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+--- Thread: Sequential word repetitions in the VMS (/thread-61.html)
RE: Sequential word repetitions in the VMS - MarcoP - 28-03-2021
(28-03-2021, 04:47 AM)mscheo wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, I've just finished my first round transcription of the VMS, with many "a/o" and "r/s" marked in red. (Gosh, some of them are really difficult to differentiate.) And whenever I hit a group of duplicates, triplicates or even quadruplicates vords, I marked them in green and wondered - what words could they be?
Duplicates are easier to explain. Besides the is-is, that-that, so-so, it also happens whenever a word (particularly a noun) ends a sentence and starts a new one, like "It has to be You/Elephants. Elephants/You are the greatest."
Hi mscheo,
of course, in most languages it is possible to create sentences with repeated words. The problem is quantitative. Duplicates amount to almost 1% of Voynichese. In actual European texts, they are about one order of magnitude rarer or more.
This plot shows the % of exact reduplication and quasi-reduplication (consecutive words which only differ by 1 character) in Voynichese EVA transliteration (Currier A/B) vs various European languages from tYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:
CZE Czech
ENM Middle English
FIN Finnish
FRM Middle French
GMH Early New High German
GRC Ancient Greek
ITA Italian
LAT Classical Latin
OCI Old Occitan
ORV Old East Slavic
OSP Early Modern Spanish
Brian's corpus and the interesting case of the Finnish Kalevala were pointed out by Jonas Alin You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
As you can see, the distance is abysmal.
Vietnamese (VIE) shows that some Eastern languages are better fits for reduplication in the VMS (though not for quasi-reduplication).
Of course, similar comparisons only make sense under the assumption that each Voynichese word corresponds to a word in some plain language. As discussed by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., this assumption is supported by evidence like Zipf's law and MATTR values, but such evidence is not conclusive and it could be that Voynichese does not work that way.
(28-03-2021, 04:47 AM)mscheo wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
I believe Voynichese will have its fair share of (ancient) idioms/figure of speech/metaphor/hyperbole. Unless a Rosetta Stone with Vords is discovered, I doubt the VMS could be decoded fully by one person. Instead, through the works of many, it would come in fragments, dozens of words here and there, then hundreds and then thousands, over the course of time, by different folks. So, along the course of your work, you might have translated/substituted/decoded some vords that seem strange or out of place. Don't discarded them yet. Those vords could be figure of speech or hyperbole that need to be understood in their proper context. Share them here and let everyone tinker on them.
Also, it would be helpful to find out what are the common figure of speech/metaphor/hyperbole used in botany/herbal/medical/astrology in the 14th/15th century Latin world. Any one got any to share?
While I agree that Eastern languages could explain the high reduplication rate, I think that Latin cannot be word-by-word mapped into (or from) Voynichese.
One of the problems is that the most frequent word in Voynichese (daiin) often occurs in consecutive repetitions. On the other hand, the most frequent Latin word 'et' can never appear consecutively: it can only appear between two words/phrases belonging to the same category ("creavit deus caelum et terram") or at the start of the sentence ("Et tu Brute?").
A kind of repetition that you sometimes find in medieval Latin texts are magical/religious invocations (some examples were listed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Searcher). But these:
- typically involve rare words
- are not nearly as frequent as what we see in the VMS
You probably know about that exchange involving You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:
Quote:Question (Speaker not identified): How do you account for the full-word repeats?
Currier: That’s just the point — they’re not words!
I partially agree with his position:
- either Voynichese words do not correspond to words in a natural language
- or the underlying language is not an ordinary (Latin / Saxon / Slavic / Greek) European language
Differently from Currier, I tend to favour the second option. Since you appear to be familiar with Chinese and other Eastern languages, I hope you will help us in the search for texts that parallel these fascinating features of Voynichese.
RE: Sequential word repetitions in the VMS - Aga Tentakulus - 28-03-2021
RE: Sequential word repetitions in the VMS - Aga Tentakulus - 28-03-2021
RE: Sequential word repetitions in the VMS - Anton - 28-03-2021
RE: Sequential word repetitions in the VMS - MichelleL11 - 28-03-2021
RE: Sequential word repetitions in the VMS - Arichichi - 28-02-2023
RE: Sequential word repetitions in the VMS - nablator - 28-02-2023
RE: Sequential word repetitions in the VMS - Arichichi - 28-02-2023
RE: Sequential word repetitions in the VMS - Anton - 28-02-2023
RE: Sequential word repetitions in the VMS - Aga Tentakulus - 28-02-2023