokedy.chedy.qokedy = "a shaken year was shaken" (if we assume one qokedy is the passive aorist and the other is a past participle).
One cause for concern might be that definite articles don't seem to match their nouns in gender, number, and case, as they typically would in Greek; for example daiin.chedy = των ϝέτος (accusative "the" + nominative "year"). -
RE: How to prove that the B-language is not Greek?
Ruby Novacna > 15-12-2022, 08:14 AM
(15-12-2022, 12:52 AM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.One cause for concern might be that definite articles don't seem to match their nouns in gender, number, and case, as they typically would in Greek
You underline here the known difficulties, if they did not exist the text would have been deciphered long ago.
P.S. Thank you for visiting my blog -
RE: How to prove that the B-language is not Greek?
MarcoP > 15-12-2022, 10:54 AM
(15-12-2022, 08:14 AM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(15-12-2022, 12:52 AM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.One cause for concern might be that definite articles don't seem to match their nouns in gender, number, and case, as they typically would in Greek
You underline here the known difficulties, if they did not exist the text would have been deciphered long ago.
Exactly! One cannot expect much new information here, since this old basic method has been debunked so many times during the last century. Simple substitutions failed over and over again with several European languages, Greek included, and we know why. As you say, if this simple method worked, the text would have been deciphered long ago.
Simple substitutions of European languages are therefore excluded. Research can follow three other directions:
- A complex cipher. In this case the underlying language might be any artificial or natural language. In particular, we cannot exclude that the underlying language is Greek.
- The text is meaningless gibberish (there is no underlying language).
- A simple substitution / phonetic rendering of an artificial language or possibly an exotic language (e.g. a monosyllabic language, as proposed by Stolfi).
The first two possibilities are currently the most popular and were discussed in several of the talks at the recent Malta Conference. But useful research can also be (and is being) done by adding to our knowledge of Voynichese, without making assumptions about which of the three options is correct; this line was also amply represented at the conference of course. - A complex cipher. In this case the underlying language might be any artificial or natural language. In particular, we cannot exclude that the underlying language is Greek.
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RE: How to prove that the B-language is not Greek?
ReneZ > 16-12-2022, 01:10 AM
(15-12-2022, 08:14 AM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You underline here the known difficulties, if they did not exist the text would have been deciphered long ago.
In addition to Marco's response, I would argue that 'inconsistency in grammar' is not a difficulty or problem of the MS text, but a difficulty/problem of proposed solutions. -
RE: How to prove that the B-language is not Greek?
Ruby Novacna > 16-12-2022, 06:11 PM
(15-12-2022, 10:54 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....this old basic method has been debunked so many times during the last century. Simple substitutions failed over and over again with several European languages, Greek included,
I don't quite understand your logic, Marco.
... Research can follow three other directions:
[*]A simple substitution / phonetic rendering... -
RE: How to prove that the B-language is not Greek?
Ruby Novacna > 16-12-2022, 06:48 PM
(16-12-2022, 01:10 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In addition to Marco's response, I would argue that 'inconsistency in grammar' is not a difficulty or problem of the MS text, but a difficulty/problem of proposed solutions.
Thanks, Rene, it's good to know that the grammatical difficulties are not related to the text itself. -
RE: How to prove that the B-language is not Greek?
MarcoP > 17-12-2022, 06:19 PM
(15-12-2022, 10:54 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Simple substitutions failed over and over again with several European languages, Greek included, and we know why. As you say, if this simple method worked, the text would have been deciphered long ago.
Simple substitutions of European languages are therefore excluded. Research can follow three other directions:
- ...
- ...
- A simple substitution / phonetic rendering of an artificial language or possibly an exotic language (e.g. a monosyllabic language, as proposed by Stolfi).
(16-12-2022, 06:11 PM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't quite understand your logic, Marco.
The logic is not complex. Simple substitutions preserve most of the statistical features of the source language, for instance character conditional entropy, the binomial distribution of word lengths, consecutive repetition of words. The source language must therefore match the values of these properties observed in the VMS. European languages don't match these properties and are therefore ruled out for a simple substitution.
On the other hand, an artificial language is purely hypothetical and we cannot exclude that one was invented that showed these features. The case for exotic languages is less clear: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. discussed how some Eastern languages have a similar word-length distribution as the VMS. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. posted an example of the amazing rate of apparent repetition in Chinese (when rendered with the Latin alphabet). A modern writing system for Vietnamese (VIQR) mentioned by Stolfi results in character entropy values comparable with those of the VMS.
The following plot shows conditional character entropy (X) and distance (RMSE) of token lengths from the binomial distribution (Y). Viet VIQR is the blue diamond that appears within the cloud of pink Voynich samples.
Green samples are Greek texts and yellow are Latin and Romance languages. Three-letters labels correspond to samples from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
These three plots compare the distribution of token lengths in Cham's Greek sample ("History of Animals" by Aristotle), VIQR Vietnamese and CUVA-encoded Herbal B. As can be seen, Greek has a peak for 3 character long words and a "fat" tail made of longer words. Viet and Voynichese peak at 4 characters and are nearly symmetrical, with fewer short words and longer words than Greek (EVA results in a similar shape, but with a peak at 5 characters instead of 4). Other European languages show distributions similar to Greek.
It is well possible that Eastern languages could be dismissed by some other quantitative feature: there are few Voynich researchers from East Asia and we collectively lack knowledge about these languages. But the case for an artificial language is so speculative that I cannot think of any way to dismiss it. - ...
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RE: How to prove that the B-language is not Greek?
Ruby Novacna > 17-12-2022, 06:49 PM
Thank you, Marco, for your explanations.
So it's not the method that doesn't work, but rather that the few researchers who try to apply it have not yet been successful? -
RE: How to prove that the B-language is not Greek?
ReneZ > 18-12-2022, 01:28 AM
(17-12-2022, 06:49 PM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thank you, Marco, for your explanations.
So it's not the method that doesn't work, but rather that the few researchers who try to apply it have not yet been successful?
What Marco is saying, and I fully agree with him, is that the method doesn't work.
As a consequence, naturally, those who tried to apply it all failed.
This logic does not automatically exclude two things:
- languages like Arabic or Hebrew. More cases that could have been used in early 15th c Europe may exist.
- methods other than simple substitution of a plain text in any language
The combination: classical Greek and simple substitution will not work.
I am aware that there is not just one 'classical Greek' but there is a whole range of languages and/or dialects.
They are all excluded. -
RE: How to prove that the B-language is not Greek?
nablator > 18-12-2022, 09:44 AM
(18-12-2022, 01:28 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The combination: classical Greek and simple substitution will not work.
But Ruby does not advocate a "simple" substitution or any specific language/dialect.
I am aware that there is not just one 'classical Greek' but there is a whole range of languages and/or dialects.
They are all excluded.