From rand.org!jim Thu Jan  4 08:47 EST 1996
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Date: 4 Jan 1996 08:37:49 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  VMS and the Beineck
To: "Voynich list" <voynich@RAND.ORG>
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Hello everyone,

Since it's early in 1996 I would like to share some news I got from the
Beinecke Rare book and manuscript library of Yale University.

First: One can get a copyflo of the VMS for $35 (US) by asking for a form to
fill out and sending it back to Ms. Jessica McLaughlin (Public Services
Assistant) at this address:
            The Beinecke rare book and manuscript library
             Yale University library
             P.O.Box 208240
             New Haven
             Connecticut 06520-8240

Second: If you wish to publish ANYTHING showing the book or its contents you
must fill out another form and pay for each page you want to displays...

And last but not least ;-)
I sent out a line for any interest in having a CD-ROM made from GOOD pictures
of the VMS, and there IS some interest 8-)
The person to contact would be Robert Babcock (curator of early books). He can
be reached at the above address, by fax at 203-432-4047 or by phone at
203-432-2968. I guess they would be especially interested if one were to offer
to produce a CD-ROM and GIVE all rights to it to the library. Thus only they
would be able to sell and market it. Any takers ?

Enjoy 1996 and may it bring us closer to a solution...



From rand.org!jim Thu Jan 04 16:14:53 EWT 1996
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Date:         Thu, 04 Jan 96 16:14:53 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject:      Re: VMS and the Beinecke
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR


Hello all,

in response to Guy Thibault's message:
I sent my request for an order form to Beinecke on Dec.13th
and have not yet heard anything. I seem to remember that this
is about the expected turn-around time. Is that still true
or should I start asking them about it?
OK, Christmas should have something to do with that too...

About the right to display parts of the VMs: there are two
images floating around on the Net (f3v and f79v). Are these
officially in the public domain? Or has Jim Gillogly got a
personal permission for these?

And last but not least, as you say: I would defintely be
interested in a CD-ROM (if it goes for not too much more than
the photocopies). I couldn't exactly make out from your message
whether Yale/Beinecke have agreed to anything yet. I did
get the impression they were not the ones making the pictures
and spending the money for the CDROM production...
If we all chipped in N dollars to get it done, would we still
have to pay to get one? (I'm Dutch, I worry about these things :-))

Cheers, Rene Zandbergen

P.S. I'm very pleased the way Aegean Park Press got me my
     D'Imperio. Fast, correct, and that over Christmas too.

From rand.org!jim Mon Jan  8 17:52:24 0600 1996
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Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 17:52:24 -0600 (CST)
From: "Clyde A. Winters" <cwinter@orion.it.luc.edu>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Voynich List
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Tamana Remarks: The Magyar language had an ancient Runic writing with 38 
signs being identical with the Etruscan Runic writing in 43% and with 
Phoenician in 47%!.This writing is also analogous to writing used in Africa 
and India. This writing was exterminated by the Christian priests in XI. c.
Then there are 6000 Toponyms+Structures in the Carpathian Basin IDENTICAL 
PAIR-STRUCTURES thereof can be seen in 152 countries-regions of five 
continents (TA-MANA: in 25). Half of these 600 Toponyms+Structures 
consisting 0f 3-4-5- name-elements are Magyar family names also! Then 
remeember-in the Movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) the 
Magyar Pentatonic Melody+Structure-illustrated by Kodaly, Zoltan --was 
used as a communication-vehicle between earthlings and the ETs!
Dr. Vamos-Toth Bator
1700 Makiki
Honolulu, HI. 96822 


From rand.org!jim Mon Jan  8 17:07:49 0800 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9601090107.AA23581@sun.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Magyar Runic
To: cwinter@orion.it.luc.edu (Clyde A. Winters)
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 17:07:49 -0800 (PST)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.A32.3.91.960108174219.71521D-100000@orion.it.luc.edu> from "Clyde A. Winters" at Jan 8, 96 05:52:24 pm
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Clyde A. Winters writes:
> Tamana Remarks: The Magyar language had an ancient Runic writing with 38
> signs being identical with the Etruscan Runic writing in 43% and with
> Phoenician in 47%!.
Being the semi-official Magyar debunker on this list, let me note that
Hungarian Runic is a straightforward alphabetic script. Etruscan or
Phoenician correspondences are unlikely.

> This writing is also analogous to writing used in Africa and India.
Used where in Africa and India? By whom?

> This writing was exterminated by the Christian priests in XI. c.
This is highly unlikely. Hungarian Runic appears to be a late creation,
probably by Hungarians in Transylvania, specifically for wood carving.

> Then there are 6000 Toponyms+Structures in the Carpathian Basin IDENTICAL
> PAIR-STRUCTURES thereof can be seen in 152 countries-regions of five
> continents (TA-MANA: in 25).
Say again? Let's start with defining "pair structures", what are these?

> Half of these 600 Toponyms+Structures
> consisting 0f 3-4-5- name-elements are Magyar family names also!
Magyar family names are routinely formed by adding the suffix -i to
the place name: Buda/Budai, Pest/Pesti, and so on.

> Then remeember-in the Movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) the
> Magyar Pentatonic Melody+Structure-illustrated by Kodaly, Zoltan --was
> used as a communication-vehicle between earthlings and the ETs!
It was indeed!

> Dr. Vamos-Toth Bator
> 1700 Makiki
> Honolulu, HI. 96822

Andras Kornai

From rand.org!jim Fri Jan 12 10:42:32 PST 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Forest, not trees? 
In-reply-to: Your message of Fri, 12 Jan 96 20:09:41 +0000.
             <199601121807.UAA21897@apollo.is.co.za> 
From: Jim Gillogly <jim@acm.org>
Reply-To: jim@acm.org
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 96 10:42:32 PST
Sender: jim@rand.org
Status: OR


Claudio Antonini suggests looking at the pattern formed by the writing,
as well as the writing itself.  Interesting idea, and one that's been
used to add more interest to otherwise sensible text... not just as a
stand-alone semantic medium.

> I don't have much of the Voynich manuscript, only the page I got from the
> Web (folio 79). In that page, if you look at the spaces in the center of the
> page, it very much looks like a cup (a similar but enlarged cup to the one
> that is at the bottom left of the page). Is there anything else "hidden" in
> that page?

Well -- I guess it could look like a cup, if we're looking at the same
structure.  It also looks rather like a scowling face slightly on its
side, or a rose perhaps.  Well, now it looks like a starfish.  Hmm... not
what I'd call high-quality information transmission, in any case.  I'm not
saying it's not possible, but I'd like to see a more convincing example.
Pulling out my copy of Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming" vol. 2 (1st
edition) the preface looks like it may have one of those Illuminati
pyramids with an eye on top embedded in it.  Of course, I wouldn't put it
past Knuth to do that intentionally, but I think the first edition was
before he was heavily into typesetting games.

> This possibility of symbols at a higher level would explain why each line
> "is a functional entity" as Capt. Currier put it, why the entropy of the
> text is low (I have a drawing of Snoopy made by a dot matrix printer with

Yes, the "line is a functional entity" has to be an important observation.
It's also clear from pages other than folio 79v that the text was written
to conform to the shapes of the pictures on those pages, so that if those
lines are also functional entities, there's something very odd going on in
the way the text and line order are constructed.

> Has anyone look at this possibility before? Also, does anyone think it would
> be convenient to include the position of the characteres in the notations
> presently used -or modified to that purpose- to test possibilities like this?

It would be very difficult to include the position of the characters in
the computerized version -- one of these years it would be pleasant to be
able to flip through the whole thing by browser, if the Beinecke were
willing, but it's difficult enough getting the thing transcribed by hand,
much less noting the position of each letter.

Perhaps another way to try to capture what you're looking for would be to
scan the picture, perhaps eliminate the illustrations, then just for the
text use an automated smearing algorithm that would blocks of text ink and
turn the whole thing into a Rorschach test sample.  These could then be
exchanged as postcards or put on the net without worrying about
copyrights, I strongly suspect.

	Jim Gillogly
	Sterday, 21 Afteryule S.R. 1996, 18:39

From rand.org!jim Fri Jan 12 20:09:41 +0000 1996
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Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 20:09:41 +0000
To: voynich@rand.org
From: antonini@is.co.za (Claudio Antonini)
Subject: Forest, not trees?
Status: OR

Hi all. 

I'm new in the list and have just discovered the issue of the Voynich
manuscript. I have a question that perhaps has been answered before but
didn't find the issue addressed in the mini-faq or the Currier paper.
 
In the material that I read I see reference always to the drawings or the
letters in the manuscript (this is what it could be called the "tree"
approach to decipher the manuscript). I haven't seen anything related to the
positioning of the letters, symbols, groups of letters, spaces in the page
or groups of pages (approach that I could call the "forest" ).  The reason
might be related to the traditional training that cryptographers will have:
you get a text and you have to scramble it, where the meaning is given by
the words in the text. Therefore, any possible geometrical relationship
between, let's say, spaces, will be lost (it would only be maintained in a
straight one-to-one table replacement, when every "a" will always be
replaced by another symbol and so on, and also, only when the lines are
always broken in the same place and when the font doesn't change). 

Let's say that I have a cross drawn as follows:

o1o
111
o1o
o1o

If you now think that the symbol for the cross is given by the position of
the ones in the above matrix and the  background by the o's, for ANY
one-to-one replacement scheme, ANY cipher effort will end up exactly with a
cross and a background, therefore, no deciphering is necessary because the
meaning is at the higher level: at the forest level and not at the tree
level. A forest is  a forest is a forest. A forest of pines is as large as a
forest of birches, it the birches are planted in the same position that the
pines occupy.

I don't have much of the Voynich manuscript, only the page I got from the
Web (folio 79). In that page, if you look at the spaces in the center of the
page, it very much looks like a cup (a similar but enlarged cup to the one
that is at the bottom left of the page). Is there anything else "hidden" in
that page?

It would be terribly inefficient to send a message using a whole page one
character according to our standards. However, there might be more that one
character per page or, simply, if one browses the books of alchemy that are
in most of the bookstores we'll find that symbols have definite importance
in that discipline. Therefore, the manuscript may have symbols at the
"forest" level.

If one accepts the hypothesis of symbols at the forest level, how could one
test it besides browsing at the pages? If one could print all 9's that are
in one page, immediately, a pattern should appear. However, with the coding
of the letters as they are now, I think it is not possible, because the
relative (or absolute) position of the letters (I mean _all_ symbols,
including spaces) is not recorded in the coding schemes (notations).

This possibility of symbols at a higher level would explain why each line
"is a functional entity" as Capt. Currier put it, why the entropy of the
text is low (I have a drawing of Snoopy made by a dot matrix printer with
only two characters: a space and an asterisk. However, the picture says at
the top: Snoopy.), would be consistent with the interests of Roger Bacon and
John Dee in alchemy and similar disciplines and would explain why it was not
used later as a coding procedure (because you usually code text and not
graphical symbols a few centimeters long).

Has anyone look at this possibility before? Also, does anyone think it would
be convenient to include the position of the characteres in the notations
presently used -or modified to that purpose- to test possibilities like this?

Thanks,

Claudio




From rand.org!jim Fri Jan 12 15:57 EST 1996
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Message-ID: <n1390661462.8215@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Date: 12 Jan 1996 15:35:07 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <Guy_Thibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  Trees & forests
To: "Voynich List" <voynich@RAND.ORG>
X-Mailer: Mail*Link SMTP-QM 3.0.2
Status: OR

Hello out there :-)

In reply to M. Antonini, I too am working on some thing alike...

Suppose the drawings were an integral part of the cipher? After all, if
appears clear that the figures were drawn BEFORE the text (since the text if
interupted by the flowers and such)... 

Has any one else had the same feelings... That the vase was more important
than its content...

Guy Thibault
ArteFact Informatique
gthibault@artefact.qc.ca


From rand.org!jim Thu Jan 18 09:51:08 +0000 1996
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Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 09:51:08 +0000 (GMT)
From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Differences in interlin.vms
Message-Id: <Pine.SV4.3.91.960118094831.5095B-100000@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
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Status: OR

 
Hi, A new version of the interlin.vms is going to be available
soon thanks at Jim Reed's ftp site (thanks Jim).
Below is some analysis of the differences in the new corrected
version 1.1.
Cheers,
Gabriel


difs.txt v 1.1 14/Jan/1996 by G.Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
This document lists the differences character-wise between the common
transcribed sections of the D'Imperio's and Friedman's versions
of the Voynich Manuscript.
The differences were extracted from the file interlin.vms v 1.1 and
therefore this file has the same version number as interlin.vms.

The format of the data is as follows:
"dim" column means D'Imperio transcription character
"fsg" column means First study Group transcription character
"freq" is frequency (number of times) that this discrepancy appears in
the interlin.vms file.

Two column sets are included to facilitate the search for a particular
combination as the two sets are in aphabetical order.


total voynich characters: 94017
equally transcribed:      86166
discprepancies:            7851

Note that the discrepancies, include differences such as "-" and ","
in a line (one version indicates end of line in the middle of the 
page, while the other just assumes a space). Some lines end in "=" (end
of paragraph) in one version while in the other it ends in "-" (end of line).
Other possibility of not real discrepancies may be differences in the coding
of the voynich symbols M and N as III and II.
Please report any comments to my address below and to the Voynich
manuscript list: voynich@rand.org

Gabriel Landini  G.Landini@bham.ac.uk


dim   fsg   freq              fsg   dim   freq
%     -     9                 %     -     1
%     0     20                %     0     33
%     2     47                %     2     22
%     4     31                %     4     42
%     8     129               %     5     1
%     =     1                 %     7     5
%     A     119               %     8     89
%     C     182               %     ?     3
%     D     81                %     a     1
%     E     85                %     A     90
%     F     13                %     c     1
%     G     160               %     C     327
%     H     56                %     D     55
%     I     39                %     E     80
%     K     50                %     F     5
%     L     12                %     G     136
%     M     62                %     H     41
%     N     9                 %     I     242
%     O     192               %     K     43
%     P     14                %     L     83
%     R     101               %     M     18
%     S     32                %     N     33
%     T     86                %     O     146
%     X     1                 %     P     14
%     Y     3                 %     p     2
%     Z     37                %     q     1
%     ,     1185              %     R     74
-     %     1                 %     S     32
-     =     81                %     t     1
-     ,     3                 %     T     75
0     %     33                %     Z     25
0     2     7                 %     ,     736
0     4     1                 -     %     9
0     8     7                 -     ,     4
0     A     7                 0     %     20
0     C     16                0     2     6
0     D     9                 0     4     2
0     E     6                 0     8     5
0     F     3                 0     ?     1
0     G     8                 0     A     5
0     H     9                 0     C     11
0     I     1                 0     D     3
0     K     1                 0     E     5
0     L     4                 0     F     1
0     M     1                 0     G     3
0     N     1                 0     H     2
0     O     13                0     I     6
0     P     4                 0     K     2
0     R     3                 0     L     1
0     S     8                 0     O     11
0     T     3                 0     P     1
0     Y     1                 0     q     1
0     Z     16                0     S     1
2     %     22                0     T     1
2     0     6                 2     %     47
2     8     3                 2     0     7
2     C     1                 2     8     4
2     G     1                 2     C     8
2     L     1                 2     D     1
2     R     82                2     E     2
2     S     4                 2     G     2
2     T     2                 2     I     2
4     %     42                2     O     3
4     0     2                 2     P     1
4     8     2                 2     R     73
4     D     1                 2     S     12
4     G     5                 2     T     1
4     R     1                 4     %     31
4     S     1                 4     0     1
5     %     1                 4     ?     4
5     S     1                 4     A     1
7     %     5                 4     E     3
7     8     8                 4     G     5
7     E     1                 4     I     1
7     K     12                4     K     2
8     %     89                4     O     1
8     0     5                 4     R     1
8     2     4                 8     %     129
8     A     2                 8     0     7
8     C     5                 8     2     3
8     E     7                 8     4     2
8     F     1                 8     7     8
8     G     5                 8     ?     2
8     H     2                 8     A     4
8     K     6                 8     C     4
8     M     1                 8     D     1
8     O     7                 8     E     2
8     P     1                 8     G     2
8     R     4                 8     H     2
8     T     4                 8     K     6
8     Y     1                 8     L     1
8     Z     1                 8     O     6
?     %     3                 8     P     1
?     0     1                 8     R     1
?     4     4                 8     T     3
?     8     2                 8     Z     1
?     A     1                 =     %     1
?     C     1                 =     -     81
?     E     1                 =     ,     3
?     G     1                 A     %     119
?     O     3                 A     0     7
?     S     1                 A     8     2
?     T     1                 A     ?     1
a     %     1                 A     C     36
A     %     90                A     D     2
A     0     5                 A     E     3
A     4     1                 A     F     1
A     8     4                 A     G     21
A     C     17                A     I     12
A     D     2                 A     M     1
A     E     4                 A     O     255
A     G     18                A     R     2
A     I     5                 A     T     5
A     M     1                 A     y     1
A     N     1                 A     Z     1
A     O     135               C     %     182
A     S     3                 C     0     16
A     T     6                 C     2     1
A     Z     2                 C     8     5
c     %     1                 C     ?     1
C     %     327               C     A     17
C     0     11                C     D     6
C     2     8                 C     G     5
C     8     4                 C     H     1
C     A     36                C     I     5
C     D     19                C     N     1
C     E     1                 C     O     36
C     F     1                 C     S     12
C     G     8                 C     T     38
C     H     5                 C     Z     6
C     I     5                 D     %     81
C     L     1                 D     0     9
C     M     3                 D     4     1
C     O     26                D     A     2
C     P     2                 D     C     19
C     S     7                 D     E     3
C     T     86                D     F     2
C     Z     10                D     H     77
D     %     55                D     K     2
D     0     3                 D     O     3
D     2     1                 D     R     6
D     8     1                 D     S     1
D     A     2                 D     T     2
D     C     6                 D     Z     5
D     E     9                 E     %     85
D     F     3                 E     0     6
D     G     2                 E     7     1
D     H     100               E     8     7
D     M     2                 E     ?     1
D     O     2                 E     A     4
D     P     2                 E     C     1
D     R     14                E     D     9
D     S     1                 E     G     2
D     T     4                 E     H     1
D     Z     16                E     K     3
E     %     80                E     N     2
E     0     5                 E     O     2
E     2     2                 E     R     10
E     4     3                 E     T     3
E     8     2                 E     Z     1
E     A     3                 F     %     13
E     D     3                 F     0     3
E     F     12                F     8     1
E     G     3                 F     C     1
E     M     1                 F     D     3
E     O     10                F     E     12
E     R     10                F     P     21
E     T     1                 G     %     160
F     %     5                 G     0     8
F     0     1                 G     2     1
F     A     1                 G     4     5
F     D     2                 G     8     5
F     P     17                G     ?     1
F     Z     1                 G     A     18
G     %     136               G     C     8
G     0     3                 G     D     2
G     2     2                 G     E     3
G     4     5                 G     H     2
G     8     2                 G     K     1
G     A     21                G     N     4
G     C     5                 G     O     39
G     E     2                 G     P     2
G     K     2                 G     R     2
G     L     1                 G     S     1
G     M     1                 G     T     1
G     N     1                 G     Z     2
G     O     25                H     %     56
G     P     1                 H     0     9
G     S     1                 H     8     2
G     Z     1                 H     C     5
H     %     41                H     D     100
H     0     2                 H     O     1
H     8     2                 H     P     7
H     C     1                 H     R     1
H     D     77                H     S     1
H     E     1                 H     T     1
H     G     2                 H     Z     2
H     O     1                 I     %     39
H     P     2                 I     0     1
H     R     1                 I     A     5
H     T     1                 I     C     5
H     Z     7                 I     M     3
I     %     242               I     N     14
I     0     6                 I     P     2
I     2     2                 K     %     50
I     4     1                 K     0     1
I     A     12                K     7     12
I     C     5                 K     8     6
I     M     77                K     G     2
I     N     19                K     M     1
I     O     19                K     R     3
I     R     6                 L     %     12
I     T     4                 L     0     4
K     %     43                L     2     1
K     0     2                 L     C     1
K     4     2                 L     G     1
K     8     6                 L     N     1
K     D     2                 L     O     1
K     E     3                 L     R     1
K     G     1                 M     %     62
K     M     1                 M     0     1
K     O     2                 M     8     1
K     R     1                 M     A     1
K     T     1                 M     C     3
L     %     83                M     D     2
L     0     1                 M     E     1
L     8     1                 M     G     1
L     M     4                 M     I     77
L     N     1                 M     K     1
L     O     10                M     L     4
L     R     9                 M     N     371
L     T     2                 M     R     2
M     %     18                M     S     1
M     A     1                 M     Z     2
M     I     3                 N     %     9
M     K     1                 N     0     1
M     N     5                 N     A     1
M     R     1                 N     G     1
N     %     33                N     I     19
N     C     1                 N     L     1
N     E     2                 N     M     5
N     G     4                 N     R     1
N     I     14                O     %     192
N     L     1                 O     0     13
N     M     371               O     8     7
N     R     5                 O     ?     3
n     Y     2                 O     A     135
O     %     146               O     C     26
O     0     11                O     D     2
O     2     3                 O     E     10
O     4     1                 O     G     25
O     8     6                 O     H     1
O     A     255               O     I     19
O     C     36                O     K     2
O     D     3                 O     L     10
O     E     2                 O     R     7
O     G     39                O     T     1
O     H     1                 O     x     1
O     L     1                 P     %     14
O     R     3                 P     0     4
O     S     2                 P     8     1
O     T     6                 P     C     2
O     Z     1                 P     D     2
P     %     14                P     F     17
p     %     2                 P     G     1
P     0     1                 P     H     2
P     2     1                 R     %     101
P     8     1                 R     0     3
P     F     21                R     2     82
P     G     2                 R     4     1
P     H     7                 R     8     4
P     I     2                 R     D     14
P     R     2                 R     E     10
q     %     1                 R     H     1
q     0     1                 R     I     6
R     %     74                R     K     1
R     2     73                R     L     9
R     4     1                 R     M     1
R     8     1                 R     N     5
R     A     2                 R     O     3
R     D     6                 R     P     2
R     E     10                R     S     5
R     G     2                 R     T     1
R     H     1                 S     %     32
R     K     3                 S     0     8
R     L     1                 S     2     4
R     M     2                 S     4     1
R     N     1                 S     5     1
R     O     7                 S     ?     1
R     T     1                 S     A     3
S     %     32                S     C     7
S     0     1                 S     D     1
S     2     12                S     G     1
S     C     12                S     O     2
S     D     1                 S     T     63
S     G     1                 T     %     86
S     H     1                 T     0     3
S     M     1                 T     2     2
S     R     5                 T     8     4
S     T     46                T     ?     1
t     %     1                 T     A     6
T     %     75                T     C     86
T     0     1                 T     D     4
T     2     1                 T     E     1
T     8     3                 T     H     1
T     A     5                 T     I     4
T     C     38                T     K     1
T     D     2                 T     L     2
T     E     3                 T     O     6
T     G     1                 T     R     1
T     H     1                 T     S     46
T     O     1                 T     Z     1
T     R     1                 X     %     1
T     S     63                Y     %     3
T     Z     7                 Y     0     1
x     O     1                 Y     8     1
y     A     1                 Y     n     2
Z     %     25                Z     %     37
Z     8     1                 Z     0     16
Z     A     1                 Z     8     1
Z     C     6                 Z     A     2
Z     D     5                 Z     C     10
Z     E     1                 Z     D     16
Z     G     2                 Z     F     1
Z     H     2                 Z     G     1
Z     M     2                 Z     H     7
Z     T     1                 Z     O     1
,     %     736               Z     T     7
,     -     4                 ,     %     1185
,     =     3                 ,     -     3
[end of document]



From rand.org!jim Thu Jan 18 12:05 EST 1996
Received: by rice; Thu Jan 18 12:32 EST 1996
Received: from rand.org by research; Thu Jan 18 12:29:44 EST 1996
Received: from research.att.com (ns.research.att.com [192.20.225.4]) by rand.org (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id JAA25060 for <voynich@rand.org>; Thu, 18 Jan 1996 09:07:51 -0800 (PST)
From: reeds@research.att.com
Message-Id: <199601181707.JAA25060@rand.org>
Received: from rice by ns; Thu Jan 18 12:05:41 EST 1996
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 96 12:05 EST
To: "@proxy.research.att.com":voynich@rand.org
Subject: Voynich interlin 1.1
Status: OR

Gabriel Landini's interlin v1.1 inter-linear version of the common parts
of voynich.now and the FSG transcriptions is now available on my Voynich
web pages.  Alas, the powers that be keep shifting the addresses around.
This URL for my V-pages seems to work today:

     http://achille.research.att.com/math/people/reeds/voynich.html

In the past this worked:

     http://netnews.research.att.com/math/people/reeds/voynich.html

In any case, the interlinear text is 
     
     http://achille.research.att.com/math/people/reeds/voynich/interlin.txt.Z

and you might need to fetch it by ftp and decompress it yourself if your
browser balks.

Here is my tabulation of the differences shown in Landini's alignment
of voynich.now and the FSG transcription.  What is shown is how many 
times each kind of difference came up, sorted by frequency, for all
differences that occurred more than once.  (I used a minimum edit distance
method to find the differing subsequences.)

None of the high scoring differences should come as a suprise:  when 
transcribing it is often a judgement call as to whether there is a word
space present or not, one has to look hard to count the number of strokes
to distinguish an N from an M (I think the FSG transcribers were careless
about this), often it is hard to tell the difference between A and O,
etc.

freq	voynich.now	fsg
 
 640 			,
 454 	,		
 346 	N		M
 214 	O		A
 145 	C		
 108 	A		O
  79 	D		H
  74 	-		=
  65 	H		D
  65 	2		R
  54 	T		S
  54 	R		2
  52 	CC		T
  46 			C
  43 	S		T
  32 	O		G
  30 			O
  29 			K,
  28 	IIL		M
  27 	O		C
  26 	N		
  26 	K		
  25 			M,
  24 			T
  23 	R		
  21 	O		
  20 	0		
  19 	P		F
  18 	T		
  18 	IIIL		M
  17 			R
  17 	G		O
  17 	C		A
  16 			Z
  16 			8
  16 	T		CC
  15 	F		P
  15 	C		O
  14 			G
  14 	G		A
  14 	G		
  14 	CC		
  13 			R,
  13 			I
  12 	N		M,
  12 	8		
  12 	,		O
  11 	N		IR
  11 	IIIL		O
  11 	E		
  11 	7		K
  11 	2		
  10 			G,
  10 	A		G
   9 			E
   9 			A
   9 			0,
   9 	II		N
   9 	E		R
   9 	D		R
   9 	A		
   9 	0		HZ
   8 			2
   8 	T		Z
   8 	S		2
   8 	I		
   8 	0		C
   7 			S
   7 			D
   7 			2,
   7 	Z		
   7 	S		
   7 	R		E
   7 	O		0
   7 	L		R
   7 	L		O
   7 	II		A
   7 	IIR		M
   7 	E		F
   7 	D		,H
   7 	C		Z
   7 	C		T
   7 	0		2
   6 			E,
   6 	P		H
   6 	O		8
   6 	IIR		O
   6 	IIIR		O
   6 	A		CC
   6 	8		O
   6 	4		
   5 			P
   5 			O,
   5 			CC
   5 			4
   5 	Z		C
   5 	R		D
   5 	R,		2
   5 	K		8
   5 	E		O
   5 	D		
   5 	C		G
   5 	8		K
   5 	7		8
   5 	0		S
   5 	0		G
   5 	0		8
   4 			H
   4 			F,
   4 	T		,S
   4 	S		R
   4 	N		IL
   4 	L		
   4 	IR		M
   4 	IIIL		T
   4 	H		
   4 	H		,D
   4 	G		C
   4 	C		8
   4 	CI		A
   4 	8		E
   4 	8		2
   4 	4		G
   4 	0		CD
   4 	,		-
   4 	,O		A
   3 			P,
   3 			F
   3 			8,
   3 			,D
   3 	T		C
   3 	T		A
   3 	T		8
   3 	S		CC
   3 	S		2C
   3 	O		T
   3 	O		,A
   3 	OR		A
   3 	O2		AR
   3 	N		G
   3 	II		M
   3 	E		4
   3 	E		0
   3 	E,		F
   3 	D		F
   3 	D		0
   3 	CC		A
   3 	A		T
   3 	A		,O
   3 	AN		OM
   3 	8		T
   3 	7		
   3 	2		0
   3 	0		T
   3 	0		R
   3 	0		L
   3 	0		DZ
   2 			OR,
   2 			OD
   2 			N,
   2 			M=
   2 			L
   2 			C,
   2 			0
   2 			-
   2 			,G
   2 			,8
   2 	n		Y
   2 	T		ZC
   2 	R		K
   2 	R		,
   2 	P		R
   2 	P		
   2 	PZ		IM
   2 	O		A,
   2 	O		2,
   2 	O		,
   2 	ON		AM
   2 	OIIIL		AM
   2 	O8		
   2 	M		N
   2 	M		IIR
   2 	M		
   2 	K		E
   2 	I		0
   2 	IIIL		AM
   2 	IIIL-		M=
   2 	IE		G
   2 	H		P
   2 	H		8
   2 	HZ		G
   2 	G		O,
   2 	G		K
   2 	G		4
   2 	GD		4H
   2 	F		D
   2 	D		P
   2 	D		E
   2 	DZ		T
   2 	DO		RA
   2 	DCC8G		
   2 	D,		E
   2 	C		I
   2 	C		0
   2 	C		,
   2 	CIIIL		AM
   2 	CD		HZ
   2 	A		S
   2 	A		I
   2 	A		C
   2 	A		0
   2 	AN		
   2 	AL		M
   2 	8		R
   2 	8		G
   2 	8		C
   2 	8		0
   2 	8AM,		
   2 	4		0
   2 	2		T
   2 	2		S
   2 	2		R,
   2 	2		8
   2 	2A		
   2 	0		PZ
   2 	0		FZ
   2 	00		AE
   2 	0,		
   2 	,		A
   2 	,		=
   2 	,A		O

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Tue Jan 23 11:01:37 0800 1996
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Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 11:01:37 -0800
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0b5 (Win16; I)
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To: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Voynich interlin 1.1
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Status: OR

reeds@research.att.com wrote:
> Here is my tabulation of the differences shown in Landini's alignment
> of voynich.now and the FSG transcription.  What is shown is how many
> times each kind of difference came up, sorted by frequency, for all
> differences that occurred more than once.  (I used a minimum edit distance
> method to find the differing subsequences.)


I propose to "correct" any of the versions "voynich.now" or "FSG.NEW"
based only on these differences. There are 7851 places to correct.
If we get those checked, there is no need to go checking through 
the entire vms. We have already 86166 characters in agreement by the
two previous teams of transcribers.
We should have in mind that these differences do have a large effect
in the frequency of words between the versions, so would be better to
have the differences sorted out before looking at word frequencies.
cheers!

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Thu Jan 25 06:06:31 0500 1996
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From: MrsJ@aol.com
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Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 06:06:31 -0500
Message-ID: <960125023117_206189614@emout06.mail.aol.com>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Voynich List and/or Voynich Manuscript
Status: OR

Dear Sir:
Pardon my ignorance, but WHAT IS the above subj.?


From rand.org!jim Thu Jan 25 13:07:43 EWT 1996
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Date: Thu, 25 Jan 96 13:07:43 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Going to Frascati
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

Dear all,

since I get to go to Frascati next week, I thought I'd use the
occasion to find out all I can about Villa Mondragone. I am sure that
this has already been done (e.g. by W.Voynich himself), and therefore
this note is a kind of invitation to all of you to tell me what you
know about the villa. It is clear that this will not bring anything
with regard to cracking the VMs (with one exception), but I would
find it interesting to know how the VMs got there after leaving
the hands of Kircher. (The one exception being the remote possibility
that the whole thing is a practical joke by W.Voynich).

So this is what I know so far, from my guide of Rome and D'Imperio:

1. The name Mondragone comes from its dominating position and the
   fact it's decorated with heraldic dragons
2. It is quite a bit outside Frascati (2 hours walk), and cannot be
   visited (darn)

3. History:

It was founded by Cardinal Marco Altemps under pope Gregorius XIII
(Boncompagni). More about Gregorius below.
Building was started by Martino Longhi in 1573-1575. (Tiltman quoted
by D'Imperio says 'about 1570').
In 1582, pope Gregorius issued the calendar reformation bull from
the so-called 'Salone degli Svizzeri' (Swiss room) of the villa.
Gregorius was also a 'good friend' of the Jesuits. He gave large
sums of money for the Gesu' (their main church in Rome).
In 1613 it was acquired by Card. Scipio Borghese, nephew
(need to check) of pope Paul V (Camillo Borghese, pope since 1605).
Now Tiltman says that it probably remained in the hands of the
Altemps as in 1620 a late member of this family bequeated the
Mondragone library to the Vatican library. I need to sort this
out, but since it is still well before 1665, it does not worry
me too much.
Scipio Borghese extended the villa with the help of Vasanzio.
(This irrelevant piece of information just because he is
a fellow Dutchman.)
In 1865 the villa passed into the hands of the Jesuits, who
founded a (apparently famous) college there.
In 1912 W.Voynich found the VMs there (with some other documents
but don't know which). He kept the name of the site secret
for some years(!)
In 1953 the college closed.

So:

I'm still searching in my history books of Rome (the most fascinating
town in the world) but have found a clear 'Jesuit' connection, which
is obvious because both Kircher and the Villa belonged to it
(but never at the same time, if I may express it like that).
Has the VMs always been in the hands of the Jesuits in that interval?
I have also seen some references about Gregorius (or one of his
family) dealing with a group of Bohemians from Prague (all these
wonderful coincidences should not throw one off).
A good candidate for the location of the VMs before the villa
would be the Collegio Romano, but certainly not the only one.

Does anyone know where in Rome Kircher 'lived' when he got the VMs?
Another question is about the epithet 'old teacher of Marci' as
applied to Kircher. In what sense? How do we know?

I guess a lot of answers are in Voynich and possibly Tiltman's
writing, to which I have no access. If any of you has read these
and remembers some details I would appreciate hearing them.

Kind regards, Rene

From rand.org!jim Thu Jan 25 23:02 EST 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Date: Thu, 25 Jan 96 23:02 EST
To: "@proxy.research.att.com":voynich@rand.org
Subject: Voynich MS & Jesuit order
Status: OR


Rene Zandbergen asked about the connection between Marci and Kircher:

> Another question is about the epithet 'old teacher of Marci' as
> applied to Kircher. In what sense? How do we know?

The phrase 'old teacher' appears on page 2 of D'Imperio.  Tiltman (in 1967)
wrote of Marci (on page 43): "In 1667 he was elected a corresponding member
of the British Royal Society.  He had studied under Kircher, at Rome."
This seems to be taken from Voynich (p419) (of Kircher):  "He was the
friend of popes, emperors, kings, and scientists, and Marci had studied
under him in Rome."

A quick glance at 
	
	http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/marci.html
and at
	http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/kircher.html

makes this seem unlikely:  Marci was born in 1595 and Kircher in 1602.
Marci got his education in Czechoslovakia, Kircher's early career was
in Germany.  When Marci got his MD in 1625 (in Prague) Kircher was just
starting his teaching career.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Sun Jan 28 20:52 EST 1996
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To: "@proxy.research.att.com":voynich@rand.org
Subject: Voynich bibliography
Status: OR

I am preparing a Voynich bibliography.  My initial effort will soon be
visible on the Web, at this URL:

	http://netlib.att.com/math/people/reeds/voynich.bib.html

It has lots of omissions and mistakes, and I welcome corrections.
Thanks!

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Wed Jan 31 14:15:02 0600 1996
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Status: OR

Please put me on the voynich mailing list.

Thanks.

carlosq@io.com

From rand.org!jim Mon Feb  5 09:09 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich article in Mlady Svet.
Status: OR


Are there any Czech readers out there?  Last year there was an article
on the Voynich MS in Mlady svet, which I cannot read.  For that matter,
since I saw the article on a web page, I don't even know how to figure
out date, volume, & page numbers.  If anyone can help me, either by supplying
a precis of the paper, or by supplying proper bibliographical reference,
I'll be grateful.  (The web page I saw was in
http://cech.cesnet.cz/htbin/encode/MS/texts/MS953510.html?asc#Idx02
and in
http://cech.cesnet.cz/htbin/encode/MS/texts/MS953500.html
)
Thanks in advance,

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Mon Feb  5 09:27 EST 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Date: Mon, 5 Feb 96 09:27 EST
To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich pages
Status: OR


I have recently made additions to my Voynich pages at 
	
	http://netlib.att.com/math/people/reeds/voynich.html

namely: a complete collection of Robert Firth's numbered series of essays,
	
	http://netlib.att.com/math/people/reeds/voynich/firth.html

and many additions to my bibliography
	
	http://netlib.att.com/math/people/reeds/voynich/bib.html

Thanks to Firth, for supplying me with fresh copies of the essays (with 
annotations) and to Brian Smith for supplying valuable items for the 
bibliography.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 05 15:31:00 EWT 1996
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Date: Mon, 05 Feb 96 15:31:00 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Czech readers
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

Hi all!

Further to Jim's note, could same Czech reader contact me? A few
weeks ago I found a Web page from somewhere in Prague which contained
a lot of (presumably) Czech text with interspersed a few names I recognised:
Marcus Marci and Rudolph.
I do not have the URL anymore, but will take the trouble of tracking it
back (or is that "backtracking it") if there is a volunteer translator.
(The chances of it containing stunning new useful material have to be
considered pretty small anyway).

BTW, my search for the Villa Mondragone proved to be as expected:
virtually nothing. I could see it from my hotel. The few taxi drivers and
other locals I checked with agreed about the total lack of interest it
could possibly have for anyone, and the fact that it cannot be visited.
It seems to have suffered quite a lot in a war around the late 1800's,
which might have some effect on the possibility of the VMs being there
at the time (I know this is pretty thin).
Bookstores in Rome seem to boycot books about Frascati,
and particularly the Tuscan villas. (No offense intended, I probably
looked in the wrong places).
Just checking up on the last tiny clues before I give up on this.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Feb  5 13:22:45 MST 1996
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From: nelson@santafe.edu (Nelson Minar)
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Arthur C. Clarke's show?
Status: OR

Did anyone see Arthur C Clarke's show on the Voynich? I'm not sure
what's there, I just heard someone mention he did a show on
cryptography, one section of which was the Voynich Manuscript. 
(Another was the Beale cypher).

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 06 11:37:18 EWT 1996
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Date: Tue, 06 Feb 96 11:37:18 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: About R.Firths notes on Vowels & Consonants
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

Dear all,

(re)reading Robert Firth's notes prompted a lot of old and new
ideas, and I can definitely recommend rereading them.

Anyway, one thing that seems to take a relatively central place
is the vowel/consonant recognition, and the fact that although
it does work (cf. Jacques and Michael's work) it does not work
perfectly. Of course, what one calls pronounceable, someone else
might not. I would have a hard time with Polish, for example.
The first thought was: if there are too many vowels, they have
just been assigned wrong. The most frequent three characters
are all vowels, but this is true for english also (cf Note 17).
In Voynichese, however, these account for 39% of all text (28%
in English).

One could come up with various explanations:
1) The artificial language theory, whereby the text does not
   have to be pronounceable. (cf. D'Imperio's examples)
2) Certain symbols can be both V or C: such as U/V in Latin,
   I/J/Y in many languages U/W in Arabic
3) Shorthand: certain characters are consistently dropped.

It is clear that there is nothing simple about this.

I'd like to present a few features of my mother language (Dutch)
that may be interesting in this respect (probably already known
to the many linguists on this list) (and since I'm not a linguist
some of my terminology is wrong).

- Short and long vowels: long vowels are made by duplication of
  short ones. a -> aa, e -> ee, i->ie (no typo), o->oo, u->uu
  Unfortunately for those who are learning the Dutch spelling,
  double vowels are never written at the end of a syllable,
  except for 'ie' and sometimes 'ee' (also not true in old
  spelling)
- Many diphthongs (sp?) exist:
  au, ou (same sound), ei, ij (same sound), eu, oe, ui
  In old spelling (and still in family names) these were more
  exotic, e.g. uij or uy for ui, oi for oo, ae for aa, ue for uu
- And longer ones:
  aai, oei, ooi, ieu(w), eeu(w) (the w always follows those combinations)
  I probably forgot a few.

Now for some nice examples:
- A word with 7 consecutive vowels:
  koeieuier (cow's udder)
- A word with 4 consecutive identical vowels:
  zeeeend (sea-duck) (there should be a trema on the third e)
- A word with 8 consecutive consonants:
  angstschreeuw (cry of fear)
- A sentence with the same word repeated 6 times:
  "Als achter vliegen vliegen vliegen, vliegen vliegen vliegen
  achterna" (something about flies flying behind flies.
  Inevitably, a bit contrived)
- And it is possible to stack verbs (auxiliary or not) almost
  without limit. I once saw an example with 8 or 9 consecutive
  infinitives, only a bit contrived :-) It meant something like
  I would have like to see you stay calm and sit reading while ...
  I don't know how to write that properly in English :-)

So do I think the VMS in in Dutch? *NO*
What's more, I am not sure what Dutch was like in 1350-1450

To get back to the original theme: with 36 characters, there should
be enough space for lots of consonants. I do like the idea that
the gallows letters could be capitals (beginning of paragraphs),
in which case we lose about 6 of them. And it makes more difficult
the case where they occur in the middle of words (or is that only
after the 'definite article' 4o- ?)
Maybe they're numerals, where the cXXt are 1000 times XX?
Enough senseless speculation.

I'll keep other ideas related to some of the other Notes to
another mail.

Cheers, Rene Zandbergen

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 06 14:26:02 EWT 1996
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Date: Tue, 06 Feb 96 14:26:02 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: A coincidence, and an apology
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

Dear all,

since I was not around at the time Robert Firth sent out his
original notes, it is only now that I can add some comments to
them. I do not think I can contribute much except endless speculation,
so I apologise in advance for my next few 'contributions' which
some of you may regard as junk mail. I really only want to
stimulate others to do the same and start some discussion.

OK and here is yet another one of those little coincidences that
make it all so interesting.

I have a book called "Histoire Universelle des Chiffres" (German
translation) which is very interesting in itself. Searching in it
for Voynich look-alike symbols, I found one occurrence of the
"picnic table", where it meant the number '20', in an Ethiopian script
as found on an obelisk from Aksum (possibly the one in Rome, but not
Kircher's). I forgot about this because it did (and still does) not seem
to have anything to do with the VMs.
Then I receive my D'Imperio, and in one of the pictures with the cyclic
sequences (the one with four almost identical columns), I see from
top to bottom, Currier-O (a bit like 0), Currier-E (like early arabic 4),
Currier-8 (8), Currier-R (or 2?), another weirdo and then the picnic
table. If this is some table of 4, the picnic-table '20' is in the right
place!! Coincidence? Probably! But if it is true, this other weirdo
should be '16' and the R (or 2) '12'. Of course this system falls
over for the remainder of the list.

Cheers, Rene Zandbergen

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 06 19:38:32 +0000 1996
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To: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
cc: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: VMS copies in the British Library? 
In-reply-to: Gabriel Landini's message of Tue, 06 Feb 1996 16:21:30 -0800.
             <3117F08A.78CD@bham.ac.uk> 
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 1996 19:38:32 +0000
From: Mike Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Message-Id: <E0tjtDl-0004Se-00@bescot.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Status: OR

> I see from Jim Reed's bibliography that there are some copies of the VMS
> in the British Library.
> I wonder if any of the voynich fans in the UK knows if it is possible
> to get copies from them?

Yes, it is possible to get copies from them.
It cost me about 40 UK pounds, because I had to pay for their paper
copies to be photographed onto microfilm.
I ought to be a bit cheaper for the next person who wants a copy, because
the BL can just run off a duplicate of the microfilm they did for me.
(The BL keeps a copy of every microfilm they do so that they can run off 
duplicates, and there's a catalogue of the microfilms they've got...)

However, the BL copy is incomplete (they only have the first half, up
to about f57) and of fairly poor quality. (Try to image what prints
from a microfilm taken of 1930's pre-xerox copies of a vellum manuscript
will like.)

You're probably better off with the Beinecke microfilm.

The BL also has a collection of documents related to the Voynich manuscript;
this is mainly correspondence between Steele (then the BL's curator of
printed books), John Manly, and Newbold. There are also some press
cuttings. From what I recall, there's nothing particularly novel or
striking in this collection. [Excutive summary: Manly and Steele think that
Newbold's "decipherment" of the VMS is bogus]

Mike

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb  6 23:33:20 +0000 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199602062333.XAA03122@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Re: VMS copies in the British Library?
To: Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk (Mike Roe)
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 23:33:20 +0000 (GMT)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <E0tjtDl-0004Se-00@bescot.cl.cam.ac.uk> from "Mike Roe" at Feb 6, 96 07:38:32 pm
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> > I see from Jim Reed's bibliography that there are some copies of the VMS
> > in the British Library.
> > I wonder if any of the voynich fans in the UK knows if it is possible
> > to get copies from them?
> 
> Yes, it is possible to get copies from them.
> It cost me about 40 UK pounds, because I had to pay for their paper
> copies to be photographed onto microfilm.
> I ought to be a bit cheaper for the next person who wants a copy, because
> the BL can just run off a duplicate of the microfilm they did for me.
> (The BL keeps a copy of every microfilm they do so that they can run off 
> duplicates, and there's a catalogue of the microfilms they've got...)

Yup, that sounds about right. When I bought a microfilm of the Dee
mss. from them it cost me 56 quid for the whole shebang lot of stuff
pertaining to his magic(k)al 'workings'. For the BL to supply 
photocopies, it would've cost me around 500 pounds sterling.....

Soooo......I reckon around L20-30 for them? 

> Mike

-- 
Alligator Descartes	 	  | "...Nil posse creari De nilo"
descarte@hermetica.com	 	  |	-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I, l.155
http://www.hermetica.com/descarte | 

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 06 16:21:30 0800 1996
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Date: Tue, 06 Feb 1996 16:21:30 -0800
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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To: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: VMS copies in the British Library?
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Status: OR

I see from Jim Reed's bibliography that there are some copies of the VMS
in the British Library.
I wonder if any of the voynich fans in the UK knows if it is possible
to get copies from them?
If that is the case I could find an excuse to go to London in a
"Voynich mission" :-)
>From my side I will try to find out as well and post it here.

Cheers,

Gabriel

PS: Rene's finding is most interesting, Just to add something,
the letter R reminds me of 12. If you join them and twist the horizontal
part of the 2 downwards, the result looks like an R. But a little stange
to get a single number to code for 12... Would there be more single
symbols for other numbers or is it an special one for "dozen"?
This reminds me to do something about getting D'Imperio's book!!!

PS2: Is D'Imperio still in contact with somebody in the list?
cheers
G

From rand.org!jim Wed Feb 07 13:49:40 EWT 1996
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Date: Wed, 07 Feb 96 13:49:40 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Some ramblings related to R.F. Note nr. 3
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

About R.Firth's note 3
----------------------
First a question: are the common 'symbols' for the zodiacal
signs drawn near the figures as well? Should they have been?
When were these symbols first used?

About the michiton oladabas... I really hate these lines.
Our total lack of success in making any sense out of these
does not bode well for the future 'translation' of the VMs.
I have a feeling that most people share this sentiment but
hate to say it out right.
I remember Jacques Guy's "..exire hodire hodiire udire..".
Maybe that's it then?
In Petersen's transcription of this, as copied in D'Imperio,
there is also something written a bit above these lines (which I
cannot make out for the life of me). I have not seen any commentary
about this anywhere. Anyone?
I also think there might well be at least one (invisible) letter
before michiton, looking at D'Imperio's photocopy...
And then: there are characters like Currier-8, interpreted as 's'
and in the third line there are f-like (German?) 's'-es.
Something must be off here...

'Der Mussdel'.
Even if the dead person has breasts, it remains a question what
happens with the 'Mussdel' if the wife dies before the husband,
or if the husband dies, then the wife. That there is a dead body
is already interesting. Any indication that this text was written
later (in another hand) than the Voynichese? Or even the picture?
Could the dead woman be Martina Bach? (Who is she anyway?)

A bit off the topic: it's a pity that Agrippa von Nettesheim
did not live one century earlier. More than Roger Bacon, he has
all the ingredients of being a prime candidate VMs writer. I was
reminded here because he wrote a book about marriage for his
sister (which should cover things like the Mussdel, and their
native language was German). Also, he lived (at least for some time)
smack in the middle of the area Robert likes as the origin of the VMs.
And he travelled enough to England for the VMs to end up in Kelley's
(or Dee's) hands.

Cheers. Rene Zandbergen

From rand.org!jim Wed Feb 07 17:12:53 EWT 1996
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Date: Wed, 07 Feb 96 17:12:53 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Rambling on note 8
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

Related to note 8 (and a bit of 7)
----------------------------------

Robert keeps reminding us that the bits of text between spaces
do not have to be words in our sense of the word (ack!), which
could mean that spaces are not significant, or the underlying
language was not meant to be rendered by an alphebetic script,
or probably a whole lot more.
I do like 'discrete units of meaning' for the labels.
Now let's keep this in mind.

In the mean time I have not yet abandoned the 'word' idea and
at least for the labels it is a useable equivalent.
(It's a pity note 8 does not contain the transcribed labels
Robert stared at, because I have not got them).

Now one thing that has been haunting me almost from the beginning
is this idea that all 'words' may have been written backwards
as part of the 'disguise' (another not-generally-accepted concept).

The infamous 4 could still mean 'and' similar to Latin -que.
Or it could be a plural indication. So (Currier) OFAM is singular
(anything that can be considered noun or adjective) and 4OFAM
plural. There is an obvious parallel with the Greek word-ending
sigma. This would explain why the 4 always precedes O at the
beginning of words, but NOT why the previous word should so
often end with 9 (ideas anyone?).
Another problem is the initial 2- (i.e. 2OFAM in the above. does
this word exist?). 'Dual' as opposed to 'plural'? Adverb as
opposed to adjctive? Degrees of comparison?
Or again: -ve as opposed to -que?

Again, I would not mind having the star names for looking at
backwards. (Maybe I can find them in the mail archive).

Now my main question: I can't remember anyone ever discussing
this possibility. Has it already been beaten to death in one of
the early publications? Now that I've got my D'Imperio, I find
myself needing to also read Brumbaugh and Voynich himself.

Cheers for now, Rene

From rand.org!jim Wed Feb  7 22:08:54 +0000 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199602072208.WAA12423@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Re: VMS copies in the British Library?
To: djl@montana.com (djl)
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 22:08:54 +0000 (GMT)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <01BAF4E9.45AF8CC0@paw.montana.com> from "djl" at Feb 6, 96 11:17:05 pm
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> "Yup, that sounds about right. When I bought a microfilm of the Dee
> mss. from them it cost me 56 quid for the whole shebang lot of stuff
> pertaining to his magic(k)al 'workings'. For the BL to supply=20
> photocopies, it would've cost me around 500 pounds sterling....."
> 
> Could I get some details as to the Dee ms's? I have been interested in =
> him for some time as a transition figure between "alchemy" and =
> "science". Thanks, Don Latham

Right, the mss. I have from the BL are:

	Sloane MS. 3188		Dee's 'Spiritual Diaries....'
	Sloane MS. 3189		Dee's 'Libri Mysteriorum sextus et sanctus'
	Sloane MS. 3191		'Claves Angelicae'; 'Liber scientis auxilii et
				 victoriae terrestris'; 'De heptarchia mystica';
				'Tabula bonorum angelorum invocationes'

That's a fair whack of stuff, I must point out! Also, this is his mystical
stuff. None of it is really related to his mathematical, astrological or
alchemical writings.

For a list of the collected extant Dee mss. check the bibliography at the
back of Peter French's bio of him entitled 'John Dee - The World of an
Elizabethan Magus'

-- 
Alligator Descartes	 	  | "...Nil posse creari De nilo"
descarte@hermetica.com	 	  |	-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I, l.155
http://www.hermetica.com/descarte | 

From rand.org!jim Wed Feb  7 21:43 EST 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
Message-Id: <199602080244.SAA16678@rand.org>
Received: from rice by ns; Wed Feb  7 21:43:37 EST 1996
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 96 21:43 EST
To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich on TV
Status: OR

Has anyone seen the Voynich MS episode of the "Arthur C. Clark's 
Mysterious Universe" TV series recently shown in the US on the Discover
Channel, & in Europe some months ago?

Colleagues of mine saw it & were not impressed.  It showed the children of
Brumbaugh working though their father's 'pepper' "decode".  But a 
coherent summary of the whole thing would be nice.

(I just realized that the show's title is a steal of James Jean's "The
Mysterious Universe".)

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Thu Feb  8 10:46 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich article in Mlady Svet
Status: OR

My Czech colleague tells me that Mlady Svet was, when he left Czechoslovakia,
a childrens' magazine, sort of a unisex Mademoiselle, half way between the
(American) supermarket magazines and National Geographic in quality.
The last paragraph of the article is especially sleazy writing, with everything
worded for deniability.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Sat Feb 10 00:48 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich message for Rene Zandbergen
Status: OR

This letter is meant for Rene Zandbergen, whose private email seems
messed up.

Rene, I have sent 3 or so letters addressed to you at RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE.
Let me know if you don't get them.

Cheers,

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Sat Feb 10 06:57 EST 1996
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Date: 10 Feb 96 06:47:19 EST
From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Origin of zodiacal symbols
Message-ID: <960210114719_100716.75_EHU58-1@CompuServe.COM>
Status: OR

Rene Zandbergen asked:

>are the common 'symbols' for the zodiacal
>signs drawn near the figures as well? Should they have been?
>When were these symbols first used?

"The notion has prevailed, in spite of the facts, that the concept, names, and
symbols of the zodiac were devised by the Greeks, for the word is of Greek
origin, meaning 'animal circle'.  It is conceded that the inspiration for them
may have come form Egypt, where the zodiac with its unaltered symbols, order,
and names was certainly known.  In spite of the antiquity of some of the
Egyptian depictions - including a magnificent one in the temple at Denderah [now
in the Louvre] ... - the zodiac did not begin there.  Studies such as the one by
E. C. Krupp ('In Search of Ancient Astronomies') have emphatically stated that
'all available evidence indicates that the concept of the zodiac was not native
to Egypt; instead, it is believed that the zodiac was imported to Egypt from
Mesopotamia,'   ...  Archaeologists have found Babylonian astronomical tables
clearly marked off into twelve parts, each with its pertinent zodiacal symbol.
...  The zodiac ... was begun, as far as Mankind is concerned, in Sumer.  As we
have indisputably shown in 'The 12th Planet', the Sumerians knew of, depicted
and named the zodiacal houses exactly as we still do six thousand years later."

--  Zecharia Sitchin, "When Time Began", pp. 183-185 (Avon pb).


From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 13 13:53:35 EWT 1996
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Date: Tue, 13 Feb 96 13:53:35 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: About some of Gabriel's recent comments
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

In reply to Gabriel's note:

I tend to agree about the mermaid (looking at the low-res B/W GIF
at rand.org). Whether she is eaten by a fish, or standing in some kind
of piping I cannot distinguish though. With a bit more imagination
I even see a face in what would be the tail of the fish. As if the
'fish' is like a shadow of the woman.
Does anybody know what colour the 'pool' is? If it meant to be water
(most likely) or blood?

When you mention 4OD- words, I guess you are using FSG notation,
i.e. 40F- in Currier. Mike Roe once posted an interesting 'word'
(in Currier):


                  +-O--+  +-R-+
 O --+         +--+    +--+   +----+
     !  +-P-+  !  +-SO-+  +-E-+    !
4O --+--+   +--+                   !
     !  +-F-+  !  +-C--+           !
SO --+         !  !    !           !
               !  +-CC-+           !
               !  !    !  +-9--+   !
               +--+-SC-+--+    +---+-------
               !  |    !  +-89-+   !
               !  +-S--+           !
               !  !    !           !
               !  +-Z--+           !
               !  |    !           !
               !  +----+           !
               !                   !
               +  +-AE-+           !
               !  !    !           !
               +  +-AJ-+           !
               !  !    !           !
               +--+-AM-+-----------+
                  !    !
                  +-AN-+
                  !    !
                  +-AR-+

Two additions of mine: -AR- at the bottom, and -89- near the
end. The latter was probably left out deliberately by Mike
because it is the only switch that introduces a few non-existent
words (for initial SO-). I put it in
because it introduces a *LARGE* number of existing words, which are
only found on pages in language B.
Terminal -89 does occur in A as well, but usually as stand-alone
(spurious spaces?) or preceded by O (i.e. terminal -O89).
Another interesting bit is that the path through -SO- near the
top produces words that are in A pages only, with very few
exceptions (which could be typos or A/B cross-references or whatever).

BTW: another addition to the path above would be to omit the
two initial groups. Just about everything right of F/P is a
valid word as well.
I wonder how many % of the VMS is covered by the above 'word'.

I agree on the need for the highest possible accuracy in the
transcriptions. As soon as my Yale copy arrives (ordered finally) I
will try to contribute in this area as well. I am especially
interested in the recipes section, for which the current
transcriptions are still rather weak. From what I have, I have
seen some 'seasonal' behaviour in some statistics (following the
idea that each paragraph is valid for a day of the year).
I am sure all these interesting leads have been followed before!!

Cheers for now, Rene

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 13 14:11:55 +0000 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199602131411.OAA11094@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Re: About some of Gabriel's recent comments
To: RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE (Rene Zandbergen)
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 14:11:55 +0000 (GMT)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <199602131255.EAA05725@rand.org> from "Rene Zandbergen" at Feb 13, 96 01:53:35 pm
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> When you mention 4OD- words, I guess you are using FSG notation,
> i.e. 40F- in Currier. Mike Roe once posted an interesting 'word'
> (in Currier):

[ Example deleted ]

Finally, with the advent of a broken car, I decide to do something......

I applied a quick count against my VM database as to the number of words
beginning with 40{D/F}- in the VM.

Here's what I got.......All results are completely useless, since this is off
a 'first data-load' which I know is complete rubbish in places. 

Total words loaded: 
Total distinct words beginning with 4OF: 225
Total words beginning with 4OF: 1791
Top ten word counts: 
WORD                                                             COUNT(WORD)    
---------------------------------------------------------------- -----------    
4OFC89                                                                   196    
4OFAN                                                                    186    
4OFCC89                                                                  185    
4OFAM                                                                    146    
4OFCC9                                                                   132    
4OFAE                                                                    119    
4OFAR                                                                     83    
4OF9                                                                      71    
4OFC9                                                                     51    
4OFS9                                                                     51    

Is this useful? I'll take requests for statistics, until I get my act together
with a public front-end.

> Cheers for now, Rene

Regards.

-- 
Alligator Descartes	 	  | "...Nil posse creari De nilo"
descarte@hermetica.com	 	  |	-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I, l.155
http://www.hermetica.com/descarte | 

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 13 16:45:07 EWT 1996
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Date: Tue, 13 Feb 96 16:45:07 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Ascii rendering of a side view of the VMs
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

Visual indication of quires (gatherings) and bifolios of the
VMs, with indication of folio nr, language, hand and types of
illustration.

All information courtesy of Jim Reeds, who has a few more
comments about the uncertainty of a some of this.


      /-------------- 001     A1  <--- Start of 'herbal' section
      ! /------------ 002     A1
      ! ! /---------- 003     A1
      ! ! ! /-------- 004     A1
      A A A A
      ! ! ! \-------- 005     A1
      ! ! \---------- 006     A1
      ! \------------ 006     A1
      \-------------- 008     A1

      /-------------- 009     A1
      ! /------------ 010     A1
      ! ! /---------- 011     A1
      ! ! ! /--....  (012)
      A A A A
      ! ! ! \-------- 013     A1
      ! ! \---------- 014     A1
      ! \------------ 015     A1
      \-------------- 016     A1

      /-------------- 017     A1
      ! /------------ 018     A1
      ! ! /---------- 019     A1
      ! ! ! /-------- 020     A1
      A A A A
      ! ! ! \-------- 021     A1
      ! ! \---------- 022     A1
      ! \------------ 023     A1
      \-------------- 024     A1

      /-------------- 025     A1
      ! /------------ 026     B2
      ! ! /---------- 027     A1
      ! ! ! /-------- 028     A1
      A B A A
      ! ! ! \-------- 029     A1
      ! ! \---------- 030     A1
      ! \------------ 031     B2
      \-------------- 032     A1

      /-------------- 033     B2
      ! /------------ 034     B2
      ! ! /---------- 035     A1
      ! ! ! /-------- 036     A1
      B B A A
      ! ! ! \-------- 037     A1
      ! ! \---------- 038     A1
      ! \------------ 039     B2
      \-------------- 040     B2

      /-------------- 041     B2
      ! /------------ 042     A1
      ! ! /---------- 043     B2
      ! ! ! /-------- 044     A1
      B A B A
      ! ! ! \-------- 045     A1
      ! ! \---------- 046     B2
      ! \------------ 047     A1
      \-------------- 048     B2

      /-------------- 049     A1
      ! /------------ 050     B2
      ! ! /---------- 051     A1
      ! ! ! /-------- 052     A1
      A B A A
      ! ! ! \-------- 053     A1
      ! ! \---------- 054     A1
      ! \------------ 055     B2
      \-------------- 056     A1

    /---------------- 057     B2
    ! /-------------- 058     A
    ! ! /------......(059)
    ! ! ! /----......(060)
    ! ! ! ! /--......(061)
    B A ! ! !
    ! ! ! ! \--......(062)
    ! ! ! \----......(063)
    ! ! \------......(064)
    ! \-------------- 065
    \---------------- 066     B   <--- End of 'herbal' section

            /-------- 067 +--     <--- Start of 'astro/cosmo' section
            !
            \-------- 068 +--+--

            /-------- 069
            !
            \-------- 070 +--

            /-------- 071
            !
            \-------- 072 +--+--

            --------- 073

            /--......(074a)
            !
            \--......(074b)       <--- End of 'astro/cosmo' section

    /---------------- 075     B2  <--- Start of 'biological' section
    ! /-------------- 076     B2
    ! ! /------------ 077     B2
    ! ! ! /---------- 078     B2
    ! ! ! ! /-------- 079     B2
    B B B B B
    ! ! ! ! \-------- 080     B2
    ! ! ! \---------- 081     B2
    ! ! \------------ 082     B2
    ! \-------------- 083     B2
    \---------------- 084     B2  <--- End of 'biological' section

           //======== 085     B3
           !B                     <--- 9-rings multiple-fold
           \\======== 086 +== B3

          /---------- 087     A4  (herbal)
          ! /-------- 088     A4  (pharma)
          A A
          ! \-------- 089 +-- A   (pharma)
          \---------- 090 +-- A   (herbal)

            /--......(091)
            !
            \--......(092)

          /---------- 093     A4  (all herbal)
          ! /-------- 094     B5
          A B
          ! \-------- 095 +-- B5
          \---------- 096     A4

            /--......(097)
            !
            \--......(098)

          /---------- 099     A4? (all pharma)
          ! /-------- 100     A4?
          A A
          ! \-------- 101 +-- A4?
          \---------- 102 +-- A

/-------------------- 103     BX  <--- start of 'stars/recipes'
! /------------------ 104     BX
! ! /---------------- 105     BY
! ! ! /-------------- 106     BX
! ! ! ! /------------ 107     B
! ! ! ! ! /---------- 108     B
! ! ! ! ! ! /--......(109)
B B B B B B !
! ! ! ! ! ! \--......(110)
! ! ! ! ! \---------- 111     B
! ! ! ! \------------ 112     B
! ! ! \-------------- 113     B
! ! \---------------- 114     B
! \------------------ 115     B
\-------------------- 116     B   <--- end of 'stars/recipes'

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 13 18:02:02 +0000 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199602131802.SAA13659@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Re: About some of Gabriel's recent comments
To: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk (Gabriel Landini)
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 18:02:02 +0000 (GMT)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <31213749.17A5@bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Feb 13, 96 05:13:45 pm
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> > Is this useful? I'll take requests for statistics, until I get my act together with a public front-end.
> 
> Yes, I think it would be very useful to be able to search
> for a transition probabilities of characters and words.
> However as I said before, unless we get an accurate transcription
> these tables are not correct.

8-) As I pointed out in private mail to Rene, you can spot 'anomalies'
in the transcription. I spotted a few wrongly transcribed characters
in one folio.......I'll try and either reproduce the results ( this was
a while back ) or find them........

> What I have now is a version of the interlin.vms in which I
> have the D'Imperio text, second line is the synchronised fsg
> version but only showing the discrepancies. This way is much
> easier to correct.
> I have added a third line which is "my" correction. That way
> all the information is kept in a single document.

OK, I'll get the interlin version and get that loaded then run some
sort of correlation check between them and see what we end up with.

> Time to sort out my copy of the vms....

I think likewise.......8-)

> I just checked Alligator's www site and found some Enochian text.
> Did anybody check any transition probabilities of characters or
> words versus the VMS?

Yup, I've been looking quite closely at it. You'll need a copy of
the Enochian alphabet from the actual Libri Mysteriori for it to
make any sense, since the alphabet printed in virtually every other book 
up to the present day is completely wrong! If anyone's interested, I'll
put the 'corrected' alphabet up on Hermetica.

> Gabriel

-- 
Alligator Descartes	 	  | "...Nil posse creari De nilo"
descarte@hermetica.com	 	  |	-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I, l.155
http://www.hermetica.com/descarte | 

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 13 10:30:06 0800 1996
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Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 10:30:06 -0800
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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Many questions in one mail:

I wonder if anybody has heard about the Golem legend located
in Prague during the times of Rudolph II.
The Golem seems to be the archetype (spelling?) of 
the creature in Frankenstein and all the other stories
of man playing god.
There is a brilliant german version (silent movie) that I
saw some years ago. The movie must be from around 192something. 
Is there any relation to the VMS other than a time/space
coincidence.


On another subject, I started "correcting" folio 79 & 80
(the ones in Bennet) based on the interlin.vms.
(Yes, I want a VERY accurate even short piece of vms).
NOW I understand the problems with the transcription :-)
Nevertheless, it seems that most M in the fsg.new are
wrongly translated (they are actually N). I found
a couple of unrecognisable characters, and a number
of suspicious spaces which I cannot decide if it's me
or they are really there...
The D'Imperio transcription has several errors regarding
the letter D which are correct in the fsg.
I found also 1 character wrong in both versions!

I disagree with the description of a "mermaid" in 79r
I think it is a lady being eaten (happily!) by a fish.

In the same page, top right corner, is there a male figure
going after a female one?

What about to call this group "the thrid study group"?

Many lines ending in "K", very strange.
Too many 4OD***** words.
I am more inclined to think that IF ther is a meaning in
the VMS there must be some encoding more complex than a
simple substitution of characters...
I wonder if this has null characters... somebody has
mentioned this before.

cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 13 14:53:55 0800 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9602132254.AA27795@sun.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Rudolph II and the Golem
To: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk (Gabriel Landini)
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 14:53:55 -0800 (PST)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <3120D8AE.1822@bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Feb 13, 96 10:30:06 am
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Gabriel Landini writes:
> I wonder if anybody has heard about the Golem legend located
> in Prague during the times of Rudolph II.
> The Golem seems to be the archetype (spelling?) of
> the creature in Frankenstein and all the other stories
> of man playing god.
> There is a brilliant german version (silent movie) that I
> saw some years ago. The movie must be from around 192something.
> Is there any relation to the VMS other than a time/space
> coincidence.

The Golem is a standard piece of Jewish folklore, and will be found in most
collections dealing with such. Rabbi L\"{o}w built it out of clay with the
idea of protecting the Jews from pogroms and other calamities.

The movie was prabably based on a novel-length version of the story by
Gustav Meyrink, a best-selling German writer around WWI, who wrote about
a number of sufficiently cloudy and mystical subjects.

Andras Kornai

PS. The latest addition to the legend is that Edward Teller or Stanislaw
Ulam (I can't remember which, but the story is related in Rhodes' Dark Sun,
which I already returned to the library) was a descendant of Rabbi L\"{o}w.
Upon learning about this, one of the scientists (or was it a spouse?)
exclaimed: aha, it still runs in the family!

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 13 23:20:34 +0000 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199602132320.XAA15838@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Computer reproduction of VM?
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 23:20:34 +0000 (GMT)
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Today's second silly idea.

Would it be worthwhile writing a small program-ette to generate
a repro manuscript from my database given that the data pushed into it
would be from the transcriptions? 

This may be useful. Or useless, I haven't decided which. A small
experiment with the Currier notation chunk I'm using that I've loaded,
and the GIF of one of the folios resulted in generation of a very close 
match of the "real thing".

One element of usefulness could be ( and I speak from experience with the
Dee mss. ) would be to get some familiarization with the glyphs which may
cause more correctness in transliterating off at best fuzzy photocopies? 

I dunno, it is late.........

Anyway, as usual, let me know what you think.........

Regards.

PS: I do apologize in advance for what may seem trodden on ground, or just
    plain odd suggestions. I, unfortunately, have access to facilities I
    feel may help in some way, but don't really have the grasp of the VM
    to work out an efficient path to apply to the resources at hand......

-- 
Alligator Descartes	 	  | "...Nil posse creari De nilo"
descarte@hermetica.com	 	  |	-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I, l.155
http://www.hermetica.com/descarte | 

From rand.org!jim Wed Feb 14 22:34:54 0500 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: Computer reproduction of VM?
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 22:34:54 -0500 (EST)
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Alligator Descartes writes in part: 
> Would it be worthwhile writing a small program-ette to generate
> a repro manuscript from my database given that the data pushed into it
> would be from the transcriptions? 

If anyone is interested, I have a short program which extracts pages of the
VM from a transcription file and formats them for printing in TeX using
a Currier-alphabet Voynich font. The input format is similar to that of
voynich.now but it would be easy enough to modify.

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 08:55:28 +0000 1996
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Subject: Re: Computer reproduction of VM?
To: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 08:55:28 +0000 (GMT)
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> > Would it be worthwhile writing a small program-ette to generate
> > a repro manuscript from my database given that the data pushed into it
> > would be from the transcriptions? 
> 
> If anyone is interested, I have a short program which extracts pages of the
> VM from a transcription file and formats them for printing in TeX using
> a Currier-alphabet Voynich font. The input format is similar to that of
> voynich.now but it would be easy enough to modify.

My thoughts exactly. Can you send me a copy of the program, or make it
avaiable via ftp somewhere? If you're stuck, stick it on ftp.mcqueen.com
in the incoming directory....

> Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

Regards.

-- 
Alligator Descartes	 	  | "...Nil posse creari De nilo"
descarte@hermetica.com	 	  |	-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I, l.155
http://www.hermetica.com/descarte | 

From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 10:48:00 +0000 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199602151048.KAA28068@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: John Dee's Libri Mysteriori
To: voynich@rand.org
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Hi again.

Just a quick note to let the list know that I've asked the British Library
for permission to put my transcriptions of the Dee mss. on the WWW.

I'll let the list know the outcome either way, which should hopefully be in
the next day or so......

Regards.

-- 
Alligator Descartes	 	  | "...Nil posse creari De nilo"
descarte@hermetica.com	 	  |	-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I, l.155
http://www.hermetica.com/descarte | 

From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 14:01:43 +0000 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199602151401.OAA00587@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Re: Rudolph II and the Golem
To: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk (Gabriel Landini)
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 14:01:43 +0000 (GMT)
Cc: kornai@almaden.ibm.com, voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <3123786D.48A2@bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Feb 15, 96 10:16:13 am
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> The tricky part is that as we do with out little golems with keyboards and CRTs
> he was switched off every night by taking a spell from his mouth in a piece of paper
> (for the ones prone to start a DIY project ;-), the words were AEMETH, maybe there
> "H" goes somewhere else...)

Course, the "Sigillum Dei Aemeth" is Dee's famous magical symbol from his
works........

Aemeth is "Truth", if memory serves.......

> Gabriel

-- 
Alligator Descartes	 	  | "...Nil posse creari De nilo"
descarte@hermetica.com	 	  |	-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I, l.155
http://www.hermetica.com/descarte | 

From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 15:03:11 EWT 1996
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Date: Thu, 15 Feb 96 15:03:11 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Voynich display S/W and alphabets
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

Dear all,

there seems to be (at least) the following for rendering
voynich text on a computer screen:

- S/W by Jacques Guy that uses the Frogguy notation and
  produces a Postscript result. P.C.-based I think.
- S/W by Bruce Grant that takes Currier notation and produces
  TeX output. Comes with a Voynich font for TeX. P.C.-based?
- A postscript font by Julie Porter. No particular transcription
  tool though. (I have created some so-called tiny-gifs from these.
  Ideal for use in Web pages, but they do not align vertically,
  so can only be used for single-character display. I can send
  a small tarfile of them to whomever wants this. To Jim (R):
  they are much nicer than the ones you've seen.)

We may want to keep various transcription alphabets, because
each has its own advantages, but more than two would seem unnecessary.
That would mean Currier and Frogguy (sorry Gabriel). The main
disadvantage I would see in FSG is as you say its use of 'Z'
and 'IR' IIR' etc. It's like a hybrid between Currier and Frogguy.
Even worse is the absense of Currier-6 and Currier-7.

It will be necessary though to have agreed symbols for the picnic
table and for one or two other symbols, which are outside Currier,
but semi-officially covered by Frogguy (I think).

In view of this it would be nice if the S/W had switches for
the alphabet to be used.
And that brings me to the transcription rules. The one used in
voynich.now has crystallised from long discussions, so should be
used. I have noticed some variations in it though, and it may not
be bad to reiterate. This I will do in a separate note.

Right now I would like to go back to the S/W above. Does anybody
else have anything related to this?
Based on PC, Mac or Sun? Any chances for having it accept
Currier and Frogguy?

Cheers for now, Rene

From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 15:31:34 EWT 1996
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Date: Thu, 15 Feb 96 15:31:34 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Transcription rules reiterated
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

About the transcription rules.

Apart from the alphabet to be used, the following seems to be
the convention for transcription as in voynich.now.

<...>   Foliation information
{...}   Comment
# at beginning of line: comment
[ab]    Alternate readings
(a|b)   Alternate readings
*       Unreadable character
.       Space
,       uncertain space or half space
-       Line end or interruption
=       Paragraph end
+       Continuation line
; at beginning of line: comment
/       Space

(the last two in older transcriptions and the Marshall stuff).

The above is not always used consistently.
Without really changing anything, I would like to make the
following proposal:

1. Comments
For comments we can keep both # at line start and {..}
We could maybe use the # for longer text, e.g. descriptions of the
page being transcribed, and {..} for shorter in-line comments about
the text characters itself.

2. Foliation information
<f103r> indicates folio number. We could also use <f103r/212>
to add the Petersen page number or </212> for just that. In any
case the occurrence of this should mark the start of the 'page'
in question.
<f103r.11> gives line nr. 11. 11 can also be replaced by more
intricate loci. This should in any case be optional.
We could also use <f100r!100> to indicate that here we have the
folio number and/or <f90v1!G15> to indicate the gathering mark.
I would be in favour of requiring that the < is always in
position 1 of the line.
Now how do we also squeeze language/hand into this?

<f90v1/190!90G15:A>

with some optional. I am afraid this is just
not readable.

3. Alternate readings
* is clear
[A9] should be A or 9 (but more likely A)
[A*] should mean: I think A but cannot be sure
[*A] : don't know but it could be A
(...|..) reserved for more complicated choices, such as (CC|S)

4. Spacing
dot and comma should be OK, but these are the most difficult
part of the transcription, and are not used too consistently.
Hyphen for text interruptions by a plant and end of line could
be confusing. How about / for end-of-line? There is the
implicit assumption that end of transcription line is also end
of Voynich line, which has led to the invention of '+' for
continuation. Whereas I am not really against it, it should
not be necessary. How do others feel about this?

My main point is that the text should be human-readable, but
also easy to parse by S/W. For this purpose I was also thinking
of some standard code (e.g. in C to maximise portability) that
has the following options (e.g.):
- Stripping comments
- Stripping foliation information
- Taking the most likely of alternate readings
- Removing uncertain words
- Making a choice on spaces (keep , or remove ,)
- Removing spaces altogether
- Turning all uncertain readings into *
- whatever


Comments please??

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 11:19 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich chit chat (long)
Status: OR

Such a lot of Voynich mail accumulated in such a short time!  


As far as I recall the bathwater is colored green or blue.  Certainly
not red.

I think Rene's chart of the nesting of bifolia into quires is wonderful,
and have put in in my VMS web collection.  (As always, it will take a
day or 2 to materialize.) Rene:  if this is objectionable please let 
me know at once!

I once tried something like Alligator's idea of spotting transcription
anomalies by using the idea of the ancient Unix 'typo' program, which 
looked for words unusually rich in uncommon trigraphs, as measured by a
formula involving logarithms of frequencies.  It gave mixed results.  
What's your method, Alligator?  (By the way, is that the right way to
address you?)

I like the idea of a "repro manuscript" set from transcription data.
It's very hard to proofread from such a thing, though.

Bruce, let's see your program for converting voynich.now-like stuff into
TeX!

I see Gabriel is starting the transcription alphabet debate again!
Here are my prejudices: I agree with him that the FSG digraphs HZ etc.
are hard to work with.  I feel that Frogguy has too many little symbols
and that c't should be a single letter not one.  I feel that the Currier
alphabet has too many symbols, and that having separate symbols for
varying lengths of runs of Is before some terminal letter is silly.
(Beyond M and N, that is.) Especially when similar runs of Cs are not
treated with special letters.  I think there should be a system of 
naming the complex rarely occuring symbols by reference to a chart.  
I tried to use notations like 'X123' for this in my transcriptions, 
but it does not fit in well with the rest of syntax for voynich.now.  

I would not change existing transcriptions from one alphabet to another
unless there were a corresponding transcription proofreading effort.
Each pair of existing transcription alphabets has mismatches, where
a string in the one corresponds to either more than or less than exactly
one string in the other.  Whenever such strings are encountered one
should actually look at photocopies to decide which version is best.
If the photocopies are not available, or if it is inconvenient to do the
work, then one should not convert transcriptions from alphabet to
alphabet.

But most of all, I don't think it is worth fighting about.  After having
tried this and that, one picks the transcription alphabet that seems most
convenient and one works best for one's self.  If one's transcriptions
are good (that is, extensive and accurate) then the rest of the world
will discover ways to accomodate itself to whatever transcription
alphabet one uses.

About Rene's recent letter about transcription formats.  I think I am
the only user of ; at the beginning of a line to mark a comment.   I
only used it in the Marshall Library stuff I did, and there I conceived
my job as transcribing a modern computer printout document, not transcribing
the VMS.  I see no reason to use it in VMS transcriptions proper.

I see no reason to use Petersen page numbers in VMS transcriptions.
They, together with Currier's language and hand data, can go in
comments at the top of the page.  Let them have a special format
within the comment, if you like, as in {PPAGE=123} or {LANG=A} or 
{HAND=3b} or whatever.  I just don't see the need to put all this
info into what is really just a line number.  (It is as if the Post
Office made people always address letters to "J. Reeds/Mathematician/
Brown Hair/123 Main Street".)


>	My main point is that the text should be human-readable, but
>	also easy to parse by S/W. For this purpose I was also thinking
>	of some standard code (e.g. in C to maximise portability) that
>	has the following options (e.g.):
>	- Stripping comments
>	- Stripping foliation information
>	- Taking the most likely of alternate readings
>	- Removing uncertain words
>	- Making a choice on spaces (keep , or remove ,)
>	- Removing spaces altogether
>	- Turning all uncertain readings into *
>	- whatever

I agree 100%


Why not ~ for a plant-caused gap?  How about something like :xxyz: 
or `xyz' or (:xyz) as a way of typing a multicharacter symbol name?

I do not care for the continuation line symbol, either.

---

I have been nerding away for a few days doing to the Second Study Group
transcription what I had done 2 years ago to the First.  Two suprises:
(1) it was vastly easier to read & process than I thought it would be, and
(2) much of voynich.orig is directly copied from the SSG transcription
unchanged or only lightly changed.  This is (in retrospect) easy to
understand:  Prescott Currier was a SSG member, and the creator of
voynich.orig.

In a few days I will have all 62 pages of computer printout ready.  It
comes to about 1200 lines of transcription, about 2/3 of it overlapping
with voynich.orig.  I will proofread it against the 1962 printouts when
I next visit the Marshall library, which might not be for another year.

Ta for now,


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 11:37 EST 1996
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Message-ID: <n1387739185.19506@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Date: 15 Feb 1996 11:20:47 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <Guy_Thibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  Vms stats
To: "voynich list" <voynich@rand.org>
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Status: OR

Hello world,

I have been playing around with transcription of the vms
(stuff like: <f1v.1> FS29.SA8AM.OE..{plant} OEPSC9.SAR.YAR.A7
<f1v.2> 9PCC[A9].SAR.OROS9..8SO,EFO89.OFO8AR.SO89)
and obtained these stats, which I now share... Just in case it might be of
interest ;-)

These are the groups of 3 words that appears more than once (some groups might
be 
combined dur to transcription errors):
Before       :    Word    :    after
4OF9         :            S9:     4OFAM:2
4OFAM        :          SC89:       FAN:4
4OFAN        :           SQ9:     4OPAJ:2
4OPAM        :           SOR:       QOE:2
4OPAN        :            AR:      AFAE:2
AM           :          OFAN:        AR:4
AM           :          OPAM:      SFAN:3
EFAM         :          OFAE:        89:3
EFCCC2       :            OR:        AM:5
EZCC89       :         4OFAM:      SC89:4
OFAE         :            89:      9ZC9:3
OFOE         :          ZC89:   4OFSC89:2
OPAN         :          OFAR:      OPAM:2
OR           :            AM:      OPAM:7
SAN          :           ZOE:       FAN:2
SCAE         :          OPAN:      OFAR:2
SO8AM        :            Q9:     OFO89:2
ZC8AIM       :           S89:   4OFCC89:2

Notice that the group (phrase?) "OR AM OPAM" appears 7 times...

Also, "8AM" can appear any where in a line, where as "8ZCC9", "9SC9", "9SCOE",
"9SOR",
"9ZCC9", "BAR","BOEAM","BSC8AR" only apprears at the begining of a line (at
least on two lines)

Hope these prooves to be of use...

Good day to all.

Guy Thibault


From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 16:38:27 +0000 1996
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To: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@ESOC.ESA.DE>
cc: Voynich list <voynich@rand.org>, Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Voynich display S/W and alphabets 
In-reply-to: Rene Zandbergen's message of Thu, 15 Feb 1996 15:03:11 +0700.
             <199602151403.GAA20385@rand.org> 
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 16:38:27 +0000
From: Mike Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>
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Status: OR

> Based on PC, Mac or Sun? Any chances for having it accept
> Currier and Frogguy?

I have a Frogguy font for the X windowing system (probably what you need for
a Sun).

I also did a Frogguy font for the Mac, but this was less successful 
(in the end I had to use resedit to create it...) I've probably still
got it on a disc somewhere.

Mike

From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 09:53:37 0800 1996
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Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 09:53:37 -0800
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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To: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
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Alligator Descartes wrote:
> 8-) As I pointed out in private mail to Rene, you can spot 'anomalies'
> in the transcription. I spotted a few wrongly transcribed characters
> in one folio.......I'll try and either reproduce the results ( this was
> a while back ) or find them........

> OK, I'll get the interlin version and get that loaded then run some
> sort of correlation check between them and see what we end up with.

I can also upload the interln2.vms in which I only have
the D'Imperio + the characters differeing in
the FSG + my correction of the folios 79v & 80r (is this right?)
from Bennett's book copies.
Yes and there are a few characters transcribed wrong in both!
I would propose to get as many "observers" as possible and discuss
starting with a single page all the discrepancies/obscure characters,
etc.
Probably some of you think it's a waste of time, please tell me
if this is the case!

> > I just checked Alligator's www site and found some Enochian text.
> > Did anybody check any transition probabilities of characters or
> > words versus the VMS?
> 
> Yup, I've been looking quite closely at it. You'll need a copy of
> the Enochian alphabet from the actual Libri Mysteriori for it to
> make any sense, since the alphabet printed in virtually every other book
> up to the present day is completely wrong! If anyone's interested, I'll
> put the 'corrected' alphabet up on Hermetica.

Yes this is a good idea. I wonder if there is any correlation/word
disrtibution/digraph, etc between enochian and voynichese...
Can you please let the list know when the alphabet it's done?

Thanks! Cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 10:16:13 0800 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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To: "kornai (Andras Kornai)" <kornai@almaden.ibm.com>
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kornai (Andras Kornai) wrote:
> 
> Gabriel Landini writes:
> > I wonder if anybody has heard about the Golem legend located
> > in Prague during the times of Rudolph II.
> The Golem is a standard piece of Jewish folklore, and will be found in most
> collections dealing with such. Rabbi L\"{o}w built it out of clay with the
> idea of protecting the Jews from pogroms and other calamities.
> 
> The movie was prabably based on a novel-length version of the story by
> Gustav Meyrink, a best-selling German writer around WWI, who wrote about
> a number of sufficiently cloudy and mystical subjects.

No, I read "The Golem" by G Meyrink. The movie is based on the traditional
jewish legend. You know, the Rabbi makes the Golem to do the hard work, then
has a demonstration session at Rudolf's palace and saves them from I can't
remember what (earthquake? or palace falling apart).
The tricky part is that as we do with out little golems with keyboards and CRTs
he was switched off every night by taking a spell from his mouth in a piece of paper
(for the ones prone to start a DIY project ;-), the words were AEMETH, maybe there
"H" goes somewhere else...)
Of course, the Golem does not like to be switched off and as the Rabbi realises
it, he decides not to allow anybody else to deal with the Golem.
Of course there is an "over clever guy" (was his name Florian?) who wants to take
some advantage for himself (I think this has to do with the Rabbi daughter, but I can't 
remember...) and in the end he gets killed by the Golem.
In the end the poor Golem runs away producing panic all over Prague and finally
founds a little girl who does not realise the G is and takes away a star from a 
necklace which deactivates the Golem for ever. Very poetic, ending. As I said, an 
excellent expressionist movie.

I am sure that this story was copied 1000 times but instead of Golems with robots,
aliens, spirits, Nature, etc.

Nice idea that the vms is the Golem's recipe :-)
cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 10:26:46 0800 1996
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Alligator Descartes wrote:
> 
> Today's second silly idea.
> 
> Would it be worthwhile writing a small program-ette to generate
> a repro manuscript from my database given that the data pushed into it
> would be from the transcriptions?
> 
> This may be useful. Or useless, I haven't decided which. A small
> experiment with the Currier notation chunk I'm using that I've loaded,
> and the GIF of one of the folios resulted in generation of a very close
> match of the "real thing".
> 
> One element of usefulness could be ( and I speak from experience with the
> Dee mss. ) would be to get some familiarization with the glyphs which may
> cause more correctness in transliterating off at best fuzzy photocopies?
> 

Yes very useful. But we have already the Guy's fonts and editor.
One problem I see is that we might have to decide on an alphabet.
I am biased to use the FSG because I have been working in the interlin.vms
but I am open to translate it to anything that may be more sensible...
What about Frogguy notation?
Something I have my doubts is about these double codded characters. DZ HZ, etc.
These surely are ONE character, is there any point in coding them with 2 characters?

About "n" as "ii" or "il", and "m" as "iii" or "iil"
if we find that the "l" does not appear anywhere else, the it has to be part of the letter
or am I missing something?
I agree there are too many 4ODAM and 4ODAN to be just errors... I am just wondering
what would be a sensible choice of alphabet.
Comments please!!!

cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Thu Feb 15 20:35:03 +0000 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
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Subject: Corrected Enochian Alphabet
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 20:35:03 +0000 (GMT)
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As promised, I found the old file I'd typed up a couple of years back on 
the Enochian alphabet compared to what it is now........I've also noticed
in the case of 'Na-hath' ( as the Golden Dawn appear to have misinterpreted
as ), that some people are now linking the Enochian system directly to 
Egyptology..........

8-)

 			---------------------------

[...]

Interesting to notice is:

	a) Na becoming Na-Hath.
	b) Drux becoming Drun ( I'm sure I'm reading this properly! ).
	c) Van becoming Vau.
	d) The addition of Hebraicism's in Veh, Gon and Van's English
	   transliterations.

If anyone wants a discussion on this, please feel free to mail me.

			---------------

Sloane 3188 - Liber Mysteriorum Quintus - fol. 109v

Notes:  D: signifies speech or a comment by Dee. It was marked in the mss.
       	by a Greek capital Delta.
	
	E.K. is fairly obviously Edward Kelley. Interestingly enough,
	he was referred to, and introduced as Edward Talbot. I'll check
	back on the exact point his name decided to change!

	Words I couldn't exactly make out are marked as *?*. Tentative 
	guesses are in brackets afterwards. If the word has been utterly
	destroyed or mostly obscured by a blotch, there is no guess.
	Guesses are actually based on what the word looks like, and aren't
	interpolations.

< Above in the folio they had been discussing the 49x49 tablet and the
  Enochian letters had been shewn >

D: 	They are noted.
E.K.:	He toke from under the table, a thing like a great globe, and put
	that in the chayre and uppon that globe, layd the boke. He pointeth
	to the characters ( Enochian letters - V ) and cownting them with
	his finger, being 21, and begynning from the right hand, toward the
	left. He *?* of the Crown of gold, from his hed; and layeth it on
	the Table. His here appeareth yellow. He maketh cumfy: and _from 
	under the table taketh a rod_ of gold in his hand *?* divided into
	three different *?* ( tions?! ). He putteth the ende of the rod
	on the first of 

** fol. 110r

	the characters, and sayeth Pa and there appeared in *?* ( ewglass? ),
	or *?* *?*, _Pa_: he sayd _Veh_: and there appeared Veh in writing:
	then _Ged_ and after that he sayd Unus unus unus, magnus magnus 
	magnus es. Then he pointed to an other, and sayd _Gal_ and there
	appeared Gal: then _or_ [ the voyce seemed Orh ] Then _Un_ [ the
	voyce semmed _Und_ ] Then Graph [ the sownd is Grappha, .'. the
	Whole ]
	
	Then _Tal_ [ in sownd stall or xtall. ] Then _Gon_, then _Na_ [ but
	in sownd _Nach_ as it were in the nose(?) ] Then _ur_ [ in sownd
	_our_ or _ourh_ ] Then _mals_ [ in sownd machls ] Then _Ger_ [ in
	sownd *?* ( Grech? Guech? Gierh? ) Then _Drux_ [ in sownd *?* 
	( Drowx? ) ] Then Pal, the P being sownded remissly. Then _Med_.
	He sayd Magna est Horia eius. _Ceph_ sownded like Keph. But before
	that, was _Don_. Then Van, Fam, then Gisg. Then he lay down before it
	and there cam two *?* ( lines? ) and parted the 21 letters into 3
	partes, each being of 7, he sayd. Numerus o perfectissimus, Unus
	et Trinus. Gloria, tibi, amen. 

Table of letters the above text was beside ( with addition of G.'.D.'. )
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note:	The Enochian letter representing the letter was the 1st column of
	this table. Obviously, it isn't reproducible here!

	( Original )			( Golden Dawn )

	Pa	b		|	Pe	b
	Veh	c		|	Veh	c or k
	Ged	g		|	Ged	g
	Gal	d		|	Fal	d
	Or	f		|	Orth	f
	Un	a		|	Un	a
	Graph	e		|	Graph	e
	Tal	m		|	Tal	m
	Gon	i	or y	|	Gon	i, y or j
	Na	hath	h	|	Na-hath	h
	ur	l		|	Ur	l
	Mals	p		|	Mals	p
	Ger	q		|	Ger	q
	Drux	n		|	Drun	n
	Pal	x		|	Pal	x
	Med	o		|	Med	o
	Don	r		|	Don	r
	Ceph	z		|	Ceph	z
	Van	u		|	Vau	u, v or w
	Fam	s		|	Fam	s
	Gisg	t		|	Gisa	t

			---------------
-- 
Alligator Descartes	 	  | "...Nil posse creari De nilo"
descarte@hermetica.com	 	  |	-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I, l.155
http://www.hermetica.com/descarte | 

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Not that it's really relevant, but I felt like sharing that when I passed 
through the Weizmann institute in around 1960 +/-2 they were busy 
drilling holes in circuit boards for their advanced computer, Golem II.
	Henry.

From rand.org!jim Fri Feb 16 21:31 EST 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Subject: Weird King Wenceslaus
Status: OR


While browsing thru' my wife's Thorndyke (History of Magic and
Experimental Science, 1923-1958, Columbia U. Press, in a zillion
volumes) vol III, page 590, I saw this passage:
	
	That Wenceslaus or Wenzel, Holy Roman emperor from 1378
	to 1400, and king of Bohemia until 1419, was among the
	number of rulers devoted to astrology is indicated by a finely
	illustrated manuscript preserved in the national library at
	Vienna.[ Vienna 2351 (Philos. 201), 14th century.]   It
	bears the dates, 1392 and 1393; has an illuminated initial W
	with a man in stocks in it; and the pictures of tubs and
	bathing girls which characterize Wenzel's Bible and other 
	manuscripts.  It was accordingly described as adorned with 
	pictures commemorating the imprisonment of Wenzel and his
	liberation by aid of the bath keeper Susanna, but this...

Tubs and bathing girls, h'm?  Does anyone know what these Wenceslausian
balneological illustrations actually look like?  Are there modern
reproductions of (say) Wenzel's Bible?  Did Vienna 2351 survive the war?


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Sat Feb 17 13:01 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich MS blast from Lynn Thorndyke
Status: OR


Here is another zinger I found in Lynn Thorndyke, History of Magic and
Experimental Science, Vol V, (Columbia Univ. Press, 1941), page 22:

	Apparently they resembled those scientists who more recently
	allowed themselves to be beguiled into affirming that Roger
	Bacon must have used the microscope and be possessed of 
	unusual mdical knowledge, on the basis of an obscure illustration
	or two in a manuscript in cypher of uncertain date, authorship
	and provenance.  No one, it sometimes seems, is more gullible
	and uncritical historically, or more ready to give vocal
	expression thereto, than a natural or mathematical scientist.

(This in an attack on J. P. Richter, The Literary Works of Leonardo da
Vinci.)


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 19 10:11:17 EWT 1996
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Date: Mon, 19 Feb 96 10:11:17 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Re: Weird King Wenceslaus
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

If I read Jim's note correctly, this Ms. Vienna 2351
is not the same as the Wenceslaus Bible, but BOTH have
tubs and bathing girls. It even says

  .. which characterize Wenzel's Bible and other manuscripts..

so there are even more. I am assuming here that these other
manuscript are still Wenzel's (which is ambiguous above).

I did what I usually do in a case like this: search the Web.
(I guess I am not the only one :-))
So there seems to be a picture in Princeton, but
access to it is not allowed. It can be found via
  http://www.princeton.edu/~medieval/mappamundi/med201/med201syl.html
under section 3.

Anybody from Princeton in our group? Anybody know anybody?

Jim, your friend Sergio Toresella (sp?) mentioned that he had
seen similarities to the 'balneological section' in Italian
manuscripts. Maybe this is not so uncommon after all?

Something else: I have seen my first herbal this weekend. It
is from after 1600 and printed. Quite different from the VMs
(very nice drawings). It is an enormous volume by Dodoens
(Latin: Dodonaeus). It helped me in the sense that the
VMs pictures (at least the few I've seen) make much more sense
to me now. It definitely had Capsicum, but it's allowed to :-)
Some pictures were less detailed, and I got the impression the
writer had not seen the plant himself. Presumably this is the case with
the VMs drawings too. One approach occurred to me (I may do this
some day). Whereas I have no hope to identify any plant in the
VMs, it may be possible to find classes or groups of plants
in other herbals which are definitely not in the VMs. That
could tell us something too. Has this been done (and documented)
already? D'Imperio says that these drawings have been the most
studied of all....

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 19 10:17:40 0800 1996
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Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 10:17:40 -0800
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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reeds@research.att.com wrote:
> Such a lot of Voynich mail accumulated in such a short time!

Good, isn't it?

> As far as I recall the bathwater is colored green or blue.  Certainly
> not red.

More on the mermaid...
Maria (my wife) thinks that she (the lady in the fish) may be coming out
of the fish rather than being eaten. That could explain the happy face :-)
I also wondered why almost all the labels are starting with "o".
Is it like japanese "o cha", "o tearai"? (no I do not think vms is japanese).

> I see Gabriel is starting the transcription alphabet debate again!

Well, nobody is perfect! :-)

> Here are my prejudices: I agree with him that the FSG digraphs HZ etc.
> are hard to work with.  I feel that Frogguy has too many little symbols
> and that c't should be a single letter not one.  I feel that the Currier
> alphabet has too many symbols, and that having separate symbols for
> varying lengths of runs of Is before some terminal letter is silly.
> (Beyond M and N, that is.) Especially when similar runs of Cs are not
> treated with special letters.  I think there should be a system of
> naming the complex rarely occuring symbols by reference to a chart.
> I tried to use notations like 'X123' for this in my transcriptions,
> but it does not fit in well with the rest of syntax for voynich.now.

I agree with all what you said. It's that I think is not justified
(in my view, but I am not that experienced in vms matters!) to
use double characters for a symbol that occurs on its own, increasing
the redundancy in the text innecesarily.
I would be more inclined to either treat as 3 characters like Bennet
or 1 character like Currier. I cannot realise what made them use 2?
Ok let's keep the alphabets until we decide to re-read the entire thing again.


About this particular di/trigraphs I've been thinking again in the
possibility of being a sort of shorthand. I do not know what everybody
else thinks. Is there anybody out there thinking of a "weird alphabet only"?
I am not certain in any way.

I have several ideas, but I do not know if I am being too naive...
Anywhay, here it is.
Could it make sense to have a page in voynich and then substitute on screen
the characters by letters of let's say a sample of latin which have  similar
probabilities/transition probs, word probabilities, etc?
I mean "on screen" because we could have Guy's fonts and substitute back and
forward with different assignements of let's say characters probabilities in
latin or enochian or whatever language we may want to test against.
Maybe this is what all cryptographers do, but I am not cryptographer, so
I do not know :-(
Another: to try substitutions and look into a dictionary of the substituting
alphabet to see how many word hits one gets and stop when those hits are "high".
The advantage is that we could leave the thing to work on its own looking
for maximisation of the hits. This of course would work only if the vms is
only a substitution of characters.
I am also wondering if 2/3 symbol transition probs. would do the job faster?....

cheers
Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 19 10:18:53 0800 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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> I would not change existing transcriptions from one alphabet to another
> unless there were a corresponding transcription proofreading effort.

Well, this is what I was doing and proposing. I have only Bennet's 
photocopies and
all the figures from Brambaugh (sp?) book in 8 bit greyscale about 
768x512 pixels,
but I am going to order the photocopies. I realised that it is not too 
hard to "read"
the vms, the problem is the quality of the photocopies.

(I am wondering of copyright infringements if one shares the pictures in 
the net, etc.)
I cannot talk for anybody, but is there a consensus of what should be 
done from
now on?

> I see no reason to use Petersen page numbers in VMS transcriptions.

I agree

Jim Reeds said:
> I have been nerding away for a few days doing to the Second Study Group
> transcription what I had done 2 years ago to the First.

Sorry I did not understand what is that you are doing now. Could you
please explain a bit more?



One last thing. During the week end I made a DOS font for the FSG and 
Currier alphabets
and 2 little programs that read either the FSG.NEW or voynich.now files 
and
show them on screen in interlinear fahsion in ASCII alphabet and in 
voynichese.
One can save those screens as pcx files by pressing "s" to have a 
1024x768 screen picture.
If anybody wants a sample or the programmes themselves, let me know and I 
would
send them. The requirements are 386 PC or higher, 1MB of video RAM and 
VESA compatible
video card. I can send the code, but it requires an external library to 
set up the fonts
which is no freeware (not written by me, I bought it: SVGAQB 2.3) to and 
cannot distribute,
but I can distribute the executable.
regards to all,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 19 17:31:16 0500 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: Weird King Wenceslaus
To: voynich@rand.org
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Speaking of naked women and tubs, I ran across the following possibly
relevant reference today in a book called _A History of Sexual Customs_ by
Dr. Richard Lewinsohn:

"By the late Middle Ages every town had its _lupanar_, as in the old Roman
Empire. ... The business was less often combined with the sale of liquor
than in antiquity, but a new attraction had been invented. The public baths
were not great mansions as in ancient Rome, but modest utilitarian 
establishments, often simply disguised brothels. The hub of such a place was
not a drawing-room, but a basin with room for five of six people, not to
swim but to enjoy physical contact. The women presented themselves to the 
guests undressed and welcomed them hospitably ..." (p. 148)

(I recently saw the movie _The Advocate_, which included a scene in such a
medieval bathhouse; until I came across this passage I assumed it was just
an invention of the film-makers.)

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)


From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 19 15:46:11 0700 1996
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From: rcarter@nyx.net (Ron Carter)
Message-Id: <9602192246.AA13836@nyx.net>
Subject: Re: Weird King Wenceslaus
To: RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE (Rene Zandbergen)
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 15:46:11 -0700 (MST)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
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Rene writes....
 
> Something else: I have seen my first herbal this weekend.
...
> Some pictures were less detailed, and I got the impression the
> writer had not seen the plant himself. Presumably this is the case with
> the VMs drawings too. One approach occurred to me (I may do this
> some day). Whereas I have no hope to identify any plant in the
> VMs, it may be possible to find classes or groups of plants
> in other herbals which are definitely not in the VMs.

Presumably is right; the drawings in the VMs are abysmal for ID purposes
and my opinion (as a part time artist) is that they were copied by an
non-artist.  The one plate that -might- be identifiable (alas, I have
lost, and will have to re-buy a copy of the VMs, so no plate number) is
the one with the two "worms" wrapped in the plant drawing.  This is very
likely a snakebite "cure" of some sort.

-- 
Looking Forward, Ron | rcarter@nyx.net | Denver, Colorado, USA
960219 - Minneapolis on assignment

From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 19 20:35 EST 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Subject: Voynich discourse (long & weighty)
Status: OR

Rene Zandbergen writes (about Reeds on Thorndyke on Wenzel):

> If I read Jim's note correctly, this Ms. Vienna 2351
> is not the same as the Wenceslaus Bible, but BOTH have
> tubs and bathing girls. It even says
> 
>   .. which characterize Wenzel's Bible and other manuscripts..
> 
> so there are even more. I am assuming here that these other
> manuscript are still Wenzel's (which is ambiguous above).

Yes.  That's how I read it, too.  Wenzel was keen on astrology
and nutty about bathtubs, it seems.  

I know someone at Princeton, & will ask her if she can get a copy of
the Wenzel bible pictures that Rene mentioned.

> Jim, your friend Sergio Toresella (sp?) mentioned that he had
> seen similarities to the 'balneological section' in Italian
> manuscripts. Maybe this is not so uncommon after all?

Toresella is thinking of some late 1400's books describing the public
thermal baths of Italy.   This sub-genre of topographical book has,
typically, sections describing the special medicinal properties of 
the waters in each of several towns.  Each section might have an illustration
showing what the baths were like.  The page layout and the architecture
is similar to what we see in the VMS.  

> Something else: I have seen my first herbal this weekend. It
> is from after 1600 and printed. Quite different from the VMs
> (very nice drawings). It is an enormous volume by Dodoens
...
> Some pictures were less detailed, and I got the impression the
> writer had not seen the plant himself. ....

I refer you to Karen Reeds, *Botany in Medieval and Renaissance
Universities*, Garland Press, 1991, for a discussion of exactly this 
point!  As with most 16th century herbals, the pictures are not a sure
guide to the author's knowledge of the plants themselves.  That's because
the publishers copied  or borrowed or stole the woodcuts of plants
in other herbals.  In Dodoneus's case at least some of the cuts were
copied from illustrations in Leonhard Fuchs's herbals.  You have to read
the text carefully in conjunction with the illustrations to judge how well
the author knew the plants.

> ...it may be possible to find classes or groups of plants
> in other herbals which are definitely not in the VMs. That
> could tell us something too. Has this been done (and documented)
> already? ...

Not as far as I know, not precisely.  It is tremendously difficult to 
learn anything from the pictures in medieval herbals.  There is debate
among the herbalologists about the actual utility of the pictures.  
John Riddle, Sergio Toresella, and my wife (whom I take to be the heavy
hitters in the field) all have somewhat different takes.  My impression
is that you sometimes have to regard the whole thing as a specialized
kind of iconography: just as we can study the relationship between 
different pictures of St Jerome (say) in medieval painting, and can form
an impression of what he looks like (large square forehead, balding,
red hat, accompanied by a pet lion) while knowing that the actual person
might have looked completely different, so we study the plant pictures in
herbals, noting similarities between the pictures (which sometimes
agree with the written text, and sometimes not) even though the actual
plant might look quite different.

My wife thinks the plants are phantasmagorical.

Karen had the idea that the sequence of pictures in the VMS might be 
related to the sequence of pictures in some ordinary herbal, which
we might be able to identify.  This struck us both as a thin reed.

When I confronted her just now with the contradiction between these 2
ideas she said, "Show me another list of phantasmagorical plants and ..."


Landini asks if it would

> ... make sense to have a page in voynich and then substitute on screen
> the characters by letters of let's say a sample of latin which have  similar
> probabilities/transition probs, word probabilities, etc?
> I mean "on screen" because we could have Guy's fonts and substitute back and
> forward with different assignments of let's say characters probabilities in
> latin or enochian or whatever language we may want to test against.
> Maybe this is what all cryptographers do, ...
> ...
> Another: to try substitutions and look into a dictionary of the substituting
> alphabet to see how many word hits one gets and stop when those hits are "high".

Well, yes, these are the traditional methods of breaking substitution
ciphers.  One guesses a bit HERE (perhaps guided by frequency tabulations,
or prior conceptions about what the underlying text says) and looks to see
if there are good consequences THERE, again and again until something nice
happens. 

The limitation is that if the cipher system is not quite as you thought
it was (because your notion of "letter" is off, say, or the substitution
units are syllables not letters, or what have you) you get nowhere.

He asks

> (I am wondering of copyright infringements if one shares the pictures in 
> the net, etc.)

I think you may not share the pictures: they are owned by Yale.  But you
may share the transcriptions you make from them.

And asks me to clarify myself:

> 
> > Jim Reeds said:
> > I have been nerding away for a few days doing to the Second Study Group
> > transcription what I had done 2 years ago to the First.
> 
> Sorry I did not understand what is that you are doing now. Could you
> please explain a bit more?
>

I refer you to D'Imperio, pp 41-42. (Her account of the Second Study Group.)
She writes:  "I cannot determine how many characters of the text were 
actually machined, and whether any processing was ever completed."  
Well, in the Friedman Collection of the George C. Marshall Library
I found computer output sheets of the partial Second Study Group transcription.
They had transcribed 46424 characters, the printout was 62 pages long.
This find was exactly analogous to my find of the First Study Group
materials in the Friedman Collection (also unknown to D'Imperio), but 
because there was more FSG material, and since the printout was more
legibile, I (and Jacques) worked on the FSG stuff first: typing it from
xeroxes of old printout paper into modern computer files.  Now I have come
to working on the SSG stuff and find that although it is very hard to read
it is easy to "almost read": if I allow myself a character meaning "I
cannot read this printout letter", and if I don't try too hard to resolve
certain frequently occuring ambiguities (a poorly inked O on the printout
looks very much like a poorly inked C, for instance) it is easy to proceed.
And indeed, it is done:  look in SSG.txt (or SSG.txt.Z) in my Voynich web
directory http://netlib.att.com/math/people/reeds/voynich/ for the results.

Sorry to have go on at such length.

Regards,

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 20 09:03:49 EWT 1996
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Date: Tue, 20 Feb 96 09:03:49 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: One last visit to the tubs (for the moment)
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR


If I may draw one conclusion from the discussion about the
tubs, then it seems to me that, in contrast to what
D'Imperio writes, we do have a fair idea of what the
ladies in the tubs could represent (although these ideas
may well be wrong). I got the impression that she regarded this
as the most mysterious set of illustrations.


Regards, Rene

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 20 01:20:08 0800 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9602200920.AA30979@sun.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: To Bruce Grant
To: voynich@rand.org
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Status: OR

This went out originally as a private msg to Bruce, but
> almaden.ibm.com unable to deliver following mail to recipient(s):
>     <bgrant@umcc.ais.org>
> 550 Unable to resolve recipient address for 5 days.
Anyway,
> Bruce,
> I'm interested, please send me a copy. Do you have some metafont source
> for a voynich font, or how does this work?
> Andras
>


From rand.org!jim Fri Feb 23 14:28:19 EWT 1996
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Date: Fri, 23 Feb 96 14:28:19 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: The picture of Pisces
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

Dear all,

a question:

how common is the illustration of Pisces as we see it in the VMs?

The reason I'm asking is that I have seen an illustration of
Pisces which is remarkably similar to the one in the VMs:

1) The two fishes are above each other
2) They are looking the same direction as in the VMs
3) They have the same shape (height vs. length, size of head)
   Apart from a count of the fins I am pretty sure they are the same fish.
4) The whole picture has the same 'ratios' as the one in the VMs.
5) There is a line (thread?) from the mouth of one fish to the mouth of
   the other. This is not the same as in the VMs but here we do have
   'lines coming out of the mouths'.

Now this does not mean much if Pisces are usually depicted exactly like this.

Anybody knows?

The picture is in a book of the series 'The history of private life'
(relatively well known I would say). It is in the second of five books,
which is the one dealing with the middle ages. I can check for more
info if anyone is interested.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Sat Feb 24 14:21 EST 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Subject: Voynich MS: not really, more about Kelly/Kelley
Status: OR


Does anyone know of any published examples of Edward Kelley's handwriting?
(Or is it Kelly?)  Or any viewable on the web?  I have a photocopy of an
occult work which might possibly have E.T.'s handwriting in it, & a handy
check would be nice.

Thanks in advance!

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Sat Feb 24 14:34 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich reminiscences
Status: OR


I just looked at E. M. Sowerby's "Rare People & Rare Books"
(Constable, 1967; Williamsburg: The Bookpress, 1987)
which has interesting information about the life of W. M. Voynich.
Sowerby started work for Voynich shortly AFTER he aquired the VMS.
One thing I learned was that in 1912 Voynich was a London dealer,
moving to New York only in 1914.

Also: a photo of Voynich.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Sat Feb 24 14:38 EST 1996
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To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich mystery
Status: OR


Yesterday I looked at H. P. Kraus's autobiography again.  (A Rare Book
Saga, the Autobiography of H. P. Kraus, by H. P. Kraus, New York: Putnam's,
1978.)  I had misremembered a passage that struck me as being somewhat odd.
It is still odd.

Kraus has a few pages about the VMS.  He concludes his discussion with
this:

	In 1963 we were in Rome an I visited Monsignor Jose Ruysschaert at
	the Vatican Library.  I knew that he had published the catalogue of the
	Mondragone Library and I hoped to get information about the Cipher
	Manuscript.  To my great suprise he thought that the manuscript was
 still in the library.  I asked him: "Can you show it to me?"
	"Yes," he replied, and headed for the stacks.
	Soon he returned without it.  I had to tell him that I owned the codex,
	and how it came to me.

(page 222)

So Ruysschaert must have known about the book already, by some means
unconnected with all the publicity in this century associated with
Voynich, Newbold, Bacon, etc, etc.  Or else he would not have assumed
that it was in the Vatican.  Which means that he HAD information of just
the sort Kraus was seeking.  But Kraus is too distracted by selfsatisfied
pride of ownership to extract it.  A complacent & unscholarly man, as well
as successful merchant & generous benefactor of Yale.

At any rate, it would be interesting to find out what Ruysschaert knew about
the VMS that made him think it was in his collection.

Does anyone know him?


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Sat Feb 24 16:08:27 0700 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'Rene Zandbergen'" <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>,
         Voynich list
	 <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: The picture of Pisces
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 16:08:27 -0700
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Status: OR



how common is the illustration of Pisces as we see it in the VMs?

The reason I'm asking is that I have seen an illustration of
Pisces which is remarkably similar to the one in the VMs:

1) The two fishes are above each other
2) They are looking the same direction as in the VMs
3) They have the same shape (height vs. length, size of head)
   Apart from a count of the fins I am pretty sure they are the same =
fish.
4) The whole picture has the same 'ratios' as the one in the VMs.
5) There is a line (thread?) from the mouth of one fish to the mouth of
   the other. This is not the same as in the VMs but here we do have
   'lines coming out of the mouths'.

Now this does not mean much if Pisces are usually depicted exactly like =
this.

Anybody knows?


Cheers, Rene

Gosh. I can't believe the synchronicity. I've just gotten my copy of the =
MS from Yale. Didn't take too long, and, for whatcher get, not too =
expensive either.  Of course, I had to leaf through the ms. as fast as I =
could go.  In the light of the little I have read, I could readily see =
at least two "hands". Proceeding further,  I noted the =
astronomical/astrological charts.  The Pleiades are obvious on the chart =
two preceding the one numbered 68 (does that make sense?).  I'd been =
looking the charts over, and read Rene's note.   One of my astronomy =
source-books has layouts of the major constellations.  In Pisces, the =
fish are joined at a single star, called alrischa (the rope-knot). In =
the MS picture, the lines from the fishes'  mouths join at a named star =
image.  I'd suggest we have at least one rosetta word.
Ain't it fun?

