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Another Possible Voynich Breakthrough

Posted by samzenpus on from the be-sure-to-drink-your-Ovaltine dept.

bmearns writes "Over the past few weeks we've been hearing a lot about a possible breakthrough in decoding the infamous Voynich manuscript, made by a team of botanists who suggested that the plants depicted in the manuscript may have been from the New World and the mysterious writing could be a form of an Aztec language. But the latest development comes from linguist Stephen Bax, of Bedfordshire University, who believes he has identified some proper names (including of the constellation 'Taurus') in the manuscript and is using these as a crib to begin deciphering the rest of the text, which he believes comes from the near east or Asia."

33 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. EUREKA!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It says "Be Sure to Drink Your Ovaltine"...

  2. in other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...yet another researcher reports their findings that one of the Rorschach inkblots may definitely be a picture of a face...

    1. Re:in other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ...yet another researcher reports their findings that one of the Rorschach inkblots may definitely be a picture of a face...

      Boobs. Rorschach inkblots are boobs.

      Water stains, burn patterns, clouds; those are all faces. But Rorschach blots are boobs.

  3. finally by slashmydots · · Score: 3, Funny

    Anyone else get the feeling that this is pretty much the only ongoing legendary Discovery Channel special mystery that actually got solved. Atlantis? Who knows? Stone henge? Not really solved. Nostradamus? Super debatable. But finally, what seems like yet another impossible eternal mystery is FINALLY being solved! And in my lifetime! I can't even think of any other comparison similar to this.

    1. Re:finally by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Informative

      Atlantis was solved over 2000 years ago: Plato made the story up. He says as much. It was never intended to be taken as an actual real place, it was just a story told by a fictional character in one of his dialogs (the Timaeus, to be specific) to make a point.

      --
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    2. Re:finally by OptimalCynic · · Score: 2

      I can't even think of any other comparison similar to this.

      How about Piltdown Man?

    3. Re:finally by Noughmad · · Score: 2

      or, in the rest of the world, "Americans"

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  4. No progress at all... by evilviper · · Score: 4, Funny

    This guy just looked at the pictures, found a few he thinks he knows, and assumed the text with some similarity MUST BE IT.

    "He said he had managed to find the word for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars (seen as part of the zodiac constellation of Taurus)"

    Up next he'll find the word "leaf" next to a picture of a leaf, and the word "copyright" on the last page...

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    1. Re:No progress at all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Looking at a random page from the book, the manuscript is clearly nonsensical, perhaps someone's attempt to leave a coded riddle, but certainly no ancient record of exotic flora or other scientific knowledge. The same "word" is repeated four or five times on each line, with only one different word appearing on the line, often differing from the repeated word by only one "letter", at other times looking like it could be an English word in barely legible script.

      So if I understand you right, you're trying to tell us this is some ancient person's version of the lyrics to badger badger badger.

    2. Re:No progress at all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      You do realise that in the languages families this is puported to be from, that's normal patterning of a aggulnative language; heavy on prefixes, and repetition (both word and morpheme level) This is compounded by the fact many of the languages are few on morphemes.

      "fachys.ykal.ar.ataiin.Shol.Shory.cThres.y,kor.Sholdysory.cKhar.or,y.kair.chtaiin.Shar.are.cThar.cThar,dansyaiir.Sheky.or.ykaiin.Shod.cThoary.cThes.daraiin.sa o'oiin.oteey.oteos,roloty" -- Beginning of First page of the voynich transcript using latin characters. -- Looks like a language to me.

      I personally love http://my.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%80%A1%E1%80%9B%E1%80%B1%E1%80%AC%E1%80%84%E1%80%BA This example for a language that is nothing but repeated circles.

      "A koi aku la lakou ia ia a hilahila oia, i mai la ia, E hoouna aku oukou. A hoouna aku la lakou i kanalima kanaka; a imi lakou ia ia i na la ekolu, aole i loaa. A hoi hou mai la lakou ia ia, (no ka mea, e noho ana no ia ma Ieriko,) i aku la ia ia lakou, Aole anei au i olelo aku ia oukou, Mai hele oukou?" (Old Testament)

      "oka maeuhane e nana ana oe maloko oka abenana ma kahi mamao he hoailona laki ia no ka hoomahuahua ana aku i kona ma pomaikai.
      ina he kanaka mahiai e holopono ana kana mau mea kanu ina he kanaka ma ka oihana e pii ana kana ma hana ina he kanaka ilihune mahuahua ana kana mau keiki a pelaaku." (Newspaper)

      "Aymar aruxa arsuta aru, qillqata aruwa. Jichhurunakanxa waranqh waranqh aymaranakarakiw uraqpachan mirantatasipki, janiw Los Andes ukawjanakt utjki aymaranakaxa."

      Or look at http://dv.wikipedia.org/wiki/%DE%89%DE%A6%DE%87%DE%A8_%DE%9E%DE%A6%DE%8A%DE%B0%DE%99%DE%A7 For an example of repeated glyphs over, and over again.

