9 ms·

There are many crank analyses of the Voynich manuscript floating around out there. The only thing I've seen that has any believability (I'm a former linguist) i

There are many crank analyses of the Voynich manuscript floating around out there. The only thing I've seen that has any believability (I'm a former linguist) is this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4cRlqE3D3RQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=4cRlqE3D3RQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=8nHbImkFKE4 https://youtube.com/watch?v=8nHbImkFKE4 tl;dr: it's probably real writing, likely related to Roma/Syriac

sago 9y ago
As I understand it, Voynich has a too low information content to be an alphabetic (or -- a fortiori -- logographic or syllabic) representation of a human language. If true then it is almost certainly not 'real writing'. The videos are an impressive phonological reconstruction, but I predict (based on the assumption that the math isn't lying), that it would be effectively impossible to get much beyond ad-hoc phonetic correspondences with Romany, to any predictive morphology or syntax. The solution in this article is rather plausible. If the writing is in a highly restricted vocabulary, with highly restricted syntax, and highly constrained domain, it would be possible to get the observed information density. Comparing it to, say, Linear B or Egyptian hieroglyphs is instructive. Both of those clearly have the information density of regular human language. In the end, the solution might be a combination. It might use some Roma/Syriac nouns, but it seems clear it doesn't use them in anything like a normal linguistic context. Caveat: IANALinguist
- dmbaggett 9y ago
  >As I understand it, Voynich has a too low information content to be an alphabetic. Natural language can be very surprising. :)
- agravier 9y ago
  > regular human language. Holy Montague! You've found it! ;)
- dotancohen 9y ago
  > As I understand it, Voynich has a too low information content to be an alphabetic (or -- a fortiori -- logographic or syllabic) representation of a human language. If true then it is almost certainly not 'real writing'. That is an extraordinarily European viewpoint, where alphabets have a few tens of glyphs, each representing a single letter (or, in the case of capital letters, two glyphs per letter). Imagine an alphabet similar to Arabic where each letter may have up to five glyphs, or even an alphabet in which the _position_ of the glyph changes it's letter. Or Korean, where each 'letter' is composed of two or three interchangable components. Or Han, in which the number of instrument strokes in the glyph affect it's meaning. There are so many variations on what constitutes a letter, never mind an individual glyph or a full word/concept, that one cannot use strictly European analysis techniques on arbitrary writing systems.
  - Houshalter 9y ago
    Well the document is definitely European. It may be an invented writing system, but it would probably be closer to existing European ones than something totally foreign.
  - joe_the_user 9y ago
    Imagine an alphabet similar to Arabic where each letter may have up to five glyphs, or even an alphabet in which the _position_ of the glyph changes it's letter. But we don't have to imagine a random alphabet which Voynich might have been written in. We can look at the actual language in the manuscript. It often shows three or four Latin-like glyphs repeated. Unless you have access to some special way these symbols are differentiated or otherwise convey information, a way that all other would-be interpreters have missed, you really don't have an argument. And as far as European thinking goes - there's no evidence I know of a non-European origin to the manuscript. Edit: and the languages you cite have a larger, not smaller information content than European languages, see; https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/6167/most-succinct-written-language/6604 https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/6167/most-su...