Don Latham




From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 26 09:25:53 EWT 1996
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Date: Mon, 26 Feb 96 09:25:53 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Re: Voynich mystery
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR


Jim's note about Mgr. Ruysschaert is smack in the middle of a
lot of questions I have about how the VMs got into the Villa
Mondragone. So my first interest has to go out for the
'catalogue of the Mondragone Library' mentioned there. Has
anybody seen it? Does the text in Kraus indicate that the VMs
is *in* that catalogue? (I don't think it does).

Ruysschaert: a name I have never heard before, but definitely
of Dutch ancestry. It's a pity I have lost both my good Dutch contacts
in the clergy in Rome (I married in Rome eight years ago, but both
priests involved moved back to Holland). I will have a look in a
book I have at home that might give some information on Ruysschaert,
especially if he was really Dutch.
In any case, I am afraid that the chances that he's still around to
tell are pretty slim.

A pet peeve: we do not really know 100% for sure that Kircher ever
personally had the VMs, but I agree it is fairly safe to assume
that he did. His library was moved to the Vatican, but not the VMs.
Still this does not mean too much, because he could have parted with
the Ms before he died. From Jim's quote of Kraus we can assume that
the Mondragone library (ex the VMs) was also moved there afterwards.

Now:
Could the quote from Kraus mean that the VMs *was* actually moved
with Kircher's museum/library to the Vatican, where it was
known to be for some time, until someone (for example a Jesuit
researcher who saw the letter between two famous Jesuits)
took it to the Mondragone, unbeknownst to (or forgotten by) the Vatican?
Did Ruysschaert look on the shelf: "from Kircher's library" or
on the one "from the Mondragone"?

What's more important in my opinion is that the VMs was rebound
by someone, somewhere after Kircher's death and before Voynich
found it. It has not been sitting on a shelf behind some other books,
forgotten.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 26 11:11:37 EWT 1996
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Date: Mon, 26 Feb 96 11:11:37 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Re: Pisces
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR


I have scanned the picture of Pisces, and turned it into a uuencoded
jpg. Looking at it again, the match is slightly less perfect than I
originally thought, but there are some very clear similarities, as
I described in my previous note. The picture caption in the book
is a bit mysterious, but my interpretation is that it is a picture
from something called 'La Manekine' which is in the Cambrai Library
(that should be Cambrai in France). No dates or origin known to me.
I would say it is definitely worth finding out whether this document
does indeed contain this picture and what any other zodiac symbols
in it look like.

Anyway, I do not want to violate copyright laws, but if I can
show some friends a picture in a book, I should also be able to
do it via E-mail. I'll therefore send it via E-mail to whomever
wants it. It's 26k or 426 lines of text.

Don Latham suggests searching the star labels (or other pages) for
something that could mean 'alrischa' (or is that alrisha)?
How about the pleiades? I did not realise they were in the VMs.
(Did I miss it in D'Imperio or the mailing list archive?).
Has anyone searched for their names? Any list of 6 to 10 stars
could theoretically be the names ofthe Pleiades: Atlas, Pleione,
Maia, Electra, Taygeta, Celaeno, Alcyone, Asterope, Merope
(not in order of magnitude).

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 26 13:12 EST 1996
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Date: 26 Feb 1996 12:39:07 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <Guy_Thibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Re: Labels database & other 
To: "voynich list" <voynich@rand.org>
X-Mailer: Mail*Link SMTP-QM 3.0.2
Status: OR

Gabriel Landini wrote:
>>Comment 4.
>>I am willing to get a TrueType font done, but I haven't got a font editor.
>>Does anybody know if there is a freeware TrueType font maker around? 
>>(DOS/WIndows, please)

There is a good editor called TD30EDEM.zip than you can download from 
this site: ftp://ftp.cc.monash.edu.au/pub/win3/demo/td30edem.zip

I am planning to sketch the drawings into Autocad would that also 
constitute a copyright infringment ??? If not would any one be interested
in a .dxf ??




From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 26 10:51:06 0800 1996
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Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 10:51:06 -0800
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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To: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Labels database & other things
References: <199602261012.CAA10623@rand.org>
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Status: OR

Rene Zandbergen wrote:
> Don Latham suggests searching the star labels (or other pages) for
> something that could mean 'alrischa' (or is that alrisha)?
> How about the pleiades? I did not realise they were in the VMs.
> (Did I miss it in D'Imperio or the mailing list archive?).
> Has anyone searched for their names? Any list of 6 to 10 stars
> could theoretically be the names ofthe Pleiades: Atlas, Pleione,
> Maia, Electra, Taygeta, Celaeno, Alcyone, Asterope, Merope
> (not in order of magnitude).

Comment 1.
I have started the job of getting my copy of the vms (1st letter
to Yale) and ordered the D'Imperio book.
Whenever I get it (hopefully soon) I was thinking of making a
database of labels with transcriptions of the labels of all the
figures in FSG, Currier and probably Frogguy (?), location (folio, etc)
a field for figure type (plant, female, star) and a description of the picture.

Does anybody think that this is useful?


Comment 2.
Looking at the picture of f100r, is the first plant in "Figure 1" (first
row of plant) a "bamboo" ? (same is the 1st plant in the 3rd row of plants).
What about the last plant in row 1? It looks to me as turnips or
ginseng or carrots? What color are they in the original?

Second plant in row 1 looks like a set of beet-root (sorry I do not know the
name in English, a red/sweet root that you have in salads and that in Spanish is
called "remolacha". What color in the original?


Comment 3.
Is there a version of the VMS in Frogguy? Is there an alphabet
with correspondences to the other alphabets?

Comment 4.
Jim Reeds commented sometime ago that there are a collection of about 100
"weirdo" characters. Is that available?
I am willing to get a TrueType font done, but I haven't got a font editor.
Does anybody know if there is a freeware TrueType font maker around? (DOS/WIndows, please)

Comment 5.
About this database. If one reproduces the figures in the VMS in some way "cleaned" or in
vector graphic format, is it still a copyright violation?
WHat about the British Library copies (no, I haven't been to London yet), are they copyrighted?


Comment 6.
About Wenceslaus Bible, is there any TSG --that means Third Study Group ;-) in Vienna kindly
go an check the figures?

I can't wait to get my VMS copy!!
cheers,
Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 26 11:20:35 0800 1996
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Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 11:20:35 -0800
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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Status: OR

Hi,
I found this place with a page of the VMS.
If this has been pointed before, my apologies for the repetition.

http://marlowe.wimsey.com/rshand/streams/scripts/scripts.html


cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 26 16:29 EST 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
Message-Id: <199602262139.NAA10217@rand.org>
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To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich weirdos
Status: OR


Rene commented & asked:

> Jim Reeds commented sometime ago that there are a collection of about 100
> "weirdo" characters. Is that available?

The character definitions are already in the Postscript Type 3 font V.ps,
which is in my Voynich web page collection.  I can email a PS thing
that prints out all the characters in a chart, if you can handle Postscript.

So: anyone who wants my 'style sheet' drop me a line.

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 26 16:38 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich weirdos
Status: OR


Forgive my last.  In fact, it was Gabriel who asked after the weirdo
character sheet.  Same answer: I'll send a copy by email if you want one.

Jim

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 26 17:26 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich stuff (long)
Status: OR


Gabriel asks:

> ... I was thinking of making a
> database of labels with transcriptions of the labels of all the
> figures in FSG, Currier and probably Frogguy (?), location (folio, etc)
> a field for figure type (plant, female, star) and a description of the picture.
> 
> Does anybody think that this is useful?

Yes.  Karl Kluge has done a lot of this sort of work, too.

And about some of the plants on f100r:

> What color are they in the original?

Can't remember.  That page is in Blunt & Raphael; can't remember if in
color or not.  I'll look tonight.

> Is there a version of the VMS in Frogguy? Is there an alphabet
> with correspondences to the other alphabets?

Large parts, but not the whole thing, have been transcribed in Frogguy.
Rene has prepared a nice chart showing Bennett, FSG, Currier, and Frogguy.
Think of it as a neater version of the table in D'Imperio's book but with
Frogguy added and a couple of others dropped.

> About this database. If one reproduces the figures in the VMS in some way "cleaned" or in
> vector graphic format, is it still a copyright violation?
> WHat about the British Library copies (no, I haven't been to London yet), are they copyrighted?

To the first, I bet if you use a computer to produce the "cleaned" version
it is still covered, but if you just use the copyrighted material as an
inspiration, it is not.  But I don't really know.  I am sure the British Library
will insist it holds copyright on any film it sells you.

> About Wenceslaus Bible, is there any TSG --that means Third Study Group ;-) in Vienna kindly
> go an check the figures?

I think the Wenceslaus Bible is one of the great national treasures of Austria,
and they won't take it out of its case no matter who you are.  Better would
be to look at the book whose discussion in Thorndyke caught my interest,
which he lists as "Vienna 2351 (Philos. 201)"  Ordinary rare book room
rules would apply to access to this book, I think.

I would like to see Rene's Pisces, but am not inclined to think much of
the reported similarities between pictures.  I am sure the present forms
of the zodiac symbols & conventional representations in art, etc, were 
set in late classical times, so dating by zodiac image was very uncertain.
But no reference works in my house really address the problem of the history
of zodiac representations, so I might be mistaken.

The star label search is an old idea, but not a bad one at all.  I did not
notice or think that the star between the fish might have had a name, for
instance, and hence there would be a clue to the writing, PROVIDED THAT
THE STAR NAMES ARE THE USUAL ONES.  (As a side project I am looking at
an a 16th century astrology book.  Much of the book is taken up with "true"
or magical names:  the moon in the house of Leo is called Alglabufus, and
so on.  The "value added" of the book is to supply new names; the cipher
alphabet is to protect them from the unworthy.)  Don, could you do 2 things:
tell just where the Peiades are in the page you named?  (I see a windmill-
like diagram; which "vane" has them in it.  Use clock or compass-rose
notation to name the place.)

Rene is intrigued by the Ruysschaert story:

> my first interest has to go out for the 'catalogue of the Mondragone 
> Library' mentioned there...

Yes.  I assume a few hours in a real library would turn up the reference.
A few clicks with Netscape & Alta Vista showed me that until a very few
years ago Ruysschaert was actively publishing and had climbed to the rank
of "Vice Prefect" of the Vatican library.  Look at this web document
for info:
	
	http://sunsite.unc.edu/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/Intro.html

I am thinking of writing him a letter.  I've never written a letter
to a Vice Prefect before, and am full of trepidation.  

Enough!

Jim Reeds



Dan, your letter & post got truncated.  The last line I got said just:

The two starfield drawings just before the one with Pleiades have =

Can you resend?

Now: about page numbering.  I think it would make sense to stick with
the scheme according to which your pisces page is f.68r3.  Because:
these are the numbers appearing on the oldest set of VMS photgraphs,
because they are the numbers used by D'Imperio, and because I bullied
the gang into using them in voynich.now.  It takes 10 minutes to write
these numbers in the margin of your Beinecke microprint, and then the
world will be in synch with you.  I can help get the correspondence
right, if you want.

There are 7 stars in a group, the label says 8OARO, the singleton
star has label 8SOE 8A9 (or maybe there is no space) and the
umbilicus joining the 7 star group to the hub is OAESCOE, according
to Petersen.  The star in the middle of Pisces is OPOEAE, it seems.
(This in Currier.)


Jim Reeds

From rand.org!jim Mon Feb 26 20:15:18 0700 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'reeds@research.att.com'" <reeds@research.att.com>,
         "voynich@rand.org"
	 <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: Voynich stuff (long)
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 20:15:18 -0700
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Status: OR


The star label search is an old idea, but not a bad one at all.  I did =
not
notice or think that the star between the fish might have had a name, =
for
instance, and hence there would be a clue to the writing, PROVIDED THAT
THE STAR NAMES ARE THE USUAL ONES.  (As a side project I am looking at
an a 16th century astrology book.  Much of the book is taken up with =
"true"
or magical names:  the moon in the house of Leo is called Alglabufus, =
and
so on.  The "value added" of the book is to supply new names; the cipher
alphabet is to protect them from the unworthy.)  Don, could you do 2 =
things:
tell just where the Peiades are in the page you named?  (I see a =
windmill-
like diagram; which "vane" has them in it.  Use clock or compass-rose
notation to name the place.)

Jim: I agree that the names would have to be the common ones, and we do =
have, unfortunately, arabic, latin, greek, and secret to choose from.=20
The Pleiades are between 9 o'clock (W) and 10:30 o'clock (NW)  on the =
diagram. they are connected to the central face circle by a lazy "s" on =
its side.  There is a single star in the same "slice of pie".

Since I'm no botanist, I think I'll concentrate on the =
astronomy/astrology pages.  Could we, since many of us now have, or will =
have, the photocopies, agree on a simple page numbering that simply =
numbers each page, even the foldouts (which have 2,3,4 pages on them) ? =
Would make conversation easier...

I had an idea for creating not a font, exactly, but a set of printable, =
nameable items. Almost all modern PC's have icon editors. I've tried to =
make a couple of the "letters" as icons, and they are identifiable, =
although not at all graceful. The icon files (*.ico) could be named with =
one of the existing alphabets (eg. 8.ico, A.ico) These can be handled as =
objects in a modern language(computer) such as Visual Basic, enabling =
counting, printing, and all that.  It's not nearly as elegant as a font, =
but each "character" does remain tagged.

The two starfield drawings just before the one with Pleiades have =


From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 27 00:02 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich stuff, cont'd
Status: OR


Let's see.  The 19th century owner of the VMS was Petrus (a.k.a. Pieter)
Beckx, rector of Louvain in 1848, General of the order in 1853.

I have been unable to find colors for f100r.

The English for 'remolacha' is beet.

I reject Don Latham's idea of inventing a new pagination of the VMS, based
on Yale microfilm frame number (which is the same as page in Yale paper
print), because we already have a perfectly good system already, familiar
from D'Imperio's book, etc, etc.

That's all, this time!

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 27 02:38:07 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: Voynich stuff (long)
To: djl@paw.montana.com (djl)
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 02:38:07 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: reeds@research.att.com, voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <01BB0487.3EAF6A00@ptm18.montana.com> from "djl" at Feb 26, 96 08:15:18 pm
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Status: OR

> Jim: I agree that the names would have to be the common ones, and we do =
> have, unfortunately, arabic, latin, greek, and secret to choose from.=20
> The Pleiades are between 9 o'clock (W) and 10:30 o'clock (NW)  on the =
> diagram. they are connected to the central face circle by a lazy "s" on =
> its side.  There is a single star in the same "slice of pie".

Could be Aldebaran, which is the nearest bright star to the Pleiades. I
should check my astronomy software to see what someone was likely to see
from Europe with the Pleiades high about 500 years ago. Will report.

> Since I'm no botanist, I think I'll concentrate on the =
> astronomy/astrology pages.  

Let me join you on that. Archaeoastronomy is one of my hobbies.

> Could we, since many of us now have, or will =
> have, the photocopies, agree on a simple page numbering that simply =
> numbers each page, even the foldouts (which have 2,3,4 pages on them) ? =
> Would make conversation easier...

How about x-y where x is the sheet number counting from the front an y
is the foldout square, counting from the spine? So, page 13-2 is the
second square out from the spine on the sheet 13 pages in.

-Adams Douglas
 San Diego, CA
 adamsd@crash.cts.com



From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 27 11:47:09 +0000 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199602271147.LAA21199@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Re: Icon language
To: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk (Gabriel Landini)
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 11:47:09 +0000 (GMT)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <31334908.5044@bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Feb 27, 96 10:10:16 am
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> Last time I mentioned the Icon programming language which is spcifically
> for text handling.
> Following Rene's desire to create a set of tools to play with
> the vms, I think that Icon is the ideal language.
> Apart for being free, it runs on multiple platforms.
> For those interested in taking a look:
> 
> http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/www/faq.html 
> 
> http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/www/

Personally, I think perl's just as good! I'm about to make my VM munching
perl software available in the next few days. This includes making
databases from interlin.txt, voynich.now, and also some rudimentary
statistical analysis stuff......

> Gabriel

-- 
Alligator Descartes	 	  | "...Nil posse creari De nilo"
descarte@hermetica.com	 	  |	-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I, l.155
http://www.hermetica.com/descarte | 

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 27 11:50:33 EWT 1996
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Date: Tue, 27 Feb 96 11:50:33 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Re: Voynich stuff (long) (This is not long)
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

In reply to Adams Douglas:

Aldebaran is indeed the logical near bright star. It is certain that
both the Pleiades and Aldebaran were clearly visible from Central
Europe during the middle ages. Aldebaran being the brightest star of
Taurus, it might well be represented in the VMs some place or other.
Of course, it might not be called Aldebaran (see also D'Imperio).

Your note probably was sent before you could read Jim's. There is
already a fully-consistent page numbering or counting scheme. In fact
there are two and they are fully consistent with each other. Let's
use these. They are:
1) Folio numbering, the preferred 'name' of each 'page'. The one
   with the Pleiades is f68v3 (according to D'Imperio, did not check)
   By the way: f68v3 also contains the purported Andromeda nebula.
   Any of the astronomers with a copy of this page care to comment?
   (Does it also contain the satellite galaxies? :-) :-) )
2) Page numbering, after father Petersen. f68v3 is page 128

All details are in file 'foliation' at rand.org and in Jim's Web
pages.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 27 08:33:04 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: Voynich stuff (long) (This is not long)
To: RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE (Rene Zandbergen)
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 08:33:04 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@RAND.ORG
In-Reply-To: <199602271105.DAA08471@rand.org> from "Rene Zandbergen" at Feb 27, 96 11:50:33 am
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> Aldebaran is indeed the logical near bright star. It is certain that
> both the Pleiades and Aldebaran were clearly visible from Central
> Europe during the middle ages. Aldebaran being the brightest star of
> Taurus, it might well be represented in the VMs some place or other.
> Of course, it might not be called Aldebaran (see also D'Imperio).

Since they were aware of zodiacal signs I think we assume the VMs authors
knew the standard constellations of their day. However, the Pleiades/
"galaxy" page my be an attempt to describe nonstandard star patterns. Or it
may be a finder rule, like the diagrams which show you how to find Polaris
using the pointer stars in Ursa Major.

I have not seen the page, but I am told the "Andromeda Galaxy" is presented
in plan-form, not elliptical as it appears in the sky due to prespective.
This makes me think that it's not a galaxy, but something else. Also, even
with a telescope you cannot see all the features you see in photos of
M-31, your eye can't gather enough light. You need time exposures to
resolve the dust planes and spiral form. You can see a suggestion of the
features _if_you_already_know_what_they_look_like_. I don't think Roger
Bacon invented photography as well as the telescope/microscope. :)

I do have some more Pleiades thoughts which I'll post soon.

> Your note probably was sent before you could read Jim's. There is
> already a fully-consistent page numbering or counting scheme. In fact
> there are two and they are fully consistent with each other. Let's
> use these. They are:

You're right. I am seriously behind on my Voynich reading. D'Imperio is the
next step for me. I also have to get back to rand.org and freshen up my
memory of stuff I read two years ago.

Cheers,
-Adams



From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 27 16:38:30 EWT 1996
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Date: Tue, 27 Feb 96 16:38:30 EWT
From: Rene Zandbergen <RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE>
Subject: Tiltman's transcription of some recipes pages
To: Voynich list <voynich@RAND.ORG>
Status: OR

This is mainly to Jim Gillogly, but I am not forbidding anyone to
offer his/her opinion :-)

Is there any good reason for not including Tiltman's transcription
of f105v through f113r in file voynich.now? I would propose to
exclude f106v which was done separately by Jim Reeds and possibly
also the pages already covered by 'item 1613' but it is a matter
of conjecture which is more accurate.

It could go 'as is' after translitteration to Currier. I have one
such version, with indication of folio and line numbers in the
usual style, still maintaining Tiltman's paragraph/line numbering
in comments.

Until we get something better, it would not seem to hurt...

Regards, Rene

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 27 10:10:16 0800 1996
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Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 10:10:16 -0800
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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Hi!,
Last time I mentioned the Icon programming language which is spcifically
for text handling.
Following Rene's desire to create a set of tools to play with
the vms, I think that Icon is the ideal language.
Apart for being free, it runs on multiple platforms.
For those interested in taking a look:

http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/www/faq.html 

http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/www/

bye!
Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Tue Feb 27 10:46:17 0800 1996
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Subject: The Pleiades and the sky 1300-1600
To: adamsd@cts.com (Adams Douglas)
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 10:46:17 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: RZANDBER@VMPROFS.ESOC.ESA.DE, voynich@RAND.ORG
In-Reply-To: <m0trSKn-0001GSC@crash.cts.com> from "Adams Douglas" at Feb 27, 96 08:33:04 am
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Forgive me if some of this seems tangential to the VMs, you never 
know what will make someone think of something else to check.

I spent the evening experimenting with Dance of the Planets 
(probably the best commercial software for accurate 
archaeoastronomy) looking at the Pleiades and the sky in general 
during the period 1300-1600 C.E. Here are some of my 
observations:

Europe is small enough that one's exact location within the space 
we're contemplating for the origin of the VMs seems not to matter 
too much. The Pleiades are fairly high in the sky at transit (65 
- 70 degrees elevation) from Copenhagen to Barcelona. There were 
two occultations of the Pleiades by the Moon in January, 1300 and 
these events were visible equally well in the entire area.

The Pleiades are at the western edge of a group of bright 
constellations with many open star clusters and obvious patterns 
(Orion, Hercules, Taurus and Canis Major). To the west, the stars 
are dimmer with only one brighter star, Hamal (alpha Aries) in the 
neighborhood. which is on essentially the same declination and 
thus heralds the rising of the Pleiades by about 90 minutes.

The Pleiades are only 5 degrees north of the Ecliptic, and thus 
make a good calendar marker with respect to the Sun's motion. The 
heliacal rising of the cluster (presaging sunrise) occurred in 
late March in 1300 and had moved to early April by 1600. 
Similarly the Pleiades culminated at Midnight (meaning the Sun 
was directly opposite them) in late October, 1300. This shifted 
to early November by 1600. Many cultures (notably the Aztecs and 
Celts) have used these particular events to mark festivals. 

Due to the precession of Earth's axis, Polaris was more than 5 
degrees from the North Celestial Pole in 1300. By 1600 it was 
within 3 degrees (it is now less than 0.5). Yet, to a ground 
observer it was still a useful star with which to find True North 
as early as 1000 C.E. Columbus noted in his log the fact that 
Polaris did not really sit on the Pole in 1492. 

The effect of Earth's precession on the position of the Pleiades, 
and other stars near the Ecliptic, were not as noticable. Their 
declination increased from about 21.5 degrees in 1300 to 23 
degrees in 1600. The only way this effect would really be noticed 
by a casual ground observer without instruments would be a slow 
motion to the north of the Pleiades rising point on the horizon 
at a fixed location--about the width of a Full Moon per century.

Perhaps this rambling will spark someone's imagination or trigger 
memory of a related fact in someone's head with regard to the 
VMs. I hope so.

-Adams Douglas
 adamsd@crash.cts.com




From paw.montana.com!djl Tue Feb 27 22:36:08 0700 1996
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----------
From: 	djl[SMTP:djl]
Sent: 	Monday, February 26, 1996 20:15
To: 	'reeds@research.att.com'; voynich@rand.org
Subject: 	RE: Voynich stuff (long)


The star label search is an old idea, but not a bad one at all.  I did =
not
notice or think that the star between the fish might have had a name, =
for
instance, and hence there would be a clue to the writing, PROVIDED THAT
THE STAR NAMES ARE THE USUAL ONES.  (As a side project I am looking at
an a 16th century astrology book.  Much of the book is taken up with =
"true"
or magical names:  the moon in the house of Leo is called Alglabufus, =
and
so on.  The "value added" of the book is to supply new names; the cipher
alphabet is to protect them from the unworthy.)  Don, could you do 2 =
things:
tell just where the Peiades are in the page you named?  (I see a =
windmill-
like diagram; which "vane" has them in it.  Use clock or compass-rose
notation to name the place.)

Jim: I agree that the names would have to be the common ones, and we do =
have, unfortunately, arabic, latin, greek, and secret to choose from.=20
The Pleiades are between 9 o'clock (W) and 10:30 o'clock (NW)  on the =
diagram. they are connected to the central face circle by a lazy "s" on =
its side.  There is a single star in the same "slice of pie".

Since I'm no botanist, I think I'll concentrate on the =
astronomy/astrology pages.  Could we, since many of us now have, or will =
have, the photocopies, agree on a simple page numbering that simply =
numbers each page, even the foldouts (which have 2,3,4 pages on them) ? =
Would make conversation easier...

I had an idea for creating not a font, exactly, but a set of printable, =
nameable items. Almost all modern PC's have icon editors. I've tried to =
make a couple of the "letters" as icons, and they are identifiable, =
although not at all graceful. The icon files (*.ico) could be named with =
one of the existing alphabets (eg. 8.ico, A.ico) These can be handled as =
objects in a modern language(computer) such as Visual Basic, enabling =
counting, printing, and all that.  It's not nearly as elegant as a font, =
but each "character" does remain tagged.

The two starfield drawings just before the one with Pleiades have =
differing centers on the stars. This may be a system for identifying =
magnitudes. Does anyone know if the dots or centers are different colors =
in the original?

Best to all,
Don
Jim: here's a resend. I had forgotten about the D'A scheme' will have to =
install asap. thanks for the reminder.


From paw.montana.com!djl Tue Feb 27 22:50:54 0700 1996
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From: djl <djl@montana.com>
To: "'Adams Douglas'" <adamsd@cts.com>, djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
Cc: "reeds@research.att.com" <reeds@research.att.com>,
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	 <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: Voynich stuff (long)
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Adams and all:=20

boy, and I just scanned D'A again just before I got my copy of the MS. =
I'll get the pages numbered asap.  It will be good to go through the =
astronomy sectionwith some care. I looked at the center figures in the =
zodiac plates. I think the names in the centers are later additions, not =
original names. One, in particular, looks a lot like "octobre", and the =
next Novembre or something like it.  Looks like someone made some notes =
at one time or another.

Although the icon language might be a good idea, I was referring to a =
simpler scheme of using an iconedit program like the one that comes with =
Visual Basic language.  The icons can be put in a 4 or 5 dimensional =
array, along with the Currier and other equivalents that are isomorphic =
to the original characters.  Searches can then be done using VB =
applications, or the transliterations from one alphabet to another put =
in a database like access or dbase or the like.

Best to all
Don





From rand.org!jim Wed Feb 28 12:10:17 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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 Hello all,
 
 (this is also a test of my new mailer).
 Yesterday I saw in D'Imperio's alphabet table that Tiltman did not distinguish
 between Frogguy 'p' and 'j' (which affects 4 of the 'looped' or 'gallows'
 characters). So I thought: that's why his transcription was never merged in
 file voynich.now. But this morning I saw in my file that both Currier P and B
 exist (Frogguy qp and qj). Does anyone know what's up?
 
 Cheers, Rene 

From rand.org!jim Wed Feb 28 14:27 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich page numbering
Status: OR


Don's scheme of numbering Voynich pages is not bad, it is just that I
don't think it is needed.  Are all copies of the Yale copyflow print of
the microfilm paged the same way?  My copy has exactly one page per frame
on the microfilm (not counting the front matter).  I can supply a table
of correspondences if anyone is interested.


Jim Reeds


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Subject: Voynich transcription alphabet by Tiltman
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I don't really understand the Tiltman column in D'Imperio's chart of
transcription alphabets.  Tiltman's report to Friedman (a 2 page typescript)
used V symbols and did not refer to any transcription alphabet.  The only
transcription I have seen by Tiltman (from which my tiltman.txt is derived)
is in FSG notation and uses all of P F H D PZ FZ HZ DZ.  (And uses IIL instead
of M, etc.)  Maybe he lumps P with F and H with D in his 1967 paper; I will
have to check when I get to my files.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Fri Mar  1 12:58:13 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Dear all,

what I would like to do is pick all your minds about the different 'pages'
of the VMs (for those who have copies of some or all pages). I would put
all the data together and distribute it (if I get any input at all of course).

What I would like to get is things like:

- that plant on f3v looks a bit like a pomegrenade
- The pleiades on f68v3 are upside down

I will maintain all attributions, so that the end result could be something
like:

- Newbold calls this a mermaid, but Gabriel Landini thinks it is a woman eaten by a fish.
  The water is blue or green according to Jim Reeds.

I will start by taking the data from the 'checklist' at rand.org, and add what can be
obtained from D'Imperio, and what else I can get from the net (comments from 
transcription files etc.)

If any of our gurus have some more opinions from the unnamed experts in the past
I would be especially happy about those as well (but I have already been imposing a 
lot, so don't feel obliged to immediately spend too much time on that).

Now since my wife just called that my Yale copy has just arrived (hooray) (but she thought
the copies were rather poor :-( ) there'll be some unfounded opinionation from me too.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Fri Mar  1 14:25:32 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: voynich@rand.org
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Now I am not sure if she is being eaten or if she is being born
out of the fish -- a bit grown up for a baby :-).

As soon as I get my copy I will start the label database.
For simplicity I hope to do it in Dbase format including
folio, location, type of image (plant, human, star, biological),
label in fsg, label in currier, label in frogguy, description of label,
possible names (in case of stars).

Please I would like to hear your opinions!

One last comment about the possibility of vms in Enochian. 
If Enochian is impossible to read or to understand, then why go into the
trouble of coding it in another unknown alphabet?
regards,

Gabriel 


From rand.org!jim Mon Mar  4 08:39:25 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Some first impressions...

After a first browse through the VMs I have to say that
there sure is a lot of material to discuss here :-) :-)

The first few pages have very nice pictures of plants (flowers?) but they get
more abstract in the next few pages. It seems also clear that certain parts
of certain plants were just 'filled in'. The artist seems to have
a set of default leaves that he will add to stems whenever he feels a need to
add leaves but has no clue what type of leaves should be there.

The copies of the astronomical and cosmological pages are difficult to read,
unfortunately. I get the impression that the original is very light so there is
not very much to be done here. As observed before, there are dark and light
versions of Aries and Taurus. What I did not know is that the order is
light, dark, dark, light and that all other drawings are light. The two dark
ones are the anomalous ones and would seem to indicate that there is a certain
'special' period, something like the second half of April and the first half of
May. The connection with the growing of plants seems compelling. In this
context one very interesting page that I have not seen discussed very often 
(or at all): the leftmost one on the 'back' of the six-fold, when it is not
completely unfolded. It seems to show (in four separate pictures):
(1) throwing seeds (2) picking a plant (3) doing something (4) someone 
holding a flask (plant extract??). One of the very few pages that make sense.

All these nymphs. The mail archive mentions one or two 'cute' ones. I have
not found those yet :-) Most of them have labels. There are also labels 
next to some of the 'tubes' (whoever called this plumbing?) where there are 
no nymphs. The 'names' are so similar to each other
that I am almost inclined to interpret
them as 'fig.47' 'fig.102' (or 'label' 'page' 'folio' whatever). I am sure
this is anachronistic and such references are not found in M.E. manuscripts.

Transcribing from these copies is going to be almost impossible, at least in
some places. Unfortunately one of these places is the section with the 
zodiac and nymph/star names. But then I think some of these are already in
file voynich.now.

More later,
        Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Mar  4 09:37 EST 1996
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Date: 4 Mar 1996 08:40:25 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <Guy_Thibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  VMS notes (short)
To: "voynich" <voynich@rand.org>
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Status: OR

Greetings to all

Following the last note from Mr. Zandbergen, I just would like to mention
these observations:

The series of 12 circles with the zodiac signs in the center might be years
not months,
they do start with pisces not aries as is normally the case with astrologia,
pisces being the LAST
sign, new year being in march NOT january...

Then, the nymphs could be months... nine month in a horizontal tube year
one... 5 more years
in a vertical tube... 18 more years standing up... over all the series covers
almost 25 years
of who's life ??? Doeas this makes sense ???

Then there is the question of starting the time from pisces not aries, that is
sometime in january/
febuary....

Also, some of the nymps seems to be crowned and they meet a king (one of the
rare male figure)
late in the cycle... may be we could some how correlate these events with
history... I am 
looking it it for fun...

Great pastime anymay...

Guy Thibault



From rand.org!jim Mon Mar  4 06:58:25 0800 1996
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Status: OR



unsubscribe, please, and thanks.


--
 

From rand.org!jim Mon Mar  4 07:38:33 0800 1996
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From: Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford@s1.csuhayward.edu>
To: Guy Thibault <Guy_Thibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Cc: voynich <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Objet- VMS notes (short)
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Fly on the wall here. I haven't seen what Guy is talking about, but 
starting with Pisces might not be too strange if you are doing sidereal 
astrology -- we ARE in the age of Pisces still, as we have been for about 
2500 years, nearing Aquarius. So if you're plotting the current time and 
place against the stars themselves, instead of the ideal grid used by 
more popular Western astrological modes, you'll be hitting near early 
Pisces now, whereas say 700 years ago it might have been nearer 10 Pisces.
The key is because of the precession of equinoxes, the "ages" in the 
"great year" are always apparently going backwards on the zodiac. That 
is, in the great year, which is 2500+ earth years, the first month is 
Pisces, which lasts 2000+ years (I'm forgetting the exact numbers at 
present), next Aquarius, and so on to the last, Aries. Traditional 
astrology plots the zodiac's start from 1996 years ago, where sidereal 
astrology plots the zodiac's start right now, at early Pisces.

Moonhawk
"Science is a way of discovering and talking about reality. Western 
science is a way of discovering and talking about the regularities of an 
inanimate universe. Indigenous science is a way of discovering and 
talking about the irregularities and singularities of an animate universe."
(my comment recently at the 5th Dialog between Indigenous and Western 
Scientists)

On 4 Mar 1996, Guy Thibault wrote:

> The series of 12 circles with the zodiac signs in the center might be years
> not months,
> they do start with pisces not aries as is normally the case with astrologia,
> pisces being the LAST
> sign, new year being in march NOT january...
> 
> Then there is the question of starting the time from pisces not aries, that is
> sometime in january/
> febuary....
> 

From rand.org!jim Mon Mar 04 18:53:06 +0000 1996
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From: antonini@is.co.za (Claudio Antonini)
Subject: Concealing msgs in fields of stars
Status: OR

Hi all. 

In The Codebrakers (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson Edition, 1966), on page 147,  it
is said that Blaise de Vigenere in his "Traicte des Chiffres" discussed how
to "conceal a message in a picture of field of stars". 

Does anyone have the book of Vigenere and, if it has 5 minutes, could
provide a description of how he implemented this method (obviously if it is
a short description)? Is there any translation of Vigenere's book (into
English)?

Thanks,

Claudio


From rand.org!jim Tue Mar  5 07:55:44 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9603050755.AA04837@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Zodiac error and planets
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Dear all,

last time I wrote:

>                                  What I did not know is that the order is
>light, dark, dark, light and that all other drawings are light. The two dark
>ones are the anomalous ones and would seem to indicate that there is a certain

which is just plain wrong. Forget that I ever said it.

I like Guy's notion that each nymph/star is a month. Definitely worth following
up. Can we conclude that the person whose life is depicted is female?
Is it the writer herself? It could also be an attempt by a male writer to
'bewitch' the object of his desire :-)

Now:
some of the zodiac pictures contain a star:
Scorpio has a very bright one, Pisces has two and Virgo has one. Could these 
be planets? I cleaned up my E-mail and I forgot who has mentioned that he
had some archeo-astronomical software, but here is a great opportunity for
spending (wasting?) some time: is there a time around the peroid of interest
(1450 +- 50 years for starters) where these constellations (with some margin)
contained the brightest planets? One cannot discard the possibility that
Sun and Moon were counted as planets, so we have in rough order of
decreasing brightness: Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Mercury,
(but I woult tip on the omission of Sun and Moon). One missing planet
could be in Capricorn or Aquarius.

If anyone knows this has been investigated (and documented) before, please
let us know.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Thu Mar  7 07:39:25 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: Zodiac error and planets
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 07:39:25 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9603050755.AA04837@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Mar 5, 96 07:55:44 am
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> Now:
> some of the zodiac pictures contain a star:
> Scorpio has a very bright one, Pisces has two and Virgo has one. Could these 
> be planets? I cleaned up my E-mail and I forgot who has mentioned that he
> had some archeo-astronomical software, 

Me. Dance of the Planets by ARC Science Simulations. Deluxe version is
$295, but is well worth it if you're into this stuff.

> but here is a great opportunity for
> spending (wasting?) some time: is there a time around the peroid of interest
> (1450 +- 50 years for starters) where these constellations (with some margin)
> contained the brightest planets? One cannot discard the possibility that
> Sun and Moon were counted as planets, so we have in rough order of
> decreasing brightness: Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Mercury,
> (but I woult tip on the omission of Sun and Moon). One missing planet
> could be in Capricorn or Aquarius.

The problem is that over the course of a century, or even 50 years,
_all_ of the visible planets occupied each sign at least once (Saturn
being the slowest). Most except Jupiter and Saturn are in each sign one
or more times per year. If the stars in the drawings _are_ planets, we
have no information as to which is which, so we have little to go on to
even guess at what configurations to search for. Not knowing which
planet is which also makes the search harder, because you have no
recourse but to eyeball each sign with the timescale accelerated and see
what passes through the sign and then stop and check each other sign for
significant planets.

Point being one can't really derive a date or even a period for the
configuration as reported, because it would repeat (with different objects)
almost annually. 

What would be the reason the objects are not simply one or more of the
significant stars in the sign? We know the VMs represents real stars
because of their inclusion of the Pleiades.

Now I _really_ need the facsimilie to study. :)

Cheers,
-Adams


From rand.org!jim Thu Mar  7 12:37 EST 1996
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Date: 7 Mar 1996 12:00:08 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <Guy_Thibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  Sequence number ?
To: "voynich" <voynich@rand.org>
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Status: OR

Hello all,

Just some more observations/thought on the zodiac circles
(ff. 70) In all there 298 nymphs/months... Only 12 with stars
on the left...

In ff. 103, there is a kind of "index", with clear and
dark starts on the left margins... There are 164 dark stars
and 158 clear ones, for a total of 322, 24 more than depicted
by the zodiac circles... 

These 12 and 24 are they just coincidences or is it really
months we are dealing with here ???

Last but not least, I look for enumerations in the VMS and found
3 exemples. Sometimes one gets carried away and oeganize his ideas
into point 1), 2), ... and gets caught... On folio 50 the text
has "bulets" and even roman literals... On folio 66 you get the
same and finnaly on the thirs circle(from the center) on folio
58 (the first apparition of the nymphs) you have a series of 17
letters/digits repeated 4 times (one per nymph ?)... Are these
their first letters of their alphabet ? To find the repeat
sequence on the circle look for the "T", there is 4 of them and
the letters around it are the same...

Hope this stirs up more talks

Guy Thibault




From rand.org!jim Thu Mar  7 19:29:53 0700 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'Adams Douglas'" <adamsd@cts.com>,
        "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" <rzandber@esoc.esa.de>
Cc: "voynich@rand.org" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: Zodiac error and planets
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 19:29:53 -0700
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> but here is a great opportunity for
> spending (wasting?) some time: is there a time around the peroid of =
interest
> (1450 +- 50 years for starters) where these constellations (with some =
margin)
> contained the brightest planets? One cannot discard the possibility =
that
> Sun and Moon were counted as planets, so we have in rough order of
> decreasing brightness: Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, =
Mercury,
> (but I woult tip on the omission of Sun and Moon). One missing planet
> could be in Capricorn or Aquarius.

The problem is that over the course of a century, or even 50 years,
_all_ of the visible planets occupied each sign at least once (Saturn
being the slowest). Most except Jupiter and Saturn are in each sign one
or more times per year. If the stars in the drawings _are_ planets, we
have no information as to which is which, so we have little to go on to
even guess at what configurations to search for. Not knowing which
planet is which also makes the search harder, because you have no
recourse but to eyeball each sign with the timescale accelerated and see
what passes through the sign and then stop and check each other sign for
significant planets.

Point being one can't really derive a date or even a period for the
configuration as reported, because it would repeat (with different =
objects)
almost annually.=20

What would be the reason the objects are not simply one or more of the
significant stars in the sign? We know the VMs represents real stars
because of their inclusion of the Pleiades.

But: astrology is "frozen" at ptolemy's time, that is zodiacal =
precession is not accounted for.  There are special ephemerii for =
astrology.  I've just bought an astrology disk, and will see what can be =
done with that.  To see the astronomy programs that are available, pick =
up a copy of Sky and Telescope magazine,  betcha get hooked...




From rand.org!jim Fri Mar  8 08:08:26 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Guy Thibault writes:

> Just some more observations/thought on the zodiac circles
> (ff. 70) In all there 298 nymphs/months... Only 12 with stars
> on the left...
> 
> In ff. 103, there is a kind of "index", with clear and
> dark starts on the left margins... There are 164 dark stars
> and 158 clear ones, for a total of 322, 24 more than depicted
> by the zodiac circles... 

My thoughts exactly! 
I have counted 324 stars in the 'index' (aka as recipes) section.
There is one bifolio missing so 4 'pages' like these should
probably be added. The average number of stars on each 'page' is
about 15, which yields a guessed total of 324  + 60 = 384. A bit more
than I personally would have hoped for. However, there are a few
cases where there is not a clearly visible paragraph break for
each and every star (though most of the time there is).

Apart from light and dark stars, one can see stars with dots in
the centre, and stars with one or two 'threads'. These threads
are also visible in the zodiac pictures. I have not been able to 
make a comparative count yet. Also, there is one star that has 
a small companion. Very much like Alcor and Mizar (but we're not assuming
they represent stars). For calendar dates I had thought about it representing
Feb.29. 
Pisces, with 29 stars, does not have such a doublet. And
we do not have the picture of Aquarius, which could possibly represent
February. (Note that I am mixing all different theories or possible
explanations here). 

To reconcile your '1 nymph=1 month' theory with the zodiac symbols,
one could imagine this sequence to depict the life of someone (who was
25-30 years old at the time of writing or died at that age)
and the zodiac symbols with configuration of planets giving the person's
horoscope (i.e. for time of birth). Note that there are 10, not 9 nymphs
in horizontal tubes, so this period is more likely post-natal than
pre-natal.
Did the woman marry a king / become a queen? (Agrippa's sister became
queen of Navarre, just to introcude one of my favourite characters).

> These 12 and 24 are they just coincidences or is it really
> months we are dealing with here ???

Don't forget we are most probably lacking 2 zodiac symbols (on missing 
folio f74) and two folios of stars (on missing f109 and f110)
 
> Last but not least, I look for enumerations in the VMS and found
> 3 exemples. Sometimes one gets carried away and oeganize his ideas
> into point 1), 2), ... and gets caught... On folio 50 the text
> has "bulets" and even roman literals... On folio 66 you get the
> same and finnaly on the thirs circle(from the center) on folio
> 58 (the first apparition of the nymphs) you have a series of 17
> letters/digits repeated 4 times (one per nymph ?)... Are these
> their first letters of their alphabet ? To find the repeat
> sequence on the circle look for the "T", there is 4 of them and
> the letters around it are the same...
 
D'Imperio discusses these sequences as well.
I have noticed that the most commonly occurring 'letters' in these
sequences are (Currier) O, 4, E, 2/R (not always clear) 8, 9, P, F  
and also some of the rarer ones. Missing seem to be the very common
A, C, S, N, M, Z. The ones missing seem to be all the
C- and I- compounds. I do need to check this for consistency though!

> Hope this stirs up more talks
> 

Always happy to oblige...

Rene

From rand.org!jim Fri Mar  8 09:32:35 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Me again!

(I promise this is my last mail this week).

I showed my Yale copy to a visiting friend last evening. As he browsed
through it he immediately picked up on the Falloppian Tubes, but commented
they were not exactly right (which of course has been found to be
true for just about everyting in the VMs). He is indeed a (medical) doctor.
When I mentioned that the document was before Paracelsus' time, he mentioned
that Arabic (and also Roman) treatises of anatomy existed before that.

At this time we also 'discovered' (in the sense that I had not seen them
before) the nice little castles on f85/86 (with the "9-disk-thing').
Anyone recognise a particular building style here? 

One of the bathtubs with nymphs really does look like a can of sardines
that has just been opened!! (cf. "far side" Larson's business lunch).

Nice weekend, Rene

From rand.org!jim Fri Mar  8 07:22 EST 1996
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Date: 08 Mar 96 06:50:35 EST
From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: 384 stars
Message-ID: <960308115034_100716.75_EHU118-3@CompuServe.COM>
Status: OR

Rene Zandbergen writes:

>I have counted 324 stars in the 'index' (aka as recipes) section.
>There is one bifolio missing so 4 'pages' like these should
>probably be added. The average number of stars on each 'page' is
>about 15, which yields a guessed total of 324  + 60 = 384. A bit more
>than I personally would have hoped for.

1 mean lunar month = 29.53059 mean solar days,
so 13 lunar months = 383.8977 days, not far off 384.

It's a bit of a leap from this to suggest that a lunar calendar might
be concealed in the VMS, but perhaps the possibility is worth keeping
in mind.


From rand.org!jim Mon Mar 11 17:41:28 0800 1996
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From: Brian Smith <briansm@MICROSOFT.com>
To: "'reeds@research.att.com'" <reeds@research.att.com>
Cc: "'voynich@rand.org'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: New York Times VMS articles
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 17:41:28 -0800
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I stopped by the library this weekend and looked through the New York
Times index for articles about the VMS and found several that you might
want to add to your bibliography.  None of the articles contained
anything surprising, though I don't think I knew that Voynich's will
divided his estate between his wife and the famous Miss Nill.  While I
don't subscribe to the Forgery-by-Voynich school, Nill would be a good
candidate for the author of the "language B" sections if it were a
forgery.  Thinking about an early 20th century forgery reminds me that
Roger Bacon was having a bit of a revival in the 1910's because of his
seven-hundredth birthday.  If an unethical book dealer wanted to make
some good money at the time, he could have done a lot worse than to
forge a mysterious Baconian manuscript or misrepresent an authentic
unattributed manuscript as Bacon's, perhaps by forging a single
accompanying letter.  But enough of the conspiracies, back to the facts.

In 1921, the NYT carried four articles about Newbold's decipherments:

26 Mar, p 6, col 1
27 Mar, sec II, p 1, col 1
21 Apr, p 3, col 1
22 Apr, p 13, col 1

Voynich himself seemed to be the primary source for these articles,
speaking on behalf of Newbold.  None of the information goes beyond what
is in Newbold's book -- the standard gee-whiz microscope and telescope
stuff.  One amusing, probably unintentional, jab at Newbold's method
appeared in the March 27th article:

  Asked if the book was being translated systematically
  from the fist page onward, he [Voynich] said,

  "No.  No human could do that.  It would require a German
  scientist to take it up in that systematic manner."

Since we have a few Germans on this alias, we should have a complete
translation any day now :-)

Other articles:

"Roger Bacon's Formula Yields Copper Salts, Proving Newbold Secret
Cipher Translation." 2 Dec 1926, p 5, col 4 with follow-up articles 3
Dec, p 22, col 4 and12 Dec, sec XX, p 12, col 6.

"Will Orders Sale of Bacon Cipher." 15 Apr 1930, p 40, col 1.

=00

From rand.org!jim Tue Mar 12 06:22 EST 1996
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From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Miss Nill
Message-ID: <960312105642_100716.75_EHU56-1@CompuServe.COM>
Status: OR

Brian Smith writes:

>Voynich's will divided his estate between
>his wife and the famous Miss Nill.

Miss Nill's fame has unfortunately not reached here.
Was she Wilfred's Scarlet Woman in various secret
rites and practices described in some of his Renaissance
magickal treatises?  Another of Crowley's ex-mistresses
perhaps?  And since Uncle Al's finances were frequently
dismal, one could wonder whether in fact he and Miss Nill
forged the MS for sale to Wilfred (a 20th C. analog of the
alleged Dee/Rudolph forgery/sale).  OK, a wild hypothesis,
but a Crowley/Voynich connection, if any evidence can be
found in support of it, would add spice to the tale.  Oh, and
throw in H.P.Lovecraft while we're at it.   Didn't they all
hang out together in strange dens of iniquity in New York 
around 1910?


From rand.org!jim Tue Mar 12 18:42 EST 1996
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From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: request for info
Message-ID: <960312224918_100716.75_EHU58-1@CompuServe.COM>
Status: OR

Could someone post (or direct me to the appropriate on-line source) what is
known of the 20th C. discovery of the VMS, I mean, when, where, by whom (W.
Voynich presumably) and under what circumstances.  When and where did it make
its first public appearance?  Perhaps of equal significance is: How was the
discovery announced (by Voynich?) to the world?  Did he call a press conference?
Was it announced in the NYT?  And what exactly did Voynich claim to have found?


From rand.org!jim Wed Mar 13 08:08:51 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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In reply to Peter Meyer:
> 
> Could someone post (or direct me to the appropriate on-line source) what is
> known of the 20th C. discovery of the VMS, I mean, when, where, by whom (W.
> Voynich presumably) and under what circumstances.  When and where did it make
> its first public appearance?  Perhaps of equal significance is: How was the
> discovery announced (by Voynich?) to the world?  Did he call a press 
conference?
> Was it announced in the NYT?  And what exactly did Voynich claim to have 
found?
> 

This is described in D'Imperio which I have at home. Since I can guess
why you are interested (from your previous E-mail) I can already tell you
there are indeed a few circumstances one might find somewhat suspicious:

- Wilfrid Voynich found the Ms in the Villa Mondragone in Frascati. After 
  its discovery he kept the location a secret for some years(!) because
  he wanted to return there to buy more.
- Voynich initially discarded the 'Marci letter', which he found between 
  the pages. After a quick browse through the Ms he decided it was Bacon's.
  Only then did he read the letter which also said the Ms was (probably)
  Bacon's.
  
To be honest I personally think these points mean nothing and Voynich was
'on the level'. But reading D'Imperio, there are a few small inconsistencies
about the second point: whether the letter was attached to the cover, or 
found between the pages; the fact that it had to be translated for him
(an old book dealer who cannot read a handwritten letter in Latin????).

To add more fuel: Voynich's middle name is Michael. Now look again at
the famous last 'key' page (f116v). It starts:
mich...
and it ends:
....nich
Some anagram of Voynich's name involved here?

Note 1: I do not know Miss Nill's full name
Note 2: As I said: I am not a follower of the Voynich forgery/joke theory

There is more in D'Imperio that makes the discovery seem genuine enough.

Cheers, Rene  

From rand.org!jim Wed Mar 13 11:11:24 0800 1996
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From: Brian Smith <briansm@MICROSOFT.com>
To: "'Peter Meyer'" <100716.75@compuserve.com>
Cc: "'voynich@rand.org'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: Miss Nill
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 11:11:24 -0800
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I am not a Miss Nill expert, but here is what I know: Anne Nill (or
"Miss Nill" as she is called in almost every written reference I have
seen) worked with Wilfrid Voynich in his book business.  In his will, he
said that he couldn't have succeeded without her.  Her name appears on
much of the Voynich-era correspondence about the manuscript. D'Imperio
refers to Miss Nill as a close friend of Mrs. Voynich.

As to your other question about how the VMS was announced, this is the
story according to Newbold:  After Voynich found the manuscript in 1912,
he immediately sent photos to scholars in France, England, and later the
US.  I have never seen any of the personal correspondence about the VMS
stored at Yale or other archives, but I would assume (hope) that they
must hold a response from one of these scholars.  Voynich first sent a
photo of the VMS to Newbold in 1919, which is the earliest published
date I have seen that someone outside of Voynich's circle confirms
seeing it.  As far as I know, the March 1921 New York Times article
included in my last mail is the first published account of the
manuscript, which I guess could be called its "announcement" (though I
don't know the exact date of his talk to the College of Physicians of
Philadelphia, maybe that was a few days earlier).  However, I notice in
the Yale catalog entry that supplemental material box "D" is supposed to
contain "newspaper clippings (1912-26) concerning the cipher manuscipt,
compiled by W. Voynich."  Maybe someone who has seen the Yale material
could fill in more detail about the period between 1912 and 1919?
>----------
>From: 	Peter Meyer[SMTP:100716.75@compuserve.com]
>Sent: 	Tuesday, March 12, 1996 2:56 AM
>To: 	Voynich List
>Subject: 	Miss Nill
>
>Brian Smith writes:
>
>>Voynich's will divided his estate between
>>his wife and the famous Miss Nill.
>
>Miss Nill's fame has unfortunately not reached here.
>Was she Wilfred's Scarlet Woman in various secret
>rites and practices described in some of his Renaissance
>magickal treatises?  Another of Crowley's ex-mistresses
>perhaps?  And since Uncle Al's finances were frequently
>dismal, one could wonder whether in fact he and Miss Nill
>forged the MS for sale to Wilfred (a 20th C. analog of the
>alleged Dee/Rudolph forgery/sale).  OK, a wild hypothesis,
>but a Crowley/Voynich connection, if any evidence can be
>found in support of it, would add spice to the tale.  Oh, and
>throw in H.P.Lovecraft while we're at it.   Didn't they all
>hang out together in strange dens of iniquity in New York=20
>around 1910?
>
>
=00

From rand.org!jim Wed Mar 13 20:17 EST 1996
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Date: 13 Mar 96 19:43:02 EST
From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: 1908-1919
Message-ID: <960314004302_100716.75_EHU47-1@CompuServe.COM>
Status: OR

Thanks to Rene Zandbergen and to Brian Smith for info on Miss Nill and the 
(re)discovery of the MS.  Miss Nill's role and character are still a bit
mysterious.

Rene says:

- Wilfrid Voynich found the Ms in the Villa Mondragone in Frascati. After 
  its discovery he kept the location a secret for some years(!) because
  he wanted to return there to buy more.

Brian says:

...  this is the
story according to Newbold:  After Voynich found the manuscript in 1912,
he immediately sent photos to scholars in France, England, and later the
US.

So did Voynich discover the MS in Villa Mondragone in 1912, or did he
discover it there some years earlier (1908? 1909?), and announce it
 (with photos) only in 1912?

Brian says:  Voynich first sent a
photo of the VMS to Newbold in 1919, which is the earliest published
date I have seen that someone outside of Voynich's circle confirms
seeing it.

So apparently it came into Voynich's hands between c. 1908
and at latest 1919.  Brian refers to "newspaper clippings (1912-26)",
so the evidence points toward Voynich's making it known c. 1912
(or perhaps sometime before).

My copy of the Autohagiography disappeared long ago, but I vaguely recall
that Uncle Al was mountain-climbing around 1909, and was in New York
by 1912 or 1913, where he stayed during WW I.  Perhaps the Crowley
scholars on this list could provide a more accurate account of his whereabouts
at this time.  (Lovecraft was presumably living in New England at this time.)

To repeat Brian's request: "Maybe someone who has seen the Yale material
could fill in more detail about the period between 1912 and 1919?"  And can
we have a confirmation on that reputed 1912 newspaper clipping?


From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 15 07:37 EST 1996
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Date: 15 Mar 96 07:18:54 EST
From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Brian Smith <briansm@microsoft.com>
Cc: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: 1908-1919
Message-ID: <960315121853_100716.75_EHU128-4@CompuServe.COM>
Status: OR

Hello Brian,

> I am curious about what connection you see between Crowley and
>the Voynich manuscript. 

Crowley was a controversial figure who was much maligned in the
British yellow press.  His main interest seems to have been ritual
magick and occult spiritual practice.  He reformed the magickal
society known as the Golden Dawn and was head of a couple of
other semi-secret magickal/spiritual societies.

He is generally regarded as the foremost 20th C. practitioner
of ceremonial magick.  This required use of new and old manuscripts
in which the rituals, invocations, etc., were described, and it is
reasonable to suppose Crowley had some familiarity with old
manuscripts, and may not have been beyond inventing some
himself (as is reputed to have been done by certain predecessors in
the field).  It's also known that from the early 1900s Crowley had
financial problems (having earlier dissipated his inheritance on travel,
purchase of rare books, etc.), and it would be consistent with his
trickster character to create a MS such as the Voynich MS to sell to
Wilfred.  Also he was probably in New York around 1910-16
and probably had connections with Lovecraft (whose vivid
imagination is well known and who might have contributed to the 
plot; also I think Lovecraft married a former mistress of Crowley).
One could also assume that Crowley knew of Dee and Kelly,
his eminent predecessors in the field of ceremonial magick.

Although I don't think a Crowley authorship is likely, it is
nevertheless possible.  Miss Nill might have obtained the
vellum through her connections in the rare book field as Voynich's
assistant, and with a small leap of the imagination one could
even introduce one of Crowley's conjured spirits to guide the
hands of the co-conspirators (similar to the dictation of
Liber Al in Cairo in 1904 by one of the higher-echelon spirits,
though the more scientifically orthodox here might prefer to 
speak of unconscious autonomous psychic complexes).

Facts concerning the discovery and public announcement of the MS
are a possibly important clue as to whether it is a 20th C. hoax,
which is why I asked for this information.

Crowley's non-involvement could be shown by his having had
little opportunity to be involved, e.g. if he was not in New York
around 1912 (but I think he was).  On the other hand, if Crowley,
Miss Nill and Voynich frequented the same literary circles then
a connection is suggested.


From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 15 07:22:14 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: 1908-1919
To: 100716.75@compuserve.com (Peter Meyer)
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 07:22:14 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: briansm@microsoft.com, voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <960315121853_100716.75_EHU128-4@CompuServe.COM> from "Peter Meyer" at Mar 15, 96 07:18:54 am
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> Also he was probably in New York around 1910-16
> and probably had connections with Lovecraft (whose vivid
> imagination is well known and who might have contributed to the 
> plot; also I think Lovecraft married a former mistress of Crowley).
> One could also assume that Crowley knew of Dee and Kelly,
> his eminent predecessors in the field of ceremonial magick.
> 
> Although I don't think a Crowley authorship is likely, it is
> nevertheless possible.  Miss Nill might have obtained the
> vellum through her connections in the rare book field as Voynich's
> assistant, and with a small leap of the imagination one could
> even introduce one of Crowley's conjured spirits to guide the
> hands of the co-conspirators (similar to the dictation of
> Liber Al in Cairo in 1904 by one of the higher-echelon spirits,
> though the more scientifically orthodox here might prefer to 
> speak of unconscious autonomous psychic complexes).

I don't think this is likely either, but boy would it make a great novel!
:)

-Adams Douglas



From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 15 14:56:57 0800 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
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Subject: Re: 1908-1919
To: 100716.75@compuserve.com (Peter Meyer)
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 14:56:57 -0800 (PST)
Cc: briansm@microsoft.com, voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <960315121853_100716.75_EHU128-4@CompuServe.COM> from "Peter Meyer" at Mar 15, 96 07:18:54 am
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Peter Meyer writes:
> Although I don't think a Crowley authorship is likely, it is
> nevertheless possible.

Peter,
the matter can't be settled by investigating the process whereby the MS came
to light, since everybody (including Voynich) is a suspect. The best you
could come up with is absence of evidence pointing to forgery, not evidence
of absence. A lingering doubt would always remain, no matter how well you
covered (or thought you covered) your bases.

The sense of the group (if I may be so bold as to attribute a single sense to
such a diverse collection of individuals) is that physical examination
(radiocarbon dating, X-ray, UV and IR shots etc) of the MS would be a Good
Thing.  If you look through the mailing list you'll find a fair number of
messages on this subject, an impressive array of expertise about various
aspects of the physical examination, and even pointers to some UV and IR shots
taken earlier. The problem was/is to find the money to underwrite such an
effort, and to get the Beinecke's approval.

Personally, I don't think anyone prior to WWII had the means and knowhow to
fool even these rudimentary techniques. The way I see it, the vellum is old
(needs to be nailed down by contemporary dating techniques but the manuscript
experts who have seen the MS did not smell a rat) and it was not used prior
to the VMS being written on it. Either Crowley or whoever had to get hold of
centuries-old unused vellum or the VMS is genuine (possible a genuine old
fake, but not a new fake).

Andras Kornai

From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 15 19:07:14 0500 1996
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To: kornai@almaden.ibm.com (Andras Kornai)
cc: 100716.75@compuserve.com (Peter Meyer), briansm@microsoft.com,
        voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: 1908-1919 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 15 Mar 1996 14:56:57 EST."
             <9603152257.AA15496@sun.almaden.ibm.com> 
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 19:07:14 -0500
From: Joao Leao <leao@buphy0.bu.edu>
Status: OR

> Peter Meyer writes:
> > Although I don't think a Crowley authorship is likely, it is
> > nevertheless possible.
> 
> Peter,
> the matter can't be settled by investigating the process whereby the MS came
> to light, since everybody (including Voynich) is a suspect. The best you
> could come up with is absence of evidence pointing to forgery, not evidence
> of absence. A lingering doubt would always remain, no matter how well you
> covered (or thought you covered) your bases.

Even considering that my interest in the VMS is mostly associated with its
fictional possibilities, I have to point out that such speculations contradict
what is already known. What evidence is there that Crowley or Lovecraft had
anything to do with Voynich or even knew him? Otherwise, if the association
was that they all lived in New York between 1908 and 1919, I am sure we
could find a huge number of possible "authors" of the VMS who share that
circunstance! Is being interested and acquainted with old manuscripts and
being famed as a devious occultist the requirements for a propective VMS 
"forger" ? 

> The sense of the group (if I may be so bold as to attribute a single sense to
> such a diverse collection of individuals) is that physical examination
> (radiocarbon dating, X-ray, UV and IR shots etc) of the MS would be a Good
> Thing.  If you look through the mailing list you'll find a fair number of
> messages on this subject, an impressive array of expertise about various
> aspects of the physical examination, and even pointers to some UV and IR shots
> taken earlier. The problem was/is to find the money to underwrite such an
> effort, and to get the Beinecke's approval.
> 

Maybe that is the sense of the group. I however beg to differ as I have on
other occasions when the question of physical dating has been brought up.
I'd like someone to explain to me why knowing the actual age of the vellum 
would make the VMS any less of a mystery! If I understand it at all, the 
basic intrigue of the VMS thus far concerns whether it is plain
gibberish (noise) or whether it actually contains genuine information.
I take it that what, at least some, people mean by "forgery" is really  
what I call gibberish, more specifically, not whether the manuscript 
was produced in the 15th or the 20th century but whether it actually
contains information! I repeat my claim that no amount of carbon dating will
answer this question, and I would much appreciate being convinced of the
contrary...  

> Personally, I don't think anyone prior to WWII had the means and knowhow to
> fool even these rudimentary techniques. The way I see it, the vellum is old
> (needs to be nailed down by contemporary dating techniques but the manuscript
> experts who have seen the MS did not smell a rat) and it was not used prior
> to the VMS being written on it. Either Crowley or whoever had to get hold of
> centuries-old unused vellum or the VMS is genuine (possible a genuine old
> fake, but not a new fake).

The recent publication of a book about the infamous Vinland Map (another
Yale treasure) --- which for sometime was deemed a fake because its ink 
was found to contain titanium --- reminds me of how presumptuous the whole 
business of physical and chemical dating can be. As it turns out the presence 
of titanium was detected in other documents known to be genuine and is today 
believed to be a trace absorbate of very slow reactions which concentrates
with time.

> Andras Kornai
> 
---------
Joao Leao
leao@physics.bu.edu
http://physics.bu.edu/~leao/leao.html
Office Phone: (617)353-3931
Home Phone:   (617)247-2670
Boston University - Physics Department
Director of Computer Research Facility
 
"Let this be a lesson: never give a monster the job of a mad scientist...
 ...now be a good bunny and let me have your brain! "
-----------------------------------------------------

From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 15 19:17:17 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: 1908-1919
To: leao@buphy0.bu.edu (Joao Leao)
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> Maybe that is the sense of the group. I however beg to differ as I have on
> other occasions when the question of physical dating has been brought up.
Joao,
I certainly don't want to overstate this "sense of the group" business --
you are part of the group so if you don't agree it's not the sense of the
group.

> I'd like someone to explain to me why knowing the actual age of the vellum
> would make the VMS any less of a mystery!
It's not the age of the vellum, it's the age of the MS that we are really
after. Needless to say, if the vellum is 19th c. all this fun stuff about
Dee and the Emperor Rudolph etc. goes away. More importantly, you find
different levels of cryptological sophistication for different periods,
so age is a very significant factor in the direction decipherment attempts
take. Also, for a great number of documents you can reconstruct erased
writing at various wavelengths and light angles etc -- such writing,
if present, could supply important clues.

> The recent publication of a book about the infamous Vinland Map (another
> Yale treasure) --- which for sometime was deemed a fake because its ink
> was found to contain titanium --- reminds me of how presumptuous the whole
> business of physical and chemical dating can be.
I have no idea what's the state of the art. Sometimes an important
advance in dating seems to be made in the scope of a few years --
isn't this what happened to the Shroud of Turin?

Andras


From rand.org!jim Sat Mar 16 11:32:59 0700 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'voynich@rand.org'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: 1908-1919
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Re Crowley:  Having read much Crowley (as opposed to <about> Crowley), I =
think it highly unlikely that he authored the MS. He would have claimed =
discovery and made an interpretation for the faithful. As has been said, =
though, what an idea for a novel!

Re age authentication:  There is a group at UC Davis that specializes in =
document work, headed up by Thomas Cahill (they did the Vinland map =
latest stuff).  The problem is, of course, getting the Beinecke to go =
for it, and finding out if Cahill is interested on either a paid or pro =
bono (even though we are a pretty small bono) basis. =20
I hesitate to broach the idea, because I belong to enough stuff now, but =
if we were the International Voynich MS Society, would that be of =
benefit in dealing with other organizations???  this can of course be =
done at the nearest printer for cheap, as long as there are some names =
and addresses on the stationery.

It was carbon dating that did in the Shroud, even though there was other =
scientific evidence on pigments, weaving patterns, and a bunch of other =
measurements.  I remember that on the net recently, someone said that =
carbon dating has a high error for the 13th cent, but dating would still =
provide some answers.

From rand.org!jim Mon Mar 18 09:24:41 GMT 1996
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Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 09:24:41 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9603180924.AA24213@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: "Astronomy now" article (1992)
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Dear all,

I found one of the articles mentioned in Jim's bibliography as 'not seen'.
I'm mailing this bibliographical note to the group since the subject of
astronomy was discussed quite a bit recently.
The title of the article is: 'Thirteenth century magic glass' by 
Dr. Ian Seymour and the issue is that of June 1992 (p59). It is
about Roger Bacon's supposed use of telescopes, this on the occasion of the
800th (sic) anniversary of his death (which is given as 11 june 1292).

Anyone reading the article would immediately believe Bacon did at the
time have a working telescope for terrestrial use. I'll just quote the
last paragraph or two:

 ...The _Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon_ published c1580, but based on earlier
 text states, "_He had a glasse which was of that excellente nature that anie 
 man myght behold anythinge that hee desired to see wythin the compasse of
 fifty myles round about hym_".
 Stranger still, a unique and controversial Baconian manuscript bears a small
 illustration - a swirling mass, studded with stars. The caption reads: "in
 the navel of Andromeda". Could this be the great spiral galaxy M31? If so,
 a briliant English monk beat Galileo by 300 years.
 
 Dr Ian Seymour
 
The article never mentions the VMs.

I can see how Newbold was excited about the discovery of this in Bacon's
writing, but still, the picture on f83v3 does not look like the Andromeda
Nebula to mee. I have seen it through my telescope (f900, 60mm lense) and
the spiral structure cannot really be seen. My telescope is rather simple,
but I seriously doubt Bacon had anything as good as that. (In fact, maybe
his aberrations caused spiral structures to appear :-) :-) ) 

Cheers, Rene

P.S. I also searched for the article in Sky and Telescope 1966. Our collection
starts at 1967  :-( 

From rand.org!jim Mon Mar 18 14:57 EST 1996
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Date: 18 Mar 1996 14:36:26 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <Guy_Thibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  base language of th
To: "voynich" <voynich@rand.org>
X-Mailer: Mail*Link SMTP-QM 3.0.2
Status: OR

Dear all,


I did a little program that can decrypt a monoalphabetic substitution cipher,
such as I asumed
is the VMS. You need a text file, which is your dictionary. It can be in any
language AS LONG
AS you use the SAME alphabet as in the voynich transliteration files, ie:
0..9,A..Z. Since
there does not appear to have punctuation in the VMS, (nor accents), you must
first remove
those from your "dictionary".

I tried with a Gaelic dictionary, without success... If you care to test it
with your favorite
language just let me know and I will figura out a way to send you the source
code so that
you can compile it (along with instructions, rather simple actually...).

One thing, I tested with a Gaelic dictionary of 3652 words, on a Sparc 20
single CPU with
96Mb of RAM and it took 100k of stack space and about 45 minutes to test a set
of six
rules ("8AM" and the like)... If you intend to use a DOS computer it must be
rather sturdy ;-)

Let me know if there is interest, I do not want to stress of Internet server
by including the
source code to every one on the list, as you must understand 8)

I plan to test a dictionary composed of one or more Canterbury tales (old
english) and one of
"Le Roman de Renard", by Rabelais (old french)... That about the extend of my
source of "foreign"
candidate language..





From rand.org!jim Mon Mar 18 18:17:05 0700 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'Guy Thibault'" <Guy_Thibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>,
         voynich
	 <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: Objet-  base language of th
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 18:17:05 -0700
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I did a little program that can decrypt a monoalphabetic substitution =
cipher,
such as I asumed
is the VMS. You need a text file, which is your dictionary. It can be in =
any
language AS LONG
AS you use the SAME alphabet as in the voynich transliteration files, =
ie:
0..9,A..Z. Since
there does not appear to have punctuation in the VMS, (nor accents), you =
must
first remove
those from your "dictionary".

I tried with a Gaelic dictionary, without success... If you care to test =
it
with your favorite
language just let me know and I will figura out a way to send you the =
source
code so that
you can compile it (along with instructions, rather simple actually...).

One thing, I tested with a Gaelic dictionary of 3652 words, on a Sparc =
20
single CPU with
96Mb of RAM and it took 100k of stack space and about 45 minutes to test =
a set
of six
rules ("8AM" and the like)... If you intend to use a DOS computer it =
must be
rather sturdy ;-)

Let me know if there is interest, I do not want to stress of Internet =
server
by including the
source code to every one on the list, as you must understand 8)

I plan to test a dictionary composed of one or more Canterbury tales =
(old
english) and one of
"Le Roman de Renard", by Rabelais (old french)... That about the extend =
of my
source of "foreign"
candidate language..

Dear Guy and all:=20

I've found a freebie text analysis suite of programs for PC at =
ftp.epas.utoronto.ca, /pub/cch/tact/tact2.1; anonymous ftp.  There's a =
web site, too, but I don't have it offhand. web site is an advert.

The analyzer is due to be upgraded Real Soon Now to handle Chinese(!) =
and that will certainly be useful to us. I'll get this program going and =
let you know how it goes...

Guy, I'd <really> appreciate a copy of your source code. Could you mail =
it to me?

Thanks
Don Latham






From rand.org!jim Tue Mar 19 08:21:27 GMT 1996
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Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 08:21:27 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9603190821.AA00505@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Pleiades, astronomy yet again
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Dear all,

rereading some old mail it all of a sudden struck me.
(Apologies if the following is already hashed out in some article I 
have not seen).
In the picture of Pleiades (I think I have consistently quoted the wrong
folio nr. for this. It should be f68r3) there is one bright star
with a name attached. Rather than it representing Aldebaran (which is
just another bright star, and not really meriting a special place in
our document) could it be....

the 1054 Supernova in Taurus?

This date is of course a bit early for the VMs, but as most astronomers 
(especially amateurs) know, it has an interesting history. 
This supernova, which was apparently bright enough to be seen during
daytime (of pink-ish colour), has not been recorded in European
documents. When the french astronomer Messier started his catalogue
of fuzzy objects in the sky that he kept confusing with comets (late
1700s I think but let me check), the first one on the list was the
so-called crab nebula. It later turned out to be an expanding nebula
as if from an exploded star, and when the expansion rate was determined
a simple calculation gave the explosion date around 1050. 

Now:
A record of this event was subsequently found back in Chinese chronicles, much
to the delight of the astronomers seeing their theory verified.
Jacques, are you still there? When did Marco Polo come back to Venice
with his Chinese friends who dictated the VMs to him?

This would be very interesting indeed, perhaps even more if it is the
only known European record of this supernova. It would take several 
centuries of oral tradition, though, which must be called unlikely,
even though this Supernova was the most spectacular one in recorded
(somewhere) history.

Hmmmm... one tiny little piece of evidence in support of Marco Polo
(and the castle on f86 upper right corner does look a bit like the
palace of the Doge in Venice :-) -).

Cheers, Rene


From rand.org!jim Tue Mar 19 19:00:19 0700 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'Thomas Cahill'" <Cahill@Crocker.UCDavis.Edu>
Cc: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: Dating  the MS
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.
Anyway, I be "He of the Vinland Map", for better or for worse. =
Questions?

Thanks for the prompt reply!=20
I am a "member" of a loose group ( actually a bunch of folks worldwide) =
who are interested in a MS presently in the Beinecke Library at Yale. I =
include their catalog description to save a bunch of paraphrased stuff.
One of the problems with the MS is its age.  It has been variously =
ascribed to Roger Bacon, John Dee, our old friend Anon., and others.

Because the MS is written in code or cipher (we don't even know which!) =
there is no way that the text can be used to aid dating. Attempts have =
been made, of course, based on the drawings liberally dispersed through =
the text, and other guesses, but nothing robust has come of these =
analyses.=20

There have been "letter" and "word" count analyses that are puzzling to =
say the least, as they do not match medieval Latin or other such =
languages.

This means that physical and chemical analyses of the vellum, ink, and =
maybe binding materials would provide us with a far better idea of the =
age of the MS than now exists. We could at least tell if it is from the =
13th or the 16th century?

Obviously, some arrangement would have to be made with the Beinecke.

The crux now appears:
1) Are you at all interested in such a project?
2) If not, any suggestions?
3) If so, how do we come up with the needed funds to undertake the =
investigation?

The Voynich MS is, of course, not in any way as important as the Vinland =
map, but, to quote one researcher, an "elegant enigma".

If you wish to see a photocopy of the MS, I will be down for vacation in =
June near Santa Barbara and could come visit with my copy.

Thanks very much for your attention...

Don Latham=20


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MS 408                                  Central Europe [?], s. XV^ex-XVI [?]
Cipher Manuscript

     Scientific or magical text in an unidentified language, in cipher,
     apparently based on Roman minuscule characters; the text is believed by
     some scholars to be the work of Roger Bacon since the themes of the
     illustrations seem to represent topics known to have interested Bacon
     (see also Provenance below.) A history of the numerous attempts to
     decipher the manuscript can be found in a volume edited by R. S.
     Brumbaugh, The Most Mysterious Manuscript: The Voynich "Roger Bacon"
     Cipher Manuscript (Carbondale, Illinois, 1978). Although several
     scholars have claimed decipherments of the manuscript, for the most
     part the text remains an unsolved puzzle. R. S. Brumbaugh has, however,
     suggested a decipherment that establishes readings for the star names
     and plant labels; see his "Botany and the Voynich 'Roger Bacon'
     Manuscript Once More," Speculum 49 (1974) pp. 546-48; "The Solution of
     the Voynich 'Roger Bacon' Cipher," Gazette 49 (1975) pp. 347-55; "The
     Voynich 'Roger Bacon' Cipher Manuscript: Deciphered Maps of Stars,"
     Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 39 (1976) pp. 139-50.

          Parchment. ff. 102 (contemporary foliation, Arabic numerals; not
     every leaf foliated) + i (paper), including 5 double-folio, 3 triple-
     folio, 1 quadruple-folio and 1 sextuple-folio folding leaves. 225 x 160
     mm.
          Collation is difficult due to the number of fold-out leaves that
     are not always foliated consistently. I-VII^8 (f. 12 missing), VIII^4
     (leaves foliated 59 through 64 missing from center of quire), IX^2
     (double and triple fold-out leaves), X^2 (1 triple fold-out), XI^2 (1
     quadruple fold-out), XII^2 (f. 74 missing, followed by stubs of
     conjugate leaves), XIII^10, XIV^1 (sextuple fold-out), XV^4 (1 triple
     and 1 double fold-out), XVI^4 (1 double fold-out; ff. 91, 92, 97, 98
     missing, 2 stubs between 94 and 95), XVII^4 (2 double fold-outs),
     XVIII^12 (ff. 109-110, central bifolium, missing). Quire signatures in
     lower right corner, verso, and sometimes on recto.
          Almost every page contains botanical and scientific drawings, many
     full-page, of a provincial but lively character, in ink with washes in
     various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue and red. Based on the
     subject matter of the drawings, the contents of the manuscript falls
     into six sections: Part I. ff. 1r-66v    Botanical sections containing
     drawings of 113 unidentified plant species. Special care is taken in
     the representation of the flowers, leaves and the root systems of the
     individual plants. Drawings accompanied by text. Part II. ff. 67r-
     73v    Astronomical or astrological section containing 25 astral
     diagrams in the form of circles, concentric or with radiating segments,
     some with the sun or the moon in the center; the segments filled with
     stars and inscriptions, some with the signs of the zodiac and
     concentric circles of nude females, some free-standing, other emerging
     from objects similar to cans or tubes. Little continuous text. Part
     III. ff. 75r-84v    "Biological" section containing drawings of small-
     scale female nudes, most with bulging abdomens and exaggerated hips,
     immersed or emerging from fluids, or interconnecting tubes and
     capsules. These drawings are the most enigmatic in the manuscript and
     it has been suggested that they symbolically represent the process of
     human reproduction and the procedure by which the soul becomes united
     with the body (cf. W. Newbold and R. Kent, The Cipher of Roger Bacon
     [Philadelphia, 1928] p. 46). Part IV. ff. 85r-86v    This sextuple-
     folio folding leaf contains an elaborate array of nine medallions,
     filled with stars and cell-like shapes, with fibrous structures linking
     the circles. Some medallions with petal-like arrangements of rays
     filled with stars, some with structures resembling bundles of pipes.
     Part V. ff. 87r-102v    Pharmaceutical section containing drawings of
     over 100 different species of medicinal herbs and roots, all with
     identifying inscriptions. On almost every page drawings of
     pharmaceutical jars, resembling vases, in red, green and yellow, or
     blue and green. Accompanied by some continuous text. Part VI. ff. 103r-
     117v    Continuous text, with stars in inner margin on recto and outer
     margins of verso. Folio 117v includes a 3-line presumed "key" opening
     with a reference to Roger Bacon in anagram and cipher.
          Binding: s. xviii-xix. Vellum case. Remains of early paper
     pastedowns.

     Written in Central Europe [?] at the end of the 15th or during the 16th
     [?] century; the origin and date of the manuscript are still being
     debated as vigorously as its puzzling drawings and undeciphered text.
     The identification of several of the plants as New World specimens
     brought back to Europe by Columbus indicates that the manuscript could
     not have been written before 1493. The codex belonged to Emperor
     Rudolph II of Germany (Holy Roman Emperor, 1576-1612), who purchased it
     for 600 gold ducats and believed that it was the work of Roger Bacon;
     see the autograph letter of Johannes Marcus Marci (d. 1667, rector of
     Prague University) transcribed under item A below. It is very likely
     that Emperor Rudolph acquired the manuscript from the English
     astrologer John Dee (1527-1608) whose foliation remains in the upper
     right corner of each leaf (we thank A. G. Watson for confirming this
     identification through a comparison of the Arabic numerals in the
     Beinecke manuscript with those of John Dee in Oxford, Bodleian Library
     Ashmole 1790, f. 9v, and Ashmole 487). See also A. G. Watson and R. J.
     Roberts, eds., John Dee's Library Catalogue (London, The
     Bibliographical Society, forthcoming). Dee apparently owned the
     manuscript along with a number of other Roger Bacon manuscripts; he was
     in Prague 1582-86 and was in contact with Emperor Rudolph during this
     period. In addition, Dee stated that he had 630 ducats in October 1586,
     and his son Arthur (cited by Sir T. Browne, Works, G. Keynes, ed.
     [1931] v. 6, p. 325) noted that Dee, while in Bohemia, owned "a
     booke...containing nothing butt Hieroglyphicks, which booke his father
     bestowed much time upon: but I could not heare that hee could make it
     out." Emperor Rudolph seems to have given the manuscript to Jacobus
     Horcicky de Tepenecz (d. 1622); inscription on f. 1r "Jacobi de
     Tepenecz" (erased but visible under ultra-violet light). Johannes
     Marcus Marci of Cronland presented the book to Athanasius Kircher, S.
     J. (1601-80) in 1666. Acquired by Wilfred M. Voynich in 1912 from the
     Jesuit College at Frascati near Rome. Given to the Beinecke Library in
     1969 by H. P. Kraus (Cat. 100, pp. 42-44, no. 20) who had purchased it
     from the estate of Ethel Voynich.

     Included with MS 408 is the following supplementary material in folders
     or boxes labelled A - N.

     A: Autograph letter of Johannes Marcus Marci of Cronland in which he
     presents the manuscript to Athanasius Kircher in Rome, in the belief
     that Kircher would be able to decipher it. "Reuerende et Eximie Domine
     in Christo Pater. Librum hunc ab amico singulari mihi testamento
     relictum, mox eundem tibi amicissime Athanisi ubi primum possidere
     coepi, animo destinaui: siquidem persuasum habui a nullo nisi abs te
     legi posse. Petijt aliquando per litteras ejusdem libri tum possessor
     judicium tuum parte aliqua a se descripta et tibi transmissa, ex qua
     reliqua a te legi posse persuasum habuit; uerum librum ipsum
     transmittere tum recusabat in quo discifrando posuit indefessum
     laborem, uti manifestum ex conatibus ejusdem hic una tibi transmissis
     neque prius huius spei quam uitae suae finem fecit. Verum labor hic
     frustraneus fuit, siquidem non nisi suo Kirchero obediunt eiusmodi
     sphinges. Accipe ergo modo quod pridem tibi debebatur hoc qualecunque
     mei erga te affectus indicium; huiusque seras, si quae sunt, consueta
     tibi felicitate perrumpe. retulit mihi D. Doctor Raphael Ferdinandi
     tertij Regis tum Boemiae in lingua boemica instructor dictum librum
     fuisse Rudolphi Imperatoris, pro quo ipse latori qui librum attulisset
     600 ducatos praesentarit, authorem uero ipsum putabat esse Rogerium
     Bacconem Anglum. ego judicium meum hic suspendo. tu uero quid nobis hic
     sentiendum defini, cujus fauori et gratiae me totum commendo maneoque.
     Reuerentiae Vestrae. Ad Obsequia Joannes Marcus Marci a Cronland.
     Pragae 19. Augusti AD 1666 [or 1665?].

     B: Correspondence between W. Voynich abd Prof. W. R. Newbold concerning
     Newbold's supposed decipherment of the manuscript (1919-26).
     Correspondence between Anne M. Nills, executrix of the estate of Ethel
     Voynich, and the Rev. Theodore C. Peterson, dated 1935-61, concerning
     the provenance, dating and decipherment of the manuscript.

     C: Cardboard tube containing articles from international newspapers and
     magazines; among them The New York Times, The Washington Post, Der
     Zeitgeist, and others, concerning the announced sale by H. P. Kraus of
     the cipher manuscript.

     D: Scrapbook of newspaper clippings (1912-26) concerning the cipher
     manuscript, compiled by W. Voynich.

     E: Miscellaneous handwritten notes of W. Voynich.

     F: Miscellaneous material, including handwritten notes by A. Nills
     about the cipher, and her correspondence about the sale of the
     manuscript.

     G: Five notebooks handwritten by Ethel Voynich containing notes on the
     identification of the plants, medicinal herbs and roots; miscellaneous
     notes by A. Nills listing some characters or combinations of characters
     as they appear in the manuscript.

     H: Box of negative and positive photostats.

     I - L: Lectures, pamphlets, reviews and articles concerning the
     manuscript. Includes (in K) the transcript of a seminar held in
     Washington D. C. on November 1976 entitled "New Research on the Voynich
     Manuscript."

     M: Miscellaneous correspondence between R. Brumbaugh and J. M. Saul
     (Paris) and J. Arnold (Oak Grove, Mo.). Handwritten transcription of
     ff. 89v-116r by R. Brumbaugh.

     N: Temporary folder of negative photostats.

     Select Bibliography: Exhibition Catalogue, pp. 271-72, no. 85.
          W. R. Newbold and R. G. Kent, The Cipher of Roger Bacon
     (Philadelphia, 1928).
          J. H. Tiltman, The Voynich Manuscript Baltimore, 1968).
          C. A. Zimansky, "William F. Friedman and the Voynich Manuscript,"
     Philological Quarterly 49 (1970) pp. 433-43.
          The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle Ages,
     exhib. cat. (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975) p. 203, no.
     217.
          R. S. Brumbaugh, ed., The Most Mysterious Manuscript: The Voynich
     "Roger Bacon" Cipher Manuscript (Carbondale, Illinois, 1978), with
     additional bibliography.
          M. E. D'Imperio, The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma
     (National Security Agency/ Central Security Service, Fort Meade,
     Maryland, 1978), with additional bibliography.

------ =_NextPart_000_01BB15C7.FC83EC80--


From rand.org!jim Tue Mar 19 19:11:39 0700 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: dating the MS
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 19:11:39 -0700
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You should get a copy of an e-mail I sent to Thomas Cahill at UDavis.
I apologize if I have stepped on any toes in 'the group" by doing this. =
Please let me know either way how you feel about it.  Seems kinda bold, =
but what the heck. If some foundation can be gotten interested in =
funding an investigation, we can get credit for having started the whole =
thing...
Cahill is the person who provided the latest date for the Vinland Map.

Re: Pleiades on 68R3.  The star shown could be the Nova. It's also =
interesting that proceeding cw, there are two, three, and four stars in =
order.  The preceding page has a bunch of stars that seem to be marked =
somehow for magnitude? =20

Best to all of you

Don 

From rand.org!jim Wed Mar 20 08:47:02 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: voynich@rand.org
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Don Latham writes:

> You should get a copy of an e-mail I sent to Thomas Cahill at UDavis.

came as an empty file to me. It marked that there was an attachment
but this I did not get. I'd be interested to read what you wrote.
Maybe you could resend it? I don't know if anyone else saw it?

> I apologize if I have stepped on any toes in 'the group" by doing this. Please 
> let me know either way how you feel about it.  Seems kinda bold, but what the 
> heck. If some foundation can be gotten interested in funding an investigation, 
> we can get credit for having started the whole thing...
> Cahill is the person who provided the latest date for the Vinland Map.

I won't comment until I've read your mail. I certainly hope something
comes of it. One thing, though. Yale are thinking about conservation of
the VMs, which would put it out of circulation for three years or so.
It seems like the right time to have the much needed high quality copy
made. In the recent months I know of at least four team members who had
their copyflo made. The Beinecke can probably be convinced that there
is enough interest for a high-quality copy to make it financially possible.
Can this be tied in somehow? I guess making photos is a standard
part of the process...
The copyflo is a great thing to have. It is complete, and relatively
readable. But now that I have seen some good copies, in Kahn and one
article of Brumbaugh, I am convinced we should have more of those. I am
sure Gabriel will feel the same when he gets his copy.

> Re: Pleiades on 68R3.  The star shown could be the Nova. It's also interesting 
> that proceeding cw, there are two, three, and four stars in order.  The 
> preceding page has a bunch of stars that seem to be marked somehow for 
> magnitude?  

Interesting but disturbing because except for possibly Castor and Pollux for 
the pair, they do not clearly represent ant known stars. This makes the
whole identification theory very shaky.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Wed Mar 20 08:53:47 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Earlier I wrote, quoting the intended article:

>  Stranger still, a unique and controversial Baconian manuscript bears a small
>  illustration - a swirling mass, studded with stars. The caption reads: "in
>  the navel of Andromeda". Could this be the great spiral galaxy M31? If so,
>  a briliant English monk beat Galileo by 300 years.
>  
>  Dr Ian Seymour
>  
> The article never mentions the VMs.
> 

Come to think of it: the unique and controversial Baconian manuscript
might well be our VMs. The caption could be from Newbold's
"translation" because he does mention navels of constellations (but
not Andromeda's) (see Kahn).

Anyway, it's not important.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Wed Mar 20 23:33:54 0700 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'Thomas Cahill'" <Cahill@Crocker.UCDavis.Edu>
Cc: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: Dating  the MS
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        Very interesting! But if I so much as ahow my face around the
Beinecke, they will call in the Yale SWAT Team. Did you catch that =
bizarre
scene on NPS where Phyllis asked to see the Vinland map? The Beineke =
people
would not so much as open their mouths. These is all the more rediculous
since they insure the VM at $24,000,000., so they have "voted with their
pocket book" for possible authenticity.

Don't recall the incident, but I do sense a certain reluctance on the =
part of the Beinecke to "do things" with their MS's.  We've explored the =
idea, for example, of putting the V. MS on CD-ROM along with a bunch of =
papers, translation alphabets, etc; B. very stiff.  Also have explored =
possibility of a really good quality "coffee table" book. ( this long =
before I got interested in the MS).  Seems ike an uphill battle...

        As for this manuscripot, it looks like a worthy project, but a =
large
undertaking since there would have to be many comparisons with other
documents. We do have some of these already, but I could not take the =
lead
on such a matter. Bruce Kusko, my former project manager, was forced to =
take
a job in Kansas. And what could we say? That it does ( or does not) look
like other manuscipts of the period? Clearly, it is old, so the question =
of
a 20th century forgery (as proposed for the VM) is not a question.

Do you have a list of the documents that you do have (or facsimilies?) ? =
Extensive comparisons could help with dating by bounding such things as =
costumes, etc. =20

        I think a much more promising avenue is to use the =
cryptoanalysis
codes recently developed by the spy agencies to crack to code.

We're tryin'...

        I am sorry that I can not help more.=20

                Tom Cahill  =20

Thanks for your interest and time, Tom. I'd like to keep in touch if I =
may.

Regards, Don Latham







At 07:00 PM 3/19/96 -0700, you wrote:
>.
>Anyway, I be "He of the Vinland Map", for better or for worse. =
Questions?
>
>Thanks for the prompt reply!=20
>I am a "member" of a loose group ( actually a bunch of folks worldwide) =
who
are interested in a MS presently in the Beinecke Library at Yale. I =
include
their catalog description to save a bunch of paraphrased stuff.
>One of the problems with the MS is its age.  It has been variously =
ascribed
to Roger Bacon, John Dee, our old friend Anon., and others.
>
>Because the MS is written in code or cipher (we don't even know which!)
there is no way that the text can be used to aid dating. Attempts have =
been
made, of course, based on the drawings liberally dispersed through the =
text,
and other guesses, but nothing robust has come of these analyses.=20
>
>There have been "letter" and "word" count analyses that are puzzling to =
say
the least, as they do not match medieval Latin or other such languages.
>
>This means that physical and chemical analyses of the vellum, ink, and
maybe binding materials would provide us with a far better idea of the =
age
of the MS than now exists. We could at least tell if it is from the 13th =
or
the 16th century?
>
>Obviously, some arrangement would have to be made with the Beinecke.
>
>The crux now appears:
>1) Are you at all interested in such a project?
>2) If not, any suggestions?
>3) If so, how do we come up with the needed funds to undertake the
investigation?
>
>The Voynich MS is, of course, not in any way as important as the =
Vinland
map, but, to quote one researcher, an "elegant enigma".
>
>If you wish to see a photocopy of the MS, I will be down for vacation =
in
June near Santa Barbara and could come visit with my copy.
>
>Thanks very much for your attention...
>
>Don Latham=20
>
>MS 408                                  Central Europe [?], s. =
XV^ex-XVI [?]
>Cipher Manuscript
>
>     Scientific or magical text in an unidentified language, in cipher,
>     apparently based on Roman minuscule characters; the text is =
believed by
>     some scholars to be the work of Roger Bacon since the themes of =
the
>     illustrations seem to represent topics known to have interested =
Bacon
>     (see also Provenance below.) A history of the numerous attempts to
>     decipher the manuscript can be found in a volume edited by R. S.
>     Brumbaugh, The Most Mysterious Manuscript: The Voynich "Roger =
Bacon"
>     Cipher Manuscript (Carbondale, Illinois, 1978). Although several
>     scholars have claimed decipherments of the manuscript, for the =
most
>     part the text remains an unsolved puzzle. R. S. Brumbaugh has, =
however,
>     suggested a decipherment that establishes readings for the star =
names
>     and plant labels; see his "Botany and the Voynich 'Roger Bacon'
>     Manuscript Once More," Speculum 49 (1974) pp. 546-48; "The =
Solution of
>     the Voynich 'Roger Bacon' Cipher," Gazette 49 (1975) pp. 347-55; =
"The
>     Voynich 'Roger Bacon' Cipher Manuscript: Deciphered Maps of =
Stars,"
>     Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 39 (1976) pp. =
139-50.
>
>          Parchment. ff. 102 (contemporary foliation, Arabic numerals; =
not
>     every leaf foliated) + i (paper), including 5 double-folio, 3 =
triple-
>     folio, 1 quadruple-folio and 1 sextuple-folio folding leaves. 225 =
x 160
>     mm.
>          Collation is difficult due to the number of fold-out leaves =
that
>     are not always foliated consistently. I-VII^8 (f. 12 missing), =
VIII^4
>     (leaves foliated 59 through 64 missing from center of quire), IX^2
>     (double and triple fold-out leaves), X^2 (1 triple fold-out), XI^2 =
(1
>     quadruple fold-out), XII^2 (f. 74 missing, followed by stubs of
>     conjugate leaves), XIII^10, XIV^1 (sextuple fold-out), XV^4 (1 =
triple
>     and 1 double fold-out), XVI^4 (1 double fold-out; ff. 91, 92, 97, =
98
>     missing, 2 stubs between 94 and 95), XVII^4 (2 double fold-outs),
>     XVIII^12 (ff. 109-110, central bifolium, missing). Quire =
signatures in
>     lower right corner, verso, and sometimes on recto.
>          Almost every page contains botanical and scientific drawings, =
many
>     full-page, of a provincial but lively character, in ink with =
washes in
>     various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue and red. Based on the
>     subject matter of the drawings, the contents of the manuscript =
falls
>     into six sections: Part I. ff. 1r-66v    Botanical sections =
containing
>     drawings of 113 unidentified plant species. Special care is taken =
in
>     the representation of the flowers, leaves and the root systems of =
the
>     individual plants. Drawings accompanied by text. Part II. ff. 67r-
>     73v    Astronomical or astrological section containing 25 astral
>     diagrams in the form of circles, concentric or with radiating =
segments,
>     some with the sun or the moon in the center; the segments filled =
with
>     stars and inscriptions, some with the signs of the zodiac and
>     concentric circles of nude females, some free-standing, other =
emerging
>     from objects similar to cans or tubes. Little continuous text. =
Part
>     III. ff. 75r-84v    "Biological" section containing drawings of =
small-
>     scale female nudes, most with bulging abdomens and exaggerated =
hips,
>     immersed or emerging from fluids, or interconnecting tubes and
>     capsules. These drawings are the most enigmatic in the manuscript =
and
>     it has been suggested that they symbolically represent the process =
of
>     human reproduction and the procedure by which the soul becomes =
united
>     with the body (cf. W. Newbold and R. Kent, The Cipher of Roger =
Bacon
>     [Philadelphia, 1928] p. 46). Part IV. ff. 85r-86v    This =
sextuple-
>     folio folding leaf contains an elaborate array of nine medallions,
>     filled with stars and cell-like shapes, with fibrous structures =
linking
>     the circles. Some medallions with petal-like arrangements of rays
>     filled with stars, some with structures resembling bundles of =
pipes.
>     Part V. ff. 87r-102v    Pharmaceutical section containing drawings =
of
>     over 100 different species of medicinal herbs and roots, all with
>     identifying inscriptions. On almost every page drawings of
>     pharmaceutical jars, resembling vases, in red, green and yellow, =
or
>     blue and green. Accompanied by some continuous text. Part VI. ff. =
103r-
>     117v    Continuous text, with stars in inner margin on recto and =
outer
>     margins of verso. Folio 117v includes a 3-line presumed "key" =
opening
>     with a reference to Roger Bacon in anagram and cipher.
>          Binding: s. xviii-xix. Vellum case. Remains of early paper
>     pastedowns.
>
>     Written in Central Europe [?] at the end of the 15th or during the =
16th
>     [?] century; the origin and date of the manuscript are still being
>     debated as vigorously as its puzzling drawings and undeciphered =
text.
>     The identification of several of the plants as New World specimens
>     brought back to Europe by Columbus indicates that the manuscript =
could
>     not have been written before 1493. The codex belonged to Emperor
>     Rudolph II of Germany (Holy Roman Emperor, 1576-1612), who =
purchased it
>     for 600 gold ducats and believed that it was the work of Roger =
Bacon;
>     see the autograph letter of Johannes Marcus Marci (d. 1667, rector =
of
>     Prague University) transcribed under item A below. It is very =
likely
>     that Emperor Rudolph acquired the manuscript from the English
>     astrologer John Dee (1527-1608) whose foliation remains in the =
upper
>     right corner of each leaf (we thank A. G. Watson for confirming =
this
>     identification through a comparison of the Arabic numerals in the
>     Beinecke manuscript with those of John Dee in Oxford, Bodleian =
Library
>     Ashmole 1790, f. 9v, and Ashmole 487). See also A. G. Watson and =
R. J.
>     Roberts, eds., John Dee's Library Catalogue (London, The
>     Bibliographical Society, forthcoming). Dee apparently owned the
>     manuscript along with a number of other Roger Bacon manuscripts; =
he was
>     in Prague 1582-86 and was in contact with Emperor Rudolph during =
this
>     period. In addition, Dee stated that he had 630 ducats in October =
1586,
>     and his son Arthur (cited by Sir T. Browne, Works, G. Keynes, ed.
>     [1931] v. 6, p. 325) noted that Dee, while in Bohemia, owned "a
>     booke...containing nothing butt Hieroglyphicks, which booke his =
father
>     bestowed much time upon: but I could not heare that hee could make =
it
>     out." Emperor Rudolph seems to have given the manuscript to =
Jacobus
>     Horcicky de Tepenecz (d. 1622); inscription on f. 1r "Jacobi de
>     Tepenecz" (erased but visible under ultra-violet light). Johannes
>     Marcus Marci of Cronland presented the book to Athanasius Kircher, =
S.
>     J. (1601-80) in 1666. Acquired by Wilfred M. Voynich in 1912 from =
the
>     Jesuit College at Frascati near Rome. Given to the Beinecke =
Library in
>     1969 by H. P. Kraus (Cat. 100, pp. 42-44, no. 20) who had =
purchased it
>     from the estate of Ethel Voynich.
>
>     Included with MS 408 is the following supplementary material in =
folders
>     or boxes labelled A - N.
>
>     A: Autograph letter of Johannes Marcus Marci of Cronland in which =
he
>     presents the manuscript to Athanasius Kircher in Rome, in the =
belief
>     that Kircher would be able to decipher it. "Reuerende et Eximie =
Domine
>     in Christo Pater. Librum hunc ab amico singulari mihi testamento
>     relictum, mox eundem tibi amicissime Athanisi ubi primum possidere
>     coepi, animo destinaui: siquidem persuasum habui a nullo nisi abs =
te
>     legi posse. Petijt aliquando per litteras ejusdem libri tum =
possessor
>     judicium tuum parte aliqua a se descripta et tibi transmissa, ex =
qua
>     reliqua a te legi posse persuasum habuit; uerum librum ipsum
>     transmittere tum recusabat in quo discifrando posuit indefessum
>     laborem, uti manifestum ex conatibus ejusdem hic una tibi =
transmissis
>     neque prius huius spei quam uitae suae finem fecit. Verum labor =
hic
>     frustraneus fuit, siquidem non nisi suo Kirchero obediunt eiusmodi
>     sphinges. Accipe ergo modo quod pridem tibi debebatur hoc =
qualecunque
>     mei erga te affectus indicium; huiusque seras, si quae sunt, =
consueta
>     tibi felicitate perrumpe. retulit mihi D. Doctor Raphael =
Ferdinandi
>     tertij Regis tum Boemiae in lingua boemica instructor dictum =
librum
>     fuisse Rudolphi Imperatoris, pro quo ipse latori qui librum =
attulisset
>     600 ducatos praesentarit, authorem uero ipsum putabat esse =
Rogerium
>     Bacconem Anglum. ego judicium meum hic suspendo. tu uero quid =
nobis hic
>     sentiendum defini, cujus fauori et gratiae me totum commendo =
maneoque.
>     Reuerentiae Vestrae. Ad Obsequia Joannes Marcus Marci a Cronland.
>     Pragae 19. Augusti AD 1666 [or 1665?].
>
>     B: Correspondence between W. Voynich abd Prof. W. R. Newbold =
concerning
>     Newbold's supposed decipherment of the manuscript (1919-26).
>     Correspondence between Anne M. Nills, executrix of the estate of =
Ethel
>     Voynich, and the Rev. Theodore C. Peterson, dated 1935-61, =
concerning
>     the provenance, dating and decipherment of the manuscript.
>
>     C: Cardboard tube containing articles from international =
newspapers and
>     magazines; among them The New York Times, The Washington Post, Der
>     Zeitgeist, and others, concerning the announced sale by H. P. =
Kraus of
>     the cipher manuscript.
>
>     D: Scrapbook of newspaper clippings (1912-26) concerning the =
cipher
>     manuscript, compiled by W. Voynich.
>
>     E: Miscellaneous handwritten notes of W. Voynich.
>
>     F: Miscellaneous material, including handwritten notes by A. Nills
>     about the cipher, and her correspondence about the sale of the
>     manuscript.
>
>     G: Five notebooks handwritten by Ethel Voynich containing notes on =
the
>     identification of the plants, medicinal herbs and roots; =
miscellaneous
>     notes by A. Nills listing some characters or combinations of =
characters
>     as they appear in the manuscript.
>
>     H: Box of negative and positive photostats.
>
>     I - L: Lectures, pamphlets, reviews and articles concerning the
>     manuscript. Includes (in K) the transcript of a seminar held in
>     Washington D. C. on November 1976 entitled "New Research on the =
Voynich
>     Manuscript."
>
>     M: Miscellaneous correspondence between R. Brumbaugh and J. M. =
Saul
>     (Paris) and J. Arnold (Oak Grove, Mo.). Handwritten transcription =
of
>     ff. 89v-116r by R. Brumbaugh.
>
>     N: Temporary folder of negative photostats.
>
>     Select Bibliography: Exhibition Catalogue, pp. 271-72, no. 85.
>          W. R. Newbold and R. G. Kent, The Cipher of Roger Bacon
>     (Philadelphia, 1928).
>          J. H. Tiltman, The Voynich Manuscript Baltimore, 1968).
>          C. A. Zimansky, "William F. Friedman and the Voynich =
Manuscript,"
>     Philological Quarterly 49 (1970) pp. 433-43.
>          The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle =
Ages,
>     exhib. cat. (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975) p. 203, =
no.
>     217.
>          R. S. Brumbaugh, ed., The Most Mysterious Manuscript: The =
Voynich
>     "Roger Bacon" Cipher Manuscript (Carbondale, Illinois, 1978), with
>     additional bibliography.
>          M. E. D'Imperio, The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma
>     (National Security Agency/ Central Security Service, Fort Meade,
>     Maryland, 1978), with additional bibliography.
>




From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 22 14:56:49 GMT 1996
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Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 14:56:49 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9603221456.AA00792@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
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Subject: Missing folios
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Dear all,

I can't go home without sending at least one more  E-mail :-)

In the file 'checklist' (Jim's AT&T site) it is mentioned that
14 folios are missing according to Kraus' catalogue in ~1960, but 
initially (1912) these were only 8. The 8 early
ones are 12, 74, 91,92, 97,98, 109,110. The six later ones, of which
it is assumed they went lost between 1912 and 1960, are 59-64.

In a letter to Jim Gillogly, Mary D'Imperio mentions that she noticed
when visiting the Beincecke that more than the originally 8 folios
were missing, but she mentions only some stubs between pages that
show no gap in the numbering.
Does this mean that D'Imperio's copy (derived from Petersen's 1931
copy) still had ff.59-64? Does anyone have copies derived from these?

Several people have seen Petersen's hand transcriptions and if ff.59-64
were in there, we would have heard by now... Did Mary send copies of
her copies? I think her letter implies that her copies were classified
to some extent (normal NSA procedure?).

Does this then mean they went missing between 1912 and 1931?
How do we know only 8 were missing in 1912?

On a more speculative nature, I find it interesting that the original
missing 8 are divided over all sections. f12 (cut) from the herbal,
f74 (probably cut) from the astrological, 91/92 and 97/98 from the 
pharma/herbal section (one each?) and 109/110 form the recipes.
Only the biological was still complete. Looks almost as if someone
took a sample....

One more thing about the Pleiades: I've got it all sorted out now :-) :-)
It represents the heliacal rise (or setting) of the Pleiades which
the Romans (and other people after them presumably) used to mark
the start of summer (or winter), on May 9 (or 11 November).

No idea what the 1-4 stars represent though...

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 22 14:09:51 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: Missing folios
To: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk (Gabriel Landini)
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 14:09:51 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <31534DA0.522E@bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Mar 22, 96 05:02:24 pm
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> > One more thing about the Pleiades: I've got it all sorted out now :-) :-)
> 
> About the Pleiades, wasn't there a supernova or something similar
> near the year 1050 (?) which was so bright that it could be seen
> during the day? (sorry for my lack of knowledge in star matters :-)

July 4th, 1054. Chinese astronomers noted it and so did several Native
American cultures. It appeared first near a crescent Moon before sunrise
and was quite a spectacular sight. Daytime visibility lasted about three
weeks. It's resultant expanding nebula was later spotted by Messier and
added to his list of objects which weren't comets but could be mistaken for
them--it is now known as Messier 1, or the Crab Nebula.

The nova was within a Moon's diameter of Zeta Tauri, which is the tip of
the bull's lower horn in most diagrams of Taurus. At first light it would
rise about 1:45am and have set by sunset. By the end of that month it would
be rising about Midnight. 

Although the Crab is in the same constallation as the Pleiades, it does not
appear to be "near" them. It is about the same distance to the East as
Orion is tall. It lies directly above Orion.

It has been mentioned that the lack of reports of the nova from Europe
are an indication of the strong belief that the sky was immutable and
unchanging. Yet people constantly reported events they saw in the sky as
portents or omens (remember, little distinction was made then between
meteorological and astronomical events, they were all "meteors"). I
believe that the nova may have been missed due to bad weather at its
peak with it simply not being noticed in the early mornings after it was
no longer a daytime star. Even today, Europe can be covered by clouds and
weather fronts for weeks at a time. And the sky did not seem to occupy
people's minds unless something momentous appeared--like a bright comet.

Is the star in the VMs the Crab, or a note as to where it was once seen by
the author's predecessors? (or Roger Bacon's ? :) ). The Crab can be seen in
a small telescope as a fuzzy patch (hence Messier's list). So who knows if
there's a mention of the Crab supernova from a European source after all? I
guess we'll know if we ever crack the VMs.

-Adams


From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 22 17:02:24 0800 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad wrote:
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> I can't go home without sending at least one more  E-mail :-)
> 
> In the file 'checklist' (Jim's AT&T site) it is mentioned that
> 14 folios are missing according to Kraus' catalogue in ~1960, but
> initially (1912) these were only 8. The 8 early
> ones are 12, 74, 91,92, 97,98, 109,110. The six later ones, of which
> it is assumed they went lost between 1912 and 1960, are 59-64.

> Several people have seen Petersen's hand transcriptions and if ff.59-64
> were in there, we would have heard by now... Did Mary send copies of
> her copies? I think her letter implies that her copies were classified
> to some extent (normal NSA procedure?).

Well, if the Petersen copy is the one in the British Library, it's
a matter of me doing a "research trip" to London. Does anybody
know where did this copy originate?

> One more thing about the Pleiades: I've got it all sorted out now :-) :-)

About the Pleiades, wasn't there a supernova or something similar
near the year 1050 (?) which was so bright that it could be seen
during the day? (sorry for my lack of knowledge in star matters :-)

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 22 20:42 EST 1996
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From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: ""Adams Douglas"" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Date of supernova
Message-ID: <960323012731_100716.75_EHU62-1@CompuServe.COM>
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>July 4th, 1054. Chinese astronomers noted it and so did several Native
>American cultures.

Would you (or anyone else here) happen to know if any of the Native 
Americans (particularly Meso-American) recorded the date in any 
of their calendrical systems?

And is that July 4th, 1054, Gregorian or Julian?


From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 22 21:07 EST 1996
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Date: 23 Mar 96 01:53 GMT
From: JPORTER@AppleLink.Apple.COM (Porter, Julie)
Subject: Web presence
To: VOYNICH@RAND.ORG
Message-Id: <827546331.4650710@AppleLink.Apple.COM>
Status: OR

 
I now have a presence on the web, you can find me at
 
http://www.webo.com/jporter
 
no voynich stuff yet, lots of pictures though.
 
 


From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 22 21:12 EST 1996
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Date: 23 Mar 96 01:59 GMT
From: JPORTER@AppleLink.Apple.COM (Porter, Julie)
Subject: Clocks, Calendars and Voynich
To: VOYNICH@RAND.ORG
Message-Id: <827546372.7289114@AppleLink.Apple.COM>
Status: OR

 
 


From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 22 21:27 EST 1996
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From: JPORTER@AppleLink.Apple.COM (Porter, Julie)
Subject: Clocks, Calendars and Voynich
To: VOYNICH@RAND.ORG
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Status: OR

I fianally recieved a copy of D'Impiero. In it she mentions that there is
something that resembles a clock on one of the folios, My primary interest
beeing Horology, I am as familure as anyone on 16th century clocks, one of my
friends even has one. By Elizabeth I reign clocks were as common as internet
connections are now, In other words If you were someone and you wanted to do
buisness, you could obtain one, Prior to Henry VIII, they were somewhat rare, I
have much research (magazine,books) on the provinence of some 14th century
horology.
I am also familure with calendars, Gregorian, Julian, and the 7900 year cyclic
the other two are based on. This is the egyptian/Greek/Roman one based on
solar, luner, and civil cycles. The solar beeing 28 years, the lunar is the 19
year metonic, the civil beeing a 15 year period known as the indiction, which
was used in roman law.
>From my reseach, these cycles were used during the middle ages to date
something that had to have precise dating. If I rememebr right the Venrable
Bede dated his works this way. This method of dating, as far as I can tell from
surviving documents, would be familure to both Bacon and Dee.
I have yet to get a copy of the VMS itself (oh for a CD). Has anyone seen
anything in the VMS that could relate to one of these cycles 28,19,15? or any
combination therin.
I would also like it if someone could scan and send (privatly) the image of the
clock from the VMS.
-julie P
 


From rand.org!jim Sat Mar 23 07:52:19 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9603230752.AA06188@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Taurus Supernova (was Re: Missing folios)
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Gabriel Landini  writes:

> About the Pleiades, wasn't there a supernova or something similar
> near the year 1050 (?) which was so bright that it could be seen
> during the day? (sorry for my lack of knowledge in star matters :-)

This was indeed discussed (at at least brought forward) here in the last
week or two. I had already discarded the theory in favour of a more
plausible one, but maybe it does no harm to check up on it a bit more.
The mail from  Adams Douglas is a good summary of where we got.

We have a Chinese Space Scientist visiting for a year, and I'm sure he 
knows his astronomy as well. On the off chance that Marco Polo
did indeed get as far as China, I'll try to find out from him what 
the Chinese names involved are. (So far I only know the one for zeta Tauri
which helps nothing). Since these names have possibly changed in the 
last 950 years, this may still not be obvious.

To make this more understandable for those who have not got a copy of 
this picture:

The centre has a moon face and it is surrounded by 8 pie slices. Four are
filled with stars and alternating with them are four slices
which have one star with a label (N.W. slice)
two both with labels (N.E. slices) three all with labels (S.E) and four all
with labels (S.W).
In the picture with one star, there is a shallow S curve connecting the moon
with a group of 7 tiny stars. The curve is labeled (distance indication?) and
the Pleaides (as we may presume they are) are labeled.

- With the Supernova theory there is no explanation for the S-curve, and
  for the other three labeled star groups.
- With the Heliacal rising theory, the moon should have been a Sun (or
  not?), and the four pie segements could represent seasons, but then there
  still is no esplanation for the fact that all ten stars are labeled.
- The S-curve could indicate the moon was seen inside (or very near)
  Pleiades, which happens occasionally but not very often (once per century?)
  
To speculate is so easy...


Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Sat Mar 23 02:54:19 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: Date of supernova
To: 100716.75@compuserve.com (Peter Meyer)
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 02:54:19 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <960323012731_100716.75_EHU62-1@CompuServe.COM> from "Peter Meyer" at Mar 22, 96 08:27:31 pm
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> >July 4th, 1054. Chinese astronomers noted it and so did several Native
> >American cultures.
> 
> Would you (or anyone else here) happen to know if any of the Native 
> Americans (particularly Meso-American) recorded the date in any 
> of their calendrical systems?

Not to my knowledge. We are aware of several tribes of Southwestern N.
America witnessing the event due to the sudden appearance of crescent Moon
and star motifs in their art of the period. 

> And is that July 4th, 1054, Gregorian or Julian?

