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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 langua
by 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 agoWell 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 agoImagine 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 agoIt's an abbreviation? I guess that's the OP's thesis.
- coroxout 9y agoI do agree that the repeated glyphs and almost-repeated "words" are a big red flag against "can this actually mean anything?", and I'm not sure the idea of abbreviations really explains that. However, many medieval documents even in known real languages do contain almost undifferentiated glyphs one after the other: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minim_(palaeography) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minim_(palaeography) Not quite the same, but something similar might conceivably apply to e.g. the Voynich's c-like characters.
- joe_the_user 9y agoWell, I believe what article was saying was the text was shorthand for a sequence of actions - repeated letters implied repeated actions. In this case, sequences herbal infusions, bathing, magnets, etc. IE, there's no text to translate, it's not an abbreviation for any standard text.
- qubex 9y agoWouldn'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 agoYes, Good point. Highly reduced vocabulary and a reduced domain push in the other direction.