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The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
- The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
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RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Jorge_Stolfi > 05-12-2025, 09:20 PM
(05-12-2025, 07:52 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Claire Bowen and Luke Lindemann's work on entropy was a pretty big step I think, to add to the list.
Rene and others had investigated the entropy of words and characters some time between 2000 and 2005. IIRC, they observed that the n-order entropy per character of Voynichese is lower than that of English or Latin, but unlike these two it remains somewhat constant along each "word", so that in the end the entropy per word is roughly the same, ~10 bits.
From a quick reading of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., I gather that they did a much more thorough investigation of the second-order character entropy h2 of Voynichese and many other language samples. They again noted that the values for Voynichese are significantly lower than those for all the other samples.
But I don't see whether they got any significant insight from those numbers, besides what Rene and others had already concluded. The low value of h2, by itself, does not say much. As I pointed out before, that number is a property of the spelling system, not of the language. One can cut the h2 entropy of English by half bbyy ddoouubblliinngg eevveerryy letter. Or bcyz fgoplmlmopwxijnogh efvwefrsyz lmeftutuefrs wxijtuhi tuhief noefxytu lmeftutuefrs opfg tuhief ablmpqhiabbceftu. It is almost expected that the spelling system of Voynichese, having been recently invented, would be much less efficient (in terms of bits of information per character) than any spelling system that has been used and evolved for centuries.
The variation of h2 depending on position along a word does imply that Voynichese is not a simple substitution cipher or phonetic rendition of a Western language. But that had already been observed before, and I did not see this point discussed in the paper. Was it?
The entropy per word is more interesting, because it should not be much affected by the spelling system (other than the splitting or joining of compounds) or even by any encryption scheme that maps each lexeme (word type) always to the same string, preserving word spaces. Including a codebook cipher. And, in this metric, Voynichese was already found to be fairly similar to other natural languages. Did Bowern and Lindemann investigate this point?
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Jorge_Stolfi > 05-12-2025, 09:52 PM
(05-12-2025, 08:59 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.what is missing is the period of time where the ability of internet image search really started to flourish. This led to the comparison of certain VMs illustrations with particular historical images.
You are right, the greater availability of good digital images of Medieval manuscripts made research on the style of the illustrations much easier.
I would say that the biggest new result was the realization of how vast and varied is the universe of illustrations that the VMS should be compared to. Which may be a negative development... I would say that for any telephone doodle or child drawing we now can find at least two or three Medieval illustrations online that have at least some detail that is similar to it.
But, on the other hand, the availability of the images and text of the "Alchemical Herbal" was a great advance, because it gave us clearer ideas about the Herbal section of the VMS. Back in 2005 many people had already suspected that many of the VMS plants were just made up, or at least mangled beyond botanical logic and recognition. We were aware of the "alchemical herbals" but we had not seen them, and did not know how popular they were, or of how stereotypical herbals were in general. Now I think it is clear that the VMS plant drawings belong to the graphical tradition of Medieval herbals, and many were copied from those herbals, "alchemical" or not, at least in part.
Quote:depending on the provenance of the historical image, this provided certain chronological and/or geographical information of varying specificity
Yes. Like Koen's study of the merlons in the castles.
But just because a VMS drawing matches a drawing from a manuscript from the Abbey of Lostinthebunniesberg, we cannot conclude that the VMS scribe was from that town, or even from that country; or that the VMS was scribed there. Manuscripts traveled a lot, maybe more than scholars...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Rafal > 05-12-2025, 10:38 PM
An important discovery from this year is the inspiration for f85r2:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Now we know for example that the lady at the bottom is walking with a stick, holding a rosary and is a symbol of winter.
We also know that the inspiration comes from German culture
With the growing amount of digitalized manuscripts available online more such discoveries can be possibly made. -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Jorge_Stolfi > 06-12-2025, 03:02 AM
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RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Doireannjane > 06-12-2025, 03:13 AM
(05-12-2025, 10:38 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.An important discovery from this year is the inspiration for f85r2:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Now we know for example that the lady at the bottom is walking with a stick, holding a rosary and is a symbol of winter.
We also know that the inspiration comes from German culture
With the growing amount of digitalized manuscripts available online more such discoveries can be possibly made.
This may be a reference, but we do not know that this is what that represents or if that is a walking stick.
This could be and probably is a reference or an allusion to german manuscripts (and those German manuscripts could be an allusion to other, possibly earlier manuscripts/ideas)
But from my understanding with the text, this is very specific and precise process/instruction and it is hidden beneath visual cues, and rather than German, it contains direct Greek references.
(more on my substack/github/TT) -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Jorge_Stolfi > 06-12-2025, 03:47 AM
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RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Doireannjane > 06-12-2025, 03:55 AM
(06-12-2025, 03:38 AM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(06-12-2025, 03:13 AM)Doireannjane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But from my understanding with the text
(more on my substack/github/TT)
I'm not allowed to reference anything specifically in terms of my translation that's why I included my publications, just for those who want to see specifics. But that's my understanding of the images. That it is Greek oriented.
Can anyone tell me, is there a compiled list of manuscript database resources on VN somewhere or elsewhere? Thanks in advance. -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Rafal > 06-12-2025, 02:05 PM
Quote:This could be and probably is a reference or an allusion to german manuscripts (and those German manuscripts could be an allusion to other, possibly earlier manuscripts/ideas)
The idea of presenting winter as an old person isn't actually very original. It is rather some universal archetype. Old year is dying just like the nature but the new one will be born and nature will be reborn.
And old women often walk with a stick and pray a lot
Quote:Can anyone tell me, is there a compiled list of manuscript database resources on VN somewhere or elsewhere? Thanks in advance.
Unfortuantely you rather won't find any single list here.
It would be rather long, possibly with over 1000 items.
You may try reading the threads and making your own list.
By the way, as you probably already know, you can make a thread with your theory. People have their own threads and for some it somehow works without anyone getting bitter. I guess the key is not being too overzealous and presenting your results not as an absolute truth but rather as an option. But it is your choice, of course.