Gregorian. The Chinese did not use either, so the date they report is
nominally converted to the current system.

-Adams


From rand.org!jim Sat Mar 23 06:30:59 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: Taurus Supernova (was Re: Missing folios)
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 06:30:59 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
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In-Reply-To: <9603230752.AA06188@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Mar 23, 96 07:52:19 am
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> - With the Heliacal rising theory, the moon should have been a Sun (or
>   not?), and the four pie segements could represent seasons, but then there
>   still is no esplanation for the fact that all ten stars are labeled.

Unless they are marker stars, such as Sirius, whose helaical rising signals
the start of different seasons.

> - The S-curve could indicate the moon was seen inside (or very near)
>   Pleiades, which happens occasionally but not very often (once per century?)

It happens about as often as you would see a solar eclipse from a given
area. Since the Pleiades are a bigger blotch than the Sun, you can fudge a
bit more what counts as an occultation. The Moon will just cover the five
brightest stars of the group in the right position. If it happens once,
it's likely to happen twice during two adjacent lunar months. Such a time
was in early and late January, 1300.

> To speculate is so easy...

Yup, fun too. :)
-Adams

> 


From rand.org!jim Mon Mar 25 15:09 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich leaves missing?
Status: OR

About the mystery of the missing folios (that is, folios reported missing
by Kraus but not by Newbold) that Rene brought up.  I assume that Newbold
made a mistake.  Newbold might not have examined the VMS itself very carefully,
and might not have been supplied with a complete photocopy.

Rene asked:

> In a letter to Jim Gillogly, Mary D'Imperio mentions that she noticed
> when visiting the Beincecke that more than the originally 8 folios
> were missing, but she mentions only some stubs between pages that
> show no gap in the numbering.
> Does this mean that D'Imperio's copy (derived from Petersen's 1931
> copy) still had ff.59-64? Does anyone have copies derived from these?

The photocopy D'Imperio used is almost certainly derived from the copy in
the Friedman collection; that copy is probably derived from Petersen's;
it lacks ff.59-64.  Currier compiled a checklist somewhat analogous to 
mine; his lacks ff.59-64, as does Petersen's hand written copy of the VMS.

> Does this then mean they went missing between 1912 and 1931?
> How do we know only 8 were missing in 1912?

The "8 missing" figure dates only to 1928, with Newbold's book.

> On a more speculative nature, I find it interesting that the original
> missing 8 are divided over all sections. f12 (cut) from the herbal,
> f74 (probably cut) from the astrological, 91/92 and 97/98 from the 
> pharma/herbal section (one each?) and 109/110 form the recipes.
> Only the biological was still complete. Looks almost as if someone
> took a sample....

I agree.  

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Tue Mar 26 07:59:49 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Sunflower and another one
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Dear all,

I know very little about plants and herbs so this should be taken
'for what it's worth'.

1) I would say the Sunflower is for real (the large one on f93r). It
   certainly looks like one to me. 
   
2) One of the prettiest plants is the one on f2v. It has a leave like a 
   waterlilly, but the flower is wrong. In fact this looks EXACTLY like
   another water plant called Nymphoides (Latin). The only thing I have been
   unable to check are the roots. The roots drawn are definitely those
   of a water plant, and the picture also lacks the table-like structure
   above the roots which IMO is used to indicate where plants 'surface'.
   
   In one of our Dutch plant books it is called 'indigenous' but I
   am not sure to which area it is then limited. Western Europe?
   Continental Europe? Does it only mean it ALSO exists in Europe.
   This could be important, and I would invite anyone to check up
   on this plant.
   Anyway, the plant is yellow in real life (at least nowadays :-) )
   but the picture would seem to favour white.
   
Any suggestions?

Cheers, Rene

BTW the Dutch name is 'Watergentiaan'. Gentiaan is what's called 'Enzian'
in German. No idea about English names though. Wonder if this is one
of Holm's identified plants...

From rand.org!jim Tue Mar 26 08:02 EST 1996
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From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: water lillies
Message-ID: <960326125010_100716.75_EHU47-1@CompuServe.COM>
Status: OR

Rene Zandbergen writes:

***
2) One of the prettiest plants is the one on f2v. It has a leave like a 
   waterlilly, but the flower is wrong. In fact this looks EXACTLY like
   another water plant called Nymphoides (Latin). The only thing I have been
   unable to check are the roots. The roots drawn are definitely those
   of a water plant, and the picture also lacks the table-like structure
   above the roots which IMO is used to indicate where plants 'surface'.
   
   In one of our Dutch plant books it is called 'indigenous' but I
   am not sure to which area it is then limited. Western Europe?
   Continental Europe? Does it only mean it ALSO exists in Europe.
   This could be important, and I would invite anyone to check up
   on this plant.
***
Professor Charles Muses has written a paper (which should be here
somewhere, can't find it at present, forget the name) in which he 
suggests that water lilies native to Egypt were used for their
psychoactive properties. 

On this subject Jonathan Ott writes:

"Nymphaea ampla, N. caerulea:  Several publications have alleged
entheogenic effects of water lilies, especially these species ...
While this theory is based on analyses of Egyptian and Mayan art,
'upon interpretation rather than sound scientific evidence' (Emboden), 
Diaz reported that Mexican indigenous residents of Chiapas
knew of psychoactive properties of N. ampla.  ...  Acceptance of
these plants as entheogens awaits chemical or pharmacological
proof.  Recently it was proposed that N. ampla, as quetzalxochiatl,
was an inebriant used by the Ancient Aztecs.  ...  Nymphaea species
were reported as ingredients in one recipe for witches' "flying
ointments".  ---  "Pharmacotheon", pp.424-425.

So, with the sunflower, we may have now two plants in the ms with 
known connections to the Aztecs.  The Aztecs also thought
highly of morning glories, whose seeds (which are psychoactive)
they called "ololiuhqui".  Ott writes:

"The plant was illustrated in the Florentine Codex of Sahagun, and
was unmistakably a member of the Convolvulaceae, the bindweed
or morning glory family ...  Sahagun described use of ololiuhqui seeds
in rituals and in phytotherapy ..."

Any evidence that the morning glory plant is pictured in the ms?



From rand.org!jim Tue Mar 26 14:09:41 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Dear all,

I wrote:

>    .................................... It has a leave like a 
>    waterlilly, but the flower is wrong. In fact this looks EXACTLY like
>    another water plant called Nymphoides (Latin). 

and Peter Meyer:

> Professor Charles Muses has written a paper (which should be here
> somewhere, can't find it at present, forget the name) in which he 
> suggests that water lilies native to Egypt were used for their
> psychoactive properties. 
> 
> On this subject Jonathan Ott writes:
> 
> "Nymphaea ampla, N. caerulea:  Several publications have alleged....

Now be careful:
Nymphaea is a water lilly, but Nymphoides isn't. It could well be though
that it has some of the same pharmaceutical properties but this is
pure speculation on my part.

So:

>So, with the sunflower, we may have now two plants in the ms with 
>known connections to the Aztecs. 

Not yet, I'm afraid ...

Anyway, for me it's back to astronomics....

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Wed Mar 27 14:20:22 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9603271420.AA15856@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
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Jacques Guy wrote (quite some time ago :-) )

> In Joyce Whalley's "The Art of Calligraphy -- Western Europe and America" (Bloomsbury
> Books, London 1980) there is p.79 a full-page reproduction out of a medieval manuscript
> the writing of which strikingly resembles that of the "key" on the last page of the
> Voynich. It is German, ca 1460, written in Latin and treats of things botanical. Trees,
> on this page. There is a letter that looks a bit like Voynich 8 and what most authors
> read as "s" in the "key". But that letter stands for "d". Final "s", on the other hand,
> looks like a Greek beta, of the modern German double s. The last word of line 7, in the
> left hand column, is "valde" ("strongly, very"). Its five letters are identical to the
> first five letters of the six-letter word that Newbold and others read "valst" or "valsch"
> or whatever.

In fact, yesterday I had the opportunity to browse through a book by Fritz Saxl about
astronomical and astrological images in medieval manuscripts (see D'Imperio's 
bibliography). One codex of which two folios were depicted, (called Palat. Lat. 1369),
had exactly the same characteristics except that it was written in German. The style of
writing matched exactly that of the 'Michiton' text. 'D' was written as '8' like
Jacques mentioned above. The word 'so' appeared exactly like in our VMs. Also, the
word 'Venus' was written Ven9. The Ms. was dated as ~1440 and originates from
Germany. I don't know if from the Palatinate (Pfalz) proper, but it seems to be one 
of the Mss. 'rescued' from the (protestant) Heidelberg library in 1623.

Two more gems:
1)this section of the Ms had pictures of the constellations, in circles. A certain
similarity with the ones in the VMs was there. Libra, Virgo, Taurus I particularly
remember. Virgo and Taurus were mirror images of ours (and better drawn :-)). Virgo
holds a flower, not a star. If the analogy holds true, I can guess what Aquarius
used to look like in the VMs!
2)there were pictures from other Mss with the planets orbiting the Sun. These planets
were drawn exactly like some of the moons in the VMs (3 quarter phase with a slightly
sad expression). They were all looking left (in the VMs mostly right). So, our 'moons'
could be planets as well. (The moon was in fact one of these planets!!)

Enough material for further speculation here.

I will go back to this book when I'll have more time (Easter). It also said 
photographs exist of most of the folios of this Ms. I'll try to track that down.
    
Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Wed Mar 27 10:33:18 0800 1996
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From: Brian Smith <briansm@MICROSOFT.com>
To: "'Peter Meyer'" <100716.75@compuserve.com>
Cc: "'voynich@rand.org'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: water lillies
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If some old notes of mine are correct, Tiltman (1967) identifies 56r as
Convolvulus/bindweed.  But I wouldn't get too excited by that, I believe
the plant is quite common in European herbals as well.  Also, although
the flowers shown on 56r are a bit trumpet-like, the leaves don't look
like any Morning Glory I have ever seen (which isn't saying much).

The appropriate disclaimers having been expressed, I would certainly
encourage you to try to match the plants (and their labels) in the VMS
to those in the Aztec codex you mention.  A European's attempt to
transcribe and adapt a meso-american codex has always been one of my
top-10 pet theories for the VMS.
>----------
>From: 	Peter Meyer[SMTP:100716.75@compuserve.com]
>Sent: 	Tuesday, March 26, 1996 4:50 AM
>To: 	Voynich List
>Subject: 	water lillies
>
>"The plant was illustrated in the Florentine Codex of Sahagun, and
>was unmistakably a member of the Convolvulaceae, the bindweed
>or morning glory family ...  Sahagun described use of ololiuhqui seeds
>in rituals and in phytotherapy ..."
>
>Any evidence that the morning glory plant is pictured in the ms?
>
>
>

From rand.org!jim Wed Mar 27 11:38:05 0800 1996
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From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
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In-Reply-To: <c=US%a=_%p=msft%l=RED-68-MSG-960327183318Z-25477@red-06-imc.itg.microsoft.com> from "Brian Smith" at Mar 27, 96 10:33:18 am
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> A European's attempt to
> transcribe and adapt a meso-american codex has always been one of my
> top-10 pet theories for the VMS.

Now _that's_ an interesting idea. Does anyone have access to (or know of
online) some sort of textual encoding of an Aztec codex? It would be
interesting to see what the "letter" frequencies of the glyphs are and how
that compares to the low-entropy stats of the VMs.

-Adams



From rand.org!jim Thu Mar 28 08:42 EST 1996
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Date: 28 Mar 1996 08:29:53 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet- Sequence of 28, 15..
To: "voynich" <voynich@rand.org>
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To Julie Porter, somewhere on the net :-) (I lost your email address!)

Dear Julie,

I just re-read the latest messages from the vms group...
And I came upon your text, and yes indeed I have
seen such numbers...

On folios 70 and following, there are 12 circles, one 
for each zodiacal sign... I beleive it tells the life
story of someone over 298 months...

Here are a table of the circles. Each circle has two
or three inner ring on which are drawn litle woman
(nymph ?), either horizontal in a tube(H), vertical in
a tube(V) of upright on two legs(default). Further, some
have a star on the right(default) and some on the left(L).

Zodiac       ring 1       ring 2       ring 3      Sum
--------|---------|---------|---------|---------
Pisces       9 (8L)          19           0         28 (9H)(19V)
Aries        5 (3L)          10           0         15 (V)
?Taurus    5                 10           0         15 (V)
?Sagitta.   5                 10           0         15 (V)
?Caprico.  5                 10           0         15 (5V)
Gemini      9                  16          5         30 
Cancer      7                 11 (1L)   12        30 
Leo           12               18           0         30 
Virgo        12               18           0         30 
Libra        10                20          0         30 
Scorpius   10               16           4         30 
?Aquarius 10              16            4         30 
-------------------------------------------------
                                                            298 (months ?)

The '?' indicates the the zodiac sign may not be 
acurates, the others are recognizable by the
drawing at the center of the ring.
(forgive the alignement, I have to pass true a Mac and
quickmail to reach the net... :-()

Does these sequences have any special meaning to you?



From rand.org!jim Thu Mar 28 15:13:34 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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In previous communications:

> > A European's attempt to
> > transcribe and adapt a meso-american codex has always been one of my
> > top-10 pet theories for the VMS.
> 
> Now _that's_ an interesting idea. Does anyone have access to (or know of
> online) some sort of textual encoding of an Aztec codex? It would be
> interesting to see what the "letter" frequencies of the glyphs are and how
> that compares to the low-entropy stats of the VMs.
> 
> -Adams

A few things were said about this (indeed intriguing) theory in the past
(see the mail archive). 
It also ties in with the discussion of pre- or post-columbian origin of the
VMs. I hate to discard the opinion of experts who recognise a style of 
around 1460-1470, yet that Sunflower...

Then again, even if the text is of Aztec origin, the drawings are not,
but whether they belong together is another discussion that is nowhere 
near any conclusion. I would say a theory that explains the presence of the
drawings is preferable to one that doesn't. I won't define 'explain' though :-)

The theory of an attempted rendering of a strange script could explain 
many (most?) of the statistical peculiarities of the Voynich language(s).
Pre-columbian candidates are the oriental scripts (not just Chinese I suppose),
Hieroglyphics, perhaps one of the languages in cuneiform script (when were
they first discovered or became of interest to the scientific community?), or even
Arabic (known or unknown by the copier). I know the Voynich language cannot
be 'properly transcribed' Arabic but it could be 'strangely transcribed'.
The problem of the non-matching pictures remains in each case though.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Thu Mar 28 10:11:26 MST 1996
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Status: OR

If I understand my history right, there's not much left in the way of
texts from the Aztecs, Mayans, etc. If so, then a meso-American origin
of the Voynich manuscript would make studying it suddenly a whole lot
more important. Anyone want to guess a likelihood on this?

>The theory of an attempted rendering of a strange script could explain 
>many (most?) of the statistical peculiarities of the Voynich language(s).

Yes and no. I don't think anyone has suggested that the Voynich is not
fundamentally alphabetic. If so, then I don't see how it could be a
transcription of a pictographic or hieroglyphic language. A
translation, maybe, but not a transcription.

From rand.org!jim Thu Mar 28 14:06:01 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: more on "michi ton..."
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 14:06:01 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9603271420.AA15856@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Mar 27, 96 02:20:22 pm
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> 
> 1)this section of the Ms had pictures of the constellations, in circles.
> A certain similarity with the ones in the VMs was there. Libra, Virgo,
> Taurus I particularly remember. Virgo and Taurus were mirror images of
> ours (and better drawn :-)). Virgo holds a flower, not a star. If the
> analogy holds true, I can guess what Aquarius used to look like in the
> VMs!

I think the star she is holding is Spica, that's the brightest star and is
usually her head or a sceptre the way the constellation was usually drawn
in old texts. (nowadays, it's her *ahem* derriere :) ).

It's always good to check the older books for their representation of the
constellations against their actual stars. Today's modern constellation
lines are based on designs by artist H.A. Rey (yes, the one who wrote
the "Curious George" books) as an attempt to make the patterns more
representational through a connect-the-dots strategy. But most bear no
resemblance to the traditional patterns in term of which star was
associated with a particular part of the imaginary figure.

Sounds like a good text to examine. Keep us posted.

-Adams

From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 29 15:46:11 +1100 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9603290446.AA25922@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: water lillies
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 15:46:11 +1100 (EST)
Action: t
In-Reply-To: <9603281513.AA24405@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Mar 28, 96 03:13:34 pm
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> It also ties in with the discussion of pre- or post-columbian origin of the
> VMs. I hate to discard the opinion of experts who recognise a style of 
> around 1460-1470, yet that Sunflower...

Hello, I'm back!

No, we should not let ourselves be hypnotized by that pre/post-Colombus
dichotomy. America was discovered long before Columbus, perhaps even
in pre-Viking times: tobacco was discovered in Ramses II's mummy.
No, that is *not* urban folklore. I will dig out the references if
you insist (the first mention of it I remember was in Science et
Avenir perhaps 20 or 30 years ago. Science et Avenir is a sort of
French equivalent of Scientific American). 

> The theory of an attempted rendering of a strange script could explain 
> many (most?) of the statistical peculiarities of the Voynich language(s).
> Pre-columbian candidates are the oriental scripts (not just Chinese I suppose),
> Hieroglyphics, perhaps one of the languages in cuneiform script (when were
> they first discovered or became of interest to the scientific community?), or even
> Arabic (known or unknown by the copier). I know the Voynich language cannot
> be 'properly transcribed' Arabic but it could be 'strangely transcribed'.
> The problem of the non-matching pictures remains in each case though.

I just read those posts on Michi Ton. I had completely forgotten having
written about Voynich 8 being d in some manuscripts. Let us suppose that
it *is* a real d, and that Frogguy ct, which look like Beneventan,
Visigothic (and others) t *is* t, and so on.. that Frogguy iv and iiv
are what they look like, i.e. n and m respectively, and that those
letters which look like nothing known are really like that because
they represent nothing known in our alphabets (tones? glottal stop?
clicks? what did I say??? Clicks?! why not...). Oh, I don't know 
where that leads us. Perhaps there is no cypher there, not even a
distinct alphabet, but only an extension, and adaptation, of the
alphabet of the time to accomodate the language. Now, it that is
so, 9, which represents "us" finally in medevial manuscripts might
represent a common ending in that language, as common as "us" in
Latin, perhaps even with a similar meaning, but pronounced quite
differently.

Enough airing of half-baked thoughts... Good-bye the noo.

j.guy@trl.oz.au


From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 29 09:07 EST 1996
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Date: 29 Mar 96 08:48:52 EST
From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Pre-Columbian contact with America
Message-ID: <960329134851_100716.75_EHU117-1@CompuServe.COM>
Status: OR

Jacques Guy (welcome back, Jacques) writes:

>America was discovered long before Columbus, perhaps even
>in pre-Viking times: tobacco was discovered in Ramses II's mummy.

Also cocaine and hashish.  There was an article in the German magazine
"Geo" some years back about this, but I've lost the reference.

On the topic of pre-Columbian contact between Europe and America see
the scientifically respectable "Sailing to Paradise: the Discovery of the 
Americas by 7000 B.C." by Jim Bailey (1994, Simon & Schuster).  
Also Zecharia Sitchin: "The Lost Realms", which, like Bailey but from 
a less orthodox perspective, deals with the alleged supply to Europe 
of tin and copper mined at Tiahuanaco in present-day Bolivia.  I suppose
they could also have shipped coca leaves with the tin, which might
explain the condition of Ramses II's mummy.

I'm not aware of any pre-Columbian American culture that had a written
alphabetic script (I think the surviving pre-Columbian codices are all
in glyphs - the linguists will correct me if I am mistaken).  So, as has been
remarked earlier, the VMS as a transliteration from such a codex seems
unlikely, and if the contents of such were translated by an Aztec priest 
and recorded in another language that language would most likely
have been Spanish or Latin (assuming the writer was European),
unless perhaps the MS was brought to Europe with a native
interpreter (in which case he might have explained it to anyone in
Europe who learned of his existence and asked him about it).

If the contents were so sensitive that they had to be enciphered 
(and what reason could there be for this?), one of the pre-19th-C. 
ciphers would presumably have been used, and this possibility
seems to have been eliminated by the work of D'Imperio and others.


From rand.org!jim Fri Mar 29 15:27:18 0800 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
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Subject: Re: Pre-Columbian contact with America
To: 100716.75@compuserve.com (Peter Meyer)
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 15:27:18 -0800 (PST)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <960329134851_100716.75_EHU117-1@CompuServe.COM> from "Peter Meyer" at Mar 29, 96 08:48:52 am
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Peter Meyer writes:
> If the contents were so sensitive that they had to be enciphered
> (and what reason could there be for this?), one of the pre-19th-C.
> ciphers would presumably have been used, and this possibility
> seems to have been eliminated by the work of D'Imperio and others.
Any "manual" in the black arts is sensitive enough to be enchiphered.
I think that only the simplest pre-19th-C ciphers have been eliminated,
and some rather simple ones (such as using only every second character
of every third word, that sort of thing) have never been conclusively
eliminated.

Andras Kornai

From rand.org!jim Sat Mar 30 04:16:04 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: Pre-Columbian contact with America
To: kornai@almaden.ibm.com (Andras Kornai)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 04:16:04 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: 100716.75@compuserve.com, voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9603292327.AA19093@sun.almaden.ibm.com> from "Andras Kornai" at Mar 29, 96 03:27:18 pm
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> Any "manual" in the black arts is sensitive enough to be enchiphered.
> I think that only the simplest pre-19th-C ciphers have been eliminated,
> and some rather simple ones (such as using only every second character
> of every third word, that sort of thing) have never been conclusively
> eliminated.

Someday when the VMs is cracked, future cryptographers may look through the
archives of this list and undoubtedly say in many places "See? Someone
thought of the right answer here, and everyone said they were wrong!"
Bearing that in mind, I venture two observations on the above:

	- Codes that embed the plaintext in another, longer text by
	skipping letters and words (does this still count as
	"steganography"?) usually do so by making the masking text
	something intelligible. This would be further enhanced by
	enciphering the masking text, making the attacker think they had
	finished the cryptoanalytic process when in fact they had only
	deciphered the masking text. 

	- The statistics of the VMs seem to indicate the entire body of
	the text says _something_, instead of only a tiny fraction of it
	(your example). Also, the flow of the writing shows it's not
	some kind of transposition cipher, but a sequence of ideas
	written in sequential fashion in some sort of shorthand or
	abbreviated notational scheme. If a scribe just wrote random
	letters and spaces and inserted plantext letters while counting
	them off, there would be quite a different statistical pattern.

	Conclusion: There may indeed be something encoded in the VMs by
	methods you describe. Even so, I venture to say that the rest of it
	also says something. Even if the body of the text is just a
	transcription of "Lord Baltimore's Spas of Europe" translated into
	Coptic and written in Latin shorthand, it still would be useful to
	uncover that level of information so one could then search for deeper
	encodings.

Fortunately, such simple schemes are pretty easy to look for using machine
methods. As with automatic cracking of monoalphabetic substitution ciphers,
you can just cycle through the possibilities fast and do a check of the
statistics of the new text each time. Usually the correct solution, if
there is one, will jump out at you. Anyone want to try it with one of the
files?

- Adams Douglas


From rand.org!jim Sat Mar 30 08:12 EST 1996
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From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: VMS as cipher
Message-ID: <960330130041_100716.75_EHU103-1@CompuServe.COM>
Status: OR

 "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com> writes:

	- Codes that embed the plaintext in another, longer text by
	skipping letters and words (does this still count as
	"steganography"?) usually do so by making the masking text
	something intelligible. This would be further enhanced by
	enciphering the masking text, making the attacker think they had
	finished the cryptoanalytic process when in fact they had only
	deciphered the masking text. 

Assuming that the VMS was intended to be a repository of information
(and not a hoax) and that it is pre-19th-C in origin, we should not overlook
the fact that its users (assuming them to be human) did not have computers.  
If it contains information then (unless the text is in some natural language)
the method of concealment must have been such as to allow recovery of 
the information either mentally or with pen and paper (or quill and parchment).
Therefore it cannot have been particularly complicated.

>Fortunately, such simple schemes are pretty easy to look for using machine
>methods. As with automatic cracking of monoalphabetic substitution ciphers,
>you can just cycle through the possibilities fast and do a check of the
>statistics of the new text each time. 

> - Adams Douglas

Did Friedman et al. apply such methods?  What cryptanalytical methods
did they try?  Did they say, well, we've tried everything we know, or did
they say, well, we tried a few things but there's still lots that could be done?

As for an attempt at automatic cracking of the VMS assuming it uses a 
monoalphabetic substitution cipher (which I take it is a one-to-one function
from some natural language alphabet to the Voynich alphabet  (is this alphabet 
well-defined?)), if this were the case wouldn't a frequency analysis
reveal a distribution of Voynich letters which was similar to that of natural 
languages?  And isn't it the case that the VMS distribution is not like this?


From rand.org!jim Sat Mar 30 16:03:00 0500 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: Pre-Columbian contact with America
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 16:03:00 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <m0u2zZc-0000QvC@crash.cts.com> from "Adams Douglas" at Mar 30, 96 04:16:04 am
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Recently, Adams Douglas wrote:
> 	- The statistics of the VMs seem to indicate the entire body of
> 	the text says _something_, instead of only a tiny fraction of it
> 	(your example). Also, the flow of the writing shows it's not
> 	some kind of transposition cipher, but a sequence of ideas
> 	written in sequential fashion in some sort of shorthand or
> 	abbreviated notational scheme. If a scribe just wrote random
> 	letters and spaces and inserted plantext letters while counting
> 	them off, there would be quite a different statistical pattern.
> 
>       [text deleted]
>
> Fortunately, such simple schemes are pretty easy to look for using machine
> methods. As with automatic cracking of monoalphabetic substitution ciphers,
> you can just cycle through the possibilities fast and do a check of the
> statistics of the new text each time. Usually the correct solution, if
> there is one, will jump out at you. Anyone want to try it with one of the
> files?

If the VM is encrypted with some such simple system, e.g inserted nulls or
every n-th character, it seems to me that the existence of two "hands"
(writing styles) could be a powerful tool to crack the scheme.

Here's what I mean:

The VM appears to be written in two (or maybe more) different hand-writings
("hands"), one nicely formed (call it "hand A") and one kind of "crabbed"
("hand B").  Every page is written in one or the other hand (both sides of
the sheet), but no page contains both. Long sequences of pages are written
in the same hand, but at some points the hands alternate every few pages.
Considering this, and the fact that there don't seem to be any "mistakes"
(crossed out letters etc.), I envision something like this:

Two scribes take individual pages from a plaintext version of the VM and
encipher them by applying some system simple enough that they can do so on
the fly - no anagramming, numerology, etc. - something simple like
"translate into the secret alphabet and throw in some nulls, etc.".

Each scribe grabs a few pages, then goes back for more when he finishes. If
one scribe goes out for a smoke, you get a long run of pages in the same
hand, while if they're both hard at work the hand alternates every few
pages.

If you analyze the text by A and B hand, however, you find that the word
frequencies, letter frequencies, average word lengths, etc. are different.
If the underlying text is homogeneous, say Medieval Latin prose, then the
differences should be due to something the scribes are doing differently,
some leeway in the rules which they are performing differently.

For example, if the rule says "throw in characters X, Y, Z as nulls
wherever you want", one scribe could always use X and the other always Z,
giving different frequencies even though the encoding scheme is the same.

If these assumptions are valid, then we need to look for something which
makes the hand A and hand B texts look similar.  For example, if the scheme
involves nulls, then removing the nulls should make the text statistics
the same for both hands. In other words, if deleting characters X, Y, Z ...
makes the remaining texts similar, these letters look like good candidates
for being nulls (assuming nulls are being used at all).

I have done a few tests of this idea and find, for example, that deleting
the characters 4O89 make the two hands look much more similar as far as
relative letter frequencies and word length frequencies are concerned. (The
fact that all of these look like numbers makes the observation even more
interesting).

(However there are problems with this, for example, some words are made up
entirely of these "nulls".)

Even if the encoding scheme is something more complex, it seems like it 
should be possible to generalize this idea.

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Sun Mar 31 03:45:31 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: VMS as cipher 
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 03:45:31 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
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Forwarded message:
>From almaden.ibm.com!kornai Sat Mar 30 22:07:18 1996
From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9603310607.AA15328@sun.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: VMS as cipher
To: adamsd@cts.com (Adams Douglas)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 22:07:06 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <m0u2zZc-0000QvC@crash.cts.com> from "Adams Douglas" at Mar 30, 96 04:16:04 am
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> Someday when the VMs is cracked, future cryptographers may look through the
> archives of this list and undoubtedly say in many places "See? Someone
> thought of the right answer here, and everyone said they were wrong!"
Quite posssible -- a lot of ideas (and their opposites) were tossed about.

>       - The statistics of the VMs seem to indicate the entire body of
>       the text says _something_, instead of only a tiny fraction of it
>       (your example).
Maybe I'm missing something here, but what kind of statistics you have in
mind?  Take a simple insertion scheme, where you insert 1 4 7 2 3 and 5
letters so that abcdefg becomes axbxxxxcxxxxxxxdxxexxxfxxxxxg (of course you
would use random letters in place of the x). This is not too hard to write or
to decode, in fact you can train yourself to do something like this in half an
hour, no computers (or even scrap paper) required. The number of such schemes
is large, even by today's standards (we are talking about some 20^12 possible
sequences, if we consider that gaps longer than 20 are unlikely and a sequence
with more than 20 members would be hard to memorize). I'm sure the simplest
things (every second letter, every third, 2-3,1-2-3, that sort of things) have
been tried, but if the ms.  is written in, say, 14th century-quality
transliteration of Arabic, the fact that we hit on the right sequence will not
be obvious at first sight, so it's not just a matter of programming a big
computer and let her rip.

>       Also, the flow of the writing shows it's not
>       some kind of transposition cipher, but a sequence of ideas
>       written in sequential fashion in some sort of shorthand or
>       abbreviated notational scheme. If a scribe just wrote random
>       letters and spaces and inserted plantext letters while counting
>       them off, there would be quite a different statistical pattern.
Again I have no idea what kind of statistics you have in mind.

>       Conclusion: There may indeed be something encoded in the VMs by
>       methods you describe. Even so, I venture to say that the rest of it
>       also says something. Even if the body of the text is just a
>       transcription of "Lord Baltimore's Spas of Europe" translated into
>       Coptic and written in Latin shorthand, it still would be useful to
>       uncover that level of information so one could then search for deeper
>       encodings.
The fact that there are short pieces of free-standing text (figure captions)
rules out very complex filler patterns, so 20^12 is probably off by several
orders of magnitude. But still, there is a considerable number of simple
schemes with, say, 1/3 content and 2/3 "filler" material, and I see no reason
to believe all these (or even a coherent class of these) have been ruled out
by statistical considerations.

> Fortunately, such simple schemes are pretty easy to look for using machine
> methods. As with automatic cracking of monoalphabetic substitution ciphers,
> you can just cycle through the possibilities fast and do a check of the
> statistics of the new text each time. Usually the correct solution, if
> there is one, will jump out at you. Anyone want to try it with one of the
> files?
Like I said above, only a few things would jump out, e.g. if the plaintext
was clean Latin. If it was Aramic, with the occasional comment in Middle
German, this would be a pain to recognize.

Andras Kornai



From rand.org!jim Sun Mar 31 14:07:45 0800 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9603312207.AA14642@sun.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: VMS as cipher
To: adamsd@cts.com (Adams Douglas)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 14:07:45 -0800 (PST)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <m0u3M1u-0000ORC@crash.cts.com> from "Adams Douglas" at Mar 31, 96 04:14:46 am
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Adams Douglas writes:
>
> > Maybe I'm missing something here, but what kind of statistics you have in
> > mind?  Take a simple insertion scheme, where you insert 1 4 7 2 3 and 5
> > letters so that abcdefg becomes axbxxxxcxxxxxxxdxxexxxfxxxxxg (of course you
> > would use random letters in place of the x). This is not too hard to write or
>             ^^^^^^
> That's what I mean. If you use random letters for masking text, the
> letter-frequency counts and letter sequence matrix will be evenly
> distributed. This is not the case with the VMs text. Certain characters
> tend to follow certain others more often than not and characters tend to
> group in certain ways. D'Imperio has a good example of the former on page
> 108.
"Random" and "drawn from a uniform distribution" are not the same. Or
perhaps they are, in which case I'd rather change my terminology than get
drawn into a terminological argument. Let's say that you follow an insertion
scheme such as the one described above, with a coin toss determining whether
it is the previous character you use as filler or the one before that. I
would consider this a "random" rule of generating filler material, since it
depends on a coin toss, as opposed to the "deterministic" scheme of inserting
1 4 7 2 3 and 5 fillers, always this many, and always in this order. As a
moment's thought will show, the use of such filler rules will preserve the
frequency distribution of the cleartext, so the even distribution argument
doesn't go through.

More important, such a filler scheme would go a long way toward explaining the
repetitiousness of the Voynich text, which is really its single most
overwhelming characteristic. Needless to say, the coin toss rule described
above is just one of the many similar rules that one could put in place.  It
should be noted that the real rule need not involve an explicit coin toss,
dice throw, or anything of the sort: the encypherer might simply follow a rule
that says "put in one of the previous four characters, whichever sounds or
looks best to you".

> It helps if you load an Arabic dictionary--or better a long sample of
> arabic from the period. You do that with as many languages as you have
> storage and patience for. You grep each possible solution with each of the
> dictionary files in turn. If you suddenly have a large number of matches,
> you know you're on to something.
I think this is where the real difficulty comes in. Try to put together such a
word list, a realistic one that takes into account the stratum of Arabic this
can come from (Osman influence/transmission), the scribal practices of the
period, transliteration inconsistencies, and suddenly you realize you need
quite deep philological expertise to get off the ground. Or suppose the
manusript is in German (a more likely hypothesis, actually).  Medieval German
was not like it is today -- there was no standard orthography, there were
hundreds of rather different dialects, many of them recorded only very
sketchily. Dude, there was no Duden! (Sorry, couldn't resist it.) At any rate,
the range of languages to be considered is quite something, and each and
every one of them requires lots of hard work.

> The VMs has distinct "words" and some sort of vocabulary. You can count the
> words and show they do not occur at random. Like the letter frequencies,
> the words tend to cluster like in a language.
There are two separate issues here. First, there is no list of "words" that we
can agree on -- if you have a candidate list, please post it, and explain the
reasoning for it. Second, it is a sad fact that the empirical word frequency
distribution of natural languages, "Zipf's Law", is also the word frequency
distribution followed by random (monkeys and typewriters) text.

> This doesn't mean that there may not be null letters or words that the scribe
> could choose from as desired, or that certain letters weren't always
> omitted (U after Q in English, as an example). Those are common
> techniques.
And so are the abbreviation/omission of function words, another trivial
technique that throws dictionary matching off.

> I suspect the best thing to do to augment our existing machine archive is a
> set of dictionaries (just lists of valid words) for as many languages as
> possible. Especially lists generated from documents of 12th-16th Century
> vintage. That way a lot of can start our boxes crunching without digging up
> specialists in many foreign languages.
I think this is worth doing, but less trivial than you assume. Since every
journey starts with a single step, I propose we create such lists, with a
simple ascii orthography admitting only upper- and lowercase latin letters,
plus parenthesized letter-combinations for symbols not in [a-zA-Z]. For
example, "thorn" would be denoted by (thorn) or (th) or (p) or whatever we
settle on, "scharfes s" by (scharf) or (ss) or (f), etc. I can think of
dozens of characters requiring such encoding, even if we restrict ourselves
to languages spoken/written/known in medieval Europe.

Andras Kornai

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 10:23:20 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: Re: VMS as cipher
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 10:23:20 +1000 (EST)
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 > The VMs has distinct "words" and some sort of vocabulary. You can count the
 > words and show they do not occur at random. Like the letter frequencies,
 > the words tend to cluster like in a language.


I hate to be the old wet blanket *again* there, but we do not know
where word breaks occur. Yes, we do, but only if we fall into
the trap of ethnocentrism. 

We must keep in mind the very real possibility that those spaces
between "words" are not word breaks at all, but are spaces conditioned
by the shaped of the previous letter. Take Arabic, for instance.
Words can contain spaces, because some letters can be connected to
the next (e.g. b, t, j, m etc) but some cannot (e.g. d, r, z, alif...)

I have already made this point a long time ago, but I think it
worth repeating here. 

j.guy@trl.oz.au



From rand.org!jim Sun Mar 31 21:28 EST 1996
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Subject: Voynich code breaking
Status: OR


Here are some misc. comments on recent postings by Peter Meyer and
Adams Douglas, in no particular order.

Adams Douglas <adamsd@cts.com> writes:

	- Codes that embed the plaintext in another, longer text by
	skipping letters and words (does this still count as
	"steganography"?) usually do so by making the masking text
	something intelligible. 

Since many of the examples in the first book on steganography were of
the skipping letters & words variety, yes it does count.  But many
of the examples in that book had cover texts which were in fact NOT
intellibible.  The exmaple everyone cites is "Pamersiel Anoyr Madrisel
Ebrasothean Abrulges Itrasbiel Nadres Ormenu Itules Rablon Hamorphiel"
which means nothing an any language but, when one reads every other letter
(excluding the first & last words), yields the concealed text "Nym die
erstern Bugstaben de omne Uerbo".  [No promises about lack of typos in this
example.]

The theoretical possibility of

	enciphering the masking text, making the attacker think they had
	finished the cryptoanalytic process when in fact they had only
	deciphered the masking text. 

is rarely if ever met in practice, because in every age enciphering is
irksome enough to make the user not want to play such games.

Peter Meyer's suggestion 

	If it contains information then (unless the text is in some
	natural language) the method of concealment must have been
	such as to allow recovery of the information either mentally
	or with pen and paper (or quill and parchment).  Therefore it
	cannot have been particularly complicated.

is well taken.  Unfortunately the task of breaking such concealment systems
is made very much harder by our not knowing where the "word breaks" are
or what the character set is.  Some of us think that Currier's S is really
two letters, ct, and his Z is three: c't.  If we cannot even count letters
right, how can we break a letter counting & skipping concealment system?
This makes Douglas's
	
	Fortunately, such simple schemes are pretty easy to look for
	using machine methods. As with automatic cracking of monoalphabetic
	substitution ciphers, you can just cycle through the possibilities
	fast and do a check of the statistics of the new text each time. 

sound pretty naive to me.  On the other hand, what other cryptanalytic
approach is there?   We have to come up with a way to tell the difference
between pure unadulterated gibberish and gibberish with concealed info hidden
in it.  Or hope that a lucky star identification or plant identification will
deliver the goods.

Meyer asks

	Did Friedman et al. apply such methods?  What cryptanalytical
	methods did they try?  Did they say, well, we've tried everything
	we know, or did they say, well, we tried a few things but there's
	still lots that could be done?

Alas, Friedman et al. wrote no formal reports describing what they did
and so on, or at least, none survive in the Friedman papers.  A few work
sheets with single-letter, double letter statistics, etc, survive, both for
portions of the Voynich text and for obvious probable languages (Latin, 
Italian, French, English...), but nothing like a sustained chain of argument
& analysis is in any of them.  What they must have found right away was
that the Voynich "cipher text" was more repetitious, more patterned,
than any plain text they had ever seen.  This is the exact opposite from
usual cryptanalytic experience, where one starts out with completely 
unpatterned random seeming cipher text, and where one often feels insanely
happy to discover even slight deviations from pure randomness.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Sun Mar 31 22:23:51 0500 1996
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From: Karl Kluge <kckluge@eecs.umich.edu>
To: "@proxy.research.att.com":voynich@rand.org
In-reply-to: <199604010234.SAA22664@rand.org> (reeds@research.att.com)
Subject: Re: Voynich code breaking
Status: OR


Jim Reeds said:

> We have to come up with a way to tell the difference between pure
> unadulterated gibberish and gibberish with concealed info hidden in
> it.  Or hope that a lucky star identification or plant
> identification will deliver the goods.

The plant "labels" are generally fairly short, suggesting that they
are not plaintext embedded in a (longer) cover text. They tend to
occur in the running text of the herbal section with something very
close to the frequency that you'd expect from a digraph model of the
herbal text. This suggests to me (and correct me if I'm wrong, those
of you with more cryptanalytic experience) that if there are nulls in
the text of the herbal section, they are not all that common. (It
also, come to think of it, suggests that characters used as nulls
might be identifyable based on differences in the "label" and running
text statistics.)

What fraction of the text would have to be nulls in order to reduce
the entropy to the observed level compared to a monoalphabetic cipher?

Karl

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 09:01:21 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Andras Kornai writes:

> .................Second, it is a sad fact that the empirical word frequency
> distribution of natural languages, "Zipf's Law", is also the word frequency
> distribution followed by random (monkeys and typewriters) text.

This is counter-intuitive, but so are many statistical oddities.
Am I right in thinking that the above comment is related to a remark
I have once read in the mail archive, saying that Mandelbrot has proven
this?

I would be extremely interested in a more detailed description of what exactly
was proven. A reference would be appreciated but an explanation in 'normal
language' even more.

I am sure that Mandelbrot has got his maths right, but I would like to
verify for myself that it is applicable here (sorry to be so skeptical, it
is not that I don't believe you).

Now that I'm at it (asking that is), have I got it right that there are seperate 
Zipf laws for word frequencies and character frequencies? Are these called
the first and second laws?

Thanks for any elucidation,
             Rene


From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 01:45:10 0800 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
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Subject: Re: Zipf's law
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 01:45:10 -0800 (PST)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9604010901.AA21656@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Apr 1, 96 09:01:21 am
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> > .................Second, it is a sad fact that the empirical word frequency
> > distribution of natural languages, "Zipf's Law", is also the word frequency
> > distribution followed by random (monkeys and typewriters) text.
>
> This is counter-intuitive, but so are many statistical oddities.
> Am I right in thinking that the above comment is related to a remark
> I have once read in the mail archive, saying that Mandelbrot has proven
> this?
That remark, together with reference, was posted by me -- here it comes again:
%T On the theory of word frequencies and on related Markovian models of discourssee
%A Benoit Mandelbrot
%P 190-219
%D 1961
%I American Mathematical Society
%B Structure of language and its mathematical aspects
%S Proceedings of symposia in applied mathematics
%V 12

> I would be extremely interested in a more detailed description of what exactly
> was proven. A reference would be appreciated but an explanation in 'normal
> language' even more.
Suppose you generate text by randomly hitting typewriter keys (including
the spacebar). Now define words as those things separated by spaces, and
perform the usual statistics, namely count how many tokens you find
of a given string, and arrange the words in decreasing frequency order.
The plot is approximately linear on a log-log scale -- this is what is
known as Zipf's Law, and it holds for the random text just as well as it
holds for meaningful texts.

> I am sure that Mandelbrot has got his maths right, but I would like to
> verify for myself that it is applicable here (sorry to be so skeptical, it
> is not that I don't believe you).
Be skeptical, by all means! The Mandelbrot paper might be hard to read (though
I would definitely give it a try) but there is a more popular version in
%A Colin Cherry
%D 1957
%T On human communication
%I MIT Press
%C Cambridge
(also later editions).

> Now that I'm at it (asking that is), have I got it right that there are seperate
> Zipf laws for word frequencies and character frequencies? Are these called
> the first and second laws?
I think the two laws are about word frequencies and frequencies as a function
of word length, but I might be wrong here. There is no similar law for
characters: there are only finitely many of these, and they obey no special
law that I know of.

Andras Kornai

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 10:47:58 +0100 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Zipf's laws
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R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad wrote:
> 
> Andras Kornai writes:
> > .................Second, it is a sad fact that the empirical word frequency
> > distribution of natural languages, "Zipf's Law", is also the word frequency
> > distribution followed by random (monkeys and typewriters) text.
> 
> This is counter-intuitive, but so are many statistical oddities.
> Am I right in thinking that the above comment is related to a remark
> I have once read in the mail archive, saying that Mandelbrot has proven
> this?
> 
> I would be extremely interested in a more detailed description of what exactly
> was proven. A reference would be appreciated but an explanation in 'normal
> language' even more.
> 
> I am sure that Mandelbrot has got his maths right, but I would like to
> verify for myself that it is applicable here (sorry to be so skeptical, it
> is not that I don't believe you).
> 
> Now that I'm at it (asking that is), have I got it right that there are seperate
> Zipf laws for word frequencies and character frequencies? Are these called
> the first and second laws?
> 
> Thanks for any elucidation,
>              Rene


Zipf's laws (there are 2) were thought to appear in the frequency of natural
languages. They are a part of a larger family of "inverse power laws"
of distribution of things vs their rankings: Cities populations and number
of cities with those populations, Companies sizes and number of companies
with those sizes, distribution of wealth and many MANY others.
As this power laws appear also in measurement of physical properties at different
scales of fractal (or approximate) fractal objects, this is (I believe) the
interest of Mandelbrot in Zipf's law. But this is only a distribution property
and not really related to any "recursive" generator like in fractal constructions.

Of course that if you have a string of random characters and one of these is assigned the
"word termination" character, the distribution of "words" also follows the 1st
Zipf's law. I got a reference: Li W, Random texts exhibit Zipf's-law-like word
frequency distribution, IEEE Trans Info Thor, 1992 ;38 (6): 1842-1845.
For this you make a list of all the words in your text and find the frequency of
each word, now rank the words by decreasing frequency and assign them a "rank" number.
The plot of the log(frequency) vs. log(rank) should tend to a line of slope =-1.
Don't bother in doing it, yes the VMS follows it (I did it).
Usually this is approximate and for the most frequent words there is a "saturation"
(the plot becomes concave). There is an interesting model for fitting this type
of (asymptotic inverse power law) in : Rigaut J-P. An empirical formulation relating
boundary lengths to resolution in specimens showing "non-ideally fractal" dimensions.
Journal of Microscopy 1984,;133(1):41-54.

Now, the second law which I found that nobody talks about it.
When you rank the words, there are many different words that have the same
frequency (they appear the same number of times).
Now count how many different number of words appear once, twice, 3 times, etc.
plot log(different number of words appearing n times) vs log (n).
This also is an inverse power law.

I am not sure what is the relation of the 1st and 2nd laws.

Still waiting for my VMS "Copyflo"...

cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 02:10:05 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: Zipf's law
To: kornai@almaden.ibm.com (Andras Kornai)
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 02:10:05 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: rzandber@esoc.esa.de, voynich@rand.org
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> > I would be extremely interested in a more detailed description of what exactly
> > was proven. A reference would be appreciated but an explanation in 'normal
> > language' even more.
> Suppose you generate text by randomly hitting typewriter keys (including
> the spacebar). Now define words as those things separated by spaces, and
> perform the usual statistics, namely count how many tokens you find
> of a given string, and arrange the words in decreasing frequency order.
> The plot is approximately linear on a log-log scale -- this is what is
> known as Zipf's Law, and it holds for the random text just as well as it
> holds for meaningful texts.

True, but the digraph matrix will be quite different for random text vs.
intelligible text. As anyone who has ever tried to write a program to
generate pronouncable but random passwords knows, purely random text
doesn't cut it. You have to adhere to at least a small set of deterministic
rules to get the output to "read" reasonably like English. You have to
change the rules to make it sound like other languages. 

Now one of the easiest to do turns out to be Hawiaiian or Maori, with
Japanese close behind. There's the Polynesian group rearing its head
again. The trick always hinges on generating syllables, not letters.

[P.S. I know Japanese is considered Altaic and not Polynesian. But it
has a small number of consonants--fourteen, down there with the nine of
Hawaiian and Aniu.]

- Adams Douglas


From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 02:27:58 0800 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
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Subject: Re: Zipf's law
To: adamsd@cts.com (Adams Douglas)
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 02:27:58 -0800 (PST)
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Adams Douglas writes:
> True, but the digraph matrix will be quite different for random text vs.
> intelligible text. As anyone who has ever tried to write a program to
> generate pronouncable but random passwords knows, purely random text
> doesn't cut it. You have to adhere to at least a small set of deterministic
> rules to get the output to "read" reasonably like English. You have to
> change the rules to make it sound like other languages.
I think your notion of "randomness" requires rethinking. I would consider a
sequence emitted by a first order Markov process with a fixed transition
matrix to be random -- surely it is meaningless, but can have exactly the
digraph matrix prescribed. Similarly for trigraph matrix and second order
models, etc.

The question is, can we leverage the digraph stuff to get at least at
consonants and vowels? So far, my perception is that we don't have anything
like a "pronuncable Voynich" though I agree such a thing would be desirable.
Assuming we have a "roughly phonemic" alphabet, we have three questions
to answer: what are the phonemes, what are the letters or letter-sequences
corresponding to them, and what are the rules of correspondence? If you
have a definite hypothesis on any of these please post it.

Andras Kornai

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 07:22 EST 1996
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From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Zipf's law
Message-ID: <960401121003_100716.75_EHU83-1@CompuServe.COM>
Status: OR

Andras Kornai writes:

>Now define words as those things separated by spaces, and
>perform the usual statistics, namely count how many tokens you find
>of a given string, and arrange the words in decreasing frequency order.
>The plot is approximately linear on a log-log scale -- this is what is
>known as Zipf's Law, and it holds for the random text just as well as it
>holds for meaningful texts.

So is Zipf's law just one of the family of inverse power laws mentioned by 
Gabriel Landini: a curiosity, but of no usefulness to linguists (or to 
cryptanalysts)?


From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 12:25:27 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9604011225.AA24098@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
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Dear all,

Bruce Grant proposed some ideas of exploiting the differences between
the two hands of the VMs to find possible null characters:

> If you analyze the text by A and B hand, however, you find that the word
> frequencies, letter frequencies, average word lengths, etc. are different.
> If the underlying text is homogeneous, say Medieval Latin prose, then the
> differences should be due to something the scribes are doing differently,
> some leeway in the rules which they are performing differently.

To avoid confusion I would suggest we keep referring to A and B as
languages (Currier's term). I think it is a good initiative to try and
quantify the differences between the two, as Bruce goes ahead to try.

> I have done a few tests of this idea and find, for example, that deleting
> the characters 4O89 make the two hands look much more similar as far as
> relative letter frequencies and word length frequencies are concerned. 

Unfortunately this is a rather drastic measure, as these are some of the most
frequent characters. 

What I also find peculiar is the distribution of Voynich words between languages
A and B. With V-words I mean groups of characters between spaces. I leave
open the option that V-words do not represent words in our future translation,
as Jacques has reminded us. With the additional caveat about uncertain spaces,
we have 8AM as the most frequent word, which is high-frequency both in A and B.
Next are SC89 and ZC89 which seem to uniquely occur in B (I would be interested
in any occurence found by anyone on an 'A' page). Another frequent V-word is
4OFAM, again both in A and B. There seem to be only a few words special for B
which do not occur in A, and even less the other way around. These are not signs
of two different languages in the modern sense of the word, but rather dialects
at most, or even just subject-matter occurrences (or different use of coding).

Bruce also recounts the story of how two scribes work together to write
the VMs:

> Each scribe grabs a few pages, then goes back for more when he finishes. If
> one scribe goes out for a smoke, you get a long run of pages in the same
> hand, while if they're both hard at work the hand alternates every few
> pages.

One thing that has been bothering me is that the current ordering of the pages
is so generally accepted. I think it is very well possible that they may have
become mixed up quite a bit. Note how the initial 7 gatherings are all 
'proper': 4 nested bifolios, folio nrs. in upper right corner, gathering nr
in lower right corner on the back. It has been generally accepted that the
folio nrs were written afterwards, so they may already be wrong. The same has been
suggested for the gathering marks, which should predate these but could still
have been written later. A few peculiarities to be noted here are that two or
three gathering marks are in different places (such as on the front of the gathering),
and that the 'introductory text' of the biological section (if that's what it is)
is not at the front of the gathering. Also one biological bifolio has a drawn connection
between the two folios, so it would have made sense if this was the central bifolio.
And there is the odd mixture of herbal and pharmaceutical bifolios further on,
and a few more questions related to how and when the bifolios were cut.

What I am getting at is that there is a possiblity that the two languages are
by the same person, but from different dates (not a novel idea by the way) and
the pages have become mixed with time. He might have misremembered his code,
prefer different nulls, or just adapted to a new dialect. Both the Romance and
Germanic languages allow great variation. Certainly, if it was unbound for a while,
there would be only one person (or a small group) who knew how to arrange them.
At a later date, basically noone. 

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 12:33:08 GMT 1996
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Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 12:33:08 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: voynich@rand.org
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Peter Meyer writes:

> Andras Kornai writes:
> 
> >Now define words as those things separated by spaces, and
> >perform the usual statistics, namely count how many tokens you find
> >of a given string, and arrange the words in decreasing frequency order.
> >The plot is approximately linear on a log-log scale -- this is what is
> >known as Zipf's Law, and it holds for the random text just as well as it
> >holds for meaningful texts.
> 
> So is Zipf's law just one of the family of inverse power laws mentioned by 
> Gabriel Landini: a curiosity, but of no usefulness to linguists (or to 
> cryptanalysts)?

That seems to be the tendency but I am not yet convinced. My personal
gut feeling is that for random texts it is a feature that will set in 
only after a massive amount of characters have been typed, but for 
natural languages it will already show up nicely in smaller texts.

But I may well be wrong and hope to find out soon.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 10:05:48 0500 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Finite Zipf law
Status: OR

Folks

Just a very brief comment about Andras remark concerning
the applicability of Zipf's law to finite sets.  Yes, it
does apply.  Just as the Gaussian distribution is the
continuous (or infinite) limit of the binomial distribution,
so the continuous logarithmic distribution of Zipf is the
limit of the (discrete, finite) negative-binomial distribution.

Character frequencies, for instance, do indeed follow this
distribution.

Yours
Robert

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 11:32 EST 1996
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Date: 01 Apr 96 10:14:46 EST
From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Currier S and Z
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Rene Zandbergen writes:

>What I also find peculiar is the distribution of Voynich words between
languages
>A and B. With V-words I mean groups of characters between spaces. I leave
>open the option that V-words do not represent words in our future translation,
>as Jacques has reminded us. With the additional caveat about uncertain spaces,
>we have 8AM as the most frequent word, which is high-frequency both in A and B.

In A yes, but I think in B it is comparatively infrequent.

>Next are SC89 and ZC89 which seem to uniquely occur in B (I would be interested
>in any occurence found by anyone on an 'A' page).

SC89 occurs at least thrice in A in the words (if words they be): OFSC89-8SOFS8,
SC89-OPOE and 9BSC89-8SCO8AM, but it seems not to occur as a word itself,
as it does in B.

Does Currier S look like Currier Z?  If so I suggest that Currier S is a variant
(a written form of the same letter) of Currier Z.  Before I make any attempt to
prove this, has this hypothesis been put forward before?


From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 10:40 EST 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Subject: Voynich nulls, fraction of.
Status: OR

Karl Kluge asks

>  What fraction of the text would have to be nulls in order to reduce
>  the entropy to the observed level compared to a monoalphabetic cipher?

This depends on the type of nulling text used.  Suppose we have an underlying
text of per-letter entropy h, which we wish to stretch out with nulls.  
Suppose for each letter of underlying text we add, on average, n nulls. 
Suppose the alphabet has a letters.  The the per-letter entropy of the 
new text is

	h' = (h + nz)/(1+n)

where z is the entropy of the nulling text, which can be anywhere between
0 and log(a).  Karl is asking: given h' (which we see in the VMS text)
and given some guess about h (from what we might expect of Latin or
Italian), what values of n and of z are possible?  Let us be brave & not
worry about the fact that we have 1 equation and 2 unknowns.

Now here is my horrid confession:  I forget the value of h'.  In part because
there is no reliable way to estimate h' accurately from such a small sample
of data.  [A few years ago Guy and I had an intense argument on this subject;
I was in the right.]  

But let's assume h' is 1/2 the value we expect for h.  Then what values of
n and z are consistent with this?  Well, (n,z)=(1,0) is, as is (infinity,h').
I suppose you can pick any value of n greater than 1 and work out what z
must be; it will turn out to obey 0 < z < h'.  But values of n<1 are 
impossible.

Now lets assume h' is equal to h.  Then we see that (1+n)h = (h+nz) and
hence h = z, so no constraint is placed on n at all.

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 07:51:46 0800 1996
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Subject: Re: Zipf's law
To: kornai@almaden.ibm.com (Andras Kornai)
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 07:51:46 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9604011028.AA17934@sun.almaden.ibm.com> from "Andras Kornai" at Apr 1, 96 02:27:58 am
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> I think your notion of "randomness" requires rethinking. I would consider a
> sequence emitted by a first order Markov process with a fixed transition
> matrix to be random 

I would call it "probabilistically generated". When I use "random" I only
mean a uniform distribution. If there's a rule or filter that causes it to
deviate from pure white noise then I don't use the word. Yes, this goes for
a normal Gaussian distribution in my book, as well.

> -- surely it is meaningless, but can have exactly the
> digraph matrix prescribed. Similarly for trigraph matrix and second order
> models, etc.

Yup, but I don't think anyone in the Voynich era did anything like that. Do
you?

> The question is, can we leverage the digraph stuff to get at least at
> consonants and vowels? So far, my perception is that we don't have anything
> like a "pronuncable Voynich" though I agree such a thing would be desirable.
> Assuming we have a "roughly phonemic" alphabet, we have three questions
> to answer: what are the phonemes, what are the letters or letter-sequences
> corresponding to them, and what are the rules of correspondence? If you
> have a definite hypothesis on any of these please post it.

Wasn't there an analysis done which at least identified 'C' (Currier
notation) as a vowel? I'm not at my archive machine--anyone?

What we really need is a good Markov map of the existing text, "spaces"
included. This can indeed be broken into A and B languages. 

Personally I think it would be useful to do a separate analysis of each
page of text as well and see if there is any statistically significant
shift in content with the apparent subject matter of the page.

-Adams Douglas



From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 01 09:28:35 PST 1996
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        "'voynich@rand.org'" <voynich@rand.org>, julie@rand.org
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In-reply-to: Your message of Wed, 27 Mar 96 10:33:18 PST.
             <c=US%a=_%p=msft%l=RED-68-MSG-960327183318Z-25477@red-06-imc.itg.microsoft.com> 
Date: Mon, 01 Apr 96 09:28:35 PST
From: Julie Da Vanzo <julie@rand.org>
Status: OR



I don't know how I got on this alias, but please take me off.  Thanks.

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 01 14:16:09 0800 1996
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Date: Mon, 01 Apr 1996 14:16:09 -0800
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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To: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>,
        "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" <rzandber@esoc.esa.de>
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R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad wrote:
> 
> > So is Zipf's law just one of the family of inverse power laws mentioned by
> > Gabriel Landini: a curiosity, but of no usefulness to linguists (or to
> > cryptanalysts)?
> 
> That seems to be the tendency but I am not yet convinced. My personal
> gut feeling is that for random texts it is a feature that will set in
> only after a massive amount of characters have been typed, but for
> natural languages it will already show up nicely in smaller texts.
> 
> But I may well be wrong and hope to find out soon.

You found sooner than you thought! ;-)
For small texts the 1st law is followed rather approximate, but
by no means a stright line. I did the entire King James Bible
book by book, new and old testaments and entire bible.
Only for long texts the lines looked fairly straight.

I was interested to see what texts DO NOT follow the Zipf's law.

I agree that for languages the 1st law must mean something 
different than for a string of random numbers...
Recently there has been a lot of publicity around the fact
that introns in DNA (which apparently does not code for proteins)
has a zipfian distribution when "fixed length" words are used.
It would be nice to see what are the statistics for texts with
fixed length words.
In DNA the slope is less than -1 (I mean nearer 0).

It may be if interest that people trying to create random strings
end up with long-correlations rather than random.
I saw a paper by Zhang in the journal Fractals some time ago. If
there is interest I can dig the reference.

cheers,
Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 01 15:14:51 0800 1996
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Date: Mon, 01 Apr 1996 15:14:51 -0800
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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To: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>,
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Claudio Antonini wrote:
> 
> Gabriel said:
> >Now, the second law which I found that nobody talks about it.
> >When you rank the words, there are many different words that have the same
> >frequency (they appear the same number of times).
> >Now count how many different number of words appear once, twice, 3 times, etc.
> >plot log(different number of words appearing n times) vs log (n).
> >This also is an inverse power law.
> >
> >I am not sure what is the relation of the 1st and 2nd laws.
> 
> Did you run a program to test this law on the VMS ? Results? Different for
> hands A and B?

No, not for the 2nd law, but I will try tonight.
I used the FSG file for the 1st law. Individual pages are too short
to get any sensible plot.
If anybody else is doing something like this, let me know!
cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 01 16:10:06 0800 1996
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Date: Mon, 01 Apr 1996 16:10:06 -0800
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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Adams Douglas wrote:
> 
> What we really need is a good Markov map of the existing text, "spaces"
> included. This can indeed be broken into A and B languages.
> 
> Personally I think it would be useful to do a separate analysis of each
> page of text as well and see if there is any statistically significant
> shift in content with the apparent subject matter of the page.

I agree completely with you. I proposed the n-plets analysis some
time ago, but so far I haven't done much in this respect.
I do not want to start again with the alphabet discussion --don't worry
Jim :-), but what file is it worth starting with? FGS.NEW or voynich.now?


Going back to Jim Reeds entropy problem,
if the scribe is inserting one null character every other time,
the entropy of the source should go down, or am I wrong?
If one assumes that the null characters are random (yes, unlikely...)
then most di-graph entropy would go down since redundancy is less likely
to be preserved along the text. Am I right?
I have the impression (but only the impression) that the null characters
could be tested with n-plets entropies.

cheers,
Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 20:31:38 0800 1996
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To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 20:31:38 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
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In-Reply-To: <9604011225.AA24098@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Apr 1, 96 12:25:27 pm
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> And there is the odd mixture of herbal and pharmaceutical bifolios further on,
> and a few more questions related to how and when the bifolios were cut.
> 
> What I am getting at is that there is a possiblity that the two languages are
> by the same person, but from different dates (not a novel idea by the way) and
> the pages have become mixed with time. He might have misremembered his code,
> prefer different nulls, or just adapted to a new dialect. Both the Romance and
> Germanic languages allow great variation. Certainly, if it was unbound for a while,
> there would be only one person (or a small group) who knew how to arrange them.
> At a later date, basically noone. 

I think this is an important insight and should be expolored. I would even
try rearraging copies of the folios to see if some of the illustrations
make more sense in different combinations or lineups.

The shift in writing style is a strong possibility, and something I have
personally experienced: As a college student, I spent time keeping a diary
in Tolkien's Tengwar script. It was phonetic, and it didn't take me long to
develop a style I could write fairly fast from memory (okay, okay, I was
young). After a six-month hiatus from making entries I found I had to
retrain myself to write in the form and that some of my phonetic choices
were different than they had been before in terms of what characters to use
for a given word. A statisical analysis of my writings in that form would
have shown a shift in "hands", both in appearance (I had a different pen) and
in statistics (different thoughts on what vowel-form to use for a word, for
example).

-Adams


From rand.org!jim Tue Apr  2 00:31:53 0400 1996
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unsubscribe voynich-l

Ken Stickney,                        "Bold words, dwarf," said another 
198 Windmill Rd.,                    of the group at last.
Dartmouth, NS                       
Canada                                --Manley Wade Wellman,
B3A 1E9                               "Stragglers from Atlantis"
                                                       
                                                                           


From rand.org!jim Tue Apr  2 15:54:11 +1000 1996
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Subject: How to unsubscribe
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To unsubscribe, do *not* send a message to the list
itself (voynich@rand.org). It won't work.

What you must do is send a message, any message,
to:

voynich-request@rand.org

To resubscribe, you do exactly the same. Any message
sent there will subscribe you again.


From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  1 23:36:42 PST 1996
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unsubscribe voynich-1
James Crawley
-----------------------------------------------------
The Assembly of Good Christians  assembly@surfsup.net
Find publications and info at:
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From rand.org!jim Tue Apr  2 09:40:41 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Dear all,

this note is intended to complete the description of some ideas I have about
the composition of the VMs (to be combined with those of yesterday).
These are all 'immature' but might give some ideas to any of you who have
thought about it as well. Comments are as always appreciated.

A 'standard' quire is made by folding a large piece of vellum once horizontally and
once vertically. This gives four bifolia which are cut and written (or written and
then cut!) and then folded together to nest into a quire as wee see them in the
herbal section of the Voynich. Whether they were cut before or after the writing
is of relevance for the scenario of two scribes working together. I have seen one
or two cases (in the herbal section) where the bottom edge seems to cut through a 
drawing. Does this prove the folios were cut after the text/drawings were applied?
The evidence is a bit thin.... It could be that the folios were cut again afterwards
to correct the size. Another inspection of the original might give some hints here.
Jim's discovery that in many cases the A and B folia are of 
different thickness I consider also very important.
If the herbal A and B were done at different times, they must have become mixed up
afterwards (but before the gathering marks were written).

Now about the foldout folios. I get the impression these were not all that 
common in manuscripts, but don't know for sure.
We have to separate between f85/f86 on the one hand and the rest on the
other. f85/86 have one design filling 6 panels on one side. In all other cases
there seems to be no particular reason to have foldouts, since each panel of
the foldouts is filled a standard size piece of drawing and/or text (OK, there
is one more exception in the pharma section I think).

Could it be that there were no pieces of vellum left large enough to make
a standard quire? If so, these must have been the last ones to be completed.
This means the astro and pharma sections were done at the end. Possibly, though,
after the vellum sheets 'just not large enough' there could have been more pieces
'not even nearly large enough', which were then used to make individual bifolia,
which went into the recipes section. This namely has a totally strange nr. of bifolia,
which on the other hand could also be explained by later rearrangement.
I think it interesting that the various foldouts also differ in size (some have half 
panels) and the constraint of available vellum leaves seams like a plausible
theory. Maybe all foldouts were intended to form one mini-gathering each and not
to be nested. Maybe this is why two (or was it three) gathering marks are missing.
When they were applied, some foldouts were nested as if to combine into a gethering.
This is all highly speculative and without too much evidence once way or another.

Going one step further, we may also have an explanation for the double presence of 
Aries and Taurus. I may be imagining this but it almost seems as if the panels
would not have been large enough to fit full-size emblems.

Anybody going to the Beinecke anytime soon?

Cheers, Rene


P.S.
1. Sorry for my mixing up of the words gathering and quire. I am assuming they 
   are synonymous.
2. Same about folia/folios
3. Before we have another series of unsubscribers, I promise to restrict
   my rambling in future :-)

From rand.org!jim Wed Apr  3 13:36:33 0800 1996
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From: Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford@s1.csuhayward.edu>
To: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
Cc: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Pre-Columbian contact with America
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The fly on the wall has his interest piqued.

On 29 Mar 1996, Peter Meyer wrote:

> Jacques Guy (welcome back, Jacques) writes:
> 
> >America was discovered long before Columbus, perhaps even
> >in pre-Viking times: tobacco was discovered in Ramses II's mummy.

That's interesting! Never heard about that tobacco.
 
> Also cocaine and hashish.  There was an article in the German magazine
> "Geo" some years back about this, but I've lost the reference.

Not to mention the cocaine and hash. I for one would appreciate the 
reference.

> On the topic of pre-Columbian contact between Europe and America see
> the scientifically respectable "Sailing to Paradise: the Discovery of the 
> Americas by 7000 B.C." by Jim Bailey (1994, Simon & Schuster).  

Recent experiences have convinced me that it's just the other way around 
-- that Native Americans may well have been the ones that re-seeded 
civilization after the last flood. In February I was shown, by a 
respected Blackfoot researcher, a curious artifact found in a dig in 
Alberta, Canada -- an exact duplicate of the counting/sales-transaction 
packets usually associated with Mesopotamia 8-10K years ago. As I held 
this object in my hand, noting its near-center bulge with a hole at its 
edge, presumably for stringing a thong through to wear around the neck, I 
remembered how if someone was selling say 17 horses, this packet would be 
prepared with 17 bits of clay, baked, sent with the courier, and the 
person receiving the horses would shatter the object and see how many 
bits were inside. This Blackfoot researcher, Stan Knowlton, showed me a 
copy of a newspaper front page with close-ups of about ten of these 
things from Mesopotamia, and one was identical to mine. He said not a 
word, just let me make my own connections.

> Also Zecharia Sitchin: "The Lost Realms", which, like Bailey but from 
> a less orthodox perspective, deals with the alleged supply to Europe 
> of tin and copper mined at Tiahuanaco in present-day Bolivia.  I suppose
> they could also have shipped coca leaves with the tin, which might
> explain the condition of Ramses II's mummy.

Right after I came home from this conference, the fifth Dialogue between 
physicists and Native Americans, with a few linguists like me thrown in, 
there was a special on tv with Charleton Heston (!) called The Mysteries 
of Human Origins, or something like that. In it, it was claimed that 
Tiahuanaco is presently dated conservatively at 12,000 years old (more 
liberally at 18K yrs), and that the same construction technique used to 
hold its massive stones together were also used thousands of years later 
in pyramid construction -- metal staples. After a section was levelled, 
stone was scooped out in depressions then small channels leading to where 
the blocks joined (so carefully that even now 12K yrs later a needle 
cannot be placed between them); then molten metal (which necessitates 
portable smelting equipment able to keep it hot until poured) was poured 
in and voila! Stapled blocks, useful in earthquake country, and also 
deemed useful in Egypt much later.

> I'm not aware of any pre-Columbian American culture that had a written
> alphabetic script (I think the surviving pre-Columbian codices are all
> in glyphs - the linguists will correct me if I am mistaken).  

Until February, I couldn't have said anything here. But perhaps the 
alphabetic notion is too strict -- wasn't Phoenician syllabic in its 
earlier phase? Where did the Phoenicians get it, or did they create it?

In February, Stan also showed me some transparencies he uses for 
lectures, which were developed with the help of linguist Buff Parry. It 
showed first something called the 'Blackfoot Syllabarium', which Stan 
claims is the original to the better known Cree Syllabary. Because I have 
worked with the Cree Syllabary, the syllabic letters looked familiar. 
(Syllabic systems are preferred for languages that have four-vowel 
systems since the shape shows the consonant while the orientation (0, 90, 
180, 270 degrees) represents the vowel.) Underneath the 10 or so letters 
shown were nearly exact equivalents from early Arabic; on another 
transparency were similar shapes for early Sanskrit and the Cypriot 
script. Again, Stan said nothing and let me draw my own conclusions. The 
next day I brought a woman to his room who had given prayers in Arabic 
and had her look at the first comparison -- her eyes got wider and wider 
and when she came to the end she whispered, "Oh, my God!"

The Dialogues have basically vindicated Benjamin Whorf's principle of 
linguistic relativity (the language you use shapes the way you think 
and vice versa), in particular when the physicists agreed with the 
Indians that Native languages are probably better suited to speaking 
about events in the quantum realm than are Western languages -- and that 
is because they generally don't use nouns. An interesting and paradoxical 
conclusion, that Native American (specifically Algonquian) languages are 
structurally suited to talking about a realm they aren't even supposed to 
know exists! But they know it exists, have known it for thousands and 
thousands of years -- a realm where everything that exists vibrates, 
where the only constant is flux and everything is interconnected such 
that the part enfolds the whole -- except they call it the realm of 
spirit. Otherwise, Natives and scientists agree on the characteristics of 
this realm.

Can't comment on the rest, but I hope this provokes thought. What if, for 
instance, the VMs is written in a verb-only language? This would make no 
'sense' to our noun-laden sensibilities. After all, if you remove nouns 
and copulas (be: am, is, was, were, etc.) from English and other Western 
languages, the very basis of our logic and reasoning breaks down. But 
other languages of the world get along just nicely without them.

Cheers, Moonhawk

From rand.org!jim Thu Apr  4 15:17 EST 1996
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From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford@s1.csuhayward.edu>
Cc: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: mummies
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>>>[J. Guy:] America was discovered long before Columbus, perhaps even
>>>in pre-Viking times: tobacco was discovered in Ramses II's mummy.

>[Dan Moonhawk Alford:] That's interesting! Never heard about that tobacco.
 
>>[PM:]  Also cocaine and hashish.  There was an article in the German magazine
>>"Geo" some years back about this, but I've lost the reference.

>[DMA:] Not to mention the cocaine and hash. I for one would appreciate the 
>reference.

I finally dug through my collection of Geos.   It was in the "Geoskop" 
column of the 28 Sept. 1992 issue of "Geo" (in German), reporting
the results of investigations by researchers
Franz Parsche, Svetla Balabanova and Wolfgang Pirsig at the
Institute for Anthropology and Human Genetics at the University of
Munich.  They studied mummies from 1070 BC to 395 BC and found
them to have cocaine, THC and nicotine in higher concentrations than
found in contemporary users.

I guess those Egyptians just never learned to say "no".  I suppose also
this explains the decline in family values among the common people,
the rise of the insidious threat to their national security and ultimately
the extinction of their civilization due to the widespread degradation of 
their precious bodily fluids.




From rand.org!jim Thu Apr  4 18:12 EST 1996
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From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: the spiegel <kcomer@metronet.com>
Cc: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: mummies
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>>They studied mummies from 1070 BC to 395 BC and found

>Forgive the skeptical interjection, but-- making certain-- these were
>truly "Egyptian mummies" as opposed to "mummified remains" (i.e.,
>including those mummified by the climate on Andean mountaintops)?

No problem.  Relevant quotes from the article:

"... Gewebeproben aus neun aegyptischen Mumien."

->E:  ... tissue samples from nine *Egyptian* mummies.  [Munich has quite a lot
of Egyptian stuff.]

"Die Sammlung umfasste sieben mumifizierte Koepfe von Erwachsenen - zwei
weiblich, fuenf maennlich -, eine komplett erhaltene Frauenmumie sowie einen
unvollstaendigen Mumienmann."

->E:  The collection consisted of seven mumified heads of adults, two female,
five male, a complete mummy of a woman as well as an incomplete mummy of a man.

"Die Forscher analysierten mit hochpraezisen Messgeraeten Proben aus Haar,
Knochen und Weichteilen."

->E: The researchers used high-precision measuring instruments to analyse
samples of hair, bones and soft parts.

"In allen Mumien fanden sich erhebliche Mengen der Wirkstoffe Kokain und
Tetrahydrocannabinol."

->E: There were considerable amounts of the (psycho)active substances cocaine
and THC in all mummies.

The researchers were perplexed.  How could there be cocaine and tobacco in
mummies from pharonic times when South America (the source of cocaine and
tobacco) wasn't due to be discovered for another 2000 years?  The researchers
suggested that perhaps these substances came from local plants.  Nothing is said
about cocaine, but one of the researchers (Parsche) says that nicotine might be
obtained from cherry leaves (though if so the tradition of cherry leaf chewing
in the Old World has since died out).

So if there were contacts between the Old and New Worlds going back several
millenia, the VMS could have been brought over on any of the boats.  It might
even have made it over here in time to be seen by Roger Bacon.

However, the whole idea of the VMS originating in the New World seems a bit
improbable, unless one can point to the existence of some New World MS even
remotely similar, using, say, the same materials.  In what parts of the world is
vellum known to be (or to have been) used for written manuscripts, and when?
South America?  (Did they use llama skin instead?)

Assuming there have been contacts between Europe and America going back several
millenia B.C., there was ample time for drawings of sunflowers and other native
American plants to have found their way across to Europe, eventually to be
incorporated in the VMS (though it would be nice to know of specific herbals
made in America that made the trip to Europe, to show that it has happened).




From rand.org!jim Thu Apr  4 22:29:38 0500 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Is VM alphabet like Arabic?
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 22:29:38 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <9604010023.AA06170@medici.trl.OZ.AU> from "Jacques Guy" at Apr 1, 96 10:23:20 am
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Jacques Guy recently wrote:
> 
> We must keep in mind the very real possibility that those spaces
> between "words" are not word breaks at all, but are spaces conditioned
> by the shaped of the previous letter. Take Arabic, for instance.
> Words can contain spaces, because some letters can be connected to
> the next (e.g. b, t, j, m etc) but some cannot (e.g. d, r, z, alif...)

The comparison with Arabic also raises the interesting possibility that the
letters of the VM alphabet, 36 or more in Currier's scheme, might include
several versions of the same letter which are written differently in
different contexts, like the medials and finals in Arabic.

For example, the letter Currier calls P (tall character with two loops)
is often written with the left loop triangular and the right one 
circular. I wonder if this might not be the same in medial positions
as the sequence 4O- which occurs so often as an initial: both have the
same elements of vertical stroke, triangle, horizontal stroke and loop,
all connected.

This might also explain the large number of characters in the alphabet.

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Thu Apr  4 22:47:03 0500 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: VM Herbal Pages
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 22:47:03 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <199604010323.WAA24988@krusty.eecs.umich.edu> from "Karl Kluge" at Mar 31, 96 10:23:51 pm
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Karl Kluge recently wrote:

> The plant "labels" are generally fairly short, suggesting that they
> are not plaintext embedded in a (longer) cover text. They tend to
> occur in the running text of the herbal section with something very
> close to the frequency that you'd expect from a digraph model of the
> herbal text. This suggests to me (and correct me if I'm wrong, those
> of you with more cryptanalytic experience) that if there are nulls in
> the text of the herbal section, they are not all that common. (It

Another interesting thing about the "herbal" pages:

If the herbal pages really describe the plants/flowers which appear on 
them, you would expect to find the name of the plant on its page, probably
repeated at least once, as in:

The _bamboo_ is a tropical plant ..... the _bamboo_ is also useful etc.

Thus one approach to finding these proper names would be to look for
words which appear two or more times on the same page but not on any
other pages.

When I ran this kind of test on the voynich.now text, however, it turned 
out that:

      - only 28 such words occured
      - many of them appeared too short to be proper names (e.g. A2, P, V)
      - of the 28, only 3 appeared more than twice.

To me this suggests that, if the herbal pages really relate to the pictures,
then the "words" are not really words as we know them - maybe parts of 
"words" or pairs of "words" carry the meaning.

One angle I haven't tried yet is to look closely at herbal pages for words
which are similar but not exact dupes (i.e. same word with embedded nulls),
repeated final/initial pairs or
some other repeated feature in the page which would represent a repreated
flower name (encoded).

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Sat Apr  6 10:43:14 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: Tobacco in Egyptian mummies
To: voynich@rand.org
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If I remember correctly (I really *will* have to ferret out
that article), tobacco *leaves* were found Ramesses II's
mummy. Not just nicotine. I read not so long ago, to my
surprise, that nicotine was found in very common plants (what were
they? Cucumbers? Egg-plants? Broccoli? I should have made
a note of it). To pursue this thread, did you know that
the humble lettuce contains alkaloids? Many of us Frogs
are fond of "salade rouie", i.e. lettuce left overnight
in its dressing. I am, for one. Well, this maceration
process, I read, increases the alkaloid contents of lettuce!
Please note that this post is NOT dated April 1st.

j.guy@trl.oz.au

From rand.org!jim Sat Apr  6 10:50:59 +1000 1996
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Subject: Re: Is VM alphabet like Arabic?
To: voynich@rand.org
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> For example, the letter Currier calls P (tall character with two loops)
> is often written with the left loop triangular and the right one 
> circular. I wonder if this might not be the same in medial positions
> as the sequence 4O- which occurs so often as an initial: both have the
> same elements of vertical stroke, triangle, horizontal stroke and loop,
> all connected.
> This might also explain the large number of characters in the alphabet.

The Voynich "alphabet" does not comprise a large number of letters.
I count 16 or 17. Even if we add the "ligatures" (i.e. frogguy cqpt,
cqjt, clpt, cljt), that brings us only to around 20. Currier's transcription
contains 36 symbols only because it includes some very, very rare
sequences (such as frogguy ix, iix, iig, iiig, etc.) which, because
of their very low frequencies, I suspect - no, I am *sure* - are groups
of letters. It's as if, transcribing English, you assigned special
symbols to "str", "spr", "spl", etc.

j.guy@trl.oz.au


From rand.org!jim Fri Apr  5 20:37 EST 1996
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Date: 05 Apr 96 20:26:22 EST
From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@compuserve.com>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: VMS as hex
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Status: OR

>From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)

>The Voynich "alphabet" does not comprise a large number of letters.
>I count 16 or 17.

Ah ... then clearly each letter is an alien hexadecimal digit.

Probably not a computer program in machine code 
(no computer to run it on, yes?).

Perhaps if we figure out which letter corresponds to which hex digit
then put it all in binary and re-arrange the digits we'll get one of those
cute NASA (?) pictures which show that the authors have two legs
(or three, etc., as the case may be).



From rand.org!jim Sun Apr  7 00:28:52 +0100 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
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Subject: Voynich mailing list archive!
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 00:28:52 +0100 (BST)
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Just a quick note.....

I've hypertexted the Voynich mailing list archives tonight and added
a search facility in to help you find stuff. Any postings to the mailing list 
wil automatically get added to this archive, so let me know how things go.
Some articles ( actually a 33% ) from the files BIG and BIG2 didn't make it in,
but that should get remedied fairly soon. There are 603 postings to peruse,
though.

You can access the search form at:

	http://www.hermetica.com/search.html

and it should look OK with Netscape table support or Lynx ( which are the two
I've tried it with ). A bunch of Voynich pages will go up later this week
with a bunch of stuf on it, hopefully including some rather groovy fonts in
several formats.

-- 
Alligator Descartes		\\ Nexus - Multi-User Virtual Reality 
Anathematician			//   http://www.hermetica.com/nexus
descarte@hermetica.com		\\      ** Java(TM) Powered! **

From rand.org!jim Sun Apr  7 01:17:16 +0100 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199604070017.BAA23043@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Dee Miscellany...Questions...And general weirdness.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 01:17:16 +0100 (BST)
Cc: descarte@fruitbat.mcqueen.com (Alligator Descartes)
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I've had a couple of days off, so I've been catching up on my Voynich stuff.
I was re-reading the Camden Society's "Private Diary of John Dee" that I have
( 1842 ) which consists of marginalia from Almanacs found in Dee's papers,
apprently written in an illegible hand. Some extremely sad, but useful
person has collated all this stuff into this rather illuminating volume. 
The catalogues from this volume are also findable on the Hermetica WWW pages
somewhere, although they're not complete yet. 

Anyway..........Back to the story....

I was looking again ( been a few years since I read it, and those were
pre-Voynich-interest ) and found the following entries:

Dec 4th 1588:

	I gave to Mr. Ed. Kelley my Glass, so highly and long
	estemed of our Quene, and the Emperor Randolph the second,
	de quo in praefatione Euclidis fit mentio.* The letter of
	500,000 ducats required.

Randolph? RANDOLPH?! How come every single bit of mail I've seen so far,
and the letter from <can't remember> says Rudolph? I mean, they are one and
the same, I'm assuming? ( Probably wrongly? ) Dee deifinitely seems to be
under the impression it's Randolph. He misspells it over 50 times in further
pages!

Anyway, I would say the Glass is the famed Shewstone. Perhaps. 8-) How many
neato optical doohickii did Dee possess? One wonders........

Dec 7th 1588: [In Greek lettering, but English. A simple form of hiding Dee
	       occassionally employs in 'sensitive' stuff. Usually bitching
	       about patrons!]

	Great frendkip promised for mani, and two ounkes of the thing.

God alone knows what Dee's talking about here..........

Dec 18th 1588:

	I did understand by Mr. Kelley that my glass which he had
	given to my Lord Rosenberg, the Lord Rosenberg had given
	it to the Emperor.

Jan 23rd 1590:

	Mr. Thomas Kelly cam from Brainford; put me in good hope
	of Sir Edward Kelley his returning...

Thomas Kelley being Edward Kelley brother. First mention of E.K. being
"Sir" E.K. First mention of E.K. since 12th Feb 1589, when Kelley rode off
to Prague with "powder, the bokes, the glas and the bone, for the Lord
Rosenberg;..."

Oct 4th 1593:

	Sir Edward Keley set at liberty by the Emperor.

Nothing mentioned of Kelley after that date...........

Reading somewhere of Dee receiving 630 ducats for {Rud|Rand}olph for something
is missing here. Fragmentary marginalia it is, but Dee is quite regular at
mentioning his monetary states, especially on largish sums of money.....

It possibly raises some questions?

Also, the Book of St. Dunstan is mentioned briefly. 

Dec 12th 1587, afternone somwhat:

	Mr. Ed. Keley his lamp overthrow, the spirit of wyne long
	spent to nere, and the glas being not stayed with buks 
        abowt it, as it was wont to be; and the same glas so flitting
	on one side, the spirit was spilled out, and burnt all that was
	on the table where it stode, lynnen and written bokes, -- as
	the bok of Zacharius with the Alkanor that I translated out
	of French for som by spirituall could not; Rowlaschy his
	thrid boke of waters philosophicall; the boke called
	Anglelicum Opus, all in pictures of the work from the beginning
	to the end; the copy of the man of Badwise Conclusions for the
	Transmutation of metalls; and 40 leaves in 4o, intitled,
	Extractiones Dunstani, which he himself extracted and noted out
	of Dunstan his boke, and the very boke of Dunstan was but cast 
	on the bed hard by from the table.

Anyway, thought someone might like this!

Regards.

-- 
Alligator Descartes		\\ Nexus - Multi-User Virtual Reality 
Anathematician			//   http://www.hermetica.com/nexus
descarte@hermetica.com		\\      ** Java(TM) Powered! **

From rand.org!jim Sun Apr  7 21:30:58 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: VMS as hex
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 21:30:58 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <960406012621_100716.75_EHU57-1@CompuServe.COM> from "Peter Meyer" at Apr 5, 96 08:26:22 pm
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Peter Meyer recently wrote:
> Perhaps if we figure out which letter corresponds to which hex digit
> then put it all in binary and re-arrange the digits we'll get one of those
> cute NASA (?) pictures which show that the authors have two legs
> (or three, etc., as the case may be).
> 
I have always believed that if it were possible to transmit the VM and make
it appear to be coming from space, a lot more people would suddenly become
_very_ interested in cracking it. Maybe a powerful transmitter next door to 
one of the SETI sites ....

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  8 06:53:45 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Bruce Grant wrote:
> 
> Peter Meyer recently wrote:
> > Perhaps if we figure out which letter corresponds to which hex digit
> > then put it all in binary and re-arrange the digits we'll get one of those
> > cute NASA (?) pictures which show that the authors have two legs
> > (or three, etc., as the case may be).
> > 
> I have always believed that if it were possible to transmit the VM and make
> it appear to be coming from space, a lot more people would suddenly become
> _very_ interested in cracking it. Maybe a powerful transmitter next door to 
> one of the SETI sites ....
> 
> Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)
> 

Maybe not too powerful :-) Would be a shame of these nice amplifiers
they undoubtedly have.
A couple of 40FC89 40FC89 40FC89 .... should do it. Then we point them
to the Voynich biological section

Hmmm.... Roger Bacon as the inventor of hex code and therefore computers.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  8 07:29:59 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Alligator Descartes write:
> 
> Just a quick note.....
> 
> I've hypertexted the Voynich mailing list archives tonight and added
> a search facility in to help you find stuff. Any postings to the mailing list 
> wil automatically get added to this archive, so let me know how things go.
> Some articles ( actually a 33% ) from the files BIG and BIG2 didn't make it 
in,
> but that should get remedied fairly soon. There are 603 postings to peruse,
> though.
> 
...

An excellent idea and a great service to this group!

One small thing though:
I am not too sure if all contributors are completely happy about
the fact that all messages _immediately_ go to these pages.
Up to now, all messages were distributed only to a small group, and
now they will immediately be 'published to the world'. Maybe a
delay of half a year or so?  This is not because I think there is
anything to hide or any great discoveries to protect, mind you :-)
On the other hand it is quite useful to have easy access to all the
recent mails.

Maybe we should have a poll? Personally, I do not have a big problem
with this but others might prefer to keep the 'discussion group' 
feeling as opposed to the 'usenet' feeling this brings.

But let this not detract from the great usefulness of having
the mail archive on-line like this. I can recommend its reading
to everyone who realises that D'Imperio was written well before
'the computer age as we know it' and wants to know more about 
computer studies.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  8 01:31:30 MDT 1996
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From: nelson@santafe.edu (Nelson Minar)
To: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: VMS as hex
In-Reply-To: <m0u65nG-001ZA9C@umcc.umcc.umich.edu>
References: <960406012621_100716.75_EHU57-1@CompuServe.COM>
	<m0u65nG-001ZA9C@umcc.umcc.umich.edu>
Status: OR

>I have always believed that if it were possible to transmit the VM and make
>it appear to be coming from space, a lot more people would suddenly become
>_very_ interested in cracking it.

Ah, but then what happens? I think that everyone interested in the
Voynich manuscript should read Stanislaw Lem's novel "His Master's
Voice". The premise is very Voynich-like - Earth receives a
transmission from space that we know is the product of intelligent
activity. So a task force is set up to try to understand it: the novel
is about the resulting attempts at decoding. Good food for thought,
also a fun read.

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  8 11:01:54 +0100 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199604081001.LAA14707@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Re: Voynich mailing list archive!
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 11:01:54 +0100 (BST)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9604080729.AA13826@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Apr 8, 96 07:29:59 am
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> > I've hypertexted the Voynich mailing list archives tonight and added
> > a search facility in to help you find stuff. Any postings to the mailing list 
> > wil automatically get added to this archive, so let me know how things go.
> > Some articles ( actually a 33% ) from the files BIG and BIG2 didn't make it 
> in,
> > but that should get remedied fairly soon. There are 603 postings to peruse,
> > though.
> > 
> ...
> 
> An excellent idea and a great service to this group!
> 
> One small thing though:
> I am not too sure if all contributors are completely happy about
> the fact that all messages _immediately_ go to these pages.
> Up to now, all messages were distributed only to a small group, and
> now they will immediately be 'published to the world'. Maybe a
> delay of half a year or so?  This is not because I think there is
> anything to hide or any great discoveries to protect, mind you :-)
> On the other hand it is quite useful to have easy access to all the
> recent mails.
> 
> Maybe we should have a poll? Personally, I do not have a big problem
> with this but others might prefer to keep the 'discussion group' 
> feeling as opposed to the 'usenet' feeling this brings.

OK, I'm personally not bothered either way. The stuff is still going to get
hypertexted, but I can restrict access to as few or as many people as need be.

Pros:

	Searchable archive of previous postings. Invaluable for	
	- finding odd facts, snippets of useful stuff and earlier
	- spent and unresolved discussions
	Easier to use than downloading 2M of compressed text from
	- rand.org!

Cons:

	Everyone ( within parameters ) can read it

Actually people have already been able to read it, if they download Jim's
archives. Of course, this is easier to use, but I think all but the determined
researcher or Voynicher will be put off by it! It's only any use if you know
what you're searching for! Browsing through 600 messages for something you
known nothing about could be one of the worst experiences of your life!

But, if anyone wants to vote, what about emailin me with a YES or a NO? I'll
take Friday as the cut-off date and we'll go with that?

> Cheers, Rene

-- 
Alligator Descartes		\\ Nexus - Multi-User Virtual Reality 
Anathematician			//   http://www.hermetica.com/nexus
descarte@hermetica.com		\\      ** Java(TM) Powered! **

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  8 17:12:43 +0100 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
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Subject: More Dee silliness
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 17:12:43 +0100 (BST)
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After receiving a copy of Levitov's "translation" from Aegean recently,
( and leaving it in the office ) I was flipping aimlessly back through
Peter French's "John Dee" book. If anyone's got it, take a look at the
page in Levitov ( I'll actually scan both in Tuesday..... ) with the stars
and two circular designs on it, and plate 9 in French's book "The Copernican
Universe. Thomas Digges "A Perfit Description of the Caelestiall Orbes"" (
London, 1576 ). The starry design and circle thing ( I suppose the Sun )
seems quite a common theme here..........?

-- 
Alligator Descartes		\\ Nexus - Multi-User Virtual Reality 
Anathematician			//   http://www.hermetica.com/nexus
descarte@hermetica.com		\\      ** Java(TM) Powered! **

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr  8 17:14:19 +0100 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199604081614.RAA03029@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Dee Handwriting
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 17:14:19 +0100 (BST)
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I should have some samples of Dee's handwriting available by Wednesday this 
week for perusal and comparison between the foliation and the stuff of his
I have.

Worth noting though, that the folio from French's book of a letter from Dee
to Queen Elizabeth I isn't really a good example of Dee's writing.......He
seems to have spent time over that one!

;->

-- 
Alligator Descartes		\\ Nexus - Multi-User Virtual Reality 
Anathematician			//   http://www.hermetica.com/nexus
descarte@hermetica.com		\\      ** Java(TM) Powered! **

From rand.org!jim Tue Apr  9 00:37:16 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'Alligator Descartes'" <descarte@hermetica.com>,
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	 <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: More Dee silliness
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 00:37:16 -0600
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After receiving a copy of Levitov's "translation" from Aegean recently,
( and leaving it in the office ) I was flipping aimlessly back through
Peter French's "John Dee" book. If anyone's got it, take a look at the
page in Levitov ( I'll actually scan both in Tuesday..... ) with the stars
and two circular designs on it, and plate 9 in French's book "The Copernican
Universe. Thomas Digges "A Perfit Description of the Caelestiall Orbes"" (
London, 1576 ). The starry design and circle thing ( I suppose the Sun )
seems quite a common theme here..........?

Doesn't the circle thing have something to do with Gnosticism?


From rand.org!jim Tue Apr  9 15:47:32 GMT 1996
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Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:47:32 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9604091547.AA02484@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Food for our novelists
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Dear all,

I understand there are quite a few among us who see good ideas 
for novels in the many stories and factoids surrounding our 
manuscript. The following occurred to me last weekend. There is 
a curious parallel with a spy novel from Desmond Bagley (from the
seventies or early eighties I think) which if I'm not mistaken
is titled: 'Running Blind'.

It is about a useless gadget put together by American scientists
that incorporates lots of puzzling features (it distroys energy
for example). This is smuggled into Russia (I should say the USSR)
in order to keep their scientists occupied. Of course they are not fooled.

The point is: Voynich has been in Russian prison camps twice in his
life, from which he managed to escape to the USA. To us readers of
spy novels it must be immediately obvious that the man who 'found' the
VMs was not Voynich but a Russian plant assuming his identity.
The VMs, a Russian creation, was thus brought to the USA
to keep all the eminent cryptographers occupied. 
Of course the NSA was not fooled either.
They have also made sure that scientific interest
for the VMs is discouraged in all possible manners.
(Search in the mailing list archive to find out what happened with 
those people who insisted in believing it was for real).

Cheers, Rene

PS: I hope smilies were not needed here

From rand.org!jim Tue Apr  9 11:53:15 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: Food for our novelists
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 11:53:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9604091547.AA02484@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Apr 9, 96 03:47:32 pm
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> It is about a useless gadget put together by American scientists
> that incorporates lots of puzzling features (it distroys energy
> for example). This is smuggled into Russia (I should say the USSR)
> in order to keep their scientists occupied. Of course they are not fooled.

Don't be too sure. It's a fact that an american officer based in Germany
once sold GRU agents a practice round as a real nuclear shell. He was
smart enough to dump some radioactive material in it so their geiger
counters would go off when they checked it in the trunk of his car.

They didn't find out it was a dud until they got it to Moscow. At which
point their bosses found out they had been dumb enough to ship what they
thought was a live nuclear round into the city, only blocks from the
Kremlin! They were, ahh, quickly no longer employed.

-Adams


From rand.org!jim Thu Apr 11 15:37 EDT 1996
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Message-ID: <n1382886945.84423@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Date: 11 Apr 1996 15:00:29 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  a study of labels
To: "Voynich List" <voynich@RAND.ORG>
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Dear all, 

On the foldout with the 3 circle (the rightmost having the 'pleiades'
in it), look for the same label... You will find near 5'o'clock on the =
leftmost
circle and nead 3'o'clock (more inside) in the middle one the same label 
(taurus?). It might be taurus, since it is repeated in the rightmost =
circle
and is even linked to the pleiades by a line...

With a star finder, assuming a northern hemisphere, near 45' latitude
it would seems that the left most circle is the winter night sky (or
summer morning sky) vue facing south. The middle circle would be
either summer night sky or fall morning sky...

The problem, is the these labels are also repeated in the circles with =
the
nymphs... If the figures are indeed months, then the author must be =
calling
months by their associated astrological sign...

One problem with this is the there is more than 12 different labels, what =
ever
they are! I tried regrouping all the different labels and re-drawing the =
circles
with simple letters instead to more clearly see where a lebel is =
repeated...
This might bring more ideas...

I just thought I might share my "findings" so far since there seems not =
to be much
traffic on the news group for some time ;-)

Any comments ???




From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 12 17:58:38 +0100 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199604121658.RAA05127@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Administrivia
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 17:58:38 +0100 (BST)
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OK, the votes on opening the archive up and immediately adding stuff onto
went the following way. Thanks to those who bothered voting:

	YES			NO
	---			--
	6			0

So, open it is. I suppose the traditional disclaimer that if the list gets
compromised as a result, the archive will be re-examined should be applied
here. Also, I suppose I should also state I'm taking no responsibility for
stuff people post. Unless it's fairly horrific, at which point it'll not get
added to the archive ( eg, a folio of the MS against Yale copyright or
something equally bizarre ).

Regards.

-- 
Alligator Descartes		\\ Nexus - Multi-User Virtual Reality 
Anathematician			//   http://www.hermetica.com/nexus
descarte@hermetica.com		\\      ** Java(TM) Powered! **

From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 12 18:02:57 +0100 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199604121702.SAA05256@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: Voynich reproduction
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 18:02:57 +0100 (BST)
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Yet another re-kindling of the old fire.

My working colleague and myself are starting a reproduction of the VM based
on LaTeX and redrawn graphics from the original manuscript.

The images used are *not* scans, but original tracings ( we like the
term 'interpretations' 8-) ) of the ms graphics. The font is a fairly
decent match ( for a first attempt ) of that used in the ms. The layout
is fairly identical.

We'll be producing this completely once we get the ms from Yale, but three
test folios look reasonably decent, given that we originally restricted 
conversion time to 2hrs per folio and that we used a scan instead of an
original trace.

Any comments? Are we legal? From what I've read from the stipulations from
Yale as quoted back in the archive, it would appear to cover reproductions
of *their* reproductions ( I regard this as photocopying or duplicating
the microfilm in some way ), and not redrawing the ms and typesetting it
via computer.

Anyone interested?!

-- 
Alligator Descartes		\\ Nexus - Multi-User Virtual Reality 
Anathematician			//   http://www.hermetica.com/nexus
descarte@hermetica.com		\\      ** Java(TM) Powered! **

From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 12 10:42:10 0700 1996
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Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 10:42:10 -0700
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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To: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Zipfs laws in the VMS
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Status: OR

Hi all,
During this easter break I had the time to go through again
the Zipf's las in the VMS.
I read again Zipf's original chapter and the two laws he describes
are the well known rank-frequency distributions which is produced
by a plot of log(frequency) on y axis vs. log(rank) on the x axis.
This plotwas originally said to approach a slope of -1.
The other law (which I called the 2nd law in a previous mail) is to
plot the log(number words with frequency n) on the x axis vs. log(n)
on the y axis. This is said to tend to a slope of -0.5.
The interesting bit is that the first law seems to fit for the high
frequency words while the 2nd for the low frequency words. (I
call here 1st and 2nd laws but they had no name in Zipfs book).

Now these in the VMS.
As the FSG.NEW and voynich.now are indifferent alphabets I decided
to see these laws in both. First all the words with no definite
form (either had unreadable characters, or had more than one version
using [ | }) were not considered.
>From those I produced the Zipf's plots and found that the 1st law
plot flattens at the high frequency words, meaning that the number of
words of the highest frequency are less than expected. However this
feature has appeared many times. The data fits VERY well an alternative
model called "asymptotic fractal".
I hope to write somethig better an include some plots soon.
The 2nd law fits quite well.
Now from these frequency plots I wanted to see what the most frequent
words were.
This will come in my next message under the name of what I call the
"iso-word distribution.

cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 12 11:02:26 0700 1996
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Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 11:02:26 -0700
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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To: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Zipfs laws in the VMS
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Status: OR

Sorry about my last mail. It was cut (don't ask me why)
Here is the entire message (I hope)

Hi all,
During this easter break I had the time to go through again
the Zipf's las in the VMS.
I read again Zipf's original chapter and the two laws he describes
are the well known rank-frequency distributions which is produced
by a plot of log(frequency) on y axis vs. log(rank) on the x axis.
This plotwas originally said to approach a slope of -1.
The other law (which I called the 2nd law in a previous mail) is to
plot the log(number words with frequency n) on the x axis vs. log(n)
on the y axis. This is said to tend to a slope of -0.5.
The interesting bit is that the first law seems to fit for the high
frequency words while the 2nd for the low frequency words. (I
call here 1st and 2nd laws but they had no name in Zipfs book).
Now these in the VMS.
As the FSG.NEW and voynich.now are indifferent alphabets I decided
to see these laws in both. First all the words with no definite
form (either had unreadable characters, or had more than one version
using [ | }) were not considered.
>From those I produced the Zipf's plots and found that the 1st law
plot flattens at the high frequency words, meaning that the number of
words of the highest frequency are less than expected. However this
feature has appeared many times. The data fits VERY well an alternative
model called "asymptotic fractal".
I hope to write somethig better an include some plots soon.
The 2nd law fits quite well.
Now from these frequency plots I wanted to see what the most frequent
words were.
This will come in my next message under the name of what I call the
iso-word gap distribution.
cheers,

Gabriel

I hope it got complete.

From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 12 11:06:20 0700 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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Subject: Iso-word distribution
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When preparing the Zipfs plots, then you have to rank the
words according to the frequency.
In English the most common word is most often "the"; Mandelbrot
also mentions that in some texts it is "I".
Now here I assume that the distance between two occurrences of this
most common must have a certain distribution that may be different
from the 2nd most common and the 3rd. most common, etc. words.
I calculated the iso-word (gap length) distribution in some English
text (Alice in Wonderland) and in a mixture of fragments of Latin
(the 1st. chapters of the 1st. sixteen books of Jerome's Vulgate
Bible).
For both cases I got similar results. In English the distribution of
gaps between "the" seems to be a Poisson distribution. The same with
the word "et" in the Latin text.
For gap=1 there are no occurrences as it is unlikely to write "the the"
in English or "et et" in Latin.
This dissapears for other ranks. You can have "I liked it, it was nice".
so gap=1 for other words (in this case "it") does occur.
For the VMS I did take into acccount words with ambiguos spelling as
otherwise it does break the true distances between words.
The interesting fact is that the most common word (in both FSG.NEW
and voynich.now) is 8AM and it DOES occur at gaps=1. There are
occurrences of "8AM 8AM".
The second finding is that the distribution of gaps is MUCH less
prononuced than for the rank=1 word in the Latin and English samples.
I would like to think that this suggests that there is no simple
characters substitution from Latin...
I also tried considering all the 8AM and 8AN as the same word.
The results are not different than from 8AM alone. The peak at
short gaps is much less than I would have expected from the other
Language samples.
As I said before, looking at the graphs is much better than my
descritpion.

Any comments are appreciated!

Regards,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 12 19:03:05 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: Iso-word distribution
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 19:03:05 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <316E9B9C.54D4@bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Apr 12, 96 11:06:20 am
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Gabriel Landini wrote recently:
> I would like to think that this suggests that there is no simple
> characters substitution from Latin...

Another thing which doesn't look Latin-like (to me anyway) is the
distribution of word lengths. I took some Latin and English samples from
the 'net (Latin from Livy and the Aeneid, English from the King James Bible)
and graphed the word length frequency (y) vs. length (x).  The Latin samples
have a bimodal distribution with a small peak around 2-3 chars and a higher
peak around 6-7 chars. The English texts have only a single peak around
3-5 characters.

When I graphed the voynich.now text it looked very much like the English
ones.

I think that the difference is that English words are not inflected while
Latin ones are: e.g., a short noun stem with a short suffix is one longer
word in Latin, but two smaller ones (preposition + noun) in English.

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Sat Apr 13 00:55:06 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: more maundering
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Been looking at the astronomy pages some more. Is the center of 68R2 =
(the spiral arms page) a sun symbol?
Also, is there, in the pages with much script, an "end of sentence" =
symbol? This has probably been brought up before, but it seems hard to =
understand that if there are sentences, each sentence is conveniently =
one page width long.  There must be some equivqlent of the telegraph =
"stop"??
Don Latham

From rand.org!jim Sat Apr 13 16:29:44 +0100 1996
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From: Alligator Descartes <descarte@hermetica.com>
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Subject: Re: Voynich reproduction
To: briansm@microsoft.com (Brian Smith)
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 16:29:44 +0100 (BST)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <c=US%a=_%p=msft%l=RED-68-MSG-960412185301Z-11201@red-07-imc.itg.microsoft.com> from "Brian Smith" at Apr 12, 96 11:53:01 am
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> For one interesting data point about the legality of home-made non-photo
> reproductions of Yale's copies, you might want to look through Levitov's
> book for any acknowlegements, disclaimers, or other legalities.

Can't see anything other than the paragraph on page 19 stating that "...there
are errors in my drawing of the pages. The text as I give it in the book is
taken directly from the xerox flow copies"

No mention of Yale at all other than that Kraus has given the ms to the
Beinecke.

> Personal opinion of a non-lawyer: the VMS is long out of copyright :-)
> so the only limit to your use of the Yale reproductions is the agreement
> you made with Yale to obtain them.  Although I have not seen Yale's
> terms, I suspect they are pretty tight.  I am sure they would like to
> stop you from doing what you describe but they may not have had the
> foresight to have worded their agreement in such a way as to prohibit
> it.  Here is some past email on the subject:

Indeed. I've just sent off my request for an order form from the manuscript,
so I'll see what happens when the form arrives ( hopefully along with other
assorted legal bumph ).

> >From reeds Fri Jul 15 16:12 EDT 1994
> 
> > What is the Beinecke's objection to scanning the photostats?
> 
> None,  I'm  sure, except they would prohibit sharing them, or sharing
> any "database" generated from them.  When I bought my microfilm and
> copyflow
> print I had to state the "subject, scope and purpose of my research".
> I wrote "I am making a complete computer readable transcription ...
> because the new transcription will be made on a computer it will be much
> more 
> accessible to scholars."  Back came "Permission is *not* granted for
> making any database transcription publically available.  You may create
> such a database for your own work; but not for distribution in any
> form."  (The Friedman transcription I posted a while ago is not based
> on Yale images, but on Marshall Library images, for which I *do* have
> permission to publish.)

*sheesh* What a pain. This is possibly just a little over-zealous. I mean,
what do they actually lose from someone transcribing and publishing that
transcription?

Of course, I do know after dealings with the British Library that I ought to
be able to produce folios using a microfilm from them. This leaves us with
the second half missing, but by that point the first portions of a free VM
should hopefully be on the loose and OK'd by the BL. I shall talk to them
next week about it and let the list know of the outcome. I'm also needing to
talk to them concerning freeing up my transcriptions of Dee's Libri
Mysteriori.

Regards.

-- 
Alligator Descartes		\\ Nexus - Multi-User Virtual Reality 
Anathematician			//   http://www.hermetica.com/nexus
descarte@hermetica.com		\\      ** Java(TM) Powered! **

From rand.org!jim Sun Apr 14 13:49:11 0700 1996
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Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 13:49:11 -0700
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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Bruce Grant wrote:
> Another thing which doesn't look Latin-like (to me anyway) is the
> distribution of word lengths. I took some Latin and English samples from
> the 'net (Latin from Livy and the Aeneid, English from the King James Bible)

Would it be possible to know where you found the Latin samples from the net
please? The Vulgate Bible is chapter by chapter and it's a pain to download...

> and graphed the word length frequency (y) vs. length (x).  The Latin samples
> have a bimodal distribution with a small peak around 2-3 chars and a higher
> peak around 6-7 chars. The English texts have only a single peak around
> 3-5 characters.

Yep, I just checked, my plots have a peak at length=2 and the other at
length=5.
 
> When I graphed the voynich.now text it looked very much like the English
> ones.

Also similar in my sample but the Eglish had a very shap peak at 
length=3 while either the voynich.now and the FSG.NEW have a "fat" 
peak ;-) that spans length 3 to 5 and the probability of length=1 
is about half of the one in English.
But let's not forget that this may depend on the contents of the text.
If it is an autobiography, I presume that "I" must be far more common
than in the sample I did (Alice in Wonderland).

Something else that deserves a little more of thinking from my part is
the autocorrelation function of the iso-word gap sequence of "8AM"
in contrast to "et" in Latin. I found that in Latin this decays very
fast, while for the 8AM in both versions there is a linear decay
of the autocorrelation function.
I do not know what this means yet, but I remember that humans
trying to write down sequences of numbers "randomly", end up
(unwillingly) with long range correlations in the sequence.
As the autocorrelation function is closely related to the power 
spectrum of the series, there are most probably long range correlations
in the sequence of iso-word gaps.
All comments are appreciated.
cheers,
Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 15 00:39:16 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: Iso-word gaps
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 00:39:16 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <317164C7.4296@bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Apr 14, 96 01:49:11 pm
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Gabriel Landini recently wrote (in reply to me): 
> Would it be possible to know where you found the Latin samples from the net
> please? The Vulgate Bible is chapter by chapter and it's a pain to download...

The site where I found the Vulgate doesn't seem to have it any more. It
was also broken into books.

There is a lot of on-line Latin text at a site called the Libellus Project,
ftp.u.washington.edu:/public/libellus/texts.

The KJV of the Bible is available from Project Gutenberg, though I can't
find the address right now.

> But let's not forget that this may depend on the contents of the text.
> If it is an autobiography, I presume that "I" must be far more common
> than in the sample I did (Alice in Wonderland).
> 

The texts I used shouldn't have a lot of 'I's in them - they were
(English) KJV books of Matthew, Mark and Revelations
(Latin) Selections from the Aeneid, the _Marriage of Cupid and Psyche_,
        and Livy.

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 15 08:11:13 GMT 1996
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Guy Thibault wrote (at the end):

> I just thought I might share my "findings" so far... 

so I'll add some of my 'findings' which I'd rather call 
'searchings' if there were such a word.
Before that he wrote:

> 
> On the foldout with the 3 circle (the rightmost having the 'pleiades'
> in it), look for the same label... You will find near 5'o'clock on the 
leftmost
> circle and nead 3'o'clock (more inside) in the middle one the same label 
> (taurus?). It might be taurus, since it is repeated in the rightmost circle
> and is even linked to the pleiades by a line...
> 
> The problem, is the these labels are also repeated in the circles with the
> nymphs... If the figures are indeed months, then the author must be calling
> months by their associated astrological sign...
> 
> One problem with this is the there is more than 12 different labels, what ever
> they are! I tried regrouping all the different labels and re-drawing the 
circles
> with simple letters instead to more clearly see where a lebel is repeated...
> This might bring more ideas...

All these labels in the zodiac.... most of them start with OP- or OF-
(but not all which is very interesting in itself), and after that
apparently any combination of A, O, E, 9, J (and maybe one or two more
that I forgot). To me they look like numbers. In my little spare time
I'm trying to figure out if they could be dates. The OP- or OF- could
be the year part (14xx or 15xx) or the end of the month name or many 
other things.
The alternate labels could be 'special' dates (Christmas, St.Valentine's 
day). Whenever such an occurrence (OP- or OF-) appears in the body text, 
and there is some ambiguity, it may be preceded by '4' to indicate it 
is not a number/date but a word ?????

I am sure this has occurred to others as well.
 
Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 15 09:49:52 EDT 1996
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Date: Mon, 15 Apr 96 09:49:52 EDT
From: paulm@cbddo2.cb.att.com (D4169/Paul McConnell /X5544/D/B)
Message-Id: <9604151349.AA05737@cbddo2>
Apparently-To: <voynich@rand.org>
Status: OR

IS ANYONE INTERESTED IN A FULL COLOR REPRODUCTION OF THE VMS?

Hello. My name is Paul McConnell, and I am new to the VMS mailing list.
For the past year I have been making inquiries into the possibility
of having a full color reproduction of the VMS published as a book.
I have discussed the idea with a couple of VMS researchers, a couple
of publishers, and the Beinecke Library.  My motive is simple: I would
like to be able to purchase a color VMS because the VMS is beautiful,
fascinating, and unique.

So far my activities have been low-profile, but now I need to reach
a wider audience to see if there is enough interest to justify the
expense of such a project.  This mailing list is the only way I know
to reach people interested in the VMS.

The project as I envision it would probably cost a few hundred thousand
dollars.  The only way a publisher would invest that much money in a
project is if projected sales would ensure recovery of the costs (and
a profit).  An example of a successful venture similar to this is the
1994 publication of a full color reproduction of the "Papyrus of Ani" by
Chronicle Books of San Francisco, California, U. S. A.  Of course,
things Egyptian have enjoyed a broad popularity for most of this century,
so the market for the Egyptian Book of the Dead is large and enduring.

The market for a full color reproduction of the VMS would be significantly
different from that of the EDB.  I hope, however, that we can generate
enough interest to convince a publisher to help us with this project.

If a publisher can be persuaded to undertake this project, the next hurdle
will be obtaining permission from the Beinecke Library.  I see from
Alligator Descartes' recent messages, you are familiar with the legal
restrictions involved in reproducing the Library's holdings.  I believe
if a reputable publisher petitions the Beinecke for permission, there is
a chance permission will be granted.  (Two of the Beinecke's manuscript
holdings have been reproduced by outside parties in the past.) Convincing
a publisher to take on this project, then, must be the primary goal.