      Or even inuktitut article for the eye: http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%90%83%E1%94%A8
      Seeng repeated glyphs over and over, looks like complete gibberish, or variants that aren't significant, actually are. dot over the i or no? significant in Turkish. i, j, originally just a cursive swish to differentiate i at end of word from a trailing tail.

    3. Re:No progress at all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      But, taking the modern transcription of the text,
      f2v.P.1;H> kooiin.cheo.pchor.otaiin.o.dain.chor-dair.shty-
      f2v.P.2;H> kcho.kchy.sho.shol.qotcho.loeees.qoty-chor.daiin-
      f2v.P.3;H> otchy.chor.lshy.chol.chody.chodain-chcthy.daiin-
      f2v.P.4;H> sho.cholo.cheor.chodaiin=
      f2v.P.5;H> kchor.shy.daiiin.chckhoy-s.shey.dor.chol.daiin-
      f2v.P.6;H> dor.chol.chor.chol.keol.chy.chty-daiin.otchor.chan-
      f2v.P.7;H> daiin.chotchey.qoteeey.chokeos-chees.chr.cheaiin-
      f2v.P.8;H> chokoishe.chor.cheol.chol.dolody=

      It does look like a natuar langague, with prefixed grammatical cases/subject marking;
      heavy word and syllable Repitition (like vietnamese, or african languages)
      And grammatical agreement created by infixes or outfixes (wrapping word with both pre- and postfix)

      That and the fact there were more than 3 distinct consistant handwriting styles in there, means that at least three people could write this fluently with ink without thinking about the letter-shapes.

    4. Re:No progress at all... by eggstasy · · Score: 2

      Bacon-wrapped back bacon is still bacon-wrapped bacon. Does this mean that by repeating "bacon" too many times I have rendered the sentence invalid? Please. You can never have too much bacon.

  5. full/original poublicaiton: by bammmmm · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://cms.herbalgram.org/herb...

    1. Re:full/original poublicaiton: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Is the an edit fucktion on slashdot? No, sorry, there i snot.

  6. Schizophrenia by sg_oneill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was younger, early 20s back in the 1990s , once of my best friends started to slip into schizophrenia (it ran in his family). He constantly jotted drawings and writings on paper, which grew increasingly more bizare. Started with pictures of aliens and UFOs (Which he'd say where just him having fun) but over time turned into numerological type things (My first letter is T my second is C, I am top cat, my age adds up to 9 which upside down is a third of 666 etc etc etc) and increasingly more paranoid mystery theories. He'd draw charts explaining the relationships between things.

    And since he was a biology student, he drew lots of plants. Particularly his favorite, marihuana.

    Whats to say this isn't the mad scrawlings of a schizophrenic mad man, 500 years ago? It'd certainly fit the pattern.

    --
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    1. Re:Schizophrenia by chihowa · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Length and coherency don't preclude madness. One of my father's patients claimed to visit another world frequently and wrote a very long book detailing the world and its inhabitants. I have a huge map he drew of the place with detail so fine you need a magnifying glass to read it all and plates of the (not surprisingly) bizarre animals that lived there. The whole thing is incredibly detailed and quite internally consistent. Schizophrenia is not orthogonal to intelligence.

      There's also work like Henry Darger's, which is extremely lengthy and follows a coherent theme.

      --
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    2. Re:Schizophrenia by infogulch · · Score: 3, Informative

      Schizophrenia is not orthogonal to intelligence.

      Surely you meant "schizophrenia is orthogonal to intelligence", otherwise you're saying that all schizophrenics are geniuses.

    3. Re:Schizophrenia by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Did he ever publish it? Not only would it be an interesting read, it would most certainly make a lot of GMs and Storytellers happy to have a complete world at hand that isn't split out over 1000 source books that cost something bordering a new car to get all of them...

      --
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  7. experts seem critical by bammmmm · · Score: 2

    cant tell if expert or 'expert', but look: http://www.ciphermysteries.com... found some more german critics http://scienceblogs.de/klausis...

    1. Re:experts seem critical by bammmmm · · Score: 2

      also: if it wasn't encoded / plain text and even borrowing from known or even latin languages, I'd guess you could identify words with heuristics...

  8. Simpler answer: It was a con by Calavar · · Score: 3, Funny

    I remember reading an article long ago that said that the Voynich manuscript was made by a con man that wanted to make some quick cash by writing down some gibberish in a book, claiming that it had mystical origins, and selling it off to someone with more money than common sense. (In this case, that person would be Emperor Rudolf II.) Some linguists have said that the statistical patterns of the text match what would be expected of a natural language, but the article that I read suggested that it is possible to create a random text that looks like a natural language by randomly choosing syllables with a special table. This table of syllables is constructed in such a way that the probability of a certain syllable occurring depends on the syllable that precedes it. To me, this seems like a much more reasonable explanation than the idea that New World lanuages somehow made it into a book that was (according to Wikipedia) was written in Europe between 1404 and 1438.