    - PavleMiha 9y ago
      It's an abbreviation? I guess that's the OP's thesis.
- qubex 9y ago
  Wouldn't abbreviations (a kind of compression) actually increase the apparent information density of the text? Or have I breathtakingly misunderstood something utterly fundamental?
  - sago 9y ago
    Yes, Good point. Highly reduced vocabulary and a reduced domain push in the other direction.
kingofpandora 9y ago
> tl;dr: it's probably real writing, likely related to Roma/Syriac Roma and Syriac are two radically different languages (Indo-European vs Semitic), so it's peculiar that the conclusion would be that it's one of the two! Disclaimer, I haven't watched the video.
- rnhmjoj 9y ago
  If I understand correctly his hypotheses is that the Roma while migrating from India to Europe picked up features of various languages, in particular they used an earlier version of Syriac for spelling their language. The Voynich language was based on this language but diverged substantially by losing the /d/ sound and more. Watch the third video[1], it's much shorter but provides quite compelling evidence to support his theory. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhtZc-nFNt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhtZc-nFNt0
- gecko 9y ago
  The summary above is a bit off. The conclusion is that it's a Syriac-derived script for a dialect of the Old Roma language. Think how Urdu is an Indic language written with a Semitic script.
ouid 9y ago
He has a third video now. I know because I watched all of them.
ollin 9y ago
Very interesting videos! Do you know of any discussion by linguists of this analysis? I checked /r/linguistics and couldn't find anything, but I'm a bit worried about posting it there since I'm not enough of a linguist to judge the merits of the analysis myself. I found some discussion of Bax's work here: https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/64p2hw/secret_knowledgeor_a_hoax_review_of_raymond/dg4667o/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/64p2hw/secret_... but nothing about Volder.
- andrewjw 9y ago
  Bax does reply in support to Volder's videos, which seems positive.
jdright 9y ago
Very good indeed. The third video is also amazing. Volder (and Prof Stephen Bax?) has very convincing arguments. Also he demonstrated incredible linguistic knowledge. It is inspiring. Thank you for the links! Edit: Btw, looking at some suggested videos I've found this https://youtu.be/PoNm65v1thU https://youtu.be/PoNm65v1thU a bit intriguing.
gecko 9y ago
I rarely comment here anymore, but I wanted to break that tradition to say thank-you. I have been routinely frustrated—or more honestly, just annoyed—at Voynich attempts for exactly the reasons you highlight. I have no idea if this is correct, but it's the only serious modern attempt I've seen, and I genuinely really appreciated this.
joshumax 9y ago
I always thought XKCD's interpretation[1] of what the manuscript is about was, despite being comical in nature, the most intriguing... 1: https://xkcd.com/593/ https://xkcd.com/593/
- Avshalom 9y ago
  I broadly agree with XKCD's interpretation but it doesn't necessarily answer the question. I mean if tolkien had written the Lord Of The Rings in elvish the XKCD answer would still be essentially correct but it wouldn't tell us what it said.
  - fooker 9y ago
    Think Dungeons and Dragons, not LOTR.