What do you think?  How much would you be willing to pay for a good
quality, full color reproduction of the VMS? Please let me know.

Thanks!

Paul


paulm@cbddo2.att.com


From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 15 07:28:05 PDT 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: How much would you pay for a full-color coffee-table VMs?
In-reply-to: Your message of Mon, 15 Apr 96 09:49:52 -0400.
             <9604151349.AA05737@cbddo2> 
From: Jim Gillogly <jim@acm.org>
Reply-To: jim@acm.org
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 96 07:28:05 PDT
Sender: jim@rand.org
Status: OR


paulm@cbddo2.cb.att.com (D4169/Paul McConnell /X5544/D/B) writes:
>IS ANYONE INTERESTED IN A FULL COLOR REPRODUCTION OF THE VMS?

Yes, at some price I would think we all would be.

>What do you think?  How much would you be willing to pay for a good
>quality, full color reproduction of the VMS? Please let me know.

I'd probably pay $250 or so for it, but I suspect that kind of pricing
would be out of the question for serious cost recovery -- if it would
really run a few hundred thousand, you'd need a thousand people as potty
as me to order it, and there are currently just under a hundred people on
this mailing list.

Perhaps it would make sense to check sales of the Codex Seraphinianus for
comparison -- the latter is also a lovely and mysterious coffee-table
sized book with excellent production levels, and I think it ran for about
$30 new.  I know it was remaindered at $10 in its US edition, but it's now
in some demand; people do tend to clamor for it from time to time.  The
VMs has its own followings of several kinds -- New-Age and occultist types,
neo-alchemists and "ordinary" scholars as well as cryppies.  It's not as
well-drawn as the Codex and thus wouldn't have as much eyeball impact on
the coffee table, but it has the additional cachet of being real -- or at
worst a fake that's four centuries older than the Codex, which gives it
historical value of its own.

Please keep us posted on the reaction, in case people write you directly.

Good luck!

	Jim Gillogly
	Trewesday, 25 Astron S.R. 1996, 14:23

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 15 08:00:31 0700 1996
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To: paulm@cbddo2.cb.att.com (D4169/Paul McConnell /X5544/D/B)
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 08:00:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9604151349.AA05737@cbddo2> from "D4169/Paul McConnell /X5544/D/B" at Apr 15, 96 09:49:52 am
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> IS ANYONE INTERESTED IN A FULL COLOR REPRODUCTION OF THE VMS?

Yes, but if one is actually getting it onto a rostrum camera and shooting
it, I'd like to get digital data on a CD-ROM which I can manipulate and
throw a book in on the side instead of only having a book. CD-ROMs are
cheaper to produce anyway.

> I have discussed the idea with a couple of VMS researchers, a couple
> of publishers, and the Beinecke Library.  My motive is simple: I would
> like to be able to purchase a color VMS because the VMS is beautiful,
> fascinating, and unique.

I'd be very interested to know what the Beinecke said.

> What do you think?  How much would you be willing to pay for a good
> quality, full color reproduction of the VMS? Please let me know.

I would pay up to $500 for a CD-ROM with a reasonable set of spectrally
subdivided data (shooting the VMs with a thematic mapping camera would
suffice), along with software. If we're just talking a book to look at,
maybe $100.

I can't stress enough how important I feel it is to take advantage of any
opportunity we could get to reshoot the VMs. If that opportunity comes up,
we _have_ to capture the manuscript digitally.

-Adams


From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 15 11:22:32 0400 1996
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Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 11:22:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Andrew C. Plotkin" <erkyrath+@CMU.EDU>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: How much would you pay for a full-color coffee-table VMs?
In-Reply-To: <199604151428.HAA06945@mycroft.rand.org>
References: <199604151428.HAA06945@mycroft.rand.org>
Status: OR

Jim Gillogly <jim@acm.org> writes:
> I'd probably pay $250 or so for it, but I suspect that kind of pricing
> would be out of the question for serious cost recovery -- if it would
> really run a few hundred thousand, you'd need a thousand people as potty
> as me to order it, and there are currently just under a hundred people on
> this mailing list.
>
> Perhaps it would make sense to check sales of the Codex Seraphinianus for
> comparison -- the latter is also a lovely and mysterious coffee-table
> sized book with excellent production levels, and I think it ran for about
> $30 new.  I know it was remaindered at $10 in its US edition, but it's now
> in some demand; people do tend to clamor for it from time to time. 

Heh. I first saw the CS for $90, and I believe that was new. (In the
art-books section of a retail (non-used) bookstore.) I bought one. I
guess I'd pay about that much for a good VM reproduction.

That first copy of the CS got destroyed in the mail one day -- dammit!
Years later, I found a store that had several remaindered copies, and
was selling them for -- again -- $90 or so. I and my friends bought
four of them, and I understand the price later went to up $120.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 15 17:02:39 0700 1996
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Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 17:02:39 -0700
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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D4169/Paul McConnell /X5544/D/B wrote:
> 
> IS ANYONE INTERESTED IN A FULL COLOR REPRODUCTION OF THE VMS?

I am interested, but I agree with Adams that going for a digital
version would be cheaper and probably more useful.
I do not think that I would spend in a book or CD more than
100 to 150 US dollars, but probably other people would.

I do not think that Yale would give the rights for reproduction
for nothing, specially if they think that there may be a good
deal for themselves, but who knows, they may be interested...

still waiting for my copy....

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Tue Apr 16 00:56:56 0700 1996
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From: Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford@s1.csuhayward.edu>
To: Jim Gillogly <jim@acm.org>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: How much would you pay for a full-color coffee-table VMs?
In-Reply-To: <199604151428.HAA06945@mycroft.rand.org>
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I think I'd have to agree with Jim. Being an interested academic and not 
a professional book collector (as much as those can be separated!), $250 
would be a price I'd never thought I'd pay for a book -- about 5-10 times 
as much as I'd usually be willing to pay for any book. But for a 
full-color coffee-table VMs, embodying all its weirdness and history, as 
a linguist I really couldn't pass it up. Anything that has defied this 
many centuries of cryptologists is cheap at half the price, except I 
probably wouldn't be able to afford twice that.

Now, you know -- I've only been evesdropping on this group for a year or 
so, but it seems to me there's the right amount of brain-trust available 
here to write articles, reviews, special interest notes and whatnot to 
easily stir up a few hundred thousand people worldwide to absolutely HAVE 
to own their own copy of this enduring enigma.

Isn't that exactly what this group is all about: to focus global energy 
onto this phenomenon in order to make things happen?

On Mon, 15 Apr 1996, Jim Gillogly wrote:

> 
> paulm@cbddo2.cb.att.com (D4169/Paul McConnell /X5544/D/B) writes:
> >IS ANYONE INTERESTED IN A FULL COLOR REPRODUCTION OF THE VMS?
> 
> Yes, at some price I would think we all would be.
> 
> >What do you think?  How much would you be willing to pay for a good
> >quality, full color reproduction of the VMS? Please let me know.
> 
> I'd probably pay $250 or so for it, but I suspect that kind of pricing
> would be out of the question for serious cost recovery -- if it would
> really run a few hundred thousand, you'd need a thousand people as potty
> as me to order it, and there are currently just under a hundred people on
> this mailing list.
> 
> Perhaps it would make sense to check sales of the Codex Seraphinianus for
> comparison -- the latter is also a lovely and mysterious coffee-table
> sized book with excellent production levels, and I think it ran for about
> $30 new.  I know it was remaindered at $10 in its US edition, but it's now
> in some demand; people do tend to clamor for it from time to time.  The
> VMs has its own followings of several kinds -- New-Age and occultist types,
> neo-alchemists and "ordinary" scholars as well as cryppies.  It's not as
> well-drawn as the Codex and thus wouldn't have as much eyeball impact on
> the coffee table, but it has the additional cachet of being real -- or at
> worst a fake that's four centuries older than the Codex, which gives it
> historical value of its own.
> 
> Please keep us posted on the reaction, in case people write you directly.
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> 	Jim Gillogly
> 	Trewesday, 25 Astron S.R. 1996, 14:23
> 

From rand.org!jim Tue Apr 16 11:36:15 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Status: OR

A bit related to this question:

Lynn Thorndike (whom I presume to be an authority on Medieval history)
writes the following in her book 'Science and thought in the 15th C':
(p137):

'When are we ever going to come out of it? To stop approaching the 
study of medieval science by such occult methods as the scrutiny
of a manuscript supposed to have been written by Roger Bacon in
cipher, instead of by reading the numerous scientific manuscripts that
are expressed in straightforward and coherent, albeit somewhat
abbreviated, Latin?'

This in a section where she demolishes the theory that Nicholas of
Cusa had realised that not the Earth but the Sun was the centre
of the 'Universe'.

I would think this section might induce many medieval scholars to
steer away from the Voynich. A few years ago, there was a piece
of E-mail from a Medieval spcialist to our group (sorry, forgot his
name, but it was something like Matthiesen) who shared a 
similar sentiment. I think we should keep this in the back
of our minds whenever dealing with the Beinecke and potential publishers.

We may be on our own but this is not necessarily a bad thing.
If we can convince the Beinecke that they are getting a lot of
'research' for free, from which they might benefit, it would also 
be another bargaining point.
Dan Moonhawk Alford's suggestion to start publishing things now
in preparation for the VMs colour copy should also be considered
with this in our mind.

I also think the time might be right for a larger interest in the
VMs. I don't know about the States, but esoterica is a booming 
market in Germany. (When I was in an esoteric bookshop recently, the Tarot
card decks were all over the place. Why not 'invent' a tarot game
on the basis of the VMs illustrations? Or a board game? f85/86 would
make a lovely game board.
OK this was definitely tongue-in-cheek.)

Looking forward to a tally from the original poster...
Cheers, Rene

From reeds_to:voynich Tue Apr 16 08:01:38 EDT 1996 re Voynich and scholarship
Subject: Voynich and scholarship
Status: OR


Rene wrote:
>Lynn Thorndike (whom I presume to be an authority on Medieval history)
>writes the following in her book 'Science and thought in the 15th C':
...

1.  Yes, Lynn Thorndike was an expert in Medieval history, in the same
sense that Heisenberg was a physicist, or Eddington an astronomer.
He died in the 1960's, I think.

2.  He was a man.


Jim Reeds

From rand.org!jim Tue Apr 16 13:31:37 GMT 1996
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Jim Reeds points out:

> Rene wrote:
> >Lynn Thorndike (whom I presume to be an authority on Medieval history)
> >writes the following in her book 'Science and thought in the 15th C':
> ...
> 
> 2.  He was a man.
> 

'Oops', sorry.

Still learning,
        Rene

From rand.org!jim Tue Apr 16 11:42 EDT 1996
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Date: Tue, 16 Apr 96 11:42 EDT
To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich text & spurious correlations
Status: OR


Gabriel mentioned the computation of auto-correlations in the sequence of
inter-word gaps in the Voynich text.  One thing to beware of in such 
computations the possibility of spurious correlations induced by
inhomogenous sampling.

Here is an example of what I mean.

Suppose we have 3600 bits in one "language", followed by 3600 bits in
another.  Suppose that in the first language successive bits are independently
chosen, with equal probabilities.  We would then expect 900 occurrences
of each of the pairs 00, 01, 10, and 11.  Suppose the second language
also has independently chosen bits, but with 0 twice as likely as 1.
Then we would expect 1600 occurences of 00, 800 of 01 and 10, and 400 of 11.
If we looked at the two counts separately we would see no correlation
between separate bits, because the vectors (900,900,900,900) and
(1600,800,800,400) both are describable by "models" of the form 
N*(p^2,p*q,p*q,q^2).  BUT, if the two samples are merged, we would see
a combined count of (2500,1700,1700,1300) which does not look like
N*(p^2,p*q,p*q,q^2) for any values of N, p, or q.  We would say that
a 0 has chance of .595 of being followed by a 0, but a 1 has a chance
of only .56 of being followed by a 0, i.e., that successive bits are
correlated.   (Which they are, in a certain sense, but which they are
not in a more natural sense.) 

Unfortunately the VMS has all sorts of inhomogeneities of exactly the
sort that might be expected to cause this sort of trouble:  herbal vs
bio vs recipe; A vs B; front-of-line vs middle of line vs end-of-line,
and so on.

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Tue Apr 16 17:19:39 +0100 1996
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Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 17:19:39 +0100 (BST)
From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Voynich text & spurious correlations
In-Reply-To: <199604161544.IAA04327@rand.org>
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On Tue, 16 Apr 1996 reeds@research.att.com wrote:

> 
> Gabriel mentioned the computation of auto-correlations in the sequence of
> inter-word gaps in the Voynich text.  One thing to beware of in such 
> computations the possibility of spurious correlations induced by
> inhomogenous sampling.
[clear example deleted] 
> Unfortunately the VMS has all sorts of in

omogeneities of exactly the
> sort that might be expected to cause this sort of trouble:  herbal vs
> bio vs recipe; A vs B; front-of-line vs middle of line vs end-of-line,
> and so on.

I see the point, but as the iso-word gaps were done only for the most
common word, that probably would not be affected by the subject
(bio vs. herbal, etc) if the language was the same.
The Latin sample I've got was very inhomogeneously sampled as
it was the 1st. chapters of the 1st 16 books of the Bible.
Anyway, that sample dropped quite fast to 0 while the vms did it
very slowly and thought it was worth reporting here.

I agree that the 2 languages would complicate things up and
at the time I did not think about it.

regards,

Gabriel

 

From reeds_to:voynich sergio Tue Apr 16 19:31:00 EDT 1996 re Voynich MS in scholarly article
Subject: Voynich MS in scholarly article


Today's mail just brought a reprint of a must-read paper mentioning
the VMS (& lots of other interesting stuff, too).  So I added it to
my bibliography:

	Toresella, Sergio. ``Gli erbari degli alchimisti.'' In 
	<i>Arte farmaceuticae piante medicinali--erbari, vasi, sturmenti 
	e testi dalla raccolte liguri</i>, Liana Soginata, ed. Pisa:
	Pacini Editore, 1996, pp.31-70. [Fits the VMS into an alchemical
	herbal tradition.] 

The volume it appears in is pretty pricey.


Jim Reeds

From rand.org!jim Tue Apr 16 19:31 EDT 1996
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         <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich MS in scholarly article
Status: OR


Today's mail just brought a reprint of a must-read paper mentioning
the VMS (& lots of other interesting stuff, too).  So I added it to
my bibliography:

	Toresella, Sergio. ``Gli erbari degli alchimisti.'' In 
	<i>Arte farmaceuticae piante medicinali--erbari, vasi, sturmenti 
	e testi dalla raccolte liguri</i>, Liana Soginata, ed. Pisa:
	Pacini Editore, 1996, pp.31-70. [Fits the VMS into an alchemical
	herbal tradition.] 

The volume it appears in is pretty pricey.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Thu Apr 18 16:01:56 0700 1996
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Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 16:01:56 -0700
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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Dan Moonhawk Alford wrote:
> so, but it seems to me there's the right amount of brain-trust available
> here to write articles, reviews, special interest notes and whatnot to
> easily stir up a few hundred thousand people worldwide to absolutely HAVE
> to own their own copy of this enduring enigma.

This group has the advantage of being free enough so 
we all try to contribute as much as we can to analyse the VMS.
This is great and for me it has been (and is) a very good experience.
The problem is that as the discussion goes with no direction other
than what we respond, the "advances" are sometimes, to me at
least, difficult to follow.

I have read D'Imperio's book and I am dissapointed that it has little
number crunching in it. As Jim R. said to me when I joined the list,
reading D'Imperio is a "must-do", but as the D'Imperio book goes, there are
few concrete points on which to tackle the cracking. I am not
saying that it's not useful, on the contrary, there is an enormous
amount of information there, but everything seems to me that is
mentioned with little analysis (for example VMS vs. Enochian).
D'Imperio's book seems to me a collection of things that may have
something to do with the VMS withouth actually having tried to
connect those. I may be completely wrong, but this is my impression.
I've seen in Jim R's bibiography on the VMS that there are a few
articles with "proper number crunching" :-) by M D'Imperio. Are these
actually available somewhere? What about the "privately printed
pamphlet"? Does anybody have a copy?

I like the idea of organising what has been done, probably through
some sort of pre-print or (why not) collective paper to clarify to
ourselves what we know now that is new and iteresting.
But there are still some pending matters:
We should decide on an alphabet. This is like having 2 wrist watches:
you never know what time it is.
We MUST transcribe the entire VMS. I am willing to transcribe as
much as possible when I receive my copy.
We should do some word transition analysis.
We should do a label database (I will start it when I get my copy).

But these things take time and I am not sure how much availability
is there to do these. Apart I am not cryptologys or linguist, so
my approaches may be naive or just wrong.

What about setting some priorities and work -as time allows-
on those for a start? Or maybe most members want to leave things
as they ar now and contribute whenever they can?

I would like to hear comments from the most "senior" ;-) members
of the list. What do you think?

cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 19 12:22 EDT 1996
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Message-ID: <n1382206849.24831@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Date: 19 Apr 1996 12:05:18 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  To Do List....
To: "voynich" <voynich@rand.org>
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Drar all,

Just a thought regarding G. Landini's last message...

Perhaps, we could build a program that would MERGE the two version, =
prompting the user
for a decision whenever a discrepencies occurs from one version to the =
other... That still
would not solve the problem of identifing the labels but it would be =
faster...

I tried to build a database from the voynich.now file in order to perform =
some analysis...
I build a small parser that scanned the file and inserted words in to the =
Oracle table, from
which I ran a set of SQL to gather stats...

I soon reached a limit to the parsing of the file :-( For instance I =
can't differentiate a label from
a "regular" word... If "we" plan to rewrite the VMS in a new form, I =
agree that we need a
standard alphabet and some rules (say uppercase, except for labels)...

Then with this structure (or similar) we could push the analysis further:
create table voynich
( folio_no number ,
   line_in_filio_no number,
   word_in_line_no number,
   sequence_no number,
   ind_label char(1),
   word varchar(50)
);

This enabled me to check for "words" that are always first on a line, =
second or grouped together
in a "saying"... The addition of a label indicator would help a lot as it =
just might true that
if ever there are nulls in there somewhere, there should be none in a =
short label... Although
many (too may?) starts with "OT"...

With such a database, we could put a front end SQL engine and access it =
on the net for those 
with ideas but lacking a RDBMS...

Other than having a cd-rom (from which we could train a program to learn =
the voyniches 
and transcribe the text all by itself), I think re-writing the VMS should =
be high priority...

comments ???

Have a nice weekend all :-)

Guy
   



From rand.org!jim Sat Apr 20 11:24:05 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: Objet-  To Do List....
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 11:24:05 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <n1382206849.24831@mercure.artefact.qc.ca> from "Guy Thibault" at Apr 19, 96 12:05:18 pm
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Guy Thibault recently wrote:
> Then with this structure (or similar) we could push the analysis further:
> create table voynich
> ( folio_no number ,
>    line_in_filio_no number,
>    word_in_line_no number,
>    sequence_no number,
>    ind_label char(1),
>    word varchar(50)
> );
	A couple of ideas based on having tried something like this
with Microsoft Access and having written some other analysis programs:

1.	I think it is a good idea to use the approach of 'voynich.now'
	where areas within the page are given "locus" numbers. (I think
	Jim Reeds came up with this.) The normal-looking part of the
	page, containing a sequence of lines, is the "null" (no-name)
	locus, while special areas, such as the star-names in the star
	circle diagrams are given a different locus name.

	One advantage of this is that you can analyze things like word
	position in the line by restricting your search to the no-name
	(normal) loci, without having to worry about what constitutes
	a "line" in the diagrams. When you want to use all words (for
	example, to compile a dictionary) you use all loci.

	If you use this approach, I'm not sure you need to worry about
	the distinction between "words" and "labels" either.

2.	You might want to define a table for each level of organization
	of the text: a table of pages, one of loci, one of lines,
	one of words, one of letters in a word. That way, you can use
	SQL to ask questions about any level of detail, e.g. all words
	with "P" in position 2, all lines starting with "8AM".

	For each table, the location of each object should be specified 
	if possible relative to both the beginning and end of the next
	bigger object. If other words, if you have word "8AM" which is
	page f1r, locus A, line 1, word 3, also store the fact that it
	is the 7th word from the end of the line, etc. That way you can
	look for patterns based on the ends of things as well as the
	beginnings (e.g. words ending in a pattern).

3.	Since the text is static, when you load it you might want to
	precompute and include some other information that would be
	useful in future queries, e.g.
		- the length of the word
		- the "shape" of the word (OPOEA looks like ABABC)
		- the first/last n characters of the word for
		  various values of n - this lets you ask for
		  all words ending in -AM for example.
		- whether or not it contains unreadable characters
		- whatever ...

4.	You might want to include other info that is not inherent in the
	text itself, e.g.
		- what kind of page is it (herbal, astronomical, etc.)
		- a short descriprion of the page ("people in hot tubs")
		- the hand/language
		- etc.

	A lot of this is available in Jim Reeds' page finder write-up
	at rand.org.

Just my $.02

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)


From rand.org!jim Sun Apr 21 01:00:41 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Getting It Together
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 01:00:41 -0600
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Guy & Gabriel & others:=20
A database is a good idea. I'd like to keep a plain ASCII version for 2 =
reasons:
1) special parsing programs are eased
2) we won't have to redo a lot.
3) ( I know I said 2 but...) standard text analysis programs use this =
kind of file.

We should make some very simple rules, such as comments in {}, page and =
line in<>, etc. The latter fits with a free document analysis suite of =
programs called TACT which looks very promising indeed. There are =
ancillary files that the program constructs that could be built on, too. =
 Get it from ftp.epas.utoronto.ca by anonymous ftp in =
/pub/cch/tact/tact2.1 and have a look.

I've been hacking away at the "recipes" section of the MS from my Yale =
copy. Here is the first part, f88r and f88v's 1,2,3. I hope I have the =
numbering right!!

The group can decide whether to fold it into the .now document or keep =
it separate.

best to all
Don Latham
Institute for Semantic Analysis ;-)
 
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	{f88 transcribed by Don Latham, April 1996. Uses Currier with spaces for word separation.
	* denotes undecipherable to me.}

<f88r> 
{3 rows of veggies that seem to be named, with paragraphs under each.  following Reeds, 14 Dec 91
 for nomenclature}

<f88r.t> {top row}
<f88r.t 1> OPORSCP9
<F88r.t 2> ORAE
<f88r.t 3> ORAE8
<f88r.t 4> OE8AR
<f88r.t 5> OPOF9
<f88r.t 6> OPAE9

<f88r.1> 8ORZCO9 QCOE 4OXC9 8ORA ZCOR ZOEBSOR 8AE SQO8 -
<f88r.2> 2AE*CCO7 FOESCAD ZCFOR 4OFOR 8AM RAR RAM OF9 RA7 -
<f88R.3> OAN OR O7 OPA7 OFO7 SCCOR 4OFCO89 8ARORO7 SCO89 -
<f88r.4> 4OFCOE SCOE 2AM SCO2 SCOE 8OECCC9 OR SCO7 SCO7A7 -
<f88r.5> 9OFCO89 SCO7 4OOR SCCD 9FCOR Z9 2A7 -

<f88r.m> {middle row of plants}
<f88r.m 1> OPAE89
<f88r.m 2> ORAJ
<f88r.m 3> *ARA
<f88r.m 4> OFOE 
<f88r.m 5> 2OROR9
<f88r.m 6> OP98A

<f88r.6> FOAXC9 WOE ORSOR BSCOE9 OPSOE OE89 2AE 2AE9 -
<f88r.7> 8S9 SOFOE 8AM 4OCFOE 4OCFOE 4OXO9 OFOE SCOE -
<f88r.8> 8ZCOE 4OFCC9 2 S9 8AM SOR OPCOR AM SO2AE2 -
<f88r.9> PCOE SOR OEZCO89 4OFCOE ZOX9 OE ZCCOE ZCOE86 -
<r88r.10> 9SC9 OFAM SOE SCOR OE SORSOE2AE -

<f88r.b> {bottom row of plants}
<f88r.b 1> OB9RF98AE
<f88r.b 2> OPORAJ
<f88r.b 3> OBAE80

<f88r.11> BOCCAR ZCOF9 OEFCC9 QOE BOE89 2 OFOE89 -
<f88r.12> 4OFOE SOE 4OFOE 4OFOE SOE SCC9 OR AM OE8AE -
<f88r.13> OFOR SCOE SOE  SO9 XC9 2 OR ZCAR AR AE29 -
<f88r.14> FOR SC9 4OFOE SCOE  SO89 4OFOE FSOR SOE 8OE -
<f88r.15> 9FCCCO SCOR SCOPC9 SCOE 4OFCOR SCPS9 OBAE -
<f88r.16> 8AR SCAR SOE 8OE 4OCFCOE SCOJ -

<f88v1> {This is another recipes page. Three rows of recipes
		with two paras between them}
<f88v1.t 1> OFOE98
<f88v1.t 2> SCOQ9
<f88v1.t 3> WCOR
<f88v1.t 4> OPAR UO89
<f88v1.t 5> OPOFOE

<f88v1.1> PCO8AE EFCOSCOR ROZX9 RORZ9 AM SCOFAE 2AE8AM -
<f88v1.2> 8SOR ZOR 4OFCO89 4OFCOESC9 SFCOR 4OFCC9 8AM 4OFCO7 -
<f88v1.3> 4OAM SCO9 OESCO89 40XOE SO SX9 4OCC9 FC9 SCOFA7 -
<f88v1.4> SOCC9 FCC089 2 AM SO89 OFCARSC08 ARSCC9 RAUAE -
<f88v1.5> 8AR SCOROE SCFOE 8ARAE9 -

<f88v1.m 1> OPORA8
<f88v1.m 2> OPRA
<f88v1.m 3> SCO289
<f88v1.m 4> OFAM

<f88v1.6> FOZOE89 4OPO89 OB9FCA OE8AM 4OPCO89 9VOEAM ORAM -
<f88v1.7> 9ZCO8 ZCO ZCO89 4OFCO89 40F9 SCC2 SCO89 4OFCO89 8AE -
<f88v1.8> 4OFCC9 40FCO89 SOR OPC089 4OXOE OFOE SCC89 4OPO89 -
<f88v1.9> 9FCCOR SOX9 OPOE SCCOE SC089 4OPO89 2OPOE SCPO7 -
<f88v1.10> O8OM ZCO OE 4OFCC9 OEAM SCO89 SOQC9 OPCO89 89 -
<f88v1.11> 24OFCO 8AM SCO89 OPCOE SCOX9 SO89 =


<f88v1.12> POATS9 OPCCO89 WCO89 9FSC9 8A7 SCOR SAE9FORAN -
<f88v1.13> 8ATO8AN 9FCO8AN 8AN ZC89 4OPCOES89 4OPCORAN -
<f88v1.14> POEFCC08AM 4OF9 SCOE 8AM SCC2 AM SOFAR 8AK8 -
<f88v1.15> 8AM ZCOR ZCC89 8AM ZOX9 4OFCO89 8OX9 8AT -
<f88v1.16> 9FCC9 ZCOR PO2 SCX9 8AN SCO2 SCOX9 RAE89 -
<f88v1.17> 2AM SOF9 SCOR Z9 =

<f88v1.b 1> OP98AR9
<f88v1.b 2> OP8R89
<f88v1.b 3> 8ARARAM

<f88v2> {continues recipe pages. 3 recipes , 3 text paras}

<f88v2.t 1> OFSZ9
<f88v2.t 2> 4FOE
<f88v2.t 3> OE8A7
<f88v2.t 4> OPOE89
<f88v2.t 5> ARARSO8AM

<f88v2.1> 4OARZAR 40BSOE9 4OFO8 SCB98AR ZCC9 OFORZCCO2 OE8AN -
<f88v2.2> 8ZO89 40Q9 8AE SC89 4OF*O89 8AE8AM SA8AM 8AE -
<f88v2.3> 4OFCOE SAE 408AM SOE SC089 4OFCS9 8AM QCO89 8A7 -
<f88v2.4> 9ZOR {BLOT?} O3 8AM 40FCC9 8AM XOE 4OFAN SCA79 -
<f88v2.5> P8AN 2 {BLOT?} SOE SCOF9 4OFAR 8AE SAR XC9 8AM =
		{BLOT looks like part of a plant rather than a flaw}

<f88v2.m 1> 9F98 CCOESCC
<f88v2.m 2> OPORAN
<f88v2.m 3> OFAM8AD

<f88v2.6> PSCOE 4OCAT ZCOE 4OWC9 2AM SCOWC9 8AE 8AROE9 -
<f88v2.7> O7ZCC9 4OFC9 E 8AM 8AESO7 SCFSC9 SOE SCO2 AM 89 -
<f88v2.8> 4CAM SCAE 2CC9 4OPC9 40FCCOE 8AM 9FCC89 8AM 8A7 -
<f88v2.9> 8AE2AE 8AE SC089 8ANAE89 A* 8AE8AE =

<f88v2.10> BZOE ZCO OAQ9 SCOW9 2 ZCOR 4OFAT98A7 8A89 -
<f88v2.11> 8AK ZCOJ 4OAX9 AT SCO89 E8AN 8AE SOJ SPAC** -
<f88v2.12> PAM 8AJ ZOP9(?) 8AE 4OFS9 9FS89 OPSAJ OE RSRAM -
<f88v2.13> 9SCCOR ZCOE 4OXC89 9P9 ZCO89 4OPOE S*A8 SC9 8AE -
<f88v2.14> 8AN OPCOR SCO89 SCO8AN 8AM SO8AM =

<f88v2.b 1> 9FOCY9
<f88v2.b 2> 2AE8AJ
<f88v2.b 3> R98ARAR9 (?)
<f88v2.b 4> 98WO89 (?)

<f88v3> {this is a page-and-a-half with 4 recipes and 3 paras.}

<f88v3.t 1> O8OR9
<f88v3.t 2> 8OE9
<f88v3.t 3> OBSO2AJ
<f88v3.t 4> 2AEOM ZCOE {may be one group}
<f88v3.t 5> OBSCOR

<f88v3.1> 4OFSCO89 SCO8AE 8AT SOEFCC89 SCA8 SCO 8AE 4O*R ZC9 BICC*E 8*9 4OX*9 SOE89 8AK -
<f88v3.2> SO2 AM S*O8AE S9 8AM SC8AN 80ECC2OXCCO8 8AM SO9 SA89 PSO8OE SOR SOE89 SO2 80E OFSCCCJ {?} -
<f88v3.3> PO9 8AM 8AM 8AMO89 4OF**9 SCOE89 4O89 SCOR 2 ** 8AM OF9 SCO89 SCOF9 =

<f88v3.m1 1> OFOE89
<f88v3.m1 2> OFOE ZOE 89
<f88v3.m1 3> OBSAROM

<f88v3.4> BORASOE 908A 4OPCOE OE8AM OPOE SCOR ZOROE8AM OPSOE SCOE OPOEBSO 8ARSO 9FCOBOE OCCOR OR -
<f88v3.5> 8AMOEFC9 OFCOE OFCA {part of plant} OFCOE 4OOR OE SOR SCF9 SAR {part in fold} 8A3 SOE SCOE *OR8AJ OESCOE 80ESCOE -
<f88v3.6> PO2 OE SOR 98AM SC9 2 O3 SX9 4OFCOE OFC9 OFCC9 FCC9 SCF9 4OFOE OFCC9 8OE SCCO89 OCFC9 -
<f88v3.7> 9OCCO FCCO XCO 2AM OFCO 8AM OX9 2 OXCO 8AM SCCF9 =

<f88v3.m2 1> FORAN9
<f88v3.m2 2> 2O8AR
<f88v3.m2 3> SC92
<f88v3.m2 4> SCO89
<f88v3.m2 5> OBORAN
<f88v3.m2 6> OFZ8SA2

	{the following para may or may not be split. I have used whitespace to indicate structure, DL}
<f88v3.8> FO8SCO2 ZCOE 4OFCOCV9 ZCC9 OBSCOR OBIOE ZO89              4OFOE SCO OE89 ZCO8OE 9POE89 -
<f88v3.9> 8AM SCOF OFCOE 8AM 8AE 8AN 4OFCC9 OFCOE 8AM FCO89         OFCC** A2 SCC9 OFCOE SCO SCF9 -
<f88v3.10> 9OFCCOE SCOE 4OFCC9 4OFCOE SC9 CCCOFOR OFCCOF 8AM        4OFCOE SCCO 40FCC9 8AM OPCO2 -
<f88v3.11> 8AM 8AE ZCOE 2 AM 4OSCC9 8AM 4OFCOE 4OFCO89 SO8 SCO8     9FC0 4O 4OE SCO EO3 8AKOJ -
<f88v3.12> 2SCOR 29 2ORSCC9 8OE SCOR SCCA FCCO 4OFCC9 8AM 90CCAR9   OFCC9 FCCOFCS9 QCA 8AM O9 -
<f88v3.13> 4OFOE SCOR OFOM OFCO9 4OCC9 SCOR SCC9 4OFCOE SCAE 2 AM   OSCOE 2O3 8AT SC9 8AM -
<f88v3.14> O R AN OR AN OE 8AM 40AM {?} OE SFAM 8AM OFAR 8AN9*8AN =

<f88v3.b 1> OFAD 9ORAN {first is over second}
<f88v3.b 2> OVAFAE
<f88v3.b 3> APAE29 {faint} 
<f88v3.b 4> 9PAC6 {?}
<f88v3.b 5> OPOEAROE



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From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 22 07:29:47 GMT 1996
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In reply to posts from Guy, Bruce and Don:

1 DATABASES

I think several people are already privately experimenting with
(or using 'operationally') databases. Like most of you I agree
that a file like 'voynich.now' is the most convenient type for
certain types of analysis. What I'd like to point out is that such
a text file should be a product of a database. Our master copy 
should be database form, and it should be possible to execute 
standard 'queries' that produce:
1) a file like voynich.now
2) a file like Jim Reeds' 'checklist'
3) a file like 'finder' at rand.org.
4) a list of all labels
At the moment everyone is working in parallel, which is almost
unavoidable given the wide choice (and therefore preferences)
of databases. Would it be achievable to do it centrally??

At the highest level, a hierarhical database type seems appropriate
we have from the top down

0. The entire manuscript
1. Gatherings or quires
2. Bifolios
3. Folios
4. Pages or panels (here the system breaks down somewhat, but I
   think an elegant solution can be found). I would call a 'panel'
   anything between folio folds and edges and a page any area of
   written text/pictures. Maybe I have got that backwards.
   
Below this level more care will be needed still. The text can be
split up, given the start loci of each piece of text. Paragraph
identifications should be clearly kept though. Below that are
single words (if desired) and single characters.

Each 'property' naturally belongs to a hierarchic level.
Language and hand apparently are bifolio properties, 
'contains folio nr' is a panel property, 'page description comment'
is a page property etc.

2 LOCI

Let's not try to improve on what is already good. The locus indications
system in voynich.now, if standardised, I consider totally adequate.

Aything between < > and not containing a period (decimal point) marks
the start of a new page (or is that panel?).
Anything between < > that does contain one (or more) periods marks
a new locus. If the thing after the period is just a number, we know
we have a 'normal' line as part of a 'normal' text. Other conventions
can be used for labels, parts of circular writing, or scattered text.
(See Michael Roe's transcription of f66r in voynich.now for a good example).
Note that with these indications of 'start of new page' and 'start
of new line' no further 'newpage/newline' symbols are required.

Of course, inside the database, other indications may be present. This
point is just about the representation of the query result.

3 TRANSCRIPTION ALPHABET.

For a database, nothing will beat Frogguy, as long as the tools exist
to convert to people's favourite transcription alphabet. This is IMHO
of course. The problem arises when a sequence is found in the text that
cannot be expressed in people's fav. system.  Think of the ligatures,
the alternative Z, the picnic table and the cqpt with the q and p split.
Some clever annotation scheme can be devised here. I have been thinking
along the following lines (again matching as closely as possible the 
conventions in 'voynich.now').

After the 'start of page' indication, one has two 'streams' of text.
Lines starting with a hash are one stream and all other lines the other.
The latter contains the transcription, and the former (with the #) 
bulk comments and/or descriptions in plain language. Inside both,
in-line comments are delimited by { }. These comments may include 
reserved words. Consider the imaginary situation:

<f12r>{!Cur}
#
# Transcribed by John Doe
#
<f12r.1> 8AM.8ZZ.4OPAE
# The first {!Cur}Z{/Cur} in the pair has a wider loop than the second

The {!Cur} in the first line is in the 'transcription' stream and indicates
the alphabet of the transcription. The pair inside the comment stream
swithc on/off the Currier alphabet (where the default is Latin). This piece
can be translated to other transcription alphabets and still
make sense.

Another two cents,

        Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 22 09:30:57 +0100 1996
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Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 09:30:57 +0100 (BST)
From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Databases
In-Reply-To: <9604220729.AA21962@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
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On Mon, 22 Apr 1996, R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad wrote:
> 3 TRANSCRIPTION ALPHABET.
> 
> For a database, nothing will beat Frogguy, as long as the tools exist
> to convert to people's favourite transcription alphabet. This is IMHO
> of course.

I like the idea of Frogguy. I was thinking to stick to Currier's since
you can go from Currier's to FSG (loosing the differences between 6 & 7)
as I did in the interlin.vms but with Frogguy it's probably even better.
I would like to see a "maybe space" symbol, I found many of these
doubtful situations and I wondered what to do. (this was looking at
the interlin.vms and a page from Bennett's).

BTW, who maintains the voynich.now file?

cheers,
Gabriel



From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 22 15:14:35 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Dee and/or Hajek
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Dear all,

Voynich mentions in his writings that he has gone through the biographies 
of a multitude of people at Rudolph's court to find the one who may have
sold the Emperor his cipher manuscript. He has come up with the candidate
John Dee, which of course suits his theory of a Baconian origin.
Whereas there is no need to suspect any dishonesty on the part of Voynich,
he may have rejected other good candidates just because they were not
likely to have owned a Ms. of R.Bacon. 
Thaddeus Hajek (I hope I have this right) would be another candidate.
He was interested in all the disciplines presumably represented in the
VMs, and he learned his botany directly from Matthiolis, who is
mentioned on f17r (though this seems to be an obscure reading).

Those who have studied Rudolph and his surroundings (and those who have
read infinitely more than me): has he ever been considered seriously
in connection with the VMs (as a temporary owner)? Does Voynich
say anything more than what I mentioned at the start of this note?

As always interested..
                        Rene

From rand.org!jim Tue Apr 23 10:19:12 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: Databases
To: voynich@rand.org
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Rene Zandergen:

> I think several people are already privately experimenting with
> (or using 'operationally') databases.

I used to. I have not done anything for a long time now. Another hobby
of mine is the decipherment of the Easter Island tablets. As I am *very*
lazy, I have been trying to design (so far only in my mind's eye) a
database that will do both for the Easter Island glyphs and for
Voynichese. *The* problem I used to have was working on PCs, with their
infamous 64K data segment "feature". But the problem is slowly fading
like a Cheshire cat, with extensions and new Pascal compilers now
becoming available. I am trying to resist as long as possible using
Windows, because not everyone uses PCs, and among those who use PCs, not
everyone has, nor wishes to get, the latest souped-up Octiums or Noniums
soon required to run Windoze 99.


> 3 TRANSCRIPTION ALPHABET.

> For a database, nothing will beat Frogguy, as long as the tools exist
> to convert to people's favourite transcription alphabet.

I *blush*. Frogguy is the fruit of my considerable natural laziness. I
just could not be bothered learning all those transliterations, and,
especially, *remembering* them. I have been trying to devise a "Frogguy
for Easter Island", with appallingly little success so far (it's getting
a bit better: I think I have now got the right angle, but most remains
to be done).

> Consider the imaginary situation:

> <f12r>{!Cur}
> #
> # Transcribed by John Doe
> #
> <f12r.1> 8AM.8ZZ.4OPAE
> # The first {!Cur}Z{/Cur} in the pair has a wider loop than the second
>
> The {!Cur} in the first line is in the 'transcription' stream and indicates
> the alphabet of the transcription. The pair inside the comment stream
> switch on/off the Currier alphabet (where the default is Latin). This piece
> can be translated to other transcription alphabets and still
> make sense.

Hmmm... perhaps. It *is* awkward, though. And the comment is not
automatically interpretable. The problem is very similar to what I have
been experiencing with the Easter Island glyphs. For each "letter" or
rather, component of a letter, we need a canon - its most common form -
and an optional modifier. {Cur} Z, for instance, can be broken down into
c-like base and plume/loop, just like... c-cedilla. Thus: c-plume.
So, perhaps we could have a notation of the kind c-plume(n) in which n
is the n-th variant of the standard plume. So Rene's comment line would
become something like this:

# Z[1] = c-plume(3)

or, since Z is defined as c-plume, just:

# Z[1] = plume(3)

The advantages are:

1. It requires less typing.
2. It is parsable and automatically processable.
3. Is can be generalized. Thus {Cur} R, as i-plume, is describable in
   the same manner.


Gabriel Landini:

> I would like to see a "maybe space" symbol, I found many of these
> doubtful situations and I wondered what to do.

That is a good idea. Didn't someone, once upon a time, suggest a comma
or whatever for a doubtful space?

j.guy@trl.telstra.com.au aka "Frogguy"

From rand.org!jim Tue Apr 23 15:50:04 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: Databases and fonts
To: voynich@rand.org
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I have found a nice Truetype font editor at Simtel in
pc/win3/font/td30edem.zip

It's for Windoze of course, and it's only a demo
(you can't save your work to disk). I tried my hand
at a couple of simple Voynich letters, and it was
*difficult* (even though the interface is very good).
I had never realized how messy for a newcomer designing
a TTF was. It's German and the commercial version 
costs DM249 (15% VAT included). I wonder...


From rand.org!jim Tue Apr 23 20:38:46 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Database vs. variorum text
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 20:38:46 -0400 (EDT)
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The recent discussion brings up a point that has always bothered me about
computer analysis of the VM: I think that there are two agendas in producing
a machine-readable VM transcription. The first is to be sure to capture all
significant features of the manuscript, which is particularly tough since
no one knows just what features are significant. The result is a text with
a lot of ambiguity: unreadable characters, alternate readings etc. as well
as uncertain word divisions (is it one word interrupted by a plant or is
the plant stem in between two words?). 

The second is to make the VM text accessible for computer analysis. While
the capturing of all possibilities as described above is important, it
may make computer analysis impossible. For example, how do you handle 
alternative readings of a character when calculating letter frequencies?

My approach has been to make a single guess in each such situation in the
hope that the errors I make will be offset by the larger amount of text
that becomes analyzable in this way.

By the same token, though a database containing a mix of character sets
may be more accurate (in the sense that it represents exactly what the
transcriber thought he/she saw) I think transliteration into a single
set is required to allow any kind of automated analysis. Ideally, an
alphabet would be chosen that can be mapped into others easily.
(That is one reason I personnally like the Currier system, though I
can't believe all the different letters are really different characters
in the V alphabet.)

Doing this will undoubtedly cause problems: e.g., there is no way
to write in the Currier system the letter he called P when it straddles
two words, while I believe Frogguy will handle it, so translation between
the two systems will not always be error-free.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think we need both a complex
transcription like 'voynich.now' to capture every nuance of detail, and
a simpler, possibly less accurate database designed for computer analysis,
with the latter loaded from the former by eliminating some detail and
when necessary by making some guesses.

Bruce Grant (umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Tue Apr 23 21:34 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich Database vs. variorum text
Status: OR


Bruce Grant just said

>I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think we need both a complex
>transcription like 'voynich.now' to capture every nuance of detail, and
>a simpler, possibly less accurate database designed for computer analysis

and I completely agree.  Although possibly convenient, I do not think that
it is it essential that

>the latter [be] loaded from the former by eliminating some detail...

I have often used voynich.orig instead of voynich.now for input fodder
to statistical analysis programs.

To my thinking the most important feature of the simpler database would be
uniformity of quality throughout the whole book.  My biggest problem with
ALL the existing transcriptions (those in voynich.now, the old FSG stuff,
the stuff we are likely to come up with in the next few months, etc) is that
there is no quality control: we have no real way of knowing that the biology
section is transcribed as accurately as the herbal section, etc.  

Changing the subject:  a long time ago I distributed (at cost) 2nd generation
xerox copies of Father Petersen's hand transcription of the VMS; this included
sketches of plants, nymphs, etc, as well as transcribed text.  Now that
scanning technology & bulk storage is so much cheaper it might be possible
to make disk o' gifs edition of Petersen's copy.  The art work is not as
good as the original, but the writing is better.  Best of all, the owner
of Petersen's copy is as obliging and friendly about stuff like this as
a library could be: the complete opposite of the Beinecke.  So.  Can someone
tell me about the economics of going into a library and scanning 300 pages
and putting it on disks?  How much work is involved, how much disk space
would it take up, etc.

Jim

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Wed Apr 24 07:07:24 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9604240707.AA07704@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Database vs. variorum text
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Bruce Grant writes:
 
> ...... though a database containing a mix of character sets
> may be more accurate (in the sense that it represents exactly what the
> transcriber thought he/she saw) I think transliteration into a single
> set is required to allow any kind of automated analysis. Ideally, an
> alphabet would be chosen that can be mapped into others easily.

I would say the main purpose is to have a source that matches the
original as accurately as possible. If it cannot then be easily mapped
into other transcription alphabets, this is a shortcoming of this
other alphabet and not the database alphabet. The database should be
in one single alphabet.

> (That is one reason I personnally like the Currier system, though I
> can't believe all the different letters are really different characters
> in the V alphabet.)

Exactly. The Currier alphabet is good because in most cases it represents
by one character glyphs that we think represent one character, but not 
in all cases! Frogguy for a database has the advantage that it is like a 
computer copy of the VMs. Transliteration to your preferred system
is then the equivalent of computerised transcription.

> Doing this will undoubtedly cause problems: e.g., there is no way
> to write in the Currier system the letter he called P when it straddles
> two words, while I believe Frogguy will handle it, so translation between
> the two systems will not always be error-free.

This is another possible shortcoming of Currier and other alphabets. 
Note 'possible' because we just don't know what these letters mean. With
Frogguy the decision is delayed. Translation from Frogguy to any of the
other alphabets is not always possible, therefore these are information-
losing translations. These alphabets are not ideal for our master copy.

> I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think we need both a complex
> transcription like 'voynich.now' to capture every nuance of detail, and
> a simpler, possibly less accurate database designed for computer analysis

and Jim Reeds agrees, but less so with Bruce's:

> with the latter loaded from the former by eliminating some detail and
> when necessary by making some guesses.

My point was that the original (1991 or so) concept of having one master
copy is still completely valid. Let's have it in database form. I think
we are fully agreeing that Frogguy is not well suited for statistical 
analysis so other transcription alphabets are still needed. The computer 
should do the translation work for us.

Jim continues:

> I have often used voynich.orig instead of voynich.now for input fodder
> to statistical analysis programs.
> To my thinking the most important feature of the simpler database would be
> uniformity of quality throughout the whole book.

For some cases you might indeed need this. Therefore the database should
contain alternative transcriptions (cf. Gabriels interlin file). Users
who want to run tests on consistent data should be able to execute
a query that extracts such data (i.e. reconstruct the voynich.orig).
Other users who just want as much data as possible can execute different
queries. I for example would love to do stats on the 'star' section, for
which as yet no consistent high-quality transcription exists.

> ..........................................  My biggest problem with ALL 
> the existing transcriptions (those in voynich.now, the old FSG stuff,
> the stuff we are likely to come up with in the next few months, etc) is that
> there is no quality control: we have no real way of knowing that the biology
> section is transcribed as accurately as the herbal section, etc.  

Agreed. Since the proper solution (having a complete and consistent 
transcription) is as yet out of reach, the above approach would seem to
me to be the next best thing. Users have the capability to select for
each experiment:
1) The dataset to use
2) The transcription alphabet to use
In my mind, this is making good use of today's computer resources.

It is quite interesting also in view of the above, that Jim then proposes
to have a new copy of the Petersen transcription, (in which I would be very
interested indeed).
The fact that this transcription is still very useful for us, even
though it is a hand copy rather than a xerox of the original, is because
it is consistent and complete, done with great care, and thus a close enough 
copy of the original. That last property can be preserved in computerised
form in a Frogguy database of all transcriptions.

Cheers, Rene





From rand.org!jim Wed Apr 24 17:06:16 +0100 1996
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To: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Database vs. variorum text 
In-reply-to: Your message of Tue, 23 Apr 1996 20:38:46 -0400.
             <m0uBsbX-001ZEVC@umcc.umcc.umich.edu> 
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 17:06:16 +0100
From: Mike Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>
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Status: OR


Bruce Grant writes:
> My approach has been to make a single guess in each such situation in the
> hope that the errors I make will be offset by the larger amount of text
> that becomes analyzable in this way.

Many of the statistical techniques can be ruined by a quite small amount of
'bad' data. So, often it's better to have a smaller amount of accurately
transcribed text than a larger amount with lots of errors.

For similar reasons, for some tests it's vital to record the places where
a character was unreadable (rather than guessing a value), so that the
statistical test can ignore it in an appropriate way.

If it's known that a character belongs to a particular 'class' (ligatured or
not ligatured, say) then this information is useful, even if we don't know
exactly which character it is.  However, the notation currently used in 
voynich.now for indicating alternative readings is somewhat hard to process 
automatically. (The "[2C]" and so on).


Ideally, the machine-processable text would be a sort of interlinear edition,
where you can *automatically* process it to recover any one particular
transcription or a 'consensus' consisting of the regions where multiple
transcriptions agree.

Finally, I think it be worthwhile to be more strict about using a proper
SGML DTD next time around. The current voynich.now puts some important
information in 'comments' e.g. "{D'Imperio A}", and these make processing
harder.

Mike

From rand.org!jim Wed Apr 24 10:24:04 0600 1996
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From: rcarter@nyx.net (Ron Carter)
Message-Id: <9604241624.AA26758@nyx.net>
Subject: Re: Voynich Database vs. variorum text
To: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk (Gabriel Landini)
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 10:24:04 -0600 (MDT)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <317E6862.3D3E@bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Apr 24, 96 10:44:02 am
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Status: OR

To further the Peterson-to-digital discussion...
 
> reeds@research.att.com wrote:
> > Changing the subject:  a long time ago I distributed (at cost) 2nd generation
> > xerox copies of Father Petersen's hand transcription of the VMS; this included
> > sketches of plants, nymphs, etc, as well as transcribed text.

And much thanks for that (again)...

> >  Now that scanning technology & bulk storage is so much cheaper it might
> > be possible to make disk o' gifs edition of Petersen's copy.

Super idea...

> Gabriel responds:

> The scanning should be at a high resolution one. I did some tests grabbing the
> images in Braumbagh (sorry if I spelled it wrong) at 768x512 pixels. ...

The place where I do sysadmin work for, receives over 2000 images a week
from the counties; these are straight B&W 200x200 pixel images from 8 1/2
by 11 (inch) originals; these are very legible and compact (40-50K each).

300 images at 50K is 15M which (easily) fits on CD; we could probably put
alot of the message archive, frogguy stuff, etc. on the same (650M) CDR.

CDRs are about 8 or 9 bucks (in quantity) here in the US, and I would be
more than happy to check into the use of the company's equipment to burn
out some CDs for the group.

Maybe there could be a tradeoff of resolution (go to 300x300?) for space,
but keep them to B&W images?  If a bed scanner was taken, each image should
take less than a minute to process; a full day of boring work should do it.

Sent to me compacted on disk (or whatever) it then takes about a half hour
to burn a CD; another boring full day (or two) of work to produce them.

-- 
Looking Forward, Ron | rcarter@nyx.net | Denver, Colorado, USA

From rand.org!jim Wed Apr 24 10:44:02 0700 1996
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Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 10:44:02 -0700
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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To: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Voynich Database vs. variorum text
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reeds@research.att.com wrote:
> Changing the subject:  a long time ago I distributed (at cost) 2nd generation
> xerox copies of Father Petersen's hand transcription of the VMS; this included
> sketches of plants, nymphs, etc, as well as transcribed text.  Now that
> scanning technology & bulk storage is so much cheaper it might be possible
> to make disk o' gifs edition of Petersen's copy.  The art work is not as
> good as the original, but the writing is better.  Best of all, the owner
> of Petersen's copy is as obliging and friendly about stuff like this as
> a library could be: the complete opposite of the Beinecke.  So.  Can someone
> tell me about the economics of going into a library and scanning 300 pages
> and putting it on disks?  How much work is involved, how much disk space
> would it take up, etc.

The scanning should be at a high resolution one. I did some tests grabbing the
images in Braumbagh (sorry if I spelled it wrong) at 768x512 pixels. 
In PCX format are about 500K per page and about 350K in GIF.
These are 8 bit greyscale pictures, but little can be CLEARLY read.
Apart from that one has to process the images further to try to equalise
the background as the vms pages seem to vary in intensity and this makes
the whole thing difficult to read.
I did a background correction with sub-sampled polynomial surfaces and that
gave the best results.
A writable CD seems to me the only option. (they are about 10 pound here in UK).

cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Wed Apr 24 16:36 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Date: Wed, 24 Apr 96 16:36 EDT
To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich petersen scans
Status: OR

Ron Carter points out that a B&W image comes to about 50K bytes per
8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet, so 300 of them would come to 15 megabytes, and
Brian Smith points out that for such small quantities of data one does
not need compact disks:  one just slurps it over the net.

This would be for 200 by 200 pixels per square inch, which is, I think,
comparable in quality to a first generation monochrome xerox.

One of the problems with Petersen, however, is the business of its being
scribbled up with colored pencils.  If scanned in color it would be easier
to read through the scribbles.  But aren't color scans at least an order
of magnitude buliker?

So one question is: is it worth while making a monochrome scan of
Petersen?  Ron, care to answer?

Another question is, who would do the work?  Not I, in the forseable
future.  One would have to schlep a computer & scanner over to the library,
I suppose.  Maybe one can contract it out to a specialist?  If so, how
much would it cost?  I suppose the scanning job itself takes only slightly
longer than xeroxing that many pages, but to be most useful to us we would
want some kind of added "mark up" work done (indicating which Voynich page
goes with which Petersen page, possibly somehow marking the locations
of the Voynich text lines, etc), which would take many hours of our time.

Jim Reeds


From reeds_to:voynich Wed Apr 24 16:36:41 EDT 1996 re Voynich petersen scans
Subject: Voynich petersen scans
Status: OR

Ron Carter points out that a B&W image comes to about 50K bytes per
8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet, so 300 of them would come to 15 megabytes, and
Brian Smith points out that for such small quantities of data one does
not need compact disks:  one just slurps it over the net.

This would be for 200 by 200 pixels per square inch, which is, I think,
comparable in quality to a first generation monochrome xerox.

One of the problems with Petersen, however, is the business of its being
scribbled up with colored pencils.  If scanned in color it would be easier
to read through the scribbles.  But aren't color scans at least an order
of magnitude buliker?

So one question is: is it worth while making a monochrome scan of
Petersen?  Ron, care to answer?

Another question is, who would do the work?  Not I, in the forseable
future.  One would have to schlep a computer & scanner over to the library,
I suppose.  Maybe one can contract it out to a specialist?  If so, how
much would it cost?  I suppose the scanning job itself takes only slightly
longer than xeroxing that many pages, but to be most useful to us we would
want some kind of added "mark up" work done (indicating which Voynich page
goes with which Petersen page, possibly somehow marking the locations
of the Voynich text lines, etc), which would take many hours of our time.

Jim Reeds

From rand.org!jim Wed Apr 24 14:20:34 PDT 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
From: Jim Reeds <reeds@research.att.com>
Subject: Voynich petersen scans
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 96 14:20:34 PDT
Sender: jim@rand.org
Status: OR


----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Moderator's note -- due to my fat fingers in adding a new member, the
 list was messed up briefly, and this will be a repeat for some of you.

	Jim Gillogly
----------------------------------------------------------------------


------- Forwarded Message

Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 16:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: reeds@research.att.com
Subject: Voynich petersen scans
To: voynich <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Message-id: <199604242039.NAA18555@rand.org>
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Ron Carter points out that a B&W image comes to about 50K bytes per
8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet, so 300 of them would come to 15 megabytes, and
Brian Smith points out that for such small quantities of data one does
not need compact disks:  one just slurps it over the net.

This would be for 200 by 200 pixels per square inch, which is, I think,
comparable in quality to a first generation monochrome xerox.

One of the problems with Petersen, however, is the business of its being
scribbled up with colored pencils.  If scanned in color it would be easier
to read through the scribbles.  But aren't color scans at least an order
of magnitude buliker?

So one question is: is it worth while making a monochrome scan of
Petersen?  Ron, care to answer?

Another question is, who would do the work?  Not I, in the forseable
future.  One would have to schlep a computer & scanner over to the library,
I suppose.  Maybe one can contract it out to a specialist?  If so, how
much would it cost?  I suppose the scanning job itself takes only slightly
longer than xeroxing that many pages, but to be most useful to us we would
want some kind of added "mark up" work done (indicating which Voynich page
goes with which Petersen page, possibly somehow marking the locations
of the Voynich text lines, etc), which would take many hours of our time.

Jim Reeds


------- End of Forwarded Message


From rand.org!jim Wed Apr 24 17:54:02 0600 1996
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From: rcarter@nyx.net (Ron Carter)
Message-Id: <9604242354.AA22705@nyx.net>
Subject: VMS Petersen scans...
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 17:54:02 -0600 (MDT)
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*sigh*

Typed pixels insted of dpi; we do 200x200 -dpi- 8 1/2 x 11 (inch)
images; and (another correction) they range 45-55K in size (gifs
that are -not- compacted) in their 2 "color" (B&W) end state.

Yep, the tradeoff for doing color (possibly a unavoidable evil
with the colored pencils...) is an increase in magnitude in end
size, and yep, the color scans do -not- compact well; the B&W
ones do quite well in compaction (depending on white space...).

The only way to get a firm grsp on it all is for someone to go
over to the library and do several scans, maybe of the "worst"
case (a page with lots of scribbles) in both 16 color and B&W
and upload them, etc.  Hire someone?  Yikes!  Expensive...

Would rather see gif format myself; we could even carve out a
web page for 300 images if need be; could be cool.

-- 
Looking Forward, Ron | rcarter@nyx.net | Denver, Colorado, USA

From rand.org!jim Wed Apr 24 17:00:15 0700 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9604250000.AA22572@sun.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Voynich Database vs. variorum text
To: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk (Gabriel Landini)
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 17:00:15 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: rcarter@nyx.net, voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <317F1198.2A86@bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Apr 24, 96 10:46:00 pm
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Status: OR

Gabriel Landini writes:
> The main problem with greyscale files is that they are very hard to compress.
> Binay files would easily compress more, but you loose a lot of information.
I work a lot with degraded images, and from what I gather about the marking
in color on these pages, the reasonable thing is 24-bit color at 600 dpi
i.e. the quality provided by standard flatbed scanners these days. I'm not
talking high precision equipment, an HP ScanJet retails below $900 these days.

This is about a megabyte per square inch of the image, a little less than a
100 MB for a full 8.5x11 image. The reasonable thing is not to keep all
this, but of course to scan selectively (most scanner software knows how
to present a rough image of which you can select the part you want scanned at
high res) and to do the preprocessing on the spot. In particular, lift the
color markings and get the rest into a greyscale image -- now we are talking
only 20MB per page (plus whatever we do with the color stuff). In the next
pass we can binarize the thing and compress down to .5m per page easily.

> Probably the best format is PING (PNG) which compresses better than GIF, but
> there are fewer readers.
> I would go for large images, then we can reduce them later...
Exactly. Get a high quality scan and work from that. I remember Jim Reeds
once sent me a page that was too big for the machine I was working with at
the time (because it had only 16M or real memory). This is not an issue
anymore.

> > CDRs are about 8 or 9 bucks (in quantity) here in the US, and I would be
> > more than happy to check into the use of the company's equipment to burn
> > out some CDs for the group.

There are several tasks here, and they need not all be performed by
the same person.  Let's say person 1 does the scanning and sends the
tar tape(s) to person 2 who can do color separation. Person 2 can send the
result to person 3, who can do binarization, and can send the result
to person 4, who masters the CD. We can't master RockRidge here, but can
probably do a dumb 9660. I would unfortunately have to get it approved, a
major pain, so it makes better sense for Gabriel to be person 4. However,
I'm glad to be person 3, and possibly even person 2, but definitely not
person 1.

> That would be great.
> The best way is to try various sizes and then have a chat/exchange of ideas
> here in the list before deciding size, greylevels, etc.
We should run a few pages through the proposed pipelene, see if people
are satisfied with the color separation the binarization whatever, and
take it from there.

Andras

From rand.org!jim Wed Apr 24 20:05:18 0600 1996
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From: rcarter@nyx.net (Ron Carter)
Message-Id: <9604250205.AA09172@nyx.net>
Subject: Re: Voynich Database vs. variorum text
To: kornai@almaden.ibm.com (Andras Kornai)
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 20:05:18 -0600 (MDT)
Cc: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk, rcarter@nyx.net, voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9604250000.AA22572@sun.almaden.ibm.com> from "Andras Kornai" at Apr 24, 96 05:00:15 pm
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> Gabriel Landini writes:

> There are several tasks here, and they need not all be performed by
> the same person.  Let's say person 1 does the scanning and sends the
> tar tape(s) to person 2 who can do color separation. Person 2 can send the
> result to person 3, who can do binarization, and can send the result
> to person 4, who masters the CD. We can't master RockRidge here, but can
> probably do a dumb 9660. I would unfortunately have to get it approved, a
> major pain, so it makes better sense for Gabriel to be person 4. However,
> I'm glad to be person 3, and possibly even person 2, but definitely not
> person 1.

This is a great plan; I will volunteer for person 4 (ie the one to burn
the CDs; I can do RockRidge, but ISO9660 is all that is called for here,
I would think...  I would add another person (or two...) in here; I'd 
like to put some of the other Team Voynich stuff on the CD if possible.

-- 
Looking Forward, Ron | rcarter@nyx.net | Denver, Colorado, USA

From rand.org!jim Wed Apr 24 22:46:00 0700 1996
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Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 22:46:00 -0700
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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To: Ron Carter <rcarter@nyx.net>
Cc: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Voynich Database vs. variorum text
References: <9604241624.AA26758@nyx.net>
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Hi Ron and all,
Ron Carter wrote:
> > Gabriel responds:
> 
> > The scanning should be at a high resolution one. I did some tests grabbing the
> > images in Braumbagh (sorry if I spelled it wrong) at 768x512 pixels. ...

> The place where I do sysadmin work for, receives over 2000 images a week
> from the counties; these are straight B&W 200x200 pixel images from 8 1/2
> by 11 (inch) originals; these are very legible and compact (40-50K each).

I am talking about PIXELS, not DPI!!!
I doubt that a 200x200 pixels file would be readable at all. But the best
way is trying. We do not want an image that is even worse than the copy,
I want one that is "as least as bad" ;-)

The main problem with greyscale files is that they are very hard to compress.
Binay files would easily compress more, but you loose a lot of information.
Probably the best format is PING (PNG) which compresses better than GIF, but
there are fewer readers.
I would go for large images, then we can reduce them later...

> CDRs are about 8 or 9 bucks (in quantity) here in the US, and I would be
> more than happy to check into the use of the company's equipment to burn
> out some CDs for the group.

That would be great.
The best way is to try various sizes and then have a chat/exchange of ideas
here in the list before deciding size, greylevels, etc.
cheers!

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Thu Apr 25 09:27 BST 1996
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Date: Thu, 25 Apr 96 09:27 BST
From: John Kozak <jk@noontide.demon.co.uk>
To: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Databases
In-Reply-To: <9604230019.AA07409@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
References: <9604230019.AA07409@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Reply-To: jkozak@cix.compulink.co.uk
Status: OR

Jacques Guy writes:

 > I used to. I have not done anything for a long time now. Another hobby
 > of mine is the decipherment of the Easter Island tablets. 

There's a report in today's Guardian, claiming this has been deciphered:

  "[...] New Zealand linguist Dr. Steven Fischer said the script, called
   rongorongo tells the story of creation.  It is written in the language
   of the Rapanui [...] inspired to write by visiting Spaniards in
   1770, but the script was entirely a Polynesian creation [...] Rongorongo
   had 120 basic [...] glyphs arranged in triads.  It died out in less
   than 100 years"

John

From rand.org!jim Thu Apr 25 09:48:07 +0100 1996
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>From the viewpoint of someone who's scanned some folios and converted them
into PostScript, I would suggest grayscale.

The anti-aliasing it'd give you would stop the characters and images getting
jaggy round the edges which can be a real pain in the butt in b/w images,
unless you make the dpi sufficiently large. Of course, with sufficiently
large dpi you maybe make the image a pain to use, but there you go!

Anyway, I can provide web space if anyone needs it.

-- 
Alligator Descartes		\\ Nexus - Multi-User Virtual Reality 
Anathematician			//   http://www.hermetica.com/nexus
descarte@hermetica.com		\\      ** Java(TM) Powered! **

From rand.org!jim Thu Apr 25 11:53:21 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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I am quite good at 'reverse engineering' :-) so let me
approach the situation from the other side. If a CDROM holds 650 Mb,
and we have 235 pages with some reserve space for text files and other stuff,
we have a bout 2.5 Mb per image. This seems reasonable (if not already a bit
large) for convenient handling on normal PC's.
For 8.5" * 11" size paper, we have 26700 bytes or 210,000 bits available
per square inch, thus the following table (valid for uncompressed 
'pixrect'-type data):

Bits per colour    Max.resolution
----------------   --------------
1                   460 * 460
4                   230 * 230
8                   160 * 160
24                   94 * 94

Thus, for uncompressed images, we cannot have all images on one
CDROM if we use 8 bit/colour and 300 dpi
which I think would be good enough for our purposes (can
scanners do 8 bits/colour?).
Since I assume Petersen did not use more that 16 pencils,
4 bits/colour would suffice, and then a compression ratio of about
60% would do the trick. 
Any commonly used graphics format actually allow 4 bits/colour?
I guess compression to 60% in that case is rather optimistic too....

It should therefore be checked if 150 dpi and 256 colours is good
enough or if 300 dpi with B/W or dithered is good enough.
Otherwise go to multiple CD's :-(

I'll have a try with various options and graphics formats on
our scanner(s) and report back next week.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Thu Apr 25 09:02 EDT 1996
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Date: 25 Apr 1996 08:57:30 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  Yet more on scannin
To: "voynich" <voynich@rand.org>
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Hello all,

I have seen the last postings on scanning... 

Thaugh it is possible to scan in 24 bit (even 30 bit) color, and filter =
the resulting image 
in a software than can redure the number of colors to 256 (8 bit)... Why =
do it?

Meaning, what do we need a bitmap for? Is it only to be able to read as =
clearly as from the
original on our PC ? (hi-res is a must with filtering). Or, do we want to =
analyse the bitmap
with a program, like on OCR (optical character recognition), if so =
lineart scanning or 300dpi
b&w could be enaugh...

The end should dictate the type of scanning used. I might have missed =
some posting... But has
the end, or usage of a VMS cd-rom been identified? Is there people out =
there with ready
made OCR software that could interpret "voynichese" into ASCII? Is this =
what we want?

2.5 Mb is NOT too big for a 24bit color scan, it's more like the average =
for a full page...

Unfortunatly, there is no database that permits graphic querries on its =
objects... Thus
you can't use a bitmap in SQL, other that as data -nice to see- that have =
been fetched
by some criteria. 

Juts thought I should voice my 2 cents as well on this, since I worked a =
lot with scanned
images ;-)





From rand.org!jim Thu Apr 25 12:00:36 0700 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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Ron Carter wrote:
>
> This is a great plan; I will volunteer for person 4 (ie the one to burn
> the CDs; I can do RockRidge, but ISO9660 is all that is called for here,
> I would think...  I would add another person (or two...) in here; I'd
> like to put some of the other Team Voynich stuff on the CD if possible.

Andras suggested me to do the CD copying, but I haven't got a CD writer! :-(
Good that Ron has volunteered to do it.

Jim Reeds asked about the size of the colour files. I think that a good
approximation is 3 times the size of a 8 bit greyscale image of the same size.
Usually the 24 bit colour ones have different channels for the RGB components
and these are in fact 8 bit images.
If this project is to take out, we porbably should include in the CD ALL the
information available so far. (files, papers, letters, etc.)

Does anybody know if the library would allow to make this electronic copy?

On another subject (!)
Rene told me that Jim G. saw or has the British Library photocopies. Are these
worth having or are they worse than the Yale copy?

cheers,
Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Thu Apr 25 17:58 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Subject: Voynich copy by Petersen onto disk
Status: OR


My suggestion to make a digital photocopy of Petersen's transcription seems
to have kicked up a lot of interest.  Here are some of my reactions
to some of the responses, plus a few random thoughts:

1. Gabriel's plan of dividing the work is wonderful!

2. I cannot be the person doing the scanning, which is estimated to take
a full day, at least not in the next 1/2 year.  Who shall bell the cat?
Does anyone live closer to western Virginia than I do?  What would
actually be involved?  Loading one's PC with scanner and maybe cd-rom
drive into one's car, driving to the library, setting up in the reading
room, & nerding away for a day or 2? [Here is my perfect excuse:  I 
don't have a PC or workstation to load into the car.  I use a departmental
mainframe at work.]

3.  My impression is that the Marshall Library would not object to
copying the Petersen thing.  When I have asked for permission to
copy and publish other stuff (the FSG transcription, in particular)
they wrote back (in effect) go right ahead, copy & publish anything
you want.  

4.  If we are doing digital photography at Lexington we might also want
to copy the photostats of the VMS in the Friedman collection.  I would
guess that there are perhaps 250 pages worth of B&W photocopies of the VMS.
The photographic quality is usually better than the Yale microfilm.

5. I'm trying to get a clear impression of what the actual act of scanning
would be like.  Andras's estimate 

>This is about a megabyte per square inch of the image, a little less than a
>100 MB for a full 8.5x11 image. The reasonable thing is not to keep all
>this, but of course to scan selectively (most scanner software knows how
>to present a rough image of which you can select the part you want scanned at
>high res) and to do the preprocessing on the spot. In particular, lift the
>color markings and get the rest into a greyscale image -- now we are talking
>only 20MB per page (plus whatever we do with the color stuff). In the next
>pass we can binarize the thing and compress down to .5m per page easily.

is kind of scary:  you are asking the scanner person to do a lot of judgement
work, when these steps are carried out 300 times each.  I'm old fashioned
and out of date, but isn't 300 times 20 MB = 6 GB rather a lot for an
ordinary PC to carry around on its disk?  Or does the scanner person dump
to some dismountable medium from time to time as the long scanning day
passes?  Or is the further compression to .5 MB supposed to happen at the
scanning site; & if so, is further judgement needed?  How long would
it take to 'do' one page, with ordinary equipment?  (I have used 2 scanners
in my life: an experimental scanner setup an OCR colleague at work has,
which you work sort of like a xerox machine, about 2 seconds per page,
and a "thunderscan" thing on a macintosh, where it takes about 3 minutes
to click here, select there, sweep this, wait for data to ooze from one
puddle to the next, and so on.  Not something I'd like to do 300 times over.)

6.  Ron Carter's comment

>The only way to get a firm grsp on it all is for someone to go
>over to the library and do several scans, maybe of the "worst"
>case (a page with lots of scribbles) in both 16 color and B&W
>and upload them, etc...

seems really shrewd to me.  It would mean 2 trips to Lexington, though.
Which brings us back to who can most conveniently do the job? Don't we
have members in Virginia or neighboring states?


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Thu Apr 25 20:50:31 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: Voynich copy by Petersen onto disk
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 20:50:31 -0400 (EDT)
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Jim Reeds recently wrote:
>                                                         What would
> actually be involved?  Loading one's PC with scanner and maybe cd-rom
> drive into one's car, driving to the library, setting up in the reading
> room, & nerding away for a day or 2?                                

I admit to not knowing much about scanning, but would it be possible to 
go to Virginia and -photograph- the Petersen manuscript with appropriate
camera and film, then scan the film somewhere more convenient?

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Thu Apr 25 23:02:37 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "voynich@rand.org" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: Voynich copy by Petersen onto disk
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 23:02:37 -0600
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Regarding the recent scanning thread:  Does anyone have experience with =
video camera copy apparatus? Would a video image, captured, be good =
enough to work from?=20

Don



From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 26 10:03:51 +0100 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Voynich copy by Petersen onto disk
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On Thu, 25 Apr 1996 reeds@research.att.com wrote:

> 1. Gabriel's plan of dividing the work is wonderful!

Sorry to dissapoint the audience ;-) but it wasn't my plan.
Somewhere in the thread this looked as if I suggested it, but
I did not. Anyway I think that the idea is very good.
All credits to the originator of the idea.

One of the problems is that 6 GB is very difficult
to manage. To make the copy from hard disk to CD (this is
at least the experience that I have with one particular
type of hardware) is to dump everything to a hard disk, 
then do the "burning" in one go. Each time that you want
to add something to the already written CD you loose about
35 MB (!!!) (for the new directory table, etc) so to 
gradually dump to a CD is not convenient.
So, the PC to do the job will need at least a HD of
650 MB AND the CD writer (I repeat this is what I saw here 
at the Univ. maybe there is some better hardware now.)

Regarding video capture, I do not think that the resolution
is good enough gor getting page by page.

Rene's idea of 8 bit colour is good, but the image that you will
get is not. The RGB channels would have very little information
because you end up with something like 3,3,2 bits per channel.
So one solution is "palette" images. In these you use the 8 bits
according to the input image (finding the best matching palette)
But on has to go with care here because most software to produce
colour reduction adds an eye-cheating technique called "dithering"
(maybe everybody already knows this, if so, sorry!) to simulate 
more colours and this is disastrous if you intend to do any other
image processing afterwards.
If it is 8 bits, I would prefer greyscale, Otherwise 24 bit colour.
So... the only "tweaking" parameter we have to play with is the 
resolution in dpi at scanning time. 
Better, I would prefer grabbing the data with a camera rather than
a scanner as you can reduce noise, compensate the background and
colour for each image. This of course complicates things, so maybe the 
only available solution is a scanner.

I would prefer all these effort to go to scan or photograph
the vms itself!

cheers,
Gabriel



From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 26 09:04:20 EDT 1996
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Date: Fri, 26 Apr 96 09:04:20 EDT
From: paulm@cbddo2.cb.att.com (D4169/Paul McConnell /X5544/D/B)
Message-Id: <9604261304.AA02267@cbddo2>
Apparently-To: <voynich@rand.org>
Status: OR

THANKS

It has been about two weeks since I joined the Voynich e-mail list and
posted my query about interest in a color reproduction of the VMS.
Thank you for your informative responses to that query.
I have browsed the traffic daily and printed several messages for future
contemplation.  

The most significant thing I learned from your responses was how much
interest there is in computer-usable material.  (My initial interest
was in the publication of a paper book, because I am fundamentally oriented
toward the paper world; books I can carry on the bus, pages I can flip,
margins in which I may scribble notes with my pencil.) If the plan to
reproduce the VMS progresses on to reality I will keep your need in mind.
Perhaps the proper scanning technique and data format could enable us to
derive photographic-quality images for publication on paper and also data
suitable for your computer graphic displays and cryptanalytic programs.
An opportunity to capture the VMS images in natural color would, I believe,
be a very rare event.  All possible uses of such an opportunity should be
exploited.  (If any of you less procrastination-prone enthusiasts find
yourselves with an opportunity to scan the actual VMS in the near future,
please keep all of us paper-oriented folks in mind, as well.)

Some other important things I learned from your responses were the price
you might pay for a color VMS book (between $100 and $200), and the sad
fact that a market for the book would probably be too small to justify
publication for the average publisher.  We will, therefore, need to find
an exceptional publisher!

I will continue searching, and inform you of any developments.

Until then, Thanks,

Paul


From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 26 07:14:47 0700 1996
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To: paulm@cbddo2.cb.att.com (D4169/Paul McConnell /X5544/D/B)
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 07:14:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
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> The most significant thing I learned from your responses was how much
> interest there is in computer-usable material.  (My initial interest
> was in the publication of a paper book, because I am fundamentally oriented
> toward the paper world; books I can carry on the bus, pages I can flip,
> margins in which I may scribble notes with my pencil.) 

My perfect vision of a VMs tool is a CD-ROM (or memory card) with: 

	- Images of all the pages in hi-res B/W using several spectral
	bands including IR and near-UV. Plus an image-processing tool to
	combine those images in false-color composites and do any
	enhancement necessary of interesting features.

	- All current transcriptions in all alphabets plus tools for
	creating new ones and combining the existing ones.

	- Cryptography tools for testing substitutions of any desired set
	of combinations of characters including tools for representing
	sounds in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

	- Word lists of as many written languages as possible along with
	their pronunciation in IPA equivalent. If possible, IPA lists of
	early forms of languages which had no form of writing, but had to
	borrow it. These lists should also be broken down into linguistic
	eras.

	- Copies of all extant references on the VMs. All relevant Net and
	Web traffic to date.

	- Tools to easily share our results.

For a start the scans we've been talking about doing ourselves will keep me
happy for awhile. :)

> (If any of you less procrastination-prone enthusiasts find
> yourselves with an opportunity to scan the actual VMS in the near future,
> please keep all of us paper-oriented folks in mind, as well.)

Don't forget, once you have it on disk, getting it onto paper is
trivial.  And you can do that as simply or as elegantly as you have the
time and money for.

For that matter, aren't _all_ books typeset digitally anyway now?

-Adams



From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 26 16:08:08 +0100 1996
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Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 16:08:08 +0100 (BST)
From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Curious line lengths
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Hi, I was just looking at the few images I have of the VMS and 
something called my attention.
Folio 76R has a full body of text, that is, the page is almost
completely filled with text. I can guess 4 paragraphs.
However if we go to folio 81R, then the text looks like if it was
written as a poem. Some lines longer than others and there is no
drawing that is restricting the line lengts.
I wonder if the pages like 81r are songs, hymns or prayers...
regards

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 26 09:03:24 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: Curious line lengths
To: landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk (Gabriel Landini)
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 09:03:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SV4.3.91.960426155956.19421A@sun1.bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Apr 26, 96 04:08:08 pm
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> Hi, I was just looking at the few images I have of the VMS and 
> something called my attention.
> Folio 76R has a full body of text, that is, the page is almost
> completely filled with text. I can guess 4 paragraphs.
> However if we go to folio 81R, then the text looks like if it was
> written as a poem. Some lines longer than others and there is no
> drawing that is restricting the line lengts.
> I wonder if the pages like 81r are songs, hymns or prayers...
> regards

It would be interesting to check the character statistics for those pages
as compared with the "prose" pages to see if there is any significant
differrence. Also, assuming the characters hold the same value at least
within a given page, once could presumably check for rhymes, alliteration
and other poetic devices.

-Adams



From rand.org!jim Fri Apr 26 15:26:23 0400 1996
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Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 15:26:23 -0400
To: voynich@rand.org
From: "David G. Durand" <dgd@cs.bu.edu> (David G. Durand)
Subject: Re: Voynich copy by Petersen onto disk
Status: OR

I'm not an active Voynich'er by any means, but I have a lot of contact with
of the scholarly computing community -- the guys who do textual study
professionally. My wife also did a lot of work on the Perseus database of
Greek civilisation, which included tens of thousands of images on CD.

   I would suggest that one of the easiest (ans safest) ways to get started
would be to use aregular camera and make slides of the entire document. You
move less equipment, and have a superior archival medium (film), as a
backup to the electronic form. You could have the film processed and
scanned direct to Photo-CD which would give you good quality scans that can
be processed at leisure.

   There are different quality options on photo-CD with varying prices. I
will call a local place for some rough prices. Slide scanners are also a
good option for data input at high resolutions. With compression you should
be able to easily fit decent scans onto 1 CD. You can make a DAT archive of
the rest.

    I actaully have access to slide scanners and DAT drives, but I don't
realistically know that I could commit the time to do the whole thing --
Photo-CD seems good in that no-one has to do the scanning by hand. It would
also save having to have someone do color-correction during the scanning
process as well.

   My experience with flatbed scanning is that it takes a _long_ time. I
don't think a sheet feeder will be an option with library materials either.

   My experience is with text-encoding, but for the moment my best advice
is to keep the coding completely explicit and machine processable as much
as possible. If you want to put it into the wider scholarly community,
conversion to the Text Encoding Initiative will be possible.

    -- David

----------------------------------------------+----------------------------
  David Durand                 dgd@cs.bu.edu  | david@dynamicDiagrams.com
  Boston University Computer Science          | Dynamic Diagrams
  http://cs-www.bu.edu:80/students/grads/dgd/ | http://dynamicDiagrams.com/



From rand.org!jim Mon Apr 29 11:49:39 GMT 1996
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Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 11:49:39 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Curious line lengths
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Gabriel writes:
 
> Hi, I was just looking at the few images I have of the VMS and 
> something called my attention.
> Folio 76R has a full body of text, that is, the page is almost
> completely filled with text. I can guess 4 paragraphs.
> However if we go to folio 81R, then the text looks like if it was
> written as a poem. Some lines longer than others and there is no
> drawing that is restricting the line lengts.
> I wonder if the pages like 81r are songs, hymns or prayers...

If I remember well (I should have another copy of the VMs at work :-) )
f81r is unique is this respect. To me, it gives the impresssion as if
a drawing was intended for the right margin, but it has been omitted.
This is at variance with the generally accepted theory that all drawings
were done first and the text filled in later.
Another special feature of this page is that there seems to be a
connection of the drawing in the left margin, through the binding 
gutter, to the opposite 'page' (which would be f78v if my above assumption
for 81r is correct).

This one oddity does of course not invalidate the theory of drawing
before writing, but it is yet another one of those curious things
that lacks an explanation.

If I may be allowed some more rambling:
The 'poem' idea fits well with Currier's observation that the line
seems to be a functional entity. This again is strange in view of
the fact that in many cases the text is clearly organised in paragraphs,
i.e. several full lines followed by one short line and sometimes
a somewhat larger gap between this and the next line. The length of
each last paragraph line seems to be anything from one word to a
full line. Note that when it is one word, it is sometimes centered
on the line. f1r is also special in this case. It has four paragraphs,
each of which seems to end with a 'signature'.
But I digress.
If the line is a functional entity, the subdivision into paragraphs 
seems contradictory, unless the odd line-dependant statistics observed
by Currier and many of our group afterwards are an indication of some
line-by-line filter to turn meaningful Latin (or whatever) into
Voynichese.

Cheers, Rene

PS: I love the parallel of f1r with modern paperbacks, and therefore
propose the following 'translation':

"The best herbal to have been issued in a long
 long time. Should not fail in any library"
                         The Observer
                         
"Mr. Bacon has done it again. Compelling reading
from beginning to end"
                        The Yorkshire Times
                        
"Mr. Bacon's best yet!"
                        The Oxford news
                        
"All you ever wanted to know about astrology,
in more detail than was available up to now.
Fully worth the 300 ducats"
                        Mlady Svet


:-) 

From rand.org!jim Tue Apr 30 06:49:38 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9604300649.AA11189@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Label database
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--65c5_4707-362c_3494-19e8_5293
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Content-MD5: anKVh+UcTmWOYxlngI7y3g==
X-Sun-Data-Type: text

To Gabriel:

please find attached a summary of all places in  the VMs where I have
been able to find labels or label-like words. This may serve as input
or starting point for your database design. If the concept of 'label'
is retricted to a single word or short phrase near a drawing, then
some of these are not labels in that sense of the word.
The list may not be complete and I have indicated where I am
definitely uncertain.

I am sending this list through the group, so that other people
may comment, correct or add wherever they like.

Cheers, Rene
--65c5_4707-362c_3494-19e8_5293
Content-Type: application/octet-stream
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-MD5: 8ooDTXqCe38TwY6dhrwfiQ==
Content-Description: labels

f57v
4 labels near "persons"  in centre
1 word outside 4th ring  ("start"?)
4 "labels" radiating from centre.
(The meaning of N,S,E,W or seasons is very tempting)

f65r
1 "label": only two words near drawing of plant

f66r
column of words in left margin
3-word sentence near dead person

f67r1
12 labels in segments radiating out from central moon or planet face

f67r2
12 labels on a circle, one near each tiny moon or planet face
12 more label-like writings at outer ring

f67v2
Single words in various places:
4 near centre (seasons?)
2 in upper/lower right corner
various on "plant stems" or whatever they are

f67v1
Labels or single words in boxes on outermost ring, not all visible.

f68r1
29 labeled stars, none unlabeled

f68r2
24 labeled stars, various stars unlabeled

f68r3
Segments with 1,2,3,4 labeled stars.
In segment of 1 star, also Pleiades and shallow S curve labeled.

f68v3
2 single-word labels in upper quadrants of T-map

f68v2
4 stars surrounded by 2 words each

f68v1
Single words in segments

f69r
label-like words occurring in short "sentences" in radiating segments

f69v
28 labels or single words in radiating segments

f70r1
6 single words in centre segments
9 short sentences radiating out

f70v2 Pisces: 29 labeled nymphs
f70v1 Aries-dark: 15
f71r Aries-light:15
f71v Taurus-light: 15
f72r1 Taurus-dark: 15
f72r2 Gemini: 30
f72r3 Cancer: 30
f72v3 Leo: 30
f72v2 Virgo: 30
f72v1 Libra: 30
f73r Scorpio: 30
f73v Sagittarius: 30

f75v
10 two-word labels for 10 "showering" nymphs
1 word near bath

f77r
All 4 nymphs labeled
6 labels near "exhausts"

f77v
5 labels on top of page near "exhausts"
2 nymphs labeled
1 label on "closet"

f78r
2 labels near "parasols"
2 labels near pipe segments
2-word label near middle bath drain
1 label near bottom bath entry
 
f80r
10 nymphs in a row near top of page labeled

f81v
2-word label near bath entry

f82r
1 label on T-junction ("comet")
12 labels near bathing nymphs (bottom of page)

f82v
14 labels scattered near nymphs, "rainbows" et al.

f83r
2 labels near "rainbow"
2 labels near "exhausts"

f83v
3 labels near nymphs and 1 near pipes

f84r
12? labels near nymphs in "mouth"
2 labels near "drain"

f85/86
Scores of labels scattered all over 9-disk thing. No way to count them(?)

f88r
Top: 6 labels near 5 roots
Mid: 6 labels near 4 roots
Bot: 2 labels near 2 roots plus 1 near container

f88v
Top: 5 labels near 4 plant parts
Mid: 4 labels near 3 pl.p
Bot: 3 labels near 3 pl.p plus 1 below container

f89r1
Top: 5 labels near 4 pl.p
Mid: 4 labels near 3 pl.p
Bot: 3 labels near 3 pl.p plus 1 near container

f89r2
Top: 5 labels near 4 pl.p
2nd: 3 labels near 2 or 3 pl.p
3rd: 6 labels near 6 pl.p
Bot: 2 labels near container, 4 near 4 pl.p

f89v2
Top: 1 label near container, 5 near pl.p
Mid: 1 near container, 3 near pl.p
Bot: 1 near container, 4(?) near pl.p

f89v1
Top: 1 near container, 3 near pl.p
Bot: 1 below container, 3 near pl.p

f99r
Top: 1 on thermos, 11 near pl.p
2nd: 1(?) on thermos, 8 near pl.p
3rd: 1 on thermos, 8 near pl.p
Bot: 1 on thermos, 1 near plant (same plant as on f96v)

f99v
Top: 9 or 10 near 8 pl.p
2nd: 6 near 6 pl.p, 1(?) on thermos
3rd: 1(?) on thermos, 6 or 7 near 5 pl.p
Bot: 1 on thermos, 1 near plant

f100r
Top 2: 12 near 11 pl.p
Bot: 6 near 5 pl.p

f100v
13 near 13 pl.p

f101v2
Top: 9(?) near 9(?) pl.p
2nd: 9 near 9 pl.p
3rd: no labels but there should have been some

f102r1
Possibly all 3 containers labeled
1 label near top root structure

f102r2
2 labels near "root types"

f102v2
Top: container: 1 label on mid and 1 on foot. 14(?) labeled leaves
Mid: 2-word label on container foot. 5(?) labeled pl.p

f102v1
Top: 5 labels for 5 pl.p
Bot: 3 labels for 3 plant parts
--65c5_4707-362c_3494-19e8_5293--

From rand.org!jim Fri May  3 09:36:51 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9605022336.AA07528@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Publishing the VMS (yet again!)
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 09:36:51 +1000 (EST)
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Take a look at what I received in my mailbox:


>From F.Volta@agora.stm.it Wed May  1 22:32:52 1996
To: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU
Subject: NEW BOOKS ON ARCHAEOLOGY, ANTIQUITIES AND CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Date: Wed,  1 May 96 10:23:40 GMT


FRANCO A. VOLTA announces the updating of his WWW page

The address is:

http://italia.hum.utah.edu/gruppo/volta/cirt.html

*************************************************

more links on the page:

- Architecture, Town Planning, Interior Decorating
- Art
- Cinema
- Economics, Sociology, Management
- Geography, Geology
- Heracles project
- History, Politics
- Incunabula (microfilms)
- Library Science
- Literature, Linguistics
- Manuscripts (microfims)
- Mathematics, Computer Science
- Music
- Philosophy
- Technology, Engineering, Physics, Astronomy
- ITALIAN PUBLISHERS CATALOGUES

*************************************************
All contacts and requests of information must be addressed to:

Franco A. Volta
C.I.R.T.
P.O. Box 7254 - 00100 Roma/Italy
P.O. Box 2591 - New York, NY 10185/USA
Fax: 0039 6 4826073

E-mail: f.volta@agora.stm.it
*************************************************

-----------------------end of message----------------

Do go and have a look at that Web Page, it *is*
interesting. Could Volta be a willing publisher?

Frogguy

j.guy@trl.telstra.com.au


From rand.org!jim Fri May  3 09:33:23 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9605030933.AA16493@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Agrippa
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Dear all,

I've been reading quite a bit about Agrippa (Heinrich Cornelius
Agrippa von Nettesheim) lately, partly in order to figure out if
he (or one of his followers) could have written the VMs.(*) I
know this is highly unlikely, if only for the reason that the chance that
the VMs was written by someone 'known' is pretty small (but more
so because the real experts would have figured this out a long time ago).

In any case, it is interesting, and useful for me, to read about a
person (and his work) who seems at least to have been the kind of 
person who could have written the VMs (IMHO of course).
I'll refrain from quoting all the curious parallels (and 
contradictions). In this note I'd like to point out some interesting
herbal 'features' found in Agrippa's writing.

For one thing he has a list of 121 plants and their correspondences
with the planets. Of some of these (one third as a rough guess) he
also gives the properties. The number (121) is interesting since I think
the VMs has 128 herbal pages (including known missing ones). This is
close but is it close enough? Sure enough, Agrippa's list includes
'piper' and 'solsequium' (the latter I presume means Sunflower).
Also something called 'sinapium' which had me perplexed for a while.
The lists are from 1510 and 1533 and our friend Sinapius lived 100 years
later. He chose his nickname after a plant apparrently. Or his 
aqua sinapia is named after a plant and he chose his nickname after
that rather than the other way around.
But I digress again.
Some of these descriptions of properties of plants are *weird*.
If anyone ever has a tentative translation of one of the herbal folios
saying: 'will cure an elephant that has eaten a chameleon',
don't discard it as nonsense, because it then refers to 'Oleaster'
cf. Agrippa.
If anyone would like to have the list of plant names, let me know and
I'll start typing (or scanning).

Cheers, Rene

(*)Note: main source is "Die Beziehungen zwischen Magie, Medizin und
Pharmazie im Werk des Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486-1535)", Dissertation
by Wolf-Dieter Mueller-Jahncke in 1973. 

From rand.org!jim Fri May  3 10:48 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Subject: Voynich and H.C.Agrippa v. Nettesheim
Status: OR


Rene, what work of Agrippa's has the list of 121 plant names with
properties?  And at what university was Wolf-Dieter Mueller-Jahncke's
dissertation written?


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Sat May  4 11:52:41 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: frogguy made easy
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sat, 4 May 1996 11:52:41 +1000 (EST)
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A question from Gabriel Landini had me go back to my
several transliteration systems, and write a sort 
of "tutorial".  I will, some day not too far away,
pen a sheet of Voynich letters and the frogguy
equivalent, scan that, and post it as a GIF.
I will also scan a page out of Bennett or perhaps
Newbold, scan it, and paste under each line the
two main frogguy transcriptions. Meanwhile, this
is all I have to offer (written this morming,
from 6 to 9)

-------------------cut here-----------------

                   THE FROGGUY TRANSLITERATION SYSTEM

                       by Jacques Guy ("Frogguy")

                              4 April 1996

Contents:

Introduction
A Bit of History
General Principles of Frogguy
Ye compleate Basick Frogguy Systeme in a fewe easy Tables
  1. Frogguy letters that are also whole Currier letters
  2. Parts of Currier letters
  3. Currier letters that are Frogguy compounds
  4. Letters that are not in Currier's alphabet
Ye compleate advanced Frogguy Systeme in a fewe harde Tables
  1. Parts of rare characters
  2. Frogguy-3
  3. Some Currier letters and their variants in Frogguy-3
  4. Most of Jim's weirdoes


Introduction
------------

I shall put Currier letters in angular brackets (<>), Frogguy letters in
square brackets ([]) and Roman letters in double quotes ("").


There are several frogguy transliteration systems, of increasing of
complexity, and each more complex system is downward compatible
with the simpler one. They really form a continuum, but you can consider
if you like, that there are four separate frogguy systems.

All systems have the same principles in common:

1. We cannot be certain of what constitutes a Voynich letter. Therefore,
we use symbols to represent probable letters or *parts* of letters.

2. The symbols used, Roman letters, Arabic digits, punctuation marks,
are chosen to look as much as possible like the Voynich letters or parts
of letters which they represent.

Thus for instance, Currier's <B>, which we probably all agree is a single
character, is represented in frogguy by two symbols [qj] because it
consists of two very common parts, used in the formation of other
Voynich characters, and which look a bit like "q" and "j".

The most basic frogguy, call it frogguy-0, is probably the one you are
familiar with. It has all the necessary pieces to represent everything
that can be represented in Currier's system and a little bit more. It
lacks symbols for rare characters, such as the famous "picnic table". It
uses 3 digits [4 8 9], 12 letters [a c g i j l o p q s t v] and the
apostrophe ['].

Frogguy-1 has additional symbols for those rare characters: the "picnic
table" [n], the "inverted y" [y], the "squashed z" [z], the "circumflex"
(or, if you prefer, "Chinese hat", or "inverted hacek", or "tent": [^]),
the "circumflex in a corner" [k].

Frogguy-2 has parts for representing the "weirdoes" first identified and
reported by Jim Reeds.

Frogguy-3 supports font file F3W00.FNT, which contains additional
letters or parts for purely aesthetic purposes.


A Bit of History
----------------

Even when I knew Currier's system by heart, I just could never see in my
mind's eye what ZORBSOR OBSOR ZOR FS9 (end of line 1 of f49r) really
looked like in Voynich letters; I had to grab a pen and write it down.

Now I am terribly lazy, and I object to such violent exercises as
weight-lifting (even a pen) and long-distance running (even on paper).
Violent mental exercises, such as *remembering* the 36 symbols of
Currier's system, have my greying grey cells protest in unison: "you've
already stuffed us full of the Cyrillic alphabet, then Hebrew, then
Arabic, then all those Chinese characters, you stuff us with Balinese
letters every time you go there, which we hurry to forget as soon as you
are back, and now *THIS*!"

So, it was shortly before Christmas 1991, I invented this system
in which the very symbols of the transcription vaguely *look* like the
letters of the Voynich  MS. From instance:

Currier's: ZORBSOR     OBSOR   ZOR   FS9
   became: c'to2q;cto2 oq;cto2 c'to2 lpct9

Then I designed a 16x8 bitmap font in which all those letters were
distorted a bit, just enough to make them into very Voynich-like
squiggles, while leaving them legible as Roman letters. I forgot how
this system came to be called  "frogguy".

The discovery of "weirdoes", rare and sometimes not-so-rare Voynich
letters that were not accounted for in Currier forced me to tinker with
this "proto-frogguy" and to use and distort so many more Roman letters
that an English text became just about illegible when displayed in
Voynich font. Since the two fonts had become mutually unintelligible, I
wrote a WYSIWYG  text editor for PCs (VOYEDIT, I think it's still in our
archives) which could handle both at once. And I worked at making the
Voynich fonts look even more like Voynich.

Fonts and transcription system were completed on Sunday,  26 July 1992,
and I have not been able to improve significantly on them since.


General Principles of Frogguy
-----------------------------

1. Voynich letters which look like lowercase Roman letters are
   represented by those letters. Others, such as the "gallows" are
   broken up into constituent strokes, each stroke represented by a
   lowercase Roman letter, or a digit or a punctuation mark that looks
   as much as possible like it or its mirror-image.

2. To show that a letter connects to a letter to its right,
   capitalize it.

3. Since the two components of a "gallows" always connect, do not
   capitalize them. Capitalize only the elements of "intruding
   gallows", that is, gallows cut through by a line connecting
   two flanking letters as in Currier's <Q>, <W>, <X> and <Y>.

   Note. The capitalization scheme is only there to make
   transliterations look very much more Voynich-like when viewed with
   the F3W00.FNT fonts file loaded. You may dispense with it.

   1. Most cases of connected letter pairs involve a letter similar to
      Currier's <C>, which in Frogguy is represented by a lowercase [c]
      (Basic Frogguy) or [e] (Frogguy-3) when on the left and a
      lowercase [t] when on the right (so that Currier's <S> is [ct]).
      So Jim's X55 is, naturally, [ea], his X9 [ot] and his X10 [it]
      without any ambiguity possibly arising.

   2. Where the connection involves neither [e] nor [t], use a hyphen to
      represent the connecting line, or capitalize every letter
      connected to another on its right, e.g. Jim's X91 = [a-a] or [Aa]

   3. Intruding gallows are always flanked by connected letters, so that
      "intruding", entirely determined by the context, is redundant. The
      uppercase set of gallows elements in F3W00.FNT is there only for
      aesthetic purposes.


Ye compleate Basick Frogguy Systeme in a fewe easy Tables
---------------------------------------------------------


1. FROGGUY LETTERS THAT ARE ALSO WHOLE CURRIER LETTERS

Currier  Frogguy     Comment

  A       a
  C       c
  O       o
  E       x      Voynich letter looks like an "x" closed at the top
  4       4
  8       8
  9       9
  R       2      looks like s "2" standing on tiptoe
  2       s      looks like the mirror-image of an "s"
  I       i
  D       v      looks like a "v" with a flourish
  7       &      This rare letter looks likes the mirror-image of an
                 ampersand. I have redesigned this letter to look
                 like what it really looks like: <8> with its
                 first stroke i-like instead of c-like.


2. PARTS OF CURRIER LETTERS


          g      the loop and tail that make the right half
                 of Currier's <6>
          t      right half of Currier's <S> and <Z>, which
                 does look like "t" of some medieval scripts.
          q      left half of Currier's <P>, which looks like a
                 "q" standing on the base line
          l      left half of Currier's <F>, same as [q], but without a
                 loop. Looks like an "l".
          p      right half of Currier's <F> and <P>, which looks
                 like a capital "P"
          j      right half of Currier's <B> and <V>. The dot of
                 the "j" represents the loop, the rest the curve
                 which sweeps down, then left, to cross the leg
                 of the left part of the gallows to end up in a
                 hook (a open "noose") on its left side.

3. CURRIER LETTERS THAT ARE FROGGUY COMPOUNDS

Currier   Frogguy

   N        iv         <N> = <I> followed by <D>
   M        iiv        <M> = <I> followed by <N>
   3        iiiv       <3> = <I> followed by <M>
   J        ig         <J> = <I> fused at top to [g] stroke
   K        iig        <K> = <I> followed by <J>
   L        iiig       <L> = <I> followed by <K>
   5        iiiig      <5> = <I> followed by <L>
   G        ix         <G> = <I> linked to following <E>
   H        iix        <H> = <I> followed by <G>
   1        iiix       <1> = <I> followed by <H>
   T        i2         <T> = <I> followed by <2>
   U        ii2        <U> = <I> followed by <T>
   0        iii2       <0> = <I> followed by <U>
   6        cg         <6> = <C> fused at top to [g] stroke
   S        ct
   Z        c't        [ct] with a plume [']
   F        lp         Straight gallows leg [l] and its right
                       leg [p]
   X       clpt        The same, intruding into a Currier <S>, which is
                       [ct]
   P        qp         Gallows leg with a loop [q] and its right leg [p]
   Q       cqpt        The same, intruding into <S>
   V        lj         Straight gallows leg [l] with noose dangling [j].
   Y       cljt        The same, intruding into <S>.
   B        qj         Gallows leg with with loop [q] and dangling noose
                       [j].
   W       cqjt        The same, intruding into <S>.


4. LETTERS THAT ARE NOT IN CURRIER'S ALPHABET

Jim's ID    F3W

   X49       ^         the "Chinese hat". Looks like an oversize
                       circumflex resting on the base line
   X51       y         looks like a mirror-image of y
   X72       z         looks like a squashed-out z
   X48       n         The picnic table. The letter n looks a bit like a
                       table, so there.
   X50       k         The "Chinese hat in a corner". Mnemonics:
                       underline the k, or link the heel of its straight
                       leg on the left to the heel of its bent leg on
                       the right.



Ye compleate advanced Frogguy Systeme in a fewe harde Tables
------------------------------------------------------------

1. PARTS OF RARE CHARACTERS

           -     (hyphen) a horizontal connecting line.

           '     (apostrophe) a plume, like that in Currier's
                 <Z>, or Jim's weirdoes X11, X14, X15, X35 etc.

           ,     (comma) a flourish, sweeping down, like the
                 tail of <9>, which I have seen a few times in
                 Petersen (with 'sic' in the margin), Jim's
                 X107.

            "   a plume on top of a connecting line.
                Mnemonics: on many keyboards " is obtained by pressing
                shift and ', so that it is an apostrophe "capitalized",
                hence, according to the capitalization rule, with a
                connecting line.

            +   a plume cutting through a connecting line, such as you
                often find in Currier's <Z>.
                Mnemonics: a plus sign is made of a line (plume) cutting
                a horizontal line.

            )   to accomodate Jim's X13 and X16. This represents
                a flourish connected at the base line to a letter
                to the left, and curling back up. If I were to
                take my analytic madness to extremes, my [v],
                Currier's <D>, would become [i)]

             `  Jim's X104, which enters as an element of X43
                and X46. Always connects to the right. It is a hook,
                like this:
                            (__
                               ^
                connected there to the top of the next letter.


2. FROGGUY-3

Frogguy-3 uses three additional symbols, the capitalization rule, and
the parts of the rare characters above to represent the Voynich symbols
and their variants more closely.

             e  This is [c] connected to the letter on the right.
                Mnemonics: "e" is a "c" with a stroke inside. Pull the
                stroke out, use it to connect to the next letter.
             d  This is [l] when followed by [j]. Mnemonics: the "belly"
                of "d" is the final swish of the noose [j], which ends
                on the left of the gallows' leg.
             f  This is [q] when followed by [j]. Mnemonics: imagine the
                mirror-image of "f".


3. SOME CURRIER LETTERS IN FROGGUY-3

Currier   Frogguy

   S        et         Basic Frogguy: [ct]
   Z        e't        Basic Frogguy: [c't]
            St         when the plume is right on top and connects so
                       cleanly that the left half of this letter looks
                       strikingly like Currier <2>, Frogguy [s]
            e"t        when the plume lies in-between
            e+t        when the plume cuts through the connecting
                       line
            et'        when the plume is on top the [t] (weirdo
                       X26 of Jim's list, which happens not infrequently
                       at all).
                       Mind you, I think myself that all that is
                       nit-picking, but who knows?
   X       eLPt        <F> intruding, hence capitalized, into
                       <S>, which is [et]. Basic frogguy: [clpt]
   Q       eQPt        <P> intruding into <S>. Basic frogguy: [cqpt]
   V        dj         Straight gallows leg with noose end [d] and on
                       its right side the dangling noose [j].
                       Basic frogguy: [lj]
   Y       eDJt        <V> intruding into <S>, hence capitalized.
                       Basic frogguy: [cljt]
   B        fj         Gallows leg with loop and noose end [f] and
                       on its right side the dangling noose [j].
                       Basic frogguy: [qj]
   W       eFJt        The same intruding into <S>, hence capitalized.
                       Basic frogguy: [cqjt]




4. MOST OF JIM'S WEIRDOES


Jim's ID   F3W

 X1        eet        [c] connected to [c], connected to [c],
                      connected to [t].
 X2        eqp        [c] connected to [qp] not intruding
 X3        eQPo       [c] connected to [o], with [qp] intruding
 X4        eQP9       [c] connected to [9], with [qp] intruding
 X5        eLP9       [c] connected to [9], with [lp] intruding
 X6        e9         [c] connected to [9]
 X7        eo         [c] connected to [o]
 X8        e          [c] connected to something
 X9        Ot         [o] connected to [t]
 X10       It         [i] connected to [t]
 X11       4-o'       [4] connected (-) to [o] with a plume
                      (') on top. Note: I think we could dispense
                      with the hyphen. The infamous [4] occurs
                      almost always followed by [o] and is always
                      lightly connected to it.
X12        e'o        [c] with plume, connected to [o]
           So         if the plume is placed so that you think
                      that the left part is really <2> (s)
                      connected.
X13        c)         [c] with a flourish curling up
X14        9'         [9] with plume on top
X15        a'         [a] with plume on top
X16        a)         [a] with a flourish curling up
X17       ADJa        [a] connected to [a] with intruding [dj]
                      Basic frogguy: [Alja]
X18       IDJt        [i] connected to [t] with intruding [dj]
                      Basic frogguy: [iljt]
X19       49          I do not think this is a weirdo at all,
                      it's just that <4> followed by <9>. If
                      the connect does worry you, write [4-9]
X20       e'et
       or Set         [c] with plume, or [s], connected to [c],
                      connected to [t]
X21       e'eFJt
       or SeFJt       ditto, with intruding [fj]
                      Basic frogguy: [Scqjt] or [c-cqjt]

X22       eFJet'      Well, I think you've got the idea, so I
       or eFJes       will dispense with explaining the obvious
                      and skip the Basic Frogguy equivalent.

X23       eDJet
X24       eQPAt
X25       eLPo
X26    et' or es
X27    e'a or Sa
X28       eLPo
X29    e'9 or S9
X30       iQPt
X31       iLPt
X33       9LPet      Since it is capitalized (LP), the gallows
                     must be intruding between two flanking
                     connected letters, so we really don't have
                     to write out that [9] is connected. But if
                     you really insist, then: [9-LPet].
X34       4DJa       Ditto, and [4] normally connects, too.
X35    49' or 4"9    depending on where the plume precisely is.
X36       4DJo
X37       4OPt
X38       O't
X39       O'9
X40       OQP9
X41       OQPo
X42       ODJt
X43       `l         X104 connected to what looks like a gallows
                     straight left leg (approximate)
X44       `p         X104 jerkily connected to what looks like a
                     gallows right leg (approximate)
X45       I have seen a few of those and thought they were
          misshapen <8>. It could be approximated by [c]
          connected to a gallows right leg, i.e. [ep]
X46       `lo        X43 combined with [o]
X47                  Cat got my tongue there
X48       n          the picnic table as mentioned above
X49       ^
X50       k          as mentioned
X51       y          mirror-image of "y", as mentioned
X52                  I have nothing to propose for this. I
                     suspect it is one of the components Jim
                     used in designing the Postscript fonts.
X53       k^
X54                  I have nothing to offer for that weirdo
X55       ea         obviously
X56       eLP
X57       Idj
X58       Ilp
X59       Ifj
X60       e something. I'd like to spot on of those in the VMS
                     before I propose anything.
X61       4qp
X62       4lp

X63       Oqp
X64       O'
X66       ex
X67 to X69  are cases where the left and right halves of a
            gallows are separated by one or more letters. Since
            left and right halves are treated as separate letters
            in the Frogguy system and are known to be always
            connected, no problem arises other than linking them
            in your mind's eye when you see them on the
            screen.
X71         Looks like a bit of disconnected gallows, as in X67
            to X69.
X72       z
X73       QPt      a Postscript component, I suppose
X74    e' or S     ditto
X75       4c
X76       eFJ
X78       4'       I have only seen it followed by [o]. An
                   element of X11?
X79     eLPet
X80                I'm not sure what this is. I think [c] and a
                   misshapen [x]
X81    e't or St   That is Currier's <Z>! A Postscript glitch?
X82    eDJeS
X83      I         [i] connected, an elementary stroke
X84      e"        [c] connected, with connected plume to its
                   right, a component
X86    SLPo        But the gallows are superscripted, not
                   intruding, so that is only an approximation
X87    eqp
X88    elp
X89    efj
X90    edj
X91    Aa          [a] connected, hence capitalized, to [a]
X94    4o          I don't think this is any different from the
                   infamously common sequence
X95    O"          [o] connected to plume connected to...
X96    O"t
X97    O"9
X98    `FJo
X99    ox          another case of misshapen [x] I think
                   unless it is [og] with the tail end missing?
X100   OLLJt       only an approximation of this monster
X101   o'          [o] with a plume on top
X012   O           [o] connected to something on its right
X103   o           this is obviously [o] when something on its
                   left connects to it.
X104   `           One of the parts of rarer characters
X105   -           Ditto
X108   )           Ditto
X110   eFJet





From rand.org!jim Mon May  6 13:50:29 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: GIF: Basic Frogguy
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 13:50:29 +1000 (EST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
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This GIF file contains the "Basic Frogguy", with the rarer letters
such as the "picnic table". It is uuencoded.

--------------------------cut here---------------------------------

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`
end

From rand.org!jim Mon May  6 15:51:45 +1000 1996
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Subject: GIF: advanced Frogguy Part I
To: voynich@rand.org
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`
end

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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Subject: Entropy for the lingo-statistically challenged (me)
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Dear all,

Not being an expert in linguistics or cryptology, I had no
previous experience with the concept of 'entropy' as used 
to analyse the Voynich text. Little by little I have picked
up a few hints by reading and rereading some of the old
E-mails in this subject. Over the weekend, I decided 
to write down in simple maths what I had figured out,
and you will find a draft essay in an attachment to
this note. If I happen to be the only one not familiar
with entropy, it should probably be sent straight to
/dev/null. Otherwise, I would appreciate if the experts
could have a look at it and point out errors, irrelevant
bits and blatantly missing info, and if those unfamiliar 
but interested would let me know if it is any help.

Thanks in advance,
                Rene
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Entropy for the lingo-statistically challenged (me)
by R. Zandbergen

Introduction

The low entropy of the Voynich text is one of its well-known features.
Well-kown ... to whom? To those familiar with the significance of this 
statistical entity. This did not, until recently, include the writer of this
short essay, which is the fruit of his coming to grips with the meaning 
of 'entropy'. It is hoped that this essay may help others, who are equally
unfamiliar with it, to appreciate the regularly recurring discussion
on the entropy of the Voynich Manuscript (henceforth VMs) text.

Single-character frequency distribution

Once a choice has been made on the character set of the VMs, it is possible
to count the frequency of each character. If the VMs is composed of 'N' 
characters (about 50,000?), and 'n' different ones are identified (e.g. 36 
using the Currier alphabet), one may call p(i) the probability for each 
character (where 'i' can be 1 though 'n'. p(i) equals the total number of 
occurrences of character nr. 'i' divided by 'N' and obviously p(i) is 
between 0 and 1 and the sum of all p(i) equals 1 (the following trivial 
formula just to introduce the notation):

   sum {i, i=1,..,n} p(i) = 1

In the special case that all characters occur equally frequently, one can
write p(i) = 1/n for all 'i'. This is known not to be the case for the VMs, 
and unlikely to be true for any text in any language. The deviation of the 
character distribution from this 'flat' distribution is characterised by 
the single-character entropy.

Single-character entropy

The single-character entropy of a text is defined by the following formula:

   E1 = - sum {i, i=1,..,n} p(i) 2log p(i)

2log is used to denote the logarithm base 2. Since p(i) is always between 0 
and 1, p(i) 2log p(i) is always negative (or zero), and thus E1 is positive.
For the special case mentioned above where p(i) = 1/n for all 'i', we get:

   E1 = - n * (1/n) * 2log(1/n) = 2log (n)

The meaning of this may be explained as follows: if all characters are equally
likely to occur, they all convey the same amount of information. The 2log of 
the number of characters give the number of bits needed to contain each piece 
of information. If we have an alphabet of 32 characters, we need 5 bits to 
represent each characters, and if they are all equally frequent, each character
represents 5 bits of information. 
It should be pointed out that the special case of all p(i) being equal 
represents an optimum. The maximum amount of information can be conveyed in each
character if all characters are equally likely to occur (but see the section
below on digraphs for a critical footnote on the validity of this). Anyway,
in this case the entropy is maximal for a given 'n'. The mathematical proof of
this follows from the fact that the function -x * 2log x is concave; its second
derivative is negative in the domain 0 to 1. If one draws the tangent to this
curve at the point where x= 1/n, all values y = -x * 2log x are less than the
values on the tangent line function, and the sum of the values on the tangent
line function always equals 2log n.
Thus for an alphabet of 36 characters (cf. Currier's) the maximum entropy would 
have been 2log(36) or 5.170. For the VMs text transcribed using Currier, the
value is closer to 3.85.