    1. Re:Simpler answer: It was a con by plasticsquirrel · · Score: 4, Informative

      You may want to read the article before jumping to conclusions. The authors have identified many of the plants and animals as those of the New World, including specific breeds of cattle introduced from Spain, animals like the Ocelot, and others. Their study is very thorough, and it includes study of texts they have found with similar scripts and languages. Their conclusion is that it came from 16th century Spain, and was written in an Aztec language by natives who had been educated by the Spanish (and their evidence for this is quite convincing). From the conclusion of the research:

      We note that the style of the drawings in the Voynich Ms. is similar to 16th century codices from Mexico (e.g., Codex Cruz-Badianus). With this prompt, we have identified a total of 37 of the 303 plants illustrated in the Voynich Ms. (roughly 12.5% of the total), the six principal animals, and the single illustrated mineral. The primary geographical distribution of these materials, identified so far, is from Texas, west to California, south to Nicaragua, pointing to a botanic garden in central Mexico, quite possibly Huaztepec (Morelos). A search of surviving codices and manuscripts from Nueva España in the 16th century, reveals the calligraphy of the Voynich Ms. to be similar to the Codex Osuna (1563-1566, Mexico City). Loan-words for the plant and animal names have been identified from Classical Nahuatl, Spanish, Taino, and Mixtec. The main text, however, seems to be in an extinct dialect of Nahuatl from central Mexico, possibly Morelos or Puebla.

      --
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    2. Re:Simpler answer: It was a con by mbone · · Score: 3, Informative

      You may want to read the article before jumping to conclusions. The authors have identified many of the plants and animals as those of the New World, including specific breeds of cattle introduced from Spain, animals like the Ocelot, and others. Their study is very thorough, and it includes study of texts they have found with similar scripts and languages. Their conclusion is that it came from 16th century Spain, and was written in an Aztec language by natives who had been educated by the Spanish (and their evidence for this is quite convincing).

      Read this for a contrary (and, I think, better informed) view.

    3. Re:Simpler answer: It was a con by denzacar · · Score: 2

      Except carbon dating puts the book at the beginning of 15th century.

      Which would mean, that for it to fit into those New World stories it would have to have been made a century BEFORE it was filled out, AND then someone gave the empty book to the natives to fill it out with drawings and text.

      On the other hand... someone finding couple of piles of old unwritten material, binding it together, filling it out with plausible nonsense and selling it to some rich amateur alchemist... that sounds a lot more plausible.

      --
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    4. Re:Simpler answer: It was a con by supercrisp · · Score: 2

      With respect to your low uid# and the awesome bit of Schiller in your sig, I have to point that the age of the vellum does little to prove that the text originates earlier than some assumptions. Vellum was used over and over. So, unless we have some clear evidence that it has not been reused, the manuscript text may well be written on vellum significantly older than itself.

  9. The Mole People wrote it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    You have nothing to fear from them. They want to be our friends.

  10. Entropy by mbone · · Score: 2

    The entropy and other statistical measures of the Voynich language is different from Indo-European languages. Zandbergen goes through this in some detail. To quote

    Voynichese is nearly as information-rich as Julius Caesar's Latin, and significantly more so than the Vulgate version of Genesis.

    Voynichese is less information-rich than Latin in the first two characters of each word, but compensates by greater variability in the trailer.

    and

    The statistics of Voynichese and a Mandarin text written in the Pinyin script (using a trailing numerical character to indicate tone) are very different.

    There is actually a lot more of this in this and other papers. The Voynich language, for another example, has a lot more repeated words than (say) English. I seem to remember that the closest match in terms of word repetitions was with Vietnamese, and there was some speculation that it might be an invented script for that language, but that didn't pan out in detailed examination. The upshot is that it is just not realistic to just assume that Voynich is a common language written in some weird script (and, also, that these substitution games have been played before).

  11. RTFM by FullBandwidth · · Score: 4, Funny

    Anyone who's ever read documentation written by an engineer should immediately realize that the Voynich Manuscript is the user's guide for the Antikythera Mechansim.

    --
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  12. I've got it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...based on the illustrations (plants, herbs, astrological symbols, and MANY butt-ugly naked women), this was the medieval version of "How to Seduce Women and Add Inches to Your Penis"

    1. Re:I've got it... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      Since it was medieval times, I think a typo slipped in:

      "How to Seduce Women and Add Itches to Your Penis"

      --
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  13. Re:"Columbus sailed the ocean blue..." by Nemyst · · Score: 2

    It's pretty well known by now that at the very least Eriksson reached North American centuries before Columbus, but that doesn't change the fact that Columbus' voyage and success ushered in a new era of colonization, which none of the previous encounters had. The Vikings may have reached Minnesota, but Americans don't descend from them now do they?

  14. Re:Get cheap publicity fast, spout of a theory!! by Guy+Harris · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, you have a theory, right, and it has a spout?

    I'm a little theory Short and stout Here's my handle Here's my spout.

  15. Obligatory Battlestar Galactica post by wolverine1999 · · Score: 2

    Well it was Lee Adama who wrote it originally. It was copied so many times until the 15th century when the Galactica was changed into a wooden ark because the copiers thought the galactica was a boat.
    And the CAG kept getting mentioned. (eg gollcag). So it must be their legacy after all and we are the cylons.

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