sago 9y ago

As I understand it, Voynich has a too low information content to be an alphabetic (or -- a fortiori -- logographic or syllabic) representation of a human language. If true then it is almost certainly not 'real writing'. The videos are an impressive phonological reconstruction, but I predict (based on the assumption that the math isn't lying), that it would be effectively impossible to get much beyond ad-hoc phonetic correspondences with Romany, to any predictive morphology or syntax. The solution in this article is rather plausible. If the writing is in a highly restricted vocabulary, with highly restricted syntax, and highly constrained domain, it would be possible to get the observed information density. Comparing it to, say, Linear B or Egyptian hieroglyphs is instructive. Both of those clearly have the information density of regular human language. In the end, the solution might be a combination. It might use some Roma/Syriac nouns, but it seems clear it doesn't use them in anything like a normal linguistic context. Caveat: IANALinguist

dmbaggett 9y ago
>As I understand it, Voynich has a too low information content to be an alphabetic. Natural language can be very surprising. :)
agravier 9y ago
> regular human language. Holy Montague! You've found it! ;)
dotancohen 9y ago
> As I understand it, Voynich has a too low information content to be an alphabetic (or -- a fortiori -- logographic or syllabic) representation of a human language. If true then it is almost certainly not 'real writing'. That is an extraordinarily European viewpoint, where alphabets have a few tens of glyphs, each representing a single letter (or, in the case of capital letters, two glyphs per letter). Imagine an alphabet similar to Arabic where each letter may have up to five glyphs, or even an alphabet in which the _position_ of the glyph changes it's letter. Or Korean, where each 'letter' is composed of two or three interchangable components. Or Han, in which the number of instrument strokes in the glyph affect it's meaning. There are so many variations on what constitutes a letter, never mind an individual glyph or a full word/concept, that one cannot use strictly European analysis techniques on arbitrary writing systems.
- Houshalter 9y ago
  Well the document is definitely European. It may be an invented writing system, but it would probably be closer to existing European ones than something totally foreign.
- joe_the_user 9y ago
  Imagine an alphabet similar to Arabic where each letter may have up to five glyphs, or even an alphabet in which the _position_ of the glyph changes it's letter. But we don't have to imagine a random alphabet which Voynich might have been written in. We can look at the actual language in the manuscript. It often shows three or four Latin-like glyphs repeated. Unless you have access to some special way these symbols are differentiated or otherwise convey information, a way that all other would-be interpreters have missed, you really don't have an argument. And as far as European thinking goes - there's no evidence I know of a non-European origin to the manuscript. Edit: and the languages you cite have a larger, not smaller information content than European languages, see; https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/6167/most-succinct-written-language/6604 https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/6167/most-su...
  - PavleMiha 9y ago
    It's an abbreviation? I guess that's the OP's thesis.
qubex 9y ago
Wouldn't abbreviations (a kind of compression) actually increase the apparent information density of the text? Or have I breathtakingly misunderstood something utterly fundamental?
- sago 9y ago
  Yes, Good point. Highly reduced vocabulary and a reduced domain push in the other direction.

kingofpandora 9y ago

> tl;dr: it's probably real writing, likely related to Roma/Syriac Roma and Syriac are two radically different languages (Indo-European vs Semitic), so it's peculiar that the conclusion would be that it's one of the two! Disclaimer, I haven't watched the video.

rnhmjoj 9y ago
If I understand correctly his hypotheses is that the Roma while migrating from India to Europe picked up features of various languages, in particular they used an earlier version of Syriac for spelling their language. The Voynich language was based on this language but diverged substantially by losing the /d/ sound and more. Watch the third video[1], it's much shorter but provides quite compelling evidence to support his theory. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhtZc-nFNt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhtZc-nFNt0
gecko 9y ago
The summary above is a bit off. The conclusion is that it's a Syriac-derived script for a dialect of the Old Roma language. Think how Urdu is an Indic language written with a Semitic script.

ouid 9y ago

He has a third video now. I know because I watched all of them.

ollin 9y ago

Very interesting videos! Do you know of any discussion by linguists of this analysis? I checked /r/linguistics and couldn't find anything, but I'm a bit worried about posting it there since I'm not enough of a linguist to judge the merits of the analysis myself. I found some discussion of Bax's work here: https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/64p2hw/secret_knowledgeor_a_hoax_review_of_raymond/dg4667o/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/64p2hw/secret_... but nothing about Volder.

andrewjw 9y ago
Bax does reply in support to Volder's videos, which seems positive.

jdright 9y ago

Very good indeed. The third video is also amazing. Volder (and Prof Stephen Bax?) has very convincing arguments. Also he demonstrated incredible linguistic knowledge. It is inspiring. Thank you for the links! Edit: Btw, looking at some suggested videos I've found this https://youtu.be/PoNm65v1thU https://youtu.be/PoNm65v1thU a bit intriguing.

gecko 9y ago

I rarely comment here anymore, but I wanted to break that tradition to say thank-you. I have been routinely frustrated—or more honestly, just annoyed—at Voynich attempts for exactly the reasons you highlight. I have no idea if this is correct, but it's the only serious modern attempt I've seen, and I genuinely really appreciated this.

joshumax 9y ago

I always thought XKCD's interpretation[1] of what the manuscript is about was, despite being comical in nature, the most intriguing... 1: https://xkcd.com/593/ https://xkcd.com/593/

Avshalom 9y ago
I broadly agree with XKCD's interpretation but it doesn't necessarily answer the question. I mean if tolkien had written the Lord Of The Rings in elvish the XKCD answer would still be essentially correct but it wouldn't tell us what it said.
- fooker 9y ago
  Think Dungeons and Dragons, not LOTR.