Meaning of the entropy value

The number resulting from applying the entropy formula to any piece of text is
just a number, but what does it mean? Here some thought experiments may help
in interpreting the concept of entropy.
Assume a piece of text was written in a 26-character alphabet. Its single-character
entropy has been computed as E1. Now what if there is one extremely rare character
that just does not appear in the text? Our alphabet is now of 27 characters. Our
entropy does not change, because the other 26 values of p(i) do not change and 
p(27) is zero therefore p27 2log (p27) equals zero (limit case). 
This feels right. 
However, the theoretical maximum entropy has changed from 2log 26 to 2log 27. 
This mainly shows that the actual entropy of a text is a meaningful quantity, 
but the maximum entropy less so.

For our VMs case it is also interesting to verify the consequence of
transcription errors. What if 7 and J are really one and the same? We have
counted one character too many so our maximum entropy is an overestimation.
For the calculated entropy, their contribution was (erroneously):
-p(7) 2log p(7) - p(J) 2log p(J). This should have been:
-(p(7)+p(J)) 2log (p(7)+p(J)). The difference (correct minus computed)
equals: p(7) 2log (p(7)/(p(7)+p(J))) + p(J) 2log (p(J)/(p(7)+p(J)))
Both logs are negative, so the computed entropy was also an overestimation.
It depends on the values of p(7) and p(J) whether this overestimation of
the entropy is more or less than the overstimation of the maximum entropy.
Nothing conclusive can be said here.

So far it was tacitly assumed that the characters counted excluded the 
'space' character. Of course this character can also be counted as a 
meaningful text character (and it will be one of the most frequent ones).

Zipf law

The case where all p(i) are equal is definitely unrealistic. A more realistic
'special case' is the one where the frequencies obey the Zipf law: when sorted
high to low, and plotted on log-log paper, the frequencies should diplay a
linear shape with a slope of -1. This means (using index j for the sorted
frequencies):

   log j + log p(j) = c 

or
 
   p(j) = C / j

where C = 1 / sum {j, j=1,..,n} 1/j 

For this special case (which should be closer to reality) the following table
may be constructed for E1 as a function of n:

Nr of diff.     Max.     'Zipf'
characters    entropy   entropy
----------------------------------
    16         4.000     3.403
    17         4.087     3.470
    18         4.170     3.532
    19         4.248     3.591
    20         4.322     3.647
    21         4.392     3.700
    22         4.459     3.750
    23         4.524     3.798
    24         4.585     3.844
    25         4.644     3.887
    26         4.700     3.929
    27         4.755     3.969
    28         4.807     4.008
    29         4.858     4.045
    30         4.907     4.081
    31         4.954     4.116
    32         5.000     4.149
    33         5.044     4.181
    34         5.087     4.213
    35         5.129     4.243
    36         5.170     4.273
    37         5.209     4.301

Again, for the Currier transcription of the VMs, the 'Zipf entropy' is 
4.273, higher than the computed single-character entropy. This means that
the VMs text transcribed using Currier's alphabet does indeed have a
rather low single-character entropy (but the Zipf law should of course
not be regarded as the 'ultimate truth').

Word entropy

If one accepts the apparent spaces in the VMs as word boundaries (and
similarly for the line ends) one can make a tally of all words in the VMs
and compute word frequency statistics. One ends up with 'M' words in
total or 'm' different words. This has been done for various more or less
complete transcriptions of the VMs, and it was found that the Zipf law
was adhered to rather well. This means that the single-word entropy will
be close to the Zipf entropy for the number of different words (m).
Because of transcription uncertainties, the figure for this entropy cannot
be very precise, but it will be clear that it will not be particularly
high or low. Estimates by team members have yielded a single-word entropy
of 'about 10 bits, similar to English', which should be interpreted as
'English texts of similar length', which is not surprising if one assumes
that the Zipf law applies there as well. The following table gives the
'special case' entropy values for realistic ranges of 'm'.

Nr of diff.     Max.     'Zipf'
  words       entropy   entropy
----------------------------------
    100        6.644     5.310
    200        7.644     5.986
    500        8.966     6.851
   1000        9.966     7.489
   2000       10.966     8.115
   5000       12.288     8.927
 10,000       13.288     9.532
 20,000       14.288    10.130
 50,000       15.610    10.911

Digraph entropy

Since the VMs shows some clear peculiarities in its distribution of digraphs 
(sequences of two characters) it may be anticipated that also here a low
entropy will show up. Some of the peculiarities (in Currier notation) are: 
- 4 is almost always followed by O, and alost always preceded by space
- Both M and N are almost always preceded by A and followed by space
The following discussion will be independant of whether spaces are counted
as characters or not.
First of all, one can try to estimate the digraph entropy from the single
character entropy. If one makes a list of all possible digraphs (x,y) and
count their frequency, the entropy (E2) will be:

   E2 = - sum {i, i=1,..,n2} p(x,y) 2log p(x,y)

A trivial case: if all (n) characters are equally likely to occur, and each
character is equally likely to follow any character, n2 equals n*n and the
entropy equals 2log (n*n) or: E2 = 2 E1.
This relation (E2 = 2 E1) is also true if E1 is less than 2log (n) (meaning
not all characters are equally likely), as long as the distributions of 'y'
(second character of the digraph) is independant of 'x' (first character of
the digraph). In general, one may write (following Bayes' theorem) that the
likelyhood of 'x,y' is the likelyhood of x occurring in the first place times
the likelyhood of y as the second char given that x is the first char. This
may be expressed using the following notation:

  p(x(i),x(j)) = p(x(i)) * p(x(i) -> x(j))

or more briefly:

  p(i,j) = p(i) * p(i -> j)

Obviously, for all 'i':

  sum {j, j=1,..,n} p(i -> j) = 1

The digraph entropy is now:

  E2 = - sum{i} sum{j} p(i) p (i -> j) 2log ( p(i) p(i -> j) )

Writing the log of the product as the sum of logs and regouping yields:

  E2 = - sum{i}sum{j} p(i) p(i -> j) 2log p(i)  - 
         sum{i}sum{j} p(i) p(i -> j) 2log p(i -> j)

If we take the contributions independant of j outside the summation over j,
this may be seen to yield:

  E2 = -sum{i} p(i) 2log p(i) - sum{i} p(i) sum{j} p(i -> j) 2log p(i -> j)

or

  E2 = E1 + sum{i} p(i) E(i)(i -> j)

Here E(i)(i -> j) is the single character entropy of all characters following
character nr. 'i'.
Since p(i) and all entropies are always positive, E2 is always greater 
than E1. The case mentioned above where the second character is independant
of the first, gives E(i)(i -> j) = E1 and thus confirms that E2 = 2E1.

In the results for E2 published in the VMs mailing list, E2 was never obviously
greater than E1. Also, values given for E3, E4 and higher (whether valid or
not) tend to approach zero, and the above, by analogy, seems to indicate that
E3 > E2, E4 > E3 etc.
I therefore assume that any value given for the digraph entropy always refers
to E2 - E1 or sum{i} p(i) E(i)(i -> j).
To judge the values, they can again be compared with the Zipf law table,
or with those from parallel texts in known languages.

Digraph oddities

To get some feel for the digraph entropy, let's look at the special case where
we have an eight-character alphabet (A-H), with all eight characters equally
likely. This means E1 = 3. Let us now assume that the text has the property
that A is always followed by E, B always by F, C always by G and D always by H.
This means the text is really built up as a sequence of four digraphs.
Of course, characters E through H can be followed by all four of A though D,
with equal likelyhood. 
Our first guess, from looking at the alphabet, is that there could be 64
digraphs. This would give Emax = 6 or EZipf = 4.864 (note that one would not
expect the Zipf law to be respected in this case).
In reality there are only 20 of them. This gives an Emax of 4.322 or an EZipf
of 3.647.  The actual entropy can be calculated using the 'second character'
entropies. These are 0 for the characters following A-D and 2 for the characters
following E-H. This means E2 = E1 + 4 * (1/8) * 0 + 4 * (1/8) * 2 or E2 = 3.5
The digraph entropy is low, indicating the lack of information in each 
second character, as expected. This even though the single-character entropy
is optimal.
Note that when looking at groups of two or more characters, certain 
combinations may not occur, for two reasons:
1) They can never occur in this language
2) The text sample is so small that they are not expected to occur.
This means that the entropy values computed for a piece of text may not
yield properties of the language, if the sample of the text is too small. For 
digraphs of rare characters, one would need a text with a length of the 
order of a million characters to get significant statistics. But then also
their contribution to the entropy is only to the 3rd or fourth decimal place.
For trigraphs or more the situation is worse, and one cannot conclude much
about underlying language from entropy values alone.

Nulls

The question was recently raised in the mailing list, what impact the presence
of nulls could have on the entropy of the VMs text. Here we assume that the
complete set of 'nc' characters is composed of 'nt' text characters and
'nn' null characters (i.e. a character is always either a null or a text
character). Lets call 'a' the fraction of all charaters of a piece of 
text which are not nulls: 

a = sum{it, it=1,..,nt} p(it)

Let's also call 'Ec' the combined entropy, 'Et' the entropy of the original
text without nulls and 'En' the entropy of the nulls.
For all 'it' the value of p(it) is 'a' times that of the text without nulls.
For all 'in' the value of p(in) is 1-a times the probability of the null being
chosen. After some manipulations we see:

  Ec = a * Et + (1-a) * En - a 2log a - (1-a) 2log (1-a) or:

  Ec = a * Et + (1-a) * En + E(a,1-a)

The resulting entropy is a linear combination of the entropies of the
two composing texts, with an extra constant to be added, depending only
on the fraction of nulls added.
Generally, the mixing of text with nulls will tend to increase the 
entropy (because of the addition of E(a,1-a)). This makes sense because
the character set has been extended. If the purpose of adding nulls
would have been to reduce the entropy, this could be achieved by
adding relatively many nulls of low entropy.
Jim Reeds recently gave a different formula for the change in entropy
resulting from adding (on average) n nulls for every text character.
Since the formula was different, I presume that his assumption was
not that the null character set was different from the original one.

What to conclude?

It is clear that the entropy of the VMs can be calculated only
if its alphabet is known, which unfortunately is not the case.
For each transcription alphabet a different entropy will be the result.
The presence of illegible characters and the difficulty on deciding
the word spaces has a very small impact on the single-character entropy
but more on the single-word entropy. In fact all entropy values other
than mono-graph and digraph must be interpreted with care. It seems
especially difficult to derive language characteristics from the entropy
values based on a text of the size of the VMs.
--7905_5335-56ed_4141-6efe_45a1--

From rand.org!jim Tue May  7 10:35:50 +1000 1996
Received: by rice; Mon May  6 20:57 EDT 1996
Received: from rand.org by research; Mon May  6 20:56:14 EDT 1996
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	id sma005416; Tue May  7 10:35:55 1996
Received: from medici.trl.OZ.AU ([137.147.12.3]) by cdn_mail.dn.itg.telecom.com.au (8.6.11/8.6.9) with SMTP id KAA14160 for <voynich@rand.org>; Tue, 7 May 1996 10:35:54 +1000
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	id AA25273; Tue, 7 May 96 10:35:51 EST
From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9605070035.AA25273@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: More frogguy
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 10:35:50 +1000 (EST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Status: OR

 I am using a different approach now. For good reasons: I designed
 my transcription system and my PC fonts hand in hand. It is 
 difficult to explain the transcription system without referring
 to the fonts.  Even though it is all very easy to learn, and 
 remember, once you catch onto the idea. I am breaking this
 up now into small GIFs, each being a tutorial of sorts.

 Comments, flames, etc. welcome: j.guy@trl.telstra.com.au

----------------------cut here-----------------------------

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8G=B*O=B,W=B._=B0'=F2/=F4_=01```[
`
end

From rand.org!jim Tue May  7 16:26:15 +1000 1996
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Received: from rand.org by research; Tue May  7 03:20:41 EDT 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9605070626.AA27941@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: lesson2.gif (the "gallows")
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 16:26:15 +1000 (EST)
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6G.=<YSOG><]]_G.@!UWH0[]X!```.P``
`
end

From rand.org!jim Wed May  8 11:10:57 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: Frogguy: lesson 3
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 11:10:57 +1000 (EST)
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`
end

From rand.org!jim Wed May  8 09:29:50 GMT 1996
Received: by rice; Wed May  8 05:57 EDT 1996
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Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 09:29:50 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9605080929.AA23045@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Pietro d'Abano
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Dear all,

D'Imperio never mentions Pietro d'Abano, and this name also does not
figure in the mail archive. Yet he has an interesting astrological
system (for us) whereby each zodiacal sign is subdivided into 30
parts ('faces?'). This is a nice parallel to what we see on the 
astrological folios of the VMs (assuming that the star with label
in the centre of Pisces, 'Alfred', is the missing 30th one).
Has anyone ever seen any description of this system?
Since he is from the early 14th century, he is an unlikely candidate
writer for the VMs (given the combined expert opinions), but
his work may well have been represented here by someone else.

I'll try to track this down on my next few trips to the library.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Thu May  9 07:04:21 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: Frogguy Lesson 4
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 07:04:21 +1000 (EST)
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M0;`%6K.@&'.[6K7YQX.QU92Y-J>P1%^TM'/["5Y(J[-OZK.-5EI5)+5S:;8(
M:[`.&[=R.[=T6[=V>[=XF[?GD:\=2ZB.JIWPPK*`.HGS1;0R2YP8ZHJX%YXV
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>N[JLV[JN^[JP&[NR.[NT6[NV>[NXF[NZRVT1```[
`
end

From rand.org!jim Thu May  9 07:04:56 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: Frogguy Lesson 5 (last one!)
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 07:04:56 +1000 (EST)
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A5[K3I6YUK7M=[&97N]OE;G>]^UWPAE>\XR5O>?,3`0`[
`
end

From rand.org!jim Wed May  8 21:45 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
Message-Id: <199605090159.SAA19261@rand.org>
Received: from rice by ns; Wed May  8 21:57:02 EDT 1996
Date: Wed, 8 May 96 21:45 EDT
To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich MS and Peter of Abano
Status: OR


Rene's guess that we might look for VMS-like stuff in Peter of Abano is
interesting.  I know nothing about P of A, but am posting this to mention
that there is a long discussion of him in vol II of Thorndyke's _History
of Magic and Experimental Science_: all of chapter LXX, pp.874-947.

Let's see:  I have put copies (with his permission) of Jacques Guy's Frogguy
lessons up on my Voynich pages; see

	http://netlib.att.com/math/people/reeds/voynich/frogguy.html

That's all!

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Fri May 10 07:45:42 0400 1996
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Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 07:45:42 -0400
Message-Id: <199605101145.HAA04031@ts4a.sei.cmu.edu>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Entropy
Status: OR


Folks

Thanks to Rene for his tutorial on entropy.  Just a brief
note from me: I believe the Currier alphabet of 36 symbols
includes a lot of variants or glitches as letters.  The
real number of different letters in the VMS, I believe, is
much less - between 20 and 24, at a venture.  This means
that the letter entropy is much closer to the Zipv value
than Rene's calculations give.

Yours
Robert

From rand.org!jim Fri May 10 12:35:12 GMT 1996
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Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 12:35:12 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: voynich@rand.org
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Status: OR

Robert Firth writes:

> Thanks to Rene for his tutorial on entropy.  Just a brief
> note from me: I believe the Currier alphabet of 36 symbols
> includes a lot of variants or glitches as letters.  The
> real number of different letters in the VMS, I believe, is
> much less - between 20 and 24, at a venture.  This means
> that the letter entropy is much closer to the Zipv value
> than Rene's calculations give.

and I agree of course. (Note that I have not personally computed the
entropy of the Voynich text. I took the 3.85 value from the
mail archive). As far as I can see the following points are
'uncertain' about Currier's alphabet.
- The strings of I's followed by a flourish or another letter
- The 'pedestal' gallows (cXXt in 'Classic' Frogguy)
- The 7/J distinction

How would you propose to reduce the set? What I'd like to try
(one day - this is not top of my list) is what the transcription
looks like if one translates Currier I to I, II to u and III to iu.
The 'problem' with the high frequency of 'N' and 'M' can be solved 
by transcribing the 'up' flourish as s. This gives:
D -> S , N -> IS , M -> US , 3 -> IUS
and e.g.:
E -> X , G -> IX , H -> UX , 1 -> IUX
J -> M , K -> IM , L -> UM , 5 -> IUM
         T -> IR , U -> UR , 0 -> IUR
         
Note that I am not trying to convert to Latin, but just 
proposing a transcription. In the above, 15 Currier letters have
been reduced to 6 new ones.
Main problem: what to do with the C, CC and CCC? 

Cheers, Rene
   

From rand.org!jim Fri May 10 10:29:43 0700 1996
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Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 10:29:43 -0700
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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To: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>
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Status: OR

Dear Jcques and all,

The tutorial in Frogguy was wonderful.
I almost can speak it now ;-)
I have one question regarding the frogguy "e"
If this chatacter (voynich c connected to the right) can
also be coded using Forgguy "C", wouldn' it be better
to avoid the "e"? I am just wondering if it would be
better to have no alternative codings so traslations
are easier.
Maybe I am confusing an early frogguy with the capitalisation
of letters rule?

Jacques Frogguy font that comes with Voyedit has to
be used after changing the alphabet in the editor.
Although this is wonderful, the saved file has not
easily readable characters, because the Frogguy
alphabets is in the upper part of the ascii table.
I'll try this week end to make another font that
corresponds to the extended frogguy so it can be
used straight away and saved in readable ascii.

I am happy to announce that I am the proud owner of
a vms copyflo and to reject the hypothesis of
"vms copyflos come in torn envelopes" :-)
It actually came in a nice padded Jiffy envelope.

I've heard that the quality of the copies was so bad
that I was expecting almost noise, however! even I
agree that some parts are very difficult to read, then
some others are quite clear.

regards,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Fri May 10 20:57:55 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'firth@SEI.CMU.EDU'" <firth@sei.cmu.edu>,
        "voynich@rand.org"
	 <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: Entropy
Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 20:57:55 -0600
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Status: OR




Thanks to Rene for his tutorial on entropy.  Just a brief
note from me: I believe the Currier alphabet of 36 symbols
includes a lot of variants or glitches as letters.  The
real number of different letters in the VMS, I believe, is
much less - between 20 and 24, at a venture.  This means
that the letter entropy is much closer to the Zipv value
than Rene's calculations give.

Yours
Robert

In the course of putting f88 and f89 (out soon!) into Currier, I've =
found enough evidence to convince me that Robert is probably correct.  =
There's nothing like a little boredom on the part of the scribe to =
generate a little variation here and there.  This means that "sports" =
are indeed probably variants.  Also have run across places where trhe =
scribe just ran out of ink in the middle of a character but kept going =
anyway.  Seems to me that symbols in the text that appear only 1-3 or 4 =
times should be examined closely.  In transcribing to Currier, I've =
gotten going at a pretty good rate and clear variants seem to "flow" =
properly. =20

Yr. obdt. and humble svt.

Don


From paw.montana.com!djl Sun May 12 16:26:25 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Cc: "'Reeds, Jim'" <reeds@research.att.com>
Subject: CURRIER TRANSCRIPTION f89
Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 16:26:25 -0600
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Status: OR


------ =_NextPart_000_01BB401F.F130ED60
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

  
enclosed is my effort to transcribe f89 of the VMS. enjoy.
f90 follows.

yr. humble and obdt svt.
Don Latham

------ =_NextPart_000_01BB401F.F130ED60
Content-Type: text/plain; name="F89VM.TXT"
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=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00[=00=13=00=00=00=00=00MS Sans =
Serif=00=0C=00=00=00=02=00Symbol=00=0C =
=00=00=00=00System=00=15=00=00=00=00=00Times New =
Roman=00=140=00=00=00=00Lucida Console=00=0D	{f89 transcribed by Don =
Latham, May 1996. Uses Currier with spaces for word separation.=0D	* =
denotes undecipherable to me.}=0D<f89r>=0D=0D{1.5 pages. 3 rows of =
veggies that seem to be named, with paragraphs under each.  following =
Reeds, 14 Dec 91=0D for nomenclature}=0D=0D<f89r.t 1> SOCC29=0D<f89r.t =
2> OF**E=0D<f89r.t 3> OARSCO2=0D<f89r.t 4> SOFARO=0D<f89r.t 5> =
ZCOE=0D<f89r.t 6> SO*A*=0D=0D{ the following para is horribly hard to =
read!}=0D=0D<f89r.1> FO2AR ZCOE 2 AM FOM SFO8AM B8AM SOP* 4OVOM *9 =
4OB8AE 8OU *AM OEYCOE 8A* -=0D<f89r.2> 8AM 9FO8AT OFOR SAR OPCC* **O9 2 =
AM XA9 OPAM OFAR 8AN OFOE AE SOR 8AR -=0D<f89r.3> 9*** OF*9 4OCOE 8AM =
SOR S** SCO2 4OECC**9 8AE SO89 SCOR S*9 4OAM SO89 -=0D<f89r.4> SOR OE =
SO9 4OE SCOE EOR SCO 8AMSFAE -=0D=0D<f89r.m 1> OFAR9=0D<f89r.m 2> OPAIR =
SO89=0D<f89r.m 3> 898ARM=0D<f89r.m 4> OBSA8A9=0D=0D<f89r.5> 2AR OAIRAR =
SCCP9 **** POR9 O9AR *AIR SCOPAM 9PO8AM -=0D<f89r.6> OQO2 OFAM OF*2 8AR =
***M AF**89 8AR OP*E 8AE 8O2AE 8AR AJ -=0D<f89r.7> 9*C9 4OFAOE SC9 8AT =
8AJ *** VO* OBO8AM 8A* RAR9 4O8AE 9PCO2 AM -=0D<f89r.8> 4OFOR SOR QC9 =
8AM SO2 **9 8OR A** *OCCA2 OFAR SOPC9 8ARAI82 -=0D<f89r.9> POAR 4OFCCO89 =
80CVZ*9 8AN9 O8OR ZCO2 AM 8AIFCO89 *OFORAR OFCOR OPOE ZC*89 4OFO EPSCO89 =
OPAE -=0D<f89r.10> 80E 8AT C*C9 OFAM Z9 8AM O8OR ZCO2 AM 8A*FCO89 =
*OFORAR ZCO89 4OFO EPSCO89 OPAE -=0D<f89r.11> 8AR 4OX9 4OFAE OFO9 **** =
8AM O8AM 9FCO8 OFOE *CC9 FCCO89 8AM 40F02 OFCO9 -=0D<f89r.12> OXO89 8AM =
OFAJ 2 **CC ***CC 8AT9T SOOE E09 8AT SCO8AM -=0D=0D<f89r.b 1> =
OBAEOU9=0D<f89r.b 2> OPARAJ=0D<f89r.b 3> *P**9=0D<f89r.b 4> =
R**9=0D=0D=0D<f89v1> =0D{ second shot of f89v1.  two rows of veggies, =
top and bottom of page, 2 paras in between.}=0D=0D<f89v1.t 1> =
OFORAE89=0D<f89v1.t 2> OPOX9=0D<f89v1.t 3> OPSAR=0D<f89v1.t 4> =
=0D8ARZO89=0D=0D<f89v1.1> FOE8AE 2VAE YC9 OVSCOE OVOE29 8AM 4OBOE OE8AM =
OQO89 -=0D<f89v1.2> 8OR ZCC9 4OFOE SCOE QO89 4OX9 8AN OPOC9 OPAR QOE =
-=0D<f89v1.3> 4OFC9 8AM SCC9 QO89 4OOR ZCOR 8OE SOR SCOR OR9 =
-=0D<f89v1.4> ZOXC9 ORAROE SOF9 4O9 SO8AN SOF9 8AM OPAR OR9 =
-=0D<f89v1.5> POS*O QOR OFOE SOFAM O2 AM OE SCOFSC9 4OFO** 8** =
-=0D<f89v1.6> POR ZCOR SCOR QC9 4OFOE 8AM SCFAE 8AE 2 SCAR 4OPAJ =
-=0D<f89v1.7> OZCOFAM 2 AN OE ZO8AN 40FA* AN SOFAE 8AM 8AR -=0D<f89v1.8> =
4OFAR O8AM =3D=0D=0D<f89v1.9> POZCO VSCO89 ZCFC9 OR ZO2 AU WC9 4OFCO89 =
SCO89 8AE 89 -=0D<f89v1.10> 9FCC9 9FCC9 O8AE ZOF9 OFOE SO89 OFOAM 8AE =
S89 8AE 8AE89 -=0D<f89v1.11> 8S**9 8AM QOE 8AM 8AE89 OFCOR 9PO9 FCOR =
SC9P9 OS9 -=0D<f89v1.12> *OFAM 9FSOE 4OX9 OFAE8A   OPAE 8AE SO8AR OFAM =
8AE* -=0D<f89v1.13> 2AE ZOE 9FOE 8AR AJ ZOEX9 8OESO9 8AEZ89 OFCOE 898S9 =
-=0D<f89v1.14> 4OFOE SCOE 4OFOE 8AE SOE 8AJ 4OCC9 2AM OE2 SOFAM =
-=0D<f89v1.15> 2AR A 8AM XC9 4OPS9 OFOE 9SCO QO89 OFOE OEFA9Q9 =
-=0D<f89v1.16> 2O8SC9 OFSOE 2AN 8AM OFAE SOE89 =3D=0D=0D<f89v1.b 1> =
FOCCORAN=0D<f89v1.b 2> OPOR SO2 =0D<f89v1.b 3> OBOE O8AM =0D<f89v1.b 4> =
8ARZO89=0D=0D=0D{looks like 3 plants and 4 names. none of the other =
"vases" seem to be named.}=0D=0D=0D<f89v2>=0D{nice page. large plant, =
looks like a thistle, sorta. one para. clear ink. wish all pages were as =
clear as this one! plant drawn first, text after.}=0D=0D<f89v2.1> =
BOECCOE 4OFCOE 4OFCO8 SO89 QOJ -=0D<f89v2.2> 9ZOE POR ZCOR 4OPSOR 4OF9 =
8ARAEA -=0D<f89v2.3> 8AT ZFCCO 2 RAR9 OFAR 9FARZ9 EFAE89 -=0D<f89v2.4> =
POESOR SO8AM SOYOR 4OFSOR SOX9 OFSO8 4OVSOE -=0D<f89v2.5> 9POR X9 EB9SOE =
ZO OE OFASC9 2 ZCOJ FCOE 8S9 8A2A89 -=0D<f89v2.6> POE OPSAE SOR98AR =
4OFCO2 OFCO2S2O SOE 9PO8 4OFCOR 8OEZ9 -=0D<f89v2.7> 8AE SO2 4OQ9 4OFSO =
ZFO 4OFOE OPCC9 SOV9 9FCO89 4OFO8 -=0D<f89v2.8> FOR ZCOE 4O8AR OFO 9FCC9 =
4OFCC9 4O8AR 4OFA8 2 SOF9 -=0D<f89v2.9> 9FO8AR 4OCFS9 ZOFOE OFAJ =
=3D+=0D=0D<f89v3>=0D{another plant page. again, plant drawn first. a =
tuber. note nodular roots.}=0D=0D<f89v3.1> PO*AES2 ZOFOE ZCO 4O*FCC9    =
2OCCOE 4OPCO89 -=0D<f89v3.2> 2AM XCO 2AM 4OXC9 2 9FCCO89    2 SCC9 SOR =
X2 -=0D<f89v3.3> 8ZCCOR 4OFCO8 4OFCO SOE OE OFAE    2AM QCO 2 AR =
-=0D<f89v3.4> AE 2 AN SCO RO 2OFCC9 4OFCCO2     AE ARAE 092 =
-=0D<f89v3.5> 9SOR XOR 4OCCOR OFAM 8OJ    OESCO 2O8AM -=0D<f89v3.6> 8AM =
4OFOR OOFOM 8AM =
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=00"=00=16Default Paragraph =
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=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=01=00=FE=FF=03=0A=
=00=00=FF=FF=FF=FF=00	=
=02=00=00=00=00=00=C0=00=00=00=00=00=00F=1C=00=00=00Microsoft Word 6.0 =
Document=00=0A=
=00=00=00MSWordDoc=00=00=00=00=00=F49=B2q=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00
------ =_NextPart_000_01BB401F.F130ED60--


From rand.org!jim Tue May 14 08:04:41 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9605132204.AA03936@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: f89
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 08:04:41 +1000 (EST)
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I just received this from jim@rand.org (uh?), and I am not sure if
it was distributed to the whole list:


  
enclosed is my effort to transcribe f89 of the VMS. enjoy.
f90 follows.

yr. humble and obdt svt.
Don Latham

------ =_NextPart_000_01BB401F.F130ED60
Content-Type: text/plain; name="F89VM.TXT"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

=D0=CF=11=E0=A1=B1=1A=E1=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00>=
=00=03=00=FE=FF	=
=00=06=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=01=00=00=00=01=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=
=00=10=00=00=02=00=00=00=01=00=00=00=FE=FF=FF=FF=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=FF=
=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=
=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=
=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=FF=

Well, you got the idea, I'll spare you the rest. Something went terribly
wrong somewhere. And since things have a habit of going wrong at my
end... I wonder.

Could you play it again Don? In a different key this time? (Or a different
instrument, I don't know much about music!)

j.guy@trl.telstra.com.au


From rand.org!jim Mon May 13 20:16:34 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: f89 etc
Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 20:16:34 -0600
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Hoo boy!  My apologies to all for mailing error. I'll remail f89 as a =
text file!.  According to Michael Roe I've got the pagination wrong as =
well, so I'll wait to remail until I have it right. Also need to fix up =
a couple of other things, too.=20

Don Latham


From rand.org!jim Tue May 14 10:05:55 GMT 1996
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Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 10:05:55 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9605141005.AA09442@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: sequences f57v
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Hi!
You write...
> ...... in f57v,
> This folio has 4 concentric circles and a word at "10 o'clock"
> that seems to me a "start"signal (this one is outside the outer
> circle, fogguy [8ai2x].

I like the meaning of 'start' too. Unfortunately, there are probably
a few hundred synonyms, taking into account all the possible languages for
this word.

> Now in the 2nd circle there is a sequence, repeated 4 times
> composed of 17 different letters only the [2] is repeated, in frogguy:

See D'Imperio for a clear overview.
I also like the sequence in the biological section, which has 1,2,3,4,5
written next to it. This seems to be in the same hand as the folio 
numbers, but that may not mean much. I recently saw some handwriting of
Tycho Brahe, and that also looked very much like the folio numbers (but
I am sure it is not the same). This indicates that it is more a style
of the period. Anyway, the sequence in this margin seems to concentrate
on the line-initial symbols, which is especially clear on the lines of
this page.

> Now, in folio 67r2 there are 12 "moons" with labels. Are these
> the names of the months?

I remember there are two illustrations with 12 labels. As far as I can
see, these are not the same sequences (but this would have been 
discovered a long time ago anyway!). Since we have both
12 months and 12 zodiac signs, this is in principle promising. Of
course the language/encoding problem remains and so does the 
'invented names' problem.

Has anyone ever looked seriously at Hebrew as the underlying language?
I have not seen any reports about this. With all the interest in
Kabbala (sp?) in the late middle ages this is as likely a candidate as
several other languages. Newbold was ideally suited to study this
but I do not know how much time he spent on the text itself
before he went to the microscopic shorthand symbols...

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Tue May 14 09:52 EDT 1996
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Message-ID: <n1380059608.75053@artefact.qc.ca>
Date: 14 May 1996 08:33:47 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  ramblings on gematr
To: "Voynich List" <voynich@RAND.ORG>
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Dear all,

I have been trying for some time to test an hypothesis... Having =
seemingly exausted any
source of informations I can think of I put it to the list in case it =
might be useful ;-)

I ran many statistical analysis on the VMS (as does anyone) and it does =
seems that there is too
many repetitions of letters too close apart to be some how meaningful... =
NULLS maybe...

But what bugs me his that this was done "by hand" and its very hard to =
keep in mind
when (and which) null to insert. Further, the poor fellow who tries to =
read this must
know the rules... All this is obvious of course.

That's where I figured that may be they were using a song or prayer to =
remember
where to insert the nulls, it might follow some rythm... I know of the =
Japanese 
Getsu sama, who had a song to tell them the recepe of making fine Katana =
swords,
could there be a song on the VMS ??? Or a prayer maybe....

Things like "whenever you encounter the sign of the cross offer a letter =
to god",
this would put a nulls after every letter 'T'. Easy to remember.

Has anyone even commented on any pattern in the vms, like tempo or some =
rythm...
A prayer might work best because the rules would be short and simple =
(KISS)...

Of course some kind of gematria might be in use... Whereby its the sum =
modulo X
of the position of each letter in the base alphabet that give meaning to =
the words...
I know for exemple that GOD and NATURE and the same because they add up =
to the same 
number (module 22 I think for hebrew)... This might explain that there =
are too much
repetition of words too close apart (like 8AM)... It's hard to decipher =
thaugh :-(

Anyway, I just thought I'd share sone of my latest ideas, which so far =
have been
rather pointless I am affraid ;-) It's hard to make some progress with =
this book,
I guess there lies its charms...

Regards


From rand.org!jim Tue May 14 10:19:47 0700 1996
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Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 10:19:47 -0700
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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To: Voynich Manuscript List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: sequences f57v
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Status: OR

Hello,
Well now I am having some time to look at the vms, I
found a curious sequence in f57v,
This folio has 4 concentric circles and a word at "10 o'clock"
that seems to me a "start"signal (this one is outside the outer
circle, fogguy [8ai2x].
Now in the 2nd circle there is a sequence, repeated 4 times
composed of 17 different letters only the [2] is repeated, in frogguy:

o x 8 2 ^ n lp ig qj {K^ or weirdo X53} qp 2 z {weirdo X54} 9 e y

interesting, all the gallows in one cluster...
This made me think whether these are the true "letters" and the rest 
(iiv, iv, a, s, 4) syllabes or shorthand?


Now, in folio 67r2 there are 12 "moons" with labels. Are these
the names of the months?

In the inner circle there are more labels that I thought they
were the days of the week, but they are 8.
Did weeks have 8 days back in the 15 century? :-D

cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Wed May 15 14:01:56 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9605150401.AA10819@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Voynich repetitions
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 14:01:56 +1000 (EST)
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(Bear with me a while, this is not going to turn out
to be the silly game you think it is)

  ouokivuia ragai ibu iare avaraepa ogoevira ikauoro
  aruvea upiaraerao
  rera kaakau taparevora voari
  rera iare perapaisi vikipatavoi garutuvira
  viapau rera kaakau taparevora voari
  irouva kareovere varavira

I had better stop. You must be growing pretty sick of it.
I have just said:

 On another day I went running to Ibu hungrily.
 Yesterday I was sick.
 He hit the dog back there.
 You are throwing the soccer ball to him slowly.
 He didn't hit the dog back there.
 Who will go back down?

Source: "Vocabulary of Rotokas -- Pidgin & English"
by Irwin and Jacqueline Firchow and David Akoitai.
Summer Institute of Linguistics, Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea

Et je continue! Bear with me again for a short while.

insinde se bnanom brictomin eianom anuana sananderna
brictom uidluias uidlu tigontias so adsagsona seuerim
tertionicnim lidssatim liciatim eianom.... 

Enough? Enough. It was an excerpt from page  161 of
a book entitled "La langue gauloise", by Pierre-Yves
Lambert (ISBN 2-87772-089-6 in case you thought I was
making it up).

What do I mean to say? I don't know, I don't know. I know
that I am not suggesting that the VMS is written in
Rotokas, nor in Gaulish. That's only as far as I know.

j.guy@trl.telstra.com.au


From rand.org!jim Wed May 15 12:22:38 +0100 1996
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To: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Voynich repetitions 
In-reply-to: Your message of Wed, 15 May 1996 14:01:56 +1000.
             <9605150401.AA10819@medici.trl.OZ.AU> 
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 12:22:38 +0100
From: Michael Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Message-Id: <E0uJefE-0005Kd-00@heaton.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Status: OR


I have an alternative theory to explain the repetitions:

Most natural languages have quite good error-correction properties. If a few
letters are unreadable, you can usually work out what was meant. Many code
books don't have such good error-correction properties: they have code-words
which differ in only one letter but which have quite different meanings.

This can be very bad for the user of the code: there is a real risk that
the intended recipient of the message will misread a letter, and obtain a
decipherment which makes sense in context but which isn't what the sender
meant.

Thre obvious way to avoid this problem is to write down the important code-words
several times, to make sure that the recipient doesn't misread them.
(Using computers, there are much more efficient ways to correct errors.
But in the pre-computer era, simple repetition is an easy way to guard against
misreading).


So, maybe the word doubling in Voynich MS is an attempt to guard against
misreadings? I am not totally convinced by this theory, because in the VMS
the doubled words tend to be the common words (e.g. 4OFS9) rather than rare
ones.

        ==========================================================

On a related topic, last weekend I bought some more memory for my home
computer and tried an experiment that hadn't been feasible before:

I took the entire FSG transcription and built a relational database
with one record for each *occurence* of each word. To make it easier
to contruct queries, I also added a 'next' field. The relation looks like
this:

    +------ primary key
    v
----------+----------+--------+--------+--------+
Position  | Next     | Folio  | Line   | Word   |
Integer   | Integer  | String | Integer| String |
----------+----------+--------+--------+--------+
1         | 2        | 1r     | 1      | V9A92
2         | 3        | 1r     | 1      | 9FAE

    (and so on)

Given this, I then wrote an SQL program that prints a report with a section
for each folio of the VMS, listing which word-triples in that folio
are repeated elsewhere. (Join the relation to itself three times, sort and
count, select > 1, join back to previous database join twice, sort and print)

The idea behind this was that it would locate a long repeated sequence,
and that this repeated sequence might reveal something of cryptographic 
sequence.

What it in fact found were transcription errors, or places where my program
didn't parse the transcription file properly:

1. f85v3.n - f85v3.n

   This entire folio is transcribed twice (with variations) in the FSG file.

2. f76r.43 - f76r.43

   The line is repeated in the FSG transcription file
   (Not repeated in D'Imperio transcription)

3. f112v.33 - f112v.37 and f112v.34 - f112v.37

   The FSG contains two variant readings for these lines
   (Fools my program into reading the variants as separate lines)

4. f84r.29 - f84r.30

   "8G,4OHAR,TCDAR,OR,SC8G,2AM" repeated in two succesive lines
   (Not repeated in D'Imperio trasncription)

5. <f103r.14> -  <f103r.15>

   Repeated similar substring:
        4OHG,4OHC8G-4ODCCG,SAE,4OHCG,S
        4ODG,4OHC8G,4ODCCG,SOE,4OHCG,S


What I need to do now is to remove these transcription accidents and try again
to see if there are any real repeated subsequences....

Mike

From rand.org!jim Wed May 15 12:10:33 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 12:10:33 +0000
Subject: Re: Voynich repetitions
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> What do I mean to say? I don't know, I don't know. I know
          ^              ^        ^^^^ ^        ^^^^ ^  ^^^^
> that I am not suggesting that the VMS is written in
       ^
> Rotokas, nor in Gaulish. That's only as far as I know.
                                                 ^ ^^^^
Exactly! and then I thought that there were too many
8AMs in the vms!!!
Regards,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Wed May 15 12:33:38 GMT 1996
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Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 12:33:38 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Voynich repetitions
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Dear all,

While checking up on Peter of Abano I found (on the net) that
Abraham Ben Ezra (one of Peter's sources) more or less invented 
the concept of zero. 
He called it galgal (not sure exactly which language). This had me
wondering: galgal: SOE SOE? Bennet transcribed Cur-E as L and the shape
is not altogether wrong. Cur-S as G? Why not? The Cur-Z could then be
K or hard-G.... Not sure what to do with this though.
I tentatively took 8AM as 'Ben' (not impossible either) and got nowhere.
(Part of the idea was to find a transcription alphabet that makes
the Voynich text pronounceable, among others getting rid of the
numbers).

Anyway, reading about all these people and their accomplishments
is extremely rewarding, as D'Imperio also points out. Even if
we never figure this thing out, I am enjoying the search.

The little gems one comes across. It appears Peter of Abano talked
a lot with.... Marco Polo. And Thorndike in his section about P.of A 
is again taking stabs at the 'Bacon wrote the VMs' theory, or the study
of the VMs in general.
  
Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Wed May 15 23:41:58 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: Objet-  ramblings on gematr
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 23:41:58 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <n1380059608.75053@artefact.qc.ca> from "Guy Thibault" at May 14, 96 08:33:47 am
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Guy Thibault recently wrote:
> But what bugs me his that this was done "by hand" and its very hard to =
> keep in mind
> when (and which) null to insert. Further, the poor fellow who tries to =
> read this must
> know the rules... All this is obvious of course.

Not to belabor a pet theory of mine (heh-heh) but maybe certain of the
characters are always used as nulls, inserted whenever and wherever the
scribe feels like and stripped out by the reader, e.g.

   noXw iYs thXe tiXmYe foZZr alXl goXodZ meYn ...

Perhaps this explains why the A and B hands are statistically different,
i.e. because two different scribes had different preferences about which
nulls to use and how often to use them.

And, if so, this could in itself be a tool to determine what the nulls are,
by seeing what char(s) you have to remove to get the statistics back
into line.

It seems to me that a good may to test this hypothesis would be to 
compare different -parts- written in the same hand to see if their
stats are similar. Not being much of a statistician, I am not sure
how to do this - for example, could a chi-square test be used on letter
frequency counts from two different sections to test if they were  
likely to have been written by the same guy?

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Thu May 16 14:49:20 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu, voynich@rand.org
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> From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
> Guy Thibault recently wrote:
> > But what bugs me his that this was done "by hand" and its very hard to =
> > keep in mind
> > when (and which) null to insert.
> Not to belabor a pet theory of mine (heh-heh) but maybe certain of the
> characters are always used as nulls, inserted whenever and wherever the
> scribe feels like and stripped out by the reader, e.g.
> 
>    noXw iYs thXe tiXmYe foZZr alXl goXodZ meYn ...
> 
> Perhaps this explains why the A and B hands are statistically different,
> i.e. because two different scribes had different preferences about which
> nulls to use and how often to use them.
> 
> And, if so, this could in itself be a tool to determine what the nulls are,
> by seeing what char(s) you have to remove to get the statistics back
> into line.
[chop!]
> Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Well, one way would be to do the analysis that D'Imperio did
to differentiate between A and B, but using only A, or only B
fragments.

An interesting reference I found is:
Burrows JF Not unless you ask nicely: the interpretative nexus between
analysis and information. Literary and Linguistic Computing
1992;7(2):91-109.

It comes with a listing of the Minitab code to perform the analysis.
regards,

Gabriel


From rand.org!jim Fri May 17 01:17:23 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: folios 88,89,90
Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 01:17:23 -0600
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------ =_NextPart_000_01BB438E.B698B9E0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Well, all, I've got the "pagination" corresponding to Jim Reeds' folio =
document and hopefully have the format of the transcription. The =
transcription is Currier, and hopefully will blend with voynich.now. =
Thanks to Jim and Mike Roe for helping me out. Also the document should =
be plain text this time, instead of Word 6.0...

Best to all, Don 
------ =_NextPart_000_01BB438E.B698B9E0
Content-Type: text/plain; name="f888990v.txt"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable


	{f88,89,90 transcribed by Don Latham, April 1996
	* denotes undecipherable to me.}

<f88r>=20
{3 rows of veggies that seem to be named, with paragraphs under =
each...following Reeds, 14 Dec 91
 for nomenclature}

<f88r.t> {top.row}
<f88r.t.1> OPORSCP9
<F88r.t.2> ORAE
<f88r.t.3> ORAE8
<f88r.t.4> OE8AR
<f88r.t.5> OPOF9
<f88r.t.6> OPAE9

<f88r.1> 8ORZCO9.QCOE.4OXC9.8ORA.ZCOR.ZOEBSOR.8AE.SQO8 -
<f88r.2> 2AE*CCO7.FOESCAD.ZCFOR.4OFOR.8AM.RAR.RAM.OF9.RA7 -
<f88R.3> OAN.OR.O7.OPA7.OFO7.SCCOR.4OFCO89.8ARORO7.SCO89 -
<f88r.4> 4OFCOE.SCOE.2AM.SCO2.SCOE.8OECCC9.OR.SCO7.SCO7A7 -
<f88r.5> 9OFCO89.SCO7.4OOR.SCCD.9FCOR.Z9.2A7 #

<f88r.m> {middle row of plants}
<f88r.m.1> OPAE89
<f88r.m.2> ORAJ
<f88r.m.3> *ARA
<f88r.m.4> OFOE.
<f88r.m.5> 2OROR9
<f88r.m.6> OP98A

<f88r.6> FOAXC9.WOE.ORSOR.BSCOE9.OPSOE.OE89.2AE.2AE9 -
<f88r.7> 8S9.SOFOE.8AM.4OCFOE.4OCFOE.4OXO9.OFOE.SCOE -
<f88r.8> 8ZCOE.4OFCC9.2.S9.8AM.SOR.OPCOR.AM.SO2AE2 -
<f88r.9> PCOE.SOR.OEZCO89.4OFCOE.ZOX9.OE.ZCCOE.ZCOE86 -
<r88r.10> 9SC9.OFAM.SOE.SCOR.OE.SORSOE2AE #

<f88r.b> {bottom row of plants}
<f88r.b.1> OB9RF98AE
<f88r.b.2> OPORAJ
<f88r.b.3> OBAE80

<f88r.11> BOCCAR.ZCOF9.OEFCC9.QOE.BOE89.2.OFOE89 -
<f88r.12> 4OFOE.SOE.4OFOE.4OFOE.SOE.SCC9.OR.AM.OE8AE -
<f88r.13> OFOR.SCOE.SOE..SO9.XC9.2.OR.ZCAR.AR.AE29 -
<f88r.14> FOR.SC9.4OFOE.SCOE..SO89.4OFOE.FSOR.SOE.8OE -
<f88r.15> 9FCCCO.SCOR.SCOPC9.SCOE.4OFCOR.SCPS9.OBAE -
<f88r.16> 8AR.SCAR.SOE.8OE.4OCFCOE.SCOJ #

<f88v> {This is another recipes page. Three rows of recipes
		with two paras between them}
<f88v.t.1> OFOE98
<f88v.t.2> SCOQ9
<f88v.t.3> WCOR
<f88v.t.4> OPAR.UO89
<f88v.t.5> OPOFOE

<f88v.1> PCO8AE.EFCOSCOR.ROZX9.RORZ9.AM.SCOFAE.2AE8AM -
<f88v.2> 8SOR.ZOR.4OFCO89.4OFCOESC9.SFCOR.4OFCC9.8AM.4OFCO7 -
<f88v.3> 4OAM.SCO9.OESCO89.40XOE.SO.SX9.4OCC9.FC9.SCOFA7 -
<f88v.4> SOCC9.FCC089.2.AM.SO89.OFCARSC08.ARSCC9.RAUAE -
<f88v.5> 8AR.SCOROE.SCFOE.8ARAE9 #

<f88v.m.1> OPORA8
<f88v.m.2> OPRA
<f88v.m.3> SCO289
<f88v.m.4> OFAM

<f88v.6> FOZOE89.4OPO89.OB9FCA.OE8AM.4OPCO89.9VOEAM.ORAM -
<f88v.7> 9ZCO8.ZCO.ZCO89.4OFCO89.40F9.SCC2.SCO89.4OFCO89.8AE -
<f88v.8> 4OFCC9.40FCO89.SOR.OPC089.4OXOE.OFOE.SCC89.4OPO89 -
<f88v.9> 9FCCOR.SOX9.OPOE.SCCOE.SC089.4OPO89.2OPOE.SCPO7 -
<f88v.10> O8OM.ZCO.OE.4OFCC9.OEAM.SCO89.SOQC9.OPCO89.89 -
<f88v.11> 24OFCO.8AM.SCO89.OPCOE.SCOX9.SO89 #


<f88v.12> POATS9.OPCCO89.WCO89.9FSC9.8A7.SCOR.SAE9FORAN -
<f88v.13> 8ATO8AN.9FCO8AN.8AN.ZC89.4OPCOES89.4OPCORAN -
<f88v.14> POEFCC08AM.4OF9.SCOE.8AM.SCC2.AM.SOFAR.8AK8 -
<f88v.15> 8AM.ZCOR.ZCC89.8AM.ZOX9.4OFCO89.8OX9.8AT -
<f88v.16> 9FCC9.ZCOR.PO2.SCX9.8AN.SCO2.SCOX9.RAE89 -
<f88v.17> 2AM.SOF9.SCOR.Z9 #

<f88v.b.1> OP98AR9
<f88v.b.2> OP8R89
<f88v.b.3> 8ARARAM

<f89r1> {continues recipe pages. 3 recipes , 3 text paras}

<f89r1.t.1> OFSZ9
<f89r1.t.2> 4FOE
<f89r1.t.3> OE8A7
<f89r1.t.4> OPOE89
<f89r1.t.5> ARARSO8AM

<f89r1.1> 4OARZAR.40BSOE9.4OFO8.SCB98AR.ZCC9.OFORZCCO2.OE8AN -
<f89r1.2> 8ZO89.40Q9.8AE.SC89.4OF*O89.8AE8AM.SA8AM.8AE -
<f89r1.3> 4OFCOE.SAE.408AM.SOE.SC089.4OFCS9.8AM.QCO89.8A7 -
<f89r1.4> 9ZOR.{BLOT?}.O3.8AM.40FCC9.8AM.XOE.4OFAN.SCA79 -
<f89r1.5> P8AN.2.{BLOT?}.SOE.SCOF9.4OFAR.8AE.SAR.XC9.8AM #
		{BLOT looks like part of a plant rather than a flaw}

<f89r1.m.1> 9F98.CCOESCC
<f89r1.m.2> OPORAN
<f89r1.m.3> OFAM8AD

<f89r1.6> PSCOE.4OCAT.ZCOE.4OWC9.2AM.SCOWC9.8AE.8AROE9 -
<f89r1.7> O7ZCC9.4OFC9.E.8AM.8AESO7.SCFSC9.SOE.SCO2.AM.89 -
<f89r1.8> 4CAM.SCAE.2CC9.4OPC9.40FCCOE.8AM.9FCC89.8AM.8A7 -
<f89r1.9> 8AE2AE.8AE.SC089.8ANAE89.A*.8AE8AE #

<f89r1.10> BZOE.ZCO.OAQ9.SCOW9.2.ZCOR.4OFAT98A7.8A89 -
<f89r1.11> 8AK.ZCOJ.4OAX9.AT.SCO89.E8AN.8AE.SOJ.SPAC** -
<f89r1.12> PAM.8AJ.ZOP9(?).8AE.4OFS9.9FS89.OPSAJ.OE.RSRAM -
<f89r1.13> 9SCCOR.ZCOE.4OXC89.9P9.ZCO89.4OPOE.S*A8.SC9.8AE -
<f89r1.14> 8AN.OPCOR.SCO89.SCO8AN.8AM.SO8AM #

<f89r1.b.1> 9FOCY9
<f89r1.b.2> 2AE8AJ
<f89r1.b.3> R98ARAR9(?)
<f89r1.b.4> 98WO89(?)

<f89r2> {this is a page-and-a-half with 4 recipes and 3 paras }

<f89r2.t.1> O8OR9
<f89r2.t.2> 8OE9
<f89r2.t.3> OBSO2AJ
<f89r2.t.4> 2AEOM.ZCOE{may be one group}
<f89r2.t.5> OBSCOR

<f89r2.1> =
4OFSCO89.SCO8AE.8AT.SOEFCC89.SCA8.SCO.8AE.4O*R.ZC9.BICC*E.8*9.4OX*9.SOE89=
.8AK -
<f89r2.2> =
SO2.AM.S*O8AE.S9.8AM.SC8AN.80ECC2OXCCO8.8AM.SO9.SA89.PSO8OE.SOR.SOE89.SO2=
.80E.OFSCCCJ.{?} -
<f89r2.3> =
PO9.8AM.8AM.8AMO89.4OF**9.SCOE89.4O89.SCOR.2.**.8AM.OF9.SCO89.SCOF9 #

<f89r2.m1.1> OFOE89
<f89r2.m1.2> OFOE.ZOE.89
<f89r2.m1.3> OBSAROM

<f89r2.4> =
BORASOE.908A.4OPCOE.OE8AM.OPOE.SCOR.ZOROE8AM.OPSOE.SCOE.OPOEBSO.8ARSO.9FC=
OBOE.OCCOR.OR -
<f89r2.5> =
8AMOEFC9.OFCOE.OFCA.{part.of.plant}.OFCOE.4OOR.OE.SOR.SCF9.SAR.{part.in.f=
old}.8A3.SOE.SCOE.*OR8AJ.OESCOE.80ESCOE -
<f89r2.6> =
PO2.OE.SOR.98AM.SC9.2.O3.SX9.4OFCOE.OFC9.OFCC9.FCC9.SCF9.4OFOE.OFCC9.8OE.=
SCCO89.OCFC9 -
<f89r2.7> 9OCCO.FCCO.XCO.2AM.OFCO.8AM.OX9.2.OXCO.8AM.SCCF9 #

<f89r2.m2.1> FORAN9
<f89r2.m2.2> 2O8AR
<f89r2.m2.3> SC92
<f89r2.m2.4> SCO89
<f89r2.m2.5> OBORAN
<f89r2.m2.6> OFZ8SA2

	{the following para may or may not be split  I have used periods to =
indicate structure, DL}
<f89r2.8> =
FO8SCO2.ZCOE.4OFCOCV9.ZCC9.OBSCOR.OBIOE.ZO89..............4OFOE.SCO.OE89.=
ZCO8OE.9POE89 -
<f89r2.9> =
8AM.SCOF.OFCOE.8AM.8AE.8AN.4OFCC9.OFCOE.8AM.FCO89.........OFCC**.A2.SCC9.=
OFCOE.SCO.SCF9 -
<f89r2.10> =
9OFCCOE.SCOE.4OFCC9.4OFCOE.SC9.CCCOFOR.OFCCOF.8AM........4OFCOE.SCCO.40FC=
C9.8AM.OPCO2 -
<f89r2.11> =
8AM.8AE.ZCOE.2.AM.4OSCC9.8AM.4OFCOE.4OFCO89.SO8.SCO8.....9FC0.4O.4OE.SCO.=
EO3.8AKOJ -
<f89r2.12> =
2SCOR.29.2ORSCC9.8OE.SCOR.SCCA.FCCO.4OFCC9.8AM.90CCAR9...OFCC9.FCCOFCS9.Q=
CA.8AM.O9 -
<f89r2.13> =
4OFOE.SCOR.OFOM.OFCO9.4OCC9.SCOR.SCC9.4OFCOE.SCAE.2.AM...OSCOE.2O3.8AT.SC=
9.8AM -
<f89r2.14> O.R.AN.OR.AN.OE.8AM.40AM.{?}.OE.SFAM.8AM.OFAR.8AN9*8AN #

<f89r2.b.1> OFAD.9ORAN {first is over second}
<f89r2.b.2> OVAFAE
<f89r2.b.3> APAE29 {faint}
<f89r2.b.4> 9PAC6 {?}
<f89r2.b.5> OPOEAROE

<f89v2>

{1.5 pages. 3 rows of veggies that seem to be named, with paragraphs =
under each.  following Reeds, 14 Dec 91
 for nomenclature}

<f89v2.t.1> SOCC29
<f89v2.t.2> OF**E
<f89v2.t.3> OARSCO2
<f89v2.t 4> SOFARO
<f89v2.t.5> ZCOE
<f89v2.t.6> SO*A*

{ the following para is horribly hard to read!}

<f89v2.1> =
FO2AR.ZCOE.2.AM.FOM.SFO8AM.B8AM.SOP*.4OVOM.*9.4OB8AE.8OU.*AM.OEYCOE.8A*-
<f89v2.2> =
8AM.9FO8AT.OFOR.SAR.OPCC*.**O9.2.AM.XA9.OPAM.OFAR.8AN.OFOE.AE.SOR.8AR-
<f89v2.3> =
9***.OF*9.4OCOE.8AM.SOR.S**.SCO2.4OECC**9.8AE.SO89.SCOR.S*9.4OAM.SO89-
<f89v2.4> SOR.OE.SO9.4OE.SCOE.EOR.SCO.8AMSFAE#

<f89v2.m.1> OFAR9
<f89v2.m.2> OPAIR SO89
<f89v2.m.3> 898ARM
<f89v2.m.4> OBSA8A9

<f89v2.5> 2AR.OAIRAR.SCCP9.****.POR9.O9AR.*AIR.SCOPAM.9PO8AM-
<f89v2.6> OQO2.OFAM.OF*2.8AR.***M.AF**89.8AR.OP*E.8AE.8O2AE.8AR.AJ-
<f89v2.7> =
9*C9.4OFAOE.SC9.8AT.8AJ.***.VO*.OBO8AM.8A*.RAR9.4O8AE.9PCO2.AM-
<f89v2.8> 4OFOR.SOR.QC9.8AM.SO2.**9.8OR.A**.*OCCA2.OFAR.SOPC9.8ARAI82-
<f89v2.9> =
POAR.4OFCCO89.80CVZ*9.8AN9.O8OR.ZCO2.AM.8AIFCO89.*OFORAR.OFCOR.OPOE.ZC*89=
.4OFO.EPSCO89.OPAE-
<f89v2.10> =
80E.8AT.C*C9.OFAM.Z9.8AM.O8OR.ZCO2.AM.8A*FCO89.*OFORAR.ZCO89.4OFO.EPSCO89=
.OPAE-
<f89v2.11> =
8AR.4OX9.4OFAE.OFO9.****.8AM.O8AM.9FCO8.OFOE.*CC9.FCCO89.8AM.40F02.OFCO9-=

<f89v2.12> OXO89.8AM.OFAJ.2.**CC.***CC.8AT9T.SOOE.E09.8AT SCO8AM#

<f89v2.b.1> OBAEOU9
<f89v2.b.2> OPARAJ
<f89v2.b.3> *P**9
<f89v2.b.4> R**9


<f89v1>=20
{ second shot of f89v1.  two rows of veggies, top and bottom of page, 2 =
paras in between.}

<f89v1.t.1> OFORAE89
<f89v1.t.2> OPOX9
<f89v1.t.3> OPSAR
<f89v1.t.4> 8ARZO89

<f89v1.1> FOE8AE.2VAE.YC9.OVSCOE.OVOE29.8AM.4OBOE.OE8AM.OQO89-
<f89v1.2> 8OR.ZCC9.4OFOE.SCOE.QO89.4OX9.8AN.OPOC9.OPAR.QOE-
<f89v1.3> 4OFC9.8AM.SCC9.QO89.4OOR.ZCOR.8OE.SOR.SCOR.OR9-
<f89v1.4> ZOXC9.ORAROE.SOF9.4O9.SO8AN.SOF9.8AM.OPAR.OR9-
<f89v1.5> POS*O.QOR.OFOE.SOFAM.O2.AM.OE.SCOFSC9.4OFO**.8**-
<f89v1.6> POR.ZCOR.SCOR.QC9.4OFOE.8AM.SCFAE.8AE.2.SCAR.4OPAJ-
<f89v1.7> OZCOFAM.2.AN.OE.ZO8AN.40FA*.AN.SOFAE.8AM.8AR-
<f89v1.8> 4OFAR.O8AM#

<f89v1.9> POZCO.VSCO89.ZCFC9.OR.ZO2.AU.WC9.4OFCO89.SCO89.8AE.89-
<f89v1.10> 9FCC9.9FCC9.O8AE.ZOF9.OFOE.SO89.OFOAM.8AE.S89.8AE.8AE89-
<f89v1.11> 8S**9.8AM.QOE.8AM.8AE89.OFCOR.9PO9.FCOR.SC9P9.OS9-
<f89v1.12> *OFAM.9FSOE.4OX9.OFAE8A...OPAE.8AE.SO8AR.OFAM.8AE*-
<f89v1.13> 2AE.ZOE.9FOE.8AR.AJ.ZOEX9.8OESO9.8AEZ89.OFCOE.898S9-
<f89v1.14> 4OFOE.SCOE.4OFOE.8AE.SOE.8AJ.4OCC9.2AM.OE2.SOFAM-
<f89v1.15> 2AR.A.8AM.XC9.4OPS9.OFOE.9SCO.QO89.OFOE.OEFA9Q9-
<f89v1.16> 2O8SC9.OFSOE.2AN.8AM.OFAE.SOE89#

<f89v1.b.1> FOCCORAN
<f89v1.b.2> OPOR.SO2=20
<f89v1.b.3> OBOE.O8AM=20
<f89v1.b.4> 8ARZO89


{looks like 3 plants and 4 names. none of the other "vases" seem to be =
named.}


<f90r1>
{nice page. large plant, looks like a thistle, sorta. one para. clear =
ink. wish all pages were as clear as this one! plant drawn first, text =
after.}

<f90r1.1> BOECCOE.4OFCOE.4OFCO8.SO89.QOJ-
<f90r1.2> 9ZOE.POR.ZCOR.4OPSOR.4OF9.8ARAEA-
<f90r1.3> 8AT.ZFCCO.2.RAR9.OFAR.9FARZ9.EFAE89-
<f90r1.4> POESOR.SO8AM.SOYOR.4OFSOR.SOX9.OFSO8.4OVSOE-
<f90r1.5> 9POR.X9.EB9SOE.ZO.OE.OFASC9.2.ZCOJ.FCOE.8S9.8A2A89-
<f90r1.6> POE.OPSAE.SOR98AR.4OFCO2.OFCO2S2O.SOE.9PO8.4OFCOR.8OEZ9-
<f90r1.7> 8AE.SO2.4OQ9.4OFSO.ZFO.4OFOE.OPCC9.SOV9.9FCO89.4OFO8-
<f90r1.8> FOR.ZCOE.4O8AR.OFO.9FCC9.4OFCC9.4O8AR.4OFA8.2.SOF9-
<f90r1.9> 9FO8AR.4OCFS9.ZOFOE.OFAJ#

<f90r2>
{another plant page. again, plant drawn first. a tuber. note nodular =
roots.}

<f90r2.1> PO*AES2.ZOFOE.ZCO.4O*FCC9....2OCCOE.4OPCO89-
<f90r2.2> 2AM.XCO.2AM.4OXC9.2.9FCCO89....2.SCC9.SOR.X2-
<f90r2.3> 8ZCCOR.4OFCO8.4OFCO.SOE.OE.OFAE....2AM.QCO.2.AR-
<f90r2.4> AE.2.AN.SCO.RO.2OFCC9.4OFCCO2.....AE.ARAE.092-
<f90r2.5> 9SOR.XOR.4OCCOR.OFAM.8OJ....OESCO.2O8AM-
<f90r2.6> 8AM.4OFOR.OOFOM.8AM#

<f90v2>
{another large plant page}

<f90v2.1> Q8AQ9.4OYC9.OBOERAM.OBSC8OE.R*.ZCRC.ZO8AM.ZCOR-
<f90v2.2> BO8S*9.QCO8.XCCO2.SCC9.9FCC9.2.O*.4OFCCOR.2.AN.2AJ-
<f90v2.3> 2AM.ZCOJ.ZCC9.FCCO2.OE.SCCOR.S9.Z9.PSO89.OFCCOJ-
<f90v2.4> PSO2.OPCC9.2AM.OFCCC9#
<f90v2.5> PSCO89.WCAE.4OAR.SCOE.SO2.OEOE2.8ZSCAE.ZCOE.4O8AR-
<f90v2.6> 2AE.ZCOE.ZC9.4OFCC9.4OFCOE.SCO89.2.9FCCOE.8AR.SO89.9-
<f90v2.7> SC92.ZCC9E.ZCOE.ZCO89.POE.ZCOQ9{?}.OPCC9.SO8AR.SO9-
<f90v2.8> PCCO2.4FCO89.4OFS9.OPCCOE.8AM#


<f90v1.1> BSCOR.SO8AR.OECCC2.SCB9.SOE.ZXC**.OPOEZC9.SCOR.SCOFCC9-
<f90v1.2> PZOR.OEZCO8.4O8AM.4OFCCOR.29.OR.AM.9FCCOE.OQCO89.QCC9-
<f90v1.3> 8AM.ZCO89.XCO2.4OX9.SOE.OE.2AE2.2OE.9PCC9.OR.SCC9PC9-
<f90v1.4> FO2.ZCOR.SOXOR.4FCO89.SCO89.89.2.OESC9.QC9.4OF9-
<f90v1.5> 8SCC9.FCC9.FCCC9.QC9.9P9.OFCCO8.2A.OESCC9.ZC.40FC92-
<f90v1.6> ZQCO.R.OR.ZCOE.OE.FAM#
<f90v1.7> FZCO8AE.ZCO89.4OSCOP9.ZOFOE.4OFCZ2.9PCO89.PO8AQC9-
<f90v1.8> 8AM.OFCCC9.SCO.4OPCSCOR.QO8AK.2.SCOE.SOE.OFCAJ-
<f90v1.9> ZCOR.OE.4OFCCOF9.OFCCOE.OFCCO8AM.9POE.2.OR.AR**.AM-
<f90v1.10> 9FCCOR.SCO2.4FCC9.SCO2.OPCOE.OFCCCO8.OCC9.FCCO2.A3-
<f90v1.11> 8CCOQC9.FCCCOE.ZCOE.ZPZCOE.8AM#











------ =_NextPart_000_01BB438E.B698B9E0--


From rand.org!jim Fri May 17 10:33:14 +0000 1996
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Comments: Authenticated sender is <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 10:33:14 +0000
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Subject: Re: Voynich repetitions
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Status: OR


Hi Mike and all,

> I took the entire FSG transcription and built a relational database
> with one record for each *occurence* of each word. To make it easier
> to contruct queries, I also added a 'next' field. The relation looks like
> this:
[chop!]
> The idea behind this was that it would locate a long repeated sequence,
> and that this repeated sequence might reveal something of cryptographic 
> sequence.
 
I liked this idea a lot.
One problem though is that the search is constrained by the 
transcription errors that may be in the files, so a perfect match may 
be difficult to find.

I am wondering if some sort of "distance" between words could be 
calculated so the search comes out with "near hits".
Any ideas about this.
The sencond thing is to look for programs that are already written 
for searching DNA segments, that would save a lot of time, since we 
do not have to develop the methods nor the programs.
At this moment I am reading a book on this precise subject and I will 
report back any good ideas that I may find.


Regards,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Fri May 17 15:27:32 +0200 1996
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Subject: Re: Voynich repetitions
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Hi all,

One problem though is that the search is constrained by the
transcription errors that may be in the files, so a perfect match
may be difficult to find.  I am wondering if some sort of "distance"
between words could be calculated so the search comes out with "near
hits".

This is a topic I and a friend have just talked about. He's taking
lectures about Information Searching Algorythms or something along
these lines. He said something along these lines:

All the words make up a n-dimensional room. The query should be a
vector into this room instead of the exact coordinates. The result of
the query is the set of vectors that are not equal, or the same size,
but those that are parallel to the query vector.

I wouldn't be able to start a program with this information, but I
certainly can ask for code fragments or so. He said that this sort of
searching is used in the Web browsers and in the SQL language operator
LIKE. I guess this depends on the SQL implementation. Anyway, such
Algorythms are around.

Alex.
-- 
Grobbl. Noggl ARGH! ARGH! Gabbl. Nagga Frk'Tkl Kpfzt. alex@zool.unizh.ch.
Znamifktzgck. A. Schroeder, Buelachstr. 1c, CH-8057 Zuerich, Switzerland. 

From rand.org!jim Fri May 17 22:57:18 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: Voynich repetitions
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 22:57:18 -0400 (EDT)
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Status: OR

One way to look for repetitions is to build a KWIC (keyword in context)
index of the manuscript. Basically, you take each word of the VM and print
it in the middle of the line with the few words before and after it. If you
sort first by the word and the by the follwoing word you get something
like this:

                 I fear it is a   red   herring, Watson
              my love is like a   red   red rose
          my love is like a red   red   rose
                                  red   roses for a blue lady
                      roses are   red   violets are blue

It is pretty easy to scan this kind of listing visually looking for
repetitions or "near repetitions". 

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Fri May 17 23:04:15 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Chi square test
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 23:04:15 -0400 (EDT)
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Status: OR

I don't think my previous post about this got out - if this is a repeat,
please excuse.

What Currier called the A and B hands differ in letter frequencies if looked
at as a whole (all the A text vs. all the B text). To test the theory that
this is the result of two scribes applying the "Voynich encoding algorithm"
consistently but differently (e.g. randomly adding null characters but
with different preferences for the choice of characters) I would like to
be able to test small parts of the same hand text to see if the letter
frequencies are consistent. I don't know much statistics, but it seems
like a chi square test comparing frequency distributions might be a good
way to do this. Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions about this approach?

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Tue May 21 21:24 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Subject: Voynich and Ruyschaert
Status: OR


Some time ago I posted an excerpt from H. P. Kraus's autobiography, which
contained an implication that Msgr. Jose Ruyschaert (Prefect of the Vatican
Library) knew something about the fate of the VMS between Kircher's time
and Voynich's.  I wondered  if Ruyschaert was still alive, and how one
could reach him.

Well, Ruyschaert died a very few years ago (since the founding of this VMS
list, & since my first reading of Kraus's autobiography).  At the suggestion
of an eminent American medievalist I sent the question on to the boss of
the Vatican library (Fr. Leonard E. Boyle), & have just received an answer:
he has no idea what Ruyschaert was thinking in 1963, but he passed my letter
on to Ruyschaert's old friend and literary executor.

Of course if I learn anything from the old friend I will pass the info on!

Cheers,

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Thu May 23 07:23:01 GMT 1996
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Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 07:23:01 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9605230723.AA16349@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Question to the experienced transcribers
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Dear all,

I have started merging all existing transcriptions of the 'starry' section
(ff. 103-116) with the purpose of producing one interlinear file and one
'best guess' file. I also intend to transcribe a few other pages and
would therefore like some advice about the J/7 question. I have read
the dicussion in the mailing list and seen a few varieties of Voynich
fonts: Jim Reeds', Julie Porter's and Jacques'. Of course these are
not all identical, but from this I think to understand that Cur-7
is really like the 'i-' version of Cur-8, which is c-like. It
is what Jacques calls '&'. Cur-J is the first of the series J,K,L,5
and is much more frequent than Cur-7. In fact, Cur-6 is the c-version
of Cur-J.
With 2/R I am still not too sure. There are many clear cases but there
seems to be almost a continuum between them. Sometimes also 2 looks
more like neo-Frogguy <e'>, with a clear horizontal line. Is that
the 'real' Cur-2 and everything else an R, or should this be considered
something else?

Any suggestions are appreciated.
Rene 

From rand.org!jim Thu May 23 07:01 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich letters: cur-2 and cur-R
Status: OR


Rene is right: there are a lot of cases where it is hard to tell if a 
given letter is a 2 or an R.  I look at the join between the lower &
upper strokes.  If the strokes form an angle (90 degrees or sharper) I
call it an R, but if there is a smooth spline-like join, I call it a 2.

This is just a rule of thumb I use to helkp make up my mind when I am
puzzled.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Tue May 28 08:35:55 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9605280835.AA22578@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Zodiac pictures not part of original VMs?
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Dear all,

the article 'Science in Medieval Cipher' by Robert Steele (Nature Vol.122)
is quoted several times by D'Imperio. Let me also quote a short part of it:

"...The only drawing that can be approximately dated (on fo. 74 v.) is
not reproduced or mentioned in this book [Newbold's Cipher of Roger Bacon,
RZ]. It represents a cross-bow man wearing a fifteenth-century hat, and
is evidently a later insertion since the drawing covers part of an
inscription."

This is probably the source for the mysterious comment ..."though it
is retouched over the month name" which D'Imperio makes regarding the
drawing of this hat, and which comes from Brumbaugh as he repeats it
in each of his articles. I have never exactly understood this comment
since the month name and the hat are not interfering with each other.
Up to now I thought only the month names were drawn later.
Is Steele the only person who thinks these illustrations were drawn later?
This question has some consequences for our interpretation of these
zodiac diagrams, and for how, over which period of time and by how
many people the VMs was composed.

Regards, Rene 

From rand.org!jim Tue May 28 09:06:18 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Looped symbols (gallows)
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Dear all,

while looking over some statistics of Herbal-A v.s Herbal-B (trying
like many others to "spot the nulls") it occurred to me again that
there is one more unique feature to these gallows (Currier P,F, B,V) 
and their pedestal versions that I think everybody realises but
nobody seems to have mentioned before:
they just do not appear next to each other. 
Take any text in any language. I think it is going ot be hard to find
such a large group of letters of moderate frequency that can never be
combined. Here we have eight, but admittedly some of them are
rather low-frequency. 
This feature gives the Voynich language a very 'constructed' nature.

Searching in voynich.now I have found two or three occurrences of 'PF'
and one (I think) 'QF'. As with the 'infamous' 4, such a small number
of deviations makes one think immediately of scribal errors. And maybe
these can be exploited. Maybe the scribe ignored on a few instances
some 'construction' rule, like 'P' before 'F' should be written as '4O'.

On the other hand, if the gallows are meant to represent tones, we should
never have two next to each other, should we?

Cheers, Rene 

From rand.org!jim Tue May 28 20:55:46 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: Looped symbols (gallows)
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Rene Zandbergen recently wrote:
> On the other hand, if the gallows are meant to represent tones, we should
> never have two next to each other, should we?

If this means tones in the sense of a tone language like Chinese this
seems kind of unlikely. However, if the VM represents music, with the
gallows characters like the neumes of Gregorian chant, it would make
sense that they would not occur together.

Apparently the original neumes indicated the direction of change in the
melody but not the interval, which is consistent with having only a few
of them.

The Thompson Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians calls this "cheironomy" and
indicates that the neumes were typically written above the Latin text. It
also says "the present Armenian system of notation, which has undergone
little change since the Fourth Century, proved helpful in deciphering
these ancient neumes."

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)


From rand.org!jim Wed May 29 07:02:24 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Bruce Grant wrote:

> Rene Zandbergen recently wrote:
> > On the other hand, if the gallows are meant to represent tones, we should
> > never have two next to each other, should we?
> 
> If this means tones in the sense of a tone language like Chinese this
> seems kind of unlikely.

I have to agree, but this is a reference to Jacques tongue-in-cheeck
theory (or is that one of several). The idea is interesting but does not
really fit. They are not used consistently enough for this.

Now note that (modern) Swedish also uses a tone system. Maybe the VMs
is old Norse after all... It would explain the Sunflower, which may
have been seen by the Vikings during their trip(s) to the Americas.
And if I were a Viking who, during his raids of the new world showed
more interest for the plant life than in pillaging and raping, I would
definitely write my stuff in code!! :-)

Cheers, Rene 


From rand.org!jim Fri May 31 07:39:53 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: Frogguy in html
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It looks fine. But I shudder at this *one* implication:
now I have to prepare pictures of all those letters,
parts of letters, and combinations of letters.

*shudder*

A most distressed frogguy

j.guy@trl.telstra.com.au


From rand.org!jim Fri May 31 08:16:39 +0100 1996
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From: Martin McCarthy <marty@hermetica.com>
Message-Id: <199605310716.IAA14230@fruitbat.mcqueen.com>
Subject: New(ish) Voynich Currier Metafont
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 08:16:39 +0100 (BST)
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Bruce Grant made an excellent font for TeX and LaTeX of the
Currier forms of the Voynich characters.  I've hacked his
metafont code about a bit to produce characters which perhaps
look a little more like the original manuscript.  As with
Bruce's font, this is in the public domain -- do what you
want with it.  Sell it for huge profits, if you like (I'd
like to see you try :-) ).

I've also made a couple of minor additions to the font.  For
example, some of the characters are available in 'normal' and
'stretched' versions (for example, the characters which 'start'
the 'paragraphs' on f79v).

I intend producing a frogguy MF font, but that needs me to
get off my fat backside and do something about it -- don't
hold your breath.

Should you wish to have a look, you can find the MF code in
ftp://ftp.mcqueen.com/pub/crypto/voynich/fonts/marty
or (hopefully) from http://www.hermetica.com/marty/wip.html

And thanks to Bruce for producing a font that I only had
to make very minor changes to in order to get what I wanted.
If you like the font, the praise should go to him.

Martin
-- 
Martin McCarthy                     /</                   marty@hermetica.com
PGP key available.                  \>\            marty@ehabitat.demon.co.uk
Multi-User Virtual Reality --       /</        http://www.hermetica.com/marty
see http://www.hermetica.com/nexus  \>\  

From rand.org!jim Wed Jun 12 15:05:40 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9606120505.AA24083@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: I found this on the Web
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 15:05:40 +1000 (EST)
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at:

http://www.gla.ac.uk/Library/Special/Ferguson/f151-200.html

MS. 192. 

76 folios. 177x82mm. 15th Century. In Latin.
[Works of Ramon Lull.]
f1 De investigacione artis Secreti occulta super totum opus maius in
compendio.
f8r [Lullist 'tree' diagram.]
f11 Praxis Lapidum virtuosorum seu pretiosorum.
f19v Incipit tractatus margaritarum. Opus namque margaritarum sic condies.
f28 Compendium artis magicae transmutationis metallorum Raimundi. 
[Compendium super lapidarium - Thorndike-Kibre 1016.]
f52 De Tinctis Albis et Rub.
[Some alchemical symbols.]
f57-65 Hic ponentur alique glose invente que fuerunt per volumina Raymondi
lulii super certis
capitulis.
f69-73 [Notes.]
[On inside front cover]: "Phillips Manuscript 2674." 
[On inside back cover]: "Mr Voynich."
[On spine]: "Raimund Ars occulta MS."
[MSS. 63, 76, 135 and 192 are four uniform alchemical notebooks probably
once bound together,
written by a north Italian scribe identified in MS. 76 as "John Visio".]
[For full description see N.R. Ker, Medieval MSS in British Libraries, vol.
2 (1977) pp.893-4.]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing to be surprised at: Wilfrid Voynich would be expected to have
owned an early copy of Llull's "Ars occulta". Only a tidbit of 
Voynichiana dropped in your weary laps.

From rand.org!jim Wed Jun 12 06:58:21 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Jacques wrote:

> Nothing to be surprised at: Wilfrid Voynich would be expected to have
> owned an early copy of Llull's "Ars occulta". Only a tidbit of 
> Voynichiana dropped in your weary laps.

It would be of some more interest if this was one of the other works
that he found in the 'chest in an old castle in Italy'. Does anyone 
know?

By the way Jacques: your web pages on the rongo-rongo script are
very clear. I like them. Do you know Dr. Fisher personally (or have
you met him)? Have you ever mentioned the Voynich to him? I would not
be surprised if in the next few years he comes up with a solution for
this as well.... 

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Tue Jun 18 14:39:17 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Dear all,

I think that it is reasonable to assume that the little castle on 
f85/86, near the upper right rosette on the mega-foldout is a 
'fantasy' castle, not intended to represent an existing one. For those
who have not got a copy of this page, nor D'Imperio's book (which has 
a short description): this looks like a square building with a slender
tower apparently 'inside' the walls and a circular 'dungeon'-type 
tower a bit outside. What I have been trying to find out (so far 
unsuccessfully) is whether the style of the crenellations of the
square and circular buildings give any indication of age and origin
of the VMs. These crenellations are quite clearly of the 'swallow's tail'
type. The illustrator seems to have made a point of making this clear.

So far I have only seen this on medieval buildings in Northern Italy.
If this style was already 'en vogue' in the earlier middle ages (up to,
say, 1200), then, even if it is confined to N.Italy, it does not help us
much. Anybody could have seen these or known about them; even Roger B.
If the style is from a later period, it might tell us something, especially
if it is regionally confined.

Anybody have any ideas?
(In fact anybody still out there?)

Cheers, Rene  

From rand.org!jim Tue Jun 18 11:32 EDT 1996
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Message-ID: <n1377025679.24481@artefact.qc.ca>
Date: 18 Jun 1996 11:19:03 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  Castle ideas
To: "Voynich List" <voynich@RAND.ORG>
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Indeed, 
I guess it's summer all over, the list has gotten quiet all of a sudden  =
;-)

I don't recall if I have even commented on this castle, so please excuse =
me if I 
re-state these ideas...

Suppose the connection between cricled are indeed bridges, is there any =
way to find out
ALL the medieval towns with nine (or more) bridges? I guess Venise and =
Avignon would
fit, are there more ? If we find a point linked with those bridges in the =
same way as
depicted in the "map" maybe we could progress a bit... 

Any one out there lives in such towns? Any way to get a city map on the =
net somewhere?

There is a tourist site on venise but the maps are not clear at all :-(

Did you notice the writtings on the right side of the fold out seems to =
be upside down
as if the scribe did not notice/know the full patern of the circles when =
he was writting...

Nice hollidays to one and all



From rand.org!jim Wed Jun 19 15:32:12 0700 1996
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From: Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford@s1.csuhayward.edu>
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To: voynich@rand.org
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Last night on the Discovery Channel I taped a "Mysterious Universe" with 
a good 5-minute segment on the VMs. Did anyone else see it? Any comments? 
Has anyone transcribed this and placed it anywhere accessible?


{Last posting from this address. Changing to <haywire>.

	dalford@haywire.csuhayward.edu

Please respond to new address. This one is dying!

From rand.org!jim Thu Jun 20 13:22:54 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9606200322.AA28436@emirac.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: I'm still here
To: voynich@rand.org
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If I have been silent (this list has been very silent), it's
that I have been much busy:

1. crafting myself some tools towards Son Of Monkey
   (a Monkey that will hold the entire text of the
   Voynich manuscript)

2. fighting that charlatan who claims to have deciphered
   the Easter Island tablets. If I don't do it, who will,
   and how? 

(2) is especially time-consuming. Nature seems to be 
dragging its collective feet to publish my paltry
400-word letter to the Editor, I got a very peeved
answer from the Rapa-Nui Journal to which I had
e-mailed a debunking, making it clear that I expected
it to be published; and now I had to put together a
letter to New Scientist since they have been inane
enough to publish a full-feature article on that
earth-shattering decipherment.

Not to mention that the dickheads that run our
Unix system have put a Solaris version of my
usual mail reader in the directory that used
to hold the old Sun version. Lost two and half
day's of mail, plus a few hours asking around
what was going on, and finding a not-so-quick-but-
very-dirty fix.

Sorry, nothing to do with the Voynich manuscript.
Yes! I suggest we send a copy to Steven Fischer
and wait for him to publish his decipherment
in Nature. Should take about two weeks, eh?

Frogguy



From rand.org!jim Thu Jun 20 10:02:24 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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Subject: The First European Voynich Conference ;-)
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Hi all.
Well, not quite a conference, BUT! Rene is coming to Birmingham for a 
"true" conference regarding his work, and I thought that it would be 
nice to get together (there are some good pubs around!) to discuss 
Voynich matters ;-)

We were wondering if there are any other Voynich freaks who would 
like to join in. I know that traveling is expensive (even within 
UK!), and probably this will be a VERY informal reunion just to 
meet each other and share some ideas on the MS.
I know that there are at least 3 more member of the VMS in Britain, 
(those are the one I know of), but there maybe more... So, if you 
think that you would like to meet in Birmingham on 17 July (Thu) night 
just drop me a note to G.Landini@bham.ac.uk so we can arrange further 
details.

Regards to all,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Thu Jun 20 13:34:10 +0100 1996
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Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 13:34:10 +0100 (BST)
From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
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Guy Thibault <gthibault@artefact.qc.ca> said:

>Just to spoil the mood, july 17 is a wed not a thu ;-)

Well, that was my little trick to see how many of you looked at the 
calendar to get ready. :-)
Now seriously, thanks for the correction! 
The plans are for Wed 17 July sometime late afternoon.
You'll receive the complete Porgramme and abstracts soon ;-)

Gabriel




From rand.org!jim Thu Jun 20 05:44:51 0700 1996
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From: Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford@s1.csuhayward.edu>
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To: Jacques Guy <j.guy@trl.oz.au>
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I need to close out this email account quickly -- unsubscribe and 
resubscribe from another account. Will someone pls send instructions?

thanks		moonhawk


From rand.org!jim Sun Jun 23 05:34:25 +0000 1996
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unsubscribe voynich adscapes@ix.netcom.com

From rand.org!jim Mon Jun 24 09:36:46 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Astronomy: Alkima
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Dear all,

back to the topic of astronomy: I was browsing an old book on
this subject by Dupuis fom 1809: Memoire explicatif du Zodiaque.
Because of its age and state I was not allowed to take it home
(from the library) nor to photocopy it. I will go back to it 
with pen, paper and some more time. 

It had a lot of interesting names for stars, constellations etc. 
that I had not seen before. I know there are a few among us 
who are much more knowledgable in this area, so let me throw a
few of them at you, trying to find out if these are common
knowledge (to the specialists) or not.

There were two (Arabic) names for the Pleiades: Alkima and 
A(l)thorayae. Especially the first allows an interesting
comparison with the 5-letter word written near the Pleiades in
the VMs. There are various ways of turning one into the other.
E.g. assuming the initial 8 is one way of writing Al-.
Or assuming Al- was left out altogether and allowing for one null.
Or assuming all or some vowels are left out (and throwing in a
null here or there). It is clear that one Rosetta word (and a 
doubtful one at that) is not going to get us very far.

In addition the book mentioned that the Pleiades belong with the 17th
mansion of the moon. The name for that one was not the same as 
the names D'Imperio listed from Pictrix and Kabbala. I want to
collect more of these names because there is one figure in the VMs
which has 28 radiating names which is a very good candidate for 
representing these mansions (but in which language?). There was a 
striking correspondence between the initial-character frequency of 
the Voynich words and the ones from the Kabbala (80% or so of them start
with A / Currier-O), but no better correspondence.

Astronomers: please let me know what you think. I'll have another
session with this book this week.

Cheers, Rene 
 

From rand.org!jim Mon Jun 24 11:51:28 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: Astronomy: Alkima
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 11:51:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
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In-Reply-To: <9606240936.AA14966@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Jun 24, 96 09:36:46 am
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Before I go home to look at my references on astronomical lore, the
reference to the Kabbala made me wonder if anyone has tried doing any
cryptanalysis on the Voynich text with the test assumption that it's in
Hebrew?

-Adams Douglas


From rand.org!jim Tue Jun 25 06:42:07 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Dear all,

Adams Douglas writes:

> Before I go home to look at my references on astronomical lore, the
> reference to the Kabbala made me wonder if anyone has tried doing any
> cryptanalysis on the Voynich text with the test assumption that it's in
> Hebrew?

Before I reply, I should point out that my reference to Kabbala was a
mistake: D'Imperio's table was for Agrippa. In fact I have got a more
compelete list of the names of the mansions of the moon from Agrippa's
'Occulta Philosophia'. For most of them there are two names, for some
even three or four. I cannot judge whether they are Arabic or Hebrew.
I will post a complete summary once I have gone back to the Dupuis book.

I had the same question about Hebrew a few weeks/months ago, but no reply,
so presumable nobody knows for sure. If anyone in the group knows any
Hebrew, he might be able to answer at least the following questions:

- Does Hebrew have a low tendency for having the same letter repeated
  in a word (such as the 'tt' in letter). Is this different depending
  on how (or whether) vowels are written/indicated in some way?
- Does Hebrew have a high tendency for repeating words in a sentence?

OK, this is probably a bit naive, but who knows....

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Wed Jun 26 06:44:07 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9606252044.AA20351@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Hebrew, Arabic and ... Nahuatl! (was: Astronomy: Alkima)
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 06:44:07 +1000 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <9606250642.AA25641@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Jun 25, 96 06:42:07 am
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> - Does Hebrew have a low tendency for having the same letter repeated
>   in a word (such as the 'tt' in letter). Is this different depending
>   on how (or whether) vowels are written/indicated in some way?

    No, not at all, in fact, a double letter (without an intervening
    vowel sound) is never written double, but instead, you insert a
    dot in it (called dagesh) to show that it is doubled. Same thing
    in Arabic, you stick a sort of wee "w" on top of the letter
    (it's called "shaddah") to show that it is doubled. You do have
    double letters, but there is always a vowel in between (which
    is not normally written), thus: alHamdu lillahi ("praise to God")
    in which the "ll" of lillahi is written single (with shaddah on
    top), and the vowels are not written. So: alHmd llh (a= glottal
    stop)

> - Does Hebrew have a high tendency for repeating words in a sentence?
    
    Yes, it is a stylistic feature of Hebrew that, when possible,
    words with the same root are preferred. For instance:
    ani kotev mikhtav ("I write a letter") in which "kotev" (write)
    and "mikhtav" (letter) share the same root ktv. In Hebrew
    writing it's:  any ktb mktb  (a = aleph, originally a glottal
    stop, now silent in modern Hebrew, *not* the vowel "a")

Just to be my usual Frogguy now: Classical Nahuatl has an extraordinary
tendency to use two words of related meanings wherever possible
(which is just about everywhere). I found that in a French translation
of such texts that I bought earlier this year in Paris (and only found
time to read now). Given the agglutinative nature of Nahuatl, many
member of such word pairs are often alliterations of each other. You remember
that I once suggested (with my tongue in my cheek) that the VMS
was written in Nahuatl?

From rand.org!jim Wed Jun 26 06:52:57 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9606252052.AA20391@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Sorry, I stuffed up
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 06:52:57 +1000 (EST)
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Our Unix system has been in a complete mess for two
weeks now, and the only way I can read my mail
(I use elm, that's all that is left working)
is by hitting "r" (for reply), quoting the
whole text, reading it, then hitting "f" for
"forget it". I just hit return without typing
"f" first, so I sent my own message to the
whole group.  I'll try not to do such things
again, but if it happens, you'll know why.
My apologies in advance.

From rand.org!jim Wed Jun 26 12:08:13 +0000 1996
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From: "turiyan gold" <adscapes@ix.netcom.com>
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 12:08:13 +0000
Subject: Re: Voynich meeting in Birmingham
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Since I seem to be still on the list, I have a question.  Has anyone 
sucsessfully created a program that will decode some of the coded 
texts in hebrew (Such as quabbalistic alchemical texts)?

>From what I know about voynich, its a similar type of code or cypher 
system.

From rand.org!jim Wed Jun 26 12:09:14 GMT 1996
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Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 12:09:14 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9606261209.AA11456@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Hebrew, Arabic and ... Nahuatl!
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Jacques replied to my questions: 
> 
> > - Does Hebrew have a low tendency for having the same letter repeated
> >   in a word (such as the 'tt' in letter). Is this different depending
> >   on how (or whether) vowels are written/indicated in some way?
> 
>     No, not at all, in fact, a double letter (without an intervening
>     vowel sound) is never written double, but instead, you insert a
>     dot in it (called dagesh) to show that it is doubled. Same thing
>     in Arabic, you stick a sort of wee "w" on top of the letter
>     (it's called "shaddah") to show that it is doubled. ....
> 
> > - Does Hebrew have a high tendency for repeating words in a sentence?
>     
>     Yes, it is a stylistic feature of Hebrew that, when possible,
>     words with the same root are preferred. For instance:
>     ...

Well, the correspondence with our favourite secret language is so obvious
that I cannot believe this has not been looked at in depth by someone, 
sometime.
In the absence of any published result, what can be done to test the
hypothesis: a special character is used to denote the previous (or next)
one is to be doubled?
To find the candidate characters: I suppose it could not be any one that 
may occur squeezed between a pair of the same characters. Also they cannot
occur either at the start of a word/sentence or the end.
And how does one test a found candidate? I guess if it allows for a better
vowel/consonant split and prounounceability, and if it improves the digraph
statistics. A bit difficult....

For the time being, this seems like just something to keep in the back
of our minds.

Cheers, Rene 


From rand.org!jim Sat Jun 29 22:33:17 0500 1996
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From: "Dennis J. Stallings" <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: Jacques Guy <j.guy@trl.oz.au>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Hebrew, Arabic and ... Nahuatl! (was: Astronomy: Alkima)
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	Hebrew and Arabic are, as you noted, written without vowels.  
D'Imperio also mentionned in her book the possibility that the VMs is 
written in a language like Latin without the vowels.  
	There has been much discussion of the fact that the Sukhotin 
algorithm does not show enough consonants in the VMs.  What does the 
Sukhotin algorithm show if the vowels are not written, either for a 
Semitic language or for a language like Latin where the vowels are 
normally written?  Also, what happens to the other statistics (digraph 
frequency and entropy, single-character frequency, etc.) if the vowels 
are not written?  Can you or anyone else enlighten us?

Regards, 
Dennis Stallings

From rand.org!jim Mon Jul  1 06:17:07 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9606302017.AA25024@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Hebrew, Arabic, Nahuatl... ancient Basque????? (was: Astronoy...)
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 06:17:07 +1000 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960629222638.7585B-100000@tyrell.net> from "Dennis J. Stallings" at Jun 29, 96 10:33:17 pm
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> 	There has been much discussion of the fact that the Sukhotin 
> algorithm does not show enough consonants in the VMs.  What does the 
> Sukhotin algorithm show if the vowels are not written, either for a 
> Semitic language or for a language like Latin where the vowels are 
> normally written?  

There was an article on the application of Sukhotin's algorithm
to quite a few language in Cryptologia some years ago. I do not
have the reference, but I remember the author's last name: Sassoon
(George, I think his first name was). He had tried it on unpointed
Hebrew, and, if I remember correctly, the result almost made
sense, insofar as you could see sense in them. I seem to remember
that aleph, yod, and I forgot which other letters were classified
as vowels ('ayin? vav?)


> Also, what happens to the other statistics (digraph 
> frequency and entropy, single-character frequency, etc.) if the vowels 
> are not written?  Can you or anyone else enlighten us?

Well, without carrying out any experiments, I feel a bit silly
answering this, but this is my line of thought. The entropy is
a measure of the unpredictably of the text. E.g., knowing the
last n letters that occurred up to *here*, how well can we
guess the next one? So, *if* we have a language with consonant
harmony or some degree of consonant harmony, such as Mongolian 
or Javanese, since removing the vowels makes the consonants
adjacent, I guess that, in this case, the entropy would 
decrease. On the other hand, if we have an open-syllable
language (one that does not allow two or more consonants
together), each consonant being *always* followed by a
vowel, if we remove the vowels, then its entropy will
increase. That is, if it has more consonants than vowels.
I do not know of any languages with *fewer* consonants
than vowels, or even as many. Rotokas comes only close,
with 5 vowels and 6 consonants. All in all, because languages
with strong consonant harmony are rare, I suspect that we
may be safe in guessing that removing vowel will increase
the entropy. A greater degree of chaos also means that 
more information is contained in the message. (A text file
compressed using tar or zip has a greater 2nd order 
entropy than the original file). Now, take shorthand. The
aim being to compress the information, it must have a
greater entropy than longhand writing. Now, all shorthand
systems I know remove most of the vowels. 

This, however, holds for European languages. I do not
know what a *phonetic* Chinese shorthand would be.
You clearly cannot remove the vowels as you can in English
for instance. You can remove the tones without too much
risk of meesing up. And in Polynesian languages, typically
with 8 to 10 consonants and 5 vowels, and no consonant
clusters, I doubt that you can remove the vowels without
completely losing the message. There is one language in
South America with 7 (SEVEN) consonants and 3 (THREE)
vowels. Beats Rotokas by a short nose. But, unlike
Rotokas, it has tones. 


If I am to believe the comparative historical work
of Larry Trask on Basque (and I believe it) Ancient
Basque would have been a candidate for voynichese.
It had very few consonants, no "m" (an astonishing
feature!), words could only start with a vowel or
a voiced stop (b, d, g) or .... I forgot the rest.
But I clearly remember that no word could start with
a voiceless stop (p, t, k). Such restriction, I feel,
would produce a language with a very low entropy.

From rand.org!jim Mon Jul  1 09:01:16 0500 1996
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From: "Dennis J. Stallings" <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Ancient Basque?
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On Mon, 1 Jul 1996, Jacques Guy wrote:

> If I am to believe the comparative historical work
> of Larry Trask on Basque (and I believe it) Ancient
> Basque would have been a candidate for voynichese.
> It had very few consonants, no "m" (an astonishing
> feature!), words could only start with a vowel or
> a voiced stop (b, d, g) or .... I forgot the rest.
> But I clearly remember that no word could start with
> a voiceless stop (p, t, k). Such restriction, I feel,
> would produce a language with a very low entropy.

	This is interesting.  A long time ago you suggested that
Voynichese might be a pre-Indo-European survival in Europe, like Basque,
Etruscan, or Pictish.  Such a language might have survived into the Middle
Ages in a small, isolated pocket.  This pocket could have harbored a
subculture unnoticed by history that produced the VMs.  That's a logical
scenario.  Basque is not that small a pocket but is isolated. 

	If the underlying language is Basque or maybe Etruscan, we have a
chance of decrypting the VMs.  Of course, the underlying language could be
completely extinct, leaving no trace in modern times.  In that case, we're
out of luck! 

	Incidently, Etruscan mistakes are an interesting subject in 
themselves, and are much reminiscent of Voynich mistakes.  I've seen two 
books claiming that Etruscan was, respectively, ancient Albanian (and 
therefore Indo-European) and ancient Egyptian.  Since the bilingual 
Punic-Etruscan tablets were found and a little more is known about 
Etruscan, the answer is "none of the above".

Cheers,
Dennis Stallings

From rand.org!jim Tue Jul  2 09:49:53 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: voynich@rand.org
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Dear all,

some of you will have seen these too, but they are not mentioned in
D'Imperio, and I do not remember any mentioning of them before.
Someone has written little "a"s "b"s and a "c" in the upper left or
right corners of some pages (all in the astro/cosmo section).

f67r1 and f67r2 have an "a" and a "b" respectively.
f68r1 to f68r3 have "a", "b" and "c" respectively.
f70r1 and f70r2 have an "a" and "b".

They are not written in the same way, but they could well be from
the same person. They are somewhat 'thinner' than the Voynich text.
They also look much more recent than the michiton text. They could
be similar to the text above f17r, but then this is totally unreadable
in the Yale copy. I wonder if all these writings are from the same 
person. This would then potentially be Marci's predecessor, of whom
Marci mentions that his 'unflagging toil' in trying to read the VMs 
was somehow clearly apparent to Kircher, so maybe from all the 
extraneous writing. Marci's predecessor, and whoever owned the VMs
before that, are good candidates for having owned a copy of Mattioli's
herbal, which seems to be mentioned on f17r. They are also good
candidates for writing small comments in German, as indeed Kircher.

Anybody know if Voynich/Kraus ever addmitted to writing notes on
the Ms? (I just can't believe it). Do the a,b,c look like Petersen's
handwriting?

As always curious,
           Rene 
 

From rand.org!jim Thu Jul  4 07:51:47 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9607032151.AA27235@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Lack of m in ancient Basque
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 07:51:47 +1000 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <9607030113.AA12915@sfi.santafe.edu> from "Nelson Minar" at Jul 2, 96 07:13:44 pm
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> >If I am to believe the comparative historical work
> >of Larry Trask on Basque (and I believe it) Ancient
> >Basque would have been a candidate for voynichese.
> >It had very few consonants, no "m" (an astonishing
> >feature!)
> 
> I find this incredibly bizarre. Did kids not have a mama? Is there
> some other consonant with similar phonological features?
> 

In quite a few languages of Vanuatu "mother" is "tata" 
(and in those "father" is often "mama"!). At any rate,
"mother" is "haha" (from Old Japanese *papa). So, the
old saw of baby-talk universals suddenly seems to have
lost quite a few teeth. There is an American Indian
language -- the name of which I forgot, it's long ago --
with is famous for lacking the "m" phoneme. It seems
that ancient Basque has the "m" sound, but only preceding
"b" (so, in linguists' jargon, it was merely an allophone
of "n"). So, lack of "m" is astonishing insofar that it
is rare. But it is by no means inexistent, and babies
without m's are nevertheless not without mamas.

From rand.org!jim Mon Jul  8 15:26:16 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: More on Ancient Basque.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 15:26:16 +1000 (EST)
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Taken out of Larry Trask's article on the possible relationship
of Basque with other languages:

. No native Basque lexical item of any period (except for some
  onomatopea) can begin with any of p-, t-, d-, or r-
. No native Basque lexical item of any antiquity can begin with k-
. No native Basque lexical item in the priod before the Roman 
  invasion could contain m, except as an allophone of n before b
. No native Basque lexical item of any period can begin with
  any consonant cluster at all
. Except in the eastern dialects, no native Basque lexical item
  of any antiquity can contain any of the clusters np, nt, lp, lt, 
  lk.

I am quoting this because I suspect that as a consequence old
Basque would show very peculiar letter distributions. If for
example they used the Latin alphabet, m would appear only before
b, and nowhere else at all. This pathological situation reminds
of the infamous Voynich letter 4 which is found practically
always before o, and nowhere else. So at least this strange thing
which we observe in the VMS does have counterparts of sorts in
some real languages.

Now I am not saying that the VMS is in Basque or some language
related to it. Only that there have been language with very
strange sound patterns, much like what we see in the VMS.

By the way, the only language that has been convincingly related
to Basque is Aquitanian, known only from some inscriptions from
the Roman period.

Yes, this list being very quiet, I thought that I had to contribute
a little something, even though a bit besides the topic.

From rand.org!jim Mon Jul  8 10:01:32 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: More on Ancient Basque.
To: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 10:01:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
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> By the way, the only language that has been convincingly related
> to Basque is Aquitanian, known only from some inscriptions from
> the Roman period.

Fascinating stuff. Now _did_ they have a writing system in Old Basque, or
did they pick up from the Romans? A language without a native writing
system, might be a good candidate for someone to make one up, like in
writing the VMs.

Additional thought: Perhaps the VMs is written in one of those "forgotten"
languages that its authors nonetheless had knowledge of. This would be a
good way to create a very secret document. Just as the code-talkers of WWII
spoke Navajo, the VMs creators may not have been native speakers of Basque
(or Aquitanian, or whatever) but may have chosen it to hide their writing.

-Adams Douglas


From rand.org!jim Tue Jul  9 09:15:58 0400 1996
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Subject: VMS is DNA?
Status: OR


Folks

A fascinating short article in the April 1995
issue of 'Discover' (a popular science magazine)
tells how a group of researches into human DNA
decided to see whether the codon sequences
followed Zipf's Law.

Somewhat to their surprise, they did, even in the
so-called "junk" DNA (the 95%+ of human DNA that
doesn't seem to do anything).

Their conclusion: "we don't know what it says, but
it's language".  Sound familiar?

Today's hypothesis: in the herbal section, the VMS
text is the DNA sequence for each plant.

Robert

From rand.org!jim Tue Jul  9 08:53:21 0500 1996
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From: "Dennis J. Stallings" <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: firth@sei.cmu.edu
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Voynich Limerick (Was: VMS is DNA?)
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What language is Voynichese, we ask?
Etruscan, Nahuatl, or Basque?
   "No, it's DNA!"
   Bob Firth did say,
To complicate further the task.
   

From rand.org!jim Tue Jul  9 14:32:54 GMT 1996
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Robert First writes:

> Today's hypothesis: in the herbal section, the VMS
> text is the DNA sequence for each plant. 

Ack, just when I thought I had the herbal section figured out :-)

My (now obsolete) theory explained why the herbal section does not
have any recogniseable format: no indication of alphabetical names,
or even the slightest possibility to locate what could be plant names.
No clear subdivision of each page in similar sections (name, origin,
use of plant).
It also explained why certain plants seem like true plants, whereas others 
only seem like plant parts with rudimentary appendages and others yet
seem totally imaginary.

It failed to explain why there are also astrological, cosmological sections, 
etc. so it was a lousy theory anyway.

Cheers, Rene

P.S.  Sorry, no poetry from me
P.P.S For completeness: I was wondering if the herbal section is not
      about plant diseases rather than plants. Some of these plants 
      look rather sick to me....  

From rand.org!jim Tue Jul  9 15:32:23 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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To: firth@sei.cmu.edu, voynich@rand.org
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On  9 Jul 96 at 9:15, firth@SEI.CMU.EDU wrote:

> A fascinating short article in the April 1995
> issue of 'Discover' (a popular science magazine)
> tells how a group of researches into human DNA
> decided to see whether the codon sequences
> followed Zipf's Law.

I 've been to a talk by of the authors of that research group (S Havlin)
presenting the data in Marseille in the Fractal 95 Conference and I was not 
very impressed.
The problem is that DNA does not have "words" and so they invented 
the "word" as n-base subsequences.
This of course does not have anything to do with Zipf's law but to 
the relative probability of the bases. Yes, the DNA is different in 
coding and non-coding parts but this has been known for ages, so this 
"new finding" is not that new. The same results can be 
achieved with the n-base entropy, and it has a much more solid basis 
than "Zipf's law".
 
> Their conclusion: "we don't know what it says, but
> it's language".  Sound familiar?

Also, you can get Zipf's distributions with absolutely random 
sequences. See for example:

Li W. Random texts exhibit Zipf's-law-like word frequency
distribution. IEEE Transsactions on Information Theory
1992;38(6):1842-1845. 

So the "language" of the junk DNA is a very far fetched hypothesis. I 
am not saying that it is not right, only that the evidence for having 
a "language" is very weak. The junk DNA is there for some reason and 
there are more interesting hypotheses on why we have accumulated DNA 
which is of no use. For example, if you produce a mutation in a 
coding part and it's a lethal mutation, then it is not preserved. If 
it is somehow an "improvement" it may (or may not). However if you 
have a non-functional sequence you can accumulate base insertions, 
deletetions, etc. with no trouble for the organism and those will be 
preserved in the future generation.
So, coding DNA is much more "severe" on what may or may not be 
changed, and the junk parts should be less so.

There is a further paper which is intersting on the same subject 
(power laws in DNA).

Li W. Generating nontrivial long-range correlations and 1/f spectra by
replication and mutation. Int J Bifurc Chaos 1992;2(1):137-154.

Cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 10 12:54:14 +0100 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: Jacques Guy <j.guy@trl.OZ.AU>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: VMS is DNA?
In-Reply-To: <9607092233.AA11032@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
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Hi Jacques and all,

On Wed, 10 Jul 1996, Jacques Guy wrote:

> There is a 30-some-year old paper by Tretiakoff (French, despite his
> name) on a metric for vowel-recognition algorithms (remember 
> Sukhotin's vowel-recognition algorithm?). He arrived at it
> independently from Sukhotin (whose works he had evidently never
> read), by trial and error.  He took texts, and, randomly assigning
> the value vowel/consonant to each letter of the alphabet, 
> he  translated them into stings of V's and C's. Then he computed
> the first and second-order entropy of those "texts". He found
> that such strings of V's and C's produced when the vowel/consonant
> assignment was correct (or almost correct) showed the largest
> difference between first and second-order character entropy.

Something similar has been done on DNA as well.
You take a sequence and investigate the long range correlations of one of 
the bases (A, T, C or G) by transforming the symbolic sequence into a 
binary sequence of 0's and 1's using a Heaviside function:
f=1 if base is the one you're invesitgating, let's suppose "A"
f=0 if base is any of the others.
Then you can do a Fourier Transform of the binary sequence which will 
show if the correlations exist or not (using the power spectrum of the 
FFT). 

> I observed a similar phenomenon on Russian texts, this time
> using alternative, conflicting phonemic interpretations of
> texts written phonetically (it was published in Glottometrika
> No.13 under I forget what title)

I've been very tempted to do a similar run on the VMS, but what is 
delaying me is that the versions seem to be not very consistent, and the 
results of this type of analysis will be as good as the transcription.
I hope to start a proofreading of the vms based on the differences I 
listed in the interlin.vms file. Stay tuned!

> Sukhotin had suggested, without proof or experimental evidence
> (just seat-of-the-pants feeling) that the difference between
> successive-order entropies might provide the measure of the
> correct interpretation of a text. 

That is very interesting. I wonder if this has anything to do with the 
length of syllabes, which would then tend to have the few vowels 
embedded time after time...

> What am I driving at? That Zipf's law seeming to hold with
> random "texts" (be it language or a genetic message), as
> well as with "meaningful texts", it... well, I can't find the
> right word... tautology? I mean, what use is it? It's like:

That's the point. Zipf's law does not give support for the "language in 
the DNA introns" idea.
The reason for the Zipf's law in random sequences is a different one from 
the one in the texts (well, as far as I understood W. Li's paper).
Zipf's laws in texts may be important when you know that you have a "real" 
text and want to compare "distances" between the Zipf's plots. (I think 
that a reference for that is a short paper in Physical Review Letters E, 
by S. Havlin. If anyone is interested I can look for the reference).
 
> A or not A (as a boolean expression)

To be or not to be. ;-)

cheers,

Gabriel	

From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 10 08:32:32 0500 1996
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From: "Dennis J. Stallings" <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" <rzandber@esoc.esa.de>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Plant drawings
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On Tue, 9 Jul 1996, R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad wrote:

> It also explained why certain plants seem like true plants, whereas others 
> only seem like plant parts with rudimentary appendages and others yet
> seem totally imaginary.
> 
> P.P.S For completeness: I was wondering if the herbal section is not
>       about plant diseases rather than plants. Some of these plants 
>       look rather sick to me....  

	I always have thought that the plant drawings do not represent 
real plants, and that the resemblance of a few drawings to New World 
plants is fortuitous.  I think this mostly because the experts, or the 
others for that matter, who have looked at the drawings can't agree on 
what they are or whether they even show real plants.  
	D'Imperio pointed out that medieval herbalists did not draw 
plants from real life, but copied manuscripts of herbals by classical 
authors that had already been recopied for hundreds of years.  In 
the process, the drawings degenerated to the point that they no longer 
represented anything real.  She also speculated that the (putatively 
unreal) plant drawings in the VMs might have symbolic meaning.
	In this connection, I was very much intrigued by a post Jim Reeds 
made a while back (also because I think, as did D'Imperio, that alchemy 
may be important in understanding the VMs):

*quote*
Today's mail just brought a reprint of a must-read paper mentioning
the VMS (& lots of other interesting stuff, too).  So I added it to
my bibliography:

        Toresella, Sergio. ``Gli erbari degli alchimisti.'' In
        <i>Arte farmaceuticae piante medicinali--erbari, vasi, sturmenti
        e testi dalla raccolte liguri</i>, Liana Soginata, ed. Pisa:
        Pacini Editore, 1996, pp.31-70. [Fits the VMS into an alchemical
        herbal tradition.]

The volume it appears in is pretty pricey.
*unquote*

	Perhaps Jim could give us a synopsis?

Cheers,
Dennis

From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 10 14:02:18 GMT 1996
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Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 14:02:18 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: denstall@tyrell.net
Subject: Re: Plant drawings
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Hi!

Dennis Stallings writes:

> 	D'Imperio pointed out that medieval herbalists did not draw 
> plants from real life, but copied manuscripts of herbals by classical 
> authors that had already been recopied for hundreds of years.  In 
> the process, the drawings degenerated to the point that they no longer 
> represented anything real.  She also speculated that the (putatively 
> unreal) plant drawings in the VMs might have symbolic meaning.

Indeed. She also pointed out that the VMs plants are not like anything
in any of those herbals either. I must admit that the few copies
of drawings I have seen from M.E. herbals are mostly very representative
of the plant in question. These may have been from a somewhat later date
though. There is a hand-written note on f17r referring to the herbal
of Mattioli. From this I have a copy of one plant drawing which is a
nice clear drawing of an existing plant. This may not be a
representative sample :-). Brumbaugh apparently has looked
through Mattioli's herbal and claims that one half of one
plant in the entire VMs is also a copy of one in Mattioli (if my memory
is correct). I was somewhat disappointed that the Hessische Landesbibliothek
does not seem to have a copy of it (at least it is not in the catalogue).
The herbal was first printed in Frankfurt (a stone's throw away from here
and definitely in Hessen)! 

> 	In this connection, I was very much intrigued by a post Jim Reeds 
> made a while back (also because I think, as did D'Imperio, that alchemy 
> may be important in understanding the VMs):
> 
> (Ref. to S.Toresella's article, with minor typos preserved :-) )
> 
> 	Perhaps Jim could give us a synopsis?

My 'contact' in one of Italy's premier unversities (Padova) did not
find it in their library, and I am also quite eager to read the
article. Would Jim mind if we contact Sergio Toresella directly?

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Thu Jul 11 11:31:21 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: Plant drawings
To: denstall@tyrell.net (Dennis J. Stallings)
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 11:31:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: rzandber@esoc.esa.de, voynich@rand.org
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> 	I always have thought that the plant drawings do not represent 
> real plants, and that the resemblance of a few drawings to New World 
> plants is fortuitous.  I think this mostly because the experts, or the 
> others for that matter, who have looked at the drawings can't agree on 
> what they are or whether they even show real plants.  

I agree completely. I have always felt they were notional or "cartoon"
plants. They may be symbolic of something else. The sunflower confustion is
mostly, I think, because sunflowers _look_ like cartoon flowers.

The VMs has always seemed to me to be pre-15th century. I might be wrong,
but its style just looks too primitive to be otherwise. That's why I always
felt the post-1492 dating implied by the "sunflower" picture was a red
herring.

Robert Firth called the VMs style "alien", which I like. I don't mean in
the UFO/little green men sense, but something more like that which would be
generated from a culture with a different literary tradition than most of
those we are familiar with. That's why I'm so curious about the history of
Basque and other "lost" languages.

BTW, no one answered my question about Basque having a writing of its own
before Roman influence. Did it? Or does no one know?

-Adams Douglas


> 	D'Imperio pointed out that medieval herbalists did not draw 
> plants from real life, but copied manuscripts of herbals by classical 
> authors that had already been recopied for hundreds of years.  In 
> the process, the drawings degenerated to the point that they no longer 
> represented anything real.  She also speculated that the (putatively 
> unreal) plant drawings in the VMs might have symbolic meaning.
> 	In this connection, I was very much intrigued by a post Jim Reeds 
> made a while back (also because I think, as did D'Imperio, that alchemy 
> may be important in understanding the VMs):
> 
> *quote*
> Today's mail just brought a reprint of a must-read paper mentioning
> the VMS (& lots of other interesting stuff, too).  So I added it to
> my bibliography:
> 
>         Toresella, Sergio. ``Gli erbari degli alchimisti.'' In
>         <i>Arte farmaceuticae piante medicinali--erbari, vasi, sturmenti
>         e testi dalla raccolte liguri</i>, Liana Soginata, ed. Pisa:
>         Pacini Editore, 1996, pp.31-70. [Fits the VMS into an alchemical
>         herbal tradition.]
> 
> The volume it appears in is pretty pricey.
> *unquote*
> 
> 	Perhaps Jim could give us a synopsis?
> 
> Cheers,
> Dennis
> 


From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 12 11:07:58 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9607120107.AA14611@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Basque writing (was: Plant drawings)
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 11:07:58 +1000 (EST)
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> BTW, no one answered my question about Basque having a writing of its own
> before Roman influence. Did it? Or does no one know?

There is a wealth of stuff on Basque at:

http://weber.u.washington.edu/~buber/basque.html

I have very little here. Trask says that Iberian was written in the
Greek alphabet, but most often in "indigenous" alphabets, some
of which at least appear to have been deciphered, as he gives this
text "written in the indigenous script":

bilosunteSalir
ega ga [...] elerte
ba Salirbosita Salibos
ngantobanteinbeletene

... I'll spare you the rest

However, there is no evidence that Iberian was really related
to Basque.

There is compelling evidence to believe that Aquitanian was
Basque: "According to Julius Cesar, while most of Gaul was
occupied in his day by Celts, the southwestern part was
inhabited by a people whom he calls the Aquitani and whom he
describes as entirely distinct from their Celtic neighbours.
There survive today many dozens of fragments of the Aquitanian
language, consisting chiefly of about 400 personal names
and 70 names of divinities, embedded in Latin texts"

>From that, I would infer that Aquitanian (and therefore
Ancient Basque) was never written. More recent Basque
texts are all in the Roman alphabet, of course.


From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 12 08:01:24 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Sunflower revisited (longish)
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Hi!

Adams Douglas writes:

> I agree completely. I have always felt they were notional or "cartoon"
> plants. They may be symbolic of something else. The sunflower confustion is
> mostly, I think, because sunflowers _look_ like cartoon flowers.

I agree that many if not most flowers look, as you say, like cartoon
flowers. On the other hand there is great variety, and my favourite,
the 'Nymphoides' on f2v is a nicely-drawn plant. The Sunflower (the main
one because there are sunflower-lookalikes on other pages) is another case
in point. The leaves are not exactly right, and the arrangement of the
seeds does not show the typical 'double spiral', but as a whole it
does look like a sunflower. Also the fact that it looks like a sunflower
'after flowering' makes it something less of a 'cartoon' plant. 
It looks (to me at least) more like a sunflower than any other plant 
in the VMs like any real plant, with the possible exceptions of the ivy
and of f2v. As far as that is concerned, a Nymphoides should have
been yellow, not white (as it seems to be) but I have read somewhere that
the colour of the sunflower drawing is exactly right: dark yellow with
light brown. I cannot confirm that though.

As for more cartoon flowers, take a look at woodcut 17 of the Rosarium 
Philosophorum:
    http://www.levity.com/alchemy/mylros17.html
The first time I saw this illustration (the flower in the right-hand
woodcut) was on the cover of a book about G.Bruno which I had been chasing.
When I pulled it from the shelf I thought I had a fit :-).  

> The VMs has always seemed to me to be pre-15th century. I might be wrong,
> but its style just looks too primitive to be otherwise. That's why I always
> felt the post-1492 dating implied by the "sunflower" picture was a red
> herring.

Both prof. Panofsky and Sergio Toresella pointed to a date around 1460-1470,
which is too early but not by centuries. Others (see D'Imperio) have gone 
for even later dates but usually to support their own theory rather
than purely from looking at the Ms. I personally could imagine that
someone in North Italy wrote most of the Vms in 1460 in the current style
(called humanist but I do not know what that means), and later added more
in the '90s (in language B). In the original sunflower-identifying article
it is stated that the sunflower page does not differ from the others and
therefore the entire Ms should be from after 1493. I totally (but humbly) 
disagree. It is eminently possible that the A part was written years before
the B part, by one and the same person. Note that the sunflower is on one
of the herbal pages near the end of the MS too.
My point: this sunflower drawing is one of the very few clues and I'd hate
to discard it. (In fact the other one, sagittarius' hat, points in the
same direction, but this is a pretty slim one).

> Robert Firth called the VMs style "alien", which I like. I don't mean in
> the UFO/little green men sense, but something more like that which would be
> generated from a culture with a different literary tradition than most of
> those we are familiar with. That's why I'm so curious about the history of
> Basque and other "lost" languages.

The alienness (sorry for the barbarism) could well be of a personal
nature rather than a cultural one. In fact, whereas I totally believe that 
supposedly lost cultures have been able to continue to exist, the scenario
where one or a few individuals have continued a style known to them, 
'while the rest of the world had a renaissance' is a more
plausible explanation for the Voynich Ms. (IMHO of course).
Mind you, the Basque/Aquitanian/Iberian theory should definitely be 
pursued. (Jacques' Salir Salirbosita Salibos has such a nice Voynichese 
ring to it :-)). Same Robert Firth did once point to Spain as one of the good
candidate countries of origin, and the Arab connection is another
strong point.

In general I would prefer simple theories over complicated ones and ones
that explain peculiarities over ones that ignore/discard them.
Unfortunately, as far as simple theories that explain lots
of features of the VMs go.....  anybody got any? Anybody know
anybody who does? 

Sorry for rambling on,
                    Rene


From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 12 08:08:54 0500 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: Adams Douglas <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: rzandber@esoc.esa.de, voynich@rand.org
Subject: Eastern European Provenience (Was: Plant drawings)
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On Thu, 11 Jul 1996, Adams Douglas wrote:

> Robert Firth called the VMs style "alien", which I like. I don't mean in
> the UFO/little green men sense, but something more like that which would be
> generated from a culture with a different literary tradition than most of
> those we are familiar with.

	I agree.  As I told Rene, to me the most striking thing about the 
VMs is its utter uniqueness.  Another of my pet hypotheses is that the VMs 
originated in Eastern Europe.  That is an area that is less known to 
Western European scholarship and where the subculture that produced the 
VMs might have more easily passed unnoticed.  Consider too where the VMs 
first appeared in history: in Rudolf II's Prague.
	I like D'Imperio's idea that the original components of the 
Voynich alphabet are early Arabic numerals and medieval Latin 
abbreviations.  If you accept that, that points to areas using the Latin 
alphabet: Poland, Czech/Slovakia, Hungary.  If you accept Cyrillic or 
Arabic as possible bases, then Russia and Ukraine are right next door for 
Cyrillic, and I believe that the Turks were in Hungary at the time for 
Arabic.  
	I don't have any strong suspects to suggest.  I've read RJW 
Evans' *Rudolf II and his World*, a good discussion of the intellectual 
climate in Rudolf II's court.  This book mentions many Polish, Czech, 
and Hungarian esoteric thinkers (although there was no distinction 
between esoteric and "scientific" thought at the time, modern science was 
being born).  It also mentions the Hussite religious movement in the 
Czech area; perhaps a heretic offshoot of the Hussites might have done it?
	What does anyone think about this?  Perhaps Andras Kornai, who is 
from that area, knows something.

Cheers,
Dennis

From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 12 14:29:22 +0100 1996
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To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Sunflower revisited (longish) 
In-reply-to: Your message of Fri, 12 Jul 1996 08:01:24 +0000.
             <9607120801.AA22977@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> 
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 14:29:22 +0100
From: Michael Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>
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Status: OR


Rene Zandbergen writes:
> As for more cartoon flowers, take a look at woodcut 17 of the Rosarium 
> Philosophorum:
>     http://www.levity.com/alchemy/mylros17.html
> The first time I saw this illustration (the flower in the right-hand
> woodcut) was on the cover of a book about G.Bruno which I had been chasing.
> When I pulled it from the shelf I thought I had a fit :-).  

Besides the sunflower, the VMS contains many images that also occur
in other alcehmenical works:

*  On folio 79v the dew (or divine radiance) falls down onto
   the recumbent female figure. (My guess is that is also an allegory
   for the chemical process of fractional distillation)

* f68r1 and f68r show the Sun over the Moon and then the Moon over the Sun
  (Solar dominant over Lunar and Lunar dominant over Solar)

* f66r is the first ``alchemical'' folio after the simple ``herbal'' material
  at the beginning of the MS. This folio shows a recumbent female figure.
  By itself, this could mean almost anything. But the following folios
  have alchemical images, so it is tempting to also interpret this as
  an alchemical image, the female/lunar principle about to be transformed
  by the process which is described in the following folios.

* A four-fold division of the cosmos is a recurring theme in the VMS,
  and also in alchemical texts. See for example f67v2 and f85-86r2.

* Plants with faces occur in alchemical MSS (e.g. the Rosarium Philosphorum
  refered to by Rene), and also in the VMS.

*  f82v shows what appears to be a rainbow (It's a pity that I havn't
   got a color reproduction of this ---- it would be useful to check the
   colours!)

Then there's the dragon (f25v), the serpents (f49r) ...

There are probably many others that I've left out.

The image that should be there (if the alchemical interpretation is correct),
but which seems to be missing is the union of the male and female principle.
So maybe it all means something completly different.

Mike

From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 12 13:47:34 GMT 1996
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Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 13:47:34 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Michael Roe writes:

> *  f82v shows what appears to be a rainbow (It's a pity that I havn't
>    got a color reproduction of this ---- it would be useful to check the
>    colours!)

Allow me to air another half-baked idea. I always keep coming
back to Agrippa, just because I have a translation of his magical
work. Anyway, he assigns the influence of individual planets (the 
seven of them: Mercury to Saturn, Moon and Sun, excluding Earth)
to just about everything: plants, animals, stones, and parts of the human
body. So, for example (not true but just to illustrate) the right ear
is governed by Jupiter, the stomach by Venus, the left eye by Mercury,
the spleen by the Sun etc etc.

What if the biological pages are collections of those parts of the body
governed by one planet or another? The rainbows could be symbolic of the
eye(s). There are plenty of things that could be guts, liver, kidneys
etc. I thought of the weird comet-like things flying around on other pages as
possibly symbolic for the ears or just sound.
There are other symbolisms in these pages too (the one nymph giving
another one a black eye would be the Mars page).
 
> Then there's the dragon (f25v), the serpents (f49r) ...

One dead end: one of the plants in Hildegard of Bingen's work is also called
'Schlangenwurz' or 'Drachenwurz' (Snake root or dragon root). This
plant is a well-known one often found at cemetaries: a large white cup
with a yellow stem in the middle. Don't know the English name but in
other languages it has Aaron as part of the name.
This does not look at all like the drawings with the snake or dragon. 

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 12 08:06:01 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: Sunflower revisited (longish)
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 08:06:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org, rzandber@mail-gw.esoc.esa.de
In-Reply-To: <9607120801.AA22977@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Jul 12, 96 08:01:24 am
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> As for more cartoon flowers, take a look at woodcut 17 of the Rosarium 
> Philosophorum:
>     http://www.levity.com/alchemy/mylros17.html
> The first time I saw this illustration (the flower in the right-hand
> woodcut) was on the cover of a book about G.Bruno which I had been chasing.
> When I pulled it from the shelf I thought I had a fit :-).  

No kidding! What's the date of the Rosarium?

> > The VMs has always seemed to me to be pre-15th century. I might be wrong,
> > but its style just looks too primitive to be otherwise. That's why I always
> > felt the post-1492 dating implied by the "sunflower" picture was a red
> > herring.
> 
> Both prof. Panofsky and Sergio Toresella pointed to a date around 1460-1470,

I made a grade-school mistake above. I meant "pre-16th century". A 1460's
provenance for the VMs is perfectly reasonable to me--just not post-1493.

> it is stated that the sunflower page does not differ from the others and
> therefore the entire Ms should be from after 1493. I totally (but humbly) 
> disagree. It is eminently possible that the A part was written years before
> the B part, by one and the same person. Note that the sunflower is on one
> of the herbal pages near the end of the MS too.
> My point: this sunflower drawing is one of the very few clues and I'd hate
> to discard it. (In fact the other one, sagittarius' hat, points in the
> same direction, but this is a pretty slim one).

Fair enough. Is the Sunflower part of the A or B writing folios? It would
be interesting if we could use the illustrations to date the two
styles--and infer new information from that knowledge.

> The alienness (sorry for the barbarism) could well be of a personal
> nature rather than a cultural one. In fact, whereas I totally believe that 
> supposedly lost cultures have been able to continue to exist, the scenario
> where one or a few individuals have continued a style known to them, 
> 'while the rest of the world had a renaissance' is a more
> plausible explanation for the Voynich Ms. (IMHO of course).

Actually, that's what I had in mind. As I've said before, I doubt that the
VMs is the work of a culture (in the sense of a functioning communitiy of
many individuals) but of a few (three or less) sequestered people working
on this private research/magic/whatever. It would be their knowledge of
some older, forgotten culture I was referencing. 

Although this may be wrong ( I think this should be the motto of all
Voynich scholars :) ) I don't necessarily think the VMs was written in the
way it was to conceal information. I think it was written in a forgotten
shorthand for some language we may or may not know of anymore. But it was
clearly comfortable for the authors to write rapidly. I think whoever wrote
in Voynichese could also read it.

-Adams


From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 12 08:15:08 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: Eastern European Provenience (Was: Plant drawings)
To: denstall@tyrell.net (Dennis Stallings)
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 08:15:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: rzandber@esoc.esa.de, voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960712075040.13733A-100000@tyrell.net> from "Dennis Stallings" at Jul 12, 96 08:08:54 am
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> 	I agree.  As I told Rene, to me the most striking thing about the 
> VMs is its utter uniqueness.  Another of my pet hypotheses is that the VMs 
> originated in Eastern Europe.  That is an area that is less known to 
> Western European scholarship and where the subculture that produced the 
> VMs might have more easily passed unnoticed.  Consider too where the VMs 
> first appeared in history: in Rudolf II's Prague.
> 	I like D'Imperio's idea that the original components of the 
> Voynich alphabet are early Arabic numerals and medieval Latin 

In _Number_Words_and_Number_Symbols_ Karl Menninger goes into exhaustive
detail about the way Arabic numerals were written in medieval times and
later. It's interesting that the VMs writes 4 in a fairly modern way
(unless its just a symbol that happens to look like the Arabic 4 as we
write it now). It was formerly written rotated about 45 degrees clockwise
from the modern form. Also the VMs "iiix" "iix" symbols strongly resemble
certain handwritten styles of Roman numerals from the 1400s.

-Adams




From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 12 13:07:23 0600 1996
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From: rcarter@nyx.net (Ron Carter)
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Subject: Pet theory and plants (longish...)
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Well, as I have stated in the past, my own pet theory is that
the VMs is a Aztec compendium of their sciences, transcribed
by dictation to two scribes who wrote it down in a form of
Latin abbreviations of phonetic Nuahatl.  Whew...  :-)

Which sorta makes sense; if we accept the sunflower at face
value, it means the roots of the VMs are New World; this leads
to the courts of Spain; a Spanish monk sits with the Aztecs,
copies all their sciences out in Nuahatl; brings it back to
his abbey, but knowing that this is pretty spurious stuff,
they transcribe it (verbally, as only the monk that brought
it back knows Nuahatl) but do it in their own somewhat unique
form of Latin abbreviations (the resemblance of Voynich to
Latin abbreviations is almost too close to ignore) so as to
obcure the true source of the information.  Fairly simple.  :-)

I still consider the plant drawings to be copies of copies, etc.
but still with some valuable clues; perhaps -most- of them are
of multigenerational sources, but maybe a few were of types that
the illustrator was familiar with?

-- 
Looking Forward, Ron | rcarter@nyx.net | Denver, CO USA | 960712

From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 12 15:37 EDT 1996
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Date: 12 Jul 1996 15:26:17 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Memo-Plants in the VMS
To: "Voynich List" <voynich@RAND.ORG>
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                     Memo-Plants in the VMS
  MEMORANDUM

Dear all,

Just to mess things real good, here is my interpretation of the plant
drawings. I don't recall having put it on the list before, if I did
forgive my lack of memory ;-)

It' s funny but the idea of some king of genealogy keeps scrambling
my thought. The plants, thus, could be blazons or famuly coat of arm.

Just like the heraldry of the Japanese which tends to be much more
"impresionist" than that of European family (with easily identifiable
symbols -and plants-).

I looked into religions (medieval of course) to find any exemple of
rite that would associate a plant's name, of herbal design to a
family (crest) but so far nothing (except for druids!). 

Also, perhaps, plants parts were thought to give power to the whole.
Meaning that asembling some kind of leaf with roots and flower and
you get a pretty powerful plant (on paper at least). 

I am trying to put together a symbol database that would caracterise
a plant by its component and see where it leads. Our poor Sun server
will suffer ;-)

have a nice week end all.


From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 12 14:51:23 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: Eastern European Provenience (Was: Plant drawings)
To: denstall@tyrell.net (Dennis Stallings)
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Cc: adamsd@cts.com, rzandber@esoc.esa.de, voynich@rand.org
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Dennis,
from what little I know about mmedieval manuscripts the VMS has nothing in
it that points to a specifically East-European origin. Esoterica/science
were pastimes of the rich, and there were comparatively fewer rich people
in Eastern than in Western Europe (which is of course true to this day).
The Hussites were an ofshoot of the Reform movement, with Jan Hus regarded
by many to have a standing as high as that of Luther or Calvin. As you are
probably aware, the Reform movement was highly puritanical, esoterica was
not their thing. The VMS could well have originated in Prague, but it could
have just as well originated in Naples...
Andras Kornai

From rand.org!jim Sat Jul 13 03:21:55 0500 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Outsider Art (Art Brut) (Was: Sunflower revisited (longish)
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On Fri, 12 Jul 1996, R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad wrote:

> The alienness (sorry for the barbarism) could well be of a personal
> nature rather than a cultural one. In fact, whereas I totally believe that 
> supposedly lost cultures have been able to continue to exist, the scenario
> where one or a few individuals have continued a style known to them, 
> 'while the rest of the world had a renaissance' is a more
> plausible explanation for the Voynich Ms. (IMHO of course).

	This reminds me.  Someone coined the French term "l'art brut" 
(rendered into English as "outsider art") for idiosyncratic art produced 
by mentally disturbed or other socially marginal people.  I don't have 
any reference works on it right now but I have read about it.  I remember 
reading about a man who had built an enormous religious shrine made out 
of garbage parts in his garage - and he had kept records in an as-yet 
undecipered code.  :-)  I seem to recall a Musee de l'Art Brut in 
Lausanne.  
	If the VMs was produced by one "outsider", the question of how to 
explain Voynich A & B still arises.  Perhaps it was as Rene said, with an 
interval of years between the two parts.  Or perhaps it was two 
personalities of someone with Multiple Personality Disorder.  ;-)

Cheers, Dennis

From rand.org!jim Sat Jul 13 05:36:48 0700 1996
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Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 05:36:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: "R. Brzustowicz" <brz@u.washington.edu>
To: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
Cc: Michael Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>,
        "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" <rzandber@esoc.esa.de>,
        voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Sunflower revisited (longish) 
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On Sat, 13 Jul 1996, Dennis Stallings wrote:

> 	I tried to learn something about alchemy and threw up my hands up
> in frustration.  I'm a chemical engineer, and yet I often cannot figure
> out exactly what chemical reaction an alchemical text is talking about.

This may be old hat to you, but you may find Richard Newman's recent
_Gehennical Fire_ useful (and also of course its bibliography as a pointer
to other works on the same line).

R Brzustowicz (brz@u.washington.edu)



From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 17 08:26 EDT 1996
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To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich interjections
Status: OR

Dear All,

I have been quite busy recently & have not had time to interact much
with the Voynich list.  But I have been somewhat Voynichologically
active, even so:

0.  It is not my doing, but my Voynich web pages have moved and will
move again.  For the time being they are all reachable under

	http://netlib.bell-labs.com/math/people/reeds/voynich.html

(I do not know their final home, but might within the next month.)

1.  I have been in touch with an old friend of Dr. Joseph M. Feeley
(the famous old VMS solver).  He loaned Feeley's Nachlass to a homeless
person whom I have been unable to locate.  (Not that I've tried very 
hard: name not in phone book, letter to last known address returned.
Any of the fictional detectives in the books I waste my time reading
would be able to find this guy w/o any trouble.  Are there any real
detectives reading this who would be willing to help out?)

2.  I got a call from John Stojko (less famous modern VMS solver), who
sent me a complete copy of his book, together with two pages of the VMS
transcribed into Cyrillic.  My plan: to compare his transcription with
voynich.now's or with FSG's.

3.  I have heard nothing more from Ruysschaert's old colleague, but
have not given up hope.

4.  I had a long but uninformative chat with the current editor of
Philological Quarterly, the successor of the Curt Zimansky who wrote
the article in PQ about Friedman's artificial language theory.

I passed a copy of a recent post by Rene Zandbergen to my wife the 
historian of Renaissance botany.  She will ask Toresella if he minds
letting his address out, & comment on such topics as quality of pictures
in medieval herbals, on Mattiolus, etc.  Let me just comment a little bit 
on these matters, too:  all of D'Imperio's knowledge of herbals probably comes
from Agnes Arber's book.  You can form your own impression of the accuracy
of the plant illustrations in manuscript herbals by looking at Raphael and
Blunt.  My wife's thesis has a long discussion of the illustrations of 
Schlangenwurzel aka Dracontea in early printed herbals, which has since
become a topos in the historiography of scientific illustration (see J.
Murdoch's picture book for an example).  

My Italian is the evanescent ghost of a quantity which was never there, so I
cannot really summarize Toresella's long article on "Alchemical Herbals".  
The 2 plates in Raphael & Blunt (on pp 94 & 95 in my edition, of Bayersche
Staatsbib. Munich, Cod.icon.(bot.)26, a few pages after B&R's VMS pages)
seem to be from an example of such herbals.  The illustrations Toresella 
gives do show "punning" or "rebus" plant pictures (with dragons, lions, 
etc, incorporated into pictures of plants like Dracontea or Dandelion, etc)
but neither the usual symbolic alchemical images (green lions, androgynes, 
pelicans, etc) nor "operative" alchemical images (furnaces, retorts, etc.)
In fact, I do not really know why he calls this distinct sub genre of 
manuscript herbals "alchemical", but it is clear that there is a stylistic
unity among such MSS.  Sergio says that the fashion died out by about 1500,
and soon became inexplicable.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 19 16:39:17 +0100 1996
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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 16:39:17 +0100 (BST)
From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: First European Voynich Conference
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Status: OR

Hi all,
Just a short resume of what happened in Birmingham last Wednesday.
Four members of the list (Rene Zandbergen, Michael Roe, Geoff Turner and 
me) met for discussion of Voynich matters. Yes, we had a beer for 
everybody!

We had a good chance to talk and clarify many issues. For example, I 
could re-number the folios in my Copyflo from Yale.
We compared the quality of the Copyflos (they are not always the same, 
some pages in mine are much worse than in Rene's copy and viceversa, so 
a "proper" copy is still needed. Michael told us that the British Library 
copies seem to be more clear, but they do not have the entire VMS.

I prepared some charts with the Zipf's laws, the word length 
distribitution and the iso-word gap distribition in the 2 versions of the 
vms and in a sample of latin from the Vulgate Bibile.
Rene showed us a VERY impressive "correlation map" between pages of the 
vms which has many intersting features (I am sure that Rene will tell the 
list about these, I'll leave it to him).
We talked so many different things that it would be impossible to 
remember everything. Something nobody knew was whether the Peterson's 
transcription spans the complete vms or if it was just a fragment 
(could anybody clarify this, please?).

The problem of the transcription alphabets came out, no definite 
solutions so far...

We all wondered about Toresella's article; nobody had the chance to get a
copy. 

After about 2 hours we could start reading page after page, but sorry, we
are not telling what it says. :-)

Then we suddenly realised that we were quite hungry so we went for a
Chinese meal. 
In total we were together for about 5 hours. I particularly enjoyed the 
meeting very much and hope that some day we could repeat it, probably in 
a more organised style "a la FSG".

Probably the other "participants" would like to add their views and 
comments about the meeting.

regards to all,

Gabriel


From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 19 09:02:38 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: First European Voynich Conference
To: landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk (Gabriel Landini)
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 09:02:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SV4.3.91.960719161221.26775A-100000@sun1.bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Jul 19, 96 04:39:17 pm
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Sounds like a good time was had by all. 

Say, what are the chances of a US get-together for some of us? This comes
to mind because I'm in the middle of planning a West Coast alumni reunion
for my alma-mater. Anyone going to Worldcon in Anaheim on Labor Day
weekend? :)

Why don't we identify our common locales in case we chance to be in the
same locations and the same time?

I live and work in San Diego, California and make frequent trips to San
Francisco. Less often, but more than once a year I go to the Boston/New
England area.

Anyone else?
-Adams Douglas


From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 19 20:24:43 +0100 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
cc: Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk
Subject: VMS pages in wrong order?
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 20:24:43 +0100
From: Michael Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Message-Id: <E0uhLAL-0001uh-00@heaton.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Status: OR


One idea that came up during the 'European Voynich Conference' is that
the order of the manuscript pages as they are currently bound is not the same
as the order in which they were originally intended to be read.
(I think Rene first suggested this). 

My own version of this theory is that the bifolium consisting of
f58r/v and f65r/v is out of place. This bilfolium is in 'language A',
and contains herbal illustrations, and yet it comes in between two folios in 
'language B' with 'cosmological' illustrations. 

The current binding is as follows (Rene's diagram):

[QUIRE 8]
    /---------------- 057     B2
    ! /-------------- 058     A
    ! ! /------......(059)
    ! ! ! /----......(060)
    ! ! ! ! /--......(061)
    B A ! ! !
    ! ! ! ! \--......(062)
    ! ! ! \----......(063)
    ! ! \------......(064)
    ! \-------------- 065
    \---------------- 066     B 


It makes more sense like this:


     /-------------- 058     A
     !
     ! (possibly 3 missing bifolios here)
     !
     \-------------- 065     A   <---- end of 'herbal' section

     /-------------- 057     B2  <---- start of 'cosmological' section
     !
     \-------------- 066     B

In this re-arrangement, the 'comsological' section starts with a page of
pure text, and then continues with 'comsological' disgrams, without any
herbal diagrams or 'language A' text.

Mike

From rand.org!jim Sat Jul 20 12:46:52 +0100 1996
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Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 12:46:52 +0100
To: voynich@rand.org
From: antonini@is.co.za (Claudio Antonini)
Subject: Tiltman's book is not in Cambridge, MA.
Status: OR

Hi all,

I recently was in Harvard's Widener Library @ Cambridge, MA and looked for
Titlman's book. The exact quotation as received from the computerized
catalog is as follows.

========================= Quotation begins =======================
%START:
%HOLLIS#: HU AEQ2747
%FORMAT: bks
%YEAR: 1967
%AUTHOR: Tiltman, John H. Brigadier
%TITLE: The Voynich manuscript: "The most mysterious manuscript in the world".
%EDITION:
%PUB. INFO: Baltimore: Baltimore Bibliophiles, 1967.
%PUBLISHED IN:
%DESCRIPTION: 45 p.: ill., facsims.; 24 cm.
%SUMMARY:
%SERIES:
%FREQUENCY:
%NOTES: The Voynich Manuscript is a vellum book containing 200 pages of
undeciphered text and illustrations. The manuscript is suspected by some
scholars to be the work of scientist-philosopher Roger Bacon.  Bibliographic
references included.
%NUMBERS:
%SUBJECTS: Herbals--13th C.
%AUTHORS: Tiltman, John H. Brigadier \ Bacon, Roger, 1214?-1294.
%LOCATION: Dumbarton Oaks (Gdn):  HORT 633.H4T5
%END:

======================= End of Quotation ========================
 
Note that location of the book is in Dumbarton Oaks, a research center on
Architecture that Harvard has in 1703 32nd St, NW, Washington DC 20007
[(202) 339-6980].

Does anybody know if it is possible to obtain a copy of this book?

Thanks,

Claudio


From rand.org!jim Mon Jul 22 09:17:34 0700 1996
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From: Brian Smith <briansm@MICROSOFT.com>
To: "'voynich@rand.org'" <voynich@rand.org>,
        "'antonini@is.co.za'"
	 <antonini@is.co.za>
Subject: RE: Tiltman's book is not in Cambridge, MA.
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 09:17:34 -0700
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Encoding: 54 TEXT
Status: OR

About 10 years ago I borrowed that book through inter-library loan.  I
would presume that it is still available via that mechanism, assuming
you are affiliated with a library that participates in the loan program.

>----------
>From: 	antonini@is.co.za[SMTP:antonini@is.co.za]
>Sent: 	Saturday, July 20, 1996 4:46 AM
>To: 	voynich@rand.org
>Subject: 	Tiltman's book is not in Cambridge, MA.
>
>Hi all,
>
>I recently was in Harvard's Widener Library @ Cambridge, MA and looked for
>Titlman's book. The exact quotation as received from the computerized
>catalog is as follows.
>
>========================= Quotation begins =======================
>%START:
>%HOLLIS#: HU AEQ2747
>%FORMAT: bks
>%YEAR: 1967
>%AUTHOR: Tiltman, John H. Brigadier
>%TITLE: The Voynich manuscript: "The most mysterious manuscript in the
>world".
>%EDITION:
>%PUB. INFO: Baltimore: Baltimore Bibliophiles, 1967.
>%PUBLISHED IN:
>%DESCRIPTION: 45 p.: ill., facsims.; 24 cm.
>%SUMMARY:
>%SERIES:
>%FREQUENCY:
>%NOTES: The Voynich Manuscript is a vellum book containing 200 pages of
>undeciphered text and illustrations. The manuscript is suspected by some
>scholars to be the work of scientist-philosopher Roger Bacon.  Bibliographic
>references included.
>%NUMBERS:
>%SUBJECTS: Herbals--13th C.
>%AUTHORS: Tiltman, John H. Brigadier \ Bacon, Roger, 1214?-1294.
>%LOCATION: Dumbarton Oaks (Gdn):  HORT 633.H4T5
>%END:
>
>======================= End of Quotation ========================
> 
>Note that location of the book is in Dumbarton Oaks, a research center on
>Architecture that Harvard has in 1703 32nd St, NW, Washington DC 20007
>[(202) 339-6980].
>
>Does anybody know if it is possible to obtain a copy of this book?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Claudio
>
>

From rand.org!jim Tue Jul 23 11:02 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich meeting in Birmingham
Status: OR


Like Adams Douglas I am insanely jealous of those who met at Birmingham;
like him I wish we could do the same in America.  The idea of a geographic
roster sounds good to me.  Maybe it would be best if someone (Adams, hint
hint...) compiled a list & then posted it when reasonably complete.  I
am in northern New Jersey, not far from Morristown and from the Newark
Airport.

Last Sunday three of us did meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan:  Bruce Grant,
Karl Kluge, and myself.  We spent a few hours in a coffee house, but none
of us has done much recent research, so we mostly talked about generalities.

One thing that I did discuss, which I might as well share in this forum,
is that the "Book of Soyga" mentioned by John Dee has been found, and it is
not connected with the Voynich MS.  By luck I connected with the discoverer
of the B of S, have a xerox copy, and am trying to puzzle out what it all
means.  In many ways it is more interesting than the Voynich MS.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Tue Jul 23 10:14:57 0500 1996
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Status: OR

Your web pages have been very useful.  I am not by any means an 
authority on language or cipher, but my interests were drawn to the 
VMS after seeing it on the discovery channel. I read Brumbaugh's,
"The Most Mysterious...", and was most impressed with Freidman.  I
read that Freidman was concerned about there being too few symbols and 
that they were far to repetitive.  It is however possible to represent
many letters with a lesser amount of symbols if the position of the 
letter in the text is taken into account.(Or by simply giving letters 
the same symbol)  Consider the following key for example:
     1     2     3     4
a    *     x     o     a
b    x     *     a     o
c    o     a     *     x
d    a     o     x     *

e    a     o     x     *
f    o     a     *     x
g    x     *     a     o
h    *     x     o     a

The numbers at the top represent the position of the letters in the 
text, and underneath them are the proper symbols to be used for 
desired letters.   When the fifth letter is arrived at, the symbol 
corresponding to the desired fifth letter under column 1 is used. In 
this particular example the cycle is 4 because there are 4 possible 
representations for each letter depending on their position.  With 
this system a seemingly repetitive word or symbol can be totally 
unambiguous.  (Exp: spelling the word bad=xxx.)  Of course, some 
ambiguity is bound to be encountered, but one might avoid this by 
simply misspelling words.  It would seem to me that someone familiar 
with language could rather easily devise a system such as this, and 
avoid ambiguity while increasing confusion.  The system could become 
more confusing if the letters of words were first jumbled up and then
written in symbols.  I'd like to know if this system has been 
thoroughly explored. If there are tips concerning this, I would 
appreciate them.

	I am also wondering if the supposed misspelling of words was an 
effort by Bacon to keep in some set rhyme or writing scheme.  Any 
insight to this would also be helpful.

  I pulled folio 3 from the internet, but some of the script I could 
not make out.  I have noticed however that the symbols reffered to as 
gallos never appear next to each other.  Does anyone know why?  Also 
on that particular folio, the symbol that Frogguy considers an s is 
either by itself or coupled with c's.

	 Also I am curiose to know which system of decipherment is most 
widely accepted?

From rand.org!jim Tue Jul 23 18:22:24 +0100 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
cc: Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk
Subject: Voynich interlinear text
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 18:22:24 +0100
From: Michael Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Message-Id: <E0uilA9-000280-00@heaton.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Status: OR


I've just taken Gabriel Landini's interlinear text, and re-checked all
significant differences (before f41r) against the BL microfilm. 

When I got to back to my computer to type in the results of this, I
remembered that about two years ago I had made a private transcription
file of lines that were missing from voynich.now. (I had intended to send
these to the voynich list, but I forgot!)

As a result of this, for the 'missing' lines I now have two independent 
transcriptions made by me with a 2-year gap in between, as well as the FSG
transcription of those lines. Reassuringly, all three are very similar!

Shall we try and merge these lines into voynich.now?

Mike

From rand.org!jim Tue Jul 23 18:24:37 +0100 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
cc: Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk
Subject: f68r2
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 18:24:37 +0100
From: Michael Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Message-Id: <E0uilCJ-00028U-00@heaton.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Status: OR


While I had the microfilm in the reader, I also transcribed f68r2.

Again, is there any enthusiasm for merging this into voynich.now?

Mike

=============================================================================

<f68r2>

{ Roe, 23 July 1996. Transcribed from BL microfilm                            }
{ General description of page:                                                }

{ A large circle filled with stars, with each with a label                    }
{ At the top, within the large circle, is a smaller circle with a moon in     }
{ the middle and a ring of Voynich text around the circumference.             }
{ At the bottom, within the large circle, is a smaller circle with a sun in   }
{ the middle and a ring of Voynich text around the circumference.             }

<f68r2.1> PZCCOR.SOR.ZCAE8AR.OBSC9.OCCQ9.ZCOE.8OFCS9.OPSCOE9-
<f68r2.2> 8S9.9FCCS9.8S9F9.OFCCO89.RSCO8AE.SOFCC9.SCOR.ORAJ-
<f68r2.3> PSCO2.OPSOF9.OFSOE.OFOE.ZCCOR.SO8S9.4OFS8AR-
<f68r2.4> SOR.SC29.ORCC8.4OCCX9.4OXCOE.4OFCOE.SCOAE.8SOEAE-
<f68r2.5> FSCOC9.SCO89.RAN.9FCO89.S9FS9#

{ Upper ring of text }

<f68r2.U.1> { illegible }

{ The stars,  read in row from left to right across the page, and from top    }
{ to bottom (i.e. normal reading order)                                       }

<f68r2.S1.1> OPOESPC9

<f68r2.S2.1> SCOROE
<f68r2.S3.1> O8AU
<f68r2.S4.1> OSOR9

<f68r2.S4.1> Z8AR
<f68r2.S5.1> 8SOE
<f68r2.S6.1> CCO8ARAII?9
<f68r2.S7.1> OESCCCC9

<f68r2.S8.1> OFSOR

<f68r2.S9.1> OPCO?E
<f68r2.S10.1> O98S9

<f68r2.S11.1> SO8AR
<f68r2.S12.1> OFCCCO89

<f68r2.S13.1> 8SCOE89
<f68r2.S14.1> OPCCCU

<f68r2.S15.1> OPOCCO

<f68r2.S16.1> OVSCO89
<f68r2.S17.1> OPSCO8AR
<f68r2.S18.1> O8IIIR
<f68r2.S19.1> SOE

<f68r2.S20.1> OBOWOR
<f68r2.S21.1> OPOZO2
<f68r2.S22.1> SO8AR

<f68r2.S23.1> ZS9

<f68r2.S24.1> OFCCSOR

{ Bottom ring of text }

<f68r2.L.1> OBOE.OF9.OZC8.R.?FC9.OFCCOE.SC9.O.???OFC9.OPOAM

From rand.org!jim Tue Jul 23 18:45:42 +0100 1996
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Subject: (CPO) ligature
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 18:45:42 +0100
From: Michael Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>
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Status: OR


Several of the apparent discrepancies between the FSG transcription and
voynich.now are caused by a (CPO) ligature. (I think this is CQPo in Frogguy).

Neither the FSG nor the Currier transcription schemes can represent this
properly. Maybe we need to extend the voynich.now trasncription alphabet?

Obvious occurences of this ligature are at:
f2v.5
f4v.5
f8r.15
etc.

The (CP) ligature with nothing connected to the right also causes problems ---
see for example f9v.7

Mike



From rand.org!jim Tue Jul 23 14:51:23 PDT 1996
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To: turiyan gold <adscapes@ix.netcom.com>
cc: voynich@rand.org, jim@rand.org
Subject: Re: unsubscribe 
In-reply-to: Your message of Sun, 23 Jun 96 05:34:25 +0000.
             <199607232130.OAA01701@dfw-ix1.ix.netcom.com> 
From: Jim Gillogly <jim@rand.org>
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Status: OR


turiyan gold <adscapes@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>unsubscribe voynich adscapes@ix.netcom.com

OK.

	Jim Gillogly
	30 Afterlithe S.R. 1996, 21:51

From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 24 10:00:45 GMT 1996
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Dear all,

further to Gabriel's report, let me also add a few thoughts
about our meeting in Birmingham. Using Jim's note as a prompt:

> Like Adams Douglas I am insanely jealous of those who met at Birmingham;
> like him I wish we could do the same in America.
> Last Sunday three of us did meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan:  Bruce Grant,
> Karl Kluge, and myself.  We spent a few hours in a coffee house, but none
> of us has done much recent research, so we mostly talked about generalities.

Our meeting was very pleasant. We were actually in a 'public house' :-)
I think we cannot claim any major discoveries to
have resulted from this meeting and we also talked most of 
generalities. Let me try to summarise a few points as I remember them:

- The Yale copies are not all of the same quality (as expected). I think
  I have been more lucky than Gabriel, at least for quite a number of
  interesting pages. I think that his 'recipes' section may have been
  slightly better than mine.
- Mike Roe, who does not have a Yale copyflo, commented that his BL
  microfilm is much clearer than that. When trying to print from that
  (for his own private use I am sure) the quality was reduced quite a bit
  I wonder if Yale microfilm owners could comment on the quality of this.
- Mike Roe was not impressed with the Sunflower identification
- There was interest expressed in the Petersen transcription. I wonder
  if there are any spare copies flying around which could be purchased?
- G.Turner (sorry, I forgot his first name. Gabriel?) proposed a tentative
  identification for one of the plant drawings: a pineapple. I realise
  I should now be able to quote the folio number but I can't. It is the one
  with a drawing vaguely like a pineapple :-)
- Gabriel distributed a paper with lots of graphs about Zipf law adherence
  and word length stats. I still want to look at it in detail, but it seems
  to comprise a fairly complete study most worthy of wider distribution
- I had a printout of a colour plot of a correlation matrix of all FSG
  pages. I mentioned it in a piece of E-mail to the list some time ago 
  (probably half a year ago). Basically, it shows the A and B languages
  clearly (and does not show any indication for a third one). It also
  shows a very peculiar feature in the recipes (stars) section which I
  want to investigate further. There is a clear variation of the 
  correlation with the Biol. pages: a gradual change from very high to
  very low and back. I have a gif file which I can E-mail if desired,
  but uuencoded it is about 150k (and it won't commpress). Mike mentioned
  he had done a similar plot once with similar results
- Whatever I missed, the others are welcome to add. In fact: the Chinese
  meal was very good. It did include some beef so we are now desperate
  to see the Voynich solved within the next 30-40 years. And I owe the
  other guys a round of drinks so we have to do it again some day.
- Thanks to the organising committee! (i.e. Gabriel)
  
> One thing that I did discuss, which I might as well share in this forum,
> is that the "Book of Soyga" mentioned by John Dee has been found, and it is
> not connected with the Voynich MS.  By luck I connected with the discoverer
> of the B of S, have a xerox copy, and am trying to puzzle out what it all
> means.

Very good indeed! There is a lot of stuff about this book in the mailing
archive and I think our Dee experts should be able to comment a bit more.
I have (as usual) some immediate questions:
- I remember it has on its title page something like: "Soyga sive aldaraia
  vocor". Is that the reason why it is called Soyga?
- Does it contain mainly tables? Is it a scroll or a codex? How long is it?
- Do we know for sure Dee or Kelley did not produce it
- Do we know when Dee first laid hands on it?
- Could it be the book containing nothing but hieroglyphics, Dee's son
  mentioned?
- In fact: is it in 'hieroglyphics' at all?

I could go on and on.... has the discoverer published anything yet?
Jim, I imagine you don't have the answers to all of the above. I would
appreciate if you could keep us posted. The impact of this book on the
'Dee/Kelley fabricated the Voynich theory' is obvious.

> In many ways it is more interesting than the Voynich MS.

You have to be kidding :-) :-)

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 24 10:19 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Subject: Si! Book of Soyga No!
Status: OR


Here is more information about the Book of Soyga, prompted by Rene's
latest.  We have talked about the B of S from time to time, and it
has been conjecturally identified with the Voynich MS (by I. R. Calder, 
according to Whitby; I have not seen Calder's thesis), so there is
some justification for sharing it on this list.

The Book of Soyga is a Latin work, known in two manuscript copies, dating
from the 1500's:
	
	British Library, MS. Sloane 8
	Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 908.

The first one list listed in this web page:

	http://www.levity.com/alchemy/britlib1.html

They contain 3 named works: Liber aldaraia, Liber Radiorum, and Liber 
decimus septimus.  S8's version of Liber Radiorum is severely abridged.

These two copies were located by Professor D. Harkness of Colgate University
(in New York State).  She gave a presentation at the John Dee conference
in London last year.

Here are answers to Rene's questions:

> - I remember it has on its title page something like: "Soyga sive aldaraia
>   vocor". Is that the reason why it is called Soyga?

Yes.  Very early in the text it explains that "Soyga" is "Agyos, literis
transvectis."

> - Does it contain mainly tables? Is it a scroll or a codex? How long is it?

Paper book (codex).  B908 is 197 leaves long, S8 is 143 leaves long.  There
are 36 tables, taking up 18 and 36 leaves in B908 and S8, respectively.

> - Do we know for sure Dee or Kelley did not produce it
> - Do we know when Dee first laid hands on it?

Wrong handwriting to be either.  On 10 March 1582 Dee asked his angels for
help in understanding the book, so that means Dee probably did not write it.
I believe that both extant copies are themselves copies of another copy,
which itself was not the orgininal.  (This by study of the patterns of
copying errors in the tables.)  

> - Could it be the book containing nothing but hieroglyphics, Dee's son
>   mentioned?
> - In fact: is it in 'hieroglyphics' at all?

It has hundreds of pages of ordinary Latin handwriting in what I think is
called "English secretary hand." There are only a few lines not in Latin
letters: there are 2 alternative alphabets which look vaguely like the
Enochian alphabets, and a few words written in them.  So the B of S is
not the hieroglyphics. The VMS could be.

> I could go on and on.... has the discoverer published anything yet?

No.  This discovery was made in a tangential sort of way, and Prof. Harkness
is busy finishing a book on another subject, so a B of S paper might take a
while.  I hope to write a paper with Harkness describing an interesting
pattern I discovered in the tables.

The handwriting is hard for me to read, and my Latin is terrible, and 
Harkness claims the same, so in fact we have not actually read the book.

What follows is a "press release" I wrote a while ago.  It predates my
discovery of the "interesting pattern" in the tables.
---
Subject: Book of Soyga

I want to apologize for the air of mystery I might have created
about my recent interest in a certain unnamed 1500's magic book; 
this letter is intended to clear things up.

Last year, at the John Dee conference in London, Prof. Harkness of
Colgate University announced that she had found, at long last, the
Book of Soyga.  It had been sitting there all along in the Bodleian.
Everyone else had looked for "Soyga" in the card catalogue; Harkness
had the wit to look under "Aldaraia", and there it was!

It indeed starts "Aldaraia sive Soyga vocor" and has "zadzaczadlin,"
just as it should.

My wife met Harkness at a conference and brought the happy news to
me. I pestered Harkness about the Book of Soyga in the hopes that it
might have some relation to the Voynich MS.  She lent me her microfilms
(it turns out the British Library has another copy) and I have been
looking at the thing with awe for several weeks.

It presents a magic system of its own, as different from Dee's magic as
Dee's is from Agrippa's (or more so), pretty clearly not itself derived
from Agrippa's magic, but with a vaguely similar Cabbalistic cast.  (Maybe
closer to Lull than Agrippa in some ways?)  Letters have numerical values,
planets and zodiac houses have letters, combinations of letters are
associated with conjunctions, reference is made to a suite of 36 letter
tables each with 36 rows and columns.

At first impression it seems just like the sort of thing that would have
appealed to Dee.  We all know that Dee was rather puzzled by this book,
though, and it is unclear how much of an influence it had on Dee's 
Enochian system.

Harkness and I are just embarking on a long-term study of the BofS, to see
if we can describe its system better, and what its influence on Dee's
thought might have been.  I am particularly looking at the structure
of the 36 tables at the end.

In a sense this discovery has been a disappointment.  Harkness hoped it 
would elucidate the Angelic Conversations; I had hoped it would help solve
the Voynich MS. (In fact, it seems to have nothing to do with the VMS.)
Instead it adds mysteries.  Which we are working on.

One bit of recent progress:  I had asked J. H. Peterson for copies of
his transcriptions of Dee's magic tables in Sloane 3189.  On receipt
of these tables it was instantly clear that the last 4, which are of 72
rows and 36 columns, are copies of 8 (out of the 36) from the Book of Soyga,
joined in pairs.  These are the "four tables drawn twice as large" mentioned
by Whitby, p.143.  Unlike the the rest of the Sloane 3189 tables, the Soyga
tables are not filled with Enochian text.

Jim Reeds

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 24 15:29:38 GMT 1996
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Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 15:29:38 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9607241529.AA04642@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
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Many thanks to Jim for his prompt and very informative reply:

> The Book of Soyga is a Latin work, known in two manuscript copies, dating
> from the 1500's:
> They contain 3 named works: Liber aldaraia, Liber Radiorum, and Liber 
> decimus septimus.  S8's version of Liber Radiorum is severely abridged.

Aldaraia is the only Arabic word in this list. Anybody know what it
means? And then 'decimus septimus' sets off a whole array of alarm bells.
Where have I heard/seen that before?

>  Very early in the text it explains that "Soyga" is "Agyos, literis
> transvectis."

Which is what Dee asked the angels, and they (presumably Kelly) told him 
this was not the case. Bad angles! What was it? 'Soyga alka miketh',
presumably a reference to alchemy.

>   Dee probably did not write it.
> ...
> It has hundreds of pages of ordinary Latin handwriting in what I think is
> called "English secretary hand." There are only a few lines not in Latin
> letters: there are 2 alternative alphabets which look vaguely like the
> Enochian alphabets, and a few words written in them.  So the B of S is
> not the hieroglyphics. The VMS could be.

> The handwriting is hard for me to read, and my Latin is terrible, and 
> Harkness claims the same, so in fact we have not actually read the book.

I couldn't help you here either. Some ME handwriting has been compared
to the 'wanderings of a demented spider'. I hope for you it isn't as bad.
 
> It indeed starts "Aldaraia sive Soyga vocor" and has "zadzaczadlin,"
> just as it should.

That is: 12 characters in the Latin alphabet?

> At first impression it seems just like the sort of thing that would have
> appealed to Dee.  We all know that Dee was rather puzzled by this book,
> ...
> One bit of recent progress:  I had asked J. H. Peterson for copies of
> his transcriptions of Dee's magic tables in Sloane 3189.  On receipt
> of these tables it was instantly clear that the last 4, which are of 72
> rows and 36 columns, are copies of 8 (out of the 36) from the Book of Soyga,
> joined in pairs.  These are the "four tables drawn twice as large" mentioned
> by Whitby, p.143.  Unlike the the rest of the Sloane 3189 tables, the Soyga
> tables are not filled with Enochian text.

Mystery enough: Dee does not understand the tables yet copies them
in his own work. But then again: why not.

This from Jim Gillogly in the mail archive:

> Ashmole noted that 'the Duke of Lauderdale hath a folio MS. which
> was Dr.Dee's with the words in the first page: Aldaraia sive Soyga
> vocor' ... 

Is Dee's name anywhere in the Ms? Is one of the two recovered copies
from (via) this Duke? Do the library catalogues specify where they
came from?

Sorry to keep pestering you with questions. I promise to stop now
(at least on this subject).

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 24 17:18:37 +0000 1996
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Comments: Authenticated sender is <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 17:18:37 +0000
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Subject: Talk now or remain silent forever!
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Status: OR

Hi,
I finally decided that I will proofread the entire vms. (I hear the 
cheering of the crowds ;-)
What I have in mind is to use the interlin.vms and create a new 
document which has corrected the discrepancies between the two 
versions. If I find parts that do not match with what I read, I will 
correct that too, but starting with the interlin, (I think) would be 
a easier task than doing from scratch.

As the interlin.vms is in FSG alphabet, I think that I will keep the 
new document in that format.
However, before starting this task (which I hope to finish, but I'll
have to do in my free time) I want all the comments and advice in the 
world, so my effort can be of more use.

I want feedback on:
what to use if there is a "possible space"
what to use when the characters are "most probably" a [whatever]
what to use for the "weirdoes"
any other things thay you may consider important

If anybody wants to join in this time consuming task, I propose to 
have a "2nd reader"  to read what I have produced, so any doubts can 
be minimised (as well as errors).

So, talk now! 
regards to all,

Gabriel


From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 24 20:06:42 +0100 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
cc: Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk
Subject: Voynich MS in Arabic?
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 20:06:42 +0100
From: Michael Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Message-Id: <E0uj9Gd-0000dU-00@heaton.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Status: OR


At the ``European Voynich meeting'' Rene raised once more the theory
that the VMS is in Arabic. This theory keeps coming up (it's mentioned
in one of Robert Firth's notes) but I'm not sure that it's been seriously
investiagted.

Anyway, in search of sample plaintexts I managed to track down a copy
of the Arabic text of ``Picatrix'', together with Ritter and Plesner's
German translation. I can't read Arabic, but I can manage to
understand the German translation. 

I also have some photographs of some folios from an Arabic version of
Discorides' De Materia Medica. From the point of view of comparison with the 
Voynich MS, the Dioscorides text looks more promising.

At this point, I wonder if some member of this list can help me out.
As I said before, I don't know any Arabic. However, I've noticed a
word in Arabic that commonly occurs before (or as part of) the name of a plant.
It looks like WHW (waw-ha-waw). For example, it appears before "al za'afaran"
(compare English "saffron"). Does anyone know what it means? (My apologies if
I've misread it...)

Mike

From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 24 17:59 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Subject: Voynich hero Landini!
Status: OR


What astonishing good news from Birmingham!

> I finally decided that I will proofread the entire vms.

How can we help?  Would a freshly produced (2nd generation) xerox
of Petersen be of any use?

Unfortunately all I can offer in the way of feedback to your questions

> what to use if there is a "possible space"
> what to use when the characters are "most probably" a [whatever]
> what to use for the "weirdoes"

is this:  do whatever is most convenient for you, and do it consistently.
Whatever adjustments the rest of us have to make to get used to a new
notation are as nothing compared to the value of having a consistently
accurate transcription.  

My taste is to have a weirdo chart on the side.  Whenever you hit a
new weirdo, draw it on the chart, give it a code number, and refer to it
with some easy-to-parse notation like 'w(13)' in the transcription file.
When you are all done send out a gif of your chart.

Good luck, & thousands & thousands of thanks!

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Thu Jul 25 09:46 EDT 1996
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Subject: Voynich transcription by Petersen
Status: OR


Would it make sense for me to run off a few more 2nd generation copies
of Petersen's copy?  If you would be interested in a copy, send me email.
I would wait a few weeks for orders, then take my first generation xerox
to the copy shop, & run off however many copies were needed.  Then I'd 
mail them and ask for payment to recover my expenses.   

If I get n outside orders and make k extra copies for myself,
I'd charge actual postage + 1/k times the price of the packing supplies
plus 1/(n+k) times the xerox bill.  When I did this in 1992 the xerox bill
came to $12.58 per copy, the postage in the US came to $2.34 (more,
for overseas), and the packing supplies came to about .30 per copy.
Prices have gone up since then, but this time around I would not have
to recover the price of the first generation xerox.  So I would guess
the price would come to somewhat less than $20.

Karl Kluge can be consulted about the quality & utility of this sort
of copy. 


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Thu Jul 25 15:24:42 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9607251524.AA07885@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Two dialects in stars section
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Status: OR

Dear all,

I am coming to the rather definite conclusion that there are two
different 'dialects' of language B in the stars section (ff 103-116).
If I may call them Ba and Bb for the time being, then Bb can best be
described as 'the dialect used in the biological pages' and 
Ba as 'somewhat different'. When comparing the first 200 words on
all pages (skipping the ones that don't have that many),
it appears that the split between Ba and Bb coincides almost exactly
with the different bifolia:

103/116 is Bb
104/115 to 106/113 are Ba
107/112 and 108/111 are Bb again.

So far no further quantitative information known to me.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Thu Jul 25 15:04 EDT 1996
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Subject: Voynich copy by Petersen
Status: OR


Gabriel just asked how much of the VMS Petersen's copy covers.  Answer:
the whole thing.  Petersen sketched the pictures, copied the writing,
gave several copies of unclear writing, assigned code numbers to all
the nymphs, etc, etc.  The trouble is that the xerox copies are a little
unclear in places, in part because Petersen marked up his copy with
colored pencils.  In places the Petersen copy is clearer than my 
Yale prints, in places less clear.  Petersen seems to have been very
careful & accurate, on the whole.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Thu Jul 25 20:08 EDT 1996
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Subject: Voynich book by Newbold
Status: OR


I just saw a copy of Newbold listed on this web page:

	http://www.fairfield.com/ies/science.html

They are asking $30.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Thu Jul 25 22:12:36 0400 1996
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From: Karl Kluge <kckluge@eecs.umich.edu>
To: voynich@rand.org
In-reply-to: <199607251348.GAA05419@rand.org> (reeds@research.att.com)
Subject: Re: Voynich transcription by Petersen
Status: OR


> Karl Kluge can be consulted about the quality & utility of this sort
> of copy. 

Not approving of the fascist, bourgeois mentality that Yale exhibits
regarding copies of the mss, I've mostly worked from a 2cd generation copy
of the Petersen transcript. In most places very clear, and from what I can
see very faithful to the original. A real labor of love -- I think Tiltman
said it took 3-4 years for Petersen to finish.

Jim asked me to post a summary of the Sunday Ann Arbor Voynich Miniconclave
and Coffee extravaganza. It was pretty wandering, but some of the topics of
discussion were

	did the composition of various pigments for coloring mss. vary
	over time, and if so could this be used to date the mss. (assuming
	it wasn't colored later) using non-destructive techniques?

	the current issue of _The Excluded Middle_ (No. 6) has an article
	"Alien Writing: The Private Obsessions of a Reputable Psychologist"
	about Mario Pazzaglini, who collects "received" writings -- channeled
	texts, alphabets, etc. -- might this data set (especially examples
	where the text is in "channeled" languages) provide some insight
	into general properties of such texts wrt deciding if the Voynich
	is likely to have an actual plaintext underlying it?

	unless we want to assume the author(s) of the Voynich were
	precocious encypherers as well as obsessed with chubby nude
	women in waterslides, what range of techniques were available?
	Answer appears to be simple word codes, possibly polyalphabetic
	substitution ciphers, but that's about it.

	when the subject of Dr. Dee came up, the Book of Soyga was
	mentioned, and Jim described the method by which the letter
	tables in the book appear to have been generated -- as I
	mentioned to Jim in email, one of the scrying sessions 
	included the dialogue

/_\ --- Will you give me any instructions, how I may read those Tables of
Soyga?

VR --- I can---But solus Micha\"{e}l illius libri est interpretator.  [Only
Michael is the interpreter of that book.]

/_\ --- I was told, that after I could read that boke, I shold liue but two
yeres and a half.

VR --- Thow shallt liue an Hundred and od yeres.

	one can only hope for Jim's sake that VR is right here, not Dee.

In honor of Jim's discovery, here are the top five reasons computers are
better than angels:

	5) Angels not UNIX-compatible.

	4) You can tell Uriel from now until the cows come home that i
	should be a register variable, and when you look at the assembly
	language he's put it in memory.

	3) Angels dissipate too much heat -- office gets uncomfortably hot.

	2) Angels designed by God. Windows 95 designed by Bill Gates. Who
	do you trust more?

and the number one reason computers are better than angels:

	1) Your workstation never suggests wife swapping with the
	system administrator.


From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 26 00:19:23 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: "recipes" section
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 00:19:23 -0600
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I'm prompted by Rene's observations to add another:=20
Looking at the recipes section that I transcribed to Currier (with =
mistakes, no doubt) with my word processor, I find that each recipe is =
unique. That is there is no repeated ingredient name, except for one =
that may not actually be repeated.  Very strange? Those who are herbals =
experts will know for sure, but seems to me that an herbal should =
contain recipes with some plants in common?

Best to all,=20
Don Latham

From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 26 07:12:37 GMT 1996
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Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 07:12:37 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9607260712.AA16181@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Plant names and folios
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Dear all,

I've been talking about plant drawings several times now without 
quoting the folios they appear on. This should make up for that:

 f2v: my 'Nymphoides Peltata' (German: Sumpfrose; English: not the
      banana plant mentioned on the Web but a close relative.
      Not a water lilly either *).
 f8r: Hedera (Ivy).
f11v: the 'Pineapple' mentioned at the Birmingham meeting
f39r and f95r2 are the same plant (flowers) IMHO. I might even be 
      (mis)led to believe these are crocusses (crocei?? whatever).
f96v and the botttom plant on f99r are obviously the same plant,
      and f17v seems similar too. Jim: I gather your wife has seen 
      more drawing of Dracontea/Serpentaria than most people.
      Could this be what these drawings are? How about one of the
      leaves on f42r?
           
Water lilly, crocus, ivy and dracontea are all mentioned both
by Hildegarde of Bingen (who predates the VMs by several
centuries) and Agrippa (who postdates it by a few decades)
and seem to be valid candidates for being represented in the
Voynich. That does not mean I am certain about the above identifications.

I've also been looking out for a mustard plant. I wonder about
f65r, which has only a drawing but no text (apart from what
appears to be the plant name). Mike: do you have an Arabic name for
that to try and match?

(*)  Now neither Hildegarde nor Agrippa 
     mention this plant at all but both mention the water lilly
     (as I gather Dioskurides does). Also the Nymphoides does not
     figure in Dodoens, which is a massive work from two centuries
     after the VMs. Was the VMs author mistaken? Had he never seen a 
     water lilly but meant to draw one, and drew a plant he knew
     from his own garden?

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Fri Jul 26 12:03:45 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: reeds@research.att.com
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 12:03:45 +0000
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Status: OR

On 25 Jul 96 at 15:04, reeds@research.att.com wrote:
> Gabriel just asked how much of the VMS Petersen's copy covers.  Answer:
> the whole thing.  Petersen sketched the pictures, copied the writing,
> gave several copies of unclear writing, assigned code numbers to all
> the nymphs, etc, etc.  The trouble is that the xerox copies are a little
> unclear in places, in part because Petersen marked up his copy with
> colored pencils.

Could one fotocopy the Petersen original sketches with a coloured mask 
so we increase the contrast of the (let's say) blue pencil?
Are there many colours used?

Something else:
Many thanks to the comments by several list members. Rene and I are 
working on the new proofreading and a proposal will be written down. 
Perhaphs this should be posted in the list when ready, so we can have 
some feed back.

Regards,

Gabriel

 

From rand.org!jim Sat Jul 27 01:09:25 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: VOYNICH
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 01:09:25 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <31F4EC71.5BCF@Rollins.edu> from "TClayton@Rollins.edu" at Jul 23, 96 10:14:57 am
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TClayton@Rollins.edu recently wrote [in part]:
> I have noticed however that the symbols reffered to as 
> gallows never appear next to each other.  Does anyone know why?  Also 
> 

This fact, and the fact that so many pages begin with a gallows character
make me wonder if they might not be some kind of separators. For example,
maybe the apparent spaces are not really word breaks, but the gallows
characters are. That would mean that characters that always seem to 
appear at the beginning of a word (e.g. 4O-) or the end of a word
(e.g. D) might really be distributed more uniformly in the real words.
(Perhaps the sneaky Voynich scribes _always_ put a space after a D
just to make it harder to figure out).

Perhaps some other feature of the stuff between gallows characters is
what really matters, say, the number of spaces or the number of 
characters. (If character count is the significant thing, it could be
the explanation for all those tedious strings of I's and C's.) 

Also, if gallows characters are separators, the "long" gallows characters
that span several "words" make more sense. (Maybe they represent
matching parentheses?)

Anyway, here is another bouquet of probably untestable possibilities.

Bruce Grant

From rand.org!jim Sat Jul 27 13:01 EDT 1996
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Subject: Voynich copy by Petersen
Status: OR


Gabriel asks if a color copy of Petersen's transcription would be possible.
Of course it would, but only with considerably more work.  One could, for
instance, do to Petersen what ever we would wish done to the VMS itself
whatever we wanted with color scans, etc.  And the owners of Petersen's
papers would give permission.  But all such schemes require too much
organization, investment in equipment, etc. for me to be willing to
undertake alone.  To do the plain old B&W distribution all I have to do
is visit the xerox shop, and then the post office.

So far I have received orders from these people:

adamsd@cts.com                  Adams Douglas
rzandber@esoc.esa.de            R. Zandbergen
dalford@haywire.csuhayward.edu  Dan Moonhawk Alford 
Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk        Michael Roe 
landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk        Gabriel Landini 
kornai@almaden.ibm.com          Andras Kornai
kkt@saul2.u.washington.edu      Patrick Scheible 
rees@email.bih.harvard.edu      Dave Rees
evy@well.com                    Evelyn Pine
briansm@MICROSOFT.com           Brian Smith
bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu      Bruce Grant

If you think your name should show up here, send me another note.

I think I will visit the xerox shop a week from today, so it is not
too late to ask for copies.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Mon Jul 29 08:53:19 GMT 1996
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Status: OR

Dear all,

did the participants of the Ann Arbor Coffeeshop crawl come to any
conclusions about the behaviour/properties of the pigments with
time? Or does anyone else have any ideas? I am specifically wondering
how long the pigments stayed 'wet'.

On my Yale copy (which is rather dark), I can see ghosts of characters
and pieces of drawing all over the place. There are two cases:
most of the time you can see stains from the other side
of the same folio (as if the folio is transparent), but you also get
prints from opposite folios (usually very dark plant parts) which can
only be caused if the book is shut 'while the paint is still wet'.

These are a bit of a nuisance, but they also tell us something.
For example, I think I can demonstrate that the A and B pages were
drawn 'within the time it takes the pigments to no longer stain'.
Whether this means anything depends on the time needed for that
process. If this is a few days, it is a very interesting fact.
If it takes years, nothing is proven. Maybe the pigments still 
stain even now.

In other cases I have found ghosts of now missing pages or possible
indications of ghosts from other pages. This is very hard to judge
sometimes, because there are also many water stains, and the
photocopy quality is moderate to say the least. 
This should eventually be checked against the original. If I ever
get to see it, it won't be before next summer. Anybody going there
anytime soon?

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Jul 29 03:53:24 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 03:53:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9607290853.AA02053@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Jul 29, 96 08:53:19 am
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> These are a bit of a nuisance, but they also tell us something.
> For example, I think I can demonstrate that the A and B pages were
> drawn 'within the time it takes the pigments to no longer stain'.
> Whether this means anything depends on the time needed for that
> process. If this is a few days, it is a very interesting fact.
> If it takes years, nothing is proven. Maybe the pigments still 
> stain even now.

Are there any ghosts of _writing_, or only of the drawings? I can
concieve of the drawings being done in batches and then stacked up
waiting for the writing to be filled in. A set of drawings might have
waited for years to be written on.

-Adams

From rand.org!jim Mon Jul 29 09:10:54 0400 1996
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Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 09:10:54 -0400
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Print-through on the VMS
Status: OR


Folks

A few thoughts about staining and print-through

(a) if we have drawing stains and not text stains, maybe
    that is a bit more evidence the drawings were done
    first.

(b) indeed, if the drawings "waited for years", maybe
    even the text has nothing to do with the drawings,
    and is indeed a forgery.

(c) in regard to (b), note that labels alongside the
    drawings could *also* be forgeries, written with
    the text, so an importantb question is: when a drawing
    stains, does its label, if any, also stain?

(d) staining from adjacent sheets can confirm which sheets
    were adjacent to which

(e) and yes, there might be ghosts of now missing sheets

As a final thought: we should not assume the pigments are
uniform throughout the MS, nor their staining properties.

Yours
Robert

From rand.org!jim Mon Jul 29 13:43:06 GMT 1996
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Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 13:43:06 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9607291343.AA05458@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Print-through on the VMS
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Robert Firth writes:

> (a) if we have drawing stains and not text stains, maybe
>     that is a bit more evidence the drawings were done
>     first.

As I replied to Adams, I have only seen one case of print-through
of Voynich text, in a circular area which seems to have been
caused by some material (water, 'spyrits') wetting or greasing
the vellum after the writing was done (100% guesswork alert!)

> (c) in regard to (b), note that labels alongside the
>     drawings could *also* be forgeries, written with
>     the text, so an importantb question is: when a drawing
>     stains, does its label, if any, also stain?

I'll certainly have a closer look tonight.

> (d) staining from adjacent sheets can confirm which sheets
>     were adjacent to which

And I have seen only one suspicious ghost in that respect, in
the biological section (but I admit to having looked especially
in that area for not-matching stains).
I have seen stains from the last page of one quire onto the first
of the next quire. Also from hand 1 onto hand 2 pages and v.v (but
my capability of detecting hands is doubtful). Also one of the folio
numbers is copied onto the preceding verso sheet. 
 
> (e) and yes, there might be ghosts of now missing sheets

Two cases so far, the clearest one immediately to the left of the 
Sunflower. This could be a water stain too though.

> As a final thought: we should not assume the pigments are
> uniform throughout the MS, nor their staining properties.

There is a nice description in D'Imperio of the different 
materials used (as I am sure you knew).

Cheers, Rene 

From rand.org!jim Mon Jul 29 15:14:12 +0100 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
cc: Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk
Subject: Greek -> Arabic consonant loss
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 15:14:12 +0100
From: Michael Roe <Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Message-Id: <E0ukt5K-0003Bv-00@heaton.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Status: OR


I've been looking at the transliterated Greek words in the Arabic translation
of the herbal of Dioscorides. What is interesting is that the Greek ->
Arabic transliteration looses most of the vowels and a lot of the consonants,

The vowels aren't written in Arabic (except for alif), but waw and ya often
serve as place-holders for vowels in transliterated Greek words. Ya usually
stands in place of iota.

Arabic qaf mostly represents Greek kappa, but it is also used to represent
gamma, pi and phi. 

The net result of this is that if you take a Greek text and write it in the 
Arabic alphabet using these rules, you end with a text that uses ``too
few'' letters. Strangely enough the Voynich manuscript also has ``too few''
different letters. I wonder if there is a connection?

Mike

From rand.org!jim Tue Jul 30 09:30:32 0600 1996
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From: rcarter@nyx.net (Ron Carter)
Message-Id: <9607301530.AB18251@nyx.net>
Subject: Re: Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 09:30:32 -0600 (MDT)
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Status: OR

As to bleed, keep in mind that vellum is prone to inconsistencies
in thickness, etc. due to the process of preparing it to be written
on in the first place; so, alot of the bleeds might be happenstance.

But, sure, the "two pages touching each other" imprinting could have
some import.

-- 
Looking Forward, Ron | rcarter@nyx.net | Denver, Colorado, USA | 960730

From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 31 10:10:43 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9607310010.AA02999@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Found on sci.lang
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 10:10:43 +1000 (EST)
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Status: OR

Subject: 
	    Re: Fun with Language Identification 3 
		   Date: 
			       29 Jul 1996 17:28:28 GMT 
				      From: 
						  markrose@spss.com (Mark
						  Rosenfelder)
In article <4t9kni$a8p@fountain.mindlink.net>,
 <Keith_Swayne@mindlink.bc.ca> wrote:
 >Ok, who's got Fun with Lang ID 3?

 All right, here's one.  Ivan, hold off before answering :).

 Iresu yupi iresu sapo irespa hine okaan ike: kamuy kat casi casi-upsor
 aioresu.  Tapan inuma ranpes kunne cirikinka, enkasike nispamutpe
 otusantuka oukauyru otupusakur suypa kane assokotor mike kane anramasu
 auwesuye.  Inumakoca cituye amset amsetkasi aioresu.  Oharkisi un retanni
 tumpu asrukonna meunatara.  Nekonan-kur aorespa tumpu citomte ruwe oka
 nankor a aeramisikari rayap kewtum ayaykorpare.  Paknonekor amsetka ta
 tomika nuye ikorka nuye, tampe patek akosineaninantuyere.

 -------------------------------------------------------

 Well! Isn't that a credible candidate for Voynichese?
 Look at those repetitions!



From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 31 06:59:52 GMT 1996
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Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 06:59:52 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9607310659.AA28307@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Same plant repeated yet once more again
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Status: OR

Right.

I'm sure you all don't want to hear about the Nymphoides Peltata
anymore (the plant of f2v). Let me just add a few more comments
anyway.
The identification was based on the leaf and the flower. The root
looked like a waterplant type of root but I could not be sure it was
correct for the Nymphoides. It turns out that a colleague of mine
has the very plant in his garden (and complains bitterly about
its spreading like hell). When he described the roots, he accurately
decribed the drawing in the VMs. Sounds almost like an independent
verification of the theory.

I'm pretty confident that whoever made the drawing has seen an
N. Peltata from very close up (it's a fairly small plant)
and drew that. Only one thing: the N.Peltata is yellow, and
the VMs drawing does not seem to be.

Now one interesting aspect is that the plant does not seem to have
any known pharmaceutical property of interest. If f2v is an N.Peltata,
why is it in the VMs at all? I see at least two possibilities (always
assuming the VMs is a legitimate document trying to convey something):

- It is not about medicinal properties of herbs at all, but about
  other properties. What seems special of this plant are the things
  peculiar about water flowers: the way they multiply.
- The draftsman wanted (or was told) to draw a water lilly but did
  not know what they look like. He drew something he did know (and the
  leaves look the same to me). Water lillies are mostly white.
  
That for what it's worth,
Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Wed Jul 31 15:03:39 GMT 1996
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Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 15:03:39 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9607311503.AA03225@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
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Status: OR

Dear all,

as you will remember, Gabriel has announced his couragious
attempt to proofread the entire Voynich Manuscript transcription.
Whether he intended this at first or not: it is now also planned
to provide transcriptions for the missing parts. I have made the
silly mistake of joining him in this exercise.

Preparations are in full swing. Gabriel is now interlinearising
all known transcriptions into one huge file, and I have started
laying down the rules for our exercise. We seem to have reached
a stage of general agreement about these rules, but would like
to give everybody a chance to comment on these.
The document with the rules is about 6 pages of text and there
is a 5-page breakdown of all pages in the manuscript with 
relevant information (amount of text, labels, etc and previous
transcriptions).
If you are interested in reading this and to provide comments
and/or advice, please let me know and I'll send you one or both
files via E-mail (rather than clogging the list with long files
of interest to probably only a few).

We intend to start the real work as soon as our main source:
the Petersen transcription, arrives. We hope to have the complete
transcription with associated products (list of pages, list of
special characters etc) in about half a year from now.

Kind regards,
           Rene, also on behalf of Gabriel.



From rand.org!jim Fri Aug  2 22:46 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
Message-Id: <199608030248.TAA03267@rand.org>
Received: from fry by ns; Fri Aug  2 22:47:06 EDT 1996
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 96 22:46 EDT
To: <@proxy.research.att.com:voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Voynich Petersen Info
Status: OR


My Petersen xerox schedule has slipped a day or so.  My current list
of names is:

	adamsd@cts.com
	rzandber@esoc.esa.de
	dalford@haywire.csuhayward.edu	***
	Michael.Roe@cl.cam.ac.uk	***
	landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk	***
	kornai@almaden.ibm.com 		***
	kkt@saul2.u.washington.edu
	rees@email.bih.harvard.edu	***
	evy@well.com
	briansm@MICROSOFT.com		***
	bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu 	***
	dgd@cs.bu.edu
	olivier.clary@meteo.fr          
	djl@paw.montana.com		***
	jamesp@agora.rdrop.com 		***
	descarte@hermetica.com
	denstall@tyrell.net 		***
	davidmm@kerner.com 
	jk@noontide.demon.co.uk

If you think your name should be on the list, send me an email as
soon as possible.  I lack postal addresses for the starred names.
(At least my short-term memory lacks such addresses.  I know I have
sent mail to some of the starred people in the past, but it would
be simplest for me if you would just send me your addresses again.)


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Mon Aug  5 07:56:17 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: The VMS is in ... Ainu!
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 1996 07:56:17 +1000 (EST)
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Status: OR

You remember that strange language I found on sci.lang a few
days ago and that looked repetitive enough to be Voynichese?

The original poster of this riddle gave the solution:


 It's from a _yukar_ or verse epic, part of the Ainu oral literature.
Here's the text again (from Shibatani, _The languages of Japan_) and its
translation.

1) Iresu yupi iresu sapo irespa hine okaan ike: 2) kamuy kat casi
casi-upsor aioresu.  3) Tapan inuma ranpes kunne cirikinka, enkasike
nispamutpe otusantuka oukauyru otupusakur suypa kane assokotor mike kane
anramasu auwesuye.  4) Inumakoca cituye amset amsetkasi aioresu.  5)
Oharkisi un retanni tumpu asrukonna meunatara.  6) Nekonan-kur aorespa
tumpu citomte ruwe oka nankor a aeramisikari rayap kewtum ayaykorpare.
7) Paknonekor amsetka ta tomika nuye ikorka nuye, tampe patek
akosineaninantuyere.

1) My foster-brother and sister were raising me and I lived with them.
2) The god-built mountain castle, I was raised in the mountain castle.
3) The pile of treasure was heaped up like a cliff, and above it the
master's sword hilts crossed, and when the shadows of the sword knots
swayed, the walls glittered in gold.  How beautiful and how interesting!
4) In front of the treasure there was a specially made bed, and I was raised
on top of the bed.
5) Toward the left, a white wood room stood splendidly.
6) Not knowing what kind of person was being raised in the room so
beautifully decorated, I was struck with wonder.
7) And then, on top of the bed, I was concentrating on the carving on
the surface of the sword and on the carving on the surface of the
sheath.'

The imposing last word divides up as

a-  ko-        sine-an-i-    nan- tuye-re
1sg applicative one be place face turn causative
'making (my) face turn to one place', i.e. 'concentrating'

From rand.org!jim Tue Aug  6 03:30:18 0500 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Consonants
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        Since I have been making some posts to the group, I will introduce
myself.  I am an American and live and work in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
USA. I work as a chemical engineer for the state of Louisiana (USA) Dept
of Environmental Quality.  However, I have been interested in linguistics
since I was a teenager and have taken grad-level courses in it.  I learned
and practiced cryptology as a teenager from HF Gaines book, but am not up
to date on the developments since then.  I have also been interested in
esoteric thought off and on.  My native language is English, my good
foreign language is French (read and speak fluently), and my bad foreign
language is Latin (can make out short passages).  (No, I am not a Cajun; I
grew up on the hills and plains of Kansas - the Sunflower State!  ;-) )
Reading Terence McKenna's review of Levitov in Gnosis magazine re-aroused
my interest in the Voynich Manuscript and led me to D'Imperio's book. 
     Resources: D'Imperio.  Good Xerox copies of the Voynich images in
Newbold, Brumbaugh, and various others.  At home, a Pentium-60 PC; at
work, a similar machine and a network of DEC Alphas that includes a GIS.
Louisiana State University's library.  I have used various Fortrans,
Pascals, Basics, IBM 370 assembler, MS-DOS, Win3.1 & -95, and VAX DCL. 
    I have spent some time reading the archives, so at least I know which
end is up!  Now on the topic. 

*Why So Few Consonants?*

     There's been a lot of speculation on the small number of consonants
that our analyses show in the Voynich script.  Here are two ideas on this. 

*One Character as Modifier*

     If you consider that the number of Voynich characters may be quite
small (maybe 20 or less), you might well ask whether many phonemes aren't
represented by more than one character.  After all, most languages that
use the Latin alphabet represent some phonemes with more than one letter. 
English represents sh, ch, and th like this in a fairly regular fashion,
and many other phonemes with two or more letters in a much less regular
fashion. 
     Here's a good crackpot idea: Old Gaelic!  It was written in a Latin
alphabet with 5 vowels and 13 consonants.  Just about what we're looking
for!  An accent mark was placed over vowels to indicate a long vowel.  A
dot was placed over a consonant to indicate that it was "aspirated". 
"Aspirated" does not mean the modern linguistic term but rather that the
consonant is changed, often that a stop is changed to the corresponding
fricative (bh = v, ch = voiceless velar fricative).  In modern Gaelic an
"h" is placed after the consonant rather than a dot placed over it. 
Suppose that one Voynich character is the "h"?  Then we get a lot of
consonant phonemes with maybe half the characters! 
     I wrote the preceding paragraph with a very broad grin on my face,
for I know very little about Gaelic.  However, it illustrates my idea. 
Suppose that one Voynich character were used, like "h" in Gaelic, mostly
to modify the preceding character to represent a different phoneme. 
Suppose that this one character were used widely in that role, so that
8-10 different characters were modified to a different phoneme.  Would our
tests show that this one character was a vowel?  If so, that would explain
a lot of things! 

*Latin without Superfluous Characters*

     Here's another idea that's a lot closer to home.  The Latin alphabet
used for English has 26 characters, but the ancient Romans didn't really
use that many for Latin, and even some of those aren't really necessary. 
J, V, and W were added during the Middle Ages.  The Romans only used Y and
Z in loan words from Greek to indicate sounds not in Latin.  Y and Z could
probably be written as I and S, respectively, without problems.  X and K
were superfluous, since they could be written as CS and C, respectively. 
Eliminating those 7 characters leaves 19 characters, 5 vowels and 14
consonants, close to what we want, without introducing much more ambiguity
than the Romans had. 
     You could go even further.  You could eliminate Q by writing QU as
CU.  This would lead to ambiguity if you also don't distinguish the vowel
U from the glide V (= W in modern English); you could not distinguish CUI
(to whom) from QUI (who), for instance. However, it would probably work.
The Romans invented G by adding a bar to the front of C (there's some
ambiguity between Caius and Gaius), so perhaps you could eliminate G by
writing it as C, although that would be even more problematic.  Finally,
you could apply the idea in Gaelic and write F as PH and S as TH.  Given
the phonotactics of Latin, I don't think there would be any problem with
that.  Eliminating those four would get you to 5 vowels and 10 consonants,
at the price of considerably more ambiguity. 

     These ideas would explain the small number of consonants and
characters, though not the low entropy of the text.  I'm not yet familiar
enough with the VMs to know if any of these ideas make any sense.  What do
you think, Dr. Guy, anyone? 

Cheers,
Dennis

From rand.org!jim Tue Aug 06 10:50:00 +0000 1996
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Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 10:50:00 +0000
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This is my first post to this group so I will tell you a bit about
myself:  I completed an undergraduate major at UNC-Chapel Hill in French
with a special emphasis on medieval literature and history.  I started a
thesis paper doing a linguistic analysis of an Anglo-Norman text about
one of Charlemagne's pilgrimages (Le p=E9l=E9renage de Charlemagne, to be=

exact).  I never finished because I became more "linguistically
distracted" and studied Latin, Greek, Arabic, Russian, and Soviet
Georgian.  I had seen the VMS for the first time in 1988 at a friend's
house.  While doing an intensive language program at I.U. Bloomington in
Soviet Georgian in 1991, I happened upon these wonderful medieval
Georgian texts and was convinced that I had "cracked" the VMS.(Georgian
is totally unrelated to Russian and the script is not Cyrillic).  After
comparison, I knew that I was wrong in my initial assessment.  I took
the MS to several linguists and explored many possibilities which
included Crimean Gothic.  I am unfamiliar with the D'Imperio book so
what I am about to say may have already been discussed.  I did not
think, after my mini-research with it, that is was "Western" in the
sense that it could be Gaelic or anything like that.  I thought maybe
Slavic at first and still would not rule that out.
After spending a summer enlarging the letters, images, imitating the
letters myself, counting words, looking for diacritics, superimposing
it, and saying wierd little chants to it hoping it would tell me what it
was, I decided it was the clever scam of a madman or someone hoping to
please a wealthy patron of the time with his knowledge of encoding and
manuscripture...
I am interested in what anyone finds so please send me thoughts, ideas,
etc. and I plan on getting D'Imperio's book soon.
Thank you,
Sarah Beth Turner

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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: Transcription problems yet again (EVA, Currier, et al. long)
To: voynich@rand.org
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This "Gang of Four" (plus or minus one or two, I think there is Rene
Zandbergen, Gabriel Landini, Jim Gillogly, Michael Row, and probably
yours frogguily) has been churning yet another transcription alphabet
(which see below). In the process, I mentioned: "What concerns me is
that this system (EVA = European Voynich Alphabet, but I suppose it
really mean Eva as in "naked nymph")... all right then, what concerns me
is that there is no convenient way of representing the very common
weirdo which is in Frogguy <it> and which occurs often with intruding
gallows". Rene Zandbergen asked me: "does <i't> occur at all? Judging by
Jim's list it does not." I answered "I'll have to look it up my copy of
Petersen".

Bingo! I mean, if we have to go back to the original to decide the
existence of a certain letter, the transcription system cannot be much
good, can it?

It did not take me long, flipping through, to find the first occurrence
of <i't> in Petersen. Folio 20v, line 11, there is a word that would be
in Frogguy <4oqpi'tc9> (or, more precisely: <4oqpi+tc9>)

As I was flipping through, I noticed several weirdoes. Petersen is good,
because he often points them out, with a (sic) in the margin or
sometimes a question mark. I noticed quite a few occurrences of a
variant of <ct> (Currier <S>, FSG <T>), in which the left half (Frogguy
<c>) is not like a "c" but like a Greek "tau" (Folio 4r, line 10; 4v,
line 2; 5v, line 4; 15v lines 3 and 11; then I stopped taking notes of
it).

And that is not all. On 3r line 16, there is a <ct> with an intruding
half gallows, which occurs again on 7v, line 17 (this very weird weirdo
is not in Jim's list). Petersen cross- referenced them! (Yes, Petersen
is *good*, I say forget the Yale overpriced, strings attached, poor
quality copy). Then on 5v, line 2, there is something that can only be
described as Frogguy <c'9>. I suspect this <c'> is a way of writing <s>
(Currier and FSG <2>), but can we really be sure? All the more so that,
on line 3, there is something that is clearly <4'o>, that is, <4> with
the same plume as <c't> (Currier <Z>, FSG <S>).

I also noticed that such compounds as <c*tt>, in which * is one of the
four gallows, are fairly common (there is no convenient way of
representing them in Currier, FSG, or EVA).

Below are my first thoughts, and suggestions, about EVA. But
now, I do not think that this is going to work at all. So, after that
(long) bit on EVA, I have appended other suggestions, quite half-baked.

------------------------------------------------------------
My thoughts about EVA.

First some comments about the respective disadvantages of Currier and
Frogguy. Some Currier letters almost certainly represent two or more
Voynich letters (1, 0, L, 5, respectively Frogguy  iiix, iii2, iiig,
iiiig). Some Frogguy groups of two letters or more certainly represent a
single Voynich letter (all the gallows: qp, qj, lp, lj; perhaps ct with
intruding gallows; certainly ct, c't, iv, cg, ig; probably iv, iiv). In
this Currier is a bit like the Greek alphabet some letters of which
represent a cluster of two (psi =  ps, xi = ks, zeta = sd), Frogguy is
more like our European alphabets in which two, even three letters, are
used to represent a single sound (Welsh and German ch, represented by
c'h in Breton, Welsh dd = soft English th,  German sch = French ch =
Portuguese x = Italian sc(i) = Dutch sj, French and Italian gn = Spanish
n-tilde = Portuguese nh, etc.)

Second, some Voynich letters are very rare: the picnic table, the
Chinese hat, the reversed y, the squashed out z, the Chinese hat in a
corner.

Third, the EVA attempts to remedy the disadvantages of Currier and
Frogguy, while ensuring pronounceability by resorting only to
alphabetical letters. This rules out numerical and punctuation
transcription symbols such as the Currier digits from 0  to 9, and the
Frogguy ' ^ and &, and the advanced Frogguy + " ) - , etc.

Now, the five main "weirdoes", i.e. the picnic table and its four
friends (in Frogguy: n, y, ^, k, y and z) are rare, and occur in special
contexts: the "calendar" or "astronomical" pages. I think it is a waste
of alphabetical letters to represent them by letters. Digits, or symbols
like dollar, pound, percent, etc. would do nicely (see my suggestions at
the end).

We are left with the task of accounting for 35 letters of EVA. Of those,
nine are almost certainly groups of two and more letters: Currier G, H,
1, T, U,  0,  K, L, 5 (Frogguy ix, iix, iiix,  i2, ii2, ii2, iig, iiig,
iiiig). This leaves us with 26 letters to be accounted for with... 26
letters! (Is this luck, or design?)

EVA uses multiple letters (im, iim) to represent Currier N and M
(Frogguy iv and iiv) which, I think, are almost certainly single
letters.

A transcription system ought to be kept simple and easy to remember. I
still hold that this is best done by selecting Roman letters that look
most like Voynich letters.

With all those things in mind,  and after several hours with pencil and
eraser (much erasing!), here are my suggestions, EVA letter by EVA
letter. (Currier in parentheses, FSG in square brackets, Frogguy in
wedge brackets).

(A) [A] <a> EVA a
(C) [C] <c> EVA e
(I) [I] <i> EVA i
(O) [O] <o> EVA o      Yes, all wise choices.

(4) [4] <4> EVA q      Yes. q does look like the Voynich letter.
(8) [8] <8> EVA d      No. I favour b instead because the Voynich letter
                       looks like the digit 8 or like a capital B, and
                       because,  below, I suggest that d be used for
                       (Z) [S] <c't>
(E) [E] <x> EVA l      No. Let us stick to either Currier and FSG, or to
                       to  Frogguy. There is no gain in introducing
                       another transcription letter. The Voynich
                       letter looks like a lowercase  e or x, so
                       Currier, FSG, and Frogguy transcriptions are
                       appropriate. But, as EVA (wisely) uses e for
                       (C) [C] <c>, that leaves us with x. So I propose
                       x (even though I suspect that this letter is in
                       fact... u!)
(2) [2] <s> EVA z
(R) [R] <2> EVA r      I am almost certain that those two letters are
                       variants of the same letter. Because the first
                       one looks like a mirror-image of s, and the
                       second one has sharp angles (like z), I suggest
                       instead: (2) [2] <s> EVA s
                                (R) [R] <2> EVA z

(S) [T] <ct>  EVA s
(Z) [S] <c't> EVA c    These two gave me a lot of thinking, with much
                       use of pencil and eraser! I suggest instead t and
                       d, for the following reasons: <ct> is identical
                       to the letter t in several medieval scripts;
                       <c't> can be seen as a variant of <ct>, and its
                       first half <c'> looks like an unfinished d; t and
                       d are phonetically close, as <ct> and <c't> are
                       visually close.
(D) [L] <v>   EVA m
(N) [N] <iv>  EVA im
(M) [M] <iiv> EVA iim
                      This is where EVA shares the disadvantages of
                      Frogguy.  <iv> and <iiv> are, I think, certainly
                      single letters, probably n and m. Here, FSG is
                      best: <v> looks a bit like a florid L, <iv> and
                      <iiv> like n and m with final flourishes. The
                      disadvantages are that this *consumes* three
                      letters of the alphabet, and we do not have many
                      to spare at all! Still, if we can manage to
                      accomodate them, I think that l, n and m would be
                      best.

The gallows:

(P) [H] <qp> EVA t
(B) [P] <qj> EVA k
(F) [D] <lp> EVA p
(V) [F] <lj> EVA b
                     I mostly favour FSG because Voynich [H] does look
                     like a capital H, [P] like a capital  P, and [F]
                     like a capital F. [D], which is taken by <c't>
                     looks, with a little bit of imagination, like a
                     hastily written K. Therefore I propose:

(P) [H] <qp> EVA h
(B) [P] <qj> EVA p
(F) [D] <lp> EVA k
(V) [F] <lj> EVA f

The intruding gallows:

(Q) [HZ] <cqpt> EVA th
(W) [PZ] <cqjt> EVA kh
(X) [DZ] <clpt> EVA ph
(Y) [FZ] <cljt> EVA bh
                     I propose two ways of representing these letters:
                     1. either double the gallows, or:
                     2. add a still unused letter (I suggest r)
                     Thus:
(Q) [HZ] <cqpt> EVA hh (pronounced ch as in Welsh or in Dutch) or hr
(W) [PZ] <cqjt> EVA pp or pr
(X) [DZ] <clpt> EVA kk or kr
(Y) [FZ] <cljt> EVA ff or fr

I do not think that the gallows occur repeated anywhere in the MS, so
there is no ambiguity. If they do, then we can represent them thus:
h'h (for qpqp), p'p  (for qjqj) and so on.

What are we left with to account for?

(J)  [K] <ig> EVA n
(6)      <cg> EVA j
(7)      <&>  EVA g
(9)  [9] <9>  EVA y

I would suggest EVA g, not y, for <9> because g looks very much more like the
Voynich letter. <&> is often difficult to distinguish from <ig> and I
therefore suggest that they should be represented by "similar looking"
letters, namely y and j. Because j is "narrower" than y, as <&> is
"narrower" than <ig>, so:

(J)  [K] <ig> EVA y
(7)      <&>  EVA j

However, this makes the common sequence <89> unpronounceable: bg. If we
use y for <9> to make Voynichese pronounceable, then we must use g for
<ig>. What should we do? I don't know, this is a difficult choice.

This leaves us with <cg> to represent. We have, left in the alphabet:
u, v, w and z, and, if we use reduplication for the intruding gallows,
r. Since a hand-written z with its loop looks best like <cg>, I suggest
we use z.

As for the sequences of double i's, I suggest that they be represented by
u, and triple i's either by iu or by ui, whichever you prefer (or even
by w, but that would make many letter sequences unpronounceable).


To summarize:

Currier  FSG      Frogguy        revised EVA
--------------------------------------------------
  4       4       4     4             q (pronounced kw)
  O       O       o     o             o
  8       8       8     8             b
  9       G       9     9             g (or y for pronounceability)
  2       2       s     s             s

  E       E       x     x             x (pronounced as in Portuguese,
                                         i.e. English sh, German sch)
  R       R       2     2             z
  S       T       ct    et            t
  Z       S       c't   e't           d

  P       H       qp    qp            h
  B       P       qj    dj            p
  F       D       lp    lp            k
  V       F       lj    fj            f

  Q       HZ      cqpt  eQPt          hr or hh
  W       PZ      cqjt  eQJt          pr or pp
  X       DZ      clpt  eLPt          kr or kk
  Y       FZ      cljt  eFJt          fr or ff

  A       A       a     a             a
  C       C       c     c             e
  I       I       i     i             i

  G       IE      ix    ix            ix
  H       IIE     iix   iix           ux
  I       IIIE    iiix  iiiz          uix or iux

  T       IR      i2    i2            iz
  U       IIR     ii2   ii2           uz
  0       IIIR    iii2  iii2          uiz or iuz

  D       L       v     v             l
  N       N       iv    iv            n
  M       M       iiv   iiv           m

  J       K       ig    ig            y   (or g for pronounceability)
  K       IK      iig   iig           iy  (or ig)
  L       IIK     iiig  iiig          uy  (or ug)
  5       IIIK    iiiig iiiig         uiy or iuy (or uig or iug)

  6       (6)     cg    eg            z
  7       (7)     &     &             j

Remain: v and w

The picnic tables and its friends. I suggest non-alphabetic characters:

                          Frogguy

  The Chinese hat:  ^        ^
  The squashed z:   ~        z
  The reversed y:   \        y
  The Chinese hat
      in a corner:  @        k
  The picnic table: =        n

I have used = for the picnic table because it looks a bit like it. But I
see that = is taken to mark the end of paragraphs. Perhaps / or ; could
be used, or = for the picnic table and / or ; for the end of paragraphs.
Or we could use one of the unused letters (v, w). For instance, we could
have w, which looks like a trestle, for the picnic table, and use v for
the Chinese hat, or for the reversed y.

I am still concerned about the inability of this alphabet to represent
Frogguy <it> (or <It>), with and without intruding gallows, which is a
very common weirdo. True, <it> appears to occur in almost mutually
exclusive distribution with <ct>, and is therefore probably a variant
of it. But the same is true of <s> and <2>, and of <cg> and <ig> (see my
old article in Cryptologia).

---------- end of thoughts about EVA ----------------------

Now, those thoughts were *before* I looked at Petersen in search of an
occurrence of <i't> (this morning). Since, and having seen so many
"weirdoes" unaccountable in EVA without resorting to a cumbersome
notation $nnn in which nnn is a 3-digit code of Jim's weirdo list,
I no longer think that EVA can work at all.

1. There are not enough letters in the Roman alphabet if we insist
   on  one Roman letter for one (presumed) Voynich letter. Unless
   we ignore differences which may be significant.
2. We don't even know what constitutes a Voynich letter. Some of the
   gallows could be punctuation, tones, diacritics (like umlaut, acute,
   circumflex), who knows?

I know that one weakness of Frogguy is that it resorts to several
letters to represent signs which are almost certainly single signs: the
four gallows (<qp>, <lp>, <qj>, <lj>), Currier <J>, FSG <K> (<ig>), and
Currier <6> (<cg>). Well, as I mentioned in my thoughts about EVA, lots
of writing systems do that: German sch is three letters for what is a
single letter in Portuguese (x), Breton c'h is two letters and a
punctuation sign for what is one letter in Polish (h), and so on. So
that cannot be much of a weakness after all.

The other weakness is the ambiguity in transcription: you can write <ct>
or <et> or <Ct> for instance, to transcribe the same Voynich sign
(Currier <S>, FSG <T>). But that is not ambiguity properly speaking.
Ambiguity is when a given transcription can be interpreted as
corresponding to two or more different Voynich signs. For instance, in
much of the FSG original transcription, <N> is used indifferently for
<iv> and <iiv>. Likewise, in Currier and in FSG, <ct> and <it> are not
distinguished. *That* is ambiguity. The problem with Frogguy is not
ambiguity, but multiple choices of representation. All right, perhaps we
can fix it...

Thinking back on the history of Frogguy, I see it as arising from my
trying to make the characters of my Voynich editor for PCs (VOYEDIT)
look as closely as possible like the Voynich signs. It is for that
reason only that I introduced the extra letters <e>, <d> and <f> and the
capitalization rules. We can entirely dispense with these three letters
and with the capitalization rules: they are only there for aesthetic
purposes for those who use VOYEDIT (how many? One and a half at the
most, I am sure!). Rather, we can put them to better use. As I was
skimming through Petersen this morning, and noticing those variants of
<ct> in which the <c> was not a c-like sign at all, but a Greek tau, I
thought that <e> could be used to represent it. As for <d> and <f>, let
us keep them in reserve.

The capitalization rule, I propose to forget entirely, and to keep in
reserve for yet undefined purposes, should we ever need them.


All right then. Now what do you think?




From rand.org!jim Tue Aug 06 16:06:44 PDT 1996
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Message-Id: <199608062306.QAA07481@mycroft.rand.org>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Voynich and Shaxicon?
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 96 16:06:44 PDT
From: Jim Gillogly <jim@rand.org>
Status: OR

I understand Don Foster's program "Shaxicon" will be made available to the
general population this year, perhaps around December.  This is the
program used to identify Joe Klein as the author of the hitherto anonymous
"Primary Colors" (he stonewalled until a graphologist also pointed the
finger at him), and to identify parts Shakespeare probably played in his
plays, based on which unusual words were used in which parts.

It will be interesting to point it at one or more transcriptions of
the VMs on a page-by-page basis, to see how different <it> thinks the
two or more different "hands" are.

	Jim Gillogly
	14 Wedmath S.R. 1996, 23:06

From rand.org!jim Wed Aug  7 09:40:54 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9608062340.AA08626@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: Consonants
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 09:40:54 +1000 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960806032811.5696A-100000@tyrell.net> from "Dennis Stallings" at Aug 6, 96 03:30:18 am
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> *Why So Few Consonants?*
> 
>      There's been a lot of speculation on the small number of consonants
> that our analyses show in the Voynich script.  Here are two ideas on this. 
> 
> *One Character as Modifier*

  One... or more! Such as h (in Gaelic to indicate a spirant,
  or in German indicating vowel length), and e (in German as
  an alternative to umlaut), etc.

> [Gaelic] a stop is changed to the corresponding
> fricative (bh = v, ch = voiceless velar fricative).  In modern Gaelic an
> "h" is placed after the consonant rather than a dot placed over it. 
> Suppose that one Voynich character is the "h"?  Then we get a lot of
> consonant phonemes with maybe half the characters! 

Well yes, and such things may also explain why we seldom find words
repeated where we expect them. For instance, in the "recipes", we
hardly ever find a plant caption in the text of the recipe. Why?
Perhaps because the spelling is eccentric. For instance, in Gaelic,
gh and dh represent the same sound, fh is silent, bh and mh both
represent v (sometimes mh adds nasalization instead, but not
always, chd is pronounced [xk], cn [kxr], and they could be just
as well be spelt (phonetically) chg and cr respectively. So there
are many ways of spelling a Gaelic word by sound. Perhaps there
were many ways too of spelling a Voynich word by sound.

The same is true of Modern Greek. In the Oakleigh shopping centre,
mostly Greek, I often Greek signs misspelt. Sure, because pronunciation
is quite predictable from spelling in Greek, you can read them out
correctly without any effort. Take for instance "eimai" (I am). You
can spell it eime, ime, hme (h =eta), umai, ume, hmai, and so on...
it is all pronounced the same: [ime]

> *Latin without Superfluous Characters*

[snip]

Yes.

>      These ideas would explain the small number of consonants and
> characters, though not the low entropy of the text.  I'm not yet familiar
> enough with the VMs to know if any of these ideas make any sense.  What do
> you think, Dr. Guy, anyone? 

Ah, since you take me to task!... I will plagiarize you, using Greek this
time. 

Once upon a time in Greek eta (H) was used to indicate the aspiration of
the vowel. The spritus asper and spiritus lenis actually arose from using
the left and right half of H to indicate aspiration or lack of it.

Now let's see how we can reduced the Greek alphabet. Theta, phi, chi were
aspirated t, p, k. Out with them, we can use tau, pi, kappa followed by
eta (H). Likewise we rid ourselves of psi, xi, zeta. Finally, we don't
bother distinguishing between long and short vowels, or perhaps we 
distinguish by adding H (like in German). From 24 letters we have
dismissed 6 consonants, and omega, keeping eta for non-vocalic, foul
purposes: remain 17 letters. If, by any chance, ypsilon had already
turned into iota in the pronunciation (and it did by the early Byzantine
empire), that is another letter that can be dispensed with. We are left
with 4 vowels! Alpha, epsilon, omicron, ypsilon (pronounced i), with the
sound of [u] spelt omicron+ypsilon like in modern Greek.

As for the low entropy. It is the second-order entropy that is low.
The second-order entropy is a measure of how unpredictable the *next*
letter is from the previous one. A low entropy means "oh, yes, I 
was expecting to see an ... following this ..., and there it is!".
The lower the second-order entropy, the more often your expectation
will turn out right.

Let me give you an example. In most Polynesian languages a consonant
is *always* followed by a vowel, never by a consonant. A vowel
is most often followed by a consonant, less often by a vowel or by
a space (or punctuation mark). 

Now, there are languages with this sort of phonemic inventory:

p 
t 
k 
m 
n 
ng (as in "sing") 
mb 
nd 
ngg (as in "finger")
th (as in "this)
l
r
ndr
v
y

Notice how b is *always* preceded by m, and d *always*
preceded by n, and h always by t, and g always by
either g or n.

Because the entropy is the same in either direction,
I would expect such languages to exhibit a low entropy,
especially if they behave like Polynesian. Perhaps
the language of the Voynich is something like that.
Even if it is gibberish, glossolalia, there is still
something to be learnt!

(BTW, that language with nng, mb, ndr, etc. is Fijian.
But it is spelt very differently: mb = b, ng = g,
ngg = q, th = c, ndr = dr, nd = d)


From rand.org!jim Tue Aug  6 17:15:34 0700 1996
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From: Brian Smith <briansm@MICROSOFT.com>
To: "'voynich@rand.org'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: a nice example of abbreviated latin
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 17:15:34 -0700
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Status: OR

Last night I read an article on latin paleography which included several
short examples of different medieval handwriting styles and I thought
that one paragraph from 14th c germany might be of some general
interest.  The shapes of the characters are not particularly reminiscent
of the VMS, but they have some familiar statistical properties.  My
transcription of the paragraph:

aque ut p3 ad 3m p3 id 7 sir ad 4m se
lra it sba no suscipit mg 7 mi9
item sbstancia non suscipt
hic auor ponit 5am ppite sbe dn8 q sba
no rcipit mg 7 mi9 tc rmo3 dum q
dcm e q sba no suscipt mg 7 mi9
po3 ai8 cde q va sba no mg sbstat q
aa ho rmo3 dn8 sic no d3 inti lra sd intt

And here is an expanded transcription that was in the article:

aque ut patet ad 3m patet per idem et similiter ad 4m sequitur
littera item substancia non suscipit magis et minus
item substancia non suscipit
hic auctor ponit 5am proprietatem substancie dicens quod substancia
non recipit magis et minus tunc removet dubium quia
dictum est quod substancia non suscipit magis et minus
posset aliquis credere vna substancia non magis substat quam
alia hoc removet dicens sic non debet intelligi littera sed intendit


Some of the things I found interesting:

- some characters are much too likely to appear at particular positions
in words
- a single character (3) is used to abbreviate several different (but
related) suffixes
- a word can be abbreviated in more than one way
- the letter s has two very distinct forms: the normal f-like form and a
word-final 8-like form
- if the paragraph was written in a simple substitution cipher, it would
be very hard to crack or even identify the vowels
- the words appear to be inflected, but are too short on average
- differences in the tails of the q's are used to show which q-word they
are abbreviating
- the double p on the fourth line is ligatured to the point of looking
like a single unique character, almost like a VMS gallows 
- word repetitions and near repetitions (not related to the
abbreviation, but interesting to see none the less)

Etc. No grand theories expressed or implied.



From rand.org!jim Tue Aug  6 21:33:27 0400 1996
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From: Karl Kluge <kckluge@eecs.umich.edu>
To: voynich@rand.org
In-reply-to: <199608062306.QAA07481@mycroft.rand.org> (message from Jim
	Gillogly on Tue, 06 Aug 96 16:06:44 PDT)
Subject: Re: Voynich and Shaxicon?
Status: OR


> I understand Don Foster's program "Shaxicon" will be made available to the
> general population this year, perhaps around December.  This is the
> program used to identify Joe Klein as the author of the hitherto anonymous
> "Primary Colors" (he stonewalled until a graphologist also pointed the
> finger at him), and to identify parts Shakespeare probably played in his
> plays, based on which unusual words were used in which parts.
> 
> It will be interesting to point it at one or more transcriptions of
> the VMs on a page-by-page basis, to see how different <it> thinks the
> two or more different "hands" are.

Jim,

The A and B "hands" show up so strongly even when using very simple clustering
techniques on single letter frequencies that I doubt this will help much. It
may help reveal *finer* structure, as several folks who have done cluster
analysis on the text (as reported to the mailing list) have found sheets
within the B text which differ noticably from the main B hand.

Also, if this is a word-based technique that brings us back to the 
question of whether the space is in fact the word separator...

Karl

From rand.org!jim Wed Aug  7 09:28:46 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9608070928.AA05519@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
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Dear all,

Jacques writes:

> This "Gang of Four" (plus or minus one or two, I think there is Rene
> Zandbergen, Gabriel Landini, Jim Gillogly, Michael Row, and probably
> yours frogguily) has been churning yet another transcription alphabet
> (which see below).

Let me hereby apologise to Jim G. and Mike, since they have been
bombarded with all this unsollicited mail, and are involuntary
listeners in this process.

>   Rene Zandbergen asked me: "does <i't> occur at all? Judging by
> Jim's list it does not." I answered "I'll have to look it up my copy of
> Petersen".
> 
> Bingo! I mean, if we have to go back to the original to decide the
> existence of a certain letter, the transcription system cannot be much
> good, can it?
> 
(comments about the quality and usefulness of Petersen omitted)

These omissions from the Currier and FSG alphabets have to be made up
for.
There are two alternatives: use an alphabet that allows anything
to be represented. Short of the Michelin blimp (or is that EVA?) on one
of the herbal folios, Frogguy seems to do that. Or else: use a list of 
weirdoes, which we intend to do anyway. Since the collected minds
of the mailing list failed to agree about which of the two is best,
we cannot hope to come up with the right answer between the two of
us. We will have the list of weirdoes anyway; it will be a useful
cross-reference (as illustrated by Jacques in his original note).
Whether we'll use Frogguy for the EVMT (why not nickname it the Landini
or (shudder) Zandini transcription?) or a new alphabet with only 
alphabetical characters is still open, and it seems clear that we
have to see Petersen first before we decide.
 
> I also noticed that such compounds as <c*tt>, in which * is one of the
> four gallows, are fairly common (there is no convenient way of
> representing them in Currier, FSG, or EVA).

I thank Jacques for pointing out the importance of these other
'ligatures', if I may call them the <I-> series and the various 
other ones that seem to occur at least as often as some of
the standard Currier chars.
His other useful comments on EVA are also appreciated and all will
be used to come up with a satisfactory solution (at least to some).

> Below are my first thoughts, and suggestions, about EVA. But
> now, I do not think that this is going to work at all. So, after that
> (long) bit on EVA, I have appended other suggestions, quite half-baked.

(long) bit snipped

Before going into details about Jacques proposal to use a reduced
Frogguy I would like to add that we totally agree that Frogguy has
the best representation capabilities (I think I said as much in a
post several weeks ago, before Gabriel came up with his plan).

> Now, those thoughts were *before* I looked at Petersen in search of an
> occurrence of <i't> (this morning). Since, and having seen so many
> "weirdoes" unaccountable in EVA without resorting to a cumbersome
> notation $nnn in which nnn is a 3-digit code of Jim's weirdo list,
> I no longer think that EVA can work at all.

EVA being really a somewhat modified FSG, the verdict is on all
alphabets currently in use ... :-)

> 1. There are not enough letters in the Roman alphabet if we insist
>    on  one Roman letter for one (presumed) Voynich letter. Unless
>    we ignore differences which may be significant.
> 2. We don't even know what constitutes a Voynich letter. Some of the
>    gallows could be punctuation, tones, diacritics (like umlaut, acute,
>    circumflex), who knows?
> 
> I know that one weakness of Frogguy is that it resorts to several
> letters to represent signs which are almost certainly single signs:...

I would make a difference between the case of lp, qp etc, which
occur together 99.% of the time and the case iiiv where iii is
followed regularly by other things.

> The other weakness is the ambiguity in transcription: you can write <ct>
> or <et> or <Ct> for instance, to transcribe the same Voynich sign
> (Currier <S>, FSG <T>). 

Not a major problem, if one makes a choice and sticks to it,
the same for the VOYEDIT special characters.

> All right then. Now what do you think?

1. Discusion on-going, decision pending :-)
2. I knew from the beginning, Jacques, that this was going to be your
   view :-). You do have some strong arguments.
3. I have a strong preference for an alphabetical transcription
   alphabet, pronounceable or not
4. Jacques, I'll definitely be in touch, without sending everything
   though the list
   
Cheers, Rene



From rand.org!jim Wed Aug  7 08:33:56 0500 1996
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Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 08:33:56 -0500 (CDT)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: Jacques Guy <j.guy@trl.oz.au>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Consonants
In-Reply-To: <9608062340.AA08626@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
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On Wed, 7 Aug 1996, Jacques Guy wrote:

> As for the low entropy. It is the second-order entropy that is low.
> The second-order entropy is a measure of how unpredictable the *next*
> letter is from the previous one. A low entropy means "oh, yes, I 
> was expecting to see an ... following this ..., and there it is!".
> The lower the second-order entropy, the more often your expectation
> will turn out right.

	I understand this.  However, this brings up something I've been
wondering about.  Here and elsewhere, you've given many examples of
languages that have low second-order entropies due to restrictive
phonotactics and low phonemic inventories (Polynesian languages, Japanese,
ancient Basque).  However, looking at the various examples of
pronounceable Voynich, it seems to me that Voynich has somewhat more
consonant contacts and syllables ending on consonants than that.  And, of
course, the phonemic inventory is uncertain because of the issue of 2+
characters ?= 1 phoneme issue.  From my not-very-extensive examination, I
wonder if the low second-order entropy of the VMs text isn't due instead
to the large number of *longer* strings, say 3-7 characters, that are
repeated, and not necessarily to restricted phono- or graphotactics? 
	I understand that that would really be higher-order entropy, but 
we don't have reliable statistics on that.  Perhaps we will when you 
finish KINGKONG (larger MONKEY).  But what is your - or anyone else's - 
impression?  

	Also, since I haven't seen an answer to this yet: suppose that 
one Voynich character plays the role of "h" in the many European 
languages that you mentioned, the role of modifying the preceding 
character to indicate a different phoneme, but that it does it for most 
of the other characters and that no other character competes in that 
role.  Might our tests show that the "h" character were a vowel?

	BTW, I wasn't "taking you to task", but merely asking your 
opinion, as I am here!  :-)

Cheers,
Dennis





From rand.org!jim Wed Aug  7 13:45:57 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Dennis Stallings writes:

>                From my not-very-extensive examination, I
> wonder if the low second-order entropy of the VMs text isn't due instead
> to the large number of *longer* strings, say 3-7 characters, that are
> repeated, and not necessarily to restricted phono- or graphotactics? 

>From my probably-even-less-extensive investigations :-) I have been
able to see clearly that the distribution of digraphs is really off.
If you sort all single characters in decreasing frequency, and then
create a table with the frequency of each digraph, with this
sequence used for both vertical scale (first char) and horizontal
scale (second char), you get lots of 'gaps' in the upper half/lower left
which you do not for, say, a Latin text (good old vulgar bible
available on-line). 

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Fri Aug  9 12:00:55 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9608090200.AA11865@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Son of Monkey: Progress Report
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 12:00:55 +1000 (EST)
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Status: OR


(For those of you who might wonder what this has to do with
 the Voynich Manuscript: Monkey is the name of a little 
 program I wrote several years ago now and which can,
 among other things, produce on-screen concordances. 
 But Monkey limited by the 64k data segment limit
 imposed by the PC architecture, so it is pretty useless
 for the Voynich Manuscript which is more than 100K)

 Whew! The *BIG* hurdle is passed. I have just stuffed
 4 Meg worth of junk into my RAM, and checked that it
 was the right junk, and it worked, even in a DOS prompt
 window. At first, I had thought I'd make things easy for
 me, and not try and use extended memory, but then I 
 discovered this DOS extender for Turbo Pascal and Turbo
 C at garbo.uwasa.fi, called Swallow, by Thomas Kurschel
 of Jena in Germany. At first, it did not work with my
 automatically self-resizing arrays, but that was due to
 the Turbo Pascal memory manager (I should have thought 
 of it first). 

 I still have to rewrite Monkey from scratch, but this,
 the huge self-resizing arrays, are the core, and were the
 hardest part. 

 Now to get Daisy working under Swallow. Who's Daisy?
 It's my clever mouse interface (text mode). The
 mouse cursor expands and shrink intelligently to
 highlight the words on the screen (and if you don't
 have a mouse, you can use the numerical keypad.
 The 5 in the middle works like the left button,
 and the grey + key like the right button). 

 This is going to be *quite* a Monkey, you know. The Voynich
 will stand revealed! 

 No, not yet. I promise I will tell when you can start 
 holding your breath. But not now yet.


 PS. Why "Daisy"? Because it's a virtual mouse. I couldn't
 call her Minnie, seeing that I am a fan of Carl Barks, could I?


From rand.org!jim Thu Aug  8 22:56 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Subject: Voynich monkey
Status: OR


Jacques's recent post about a new monkey based on Daisy the mouse based
on Swallow prompts me to ask this group for info about a puzzle that
has been bothering me for a year or so:  What was the origin of the
topos of the Monkey(s) and the Typewriter(s)?  Authors, titles, dates
of publication, please.  Subsidiary questions:  what is the target text
the monkey (or monkies) are striving for (or striving to avoid).  How
man simians?  What is the point of the situation: to illustrate impossibility,
to illustrate improbability, or what?

Thanks in advance!


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Fri Aug  9 12:17:01 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9608091217.AA05140@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Plant names and folios
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Dear all,

I have now read a copy of the article by Sergio Toresella.
My impression (not a review, for which I would not be qualified):

Just translating it won't do: it has lots of very interesting
illustrations, all from other manuscript herbals. There are
three images from the Voynich, and these IMHO are among the better
drawn plants in the many illustrations of this article! Many
others are even more schematic or imaginary, with heads and
animals in the roots all over.

The idea of the article is that alchemists had their own
style of herbals, different from all Dioscurides derivatives
and other 'traditionals'.
They were more symbolic and many parallels between them
can be shown, but not with the Voynich (which the author 
includes in the genre). This still seems to be unique (even when
not looking at the script). Not so much is it a problem that the Voynich
plants are 'abstract', but that they are truly original. They can't
be traced to any other herbal, 'traditional' or 'alchemist'.
By the way: the main purpose of the alchemist's herbal was to
carry them around to impress the ignorant people. There the
Voynich seems to fit in.

A further point of interest is that all these alchemist herbals
were produced in Northern Italy, in an area including Venice,
mainly in the 15th century (he guesses 1460-1480 for the Voynich)
but also in the 16th. This seems to make the route of the Voynich
through Dee/Kelly to Prague somewhat less likely (but not impossible).
Now Giordano Bruno as the carrier of the Voynich is another 
possibility: his road from Rome to Prague was via N.Italy (1576-
1579), S.France, Britain (1583, no record of Dee/Kelly also meeting 
Bruno) to Prague (1588). Pure speculation and
I am sure there are plenty of other candidates.

I have learned a lot from the article, including that I still
know too little.
Oh yes, in a footnote the article mentions the activities of
the internet mailing list, very kind.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Fri Aug  9 10:31 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
Message-Id: <199608091436.HAA06455@rand.org>
Received: from fry by ns; Fri Aug  9 10:34:06 EDT 1996
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Subject: Voynich expert Currier
Status: OR


The current issue of CRYPTOLOGIA has the transcript of an autobiographical
talk by Prescott Currier.  At one time Currier was 50% of the American
Navy's cryptanalytic staff!  Unfortunately the talk does not mention the
VMS at all.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Mon Aug 12 12:33 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Subject: Voynich MS figures in adventure novel
Status: OR

The other day my daughter gave me a copy of 

Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone
Max McCoy
Bantam Books, 1995
ISBN 0-553-56196-0

which was an undemanding and sometimes enjoyable read.  The Fascist alchemist
Sarducci has stolen the Voynich MS and enlisted the help of morally twisted
Alistair Dunstin [a name with occult resonances!] to unlock its secrets.
The government asks Prof. Dr. I. Jones to foil the plot and recover the
book.  John M. Manly has a walk-on part.  One character says of the VMS:
"I examined it once, more out of curiosity than anything else, but couldn't 
make heads or tails out of it.  Don't think anyone could, not without the
proper key."  As the book progresses several possible keys are offered:
the pattern of colors used in illustrating the book, the use of a Shew 
Stone, and the intricate tattoo covering the back of the mysterious alluring
Alicia Dunstin.  In the end, after various chases & fights, justice triumphs
over evil. (For a small time & place, at any rate.)

In an afterword the author explains that he found out about the VMS via 
McKenna's The Archaic Revival, which led him to D'Emperio's [sic] Elegant
Enigma.

Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Tue Aug 13 09:40:45 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9608122340.AA15321@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: Voynich
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 09:40:45 +1000 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <320F7E38.2FFA@ibm.net> from "Jason Ellis" at Aug 12, 96 02:55:52 pm
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> T'VIETH NWEN AWNVIT FAIDAWN VAWN  AILECH ...    ...
> He who does not know the way, will ail for help.....


Levitov! This is straight out of Levitov's famed
decipherment.

What was the question, though?


From rand.org!jim Tue Aug 13 08:01:39 GMT 1996
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Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 08:01:39 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9608130801.AA23011@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Crenellations again
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Status: OR

Dear all,

you may remember how I was puzzled by the little castle on the upper
right circle of the 6-fold f85/86, and whether any hints about dates or
provenance could result from it?

I have now seen a picture of one page of what appears to be a famous
Hebrew manuscript kept in a museum in Sarajevo. I forget the name but 
it was something like Haggadah. It is an example of one of those things
that the Voynich is not: a richly decorated beautiful Ms.
On this particular page is a ME wall with bastions left and right as part
of the drawing. The battlements of the wall and the towers have the
same shape as on the VMs: not straight but with a V-shaped 'cut', like
a swallow's tail sticking up in the air. The bastion towers are round, and
also have minaret-like towers sticking up in their centres. 

The manuscript comes from N. Spain, dates from 1350 and originates
from one of the Jewish communities living in that area at that time.
Without going into too much speculation, we can at least say that 
the type of battlements drawn in the Voynich is not giving much
of a lower limit for its date. Furthermore it is not a style constrained
to Northern Italy.

The six containers (similar to the ones on the pharmaceautical pages)
in the centre circle on the foldout have also reminded me of minaret
towers as they have been represented in Arabic Manuscripts.
(That is, as far as I can make them out on my copy)

Then Jacques writes:
> 
> > T'VIETH NWEN AWNVIT FAIDAWN VAWN  AILECH ...    ...
> > He who does not know the way, will ail for help.....
> Levitov! This is straight out of Levitov's famed
> decipherment.
> What was the question, though?

Is this in reply to something posted to the mailing list? I have not
seen the original mail (I am quite paranoic about mail not reaching me
and I am sure our system is as buggy as anything). Ailech, ailech.

Cheers, Rene
 

From rand.org!jim Thu Aug 15 22:24:37 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: observation
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 22:24:37 -0600
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Status: OR

Hello everybody-
While looking over the "A person' and "B person'  portions of the MS, =
and transcribing some of the recipe pages, I did some reflecting on =
possible characteristics of the personalities involved.=20

A seems to be very neat and organized. His nib seems to be kept sharp, =
the symbols are well formed, he does not allow the pen to run dry. Lines =
are straight and neatly spaced.

B, (or is it C, e.g. f89) on the other hand, is less caring. He allows =
his pen to run dry, leaving "wisps" of letters. He does not keep his nib =
well trimmed, and his lines are not straight on the page or evenly =
spaced.  It may well be that some of the "sports" among the symbols are =
B's inattention/boredom showing up rather than actually different =
symbols. It is almost certain that B will probably have made more =
transcription errors from the plaintext than A, although there must be =
some errors in A's text as well (there do not seem to be any corrections =
in the text????)  Not a trace of white-out anywhere. :-)

Is there a photomicrograph of the pen strokes anywhere? seems that the =
tracks left by the nib could help identify the period or the type of nib =
used...just a thought.

Seems that either A is the originator, and B a hired copyist, or else A =
could not continueand B took over.  If the illustration styles are A's =
and B's, and not first sketched by the "originator", then I conclude =
that B is simply 18, in a hurry, and, to be crude, horny, accounting for =
the nekkid ladies.  ;-)

Best to all of you and hope you enjoy vacations.
Don Latham




From rand.org!jim Fri Aug 16 12:38:27 +0300 1996
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Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 12:38:27 +0300
From: Gadi Guy <izone@actcom.co.il>
Organization: interzone Ltd.
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Dear mailing-list subscribers,

I'm a computer programmer. I live in Tel-aviv, Israel.
While reading alt.crypt I stumbled upon references to the 
Voynich MS and I became very intrigued.

Surfing for more information, I managed to find
only one picture of the MS. 
(http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/mrr/voynich/documents/index.html)

>From a short glimpse at the picture, I got the distinct impression
that I've seen the script before. It looks bewilderingly like the 
scripts used in a region of Asia - the strech of Muslim territory 
from Pakistan to Iran or maybe even India.

The style of the ill. is to me reminiscent of Arabic or Indian art,
and the date popularly attributed to the MS doesn't contradict
this intuition.

The idea that the MS is encrypted seems very far-fetched to me.
When you write a message during war time or a letter to a secret 
lover, you may want to encrypt it mathematically.
But if you encrypt a book, how would a reader make use of it,
even if she HAS the key, without laboriously decrypting it,
by hand? Decrypting a whole book with even the simplest
cypher could take a year!

The chances of the writer using a simple substitution cypher 
is also very implausible, as that would make decrypting it 
very easy even according to 16th century standards. A more 
complicated substitution cypher would make the char. frequency 
chart of the text of almost normal distribution, and this isn't 
the case (as I understand from the FAQ).

I'm very curious and want to look further into the MS. 
Alas, I cannot go the Yale to look at it myself.
Is it possible to find a facsimile of the MS, electronically
or otherwise? Has the MS been scanned or digitized in any way?

Remarks appreciated.

Gadi Guy

From rand.org!jim Fri Aug 16 19:29:56 +0300 1996
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Does anybody have a frequency chart?

I might have a scheme for cryptoanalysis of
simple substitution ciphers without knowledge
of the plain-text's language or distribution.

Gadi Guy



From rand.org!jim Fri Aug 16 23:08:21 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
To: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Z-compressed files
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 23:08:21 -0600
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Does one of the Group know of a source of a Z decompressor that will =
work on a PC Win95 machine?

Also, re the recent transcription thread, I have 2 comments. First, =
pronouncability is NOT desirable at least from the perspective that the =
written and oral languages in almost all cultures are different. (If you =
don't think so, be deposed by a lawyer sometime and then read the =
transcript.)  Second, I think that all real transcriptions must be =
isomorphic to the original symbols. That being the case, script =
languages (or any computer language, for that matter) like AWK can be =
used to smoothly move from one transcription to another...
But to use these, it is necessary to move the VM symbols to ASCII =
symbols with any 1-1 correspondence. Seems to me (ok,ok that's three) =
that the real use of any transcription is to be able to easily use =
automatic analyses of one kind or another.

Now, the keeping of notes and other human-analysable information does =
need to be worked out.  A database with text and pictures by page has, I =
think, been proposed not too long ago (sorry, forgot who), and that =
might be a good start. <One> master file somewhere with common access, =
and a procedure for writing to it, is desirable, so there are not =
bunches of copies floating around. Unfortunately, this means =
realistically a "keeper of the file" who can grant write access, or =
include the contributions in the right place...quite a job.

My $.02

Don Latham

From rand.org!jim Sat Aug 17 11:17:11 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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Don and all,

On 16 Aug 96 at 23:08, djl wrote:
> Does one of the Group know of a source of a Z decompressor that will
 work on a PC Win95 machine?

Perhaphs you can try WinZip for WIN 95. There may be a verison 
somewhere in the net as it is shareware...

I don't know what is happening with your messages, but here I receive 
as very long lines wich are cut. (I managed to edit the file outside 
the mailer...)
Do you have a "wrap line" or line length option in the mailer 
programme? Or is it my mailing programme?? (Pegasus)

>Also, re the recent transcription thread, I have 2 comments. First, =
>pronouncability is NOT desirable at least from the perspective that
>the = written and oral languages in almost all cultures are different.
>(If you = don't think so, be deposed by a lawyer sometime and then
>read the = transcript.)

Maybe not all the members of the list have seen the draft of 
the new transcription (EVTM) project that Rene wrote down. He is 
on vacation now, so I am talking in name of the "project" :-)
The issue of pronounciation is just for "readability" purposes during 
the new transcription. So it will be faster and more accurate.
The new transcription will make possible to translate from the new 
EVA alphabet into the FSG, Currier and Frogguy alphabets. There is no 
intention to guess how Voynichese sounds like at all because as you 
rightly said whe do not what it is.

>  Second, I think that all real transcriptions
>must be = isomorphic to the original symbols. That being the case,
>script = languages (or any computer language, for that matter) like
>AWK can be = used to smoothly move from one transcription to
>another... 

We are using the excellent Bitrans by Jacques Guy, but everybody is 
free to use any language. Furthermore, Rene is working on C code to 
process the text in all sorts of ways (delete comments, delete 
specific symbols, make choices when more than one character has been 
read, etc.) Probably that would be the easiest way to have working 
programs for most platforms.
Some time ago I proposed the use Icon language (free and available 
for all sorts of computers).

>But to use these, it is necessary to move the VM symbols to
>ASCII = symbols with any 1-1 correspondence. Seems to me (ok,ok that's
>three) = that the real use of any transcription is to be able to
>easily use = automatic analyses of one kind or another.

Yep, this is exactly what we are trying to achieve with the EVA 
alphabet. There are of course a lot of problems with this, specially 
with the "weirdoes" which cannot be represented in all the alphabets 
(with the exception of Frogguy which can handle most but not all). 
However we are now thinking of using a look up table for weirdoes and 
when doing the translations, depending to which target language, 
write those in Frogguy or in that language if possible. 

>Now, the keeping of notes and other human-analysable information does
>= need to be worked out.  A database with text and pictures by page
>has, I = think, been proposed not too long ago (sorry, forgot who),
>and that = might be a good start.

I was about to start a labels database some time ago, but now I 
decided to start this more interesting task of transcribing the 
Petersen's hand transcription based on all the transcriptions that 
have been done and are available. 
I have produced an interlinear "file of files" called INTERLN.EVT 
which includes all the transcriptions and individual transcriptions of 
the VMS which were in machine readabel format.
We talked a long time ago with Rene of doing a "guide" to the VMS, by 
describing in readable text what is in each page. Mike Roe has done 
this very efficiently in a number of folios that he has transcribed. 
We will probably take the same approach in the new transcription.


 <One> master file somewhere with
>common access, = and a procedure for writing to it, is desirable, so
>there are not = bunches of copies floating around. Unfortunately, this
>means = realistically a "keeper of the file" who can grant write
>access, or = include the contributions in the right place...quite a
>job.

Yep, when the file is released (very soon, I just did a 
"pre-release" for corrections to a few members) I will be in charge 
of keeping the file updated.
Now that I mentioned this, the list will hear from Jim Reeds when 
this file is available for downloading (thanks Jim!).

I would like to invite everybody to download the file, when ready, 
and if anybody feels like a transcribing fever :-) then do 
transcriptions of the folios that have never been transcribed. 
Those are clrearly marked "{not transcribed}" in the file.
You can transcribe in any of the 3 common alphabets (Currier, FSG or 
Frogguy) and send the transcribed documents directly to me.
Perhaphs there should be some sort of agreement on who will 
transcribe what, so whe do not end up with 500 transcriptions of the 
same folio :-) 
We may discuss this in the list later.
I will add those newly transcribed documents to the INTERLN.EVT file, 
and make it available to everybody through Jim's FTP site.
We intend to keep the information that transcribers put in their 
documents (but please, no commercial adds! :-) and keep track of who 
did the transcriptions for further reference.

Then we will use this file to proofread and correct against the 
Petersen's copy (by 2 people, so there will be a 2nd proofreading as 
well) and we intend to deliver at the end a file of the whole 
transcription of the vms in EVA alphabet, and software to translate 
that into the 3 common alphabets.

Well this is all folks. I'll be away from Tuesday until Saturday, so 
I will try to answer all mail when I am back.

Regards to all

Gabriel 

From rand.org!jim Mon Aug 19 00:24:20 0500 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: Gadi Guy <izone@actcom.co.il>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: The Voynich MS - personal thoughts
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Welcome, Gadi!

> >From a short glimpse at the picture, I got the distinct impression
> that I've seen the script before. It looks bewilderingly like the 
> scripts used in a region of Asia - the strech of Muslim territory 
> from Pakistan to Iran or maybe even India.

This sounds interesting!  Could you name some examples of the 
languages/scripts you have in mind? 
 
> The style of the ill. is to me reminiscent of Arabic or Indian art,
> and the date popularly attributed to the MS doesn't contradict
> this intuition.

This also is interesting!  Could you mention some books that would show 
examples of the styles you have in mind?
 
> I'm very curious and want to look further into the MS. 
> Alas, I cannot go the Yale to look at it myself.
> Is it possible to find a facsimile of the MS, electronically
> or otherwise? Has the MS been scanned or digitized in any way?

You can write to Yale for a microfilm or paper copy.  Write to:

Robert Babcock
c/o Beinecke Rare Book Library
1603a Yale Station
New Haven, CT  06520

That costs about 40 US$.  Our leader Jim Reeds also just made Xerox 
copies of a hand copy of the manuscript made by Father Theodore Petersen 
in the 30's and 40's.  (There are legal problems with full use of the 
Yale copy.)  I don't know whether Jim made any extra copies; you could ask.
Jim Reeds E-mail address is reeds@research.att.com  .  

For statistics, you can get the mailing list archives at:
http://netlib.bell-labs.com/math/people/reeds/voynich.html
You can get all significant information about the VMs on the Internet 
through this page.  There is information here on the various 
transcriptions that have been undertaken.  

Also, an excellent book (probably the best ever published) is:
D'Imperio, M. E. ``The Voynich Manuscript: An elegant enigma''
ISBN 0-89412-122-7 (library binding) ISBN 0-89412-038-7 (paperback?)
It is published by Aegean Park Press.  They're
at PO Box 2837, Laguna Hills, CA 92654-0837, 714-586-8811.  I don't know 
the cost.  It was published in 1978.  

Regards,
Dennis Stallings

From rand.org!jim Tue Aug 20 17:06:13 +0300 1996
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From: Gadi Guy <izone@actcom.co.il>
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[Message posted both to the Voynich mailing list (voynich@rand.org) and to sci.crypt]

Dear subscribers,

Reading in the VMS mini-faq that "low entropy" has been shown
to exist in the VMS, lead me to B. Schneier's 'Applied Cryptography':

1. "A homophonic substitution cipher is like a simple substitution
   cryptosystem, except that a single char. of plaintext can map
   to one of several chars of ciphertext. 
   [...]
   Homophonic subst. ciphers were used as early as 1401 by the Dutchy
   of Mantua."

2. "A polygram substitution cipher is one in which blocks of chars
    are encrypted in groups."

A skilled individual can learn to decipher these algorithms 
"on the fly" (even a medievil dude).

I can only assume that the cipher cannot be more complex than
these, because polyalphabetic and transposition ciphers are very 
difficult for an individual to decipher in real time, while reading
through a book, even with a lot of practice.

Both of the ciphers mentioned above, modify the ciphertext's statistics.
This can well be the reason for the "low entropy" mentioned in the mini-faq.

And now to the question:

Has this direction been explored? Do any studies exist?

Gadi Guy


From rand.org!jim Sat Aug 24 22:13:23 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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On 20 Aug 96 at 17:06, Gadi Guy wrote:

> Reading in the VMS mini-faq that "low entropy" has been shown
> to exist in the VMS, lead me to B. Schneier's 'Applied Cryptography':
> 
> 1. "A homophonic substitution cipher is like a simple substitution
>...
> 2. "A polygram substitution cipher is one in which blocks of chars
>...

> I can only assume that the cipher cannot be more complex than
> these, because polyalphabetic and transposition ciphers are very 
> difficult for an individual to decipher in real time, while reading
> through a book, even with a lot of practice.

This is a good point, I wonder, though, if the book was written to be 
read "on the fly".  

> Both of the ciphers mentioned above, modify the ciphertext's statistics.
> This can well be the reason for the "low entropy" mentioned in the mini-faq.

> And now to the question:
> Has this direction been explored? Do any studies exist?

Well, yes the entropy of the VMS (a few pages) is in Bennett's book, 
The other more interesting thing was done by Mary D'Imperio and it's 
available somewhere in the net (Mike Roe's website?) (on cluster 
analysis of the pages, I think) which corroborates Currier's 
discovery of the 2 languages within the VMS.
There may be more results in the past postings to the list available 
in the BIG and BIG2 files in Jim Reed's FTP site.
This makes me wonder whether the coding used in the MS is in fact 
ambiguous and will make any decipherment tasks more difficult...

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Thu Aug 29 08:04:09 0500 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: "'voynichList'" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: No Corrections?
In-Reply-To: <01BB8AF8.A5311380@mso2-119.montana.com>
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On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, djl wrote:

> symbols. It is almost certain that B will probably have made more 
> transcription errors from the plaintext than A, although there must 
> be some errors in A's text as well (there do not seem to be any 
> corrections in the text????)  Not a trace of white-out anywhere. :-)

	This is something that I have seen mentioned several times: that
there are no corrections in the VMs.  How do we know this?  Is this just
from examimation of photocopies, or from examination and testing of the
Manuscript itself, for scraping, etc?  Is this common, or ever seen at
all, in medieval manuscripts?  We do in fact see what we think are hando's
- inconsistencies in otherwise consistent patterns of orthography. 
	If there are really no corrections, and if one normally saw
corrections in medieval manuscripts, it seems to me like strong evidence
that the VMs is a conscious hoax.  It is too well organized, and there is
of course the presence of A and B, for it to have been produced in a
mediumistic trance.  It could have originally have been produced in a
trance and then copied, but then there would have been copying errors.  

Regards,
Dennis


From rand.org!jim Thu Aug 29 15:57:51 +0100 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: No Corrections?
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On Thu, 29 Aug 1996, Dennis Stallings wrote:

> 	If there are really no corrections, and if one normally saw
> corrections in medieval manuscripts, it seems to me like strong evidence
> that the VMs is a conscious hoax.  It is too well organized, and there is
> of course the presence of A and B, for it to have been produced in a
> mediumistic trance.  It could have originally have been produced in a
> trance and then copied, but then there would have been copying errors.  

I think that there is no evidence for being produced in a "mediumistic" 
trance, since it was clearly "drawn" first and written later.
Quite a trance session, to fill 116 folios! :-)

One must have a proof that it is "nonsese", and so far I have not seen any.
I agree that there seem to be no corrections.
Or perhaps, it has errors which are not corrected, or the book was 
written but read very few times and therefore there was little chance for 
being corrected. 
I think than the hoax theory has very little base... we just do not know 
whether it says anything or not.
For a hoax, it would probably be enough with a 5 page MS that included a 
map of some sort, rather than 116 folios.

About A and B, I think (although I do not have any evidence either) that 
it is probable that the encoding involves "letters" and "syllabes", some 
people may find easier to encode certain syllabes than others, and 
therefore the differences. This, I presume, is a difficult problem to 
tackle (although I am not cryptologist or linguistic).
Perhaphs, the efforts should go to decipher A or B pages only...

Would the same analysis that Currier, and later D'Imperio did find more 
than 2 languages in any other lengthy text?

regards,
Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Sun Sep  1 12:07:46 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: Total insanity
To: voynich@rand.org
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A correspondant on Voynich-unrelated matters tells me about
this Web page:

http://www.islandnet.com/~edonon

It's fully unhinged (completement de'jante' we say in my 
lingo).

Pity the author does not know about the VMS! My theories
of it being Aztec, Ancient Basque, Old Polynesian, even
Proto-Klingon, are tame compared to his!

Well worth a visit.


From rand.org!jim Mon Sep  2 16:13:39 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: Brian Smith <briansm@microsoft.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 16:13:39 +0000
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On  6 Aug 96 at 17:15, Brian Smith wrote:
> Last night I read an article on latin paleography which included several
> short examples of different medieval handwriting styles and I thought
> that one paragraph from 14th c germany might be of some general
> interest
:
> aque ut p3 ad 3m p3 id 7 sir ad 4m se
> lra it sba no suscipit mg 7 mi9
> item sbstancia non suscipt
> hic auor ponit 5am ppite sbe dn8 q sba
> no rcipit mg 7 mi9 tc rmo3 dum q
> dcm e q sba no suscipt mg 7 mi9
> po3 ai8 cde q va sba no mg sbstat q
> aa ho rmo3 dn8 sic no d3 inti lra sd intt
> 
> And here is an expanded transcription that was in the article:
> 
> aque ut patet ad 3m patet per idem et similiter ad 4m sequitur
> littera item substancia non suscipit magis et minus
> item substancia non suscipit
> hic auctor ponit 5am proprietatem substancie dicens quod substancia
> non recipit magis et minus tunc removet dubium quia
> dictum est quod substancia non suscipit magis et minus
> posset aliquis credere vna substancia non magis substat quam
> alia hoc removet dicens sic non debet intelligi littera sed intendit

I remember mentioning here to the list that the distribution of word 
lengths in either FSG or Currier's alphabets is quite different than 
a sample of Latin (vulgate bible).
I passed around a few graphs during the "European Voynich 
Conference", so that is what you missed (apart from the chinese 
food ;-)
While the Latin has a peak at length=2 and 5 and then a decaying 
tail, the vms shows a much higher peak at 4, with a very short tail 
(there are very few words with lengths>8.

I noticed the "5am". What is that? Any connection with our "8am"??! 
Also see that there is ambiguity "non" is either written "non" or 
"no". I wonder if this is what makes the differnces between A and B, 
each author uses the shorthand that pleased him/her.

cheers,

Gabriel


From rand.org!jim Mon Sep  2 23:49:45 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: a nice example of abbreviated latin
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 23:49:45 -0400 (EDT)
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4OFAM OPAM Gabriel Landini 8AM OPS9:
> While the Latin has a peak at length=2 and 5 and then a decaying 
> tail, the vms shows a much higher peak at 4, with a very short tail 
> (there are very few words with lengths>8.

I also recently graphed word length distributions for VM text, several 
English samples (KJV Bible text) and several samples of classical
Latin.

The Latin samples all showed two peaks, a small one around length = 2
and a higher one around length 5-7. The English and the VM texts
showed a single very high peak at length = about 3.5.

I suspect that the lower Latin peak represents particles like "ut", 
"ad", "ab" etc. and that the other peak represents frequent words
with their most common endings. In the English text, the single peak
is higher but about 2.5 characters to the left. This suggests that 
the difference is the (almost) complete lack of endings in English,
so that the average word would be shorter, while the same root used
differently would count as one word in English but several in Latin.

If this reasoning makes sense, it suggests to me that the underlying VM
language (if that's what it is) is not highly inflected.

Bruce Grant (bgrant@umcc.ais.org)

From rand.org!jim Tue Sep  3 09:42:40 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@mail-gw.esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Bruce Grant wrote:

> 4OFAM OPAM Gabriel Landini 8AM OPS9:
> > While the Latin has a peak at length=2 and 5 and then a decaying 
> > tail, the vms shows a much higher peak at 4, with a very short tail 
> > (there are very few words with lengths>8.
> 
> I also recently graphed word length distributions for VM text, several 
> English samples (KJV Bible text) and several samples of classical
> Latin.
> 
> The Latin samples all showed two peaks, a small one around length = 2
> and a higher one around length 5-7. The English and the VM texts
> showed a single very high peak at length = about 3.5.
> 
> I suspect that the lower Latin peak represents particles like "ut", 
> "ad", "ab" etc. and that the other peak represents frequent words
> with their most common endings. In the English text, the single peak
> is higher but about 2.5 characters to the left. This suggests that 
> the difference is the (almost) complete lack of endings in English,
> so that the average word would be shorter, while the same root used
> differently would count as one word in English but several in Latin.
> 
> If this reasoning makes sense, it suggests to me that the underlying VM
> language (if that's what it is) is not highly inflected.

This reasoning makes a lot of sense to me. Also, we don't see a
clear inflection scheme in the Voynich text (but then we can't know
for sure that we are looking in the right place).

Of course we are all aware that the above depends on the uncertain
assumption that the spaces are indeed significant word spaces.
But one can at least say that the above result does not add any
weight to the 'ignore the spaces' school of thought.

Maybe two things should be tried, one easy, one difficult.
The easy one is to repeat the exercise on plain text (Latin, English,
etc) with all the vowels dropped. The difficult one: try it on
computer-readable glossolalia (is that glyphtoglossia?). I don't
think anybody has got any of that. And computer-generated does not
count :-)

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Tue Sep  3 07:32:03 0500 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: No Corrections?
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On Thu, 29 Aug 1996, Gabriel Landini wrote:

> I agree that there seem to be no corrections.
> Or perhaps, it has errors which are not corrected, or the book was 
> written but read very few times and therefore there was little chance for 
> being corrected. 
> I think than the hoax theory has very little base... we just do not know 
> whether it says anything or not.

	I over-reacted here.  I do not think that the VMs is a hoax, 
either.  If this were a modern document, the absence of corrections would 
be good evidence of a hoax.  For a medieval document, I do not know.  I 
do think that the absence of corrections is a significant fact that has 
not received enough attention.
	Once again:  how do we know that there are no corrections?  Is 
this through examination of photocopies?  Is it through examination of 
the VMs itself?  If so, is this by the naked eye, through microscope, IR, 
UV, etc.?

> About A and B, I think (although I do not have any evidence either) that 
> it is probable that the encoding involves "letters" and "syllabes", some 
> people may find easier to encode certain syllabes than others, and 
> therefore the differences. This, I presume, is a difficult problem to 
> tackle (although I am not cryptologist or linguistic).
> Perhaphs, the efforts should go to decipher A or B pages only...

	This is what I think, too.  However, there is a problem.  The low 
second-order entropy of the Voynich text is well-known.  Any 
multiple-alternative system would in general *increase* the entropy of 
the text, certainly with respect to a crypto-system that was similar but 
did not allow multiple alternatives.  
	Could there be a system that used only a limited pool of 
digraphs, and therefore produced ciphertext with low second-order 
entropy, but allowed operator choice on a higher level, and therfore 
generated the differences in character frequencies, etc., that we see 
between Voynich A & B?  Is such a system possible?  I don't know.  I have 
an idea that I'm working on.

Regards, Dennis


From rand.org!jim Tue Sep  3 14:08:28 +0100 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: No Corrections?
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On Tue, 3 Sep 1996, Dennis Stallings wrote:

> 	This is what I think, too.  However, there is a problem.  The low 
> second-order entropy of the Voynich text is well-known.  Any 
> multiple-alternative system would in general *increase* the entropy of 
> the text, certainly with respect to a crypto-system that was similar but 
> did not allow multiple alternatives.

Good point. Does anybody know what happens if on top of that the original 
text is redundant in the construction? (poor description, but imagine:

This plant is for this
this plant is for that
this plant is for this and that
Drink the juice of this plant at 8AM :-)

I mean with a small vocabulary.
What about the entropy of such redundant texts? Let's not forget that the 
vms may be more of a recipes book than "discourse".
 
regards to all 
Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Tue Sep  3 14:53:40 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@mail-gw.esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Gabriel and Dennis have been exchanging thoughts about the 
absence of corrections in the Ms.

Dennis started off:

> 	This is something that I have seen mentioned several times: that
> there are no corrections in the VMs.  How do we know this?  Is this just
> from examimation of photocopies, or from examination and testing of the
> Manuscript itself, for scraping, etc?  Is this common, or ever seen at
> all, in medieval manuscripts?

and later:

> 	Once again:  how do we know that there are no corrections?  Is 
> this through examination of photocopies?  Is it through examination of 
> the VMs itself?  If so, is this by the naked eye, through microscope, IR, 
> UV, etc.?

>From what I remember reading various sources, the absence of 'erasures'
was noted by all who have visually inspected the Ms. i.e., without
going to physical or chemical tests. I always had the impression that in 
other Mss. erasures were easily visible. In fact, in the Voynich Ms.
there is one visible erasure/correction: whoever wrote the folio
numbers made a mistake writing an 8 for a 9 (or v.v.), erased it and 
wrote the correct nr. next to it. Sorry for not remembering exactly 
where but it should be easy to find.

> 	If there are really no corrections, and if one normally saw
> corrections in medieval manuscripts, it seems to me like strong evidence
> that the VMs is a conscious hoax. 

It is indeed one of the indications for a hoax. As always, however, it
is possible to come up with various alternative explanations:
- The text needs to be decoded to be read. The writer just did not
  bother to do that or had no time
- It was more important that the Ms. look elegant than be correct
- Various other techniques to indicate errors (e.g. put a 9 after an
  incorrect word :-) )
- If there is an error you just redo the whole page (which would explain
  why the drawings are so schematic :-). Anybody checked if the least
  elegant plant drawings are usually on the same bifolium?)

Gabriel also proposes:

> Or perhaps, it has errors which are not corrected, or the book was 
> written but read very few times and therefore there was little chance for 
> being corrected. 
> I think than the hoax theory has very little base... we just do not know 
> whether it says anything or not.

In many cases it was the exasperation of the decipherer-to-be to
lead him to join this theory, which is still a totally valid
theory that would explain a lot (but makes the whole thing at least
as mysterious).
  
> For a hoax, it would probably be enough with a 5 page MS that included a 
> map of some sort, rather than 116 folios.

I am not so sure about that. Manuscripts could be a lot longer than
116 folios. In order to really impress people, it had to be long.
It also (I imagine) had to be more than 'just another herbal'.

I hate to think the Ms is a hoax. It has such interesting features
that it would have taken an extremely clever mind to do it. There
are many 'rules' that make up the text, and all of them have occasional
exceptions. Another indication of 'language'. But again it is a valid
theory which cannot be discarded.

Then Dennis wonders about the low second-order entropy:

> 	Could there be a system that used only a limited pool of 
> digraphs, and therefore produced ciphertext with low second-order 
> entropy, but allowed operator choice on a higher level, and therfore 
> generated the differences in character frequencies, etc., that we see 
> between Voynich A & B?  Is such a system possible?  I don't know.  I have 
> an idea that I'm working on.

I am sure it is possible to come up with many simple techniques to
create such a feature in an encoded text. One thing though: we have to
wonder if the frequent words (8AM, SC89 etc.) always represent the
same word or not. Would a simple coding system that allowed a choice
for each character or every so many characters still come up with
such a word frequency distribution? Maybe so. I do not know...

Then again Gabriel:

>     Does anybody know what happens if on top of that the original 
> text is redundant in the construction? (poor description, but imagine:
>
> This plant is for this
> this plant is for that
> this plant is for this and that
> Drink the juice of this plant at 8AM :-)

If you then mix up the characters using some consistemt scheme: who
knows....

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Tue Sep  3 10:48:50 0700 1996
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From: Brian Smith <briansm@MICROSOFT.com>
To: "'G.Landini@bham.ac.uk'" <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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Subject: RE: a nice example of abbreviated latin
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>----------
>From: 	Gabriel Landini[SMTP:G.Landini@bham.ac.uk]
>Sent: 	Monday, September 02, 1996 9:13 AM
>To: 	Brian Smith
>Cc: 	voynich@rand.org
>Subject: 	Re: a nice example of abbreviated latin
>
>On  6 Aug 96 at 17:15, Brian Smith wrote:
>> Last night I read an article on latin paleography which included several
>> short examples of different medieval handwriting styles and I thought
>> that one paragraph from 14th c germany might be of some general
>> interest
>...
>I remember mentioning here to the list that the distribution of word 
>lengths in either FSG or Currier's alphabets is quite different than 
>a sample of Latin (vulgate bible).
>I passed around a few graphs during the "European Voynich 
>Conference", so that is what you missed (apart from the chinese 
>food ;-)
>While the Latin has a peak at length=2 and 5 and then a decaying 
>tail, the vms shows a much higher peak at 4, with a very short tail 
>(there are very few words with lengths>8.

This sample shows that an inflected language can have quite short
average word lengths if abbreviated.
>
>I noticed the "5am". What is that? Any connection with our "8am"??! 

"5" is not being used to abbreviate a word other than "five".  That is
just the number followed by a gramatical ending -- like the English
"5th".  

>Also see that there is ambiguity "non" is either written "non" or 
>"no". I wonder if this is what makes the differnces between A and B, 
>each author uses the shorthand that pleased him/her.
>
>cheers,
>
>Gabriel
>
>

From rand.org!jim Wed Sep  4 10:31:53 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
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Subject: No corrections!
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The 1950-something Norwegian expedition to Easter Island, headed
by Thor Heyerdahl, came back with a few native manuscripts, many
of which are photographically reproduced in the hefty two-volume
"Reports of the Norwegian Archeological Expedition to 
Easter Island and the East Pacific", George Allen & Unwin, London,
1961, 1965. 

You already know what I am coming to, don't you? No traces of
corrections in those manuscripts. Some consists of lists of
hierogyphs with their meanings (copied from the Jaussen list),
some of hieroglyphs without any meanings attached, some of
texts in Pascuan (with a lot of Tahitian loans) written in the
Roman alphabet. But no visible corrections to speak of.
(I mention a smudge in my article on the Mamari tablet, which 
I take to be sign of a correction, but that's about all.
The author, at any rate, is easily shown to have started
*afresh* on a new page)

Frogguy (aka Jacques Guy in certain quarters)


From rand.org!jim Tue Sep  3 21:04 EDT 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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I just came back from vacation and found that the new location for
my VMS web pages is now working.  The URL is

	http://www.research.att.com/~reeds/voynich.html

The old ("netlib") pages might continue to work for some time but they are
no longer under my control & might be thrown away without notice.


Jim Reeds


From rand.org!jim Wed Sep  4 11:11:24 GMT 1996
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Dear all,

I forgot to mention this about the 'famous' snake or worm plate in the
VMS. While leafing through a copy of an early printed herbal (the Dodoens
I mentioned before, for those who are interested) I particularly
checked its tree pictures since the Voynich image could well be a tree.
Anyway, with enough imagination, one could consider some of
the apple trees as candidates. 
I turned the next page, and found what was called an 'Adam's Apple'.
For a moment I thought I had it: a snake near an Adam's Apple Tree.
But why two?? (Shades of Monthy Python).

I am happy Petersen contains lots of colour indications. One
day I'd like to see the original though.....

Cheers, Rene  

From rand.org!jim Wed Sep  4 09:59 EDT 1996
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Message-ID: <n1370292066.12877@artefact.qc.ca>
Date: 4 Sep 1996 09:46:52 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  Who's that girl in 
To: "Voynich List" <voynich@RAND.ORG>
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Dear all,

Just to change subject.... I am looking into the story in the series of =
circles
with a cute nymph (!) drawn. The list is aware each drawings could be a =
month
in a person's life. Thue the series covers little less than 30 years.

I have been trying to add up clues  in order to identify her. At such an =
early stage
I have already two hits. Could be a good sign, or bad one. A lucky guess =
or meaning
there is a ton of possible candidates...

Working on the assumption that this person has been crowned (Queen, there =
is ONE
drawing with a crown) and met a man some how connected with rome, or =
dressed 
like a roman soldier (there is one drawing of a man). I come up with =
this.

It might be useful after all since they BOTH come from Hungary. 
Yollande de Courtenay (1198) and Mary of Hungary(1370) and Queen of =
Hungary.

Mary is related to Yollande by about 5 generations. Each married a Holy =
ROMAN Enperor
quite early in their teen. This could explain the figure of a man in =
roman clothes after
some 113 months. Of course this is assuming the order of the folios are =
correct.  I am also
gathering "personal" information of these two to try and figure out why =
they would be so
special as to have their story written in cipher... 

Today it's obvious that the drawing looks like a ROMAN soldier, a Ben Hur =
look alike
or one of those caracters from Asterix... But to what point would that =
knowledge be
current in the middle age? Who would the writter have to be to know what =
a roman
would look like? One more clue in the pile.

There are still a few ideas I haven't yet had a chance to check. The life =
of the husband
of Mary (Sigismund) is quite interesting.... As soon as I have more =
information I will
keep you all up to date. 

I believe Hungarian has been mentionned as possible source language on =
the list before.
My knowledge of this language is VERY limited, but I understand it's =
quite "funny" and
interesting to a non hungarian. Does any one know Hungarian? Has there =
been any 
tests performed on hungarian documents to see if there could be any =
correlation or
similar peek in the distribution of letters/groups?

On an another topic. The idea of a special caracter to indicate a mistake =
is very
interestink9g as it could "mess up" the stats if the writter is prone to =
typos or not...

Does anyone know if such technique has ever been used before in another =
book? If the copist
re-wrote the whole page if there is one single mistake, why did they draw =
the plant
first and the text later and not the reverse? 

regars



From rand.org!jim Wed Sep  4 21:38:47 +0100 1996
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From: Martin McCarthy <marty@ehabitat.demon.co.uk>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Objet- Who's that girl in 
In-Reply-To: <n1370292066.12877@artefact.qc.ca>
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On 4 Sep 1996, Guy Thibault wrote:
> I believe Hungarian has been mentionned as possible source language on the list before.
> My knowledge of this language is VERY limited, but I understand it's quite "funny" and
> interesting to a non hungarian. Does any one know Hungarian? Has there been any
> tests performed on hungarian documents to see if there could be any correlation or
> similar peek in the distribution of letters/groups?

I know nothing about Hungarian, and even less about Turkic Runes(!), but 
I do have an old Encyclopaedia Britannica.  In the entry for the 
Hungarian Language it states that the Hungarians acquired a script which 
was related to Old Turkic runes and wasn't extensively used, but it did 
survive until after the Middle Ages.  An Alta Vista search for 'turkic 
runes' came up with just one match, which has an image of "A 6-letter 
Khazar runic word meaning 'I have read' on a document written by Khazar 
Jews in the early 10th century":
http://acad.bryant.edu/~kbrook/runes.gif

Given a couple of hundred years of modification, could that be (in 
Currier's notation): 4RFDNE or E2PIDX or some other variation?

Does anyone know of other examples of Turkic Runes, particularly if they 
are more likely to be contemporary with the Voynich MS?  (Whenever that 
might be!)  Do they look any more like Voynichese?  Or is this a complete 
red herring?

Cheers,
Martin
-- 
Martin McCarthy                 /</              
PGP key available.              \>\              marty@ehabitat.demon.co.uk


From rand.org!jim Wed Sep 04 17:20:30 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: Objet- Who's that girl in 
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Martin McCarthy wrote:
> An Alta Vista search for 'turkic
> runes' came up with just one match, which has an image of "A 6-letter
> Khazar runic word meaning 'I have read' on a document written by Khazar
> Jews in the early 10th century":
> http://acad.bryant.edu/~kbrook/runes.gif

> Does anyone know of other examples of Turkic Runes, particularly if the=
y
> are more likely to be contemporary with the Voynich MS?  (Whenever that
> might be!)  Do they look any more like Voynichese?  Or is this a comple=
te
> red herring?

You should have searched on "hungarian writing" which immediately hit on:

	http://exo.com/%7Efredh/alphabet.htm

Which has the complete runic alphabet, pronounciation guide and some inte=
resting history. In part:

"The Hungarians of the time of their settlement and their eastern relativ=
es used a common=20
alphabet called in Hungarian "rov=E1s". The uniqueness of this type of wr=
iting is that it=20
enables the Hungarian language to be represented in a phonetic way withou=
t the need of=20
accent marks or combination letters as is necessary with the modified Lat=
in alphabet even=20
in English. Every Hungarian sound has its own separate letter represented=
 by a symbol which=20
with a little imagination looks like a recognizable basic item that start=
s with that letter.=20
They also had special numeric symbols much like the Roman numerals, excep=
t closer to its=20
earlier Etruscan form."

"The Hungarians in their ancestral lands were mentioned by the geographer=
 Ibn Rusta to write=20
down the dowry of the bride given by her father to the father of the groo=
m. Much of this=20
ancient writing was lost in Hungary, although in isolated areas it was us=
ed for a long time.=20
It was lost because the material eventually perished, and also because St=
.Steven, king of=20
Hungary passed laws against it due to papal pressure."=20

"Many of the people and the Hungarian Christian priests understood its us=
e and many=20
remnants were found in church beams and walls, covered over to hide them.=
 However=20
the foreign priest burned and destroyed them wherever they found them. It=
 survived=20
the longest in the more isolated areas of Transylvania among the Sz=E9kel=
y Hungarians."=20

Sounds like a ripe environment for devising a different script. Perhaps V=
oynichese?
The Hungarian Runic alphabet itself is very angular, perhaps a new script=
 was devised=20
for writing on parchment instead of carving on wood?

-Adams

From rand.org!jim Thu Sep  5 09:54:09 +0200 1996
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Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 09:54:09 +0200
From: CLARY Olivier <Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr>
Message-Id: <199609050754.AA29422@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Objet- Who's that girl in 
Status: OR

Martin McCarthy <marty@ehabitat.demon.co.uk>:
> Does anyone know of other examples of Turkic Runes, particularly if they 
> are more likely to be contemporary with the Voynich MS?

Among pictures I made in Transylvania (Romania) in the summer of 1994,
a short inscription in Szekler runes (ro'va'si'ra's = literally "carving
script") can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Paris/1326/ro_en.html

-- Olivier

PS. Since this is my first post: I am an engineer in the French meteorological
service. My wife is Hungarian and I can speak Hungarian better than English.
I have some elementary knowledge of linguistics, much less of statistics.
I heard about the Voynich manuscript from Jacques Guy on newsgroup sci.lang.
I may not have much to contribute, but I am interested in following these
discussions. My first impression is that of a clever hoax. If it is real
language, it might be Latin, Hebrew, etc, but Hungarian is hard to believe.

From rand.org!jim Thu Sep  5 15:38:12 +0200 1996
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Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 15:38:12 +0200
From: CLARY Olivier <Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr>
Message-Id: <199609051338.AA28109@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr>
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Subject: Re: Objet- Who's that girl in
Status: OR

(Not that I believe that all this has much connection to the Voynich Ms.,
but it is related to the web page I just mentioned on the list, the profession
of Unitarian faith "God is one" in Szekler runes)

rzandber@mail-gw.esoc.esa.de (Rene' Zandbergen) in a private mail exchange:
> Would the vowel harmony allow to write Hungarian
> in a system with a reduced number of vowels, whereby you know which
> one to use from the context? That is: without becoming (too)
> ambiguous? If so, this one feature to recognise Hungarian would disappear
> from the text.

Yes! Why did I not mention it before, since this exchange started from
"rova'si'ra's" Szekler runes?! Indeed the traditional rova'si'ra's (as opposed
to more recent and more artificial uses) does not write vowels if it can
be done. Usage varies, but typically only the first vowel is written, and
a starting e (the most frequent vowel) is not written. Additional vowels may
be written for clarity, but if all written consonants "bear" an unwritten
vowel, then consonant clusters have to be written differently: by combining
the first consonant symbol with the most prominent feature of the second
consonant (as if TN in Latin script was written as T with a superimposed
oblique bar). So there are a lot of such possible ligatures, and vowels also
may be included. Sometimes this is so intricate that composing and deciphering
such a ligature must have been an art close to modern calligraphy. On the
web page I gave (having most vowels included, partly because of proper names
and respect for the word Isten = God, partly because of modern influence),
see the D+I and N+O at the end (when there was no more space). By the way,
it was written right to left.

The result was a very compact writing. A well-known example is a shepherd's
stick with a square section, that is 4 edges and about 1 meter high.
The carving is a calendar, with names of all main saints and feasts,
about one name every 3 days on average. The whole year is on one stick,
that is only 4 lines of carved text, each 1 meter long! Imagine the same
in Latin script...

> As for the consistent suffixes: the Voynich language has
> got this feature most definitely! In fact, Andras Kornai once commented
> that one feature of the Voynich language, which is that common
> suffixes also exist as words in their own right, is known also
> in Hungarian, and nobody ever came up with another example (although
> in the extreme case one could include Italian because 'o' 'i' 'e' and 'a'
> are common words and common endings).

Yes, most suffixes can function as roots. For instance:
English "with" is -vel or -val (in fact the -v- after a consonant changes
    to a doubling of the consonant: ke'z "hand" -> ke'zzel "(with=) by hand")
-> English "with me, with you, etc" is said as "my _with_, your _with_, etc":
    velem, veled, vele, etc
-> vele "with it/him/her" is a common "preverb" (like the prefix in English
   verbs withstand, withdraw etc)
So the same (English) word can appear as a suffix, "almost" alone, or as
a prefix.

But are Voynich spaces real spaces (word divisions)?... And in a language
like Hungarian, it is a matter of pure convention to decide if a suffix-like
part of speech is really a suffix (written as one word) or a "postposition"
(written separately). Division of words is the great orthographic difficulty
for Hungarian kids (the writing being quite phonetic).

-- Olivier

From rand.org!jim Thu Sep  5 14:39:05 GMT 1996
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Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 14:39:05 GMT
From: rzandber@mail-gw.esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9609051439.AA12690@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Hungarian runes (was: Re: Objet- Who's that girl in)
Cc: Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr, rzandber@mail-gw.esoc.esa.de
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Olivier Clary writes:

> Indeed the traditional rova'si'ra's (as opposed
> to more recent and more artificial uses) does not write vowels if it can
> be done. Usage varies, but typically only the first vowel is written, and
> a starting e (the most frequent vowel) is not written.

Fascinating! 
This is exactly the impression I got from all my staring at the Voynich 
manuscript. All these gallows.... are vowels. Only the first one is
ever written. In fact a small percentage of words has more than one,
or a gallows at or near the end of a word. There are two series:
non-intruding and intruding: two sets to allow for vowel harmony?

Initial e: the infamous 4. Sometimes written, sometimes not.

> Additional vowels may 
> be written for clarity, but if all written consonants "bear" an unwritten
> vowel, then consonant clusters have to be written differently: by combining
> the first consonant symbol with the most prominent feature of the second
> consonant (as if TN in Latin script was written as T with a superimposed
> oblique bar). So there are a lot of such possible ligatures, and vowels also
> may be included.

Plenty of opportunities for two different usages (say A and B) to arise.
And then the ligatures...

> But are Voynich spaces real spaces (word divisions)?... And in a language
> like Hungarian, it is a matter of pure convention to decide if a suffix-like
> part of speech is really a suffix (written as one word) or a "postposition"
> (written separately). 

Another commonality: it has been suggested before that the Voynich
spaces may actually be 'speach' interruptions rather than
'writing' interruptions.

> Division of words is the great orthographic difficulty
> for Hungarian kids (the writing being quite phonetic).

Another feature of Voynichese covered: the (near) absence of 
repeated letters may be explained by the language being phonetic. 
How is Hungarian (modern or 'runic') in terms of repeated letters?
What if you drop many of the vowels?

OK, so I skipped:

>                                                 By the way,
>it was written right to left.

That should be no obstacle. I understand the runes were carved in wood
or stone. If the following theory (far-fetched, I admit) is to be explored:

The VMs was written in Hungaric runes committed for the first time 
to paper (oops: vellum), in a cursive hand...

Then at the same time as changing all writing material and style,
the direction could be made to match that of the rest of the 'world'.

Does all this make sense?

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Thu Sep  5 22:10:46 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: a nice example of abbreviated latin
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 22:10:46 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <9609030942.AA11052@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de> from "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" at Sep 3, 96 09:42:40 am
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Rene Zandbergen recently wrote:
> Maybe two things should be tried, one easy, one difficult.
> The easy one is to repeat the exercise on plain text (Latin, English,
> etc) with all the vowels dropped. The difficult one: try it on
> computer-readable glossolalia (is that glyphtoglossia?). I don't
> think anybody has got any of that. And computer-generated does not
> count :-)

This is an interesting idea: where would you get computer-readable
examples of glossolalia? Perhaps you could tape record people speaking
in tongues (say, at a religious meeting) and transcribe it. (This makes
me think of the scene in the movie _Brazil_ where the secretary is
transcribing interrogations: "Oh!" "Ah!" (scream) etc.)

The idea of running the same test after deleting the vowels seems like
a special case of a more general possible approach: 

1.  Assume (i.e. guess) that the underlying plaintext is in a
    certain language (I'd start with Latin).

2.  Calculate various statistics such as letter distributions, word
    length distributions, etc. for both Latin and the VM.
    (It would probably be a good idea to test several Latin samples
    to check that the statistics are consistent between them.)

3.  Look for various operations which could be applied to the Latin
    text which would result in the observed differences. For example,
    how many nulls added per word (or vowels dropped per word) would
    account for observed differences in word length? Or, what percentage 
    of nulls (or dropped vowels) would explain differences in entropy?

    An operation which simultaneously accounted for differences in 
    two or more independent statistics would be a good candidate
    for further investigation.

Admittedly there are a lot of possibilities ... it's not a very 
powerful strategy. On the other hand, parts of it could be automated
with a computer - you could write programs to calculate the before and
after statistics as well as to perform various operations on the sample
text (say, dropping all vowels), so it wouldn't take too much effort
to test a hypothesis.

Bruce

From rand.org!jim Fri Sep  6 12:34:31 +1000 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9609060234.AA06790@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Who's that girl in...
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 12:34:31 +1000 (EST)
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Since we are now visiting Hungary, I cannot resist airing again
an old pet theory of mine: that the nymphs in bathtubs are
in fact country wenches being drained of their blood for 
the infamous Erzsebet Bathory, the "bloody countess".

The "plumbing" diagrams are just that: plumbing diagrams of
Csejthe (spelling?) castle.

Further, you'll notice how similar the Enochian letter "gal"
ir to the Hungarian rune for "E", and the Enochian letter
"ged" for "O". Hence Kelley got the idea of the Enochian
alphabet from Hungarian runes he saw in Prague!

Of course I don't believe a word of all this. Those of you
who occasionally tune in to sci.lang and sci.archaeology
will have noticed that those groups are wading deep in 
lovely nonsense, from Sumerian being the first language
of mankind (it started  out with one-vowel words!) to
this "shamanistic" jargon spoken by the Luxemburgian
copper miners of 5000 BC, via English being 100% derived
from Basque. Insanity is catching... my kingdom for a
straightjacket!

Seriously now. Levitov had to do Dutch extreme violence
to cast it into the Procrustean bed of Voynichese. Hungarian
would have to be savaged even more to fit. Remember how low
the second-order character entropy of Voynichese is. And that
it is comparable to Hawaiian. This suggests a language in which
each consonant is regularly followed by a vowel. And in which
there are few different vowels and few different consonants.
Such a simple phonology is typical of glossolalia. So are
repetitions as we see in the VMS....

lunch time! More later



From rand.org!jim Fri Sep  6 07:12:07 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@mail-gw.esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Dear all,

Jacques writes:

> Since we are now visiting Hungary, I cannot resist airing again
> an old pet theory of mine: that the nymphs in bathtubs are
> in fact country wenches being drained of their blood for 
> the infamous Erzsebet Bathory, the "bloody countess".

As if it were needed to come up with evidence against it:
we know from Jim that the liquid in the baths (at least on f79v)
is blue or green, not red.

> Seriously now. Levitov had to do Dutch extreme violence
> to cast it into the Procrustean bed of Voynichese. Hungarian
> would have to be savaged even more to fit. Remember how low
> the second-order character entropy of Voynichese is. And that
> it is comparable to Hawaiian. This suggests a language in which
> each consonant is regularly followed by a vowel. And in which
> there are few different vowels and few different consonants.
> Such a simple phonology is typical of glossolalia. So are
> repetitions as we see in the VMS....

But would not 'glossolalia written down' be extremely easy to make
pronounceable, especially with the vowel/consonant scheme mentioned 
above? OK, what is pronouncible to one person may not be to 
someone else, and I have no idea what glossolalia in a Slavionic
language would look (sound) like.
Another scheme leading to a low 2nd order entropy would be if 
a person were using one language to represent text of another language.
Maybe I did not express this very well, but I remember a Chinese
trying to write a Dutch sentence in Chinese characters (as a result
of a misunderstanding). He was softly saying the words he was writing
down, and it was interesting to note that several consonants were
changed and that lots of additional vowels were introduced.
This suffers from the same problem as above: the spoken text written
down (in the Latin alphabet) should have been easily pronouncible.

Something else: how much does the 2nd order entropy depend on the
transcription alphabet used? Has this always been computed from 
Currier notation? With the reduced character sets of FSG and
Frogguy the effect might be less pronounced...

And just for the heck of it: is there any known relationship between
Erszebet Bathory and the two ladies found by Guy Thibault?

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Fri Sep  6 10:52:35 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 10:52:35 +0000
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Hello!

On  6 Sep 96 at 12:34, Jacques Guy wrote:
> Seriously now. Levitov had to do Dutch extreme violence
> to cast it into the Procrustean bed of Voynichese. Hungarian
> would have to be savaged even more to fit. Remember how low
> the second-order character entropy of Voynichese is. And that
> it is comparable to Hawaiian. This suggests a language in which
> each consonant is regularly followed by a vowel. And in which
> there are few different vowels and few different consonants.
> Such a simple phonology is typical of glossolalia. So are
> repetitions as we see in the VMS....

I am a bit skeptical about taking the low 2nd order entropy for 
comparing wiht of other known languages. Of course that this is the 
only we have and all theories are welcome, but at the same time I 
wonder what is the entropy increase/decrease in abbreviated latin, 
for example. 
Surely this has to decrease entropy (at least the order 1) because 
the abbreviation is exactly reducing the redundancy of the message.
Any ideas about this?
If we are working with a abbreviated language, I think that we should 
start looking at changes of entropy with abbreviated latin as 
mentioned a few messages before...
I insisit that this is all more complicated if the abbreviations are 
not unique!

Something else we discussed in Birmingham was the Biological section 
and my view that it is some sort of anatomy book written by somebody 
who knows nothing about the subject. Rene mentioned the good 
knowledge of anatomy in those days, but I also prsume that there were 
many good herbals and at the same time we get all these poorly drawn 
plants...
Sooooo..... my theory of the day is that all these tubes are either 
blood vessels & digestive system.
With a lot of imagination, I can see a small intestine, oesophagus 
with stomach dissected, some other organs (ovaries?, maybe not).
Some of the tubes end in open areas which have very convoluted 
perimeters. May I indicate that this sort of "curly" boundaries have 
been used as representations of "irregular" profiles in cartography. 
If you look any old maps they all have this wiggly but rounded 
boundaries, which is an inexact representation of the real complexity 
of the coastlines. This is some remarkable difficulty in drawing 
fractal outlines (BTW, I work in this area of image quantification in 
medical images), so I wonder if a dissected stomach with irrgular 
boundaries would look to the scribe as "irrepresentable complexity" 
so he/she just drew curly boundaries.
If anybody is interested I can look for the folio number (I have it 
at home). 

cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Fri Sep  6 08:34:57 0500 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Who's that girl in...
In-Reply-To: <9609060954.AA17589@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
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On Fri, 6 Sep 1996, Gabriel Landini wrote:

> On  6 Sep 96 at 12:34, Jacques Guy wrote:

<*snip*>

> > Such a simple phonology is typical of glossolalia. So are
> > repetitions as we see in the VMS....
> 
> I am a bit skeptical about taking the low 2nd order entropy for 
> comparing wiht of other known languages. Of course that this is the 
> only we have and all theories are welcome, but at the same time I 
> wonder what is the entropy increase/decrease in abbreviated latin, 
> for example. 
> Surely this has to decrease entropy (at least the order 1) because 
> the abbreviation is exactly reducing the redundancy of the message.
> Any ideas about this?
> If we are working with a abbreviated language, I think that we should 
> start looking at changes of entropy with abbreviated latin as 
> mentioned a few messages before...
> I insisit that this is all more complicated if the abbreviations are 
> not unique!

	On this topic: on July 1, 1996, Jacques Guy and I had the
following exchange: 

> > Also, what happens to the other statistics (digraph
> > frequency and entropy, single-character frequency, etc.) if the vowels
> > are not written?  Can you or anyone else enlighten us?
>
> Well, without carrying out any experiments, I feel a bit silly
> answering this, but this is my line of thought. The entropy is
> a measure of the unpredictably of the text. E.g., knowing the
> last n letters that occurred up to *here*, how well can we
> guess the next one? So, *if* we have a language with consonant
> harmony or some degree of consonant harmony, such as Mongolian
> or Javanese, since removing the vowels makes the consonants
> adjacent, I guess that, in this case, the entropy would
> decrease. On the other hand, if we have an open-syllable
> language (one that does not allow two or more consonants
> together), each consonant being *always* followed by a
> vowel, if we remove the vowels, then its entropy will
> increase. That is, if it has more consonants than vowels.
> I do not know of any languages with *fewer* consonants
> than vowels, or even as many. Rotokas comes only close,
> with 5 vowels and 6 consonants. All in all, because languages
> with strong consonant harmony are rare, I suspect that we
> may be safe in guessing that removing vowel will increase
> the entropy. A greater degree of chaos also means that
> more information is contained in the message. (A text file
> compressed using tar or zip has a greater 2nd order
> entropy than the original file). Now, take shorthand. The
> aim being to compress the information, it must have a
> greater entropy than longhand writing. Now, all shorthand
> systems I know remove most of the vowels.

	It seems to me that this should be true for abbreviated Latin as 
well.  
	It also seems to me that this should be true for a code (as 
opposed to a cipher) as well.  D'Imperio describes the code of Jakob 
Sylvester, which has code groups for Latin roots, prefixes, and 
suffixes.  In her book, she said that this was her preferred hypothesis.  
However, the code might have the highest entropy of all, since it might 
compress the most information.

	As for glossalalia, on 29 Aug 1996, Gabriel Landini and I had the
following exchange: 
 
> >     If there are really no corrections, and if one normally saw
> > corrections in medieval manuscripts, it seems to me like strong evidence
> > that the VMs is a conscious hoax.  It is too well organized, and there is
> > of course the presence of A and B, for it to have been produced in a
> > mediumistic trance.  It could have originally have been produced in a
> > trance and then copied, but then there would have been copying errors.
>
> I think that there is no evidence for being produced in a "mediumistic"
> trance, since it was clearly "drawn" first and written later.
> Quite a trance session, to fill 116 folios! :-)

Actually, we said the same thing!

Regards, 
Dennis


From rand.org!jim Fri Sep  6 09:13:38 0700 1996
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Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 09:13:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford@haywire.csuhayward.edu>
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To: Bruce Grant <bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu>
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On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, Bruce Grant wrote:

> Rene Zandbergen recently wrote:
> > Maybe two things should be tried, one easy, one difficult.
> > The easy one is to repeat the exercise on plain text (Latin, English,
> > etc) with all the vowels dropped. The difficult one: try it on
> > computer-readable glossolalia (is that glyphtoglossia?). I don't
> > think anybody has got any of that. And computer-generated does not
> > count :-)
> 
As a linguist who both grew up with speaking in tongues and later read 
excellent glossolalic research by Felicitas Goodman, I can advise that 
this is not a very positive direction for research. It is ecstatic 
speech, going straight from emotions to the phonological system of the 
person's daily language, bypassing all cognitive meaning. But it obeys 
the sound patterns of the daily language -- no weird sounds, consonant 
clusters or other sequences that are not permitted by the system of the 
daily language.

And on another level, glossolalia (which occurs pan-religously all over 
the globe, not just in Christianity) is an oral process, speaking 
ecstatically and non-cognitively, which people do just for the 'heaven' 
of it, as an emotional release. I'm not sure what a computerized version 
of it could possibly do for anyone -- but hey! I've been wrong before!

warm regards, moonhawk 

From rand.org!jim Fri Sep  6 19:21:34 0700 1996
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Subject: HUMOR: Off topic, but Hungarian...
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 19:21:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
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Y'know, even the VMs may have content this mundane...

Forwarded message:
> Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 18:34:01 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Scott Anderson <tech1@interport.net>
> Subject: Fwd: The Madonna Interview, translated from the Hungarian (fwd)
> 
> -------------------------------
> I AM  A WOMAN, NOT A TEST MOUSE
> 
> Madonna has unwittingly given her funniest interview to the 
> Hungarian newspaper Blikk.  Blikk's questions were translated 
> into English for Madonna, 37, while her replies were translated 
> back into Hungarian for their readers.  Later, the interview was 
> retranslated from Hungarian back to English for a U.S. newspaper. 
> 
> Blikk:  Madonna, Budapest says hello with arms that are 
> spread-eagled.  Are you in good odour?  You are the biggest fan 
> of our young people who hear your musical productions and like to 
> move their bodies in response.  
> 
> Madonna: Thank you for saying these compliments.  Stop with 
> taking sensationalist photographs until I have removed my 
> garments for all to see.  This is a joke I have made.  
> 
> Blikk:  Let's cut towards the hunt.  Are you a bold hussy woman 
> that feasts on men who are tops?
> 
> Madonna:  This is certainly something that brings to the surface 
> my longings.  In America it is not considered to be mentally ill 
> when a woman advances on her prey in a disco setting with hardy 
> cocktails present.  And there is a more normal attitude toward 
> leather play toys that also makes my day. 
> 
> Blikk:  Is this how you met Carlos, your love servant who is 
> reputed?  Did you know he was heaven sent right off the stick?  
> Or were you dating many other people in your bed at the same 
> time?  
> 
> Madonna:  No, he was the only one in my bed then, so it is a 
> scientific fact that the baby was made in my womb using him.  But 
> as regards these questions, enough!  I am a woman not a test 
> mouse!  Carlos is an everyday person who is in the orbit of a 
> star who is being mscle-trained by him, not a sex machine.  
> 
> Blikk:  May we talk about your other "baby", your movie?  Do not 
> be denying the similarities between you and the real Evita are 
> grounded in basis.  Power, money, tasty food and Grammys -- all 
> these elements are afoot.
> 
> Madonna:  What is up in the air with you?   Evita was never 
> winning a Grammy.
> 
> Blikk:  Perhaps not.  But as to your film, in trying to bring 
> your reputation along a rocky road, can you make people forget 
> the bad explosions of Who's That Girl and Shanghai Surprise?  
> 
> Madonna:  I am a tip-top starlet.  This is my job I am paid to 
> do.  
> 
> Blikk:  OK.  Here is  a question from left space.  What was your 
> book Slut about?
> 
> Madonna:  It was called Sex.
> 
> Blikk:  Not in Hungary.  Here it was called Slut.  How did it 
> come to publish?  Were you lovemaking with a man-about-town 
> printer?  Do you prefer making suggestive literature to fast 
> selling CDs? 
> 
> Madonna:  These are different facets to my career highway.  I am 
> preferring to become respected all over the map as a 100 per cent 
> artist.
> 
> Blikk:  How many Hungarian men have you dated in bed?  How are 
> they comparing to Argentine men who are famous for being tip top?
> 
> Madonna:  To avoid aggravated global tensions.  I would say it is 
> a tie.  See here.  I am working like canine all the way around my 
> clock.  I have been too busy even to try the goulash that makes 
> your country one for the record books.  
> 
> (JJ--O tempora! O mores!)


From rand.org!jim Sat Sep  7 11:31:38 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
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> On Fri, 6 Sep 1996, Gabriel Landini wrote:
> 
> > I wonder what is the entropy increase/decrease in abbreviated latin, 
> > for example. 
> > Surely this has to decrease entropy (at least the order 1) because 
> > the abbreviation is exactly reducing the redundancy of the message.

Ooops! I meant the amount of "predictability" decreases, and that 
should *increase* entropy (by reducing the redundancy) sorry for the 
mistake.

> > Jacques Guy wrote:
> >
> > Well, without carrying out any experiments, I feel a bit silly
> > answering this, but this is my line of thought. The entropy is
> > a measure of the unpredictably of the text. E.g., knowing the
> > last n letters that occurred up to *here*, how well can we
> > guess the next one? So, *if* we have a language with consonant
> > harmony or some degree of consonant harmony, such as Mongolian
> > or Javanese, since removing the vowels makes the consonants
> > adjacent, I guess that, in this case, the entropy would
> > decrease. On the other hand, if we have an open-syllable
> > language (one that does not allow two or more consonants
> > together), each consonant being *always* followed by a
> > vowel, if we remove the vowels, then its entropy will
> > increase. That is, if it has more consonants than vowels.
> > I do not know of any languages with *fewer* consonants
> > than vowels, or even as many. Rotokas comes only close,
> > with 5 vowels and 6 consonants. All in all, because languages
> > with strong consonant harmony are rare, I suspect that we
> > may be safe in guessing that removing vowel will increase
> > the entropy. A greater degree of chaos also means that
> > more information is contained in the message. (A text file
> > compressed using tar or zip has a greater 2nd order
> > entropy than the original file). Now, take shorthand. The
> > aim being to compress the information, it must have a
> > greater entropy than longhand writing. Now, all shorthand
> > systems I know remove most of the vowels.

> On  6 Sep 96 at 8:34, Dennis Stallings wrote:
>
> It seems to me that this should be true for abbreviated Latin as 
> well.  
> 	It also seems to me that this should be true for a code (as 
> opposed to a cipher) as well.  D'Imperio describes the code of Jakob 
> Sylvester, which has code groups for Latin roots, prefixes, and 
> suffixes.  In her book, she said that this was her preferred hypothesis.  
> However, the code might have the highest entropy of all, since it might 
> compress the most information.

It may be that way, but with the VMS we may be dealing with "non 
unique" and probably ambiguous abbreviations. 
Again, above we are dealing with the formal notion of entropy in a 
message with *characters*. 
If we introduce a new character that codes (or worst, use an existing 
one) to abbreviate a bunch of letters, it is quite different than 
dropping out some characters from the main text, I think.
In view of this, trying to match the labels with probable words in 
many languages seems to me to be a good start rather than matching 
different character probability matrices of other language samples as 
I proposed some time ago...

Regards to all,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Sun Sep  8 10:58:21 +0200 1996
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Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 10:58:21 +0200
From: CLARY Olivier <Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr>
Message-Id: <199609080858.AA05469@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Hungarian runes (was: Re: Objet- Who's that girl in)
Status: OR

As an example of an exotic system of shorthand, here is the system used for
Szekler runes as described in the book
   Forrai Sa'ndor, Ku~skara'csonyto'l Su~lvester estig
   Mu'zsa'k Ko~zmu"velo"de'si Kiado', Budapest
   ISBN 963 563 059 x
I have separated individual characters by spaces; "_" groups denote a single
ligatured character.

-- Olivier


- by default an e sound should be read before and between consonants:
     e r zs e b e t -> r zs b t ; e gy e d -> gy d
- according to a/o/u i/e o"/u" vowel harmony, only one vowel has to be written:
     b e r e c k -> b r c_k ; b o d o g s a g o t -> b_o g g_t
  and in words with mixed vowels (mainly foreign words), to represent the
  harmony change, the harmony-breaking vowel is written:
     sz e n t m i h a ly -> sz m i a ly ; b a l i n t -> b a l i_n_t
- ending vowels are written:
     m a r i a -> m a r i a ; i l o n a -> i l n_a
- in consonant clusters, consonants that can disappear or be weak in
  pronounciation are dropped, but sibilants (s-like sounds) and consonants
  under stress (beginning of a word) are written:
     sz e n t   k e r e sz t -> sz n_k r sz_t ; l a sz l o -> l_a sz o
  and long (double) consonants are written as single (else a vowel would be
  read between them):
     (Illye's=) i ly ly e e s -> i ly e s ; k e t t o" -> k t o"
- vowels in the alphabet are short (a e i o u o" u") and long vowels are
  usually not noted but they sometimes appear as if doubled (see above Illye's)
- two words can be written together, mainly when the junction gives a good
  ligature:
     a n n a   a sz sz o ny -> a_n sz ny
     m a ty a s   m e s t e r -> m a ty_a s_m s_t r
  also with a phonetic equivalent (sz is English "s", c is English "ts"):
     m i n d   sz e n t -> m i_n_c n_t ; o" t   sz a z -> o" c a z
- sometimes a starting h is dropped: ogy for hogy, Erodes for Herodes


From rand.org!jim Mon Sep  9 21:07:08 0500 1996
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Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 21:07:08 -0500 (CDT)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Hungarian runes (was: Re: Objet- Who's that girl in)
In-Reply-To: <199609080858.AA05469@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr>
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Status: OR

	We've discussed this before.  From the archives, by Andras 
Kornai, a native speaker of Hungarian:

<*** quote ***>
From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Subject: Re: Magyar Runic
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 17:07:49 -0800 (PST)

Clyde A. Winters writes:
> Tamana Remarks: The Magyar language had an ancient Runic writing with 38
> signs being identical with the Etruscan Runic writing in 43% and with
> Phoenician in 47%!.
Being the semi-official Magyar debunker on this list, let me note that
Hungarian Runic is a straightforward alphabetic script. Etruscan or
Phoenician correspondences are unlikely.

> This writing is also analogous to writing used in Africa and India.
Used where in Africa and India? By whom?

> This writing was exterminated by the Christian priests in XI. c.
This is highly unlikely. Hungarian Runic appears to be a late creation,
probably by Hungarians in Transylvania, specifically for wood carving.

> Then there are 6000 Toponyms+Structures in the Carpathian Basin IDENTICAL
> PAIR-STRUCTURES thereof can be seen in 152 countries-regions of five
> continents (TA-MANA: in 25).
Say again? Let's start with defining "pair structures", what are these?

> Half of these 600 Toponyms+Structures
> consisting 0f 3-4-5- name-elements are Magyar family names also!
Magyar family names are routinely formed by adding the suffix -i to
the place name: Buda/Budai, Pest/Pesti, and so on.

> Then remeember-in the Movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) the
> Magyar Pentatonic Melody+Structure-illustrated by Kodaly, Zoltan --was
> used as a communication-vehicle between earthlings and the ETs!
It was indeed!

> Dr. Vamos-Toth Bator
> 1700 Makiki
> Honolulu, HI. 96822

Andras Kornai

<*** unquote ***>

Regards,
Dennis Stallings

From rand.org!jim Tue Sep 10 17:09:28 +0200 1996
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Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 17:09:28 +0200
From: CLARY Olivier <Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr>
Message-Id: <199609101509.AA17882@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Hungarian runes (was: Re: Objet- Who's that girl in)
Status: OR

(Rather unrelated to the VMs but since it was mentioned here...)

<kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai) on Mon, 8 Jan 1996:
> Clyde A. Winters writes:
> > [...] The Magyar language had an ancient Runic writing with 38
> > signs being identical with the Etruscan Runic writing in 43% and with
> > Phoenician in 47%!.
> [...] Hungarian Runic is a straightforward alphabetic script. Etruscan or
> Phoenician correspondences are unlikely.

Latin (majuscule) script is alphabetic too, and still it is know to have
Etruscan and Phoenician correspondences. (The figures above are indeed
debatable, you have to define what you call a correspondance, and even
what you call the runic script, since there are variations.)

> > This writing was exterminated by the Christian priests in XI. c.
> This is highly unlikely. Hungarian Runic appears to be a late creation,
> probably by Hungarians in Transylvania, specifically for wood carving.

The idea of a late creation goes against the usual view that Hungarians,
living in the Khazar confederation together with Turkic tribes, started
using a Turkic-like runic script at some time before their conquest of
what is now Hungary.

There are examples of the script out of Transylvania, like on a beam of a
church near the date 1482 at Felso"szemere'd / Horne' Semerovce, Slovakia.
By the way, since most old inscriptions are found on churches or have
religious content, it probably just disappeared as Church used Latin
script but was not exterminated.

-- Olivier

From rand.org!jim Tue Sep 10 08:51:03 0700 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9609101551.AA22548@sevengill.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Hungarian runes (was: Re: Objet- Who's that girl in)
To: Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr (CLARY Olivier)
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 08:51:03 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <199609101509.AA17882@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr> from "CLARY Olivier" at Sep 10, 96 05:09:28 pm
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CLARY Olivier writes:
> Latin (majuscule) script is alphabetic too, and still it is know to have
> Etruscan and Phoenician correspondences.
What I meant was that the geometrical similarities are not particularly
compelling.

> > > This writing was exterminated by the Christian priests in XI. c.
> > This is highly unlikely. Hungarian Runic appears to be a late creation,
> > probably by Hungarians in Transylvania, specifically for wood carving.
>
> The idea of a late creation goes against the usual view that Hungarians,
> living in the Khazar confederation together with Turkic tribes, started
> using a Turkic-like runic script at some time before their conquest of
> what is now Hungary.
This is I'm afraid more on the "ko2dke1p" side than accepted wisdom. This
theory would leave a tremendous gap in attestation.

> There are examples of the script out of Transylvania, like on a beam of a
> church near the date 1482 at Felso"szemere'd / Horne' Semerovce, Slovakia.
I would like to know more about this, and would also inspect these with a
highly critical eye. To my knowledge, the system is unattested prior to
the 18th century.

> By the way, since most old inscriptions are found on churches or have
> religious content, it probably just disappeared as Church used Latin
> script but was not exterminated.
If it disappeared, why did it reappear in the 18th and 19th centuries,
indeed why did it flourish in that period? We have well-preserved
examples of the same kind of artefacts (herdsman's rods, cabinets,
etc.) on which runic inscriptions are found from the 15th century
onwards. That is, we have the artefacts from the 15th century, but the
inscriptions appear only in the 18th and 19th century (indeed, most
typically in the early 20th century when the system was taught in
elementary schools). How come the inscriptions begin to appear late,
if this was a system of turkic origin, 4th century or so?

Andras Kornai

From rand.org!jim Tue Sep 10 21:17:11 +0200 1996
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Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 21:17:11 +0200
From: CLARY Olivier <Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr>
Message-Id: <199609101917.AA19804@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Hungarian runes (was: Re: Objet- Who's that girl in)
Status: OR

<kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai):
> What I meant was that the geometrical similarities are not particularly
> compelling.

Yes, high figures are when they compare only shapes without caring about
meaning, but full similarities with Etruscan or Greek are only the
phi/theta-like f and the flag-like a (good archaic flavour, this one).

> > There are examples of the script out of Transylvania, like on a beam of a
> > church near the date 1482 at Felso"szemere'd / Horne' Semerovce, Slovakia.
> I would like to know more about this, and would also inspect these with a
> highly critical eye. To my knowledge, the system is unattested prior to
> the 18th century.

That particular one is left-to-right with symbols consequently reversed,
and it is not too clear: it is supposed to say k u"_r k j a n s m s_t_r
(= ko"rako' Ja'nos mester = master John, stone-builder) but in fact the
u"_r k j part and the s require some imagination - which still leaves some
"master John". The reference is: Pu~spo~ki-Nagy in Magyar Nyelv, 1971/III.

Some other inscriptions before 18th century:
- a brick on a window of a church at Sze'kelyderzs (near Udvarhely,
  Transylvania) with written date 1431 (old numbers, like the 1482),
  supposedly m_i k l o_s_k_a_n_t r p_a p ty_a = Miklo's ka'ntor pap atya
  (but the k_a part and the r are unclear while o_s and n_t look OK: ka'ntor
  is doubtful) = the name of some pap atya = priest
- a page bound to an old book printed in Nu"rnberg in 1483, known as the
  Nickolsburg ABC (a runic ABC with some Latin writing which fits that date)
- a stone at the second floor of the tower (built in 1495) of a church of
  Homoro'dkara'csonfalva / Crociunel (near Udvarhely), with characters
  resembling normal runes but still different (undeciphered)
- found under a fresco from the period 1480-1530, at Bo~go~z (again near
  Sze'kelyudvarhely / Odorheiu Secuiesc): a ty a s_t n = Atyaisten = Father God
- an inscription known from two independant copies made in 1749 and 1751 at the
  church of Csi'kszentma'rton (near Csi'kszereda / Miercura-Ciuc, Transylvania)
  and destroyed in 1784, half of the text being a long expression of date 1501
- an inscription copied in 1553, as an unknown writing, from a low marble stone
  in Constantinople / Istanbul, which appears to have been written by Hungarian
  messengers emprisoned there, and which mentions the date 1515
- an inscription which appeared, due to the big Romanian earthquake of 1977,
  on a wall of a church at Da'lnok (Kova'szna/Covasna county), together with
  much Latin text including the date 1526
- etc...

> > it probably just disappeared as Church used Latin script [...]
> If it disappeared, why did it reappear in the 18th and 19th centuries,
> indeed why did it flourish in that period? [...]

I mean it mostly disappeared, being replaced by Latin script for all
normal purposes. I think most examples from 17th century onwards consider it
either a curiosity (an ABC, the Lord's prayer, etc, among "normal" text)
or a secret code (like replacing a few words in a poem against the Emperor).
I would explain the quantity of texts from 18th-19th century by the
appearance of nationalism and the pride to be a Szekler or a Hungarian,
that is, conscious effort without the value of a real genuine script.

-- U~dv: Olivier

From rand.org!jim Wed Sep 11 22:21:25 0700 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9609120521.AA23104@sevengill.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Hungarian runes (was: Re: Objet- Who's that girl in)
To: Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr (CLARY Olivier)
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 22:21:25 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <199609101917.AA19804@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr> from "CLARY Olivier" at Sep 10, 96 09:17:11 pm
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CLARY Olivier writes:
> That particular one is left-to-right with symbols consequently reversed,
> and it is not too clear: it is supposed to say k u"_r k j a n s m s_t_r
> (= ko"rako' Ja'nos mester = master John, stone-builder) but in fact the
> u"_r k j part and the s require some imagination - which still leaves some
> "master John". The reference is: Pu~spo~ki-Nagy in Magyar Nyelv, 1971/III.
Hmmm, remarkable, especially as the content is realistic (have my doubts
about ko3rako1 az opposed to ko3mu3ves, but if e.g. EMSZT lists it that would
be a strong point in favor). I'm still skeptical, though. Is there a good
monographic account you could recommend? The last volume I saw devoted to the
subject, a set of studies from the self-styled "I1ra1studoma1nyi Inte1zet",
was more than a bit weird.

> I would explain the quantity of texts from 18th-19th century by the
> appearance of nationalism and the pride to be a Szekler or a Hungarian,
> that is, conscious effort without the value of a real genuine script.
Yes. This is what makes the whole thing suspect.

Szervusz,
Andra1s

From rand.org!jim Thu Sep 12 11:53 EDT 1996
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Message-ID: <n1369594328.61928@artefact.qc.ca>
Date: 12 Sep 1996 11:35:34 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  Mistery girl (suite
To: "Voynich List" <voynich@RAND.ORG>
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Dear all,

Sorry to say that my search came to naugh. I have exausted all my supply =
of
information on these two Queen... It does seem Both had reasons for =
secret 
writing but I guess in those time, just about everybody would ;-) 
(Yollande de Courtenay especially is interesting). 

One thing, thaugh. In planning her life and trying to find matches I came =
to 
wonder about the star that is almost always drawn... It it was meant to 
say the same thing, whatever it was could have been written once and not
repeated. If we accept that it's not simple a cute or estaetic drawing, =
why repeat
it over and over...

Then, I notice the star is sometime at left and most of the time at =
right. 
Could it be used to identify one of two sibling? Twins? That might =
explain
the drawings at 11 o'clock, in the first inner circle where it looks like
two nymps came of the tune, one at each end... I thought this was worth
mentionning here.

Does any one know if there been eny exemple of twin sisters related with
Queens in Europe? 

Unfortunatly the two clear image of the "girl" with a crown have the star
on the right indicating one of the twin. I suppose both twin being =
crowned
Queen would have narrowed the search quite a bit :-)

Makes sense???

Cheers.
Guy Thibault


From rand.org!jim Mon Sep 23 07:34:18 GMT 1996
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Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 07:34:18 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9609230734.AA00487@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Crete (well, test really)
Cc: rzandber@mail-gw.esoc.esa.de
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Dear all,

Petersen's tentative identification of one of the plants in the
herbal folios with 'Cretan Dittany (sp?)' or Origanum Dictamnus,
a Cretan endemic plant, reminds me of two points that struck me
during my recent stay in Crete:

1) Someone should show Yale how many people are buying these 
   Phaistos disk (*) T-shirts. Someone is making a fortune out
   of that.
   
2) During the time the VMs was probably written, Crete was controlled
   by the Venetians. If the VMs originates from the Venice area, the
   writers may have been in the possession of (new) material from quite
   a large portion of the Mediterranean, including endemic plants.
   
Note that the Dictamnus is quite famous on Crete, and the drawing is
not too close to it (IMHO). Also, it is my (non-specialist) impression
that endemic plants are often some small variations of other more
globally distributed plants, and the differences may usually be too
small to allow them to be identified by crude M.E. drawings as we have
them in front of us (always assuming that the drawings are of real plants,
an assumption I have not yet totally discarded).

This message is also a test of the mailing list status :-)

Cheers, Rene

(*) I assmume most of you know that this is a clay disk with hieroglyphic
    text, not yet deciphered, despite some claims to the contrary (one, I
    think, from our friend Fischer)

From rand.org!jim Mon Sep 23 11:50:56 GMT 1996
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Dear all,

I have some C code that can perform some useful (I think) manipulations
on VMS transcription files prior to their being used for statistical
analyses. Basically it will strip anything that is not Voynich,
but there are lots of options (what to do with spaces and uncertain
spaces, what to do with alternate readings etc).

I am much more familiar with the Unix environment than with MS-DOS,
but the idea is that it should run under both. What's more,
I do have a PC but not a C compiler to go with it. Is there anyone
willing to compile and link it for a PC, so that the binary is
available for whomever is interested? A binary for Solaris 2.4
I do have available (for beta testing :-)) I would also like some advice
on the use of input and output files, which currently is entirely via
Unix stdin, stdout, stderr. That's OK for Unix, but I don't know about
MS-DOS.

Thanks in advance, 
        Rene

From rand.org!jim Mon Sep 23 08:41:43 0400 1996
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From: Robert Firth <firthr@db.erau.edu>
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Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 08:41:43 -0400 (EDT)
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Phaestos Disc
Status: OR


Folks

Well, I've seen both the original Phaestos Disc and
the replica in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and
I don't think it's hieroglyphic.

It seems to me that the vertical lines divide words
(oh dear, there he goes again) and if so, each word
is composed of two or more characters, each of which
I'd say is a syllable.  As is the case with Linear B,
you'll recall, and probably with Linear A as well.

Note also that the disc was produced by punch printing
- indeed it's the first known printed document in the
world - and that again suggests a fairly small number
of symbols, each of which was carved on a separate die.

I also seem to remember that at least one of the symbols
- the head with the mohawk haircut - occurs only initially,
whence by Ventris' argument it's a vowel.

Not that one can conclude anything reliably from one
document with fewer than 250 symbols, but thoughts are free...

Yours
Robert

From rand.org!jim Mon Sep 23 14:05:24 GMT 1996
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Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 14:05:24 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9609231405.AA07495@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Phaestos Disc
Cc: firthr@db.erau.edu
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Dear all,

Robert Firth writes:

> Well, I've seen both the original Phaestos Disc and
> the replica in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and
> I don't think it's hieroglyphic.

Fair enough, unless one wanted to use the original
meaning of 'holy writing', which might possibly be true. :-)

> Not that one can conclude anything reliably from one
> document with fewer than 250 symbols, but thoughts are free...

Given our success rate with 235 pages.....
But at least that one is certainly not a fake.

And I still think it should be possible to make the most wonderful
T-shirts of Voynich illustrations, sell them at a huge profit,
which may be used to fund a study of the VMs, including all
necessary physical examinations such as multi-spectral
imaging of all pages, dating, etc etc. 

Dreams are free too....

Cheers, Rene

PS. a lo-res gif of the disk may be seen at
http://www.interkriti.org/visits/kamilari/phaist1.htm

From rand.org!jim Mon Sep 23 21:27:49 +0100 1996
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Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 21:27:49 +0100 (BST)
From: Gabriel Landini <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: EVMT web site
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Status: OR

Ladies & gentlemen,
If interested, please point your web browsers to:
http://sun1.bham.ac.uk/G.Landini/evmt/evmt.htm

where is stored the web page for the latest transcription initiative of 
the VMS.

You will probably not find anything new or that you already know, but 
there is a new interlinear file, of all the vms transcriptions, a few 
bitrans files and several links.

All sugestion and comments (except rude ones!) are welcome!

Cheers,

Gabriel


From rand.org!jim Mon Sep 23 17:35 EDT 1996
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From: Peter Meyer <100716.75@CompuServe.COM>
To: Voynich List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Phaestos Disc
Message-ID: <960923211617_100716.75_EHU101-1@CompuServe.COM>
Status: OR

Robert said:

>Well, I've seen both the original Phaestos Disc and
>the replica in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and
>I don't think it's hieroglyphic.

>It seems to me that the vertical lines divide words
>(oh dear, there he goes again) and if so, each word
>is composed of two or more characters, each of which
>I'd say is a syllable.  As is the case with Linear B,
>you'll recall, and probably with Linear A as well.

I may be totally misguided here, but I vaguely recall some suggestion that the
Phaestos Disc might have been the board in some ancient board game (isn't it in
the form of a spiral?).  Or perhaps an ancient form of Dungeons and Dragons.  In
such a case the signs might signfy something, e.g. an eagle (or some such) to
signify the protagonist's attainment of the holy strength on the way to the
sacred wisdom at the center of the spiral.

Has it been established that these signs constitute a specimen of some ancient
language, or even that they are more than part of the design on a board game (a
game perhaps ingenious, perhaps edifying or inspiring, but unfortunately now
lost)?


From rand.org!jim Tue Sep 24 13:59:19 +0200 1996
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From: Alex Schroeder <alex@zool.unizh.ch>
Message-Id: <9609241159.AA83375@rzurs10.unizh.ch>
Subject: C-Compiler for DOS
To: voynich@rand.org (Voynich)
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 13:59:19 +0200 (MEST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25 PGP2]
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> I am much more familiar with the Unix environment than with MS-DOS,
> but the idea is that it should run under both. What's more,
> I do have a PC but not a C compiler to go with it. Is there anyone
> willing to compile and link it for a PC, so that the binary is
> available for whomever is interested? A binary for Solaris 2.4
> I do have available (for beta testing :-)) I would also like some advice
> on the use of input and output files, which currently is entirely via
> Unix stdin, stdout, stderr. That's OK for Unix, but I don't know about
> MS-DOS.

I have a working installation of DJGPP, the GCC port to DOS on my PC. If
you want, I can try to compile it. If porting is not too difficult, I
could do that, too, so that together we should arrive at a portable source
code (I am currently doing my first port of a small utility from DOS to
our AIX and a LINUX, and it works more or less, so I am confident enough).
stdin, stdout and stderr are no problem for DOS, if your programm runs as
stand-alone, eg. eatcomment < vms.txt > vms.new works. Note that obviously
no threads etc. are possible in a DOS environment. 

Alex.

-- 
Grobbl. Noggl ARGH! ARGH! Gabbl. Nagga Frk'Tkl Kpfzt. alex@zool.unizh.ch.
Znamifktzgck. A. Schroeder, Buelachstr. 1c, CH-8057 Zuerich, Switzerland.

From rand.org!jim Tue Sep 24 09:16:28 0500 1996
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From: David Berner <dberner@genetics.com>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Phaestos Disc -Reply
Encoding: 36 Text
Status: OR

firstly, you can probably find a short discussion of the phaestos disk in
any book on the history of writing, if you want to see what all the fuss is
about.  

secondly, i may not know much about the history of games, but this
suggestion seems implausible to me.  reasons being:

1.  it's printed on both sides (i'm 98% sure)
halfway through the game you're supposed to flip the board over?

2.  ancient board games were much much simpler than the disk is.
look at mancala games, nine-man's morris and related games, all of
which are made of very simple materials, carved lines or simple
depressions in a wooden board and pebbles or beans or other simple
counters.    the games were easy to make and easy to learn to play.  and
they had to be, because there were probably no written rules.

obvoynich:
has there been a discussion of the lack of numbers in the text?
are there characters which are thought to represent numbers?

>>> Peter Meyer <100716.75@CompuServe.COM> 09/23/96 04:16pm
>>>

I may be totally misguided here, but I vaguely recall some suggestion that
the
Phaestos Disc might have been the board in some ancient board game
(isn't it in
the form of a spiral?).  Or perhaps an ancient form of Dungeons and
Dragons.  In
such a case the signs might signfy something, e.g. an eagle (or some
such) to
signify the protagonist's attainment of the holy strength on the way to the
sacred wisdom at the center of the spiral.



From rand.org!jim Tue Sep 24 14:24:49 GMT 1996
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Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 14:24:49 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9609241424.AA02100@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: 100716.75@CompuServe.COM
Subject: Re: C compilation
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Hello Peter and everybody else,

> I replied yesterday, but the automatic reply address did not work.

Yup, 
For the second time in weeks the entire .de domain has been cut off from
the internet. :-(

> I'd be happy to compile the code into object modules and link them as required
> to provide DOS executables for uploading, I suppose, to some FTP site.

Thanks....!
....but I have already responded to two offers, so your appreciated
help will not be needed this time.
If the tool is considered useful it will be downloadable from Gabriel's
brand new site, sometime real soon.

Cheers, Rene  

From rand.org!jim Tue Sep 24 07:47:18 0700 1996
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Subject: Re: Phaestos Disc 
To: dberner@genetics.com (David Berner)
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 07:47:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
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> 
> firstly, you can probably find a short discussion of the phaestos disk in
> any book on the history of writing, if you want to see what all the fuss is
> about.  
> 
> secondly, i may not know much about the history of games, but this
> suggestion seems implausible to me.  reasons being:
> 
> 1.  it's printed on both sides (i'm 98% sure)

Yes, and I noticed when examining actual photos of it that the sides
labeled A & B should be labeled the opposite. Side "B" is flat and the
edges of the symbols are pressed in slightly. Side "A" is slightly lumpy
and the symbols are more indented with more sloping edges. It's clear side
"B" was written first and then flipped over on a flat, smooth surface so
side "A" could be marked. I would presume that it was written in the order
it was to be read, therefore the flatter side should be labeled side A.

I've heard one theory which states that the disk is an example of some sort
of accounting or transaction record. But I'm not sure what suggests that.

-Adams Douglas



From rand.org!jim Wed Sep 25 12:45:15 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 12:45:15 +0000
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Status: OR

Hi all,
While I was making the web page, reading D'Imperio's book it is not 
very clear about Kraus buying the VMS in 1961 and then selling it 
later, c1960 (?) Is there any more reliable date for the gift to 
Yale?

Cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Wed Sep 25 13:05:32 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 13:05:32 +0000
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Status: OR

I must be loosing my mental faculties!

On 25 Sep 96 at 12:45, Gabriel Landini wrote:
> Hi all,
> While I was making the web page, reading D'Imperio's book it is not 
> very clear about Kraus buying the VMS in 1961 and then selling it
                                                         ^^^^^^^^^^ 
> later, c1960 (?) Is there any more reliable date for the gift to 
> Yale?

I did not mean "selling", but "giving it to Yale c1960"
Sorry for the mistake.

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Fri Sep 27 14:25:05 0400 1996
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From: Robert Firth <firthr@db.erau.edu>
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Phaestos Disc
Status: OR

	The Phaestos Disc Decoded
	-------------------------

Method of Decipherment

This was taken from a book I once read, but whose title alas
I have forgotten.  The basic principle is that you hide behind
a curtain and stare at the document to be decoded for a long
time through bits of coloured glass.  Eventually, it turns
into English.

Language and Script

The language is a dialect of Chaldaean, and it is written in
an alphabetic script that is a modified form of Reformed
Egyptian.  It was probably modified to be suitable for
making dies and stamping clay tablets.

The Text

	TESTAMENT OF ISHMAEL

1. I, Ishmael, son of Hagar and Abraham, do set down this my last
   Testament in this land of troubles called Canaan.

2. Verily, no man hath been more troubled than I, not in all the times
   before this time, none like unto me for trouble hath there been;

3. For I, even I, was cast out from the household of my father Abraham,
   and in his houdehold was there no longer a place for me prepared.

4. And the portion of mine inheritance hath he given unto his son Isaac,
   the portion that was my birthright;

5. Forasmuch as my father Abraham hath forsworn the gods of our people,
   and hath made offerings unto a strange god; verily a burnt-offering
   hath he made;

6. And his sonm Isaac did likewise make offerings unto the new god;

7. But I, Ishmael, stood steadfast by the old gods, and therefore
   am I cast out from my father's house.

8. Wherefore shall I leave this land of trouble, this Canaan, and
   with my wives, and children, and mansevants, and maidservants,
   and cattle, and oxen, and hamsters,

9. And all the possessions of my tribe, and shall voyage unto the
   great new land in the West that the merchants of Tyre have lately
   discovered

10. And there shall I build a new city for our habitation, whose name
    shall be called Zarahemla.

----

Comments

Well, "Zarahemla" is a familiar name, but that could be mere
coincidence.  However, if we can find other references in
Eastern Mediterranean texts to names like "Abraham" and "Canaan",
that would be very strong evidence for the historicity of this
document, would it not?

Happy Eclipse Day

Robert

From rand.org!jim Fri Sep 27 11:49:19 0700 1996
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From: jimg@mentat.com (Jim Gillogly)
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To: voynich@rand.org, firthr@db.erau.edu
Subject: Re: Phaestos Disc
X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII
Status: OR

Robert sez:
> 	The Phaestos Disc Decoded
> 	-------------------------
> 
> Method of Decipherment
> 
> This was taken from a book I once read, but whose title alas
> I have forgotten.  The basic principle is that you hide behind
> a curtain and stare at the document to be decoded for a long
> time through bits of coloured glass.  Eventually, it turns
> into English.

The glass thangs are called the Urim & Thummim, right?  Been there...

> 8. Wherefore shall I leave this land of trouble, this Canaan, and
>    with my wives, and children, and mansevants, and maidservants,
>    and cattle, and oxen, and hamsters,

This bit seems suspicious.  My translation says "... and gerbils," instead
of "hamsters" at the end.  Colour me skeptical.

Henry D. Ephron, late of the American Cryptogram Association also thought he
had a translation of the Phaistos Disk, but I don't recall his methods.
He was involved in WW2 as a cryppie -- Japanese codes or ciphers, I think.

On an administrivial note, I've changed jobs and will eventually be
transitioning the mailing list from rand.org to my new digs, mentat.com.

	Jim Gillogly
	jim@acm.org



From rand.org!jim Thu Oct  3 14:03:05 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9610031403.AA05134@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Computer transcriptions and tools
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Status: OR

Dear all,

you will have seen Gabriel's announcement of his Web site, and hopefully
you have visited it. He also announced the presence of a software tool
of mine that might be useful for processing computer transcriptions
of the Voynich Manuscript.

This tool is meant to be a general-purpose preprocessor that turns
a transcription file with all its embellishments into raw data to
be fed into the computer.
It allows to independently:
- strip comments (# or { } or both)
- strip foliation information (in < >)
- turn alternate readings into 'best guess' or 'unreadable'
- remove spaces, differentiating between certain and uncertain ones
- select lines in an interlinear file from one particular transcriber
- do some restricted reformatting from older formats
- remove whitespace

In addition it has a page selector which allows you to make the following
choices, independently or in any combination:
- Use (select/deselect) only pages in one language (A or B)
- Use only pages in one hand (1,2, X,Y what have you)
- Use only pages from the herbal section
- Use only pages from quire 14
..etc. etc
The latter depends on the availability of certain dedicated comments in
the transcription file, but: you can invent and implement your own!

Now unfortunately the version currently available (and thanks to
Martin McCarthy for the compilation) does not do all this. Also
it has a bug which makes it OK for older files but not for our 
future output. So if you downloaded it: use with care (better wait
for the next one, soon).

If you think this could be useful, especially if it includes some
other option that has escaped me but which you'd like to see:
please let me know. Now's the time.

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Sat Oct  5 10:34:58 GMT 1996
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Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 10:34:58 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9610051034.AA18420@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: EVMT
Cc: rzandber@mail-gw.esoc.esa.de
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Dear all,

Gabriel writes:

> There has been very little traffic in the list these days.
> I'll cheer everybody up (well, I hope to) mentioning that the 1st 
> quire of the vms has been proofread from the Petersen documents.

...and I thought it might be of interest to give some 'first 
impressions' (very premature of course). In the herbal pages we are
indeed fortunate to have three independent transcriptions to compare.

The following can be said about the relative accuracies of these three
(based still on a few pages only, this might change):

Petersen is of course the most complete. It is the only one that picked
up the plant label on <f2r>. However, Petersen also tends not to 
distinguish very clearly between 2 and R (Currier notation, we'll spare
you the EVA for the time being (*)). And (as an inevitable consequence
of his being a hand transcription) it is rather difficult to see how
he judged the word spacing. Still, his is the most important source
for us.
All three are about equal when it comes to missing the occasional 
letter. Petersen is the only one that does not occasionally miss an 
entire line.
The FSG transcription agrees more with Petersen than Currier/D'Imperio
and we find it most convenient to use the FSG file as our starting
point. One has to wonder about the quality of the copies available to
Currier/D'Imperio. She spoke about 5th generation ones.... Note however
that in the case of ligatured (weirdo) characters, FSG tends to just
transcribe the individual characters while Currier/D'Imperio is more
critical and tends to marks them with an asterisk.
These impressions may change as more material has been compared.
Also, Gabriel, please comment if I have missed or misrepresented anything.

> With Rene we've been discussing a number of enhancements to the new 
> file in eva alphabet namely a number of variables associated to the 
> folio tags (you know, <f1r> ,etc. )

Please note that these are inside comments, and therefore will not
interfere with any existing tools.

> I preview that VTT is going to become a very powerful and 
> indispensable tool to analyse the vms.

As a preprocessing tool only. Claudio Antonioni reminded me of the
TACT software that can do language analysis on a text file. VTT
should be capable of turning the transcription into a file than
can be read immediately by TACT. That is just one example.

Kind regards, 
            Rene

(*)
Just to illustrate: here is D'Imperio's transcription of <f1r.1> in
the four different alphabets: (Currier, FSG, Basic Frogguy, EVA)

<f1r.1> VAS92.9FAE.AR.APAM.ZOE.ZOR9.QOR92.9.FOR.ZOE89

<f1r.1> FATG2.GDAE.AR.AHAM.SOE.SORG.HZORG2.G.DOR.SOE8G

<f1r.1> ljact9s.9lpax.a2.aqpaiiv.c'tox.c'to29.cqpto29s.9.lpo2.c'tox89

<f1r.1> fachys.ykal.ar.ataiin.shol.shory.cthorys.y.kor.sholdy





From rand.org!jim Sat Oct  5 10:36:14 +0000 1996
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Comments: Authenticated sender is <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: reeds@research.att.com, voynich@rand.org
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 10:36:14 +0000
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Subject: Typing monkeys!
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Hi all,
Jim Asked some time ago about the reference with names & dates of the 
"typing monkeys".
I remembered that it was Eddington, but I did not recall the 
reference precisely.
Last night, reading again Bennett's book (chapter on Languages) 
found it again:

So I was right, Eddington, in 1927, in one of the Gifford 
Lectures at Cambridge:
"If any army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters they might 
write all the books in the British Museum" (p. 72)

and apparently he was discussing rare statistical fluctuations.

cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Sat Oct  5 10:36:14 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 10:36:14 +0000
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Subject: EVMT
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Status: OR

Hi all,
There has been very little traffic in the list these days.
I'll cheer everybody up (well, I hope to) mentioning that the 1st 
quire of the vms has been proofread from the Petersen documents.

We're also seeking permission with the Marshall Library to put our 
transcription from their Petersen copies available so all legal 
issues are solved even before the files become downloadable.

With Rene we've been discussing a number of enhancements to the new 
file in eva alphabet namely a number of variables associated to the 
folio tags (you know, <f1r> ,etc. )
These are to mark all sorts of interesting data so we can retrieve 
pages automatically based on the attributes of these variables.
This hopefully will be implemented in coming versions of VTT and so 
far we have discussed things like : language (A, B), section (biol, 
herbal, etc.), hand, writing types (key seq. extraneous, french, 
german, gathering marks), "signed" paragraphs, etc.

WE could also include numerical values like "number of words in page"
"number of paragraphs" or "lines", "entropy", "different words" etc. 
Some of these would be possible only after the proofreading is 
finished but it would be interesting to see what you think it would 
be useful to include.

The variables are finite, but I invite all to suggest what other page 
attributes they think would be useful.

I preview that VTT is going to become a very powerful and 
indispensable tool to analyse the vms.

regards,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Sat Oct  5 12:03:43 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Re: EVMT
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 12:03:43 -0400 (EDT)
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G. Landini recently wrote [in part]:
> WE could also include numerical values like "number of words in page"
> "number of paragraphs" or "lines", "entropy", "different words" etc. 
> Some of these would be possible only after the proofreading is 
> finished but it would be interesting to see what you think it would 
> be useful to include.
> 
> The variables are finite, but I invite all to suggest what other page 
> attributes they think would be useful.

I would suggest that you include only information that can't be derived
from the text itself, on general database principles (non-redundant info).
To put it another way, "the man who has two watches never knows what time
it is (i.e. if they disagree)".

> I preview that VTT is going to become a very powerful and 
> indispensable tool to analyse the vms.
> 

I think so too; this is a real service to the "Voynich community".

Bruce Grant

From rand.org!jim Sat Oct  5 21:52:19 0500 1996
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Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 21:52:19 -0500 (CDT)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" <rzandber@esoc.esa.de>
Cc: voynich@rand.org, rzandber@mail-gw.esoc.esa.de
Subject: Text Analysis Tools (WAS: EVMT)
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On Sat, 5 Oct 1996, R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad wrote:

> As a preprocessing tool only. Claudio Antonioni reminded me of the
> TACT software that can do language analysis on a text file. VTT
> should be capable of turning the transcription into a file than
> can be read immediately by TACT. That is just one example.

	I'm looking for DOS/Win text analysis tools that we could for the 
VMs.  (I'm not a Unix person.)  I'd be interesting in hearing about 
anything that anyone has experience or just knows of.  Don Latham also 
mentioned TACT.  I looked at it quickly and it seems to be entirely 
word-based.  Since we do not know the exact significance of the "word 
divisions", at least some of our tools must be entirely character-based.

	Anyone?

Cheers,
Dennis


From rand.org!jim Sat Oct  5 23:27:19 0600 1996
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From: djl <djl@paw.montana.com>
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        "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" <rzandber@esoc.esa.de>
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        "voynich@rand.org" <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: RE: Text Analysis Tools (WAS: EVMT)
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 23:27:19 -0600
Encoding: 18 TEXT
Status: OR


	I'm looking for DOS/Win text analysis tools that we could for the
VMs.  (I'm not a Unix person.)  I'd be interesting in hearing about
anything that anyone has experience or just knows of.  Don Latham also
mentioned TACT.  I looked at it quickly and it seems to be entirely
word-based.  Since we do not know the exact significance of the "word
divisions", at least some of our tools must be entirely character-based.

TACT is indeed word-based but does have a useful set of tools. I haven't 
found any character based analysis stuff. Maybe we ought to see if NSA has 
any old surplus programs sitting around gathering dust <g>.
BTW I am running a P90 with much memory and W95. I have Visual c++ , but 
I'm NOT a c or c++ programmer (yet?). I can, however, try compiling other's 
programs for PC use.

Best to all,
Don Latham



From rand.org!jim Sun Oct 06 11:59:47 +0100 1996
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Date: Sun, 06 Oct 1996 11:59:47 +0100
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
From: antonini@is.co.za (Claudio Antonini)
Subject: TACT
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Status: OR

Hello. 

I brought up the case of TACT because I think that it is a powerful tool to
analyze the ms. and one can easily fall into the situation of reinventing
the wheel. 

I used TACT a few months ago just to see how user friendly it was (from 1 to
10: about 7-8). Downstairs  is included an example of the input from Hand-A
(with dashes), taken from voynich.ori. I did the whole analysis of hands A
and B, with and without dashes in about 20 minutes. The tool creates many
other files besides the one I'm including, including dictionaries of roots
and dictionaries of suffixes. More sophisticated analysis are possible.
Think that the TACT consists of 16 programs working together; it can do more
than counting letters and words: queries can be stored (sort of a batch
language), the alphabet can be defined interactively.

Cheers,

Claudio
Claudio Antonini

============= Example of input (just the beginning) =============
VAS92 9FAE AR APAM ZOE ZOR9 QOR92 9 FOR ZOE89
2OR9 XAR O R 9 FAN ZPAM ZAR AR* QAR QAR 8AD
29AU ZCF9 OR 9FAM ZO8 QOAR9 Q*R 8ARAM 29
$OM OPCC9 OPCOR 2OEOP9 Q*AR 8AM OFAM OE OFAD
2AT 9 SCAR QAM WAR YAM

98ARAIZO

* O8AR *9 ZOE WO9 O98AR Z* 2 YOAM ZO8A29
*Z9 SO89 OFSO9 OPSOE SOQ9 O2 S9 8AN ZOR FO2
8AM ZO2 YOE ZO89

8AN *OPCO89

* 98AN WC2AM OE 2 WC9 9PAN ZOZ9 WO8AE C2
OFZO FZO9 OPA3 OPCOE OFAD ZO8AN 2X9 8AM
ZO9 XC9 FO8AM W9 WO8AH2 QC9 ZO OE8AN 8
8AN OM SOE O8AM SO8AN S89 OFAN 8*D Q9 FO8
8AM ZXC9 XOR SOR ZC9 FOE SOE SOE FOR SOE
ZO SOE Z O8AD FZ9 FS9 8OR SO8AM ZO FCCAJ
9SO PSC9 SCFAN ZCOBZOE 80898 Q9 8AQ9
9PO ZOE ZC FO8ZC9 WCAE9 8ARAN 8AN X9,,
8SAR ZQAM OFAU SC9 *S9 BOPOE QOE2 8A8CPO
ZOF SOR SC9 8AN XO9

OPOE 8A3
============= End of example of input ========

============= Output of TACT  ====================
(For the whole Hand-A, not just for the input shown above.)

Frequency  Observed Freq.  Words in    Types  Tokens   % of     % of   % of word
  Rank         of Rank (1)    Frequency(2)    Total   Total   Types   Tokens
in freq.

     1          1650        1650       1650    1650    71.96    23.68    23.68
     2           250         500       1900    2150    82.86    30.86     7.18
     3           110         330       2010    2480    87.66    35.60     4.74
     4            56         224       2066    2704    90.10    38.81     3.22
     5            35         175       2101    2879    91.63    41.32     2.51
     6            28         168       2129    3047    92.85    43.73     2.41
     7            23         161       2152    3208    93.85    46.05     2.31
     8             9          72       2161    3280    94.24    47.08     1.03
     9            13         117       2174    3397    94.81    48.76     1.68
    10            11         110       2185    3507    95.29    50.34     1.58
    11            11         121       2196    3628    95.77    52.07     1.74
    12            11         132       2207    3760    96.25    53.97     1.89
    13             8         104       2215    3864    96.60    55.46     1.49
    14             7          98       2222    3962    96.90    56.87     1.41
    15             3          45       2225    4007    97.03    57.51     0.65
    16             5          80       2230    4087    97.25    58.66     1.15
    17             1          17       2231    4104    97.30    58.91     0.24
    18             7         126       2238    4230    97.60    60.71     1.81
    19             3          57       2241    4287    97.73    61.53     0.82
    20             2          40       2243    4327    97.82    62.11     0.57
    21             1          21       2244    4348    97.86    62.41     0.30
    22             7         154       2251    4502    98.17    64.62     2.21
    23             3          69       2254    4571    98.30    65.61     0.99
    24             1          24       2255    4595    98.34    65.95     0.34
    25             2          50       2257    4645    98.43    66.67     0.72
    26             2          52       2259    4697    98.52    67.42     0.75
    27             2          54       2261    4751    98.60    68.19     0.78
    28             1          28       2262    4779    98.65    68.59     0.40
    29             2          58       2264    4837    98.74    69.43     0.83
    30             1          30       2265    4867    98.78    69.86     0.43
    32             1          32       2266    4899    98.82    70.32     0.46
    34             3         102       2269    5001    98.95    71.78     1.46
    39             4         156       2273    5157    99.13    74.02     2.24
    40             1          40       2274    5197    99.17    74.59     0.57
    43             2          86       2276    5283    99.26    75.83     1.23
    44             1          44       2277    5327    99.30    76.46     0.63
    47             1          47       2278    5374    99.35    77.14     0.67
    48             2          96       2280    5470    99.43    78.51     1.38
    54             1          54       2281    5524    99.48    79.29     0.78
    61             1          61       2282    5585    99.52    80.16     0.88
    63             1          63       2283    5648    99.56    81.07     0.90
    71             1          71       2284    5719    99.61    82.09     1.02
    80             1          80       2285    5799    99.65    83.24     1.15
    86             1          86       2286    5885    99.69    84.47     1.23
    88             1          88       2287    5973    99.74    85.73     1.26
    90             1          90       2288    6063    99.78    87.02     1.29
    93             1          93       2289    6156    99.83    88.36     1.33
   100             1         100       2290    6256    99.87    89.79     1.44
   148             1         148       2291    6404    99.91    91.92     2.12
   209             1         209       2292    6613    99.96    94.92     3.00
   354             1         354       2293    6967   100.00   100.00     5.08

(1) How many times words that appear 'Freq. Rank' times are present in the text?
(2) How many words are in the text that appear 'Freq. Rank' times?

Number of Types   =     2293
Number of Tokens  =     6967
Type/Token ratio  =        0.329
Token/Type ratio  =        3.038
Hapax Legomena    =     1650
Hapax Dislegomena =      250
Hapax Legomena/Dislegomena ratio   =     6.6000
Hapax Legomena/Number of Types     =     0.7196
Hapax Legomena/Number of Tokens    =     0.2368
Hapax Legomena cubed/Types squared =   854.3655
Variance ( S.D. squared )          =   128.2821
Standard Deviation (S.D.)          =    11.3262
Coefficient of skewness            =    18.2994
Coefficient of kurtosis            =   470.2293
Herdan's characteristic            =     0.0778
Yule's characteristic              =   649.3550
Carroll TTR (Types / Sqrt of 2 X Tokens) =    19.4252
Most Frequent word "8am" occurred 354 times
repeat rate (Tokens / frequency most frequent word) =    19.6808


Word Length Statistics
----------------------

Word  Freq.    %                        Percentage
 Len                        10        20        30        40        50
                   +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
   1    223   3.20 |***
   2    805  11.55 |************
   3   2395  34.38 |**********************************
   4   1526  21.90 |**********************
   5   1170  16.79 |*****************
   6    517   7.42 |*******
   7    191   2.74 |***
   8     66   0.95 |*
   9     31   0.44 |
  10     12   0.17 |
  11      8   0.11 |
  12     11   0.16 |
  13      4   0.06 |
  14      3   0.04 |
  15      2   0.03 |
  16      2   0.03 |
  17      0   0.00 |
  18      1   0.01 |

Total letters (Tokens)   =    26732
Total Words (Types)      =     6967
Type/Token ratio         =        0.2606
Mean word length         =        3.8369
Variance (S.D. squared)  =        2.4552
Standard Deviation (S.D.)=        1.5669
Herdan's characteristic  =        0.0049


First letter in words statistics
--------------------------------

Letter Freq.    %                        Percentage
                            10        20        30        40        50
                   +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
   a     59   0.85 |*
   b     87   1.25 |*
   c     29   0.42 |
   d      4   0.06 |
   e     39   0.56 |*
   f    298   4.28 |****
   g      0   0.00 |
   h      0   0.00 |
   i      0   0.00 |
   j      2   0.03 |
   k      0   0.00 |
   l      0   0.00 |
   m      0   0.00 |
   n      0   0.00 |
   o   1033  14.83 |***************
   p    218   3.13 |***
   q    320   4.59 |*****
   r     34   0.49 |
   s   1457  20.91 |*********************
   t      0   0.00 |
   u      0   0.00 |
   v     31   0.44 |
   w     66   0.95 |*
   x     87   1.25 |*
   y     14   0.20 |
   z    629   9.03 |*********
   0      1   0.01 |
   1      0   0.00 |
   2    257   3.69 |****
   3      7   0.10 |
   4    622   8.93 |*********
   5      0   0.00 |
   6     13   0.19 |
   7      0   0.00 |
   8   1182  16.97 |*****************
   9    422   6.06 |******
   *     55   0.79 |*
   ,      0   0.00 |
   ?      0   0.00 |
   -      1   0.01 |

Sorted by frequency

Letter Freq.    %                       Percentage
                            10        20        30        40        50
                   +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
   s   1457  20.91 |*********************
   8   1182  16.97 |*****************
   o   1033  14.83 |***************
   z    629   9.03 |*********
   4    622   8.93 |*********
   9    422   6.06 |******
   q    320   4.59 |*****
   f    298   4.28 |****
   2    257   3.69 |****
   p    218   3.13 |***
   x     87   1.25 |*
   b     87   1.25 |*
   w     66   0.95 |*
   a     59   0.85 |*
   *     55   0.79 |*
   e     39   0.56 |*
   r     34   0.49 |
   v     31   0.44 |
   c     29   0.42 |
   y     14   0.20 |
   6     13   0.19 |
   3      7   0.10 |
   d      4   0.06 |
   j      2   0.03 |
   -      1   0.01 |
   0      1   0.01 |

Total initial letters (Tokens)   =     6967
Total different letters (Types)  =       40
Type/Token ratio                 =        0.0057
Arithmetric Mean                 =      174.1750
Standard Deviation (S.D.)        =      346.0356
Herdan's characteristic          =        0.3141
Repeat rate for initial letter "s" =          4.78


Final letter in words statistics
--------------------------------

Letter Freq.    %                        Percentage
                            10        20        30        40        50
                   +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
   a      7   0.10 |
   b      7   0.10 |
   c     20   0.29 |
   d     69   0.99 |*
   e   1167  16.75 |*****************
   f     15   0.22 |
   g      3   0.04 |
   h      1   0.01 |
   i      3   0.04 |
   j    186   2.67 |***
   k     10   0.14 |
   l      4   0.06 |
   m    984  14.12 |**************
   n    182   2.61 |***
   o    326   4.68 |*****
   p     22   0.32 |
   q      6   0.09 |
   r   1132  16.25 |****************
   s      5   0.07 |
   t     45   0.65 |*
   u     19   0.27 |
   v      4   0.06 |
   w      2   0.03 |
   x      2   0.03 |
   y      0   0.00 |
   z     15   0.22 |
   0      0   0.00 |
   1      0   0.00 |
   2    241   3.46 |***
   3     21   0.30 |
   4      2   0.03 |
   5      0   0.00 |
   6     31   0.44 |
   7      3   0.04 |
   8    133   1.91 |**
   9   2260  32.44 |********************************
   *     39   0.56 |*
   ,      1   0.01 |
   ?      0   0.00 |
   -      0   0.00 |

Sorted by frequency

Letter Freq.    %                       Percentage
                            10        20        30        40        50
                   +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
   9   2260  32.44 |********************************
   e   1167  16.75 |*****************
   r   1132  16.25 |****************
   m    984  14.12 |**************
   o    326   4.68 |*****
   2    241   3.46 |***
   j    186   2.67 |***
   n    182   2.61 |***
   8    133   1.91 |**
   d     69   0.99 |*
   t     45   0.65 |*
   *     39   0.56 |*
   6     31   0.44 |
   p     22   0.32 |
   3     21   0.30 |
   c     20   0.29 |
   u     19   0.27 |
   f     15   0.22 |
   z     15   0.22 |
   k     10   0.14 |
   a      7   0.10 |
   b      7   0.10 |
   q      6   0.09 |
   s      5   0.07 |
   v      4   0.06 |
   l      4   0.06 |
   g      3   0.04 |
   7      3   0.04 |
   i      3   0.04 |
   4      2   0.03 |
   x      2   0.03 |
   w      2   0.03 |
   h      1   0.01 |
   ,      1   0.01 |

Total final letters (Tokens)     =     6967
Total different letters (Types)  =       40
Type/Token ratio                 =        0.0057
Arithmetric Mean                 =      174.1750
Standard Deviation (S.D.)        =      446.2721
Herdan's characteristic          =        0.4051
Repeat rate for final letter "9" =          3.08


All letters in words statistics
-------------------------------

Letter  Freq.  % in all  Initial  % in all  Final  % in all
     a   2050     7.67      59      2.88       7      0.34
     b    200     0.75      87     43.50       7      3.50
     c   1500     5.61      29      1.93      20      1.33
     d     76     0.28       4      5.26      69     90.79
     e   1523     5.70      39      2.56    1167     76.63
     f   1296     4.85     298     22.99      15      1.16
     g      4     0.01       0      0.00       3     75.00
     h      4     0.01       0      0.00       1     25.00
     i     47     0.18       0      0.00       3      6.38
     j    198     0.74       2      1.01     186     93.94
     k     11     0.04       0      0.00      10     90.91
     l      4     0.01       0      0.00       4    100.00
     m   1009     3.77       0      0.00     984     97.52
     n    193     0.72       0      0.00     182     94.30
     o   5152    19.27    1033     20.05     326      6.33
     p   1166     4.36     218     18.70      22      1.89
     q    432     1.62     320     74.07       6      1.39
     r   1320     4.94      34      2.58    1132     85.76
     s   2852    10.67    1457     51.09       5      0.18
     t     56     0.21       0      0.00      45     80.36
     u     22     0.08       0      0.00      19     86.36
     v     60     0.22      31     51.67       4      6.67
     w     89     0.33      66     74.16       2      2.25
     x    163     0.61      87     53.37       2      1.23
     y     20     0.07      14     70.00       0      0.00
     z    903     3.38     629     69.66      15      1.66
     0      5     0.02       1     20.00       0      0.00
     1      0     0.00       0      0.00       0      0.00
     2    482     1.80     257     53.32     241     50.00
     3     34     0.13       7     20.59      21     61.76
     4    631     2.36     622     98.57       2      0.32
     5      0     0.00       0      0.00       0      0.00
     6     34     0.13      13     38.24      31     91.18
     7      8     0.03       0      0.00       3     37.50
     8   2011     7.52    1182     58.78     133      6.61
     9   2878    10.77     422     14.66    2260     78.53
     *    141     0.53      55     39.01      39     27.66
     ,      3     0.01       0      0.00       1     33.33
     ?      0     0.00       0      0.00       0      0.00
     -    155     0.58       1      0.65       0      0.00

Sorted by frequency

Letter Freq.    %                       Percentage
                            10        20        30        40        50
                   +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
   o   5152  19.27 |*******************
   9   2878  10.77 |***********
   s   2852  10.67 |***********
   a   2050   7.67 |********
   8   2011   7.52 |********
   e   1523   5.70 |******
   c   1500   5.61 |******
   r   1320   4.94 |*****
   f   1296   4.85 |*****
   p   1166   4.36 |****
   m   1009   3.77 |****
   z    903   3.38 |***
   4    631   2.36 |**
   2    482   1.80 |**
   q    432   1.62 |**
   b    200   0.75 |*
   j    198   0.74 |*
   n    193   0.72 |*
   x    163   0.61 |*
   -    155   0.58 |*
   *    141   0.53 |*
   w     89   0.33 |
   d     76   0.28 |
   v     60   0.22 |
   t     56   0.21 |
   i     47   0.18 |
   3     34   0.13 |
   6     34   0.13 |
   u     22   0.08 |
   y     20   0.07 |
   k     11   0.04 |
   7      8   0.03 |
   0      5   0.02 |
   h      4   0.01 |
   l      4   0.01 |
   g      4   0.01 |
   ,      3   0.01 |

Total all letters (Tokens)       =    26732
Total different letters (Types)  =       40
Type/Token ratio                 =        0.0015
Arithmetric Mean                 =      668.3000
Standard Deviation (S.D.)        =     1080.7909
Herdan's characteristic          =        0.2557
Repeat rate for all letter "o" =          5.19


============= End of output of TACT ===============




From rand.org!jim Sun Oct  6 13:33:17 GMT 1996
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Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 13:33:17 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9610061333.AA28421@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Entropy?, Arabic??
Cc: rzandber@mail-gw.esoc.esa.de
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Status: OR

Dear all,

If one takes the FSG.new (extracted from Interlin 1.6)
and calculates the single- and dual-character entropies when
the text is transcribed in the various different alphabets,
one finds the following rather surprising result:

Alphabet     Nr.Char   E1     E2  
-------------------------------------
FSG             25    3.83   6.13
Currier         36    3.84   6.16
Bas. Frogguy   ~20    3.88   5.84
EVA             22    3.91   6.00

The single-character entropy points to an alphabet of about 24 
characters (if the Zipf law is followed), independent of whether
it is transcribed with a 20-character alphabet or a 36-character
alphabet. Note that spaces were counted as normal characters
so a margin of 1 should be accounted for somehow.
The digraph entropy is much more variable. It is more reasonable
for the larger alphabets. At least here we see something that
might have been expected. It indicates to me that, perhaps,
several characters are used in Voynichese to represent one,
where the additional ones may be nulls, or the scribe used a
24-character alphabet in combinations to represent a larger 
character set.

For a text in Latin (vulgate) the E1 and E2 are equal to 4.00 and 7.35.
I'm sure it is mathematically totally invalid to do this, but
on a straight line from (1 , 4.00) to (2, 7.35), the Y value of 6.1
is found at X=1.63. Does that mean two Voynich characters represent
only 1.6 real ones, i.e. 20% are nulls?

For an alphabet with a larger character set one could think of Arabic.
I think if you count each letter as either 4 or 2 different ones 
(where one of them would be relatively rare),
you get close to a hundred. Representing these with a 24-character
alphabet by making certain combinations would
yield a low digraph entropy, I am sure. And if the devious scribe
maintained the spaces near unconnectable characters, such
characters would tend to appear at the ends of words. This
would also make it impossible to recognise the typical 3-consonant
structure of Arabic.
And 'words' would tend to be shorter, but 1-character words should be 
rare.

Lots to think about. A pity I don't know any Arabic.
And I'd love to find some transcribed Arabic text somewhere.
Anybody?

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Sun Oct  6 17:05:27 +0200 1996
Received: by fry; Sun Oct  6 11:17 EDT 1996
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Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 17:05:27 +0200
From: CLARY Olivier <Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr>
Message-Id: <199610061505.AA10418@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Entropy?, Arabic??
Status: OR

rzandber@esoc.esa.de (Rene' Zandbergen):
> And I'd love to find some transcribed Arabic text somewhere.
> Anybody?

http://remus.rutgers.edu/~cura/Tran.html    Transliteration of The Holy Quran

-- Olivier

From rand.org!jim Sun Oct  6 14:55:00 0400 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: TACT
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 14:55:00 -0400 (EDT)
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Status: OR

What is the source for TACT? Is it a commercial package or freeware or ...?

Bruce Grant

From rand.org!jim Mon Oct  7 00:45:28 0500 1996
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Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 00:45:28 -0500 (CDT)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: The Blood Countess, by Andrei Codrescu
In-Reply-To: <9609060234.AA06790@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
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> Since we are now visiting Hungary, I cannot resist airing again
> an old pet theory of mine: that the nymphs in bathtubs are
> in fact country wenches being drained of their blood for 
> the infamous Erzsebet Bathory, the "bloody countess".

	Andrei Codrescu is an American writer who is an expatriate from 
Romania.  He grew up in Sibiu, in Transylvania.  The Americans on the 
list may be familiar with him as a commentator on National Public Radio.  
He teaches creative writing in the city where I live.  
	He has written a historical novel about Elizabeth Bathory called 
"The Blood Countess".  I just finished reading it.

> The "plumbing" diagrams are just that: plumbing diagrams of
> Csejthe (spelling?) castle.

	In fact, as a character in the novel points out, blood rapidly 
coagulates in ordinary containers.  Elizabeth's victims were bled in a 
special device.  This was a large basket suspended from the ceiling that 
would spin rapidly around.  Centrifugal force would drive knives into the 
victim, bathing Elizabeth, standing below, in  blood.
	Yes, this is the goriest thing I've read in a long time; the
author does not spare any details.  Yet one can see, from the times she
lived in and the people around her, how she became the monster she was. 
There is a parallel story in modern times to show, among other things, how
these ancient hatreds are awakening from under the iron thumb of
Communism.
	The Voynich Manuscript is not mentioned, nor are Dee and Kelley.  
There is an unflattering portrayal of Rudolf II of Prague, and an amazing 
role for astronomy pioneer Johannes Kepler.
	A very different take on the  times we are interested in.  Read 
it if you dare...

Dennis

From rand.org!jim Mon Oct 07 10:50:01 +0100 1996
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Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 10:50:01 +0100
To: voynich@rand.org
From: antonini@is.co.za (Claudio Antonini)
Subject: TACT source and CCH (Univ. of Toronto)
Status: OR

> Bruce Grant wrote:
>What is the source for TACT? Is it a commercial package or freeware or ...?

Bruce:

TACT has been developed by the CCH (Centre for Computing in Humanities),
University of Toronto.
I include what it says in the file "tactread.me", from their site at
ftp://epas.utoronto.ca/pub/cch/tact/tact2.1

============ beginning of text from tactread.me =========
   **************************************************************
   *            H. COPYRIGHT AND COPYING OF <t>TACT</t>         *
   **************************************************************

     <t>TACT</t> is shareware.  All programs are copyrighted to
the programmers and members of the development team and to the
University of Toronto but may be freely copied by anyone for
research or teaching as long as it is distributed only pursuant to
this license.

     Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and disseminate the
<t>TACT</t> system so long as

        1.  no remuneration of any kind is received in exchange;

        2.  distribution is without any modification to the contents
        of its files, including the copyright notice and this license;
        and

        3. its supporting documentation is not separated from the
        programs and published in any form as a manual without written
        permission in advance.


No copy of <t>TACT</t> may be distributed without including a
copy of this license.

     Any other use is prohibited without express, written
permission in advance.

   **************************************************************
   *                          I.  COST                          *
   **************************************************************

     CCH (Centre for Computing in Humanities, University of Toronto)
charges Cdn $30 (US $25) to mail a copy of <t>TACT</t> on
diskettes (7% GST should be added for purchases in Canadian
dollars).  The program itself is free.  The charge is for postage,
materials, and handling.

================== end of text from tactread.me ==============

Therefore, I think we can use it. 

Not only that. They should be interested in the text themselves and could
recommend things to check plus possibly other programs that could analyze
the text. Remember that they do this for a living: they have used TACT to
analyze works of Ovid, Chaucer and Shakespeare among others. They are
particularly focused in the study of the structure of languages and have
experience (quantifiers?) in Medieval language research.

I think that we should get in touch with these people and 
a) ask them for recommendations on what "quantifiers" we could be looking
for in the text and
b) if we think that some particular work should be performed on the text
(Zipf's laws? Entropy?...) they could easily add it to their standard suite
of 16 programs.

Cheers,

Claudio


From rand.org!jim Mon Oct  7 10:45:22 +0000 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 10:45:22 +0000
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Subject: Re: The Blood Countess, by Andrei Codrescu
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Status: OR

> 
> 	In fact, as a character in the novel points out, blood rapidly 
> coagulates in ordinary containers.  Elizabeth's victims were bled in a 
> special device.  This was a large basket suspended from the ceiling that 
> would spin rapidly around.  Centrifugal force would drive knives into the 
> victim, bathing Elizabeth, standing below, in  blood.

If the container walls are completely covered with solid paraffin, blood 
does not coagulate.
This is what glass sample tubes have in the walls.

cheers,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Tue Oct  8 09:23:44 +1000 1996
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Subject: Re: The Blood Countess, by Andrei Codrescu
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 09:23:44 +1000 (EST)
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> > 	In fact, as a character in the novel points out, blood rapidly 
> > coagulates in ordinary containers.  
> 
> If the container walls are completely covered with solid paraffin, blood 
> does not coagulate.

Neither does it with a certain additive that colours it green!
(I'm making this up, of course. Every little bit of skullduggery
helps my zany theory #6 about the VMS)


From rand.org!jim Tue Oct  8 07:36:56 GMT 1996
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Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 07:36:56 GMT
From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9610080736.AA02690@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Phaistos Disk! STOP PRES!!
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The Most Mysterious Clay Tablet
-------------------------------
By Rene S. Zandbaugh

The Phaistos Disk, a clay tablet discovered in the ruins of the Minoan
Palace at Phaistos, not far from Agia Galini, Crete, has so far befuddled
all scientists attempting to decipher this most mysterious text.
I would be less than candid if I did not express my satisfaction in
solving at least part of this puzzle. We can now read part of the horizontal
and vertical bars on this tablet, which have been written in a standard
Neolythic Cipher, and show beyond any doubt that the symbols engraved or
stamped between them are just filler text, invented by two charlatans in
an attempt to sell this disk to Minos, the confused ruler of the
scientific centre of the world at his time: Knossos.

The fact that there were two people is clear from the presence of two
sides (usually called "A" and "B") with different properties: whereas
on side A the text spirals inwards in the direction of the clock, on 
side B it goes against the clock. In fact it should have, but it also
spirals with the clock, more proof of the deliberate concealment 
involved, and par for the course as we might say.
The spirals have been seen as evidence that Minos would have possessed
a telescope and discovered the spiral structure of the Andromeda 
Galaxy, but this false theory must be rejected.
Minos, failing to have the disk deciphered, sent it to his brother
at Phaistos, with an accompanying letter, now unfortunately lost.
The disk was finally rediscovered between the rubble of the ruins of
the palace.

What does it say?

I have shown the disk to a friend of mine, who is also an expert
in zoology, and he made the surprising discovery that the disk
does not show any image of dinosaurs, and it must therefore date from
after the great flood, when dinosaurs were first absent from the surface
of the earth.
I have then applied some standard cryptography to the disk, and
can show that it uses a reduced alphabet of two characters, represented
as the horizontal and vertical bars. These divide the normal Greek
alphabet into two groups. The disk thus reads:

0* 1 1* 1 0* 0 0* 0 1* 1 1* 1 1  1* 0 0* 0* 0 0* (etc.)

where 1* means that a different notation for 1 was used. This can
be translated into Greek and I will here give the Latin translation:

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes...." (etc)

We are now engaged in a search for the meaning of this text, and hope
to publish the result very soon.

:-) (I hope this was not needed)

From rand.org!jim Tue Oct  8 09:07:58 0700 1996
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Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 09:07:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford@haywire.csuhayward.edu>
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To: "R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad" <rzandber@esoc.esa.de>
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Subject: Re: Phaistos Disk! STOP PRES!!
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On Tue, 8 Oct 1996, R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad wrote:
> 
> The Most Mysterious Clay Tablet
> -------------------------------
> By Rene S. Zandbaugh
> 
> I have shown the disk to a friend of mine, who is also an expert
> in zoology, and he made the surprising discovery that the disk
> does not show any image of dinosaurs, and it must therefore date from
> after the great flood, when dinosaurs were first absent from the surface
> of the earth.          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~    
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Huh? Which cosmology does this refer to? Since the great flood (make that
the LAST great flood, the third of three) happened only 12,000 years ago
or so (the others being around 20K and 50K yrs ago, if I remember
correctly), that means dinosaurs were first absent from the surface of the
earth only 12K yrs ago?! That just doesn't fit with our commonly accepted
multi-million year gap in scientific terms. He's a zoologist, you say?
>From where? Oral Roberts University?

snidely, moonhawk


From rand.org!jim Wed Oct  9 10:52:55 GMT 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
Message-Id: <9610091052.AA01895@dcla12.oratos.esoc.esa.de>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Astronomy (seriously now)
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Dear all,

I have been trying to trace down an astronomical system
described by Peter of Abano (according to Agrippa), that subdivides
each zodiac sign into 30 'figures'. This I hoped to correlate
somehow to the 30 labels found near each zodiac sign in the
astrological section of the Ms. What was probably meant is
a system called 'MONOMOERIARUM', also referred to as 'Aegyptiacus'.
The connection with P.of A. is not yet clear to me.

Does anybody (and I am mainly thinking of our paleoastronomers)
have any reference for this system? More about its origin? It has 
some promising aspects, for example looking at the
names it gives for the Decans, which have some vaguely repetitive
structure:

Asiccan, senacher, acentacer, asicath, viroaso, aharph, etc. etc.

Do these names mean anything to anybody?

Thanks for any hints, Rene

From rand.org!jim Sun Nov  3 00:29 EST 1996
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Status: OR


 Just ran across a reference to a cipher ms ascribed to Dee called the 
Liber Logaeth, or the Al Azif.  This looks bogus to me. Did Dee produce 
this ms?

Best to all
Don Latham


From rand.org!jim Sun Nov  3 01:02 EST 1996
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Status: OR


>  Just ran across a reference to a cipher ms ascribed to Dee called the 
> Liber Logaeth, or the Al Azif.  This looks bogus to me. Did Dee produce 
> this ms?

Yes and no. Dee & Kelly did indeed produce the _Liber Logaeth_. It has no
known relationship to the (ficticious) _Al Azif_ (better known as the
_Necronomicon_).

From rand.org!jim Sun Nov  3 09:29 EST 1996
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To: kckluge@eecs.umich.edu (Karl Kluge)
Date: Sun, 3 Nov 1996 11:58:15 +0000 (GMT)
Cc: djl@paw.montana.com, voynich@rand.org
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> >  Just ran across a reference to a cipher ms ascribed to Dee called the 
> > Liber Logaeth, or the Al Azif.  This looks bogus to me. Did Dee produce 
> > this ms?
> 
> Yes and no. Dee & Kelly did indeed produce the _Liber Logaeth_. It has no
> known relationship to the (ficticious) _Al Azif_ (better known as the
> _Necronomicon_).

Indeed so. Liber Logeath isn't exactly a cipher manuscript either. I have it
on microfilm along with the rest of the Dee 'occult' stuff which I'm
transcribing my way through at the moment. Logeath was written by Kelley,
though, if memory serves, not Dee.

Al Azif was the Arabic version of the Necronomicon in Lovecraft's writing.
Although, interestingly enough, I had heard rumours in the occult community
that people were regarding Casuabon's "True and Faithful Relation..." as the
book that inspired the Necronomicon!

A.

-- 
Alligator Descartes       |
descarte@hermetica.com    |   "Lobey's the Wee Boy!" -- Bud Neill
http://www.hermetica.com  |

From rand.org!jim Mon Nov  4 18:41 EST 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: EKT Hypothesis (long)
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    My hypothesis is that the concealment system for the VMs is a 
word game, like Pig Latin.  I have devised a homophonic word game that 
would be less detectable than Pig Latin and would account for the 
presence of Voynich A and B, the low variety of digraphs (the low 
second-order entropy of the text), and the (relative) absence of long 
repeated phrases. 

*Word Games* 

    Andras Kornai's excellent posts, "Words or not", Sun, 26 Jan 92, 
and "Word game filters", Mon, 27 Jan 92, started me down this path.  
Many from D'Imperio on have noted how the VMs is written in a quick, 
flowing script, without hesitation and without any apparent 
corrections.  Compare this to the difficulties we have in transcribing 
the text into one of our transcription alphabets!  This strongly 
suggests that the scribes could read at sight and indeed *speak* what 
they were writing.  Many, most recently Gadi Guy, have also pointed 
out that deciphering a book-length document from any cipher available 
at that time (or indeed in World War I) is far too much trouble to 
make any sense for practical use.  All these things strongly suggest 
that any concealment system involved is an *oral* system, like a word 
game.  An oral system makes all the more sense because writing and 
writing materials were not nearly as convenient as they are now.  For 
that very reason, the art of memory was much more highly developed 
then than now. 

    Also, word games usually add extraneous nonsense material that 
adds repetition and decreases the first- and second-order entropy of 
the text - exactly what we are looking for. 

    All this makes a word game sound very plausible!   

    Pig Latin is familiar to native speakers of English. The 
rules are: move all consonants at the beginning of the word and add 
"ay".  If the word begins with a vowel, just add "way" to the end of 
the word.  

"The sunflower is a marvellous plant with powerful virtues that must 
needs be concealed from the ignorant and uninitiated." 

becomes: 

"Ethay unflowersay isway away arvellousmay antplay ithway owerfulpay 
irtuesvay atthay ustmay eedsnay ebay oncealedcay omfray ethay 
ignorantway andway unintiatedway." 

    Here are some examples from French: 

Date: Tue, 28 Jan 92 10:44:21 EST
From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Subject: Pronounceable Voynich and "dialects"

<**snip**>
Do you speak Javanese? Not the Javanese spoken in
Java, the one spoken in Paris. Just insert "av": bonjour -->
bavonjavour

For instance:

Sava skavoz kavom sava, lave pavot, ljavanave! (that was phonetic)

(C,a se cause comme c,a, les potes, le javanais!)

Now, in Javanese, you don't always insert "av" everywhere, just in
enough places so as not to be understood by outsiders.

When I was a school kid, two friends of mine had developed their own
secret language which was completely incomprehensible (they could speak it 
at break-neck speed, too): add "dgueu" (I'm using French spelling here
to convey that is was a hard "g" and an "e" sound as in "pert"):

Sadgue sedgue caudgue zaidgue codgue medgue sadgue (C,a se causait comme c,a)

Since, I have read about a similar code in which the "real-word" vowel
is repeated, so:

Sadga sedgue caudgau zaidgai codgo medgue sadga

What if Voynich Author A used one such code and Author B another, to write 
exactly the *same* language?

Suddenly, seen through Andras's theory, all the weirdnesses of the
Voynich look very normal indeed. Who knows, perhaps my pronounceable
Voynich is closer to the mark than I care to believe?
<******unquote*****>


*King Tut*

    The system that interests me the most is called King Tut. 
One makes the following substitutions: 

A - a                   I - i           R - rur
B - bub                 J - jug         S - sus
C - cut                 K - kam         T - tut
D - dud                 L - lul         U - u
E - e                   M - mum         V - vuv
F - fuf                 N - num         W - wuv
G - gug                 O - o           Y - yec
H - hush                P - pup         Z - zuz

Q (as is)
X (as is)

- from *The Cat's Elbow and other Secret Languages*, collected by
  Alvin Schwartz and pictures by Margot Zemach, 1982; a children's book,
  although it also has good scholarly references.  King Tut or 
  Double Dutch, p. 45-47.

"The sunflower is a marvellous plant with powerful virtues that must 
needs be concealed from the ignorant and uninitiated." 

becomes: 

"Tuthushe susunumfuflulowuverur isus a mumarurvuvelullulousus 
puplulanumtut wuvituthush pupowuverurfufulul vuvirurtutuesus 
tuthushatut mumusustut numeedudsus bube cutonumcutealuledud fufruromum 
tuthushe igugnumoruranumtut anumdud unuminumitutiatutedud." 

    Of course, the fact that English represents the single 
phonemes th and sh with two letters adds some confusion to this 
system. 

    This system interests me because: 

1)  There's enough variation in the substitutions that it's not easily 
detectable. 

2) The format substitutes C with CVC, preserving the normal CVCV 
alternation of natural language.  This keeps the entropy low, even 
with greater variety in the substituted syllables compared to other 
word games. 

3)  The repetition of short "words" in the VMs is very obvious; it 
leaps off the page at you.  Common trigraphs or short words would be 
expanded to longer strings that would look like words.  For example: 

"for"  becomes "fuforur", 
"the"  becomes "tuthushe", 
"that" becomes "tuthushatut"
"are"  becomes "arure"


*Extended King Tut (EKT)*

    With modifications, the King Tut system can account for other 
properties of the Voynich text. I shall call this modified system 
Extended King Tut (EKT). 

    A homophonic system, one that allows multiple alternatives 
for the substitution tags (from now on I'll just call them "tags"), 
could lead to the presence of Voynich A and B.  A and B would have 
different preferences for alternatives they would use, and this would 
account for the statistical differences between Voynich A and B.  This 
phenomenon is well known from wartime experience with code clerks.  
Each clerk had his/her personal preferences for which code group to 
use where there was a choice, and this fact helped enemy codebreakers. 

    The quires diagram seems to show that single pieces of vellum 
were always done by one person; there are no cases of A and B both 
writing on a single piece of vellum.  This argues the scribes were 
responsible for the difference between Voynich A and B.  If the 
scribes were copying an original text with mixed dialects, Voynich A 
and B might have mixed on a single piece of vellum.  I have not heard 
of the Voynich A "language" appearing in B's hand, either.   

    A homophonic system would also tend to break up long repeated 
phrases, since the scribe could use different alternatives each time a 
repeated phrase appeared.  In "Voynich status report", Wed, 28 Oct 92, 
Jim Reeds noted "the paucity of long (multi word) repeated sequences".  
(However, there are at least a few long repeated phrases in the VMs. 
See Michael Roe, "Voynich MS progress report", Wed, 09 Aug 1995.) 

    Finally, the entropy decrease from this word game might make 
possible an underlying high-entropy system, such as one with no vowels 
or a system with extensive abbreviations. 

    However, a homophonic system leads to another problem.  
A homophonic system, one offering multiple alternatives, would 
decrease predictability and therefore *increase* entropy.  However, it 
is the second-order entropy of the Voynich text that is low.  A system 
that did not widen the digraph distribution, (that is, the digraphs 
that we see, the Currier digraphs) would not affect our readings of 
second-order entropy.  Suppose the tags only contained a few different 
base digraphs, much fewer than the total number of tags. If the tags 
were constructed from a limited pool of base digraphs, there might not 
be a net increase in second-order entropy in comparison to a similar 
non-homophonic system (like unmodified King Tut).  

*Sample EKT System* 

    To illustrate this, I will construct an Extended King Tut that 
would show the same differences in the Currier letter frequencies (in 
English!) that Voynich A and B do.  Please bear in mind that this 
system is only an example illustrating the principle involved and is 
undoubtedly much simpler than what might really be in use in the 
Voynich Manuscript.  I will use the single-character (Currier)  
statistics compiled by Karl Kluge (20 Oct 1992). 

For vowels:     A is equally frequent in A and B. 
                E is more frequent in B. 
                O is more frequent in A.
                I,U are rare (< 0.1%).

For consonants: Z,X, and B are equally frequent in A and B.
                N,F, and C are more frequent in B.
                P,Q,R,S,M, and J are more frequent in A.
                Y,W,V,U,T,K,L,G,H, and D are rare (< 0.5%).

So, for the base digraphs-
                A only uses:       OP, OR, OS
                B only uses:       EC, EF, EN
                A and B both use:  AB, AX, AZ

    I then use only these 9 base digraphs to construct the tags 
for Extended King Tut.  Adding only 9 distinct base digraphs in large 
numbers will surely result in a low second-order entropy for the text. 

         A               B               A               B
Char     Only    Either  Only    Char    Only    Either  Only
----     ----    ------  ----    ----    ----    ------  ----
A                                N       nor     nax     nef
B        bop     bab     bec     O
C        cor     cax     cef     P       pos     paz     pen
D        dos     daz     den     Q
E                                R       rop     rab     rec
F        fop     fab     fec     S       sor     sax     sef
G        gor     gax     gef     T       tos     taz     ten
H        hos     haz     hen     U
I                                V       vop     vab     vec
J        jop     jab     jec     W       wor     wax     wef
K        kor     kax     kef     X
L        los     laz     len     Y       yos     yaz     yen
M        mop     mab     mec     Z       zop     zab     zec


"The sunflower is a marvellous plant with powerful virtues that must 
needs be concealed from the ignorant and uninitiated." 

A might write this sentence as: 

"Toshaze saxunorfablazoworerab isor a moparopvopelazlazousor 
pazlosanaxtos waxitoshos posoworerabfopulos vopirabtosuesaz toshosataz 
mabusaxtaz naxeedossax bope coronorcaxealazedaz fabropomop toshose 
igornaxoropanaxtos anaxdaz unorinoritaziatazedaz." 

B might write this sentence as: 

"Tenhene soruneffeclazoweferec isef a mabarabvabelenlazousef 
pazlazanaxten wefitazhaz pazowaxerabfabulen vabirabtazuesax tazhenataz 
mabuseften nefeedensef bece cefonaxcaxealazeden fabrabomab tenhaze 
igefneforabanaxtaz anefden unefinefitaziatazedaz." 

    In reality, of course, the tags probably are short words or 
related to short words to give them mnemonic value.  Remember, too, 
that the art of memory was much more highly developed in those days 
when books were scarce and writing techniques inconvenient.   

    The system could easily be more complex than this.  A and B could 
both have used all three alternatives, merely having different 
relative preferences.  There could have been more than three tags for 
each phoneme. 


*How to Remove EKT from the Text* 

1)  The tags, which I assume here to be trigraphs, would be among the 
most frequent trigraphs in the whole text. 

2)  The base digraphs in the limited digraph pool used to construct 
the tags would be among the most frequent digraphs in the whole text.  

3)  The differences in single character frequencies between samples of 
Voynich A and B would be explained by the differences of the 
frequencies of the digraphs in the limited base digraph pool used to 
construct the tags.  One would want to choose digraphs with at least 
one vowel, bearing in mind our limited success in identifying vowels.  

4) Of course, as the sample EKT showed, some base digraphs would have 
about the same frequency in A and B.  I don't know how one would 
identify these.  Perhaps one would simply look for the highest-
frequency digraphs composed of characters with equal frequency in A 
and B, including at least one vowel, and then look at the contacts 
with these digraphs. 

5)  Once one had the list of substituent base digraphs, one would look 
for characters that contacted these at high frequencies.  This might 
be enough to recover the tags.  Bear in mind that the true letter 
might come *after* the substituent base digraph, rather than before. 
For instance, in the sample EKT the digraphs OP, OR, OS, only used by 
A, might as well have been written PO, RO, and SO.  Then the tag 
sequence for B, C, and D would have been pob, roc, and sod, rather 
than bop, cor, and dos.  

6)  Bear in mind that EKT is an *oral* system and works with phonemes, 
not necessarily characters.  Some phonemes will probable be 
represented by two or more characters (and vice versa, some phoneme 
clusters may be represented by one character, like x represents ks).   
Simple King Tut represents the single English phoneme sh as sus-hush, 
two tags instead of one, but the VMs EKT almost certainly will not 
work like that.  Also, EKT will probably follow the same phonotactic 
rules as the base language; sound clusters not allowed in the base 
language will most likely not occur in EKT either. 

7)  The labels are usually not very long, so maybe they are one- or 
two-phoneme abbreviations that EKT then expands to word-length 
strings.  "Sagittarius" might be abbreviated as "s" or "sg".  Scribe A 
might represent "s" with the sample EKT as "sor" and "sg" as "sorgor".  
Perhaps the labels are purely arbitrary, like saying (Figure) A, B, 
and C.  Scribe A might represent C in the sample EKT as "cor".  Thus, 
the labels might be the tags themselves, or brief abbreviations 
composed of maybe two tags.  If this reasoning is correct, the labels 
will be an important clue for reconstructing the tags.  This issue is 
discussed a little further in the next section.  

8)  The "inflections" that some have identified, the short strings 
repeated two or three times in succession, the strings repeated in 
succession that differ only slightly, and long strings ("phrases") 
that differ only slightly are all probably clues to the system.  I am 
not sure how. 

9)  Once we've removed the EKT, we then have the problem of 
identifying an unknown language in an unfamiliar orthography.  There's 
got to be some good software out there that would help.  Maybe TACT 
does some of this.  Gadi Guy said she might have something to do this.  
What about packages like SAS or MINITAB? I haven't heard them 
mentioned on the list and I haven't personally used them, but I know 
they're enormously powerful. 

10)  Repeat the preceding steps as needed, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, 
etc.  Try different transcription systems, base digraphs, tags, 
phonemes as two or more characters, etc. 

11)  Known examples of homophonic word games would be very valuable.  
Andras Kornai said in his post "Words or not", Sun, 26 Jan 92, "... 
(for a good overview of such games, see Bruce Bagemihl's PhD thesis 
(cca 1990, U. of British Columbia), probably available from UMI)..."  
He also said in "Word game filters", Mon, 27 Jan 92, "There is a large 
variety of  such systems (if people find the Bagemihl reference hard 
to track down I'll come up with something more accessible) and many of 
them provide an effective way of blocking overhearers from 
understanding what's going on. Check "speech disguise" and "word game" 
in your friendly library keyword search index. Point is, these word 
game filters tend to create exactly the sort of repetitiveness that we 
see in the Voynich."  I have not yet investigated any of this 
material.  

12)  I'm sure that the more cryptologically and linguistically savvy 
list members have further and better ideas. 

13)  Finally, we could also apply the EKT algorithm to known texts in 
English and Latin and measure the statistics before and after to see 
whether it yields the results we see in the VMs. 

*Problems with EKT Hypothesis:* 

1)  The sheer repetition of short strings in the Voynich text is very 
striking.  Trigraphs are expanded to "words" by the King Tut system.  
However, the homophonic system could be used to *avoid* producing 
repeated short "words" in close proximity.  Scribe A might write 
"that" as "toshosatos", "tazhazataz", "toshazatos", or three other 
alternatives.  If "that" appeared three times in a paragraph, he could 
use a different alternative each time and avoid the appearance of 
repeated words.  However, he could use one choice like "toshosatos" 
for a few paragraphs or a page and then switch to another alternative.  

    This might be a stylistic matter.  Jacques Guy wrote: (Hebrew, 
Arabic and ... Nahuatl! (was: Astronomy: Alkima), Wed, 26 Jun 1996): 

> - Does Hebrew have a high tendency for repeating words in a sentence?
    
    Yes, it is a stylistic feature of Hebrew that, when possible,
    words with the same root are preferred. For instance:
    ani kotev mikhtav ("I write a letter") in which "kotev" (write)
    and "mikhtav" (letter) share the same root ktv. In Hebrew
    writing it's:  any ktb mktb  (a = aleph, originally a glottal
    stop, now silent in modern Hebrew, *not* the vowel "a")

    Perhaps a lot of similar short "words" close together are 
desired on stylistic grounds, but above that level variation is 
desired instead.  

2)  The word games that increase predictability and decrease entropy 
also make words longer.  Voynich words are rather short.  Gabriel 
Landini said in "Re: Iso-word gaps", Sun, 14 Apr 1996, that "either 
the voynich.now and the FSG.NEW have a "fat" peak ;-) that spans 
length 3 to 5 and the probability of length=1 is about half of the one 
in English." 

    However, the exact meaning of the "word divisions" remains 
unsolved.  Since EKT words are so long, under this hypothesis the 
divisions in the text could not be word divisions.  Perhaps A and B 
kept one-or-two syllable words that expanded into relatively short 
strings as words, but divided longer words into groups of 1-3  
syllables (tags).  Using the sample EKT, scribe A might write "the" as 
"toshaze" but "powerful" as "posowor erab fopulos".  I can't help but 
notice that Jacques did that in some places in his post quoted above 
on "Javanese" and other French word games. 

3)  We usually presume that labels are words, but the labels are 
usually not very long.  Here are statistics from Karl Kluge's label 
corpus posted on Sun, 2 Aug 1992, "A comment and a question/request": 

Number of labels      206
Label length:
Mean                    6.58
Standard Deviation      2.32
Median                  6
Mode                    5
Shortest                3
Longest                20

(Note that a word divider is counted as a character.) 

    The labels are usually not very long, so maybe they are one- or 
two-phoneme abbreviations that EKT then expands to word-length 
strings.  "Sagittarius" might be abbreviated as "s" or "sg".  Scribe A 
might represent "s" with the sample EKT as "sor" and "sg" as "sorgor".  
Perhaps the labels are purely arbitrary references, like saying 
(Figure) A, B, and C.  Scribe A might represent "C" in the sample EKT 
as "cor".  Thus, the labels might be the tags themselves, or brief 
abbreviations composed of maybe two tags.  Also, (I have been told) 
the plant labels are hardly ever seen in the text.  Perhaps this is 
another stylistic feature.  Using the sample EKT, if a plant is 
labeled (Figure) C, then A might label it "cor" and write "cax" in the 
text.  

4)  What does this do for:  interword influence, "line as functional 
unit", external sandhi rules? It helps explain long inter-letter 
influence.  With the original King Tut, "the" becomes "tuthush"; 
therefore, h would come in the third and sixth position after t more 
often than expected.  There are many things the hypothesis doesn't 
address.  Perhaps these are best left alone for now. 

5)  There are a lot of variables to manipulate in decrypting this 
system. If there are 25 characters (and there might be many more 
*phonemes* than that!) and 5 different tags for each character, we 
have 125 tags to recover, even though the number of base digraphs will 
be much less. That's a lot of knobs to turn!  It would be very easy to 
take a few folios of the VMs and use this system to concoct a crackpot 
solution. 

*Other Possibilities* 

1)  Homophonic Orthographic System.  In English, the tense, rounded, 
high back vowel can be written u (rude) or oo (cartoon).  The tense, 
spread, high, front vowel can be written ee (speech), ie (chief), e 
(he), ea (beam), i (latrine), or ei (ceiling).  The unvoiced palatal 
fricative usually written as sh we are also used to seeing written as 
sch in words of German origin.  Etc, etc, etc.  There are countless 
examples in almost all languages written in the Latin alphabet.  One 
could carry this to an extreme with a checkerboard cipher, where each 
phoneme is represented by many different pairs of characters.  This 
could explain the apparently low number of consonants.  If the choices 
were not too wide, this could also explain the low second-order 
entropy.   

2)  Low-Entropy Language.  Basque is the only idea I've heard so far 
that seems plausible.  Medieval Basque is at least somewhat attested; 
I recall an article about a phrasebook for medieval travelers that had 
phrases in Basque.  

3)  Repetitious Text.  Maybe the Voynich text is simply very 
repetitious.  I remember reading that this is a problem with the 
longest surviving Etruscan text, the Zagreb Mummy Book.  Tests on 
known texts with the entropy-calculating program MONKEY and with other 
programs like TACT will yield some insight.  I have a small project 
underway. 

    Here, and also with a low-entropy language, the low number of 
consonants could be due to eliminating redundant letters and 
eliminating features (my and Jacques Guy's exchange, "Re: Consonants," 
Wed, 7 Aug 1996). Different spellings due to slight variations in 
pronunciation and/or relaxed orthography could play a role in repeated 
words and nearly-repeated words (see decipherment of Linear B in 
Kahn). 

*Other Possibilities for Difference between A and B* 

1)  Differences in Subject Matter and Individual Writing Style.  A 
number of list members have noted that the difference between A and B 
is not so great if one examines only one subject matter (say, Herbal). 
They are also increasingly noting other sub-dialects or sub-styles. 
Perhaps differences in individual writing style along with differences 
in subject matter could account for the difference between Voynich A 
and B - especially if Joe Klein could be identified as Anonymous, the 
author of *Primary Colors*, simply by computer analysis of style!  
Here again, some tests of known texts with MONKEY, TACT, and other 
computer programs will yield insight.  A simple King Tut system along 
with these phenomena might explain the VMs. 

2)  Two Dialects of the Same Language.  List members have already 
given the example of the medieval *Romaunt of the Rose*, in two 
dialects of medieval English. 

3)  Two Totally Distinct Languages for A & B.  Andrei Codrescu used a 
document called *The Chronicles of Andrei de Kereshtur* as the prime 
source for his novel about Elizabeth Bathory, *The Blood Countess*.  
He notes, "The *Chronicles* of de Kereshtur were in old Hungarian, 
with occasional portions in Latin and Slovene" (p. 154).  A little 
further on, he says, "[In his letter, Pastor Ponikenuz] slipped quite 
often into old Hungarian and Slovene [from Latin].  Teresa said that 
this was not unusual.  The literate people of the time, mainly clergy 
and high aristocracy, wrote Latin as easily as Hungarian and mixed the 
two quite often, particularly in correspondence" (p. 155).  

    Thus, we might have two languages as different as Hungarian and 
Latin <shudder>. 

    However, computer tests on known texts using MONKEY, TACT, SAS, 
MINITAB, and maybe even more sophisticated programs, like SHAXICON 
that identified Joe Klein as Anonymous, should surely make it possible 
to tell what degree of difference we have with Voynich A and B.  Are 
they two completely different languages, two dialects of the same 
language, different individual writers in the same language and 
dialect, or different subject matter?  We could make tests of these 
conditions on known sample texts and resolve the whole issue fairly 
clearly. 

    So, what do you think, people? 

Cheers, 
Dennis 


From rand.org!jim Wed Nov  6 03:47 EST 1996
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From: rzandber@esoc.esa.de (R. Zandbergen x2236 A128 logica/fcsd/oad)
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Dear all,

thanks to Dennis for an interesting post. Let me add a few simple 
statisitics I calculated (as an introduction to some more complicated ones),
but which seem to have some relation to the EKT hypothesis:

------------------------- start --------------------------------
A vs. B

The A-language seems to be mainly used in the herbal section.
The B-language is used in the herbal, biological and recipes section, and,
so it seems, in most other sections.
Of the herbal section, 85 pages transcribed by Currier/D'Imperio (C/D) 
are in language A and 25 in language B.
It has been observed by many that the B language exhibits different 'dialects'.
The biological section has a very consistent, strict usage,
the recipes section has more variety and the herbal section more still.
Since the subject matter is likely to play a role, it
is of some interest to perform a numerical comparison between the herbal-A
and herbal-B texts. To make the comparison more 'honest', 25 pages of
herbal-A should be used, as close as possible to the herbal-B pages. For 
completeness, the lists are given at the end of this text.

B pages are generally more verbose than the A-pages. The recipes
and biological sections have most characters per page. For the herbal 
test texts, a similar (but less pronounced) fact can be observed. Using
the C/D transcription, the Currier alphabet and not counting spaces: 

25 Herbal A pages have 7739 characters
25 Herbal B pages have 11171 characters

It has been suggested that the difference between A and B could be a
use of null characters. The following list gives the most frequent
characters in A, and their number of occurrences in the 25 pages.
Added below are the counts for the same characters in the 25 B pages.
In the simple case where B uses more nulls than A, all numbers should
be equal or higher for the B text. Here goes:

Currier char:     O    S    9    A    8    C   E   R   F   P   M   Z   4    
Nr. in 25*A:   1448  910  799  616  560  468 409 376 374 373 345 296 186
Nr. in 25*B:   1374  752 1529 1085 1250 1390 496 496 801 376 286 289 257

This table shows a number of peculiarities:
- Similar numbers for O, (S), E, (R), P, M, Z, (4)
- 9, 8 and C are much more frequent in B (700-900 more)
- P and F are similar in A; in B, only F is twice as frequent.

Digraphs were also counted and compared, and the pair 89 occurs 680 times
more often in B than in A. This accounts for a major part of the 
difference between A and B. If anything, this combination could be a null.
Removal of all 89's does not lead to the disappearance of the difference
between A and B, but it may be worth studying further. The comparison
with 'av' in the Parisian 'Javanese' argot is also obvious.

A few remarks may be spared about the low digraph entropy. It may
be illustrated by the 'gaps' in the digraph distribution of the 85
herbal-A pages. Now spaces have been counted and in the following
spaces will be denoted by a dot (.). 32347 pairs were counted, and
they have been sorted by decreasing single character frequency. The
simplistic theory that the digraph frequency is the product of the
two single-character frequencies is even less valid for Voynichese-A
than for 'normal' languages. 
The order of decreasing single-character frequency is:
. O S 9 A 8 E C R F P M Z 4 2 Q B J N X etc.
Expected high-frequency pairs that are almost totally lacking (excluding
repeats, another ideosyncrasy of the language) are: (with absolute numbers)
.A (57)  .E (38)  .C (25)
OS (68)  O9 (58)  OA (66) OC (51)
S. ( 5)  S8 (23)  SE ( 9)
9- (essentially all except 9.)
AO ( 3)  AS ( 4)  A9 ( 4) A8 ( 6) AC ( 2)
8E (15)  8C (19)  (8 is the most well-behaved character)
E- (only E. is very frequent)
C. (19)  CS ( 7)

On the other side, extemely frequent are:
SO (almost half of all S-)
9. (75% of all 9-)
AM (half of all A- and >90% of all -M)
8A (half of all 8-)
E. (70% of all E-, same with R.)
M. (>90% of all M-)

This is another indication towards a word-game type of text, 
where certain combinations of characters are intended to represent
one character (or phoneme), or nothing at all.

Addendum: page nrs used in the counts:

Herbal-B:
26r, 26v, 31r, 31v, 33r, 33v, 34r, 34v, 39r, 39v, 40r, 40v, 41r, 41v, 43r,
43v, 46r, 46v, 48r, 48v, 50r, 50v, 55r, 55v, 57r

Selected Herbal-A:
28v, 29r, 29v, 30r, 30v, 32r, 32v, 35r, 35v, 36r, 36v, 37r, 37v, 38r, 38v,
42r, 42v, 44r, 44v, 45r, 45v, 47r, 47v, 49r, 49v 
------------------------- finis --------------------------------

There is of course much more on the -89 sequence in the mail archive.
There is also Robert Firth's Note #24, of which I take the liberty of
including a part here, since it closely related to this issue, and
set me off in a similar direction of thought:

------------------------- start --------------------------------
[This has been taken from R.Firth's note 24, out of its context
 which is about Trithemian ciphers, RZ]

The Possible Voynich Alphabets

Do the Voynich groups break up in that way?  Again, from the A corpus,
taking only groups that occur 4 or more times, here is my conjecture:

Odd Letters	Even Letters

	2		89
	4O		8AE
	4OF		8AM
	4OP		AE
	8		AJ
	9F		AM
	9P		AN
	F		AR
	O		C9
	OF		CC9
	OP		COE
	P		OE
	Q		OM
	S		OR
	SF		S9
	SP		SC9
	SQ		SO
	SW		SOE
	SX		SOR
	W		Z9
	X		9 (maybe)
	Z
	ZO

This is a rough guess, and will surely have errors - but that's two
alphabets of 21 and 23 symbols, and with the exception of that silly
letter '9' almost any combination of symbols is locally decodable.
(Something's wrong with 8 or AM or 8AM; otherwise, it's rigorous.)
------------------------- finis --------------------------------

Cheers, Rene

From rand.org!jim Sat Nov  9 08:05 EST 1996
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From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
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To: voynich@rand.org
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Subject: Update of BITRANS
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Status: OR

Hi all,
This is to announce that Jacques' excellent tool BITRANS 2, can now 
process lines longer than 255 characters by using a set of programmes 
called VSPLIT and VMERGE that he kindly wrote. Thanks Jacques!

I have included the 2 programmes, one doc file, a batch file example
(to process documents exactly as with the original BITRANS) and the
source code (Pascal) in the EVTM page (all is in the BITRANS.ZIP
file, in the "files and links" section. The whole thing is 55 KB and
includes the BITRANS programme, and the translation files between
currier, FSG, FSG extended, Basic Frogguy and EVA. If there are any
problems, please let me know.

best wishes to all.

Gabriel


From rand.org!jim Thu Nov 28 18:11 EST 1996
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From: sulla@globaldialog.com (M. Sulla)
Subject: Partial Solution
Status: OR



--========================_12165842==_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Attached you will find a text record explaining my observations on the VMS
cipher.
Mark Sullivan



--========================_12165842==_
Content-Type: text/plain; name="Solution.txt"; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Solution.txt"

A Proposed Partial Solution to the Voynich Cipher
Mark Sullivan,
Nov. 28,1996

	All researchers have biases and assumptions that influence their work.  I
am a degreed Mediaevalist and Latinist, with background in Education and
Linguistics.  I am presently employed in a position which involves
regulatory compliance and data integrity.
	I was first acquainted with the Voynich manuscript when I picked off the
stacks at Western Michigan University an old photo-copied reproduction of
it over twenty years ago.  Kahn's book The Code Breakers was a major
inspiration to me, but I must admit that I have spent far more energy
studying Etruscan, than attacking the VMS.
	I have been a part of the Voynich listserver for over a year and have read
the traffic with great interest.   Adverse reaction to  ideas bounced off
the listserve  that struck me as totally anachronistic to the year 1600
nudged me into formulating an attack on the cipher.
	Most of the preparation simply involved staring at a print-out  of the
poppy page that was down-loaded off the Internet.  I spent a lot of time
trying to figure  how would a scribe insert semantic values into this
repetious cipher.  I also downloaded  many of Firth's notes, and a  message
from Rene Zandbergen  provided statistical information that proved
invaluable.
	I developed the key, which I will explain below, and I have achieved
results that appear exciting and startling to me.  This notice IS
PREMATURE,  and I admit this up front.  But  I have Latin words and
patterns that indicate that I am on the right track, and the problem
requires a collaborative effort, since poverty will not let me take the
solution to the end.  Since only perhaps a dozen people worldwide have any
sincere interest in the VMS, and Yale owns the manuscript and therefore
rights to any publishing,  there is absolutely no commercial value to this
information.  Therefore   in the spirit of the hunt, I need to put the key
out, for serious tweaking, testing and criticism, hoping maybe we can all
solve this mystery once and for all.

	THE APPROACH.  I tried to put myself into the situation of a scribe in the
year 1600.  A book length cipher in itself has certain limitations that
reduce security.   The characteristics of the text are interesting.  Many
of the words do not repeat.  Most of the words are composed of a subset of
the  circa 36 characters.  Parts of the words  often repeat not only within
the same line, but also in vertical rows in lines preceding and following.
Since the cipher is so long, with few repetions, I discount a code.  The
code book would be far longer than the encoded work.  It would not be
practical.  Rather, it appears obvious that the key can be written on a
single page from memory.  My assumption is that the key is probably simple,
but the implementation is  complex.   In support of this is the fact that
there are few erasures.  This indicates not that the text was encoded as
written, but that it was composed, and copied.  This leads me to expect
substantial security features, and my results bear this out.
	Per Kahn, the state of the art in 1600 was the nomenclator.  The
observation that there are parallel word fragments in vertical rows,
indicates to me that the scribe was running his eye across a table, left to
right, or top to bottom, picking out values in roughly the same point of
the table, in relationship to the length of the line.  We are dealing here
with a table cipher.
	CONSTRUCTING A KEY.  Since there are around 36 characters, I deduced that
there is a grid in the key of either 5x5 or 6x6.  A  5x5 grid naturally
accepts the roman alphabet so I started with that.  The 6x6 would accept
all the characters, and it has an interesting geometry of placing  most of
the vowels in the upper left quadrant when vowels are given three different
values.
	Using the 5x5 grid,  and dropping J, I had to model a way to extract pairs
of letters off the x and y axes without too many double character
combinations.  It was a simple deduction to place 5x5 grids on the x and y
axes.  Using this model, each letter value would be represented by 25
combinations.  The extra characters would be placed in the grid as
homophones, and exponentially increase the combinations.  A little math
indicated to be that the lack of repetiton of words could be pure chance
with this many combinations.
	The next obstacle was to insert VMS characters into the x and y grids.
Using the book "Cryptanalysis" by Helen Fouche Gaines, I used the data for
letter frequency in Italian (p.223) and lined the characters up with the
frequency list I got off the Internet from Rene Zandbergen.
Now that I had a potential key, I downloaded the transcription put together
by Reed and Gillogly.   I started deciphering a sample at random and got
gibberish.  Then I noted a "vidt ho..."  I recognized this immediately as
'videt hoc'.   This caused a dropped jaw.  I started decyphering the f66
table and got results that could be roman numerals.
I  decyphered another sample of straight text,  and I looked down onto a
page of chaos, and there were the words "data sit."  Latin for "it was
given"   is beyond chance, and at that point, I was sure that we are
dealing with a Latin text here in the VMS.
	RESULTS AND DEDUCTONS. Before I give examples, let me state some observations.
	Spaces between words are null.
	A letter value can be represent by a pair of VMS characters, or a single
character that is a contractions of the single double combination.  I have
been calling this single character the absolute value.  To illustrate this,
the VMS "A" is a "O" on the table.
	Nulls appear frequent and are written by alternating two letters in
different combinations.
Nulls seem to be written in the second half of the line.
	Proper names appear to be anagramed or super-encyphered, unfortunately.
But I have looked at very little text at this point.
Final letters tend to be dropped.
Vowels in unstressed syllables tend to be dropped.
Double consonants tend to be contracted into a single value.
None of these characteristics would  hinder someone who is used to reading
abbreviated Latin text.

THE KEY.

- - - - -      s x p m o
- - - - -      n b j 9   e
- - - - -      2 7 8 A Z
- - - - -        V c F R 4
- - - - -      Q ? ? ? ?
s x p m o   a b c d e
n b j 9 e      f g h i k
2 7 8 A Z   L M N OP
V C F R 4 Q R S T U
Q - - - -    V W x Y Z

To decypher text, take a first character of a pair of VMS characters, and
find it on the lower left table,  look along the row to where the column
intersects which has the second character of the pair.  If this does not
make sense, that check if this is an absolute character.

This needs to be placed on a 10x10 grid.  This key is only partial, but
there are enough solid correspondances that words are coming out.  To
illustrate this, let me  explain my decypherment of the opening lines of
the VMS.
TD ILI TIT DE EPTYZTLI UT PHIL DIDUT QID EO OVOVO
tradunt illi (?)  de (?) ut Phillip diducat quid eo (nulls)
They pass down ? about ? so Phillip may reveal what in this....

ILLM TDIT ECY(t?) OFSOOO   (I think 'est' is written 'ect')
illem tradit, est......
he passes down that, it is.....(nulls)

CE ? I B D Q E E I ? OIOCO
?????ibidemque  ei.......
?????and likewise they.....
ECT D
est D
he or it is D

O-BOYOYOYO
NULLS

98ARIZ0
IN ATIP
in ati p      (could this be an anagram for Italia?  Could P indicate punto
or period?)

>From f86:
SCOFAME
aute(m)
moreover

PSC89 S9 PSC9 OPSC89 4OPAE
aro         data                   sit
    ?           it was given

OCC89 EFAJ
I   O   H   N
John


One other characteristic indicates that I am on the right path.  I noticed
very quickly when trying to decide if a letter was represented by an
absolute value or a pair, I noticed that the absolute value equals the
value of the pair.  This might indicate  some meaning, or it might indicate
that the geometry of my table of incorrect.

The name Phillip, and using a soft C in "est" indicates French influence.
This is an avenue that needs investigation.

	SUMMARY.  I figure that I have less than half the values correct, and
these tend to the top of the grid.   Of what little I have translitterated,
I am getting maybe 10 or 20%  recognizable Latin.

	I would like to humbly ask for any help anyone would like to contribute on
tweaking the key, and figuring out what the VMS is.

	Likewise, if this key is random chance, and is proved invalid, perhaps the
patterns and relationships that have shown up will give hints on the real
key structure.

	Mark Sullivan
	212 Pine Meadows Ct.
	Cross Plains, WI  53528
	sulla@globaldialog.com
	Thanksgiving Day,
	November 28, 1996


	
	
    	
 


--========================_12165842==_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

M. Sulla   sulla@globaldialog.com
http://www.globaldialog.com/~sulla/nakedgod.html
rura cano rurisque deos.          --Tibullus



--========================_12165842==_--


From rand.org!jim Thu Nov 28 19:03 EST 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
From: sulla@globaldialog.com (M. Sulla)
Subject: Proposed Partial VMS Solution
Status: OR

A Proposed Partial Solution to the Voynich Cipher
Mark Sullivan,
Nov. 28,1996

        All researchers have biases and assumptions that influence their
work.  I am a degreed Mediaevalist and Latinist, with background in
Education and Linguistics.  I am presently employed in a position which
involves regulatory compliance and data integrity.
        I was first acquainted with the Voynich manuscript when I picked
off the stacks at Western Michigan University an old photo-copied
reproduction of it over twenty years ago.  Kahn's book The Code Breakers
was a major inspiration to me, but I must admit that I have spent far more
energy studying Etruscan, than attacking the VMS.
        I have been a part of the Voynich listserver for over a year and
have read the traffic with great interest.   Adverse reaction to  ideas
bounced off the listserve  that struck me as totally anachronistic to the
year 1600 nudged me into formulating an attack on the cipher.
        Most of the preparation simply involved staring at a print-out  of
the poppy page that was down-loaded off the Internet.  I spent a lot of
time trying to figure  how would a scribe insert semantic values into this
repetious cipher.  I also downloaded  many of Firth's notes, and a  message
from Rene Zandbergen  provided statistical information that proved
invaluable.
        I developed the key, which I will explain below, and I have
achieved results that appear exciting and startling to me.  This notice IS
PREMATURE,  and I admit this up front.  But  I have Latin words and
patterns that indicate that I am on the right track, and the problem
requires a collaborative effort, since poverty will not let me take the
solution to the end.  Since only perhaps a dozen people worldwide have any
sincere interest in the VMS, and Yale owns the manuscript and therefore
rights to any publishing,  there is absolutely no commercial value to this
information.  Therefore   in the spirit of the hunt, I need to put the key
out, for serious tweaking, testing and criticism, hoping maybe we can all
solve this mystery once and for all.

        THE APPROACH.  I tried to put myself into the situation of a scribe
in the year 1600.  A book length cipher in itself has certain limitations
that reduce security.   The characteristics of the text are interesting.
Many of the words do not repeat.  Most of the words are composed of a
subset of the  circa 36 characters.  Parts of the words  often repeat not
only within the same line, but also in vertical rows in lines preceding and
following.  Since the cipher is so long, with few repetions, I discount a
code.  The code book would be far longer than the encoded work.  It would
not be practical.  Rather, it appears obvious that the key can be written
on a single page from memory.  My assumption is that the key is probably
simple, but the implementation is  complex.   In support of this is the
fact that there are few erasures.  This indicates not that the text was
encoded as written, but that it was composed, and copied.  This leads me to
expect substantial security features, and my results bear this out.
        Per Kahn, the state of the art in 1600 was the nomenclator.  The
observation that there are parallel word fragments in vertical rows,
indicates to me that the scribe was running his eye across a table, left to
right, or top to bottom, picking out values in roughly the same point of
the table, in relationship to the length of the line.  We are dealing here
with a table cipher.
        CONSTRUCTING A KEY.  Since there are around 36 characters, I
deduced that there is a grid in the key of either 5x5 or 6x6.  A  5x5 grid
naturally accepts the roman alphabet so I started with that.  The 6x6 would
accept all the characters, and it has an interesting geometry of placing
most of the vowels in the upper left quadrant when vowels are given three
different values.
        Using the 5x5 grid,  and dropping J, I had to model a way to
extract pairs of letters off the x and y axes without too many double
character combinations.  It was a simple deduction to place 5x5 grids on
the x and y axes.  Using this model, each letter value would be represented
by 25 combinations.  The extra characters would be placed in the grid as
homophones, and exponentially increase the combinations.  A little math
indicated to be that the lack of repetiton of words could be pure chance
with this many combinations.
        The next obstacle was to insert VMS characters into the x and y
grids.  Using the book "Cryptanalysis" by Helen Fouche Gaines, I used the
data for letter frequency in Italian (p.223) and lined the characters up
with the  frequency list I got off the Internet from Rene Zandbergen.
Now that I had a potential key, I downloaded the transcription put together
by Reed and Gillogly.   I started deciphering a sample at random and got
gibberish.  Then I noted a "vidt ho..."  I recognized this immediately as
'videt hoc'.   This caused a dropped jaw.  I started decyphering the f66
table and got results that could be roman numerals.
I  decyphered another sample of straight text,  and I looked down onto a
page of chaos, and there were the words "data sit."  Latin for "it was
given"   is beyond chance, and at that point, I was sure that we are
dealing with a Latin text here in the VMS.
        RESULTS AND DEDUCTONS. Before I give examples, let me state some
observations.
        Spaces between words are null.
        A letter value can be represent by a pair of VMS characters, or a
single character that is a contractions of the single double combination.
I have been calling this single character the absolute value.  To
illustrate this, the VMS "A" is a "O" on the table.
        Nulls appear frequent and are written by alternating two letters in
different combinations.
Nulls seem to be written in the second half of the line.
        Proper names appear to be anagramed or super-encyphered,
unfortunately.  But I have looked at very little text at this point.
Final letters tend to be dropped.
Vowels in unstressed syllables tend to be dropped.
Double consonants tend to be contracted into a single value.
None of these characteristics would  hinder someone who is used to reading
abbreviated Latin text.

THE KEY.

- - - - -      s x p m o
- - - - -      n b j 9   e
- - - - -      2 7 8 A Z
- - - - -        V c F R 4
- - - - -      Q ? ? ? ?
s x p m o   a b c d e
n b j 9 e      f g h i k
2 7 8 A Z   L M N OP
V C F R 4 Q R S T U
Q - - - -    V W x Y Z

To decypher text, take a first character of a pair of VMS characters, and
find it on the lower left table,  look along the row to where the column
intersects which has the second character of the pair.  If this does not
make sense, that check if this is an absolute character.

This needs to be placed on a 10x10 grid.  This key is only partial, but
there are enough solid correspondances that words are coming out.  To
illustrate this, let me  explain my decypherment of the opening lines of
the VMS.
TD ILI TIT DE EPTYZTLI UT PHIL DIDUT QID EO OVOVO
tradunt illi (?)  de (?) ut Phillip diducat quid eo (nulls)
They pass down ? about ? so Phillip may reveal what in this....

ILLM TDIT ECY(t?) OFSOOO   (I think 'est' is written 'ect')
illem tradit, est......
he passes down that, it is.....(nulls)

CE ? I B D Q E E I ? OIOCO
?????ibidemque  ei.......
?????and likewise they.....
ECT D
est D
he or it is D

O-BOYOYOYO
NULLS

98ARIZ0
IN ATIP
in ati p      (could this be an anagram for Italia?  Could P indicate punto
or period?)

>From f86:
SCOFAME
aute(m)
moreover

PSC89 S9 PSC9 OPSC89 4OPAE
aro         data                   sit
    ?           it was given

OCC89 EFAJ
I   O   H   N
John


One other characteristic indicates that I am on the right path.  I noticed
very quickly when trying to decide if a letter was represented by an
absolute value or a pair, I noticed that the absolute value equals the
value of the pair.  This might indicate  some meaning, or it might indicate
that the geometry of my table of incorrect.

The name Phillip, and using a soft C in "est" indicates French influence.
This is an avenue that needs investigation.

        SUMMARY.  I figure that I have less than half the values correct,
and these tend to the top of the grid.   Of what little I have
translitterated, I am getting maybe 10 or 20%  recognizable Latin.

        I would like to humbly ask for any help anyone would like to
contribute on tweaking the key, and figuring out what the VMS is.

        Likewise, if this key is random chance, and is proved invalid,
perhaps the patterns and relationships that have shown up will give hints
on the real key structure.

        Mark Sullivan
        212 Pine Meadows Ct.
        Cross Plains, WI  53528
        sulla@globaldialog.com
        Thanksgiving Day,
        November 28, 1996







M. Sulla   sulla@globaldialog.com
http://www.globaldialog.com/~sulla/nakedgod.html
rura cano rurisque deos.          --Tibullus



From rand.org!jim Fri Nov 29 06:35 EST 1996
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Comments: Authenticated sender is <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
From: Gabriel Landini <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 11:05:58 +0000
Mime-Version: 1.0
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Subject: Solutions
Reply-To: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk
X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.42a)
Status: OR

Hi all,

Well I have no comments on sullo's mail because I had not time to 
digest it properly as yet.
It has, however, triggered my curiosity, so now I call for suggestions.

The question is "what would convince you that a solution for the VMS 
has been found?".

It may seem very basic question, but at least to me is a tricky one. 

Before I hear anybody else's replies, I will suggest mine, but I
would like to hear any comments on my suggestions too. 

The solution should:

1. produce intelligible text for the entire MS including text, labels 
and diagrams,

2. the text should be "in context" (I mean if I find "Intel inside" 
or "Made in Japan" in a label, I would not believe the solution is 
correct). I am tempted to say "spatial" and "temporal" context, but 
without knowing where and when the MS was written, I do not know 
exactly what to expect,

3. there are a few "paragraphs" ending in "signature-like" phrases
(1 or 2 words, for example see the 1st folio). It would be expected
that those text arrangements have some special meaning...

4. hopefully, "key-like" sequences would reveal some order or 
meaning

regards,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Fri Nov 29 08:17 EST 1996
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Subject: Re: Solutions
To: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 05:08:22 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9611291106.AA01213@sun1.bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Nov 29, 96 11:05:58 am
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Content-Type: text
Status: OR

> Well I have no comments on sullo's mail because I had not time to 
> digest it properly as yet.
> It has, however, triggered my curiosity, so now I call for suggestions.
> 
> The question is "what would convince you that a solution for the VMS 
> has been found?".

A clearly stated algorithm which allows me to proceed to any part of the MS
and verify the solution works and generates intelligible and relevant text.

Since I am not a Latin scholar, I cannot verify this partial solution
myself as valid, but I give msullo high marks for freely sharing his
knowledge and information with apparent willingness to be proved wrong. I
do find it concieveable that some Latin could be written in a highly
abbreviated shorthand. Unfortunately, this may also preclude us from ever
being _dead_ sure of what the VMs is saying, even if this proposed
solution, or a variant of it, proves correct.

What I do suggest is everyone else who does know Latin get to trying this
algorithm out on their favorite parts of the VMs. Yeah, I _will_ try it on
the astronomical sections just to see if I can spot familiar names and
such. Not likely, but one never knows.

> 1. produce intelligible text for the entire MS including text, labels 
> and diagrams,

As above, depending on the cultural context of the VMs, some parts of the
text, especially abbreviations or shorthand phrases for some places and
names, may never be understood even with a "complete" solution.

> 4. hopefully, "key-like" sequences would reveal some order or 
> meaning

Agreed, it will be interesting to see how this info works on the key-like
pages.

-Adams



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From: CLARY Olivier <Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr>
Message-Id: <199612011817.AA04303@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr>
To: voynich@rand.org
Cc: sulla@globaldialog.com (M. Sulla)
Subject: Re: Partial Solution
Status: OR

I think I finally understood Mark Sullivan's proposal. He wrote:

> Using the book "Cryptanalysis" by Helen Fouche Gaines, I used the data for
> letter frequency in Italian (p.223) and lined the characters up with the
> frequency list I got off the Internet from Rene Zandbergen.

So the first step (his "absolute values" of Voynich characters) is in fact
getting a text with Italian letter frequencies (without j) by translating
Currier's SXPMONBJ9E278AZVCFR4QW to abcdefghiklmnopqrstuvy respectively.
Then the 5x5 table he uses are the letters in alphabetical order:
             a b c d e
             f g h i k
             l m n o p
             q r s t u
             v w x y z
so that each letter pair may have instead the meaning of the letter at
intersection of the row of the first letter and the column of the second
letter, eg. qo -> t. Here is the detailed process for one of the longest
recognizable Latin text he gives, at f1r.1-2 :

FORZOE892OR9XAROR9      Currier transcription, without spaces
setpekniletiboteti      (1) "absolute values"
udupehofpdtgdoudt       (2) pairs: each letter with the following one
u tp h ild id u t       (3) choose either one letter from (1) or two from (2)
ut Phillip diducat      (4) expand the abbreviated Latin
so Phillip may reveal   English meaning

> I am getting maybe 10 or 20%  recognizable Latin.

My impression is that it is not really significant. Text (1) has by
construction letter frequencies close to Latin. Step (3) allows a lot
of freedom, many results are possible from the same (1) and (2). Then
step (4) again allows some freedom in reconstructing full Latin words.

Still, the idea of a choice in coding seems to be a good idea to explain
the two different "languages" (=statistical properties) and hands: two
people, two sets of quires, two different coding choices. But with such
a freedom of coding what we retrieve may be only what we wanted to see:
this is what I fear for (3) above. There should be both enough random
choice to get the statistical properties of the MS, and enough rules
in the coding to make it retrievable. Though I could imagine those
medieval occultists perfectly happy producing a cypher text that even
they cannot retrieve easily, in the belief that this cypher represents
such-and-such perfect figure, or that it has been dictated by spirits...
If such is the case, it might be indistinguishable from a hoax.

-- Olivier

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To: voynich@rand.org
From: sulla@globaldialog.com (M. Sulla)
Subject: Partial Solution II
Status: OR

Mr. Clary's comments caused me to seriously consider what I have found.  My
personal bias (on account of insecurity in this matter) is that somehow I
am overlaying what I want to see in the confusion of the transcription.

I went back and deciphered more text.
F5:
reo cd eo eo eo eo nd o
at ct uco bd UT at doace
u DED ?? HOC ak ck.....
l.7    VCBT drt bcd po

I keep getting what look like null groups of repeating pairs of letters.
Here it is "eo".
This convinces me that the key I proposed does reflect relationships
between letters that are reflected in the voynich key.  The odds of
randomly producing  a repeating  pair of letters with varying combinations
of cipher values is very remote.

There are hints of latin in the text above, but nothing really solid (??
ut, dedit hoc, vincebit??).

I randomly chose  F80v1 and deciphered some more text:
?bo pfbo URSI ubo uefbo ud

Looks like "bears" in the middle of the line.

Repeating letter pairs should be a serious weakness in the implementation
of the cipher.  They should allow fairly easy verification of the position
of values on the tables.  As time permits, I am going to pursue this avenue
of investigation.

I invite any cryptoanalytic minds out there to please to take some time and
critique the key I  proposed.   There does seem to be some tantalizing
hits.

Thanks,
Mark S.

M. Sulla   sulla@globaldialog.com
http://www.globaldialog.com/~sulla/nakedgod.html
rura cano rurisque deos.          --Tibullus



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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: "M. Sulla" <sulla@globaldialog.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Proposed Partial VMS Solution
In-Reply-To: <v01510102630bb17bced4@[156.46.122.85]>
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Status: OR

On Thu, 28 Nov 1996, M. Sulla wrote:

>         All researchers have biases and assumptions that influence their
> work.  I am a degreed Mediaevalist and Latinist, with background in
> Education and Linguistics.  I am presently employed in a position which
> involves regulatory compliance and data integrity.
>         I have been a part of the Voynich listserver for over a year and
> have read the traffic with great interest.   Adverse reaction to  ideas
> bounced off the listserve  that struck me as totally anachronistic to the
> year 1600 nudged me into formulating an attack on the cipher.

	Welcome, Mark (is that how you like to be addressed?), and thanks
for emerging from Lurkerland!!  I commend you for your effort.  Also, we
badly need someone with a wide knowledge of medieval studies. 
 
>         THE APPROACH.  I tried to put myself into the situation of a scribe
> in the year 1600.  A book length cipher in itself has certain limitations
> that reduce security.   The characteristics of the text are interesting.
> Many of the words do not repeat.  Most of the words are composed of a
> subset of the  circa 36 characters.  Parts of the words  often repeat not
> only within the same line, but also in vertical rows in lines preceding and
> following. 

<*snip*> 

>         Per Kahn, the state of the art in 1600 was the nomenclator.  The
> observation that there are parallel word fragments in vertical rows,
> indicates to me that the scribe was running his eye across a table, left to
> right, or top to bottom, picking out values in roughly the same point of
> the table, in relationship to the length of the line.  We are dealing here
> with a table cipher.

	In my recent post, Dennis Stallings, Mon, 4 Nov 1996, "EKT
Hypothesis (long)", I wrote:

<*snip*>
*Other Possibilities* 

1) Homophonic Orthographic System.  <*snip*> One could carry this to an
extreme with a checkerboard cipher, where each phoneme is represented by
many different pairs of characters.  This could explain the apparently low
number of consonants.  If the choices were not too wide, this could also
explain the low second-order entropy.  <*unquote*>

	Here I was thinking about a system like you have proposed.  The
problem with such a system is that the large number of choices that it
would offer could lead to low repetitiousness (high entropy), the opposite
of what we see in the Voynich text.  However, if a scribe were picking
values off tables in an orderly pattern, we would see repetitiousness, in
the pattern you describe.  Also, scribe A could do so in a different
fashion from scribe B, generating the statistical differences between A
and B that we see. 

>         The next obstacle was to insert VMS characters into the x and y
> grids.  Using the book "Cryptanalysis" by Helen Fouche Gaines, I used the
> data for letter frequency in Italian (p.223) and lined the characters up
> with the  frequency list I got off the Internet from Rene Zandbergen.

	Rene may already have letter frequency data for medieval Latin. 
If not, we could generate it with Latin texts from the Internet and
available software. 

>         RESULTS AND DEDUCTONS. Before I give examples, let me state some
> observations.
>         Spaces between words are null.
>         A letter value can be represent by a pair of VMS characters, or a
> single character that is a contractions of the single double combination.
> I have been calling this single character the absolute value.  To
> illustrate this, the VMS "A" is a "O" on the table.

	In other words, VMS "A" is in row 3, column 4 of the lower left 
table of your key.  Therefore, the cleartext "absolute" value lies at row 
3, column 4 of the lower right table, and that absolute value is "O".  
Olivier Clary also explained this in his post.  

>         Nulls appear frequent and are written by alternating two letters in
> different combinations.
> Nulls seem to be written in the second half of the line.
>         Proper names appear to be anagramed or super-encyphered,
> unfortunately.  But I have looked at very little text at this point.
> Final letters tend to be dropped.
> Vowels in unstressed syllables tend to be dropped.
> Double consonants tend to be contracted into a single value.
> None of these characteristics would  hinder someone who is used to reading
> abbreviated Latin text.

	This all sounds reasonable, but you are introducing a lot of 
degrees of freedom, as Olivier Clary also observed.
	Here I'm going to show my attempt to use your system on the 
examples you gave and compare my results with yours.

<f1r.1> VAS92.9FAE.AR.APAM.ZOE.ZOR9.QOR92.9.FOR.ZOE89-
{Dennis}T D L IT I  T  D E  E  P T  YET L I U T P H I
{Sulla} TD ILI TIT DE EPTYZTLI UT PHI
        tradunt illi (?)  de (?) ut 
        They pass down ? about ? so 

                        ^           { ^ = letter ignored: Dennis}
<f1r.2> 2OR9.XAR.O.R.9.FAN.ZPAM.ZAR.AR*.QAR.QAR.8AD-
{Dennis}LD I D U   T I Q   PD E  O  O   VO  VO  O ?
{Sulla} L DIDUT QID EO OVOVO
        Phillip diducat quid eo (nulls)
        Phillip may reveal what in this....

           ^
<f1r.3> 29AU.ZCF9.OR.9FAM.ZO8.QOAR9.Q*R.8ARAM.29-
{Dennis}LI   M T  D  IT E  C  Z O F   S  O O  O
{Sulla} ILLM TDIT ECY(t?) OFSOOO   (I think 'est' is written 'ect')
        illem tradit, est......
        he passes down that, it is.....(nulls)

                        ^        ^ 
<f1r.4> [O82*]OM.OPCC9.OPCOR.2OEOP9.Q*AR.8AM.OFAM.OE.OFAD- 
{Dennis} C     E  B RI B  EQ  E E I V O  O E  SOE  K  T D{cipher D=plain D!}
{Sulla}  CE ? I B D Q E E I ? OIOCO ECT D
         ?????ibidemque  ei....... est D
         ?????and likewise they..... he or it is D

<f1r.5> 2AT.9.SCAR.QAM.WAR.YAM#
{Dennis}O ?   B O  YO  YO  YO   {Giving Q,W,Y absolute values of Y!}
{Sulla} O-BOYOYOYO
        NULLS

          ^ ^^
<f1r.6> 98ARAIZO#  { Sulla said 98ARIZ0 ; omits one character}
{Dennis}IN T  P 
{Sulla} IN ATIP
        in ati p  (could this be an anagram for Italia?  
                   Could P indicate punto or period?)

<f86v3.U.2> 9PSC9.9PCC9.S8AE.OR.SCC9.8AM.SCOFAME-
{Dennis}                                 AU T E
{Sulla}                                  aute(m)
                                         moreover

                                         ^
<f86v3.U.3> PSC89.S9.PSC9.OPSC89.4OPAE.OCC89.EFAJ-
{Dennis}    A RO  D  A T  C  S I U D K  R O  H N
{Sulla}     aro         data  sit     I   O   H   N
                ?       it was given   John

	It looks like you are jumping some characters, in the places I 
noted, in addition to the other degrees of freedom in your system.  If 
I'm making some mistakes in using your system, pleas correct me. 
 
> One other characteristic indicates that I am on the right path.  I noticed
> very quickly when trying to decide if a letter was represented by an
> absolute value or a pair, I noticed that the absolute value equals the
> value of the pair.  This might indicate  some meaning, or it might indicate
> that the geometry of my table of incorrect.

	I don't understand this.  Could you please explain it, giving some
examples?  It sounds like we might have a formula for choosing between a
pair value and an absolute value. 
	I think this is very important.  If we can reduce your system to 
a formula, so that the choice between a pair value and an absolute value 
is not just by human judgement, then we could write a computer program to 
apply your system to a large sample of Voynich text, eg, the whole of 
voynich.now.  If that exercise showed 10-20% recognizable Latin in a 
large output, that would indicate that indeed we are on the right track!

>         SUMMARY.  I figure that I have less than half the values correct,
> and these tend to the top of the grid.   Of what little I have
> translitterated, I am getting maybe 10 or 20%  recognizable Latin. 

	Once again, I commend you for your effort and your fresh ideas.  

Yours truly,
Dennis

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  Dear all,

  This note has not nearly the amount of interest as Marcus Sulla's
  tentative decipherment of the manuscript, but I did find a very
  odd thing in the Currier/D'Imperio (C/D) transcription
  (voynich.now) that I'd like to bring up.

  On f36r.2 the Petersen hand transcription has one if its very
  rare glitches. He has (in Currier and EVA):
  <f36r.2>    ...  SP9.SE.89.POR
              ... chty.chl.dy.tor

  The word SE should be SOE (chl should be chol). This is what the
  FSG has transcribed and this is what Yale copy owners can see
  in the manuscript. The same error is present in the C/D
  transcription. It seems impossible they made the same mistake
  independently, but maybe they had the same copy, and maybe it
  was unclear in this area? But then on f40r.10, C/D has:

  <f40r.10>   ....-8AN.9SC9
              ....-dain.ychey

  The word dain should not be there, it is an eye skip from the
  previous line. FSG again has got it right. But what do we see in
  Petersen? He also has the spurious word, but struck it out when
  he noticed the error.

  The only explanation I have here is that C/D used Petersen's
  notes or early transcription, or that Petersen in fact helped
  C/D at some stage. I am not sure how this fits with the timing
  of these transcriptions...

  Any other insight would be much appreciated.

  Cheers, Rene



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Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 03:16:03 -0800 (PST)
From: "Adams Douglas" <adamsd@cts.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <v01510102630b616f39ab@[156.46.217.102]> from "M. Sulla" at Dec 1, 96 11:36:11 pm
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> Mr. Clary's comments caused me to seriously consider what I have found.  My
> personal bias (on account of insecurity in this matter) is that somehow I
> am overlaying what I want to see in the confusion of the transcription.

To echo Dennis Stallings, you are to be commended for your willinginess to
be proved wrong or to explore the possibility you made a mistake. Bravo!

Stalling other comment is very important, in my mind; can you clarify your
algorithm for deciding whether a character is a pair or an absolute
character clearly enough that it could be used in a machine algorithm?

-Adams

From rand.org!jim Mon Dec  2 08:56 EST 1996 remote from fry
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  Dear all,

  let me chip in my $ 0.02 to the latest 'tentative solution'
  thread. I like the idea that the text may have been encoded
  as single characters or pairs. This is how the Voynich text
  appears to us, I think, and it may explain the low digraph
  entropy. No proposed solution up to now does this.
  The weakness of having an ambiguous solution  (freedom to
  choose) is there, but it is rather small (nothing compared
  to Brumbaugh's). Also, the appearance of very frequent
  letter pairs in the Ms should help in this respect.
  Unfortunately, the proposed 'Philip' line violates this
  idea. It goes:

  FO R ZO E8 9 2 OR 9 XA RO R9
  u  t p  h  i l d  i d  u  t

  Some of the most frequent pairs are broken up.
  It would have been much nicer if they
  had been paired, but this is not saying it can't be right.
  The amount of 'recognisable' text leaves me skeptical.
  10-20% of oddly abbreviated Latin is a bit tenuous.

  I agree with the proposed 'acceptance' criteria, but
  we have to leave some room for strange methods or strange
  plain text (if only because of the strangeness of the end
  product). So I propose:

  1) The method should be presented and fully explained.
  2) It should be possible to encode the plaintext using the
     method (even thought we may not be looking at a cipher,
     some kind of manipulation was done to turn it into what
     it is).
  3) An irreversible cipher may not be excluded (unfortunately),
     but if a theory is based on one, it is a 'bad note'
  4) One may allow for a small amount of 'scribal' errors, but
     not more than, say, 2% of the text (is that reasonable)?
     In addition one should allow for transcription and
     identification problems.
  5) The legibility of the plaintext may not have to be perfect.
     This depends on the amount of ambiguity of the code. If the
     ambiguity is high, the criteria put on the plaintext must
     be correspondingly high.
  6) The temporal and spatial context: add a cultural context
     to be satisfied. We may not be qualified to judge it though.

  Then there are still the criteria in D'Imperio, in Currier's
  paper and in the Tiltman paper, which are quite specific for
  the Voynich.

  I have a few questions to Mark:

  - I did not quite follow the reasoning for selecting 1600 as the
    approximate origin of the Ms. But how important is this for
    this solution anyway?
  - The correspondence between Currier SXPMON... and plaintext
    abcdef... seems to have been imposed (based on Italian rather
    than Latin). Did I understand this correctly? The chances of
    this being right (assuming that the method is correct) are
    pretty small then. I presume this is where you are looking for
    help/advice?
  - Have you any idea how to treat the 'weirdoes', ligatures etc?
    This is no criticism, but another point to be explained.

  Apart from commending Mark for his approach, I would also like
  to commend the people who took the trouble to try and find
  out how exactly it worked, check the details and provide comment.

  My small contribution: for a given string of 'n' Voynich
  characters, the number of possibilities of splitting it
  up into single characters and pairs is given by
  Fibonacci's series: n=1 --> 1,  n=2 --> 2 and then 3, 5, 8,
  etc. This is an exponential series. The amount of freedom
  one has per character is 1.618... (For Brumbaugh's method it
  is 3.000)

  Cheers, Rene



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  Olivier Clary responds to my:

  >>   Some of the most frequent pairs are broken up.
  >>   It would have been much nicer if they had been paired,

  >Not necessarily. Correlation may be weak inside a cypher pair, with many
  >possibilities to code a single letter, but strong between the second
  >character of a pair and the first character of the following pair, if
  >such are the coding rules. Thus frequency pairs would often be broken up.

  I agree with 'not necessarily', but I still think it would make
  more sense. The tendency to form certain digraphs is more pronounced
  in the Voynich text than in the languages that are candidates for
  the plain text. This is essentially saying that its digraph entropy
  is lower. This feature has been introduced somehow. If OR, AR, AM,
  89, 4O are very frequent, this has to come from the fact that they
  represent a very frequent single character (if we take Mark's
  theory as a working assumption).
  Very informative in this respect is a message in the mailing list
  archive by Allen Wechsler (92/04/14) which lists the frequency of
  mono-, di- and trigraphs all mixed up. The ones mentioned above are
  more frequent than some of the single characters. I include it below
  for reference.

  Again: what you say is true but it would take an enormous amount of
  effort from the scribe to achieve it, compared to the alternative.

  Cheers, Rene
  ----------------------------------------------------------

  V string  No. of occurrences
  --------  ------------------
  .         14500
  O         11016
  9         8559
  C         7651
  9.        6363
  8         6273
  A         5498
  S         5314
  E         4552
  F         4277
  89        3420
  OE        2898
  89.       2876
  R         2847
  .O        2819
  .S        2706
  4         2670
  OF        2625
  4O        2578
  P         2526
  C8        2447
  Z         2406
  E.        2319
  \         2290
  .4        2230
  C89       2217
  .4O       2161
  C89.      2053
  SC        2014
  R.        2011
  8A        1839
  M         1815
  .8        1720
  9.4       1718
  AM        1701
  9.4O      1668
  OE.       1634
  C9        1608
  SO        1564
  OP        1523
  M.        1510
  4OF       1509
  .Z        1503
  C9.       1475
  FC        1451
  OR        1428
  AM.       1409
  ZC        1281
  .4OF      1276
  FA        1265
  AR        1150
  2         1107
  .8A       1087
  OR.       1084
  .SC       1076
  AE        1049
  9.O       1043
  9.4OF          1028



From rand.org!jim Mon Dec  2 11:15 EST 1996 remote from fry
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From: CLARY Olivier <Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr>
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Rene <rzandber@esoc.esa.de> wrote:
>   Some of the most frequent pairs are broken up.
>   It would have been much nicer if they had been paired,

Not necessarily. Correlation may be weak inside a cypher pair, with many
possibilities to code a single letter, but strong between the second
character of a pair and the first character of the following pair, if
such are the coding rules. Thus frequency pairs would often be broken up.

-- Olivier

From rand.org!jim Mon Dec  2 12:03 EST 1996 remote from fry
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From: firthr@db.erau.edu (Robert Firth)
Subject: Mark's Partial Solution
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First, congratulations and best wisjes to Mark Sullivan,
for his insight and hard work.  Next, I guess, is to say
that I agree with his main point - it is premature to
claim a solution, but we have some fresh ideas on the table.

Well, on with the comments.

1. Repetitions and unique words

One of the many puzzles in the VMS is that it has both a lot
of repetitions and a lot of words that occur only once.  Well,
one might expect that of, say, a star map, since presumably
each star name would occur once, but with a lot of standard
text around it.  Same for a botanical or herbal work.  The
trouble is, when I looked at the unique words, they seemed to
me much more like misprints.  I've worked with computer-based
bibliographic systems; they tend to use cheap and cheerless
data entry clerks; and yes, they contain many, many misprints
or miskeyings.  Even if the original text is error free - which
I gravely doubt; it is rather correction free - there are
certainly many transcription and keying errors in the older
machine-readable versions.

That's why on the whole I've regarded the "labels" as the best
candidates for recognisable proper names, and tended to ignore
the peculiar words in the text.

2. A code book

With respect, I do not discount the possibility of a code book
longer than the text itself.  One merely needs a long book.  As
an example, an encoding scheme the mediaevals were certainly
familiar with, is to take a standard text as the code book, and
for each plaintext letter, find its next occurrence in the code
book and substitute the next letter thereafter.

For example, let's take as our code book the natural choice if
the language is latin, namely the Vulgate.  If memory serves,
this begins

        In principio creavit deus caelum et terram ...

So if our first plaintext letter is "C", the encoding is "i".
And yes, that is an irreversible cypher.  But it becomes almost
reversible if you encode using *both* adjacent letters, eg
"C" => "ni".  Ok, if the encoding is "ni inull nulle al", what's
the word?  Another way of generating suggestive letter pairs?

3. Choices

Well, having (sqrt(5)+1)/2 choices per letter is better that
having 3, but in my view is still a major problem.  Moreover,
Mark seems to allow himself even more freedom in de-mangling
the decoded latin than did Brumbaugh.  As he notes, there remains
a suspicion that one is reading the decode into the text rather
that out of it.  One acceptance test, then, is to see whether
the decode contains something the decoder could not have known,
such as an obscure plant name that just happens to be a local
Provencal name for "ragwort".

4. The reconstructed alphabet

I'm also dubious of using italian letter frequencies on
a latin text, especially a mangled one.  First, the letter
frequencies are very different.  Secondly, by 1600 there was
"italian", but if the VMS is older than that, there were
still several italian dialects, more or less evolved from
latin.  I think one of us should redo this part of Mark's
work, using genuine mediaeval latin texts.  But even here,
do we take the high end (like Boethius' De consolatione
philosophiae) or the low end (like the Carmina burana).
That seems a finite task suitable for the machines.

5. Final question

I can see that spelling "est" as "ect" might be a sign of
french influence, but why is the name "Phillip" also cited
as one?  After all, it's a common greek name.  Unless we're
thinking of a particular Phillip - the one called "le Bel",
perhaps, who abolished the Knights Templar, ... and here
again begins the easy descent of Avernus.  Verily, Marcy
was right to call the VMS a sphynx.

Once again, thanks and best wishes to Mark.

Yours
Robert Firth



From rand.org!jim Mon Dec  2 20:05 EST 1996 remote from fry
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From: sulla@globaldialog.com (M. Sulla)
Subject: Spaces
Status: OR

Following my key, I have noticed a tendency to split pairs with the spaces.
I am very suspicious that the spaces indicate  whether the 'word' is
composed of pairs or absolute values, but I cannot see a pattern.

I have also noticed that it seems to be easier to decipher backwards, right
to left.

If anyone is playing with the key, can they confirm any Latin?

Thanks for the interest,

Mark S.

M. Sulla   sulla@globaldialog.com
http://www.globaldialog.com/~sulla/nakedgod.html
rura cano rurisque deos.          --Tibullus



From rand.org!jim Tue Dec  3 16:08 EST 1996 remote from fry
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unsubscribe

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  On Thursday, 5 December 1991, Jim Gillogly wrote:

  > To: voynich@rand.org
  > Subject: Testing...
  > Date: Thu, 05 Dec 91 21:27:26 PST
  > From: Jim Gillogly <jim%mycroft@rand.org>
  >
  > This is a test of the Voynich Manuscript mailing list.
  >
  > You're on it.
  >
  > To get off it, send mail to voynich-request@rand.org .
  >
  > To send mail to everybody on it (the two of us, so far), address it to
  > voynich@rand.org .
  >
  >    Jim Gillogly

  Tomorrow is again Thu, 05 Dec.
  Happy 5th anniversary to the list (well both of you so far),

  Rene



From rand.org!jim Wed Dec  4 10:23 EST 1996 remote from fry
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  Dear all,

  I tried to grasp the amount of freedom available in the method
  proposed by Mark. Whereas when decoding one has 1.618 or
  (sqrt(5)+1)/2 choices per character, when encoding one has
  26. Thus I thought it should be possible to take any string and
  convert it to 'good' Voynichese. I tried one. The resulting
  Voynichese is as follows (in Currier):

  ZC9  OP989  ARAR  8AR  2  SOR  SXOSC8

  Looks just like the real thing. Anyone care to decode it?
  Is this proof that the method leaves too much room
  for various interpretations? I don't know what to conclude...

  Cheers, Rene



From rand.org!jim Thu Dec  5 11:38 EST 1996 remote from fry
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  Dear all,

  the letter frequency of Vulgate as taken from
  (one of) the book of Kings is:
  e,i,t,a,u,s,r,n,m,o,d,c,l,p,b,q,v,h,g,f,x,y,z,w,j,k
  the frequency of j is actually 0 so we can skip it.
  The most frequent 25 of Voynichese in 25 herbal A pages are:
  O,S,9,A,8,E,C,R,F,P,M,Z,4,2,Q,B,J,N,X,W,D,V,T,I,6

  This leads to an alternative table:

             A Q Z M O
             W X N S 6
             4 F R P 2
             B C E 9 8
             J I D V T

  A Q Z M O  a b c d e
  W X N S 6  f g h i k
  4 F R P 2  l m n o p
  B C E 9 8  q r s t u
  J I D V T  v w x y z

  The first line of f1r gives:

  VAS92 9FAE AR APAM ZOE ZOR9 QOR92 9 FOR ZOE89
  yaitp tmas an aoad ces cent bentp t men cesut  (single)
  vbiuo rlcq cl dldc ecs ecor ecouo r pcn ecut   (pairs)

  v ito  mas an d ac  c  e nt e o o   men e st   (an attempt)

  Which has many recognisable Latin words (and mentions
  Tomas Aquinas(?)) and ends with 'omen est'.

  Hmmm,
          Rene



From rand.org!jim Fri Dec  6 01:30 EST 1996 remote from fry
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Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 00:22:07 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: voynich@rand.org
Cc: jstall@hercules.kspress.com
Subject: Sunflowers
In-Reply-To: <C12563F7:004E9004.00@esocmail1.esoc.esa.de>
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	Greetings from Kansas USA - the Sunflower State!  I'm on vacation
here, visiting my parents.  Here's some info for the non -US-citizens.  (I
was recently taken to task on another list for referring to
"non-Americans", given the role of the Native Americans and possibly the
Vikings and others in populating the Americas.  :-) ) Kansas is almost
exactly in the center of the continental United States.  The state is
almost a perfect rectangle. 
	The US citizens on the list probably think of western Kansas when
they hear "Kansas".  That is perfectly flat plains, stretching for
enormous distances, broken only by shelter belts of trees planted by the
farmers.  Truckers say that this is the worst part of a trans-continental
haul.  However, it's extremely productive farmland.  Due to the relatively
low rainfall (20 inches/year or 51 cm/year), the farmers irrigate
extensively.
	However, I'm now in and grew up in eastern Kansas, which is
different.  This is low, rolling hills as well as plains, with more
rainfall (35 inches/year or 89 cm/year).  Some of it is very beautiful.
	Kansas' nickname is "the Sunflower State".  It's winter, at least
in this hemisphere, so there are no sunflowers here at the moment, but
during the rest of the year the sunflower is a common weed throughout the
state and is a major crop in some parts of the state. 

	I went over the VMs with my mother, Mrs. Helen Stallings, who is
good at identifying local plants.  We used Petersen, plus Xeroxes of the
VMs images in Newbold, Brumbaugh, and Blunt & Raphael.  Here are some
notes. 

	*In general* - seed pods are often shown with no petals; roots are
block-like and distorted; the base where the roots start has a
characteristic "pedestal" look, which my mother says is like a "frog", a
solid glass flower holder.  (How about that, Jacques?  ;-) )

	f21v - Petersen says salvia.  That's common here and it doesn't
resemble this. 

	f22v - Looks like milkweed. 

	f34v - Looks like lotus flowers.  

	f40v - Looks like calendula, roots like radishes.  Petersen says
Jerusalem artichoke (helianthus tuberosus).  That is a sunflower that
grows here.  We have pictures, and it doesn't look like that.  The center
is not raised, and the petals are not like the sunflower.  The roots
should look more knotted, less bulb-like. 

	f50r - Looks like lotus pod or protea. 

	f50v - Also protea.

	f85/86 - Newbold's ovum.  We say it's the Colosseum in Rome, with
sewer pipes out the southeast side.  ;-)

	f89v1 - Left center drawing, root looks like mermaid, person.

	f90v - Root looks like cat body, plant head!

	f93r - Brumbaugh's "sunflower".  Petersen also says coxcomb, and
we think it looks more like coxcomb, Celasia argentea 'Cristata'. 
	There are many varieties of sunflower and many plants that are
similar , such as coneflowers.  The leaves of the common sunflower,
helianthus annuus, are spade-shaped, not straight like on the drawing. 
The pod of the common sunflower does not have a peak like this.  If this
is a sunflower, the pod but not the flower petals are shown.  The
Maximilian sunflower, helianthus maximiliani, has leaves that are like the
drawing and a pod with a peak. 
	The pod in the drawing is huge in comparison with the leaves and
the roots.  If sunflowers are cultivated, the pod can get this large.  We
have pictures of cultivated common sunflowers with pods this big, but not
of cultivated Maximilian sunflowers. 
	The cavities in the pod look more like those on a lotus pod.  

	f100r - 3rd row, 1st on left, leaf on soapberry tree.  Brumbaugh's
"pepper" could be a pepper; there are many varieties of pepper. 

	f100v - 1st row, 2nd from left, looks like human lung! 

	f102r - (Jim's p. 229) - Drawing on bottom right looks like
elephant ear.  The one next to the left looks like white radish. 

	f102r - (Jim's p. 233) - The drawing on 3rd row, 4th left,
Petersen's #231, looks like parsnip, pod like okra. 

	FWIW.

Cheers,
Dennis

From rand.org!jim Fri Dec  6 09:14 EST 1996 remote from fry
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Date: 6 Dec 1996 09:12:31 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  Mystery Queen secon
To: "Voynich List" <voynich@RAND.ORG>
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Dear all,

Great about the possible language id...

Regarding the circles with the "nymps" and the theory that it depicts the =
life of
a woman...

I tried to identified who it might be and my hunt stopped for lack of =
coroborating
evidences (!) with Yollande of Courtenay and Mary Queen of HUngary. No =
match there :-(

Then when showing the "circles" and commenting that I thought the first =
ones with the
tube represented 9 months of pregnancy... And Ren=E9 pointed out that =
there were ten and not
9 but using LUNAR months it still fitted a pregnancy.... I thought why =
not nine months and 
two "nymphs". A twin birth in Royal family? Should be much easier to =
check out!

Well. Not so easy. The genealogical DB on the net are not set so one can =
querry them
with SQL and is hard to see if child 1 and 2 were twins! But, People do =
remember their
history sometimes...

So far the best candidate I have if Charles VII of France who had two =
daughters, Marie
and Jeanne. One dies young (1yr maybe)... It's the same Charles as with =
Jeanne d'arc
and Louis... Which would put the story around 1250.

Does any one out there know of others exemples of twin birth in any =
kingdom ?

One more thing, the order of the folio might not be the right one... But =
then again
this was mentionned before on this list... Matching drawings with events =
is thus
more like matching space between events...

Just thought I should share this. Maybe others more familliar with their =
Royal
History might recall such "famous" births. 

Have a nice weekend you all ;-)



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From: jimg@mentat.com (Jim Gillogly)
Message-Id: <199612061549.HAA22741@zendia.mentat.com>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: New members on Voynich list
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Several new people have just joined the Voynich mailing list, as a result of my
long-delayed list maintenance spurt -- as many of you know, I just switched jobs
and haven't yet brought the list over to my new location, and I haven't gotten
on the old system often enough lately to make timely changes.

To welcome the new members, perhaps this would be a good time for the more
active participants to summarize what they've been working on lately, what
they wish they had time to work on, and pointers to ftp sites and web pages
where they keep their public goodies.

I'm still planning to majordomo-ize the list so that it's not as much at the
mercy of my free moments... coming within a month or two to my new location
at mentat.com.

Cheers --

	Jim Gillogly
	jim@acm.org (despite what it says in the header)

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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: Jim Gillogly <jimg@mentat.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: New members on Voynich list
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On Fri, 6 Dec 1996, Jim Gillogly wrote:

> To welcome the new members, perhaps this would be a good time for the more
> active participants to summarize what they've been working on lately, what
> they wish they had time to work on, and pointers to ftp sites and web pages
> where they keep their public goodies.

	I am still pondering my own EKT hypothesis, which is:

1)  The Voynich Manuscript is in an unknown human language.

2)  This language is concealed by a word game (like Pig Latin in English, 
javanais in French, etc.).  I concocted an elaborate word game called 
Extended King Tut (EKT) which would have many of the statistical 
properties of Voynichese.

3)  At least some phonemes are written with two or more Voynich 
characters.  

	I am still interested in M. Sulla's table cipher.  

	I have a small study going of English texts of varying degrees of 
repetitiousness (religious texts, cooking recipes, technical standards, 
and literary text).  I will use the entropy-calculating program MONKEY to 
quantify the entropy of these texts.  This is to give insight on the idea 
that the VMs may simply be a very repetitious text.  

	I have some historical info on Catharism, against Levitov, that I 
haven't really seen on the list, if anyone is interested.  

	Finally, I am writing up my personal silly theory on the VMs.  
Stay tuned for a major post!

Cheers,
Dennis


From rand.org!jim Sat Dec  7 07:54 EST 1996 remote from fry
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From: "Gabriel Landini" <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 12:51:12 +0000
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On  6 Dec 96 at 7:49, Jim Gillogly wrote:
> To welcome the new members, perhaps this would be a good time for the more
> active participants to summarize what they've been working on lately, what
> they wish they had time to work on, and pointers to ftp sites and web pages
> where they keep their public goodies.


Welcome! Here is what Rene and I have been doing so far. We produced
an interlinear file that include all the other partial transcriptions
of the VMS that are available on line.

We are using that file, and a set of 2nd generation photocopies of
Petersen's hand (!) transcription of the entire VMS to produce a
revised version of the complete MS. 

The new transcription is being done in an "intermediate" alphabet
(EVA) that Rene has designed with the help of the "senior" members of
the list. The alphabet has some advantages:

Voynichese is "almost" pronouceable, which makes easy the
transcription, (this is a real plus).

It uses only letters (all smallcase).

It can be translated into the FSG, Currier and Basic Frogguy
alphabets. So, if you do not like EVA then you can work in the
alphabet of your choice.

We are also looking into a standardisation of the "weirdoes"
(Voynich characters which appear only a few times), so those can be 
translated into something parsable. Jim Reeds has produced a very 
detailed list of these, and we are working in an standardisation of 
the notation and coding.

We are seeking permission from the Marshall Library to make the
transcription available on line to everybody once it is finished.

The file format of this new transcription has a number of variables
included in the header of each folio to be searched automatically.
Rene has produced protable C code for handling and processing the
file.

About the transcription exercise: 

We are working on quire 4 at this time. It *IS* time consuming, and
we do as much as we can, please be patient! :-) 

We are transcribing independently and then merging our
transcriptions. For that Rene has a working programme (in Fortran?)
that approximately aligns the transcribed lines and highlights the
discrepancies so the checking is easy and fast. 
R. Harman has offered to write a full working version of such a
programme in C (are you there RMH?).
We have devised a set of rules to solve the discrepancies are
automatically as possible, but everything will be checked afterwards.

At this point let me say that the FSG transcription looks more 
consistent than Currier-D'Imperio's. The Petersen copies are 
*excellent*! Petersen recorded many small details that even in the 
Yale photocopies are not as clear.

For the new members, the page describing the project and holding a 
number of files and documents for downloading as well as some 
interesting links:

http://sun1.bham.ac.uk/G.Landini/evmt/evmt.htm


Perhaps Rene wants to add some more details that I may have missed. 
Best wishe to all,

Gabriel

From rand.org!jim Sun Dec  8 23:05 EST 1996 remote from fry
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: Jim Gillogly <jimg@mentat.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: New members on Voynich list
In-Reply-To: <199612061549.HAA22741@zendia.mentat.com>
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On Fri, 6 Dec 1996, Jim Gillogly wrote:

> To welcome the new members, perhaps this would be a good time for the more
> active participants to summarize what they've been working on lately, what
> they wish they had time to work on, and pointers to ftp sites and web pages
> where they keep their public goodies.

	Welcome!  Here is my Voynich Manuscript mini-FAQ. I put it 
together for friends who were curious about the Voynich Manuscript.  Some 
of them may be new list members.

------------------------- Voynich mini-FAQ --------------------------
December 8, 1996

	In 1912, Wilfrid M. Voynich (a book collector) bought a medieval
manuscript (235 pages) written in an unknown script and what appears to be
an unknown language or a cipher from the Jesuit College at the Villa
Mondragone, Frascati, in Italy (near Rome).  However, despite the efforts
of many well known cryptologists and scholars, the book remains unread.
Since 1969, it is at Yale University, at the Beinecke Rare Book Library
with catalogue number MS 408. 

	It is known (from a letter of J. M. Marci in 1665/6) that the
manuscript was bought by Emperor Rudolph II of Bohemia (1552-1612) for 600
ducats (an exorbitant sum in those days). The manuscript somehow passed to
Jacobus de Tepenecz, the director of Rudolph's botanical gardens (his
signature is present in folio 1r) and it is speculated that this must have
happened after 1608, when Jacobus Horcicki received his title "de
Tepenecz".  Thus 1608 is the earliest definite date for the Manuscript. 

	The Voynich Manuscript, as it has come to be known, contains many
drawings of plants, but the plants have not been identified, nor have the
drawings been identified with known fanciful or distorted drawings of
plants from the Middle Ages. There are what look like astrological
drawings.  There are curious drawing of little nude women bathing in baths
with convoluted plumbing; nothing else like these drawings is known.  The
persons and costumes look generally European.  The script seems to have
been developed from early Arabic numerals and medieval Latin
abbreviations, but composed of these elements in a unique manner; no other
examples of the script or any like it are known.  Nothing else about the
Manuscript is even this definite; it is a completely unique artifact. 

	Computer analysis of the Voynich Manuscript has only deepened the 
mystery.  One finding has been that there are two "languages" or 
"dialects" of Voynichese, which are called Voynich A and Voynich B.  The 
repetitiousness of the text is obvious to casual inspection.  Entropy is 
a numerical measure of the randomness of text.  The lower the entropy, 
the less random and the more repetitious it is.  The entropy of samples 
of Voynich text is lower than that of most human languages; only some 
Polynesian languages are as low.  

*Web pages*  Here's the best one to start with:

EVMT project home page
http://sun1.bham.ac.uk/G.Landini/evmt/evmt.htm

This one points to all other info:

Voynich Manuscript (Jim Reeds)
http://netlib.bell-labs.com/math/people/reeds/voynich.html

*Books*

THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT: An Elegant Enigma, M. E. D'Imperio. 8.5 x 11", ix
+ 140 pp. This is surely the most comprehensive and scholarly study of the
Voynich Manuscript. An essential text for anyone studying this mysterious
document. C-27 Soft cover $18.80 ISBN: 0-89412-038-7 (1996 catalog). It is
published by Aegean Park Press.  They're at PO Box 2837, Laguna Hills, CA
92654-0837, 714-586-8811, http://www.halcyon.com/books/  It was originally
published in 1978.  It summarizes all work ever done to that date. 

*Copies*  You can write to Yale for a microfilm or paper copy.  
Write to:

Robert Babcock
c/o Beinecke Rare Book Library
1603a Yale Station
New Haven, CT  06520

	That costs about 40 US$.  However, there are legal restrictions on
its use.  They will make you sign a paper agreeing not to publish either
images of it *or data derived from it*!
	Father Theodore Petersen made a good hand copy of the manuscript
in the 30's and 40's.  Many of us have Xerox copies of it and use it for
our work (I do), since the letters are clear in Xerox and there are no
legal restrictions.  An effort to finish a definitive, accurate computer
transcription of the Voynich Manuscript based on Petersen's copy is under
way (see the EVMT project home page listed above).  Other, less restricted
copies are also available.  Ask list members (find out about the E-mailing
list on the Web pages). 

	I was first interested in the Voynich Manuscript reading about it
as a boy and teenager, in *The Codebreakers* by David Kahn and others.  As
an adult my interest was re-aroused by the review, McKenna, Terence K.
``Has the World's Most Mysterious Manuscript Been Read at Last?'' Gnosis
Magazine, 7 (Spring 1988) pp.48-51. I immediately recognized the book
reviewed as a crackpot solution, but the article's bibliography contained
D'Imperio's book, which I ordered.  When I first got a little Internet
access in Dec. 1994, the first thing I looked for was material on the
Voynich Manuscript. 


From rand.org!jim Mon Dec  9 03:14 EST 1996 remote from fry
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  Dear all,

  prompted by Jim G., let me add a few words too.
  Gabriel has explained very well our enterprise of proofreading the
  existing transcriptions and providing a complete and hopefully
  consistent one for general perusal. I would hope that everybody
  is busy 'sharpening' their computer arms in order to redo some
  of the analyses which were done in the past five years on
  incomplete sections of the manuscript.

  I can recommend to those who are new to the group, but who are
  already familiar with the 'basics' of the manuscript, to download
  the mailing list archive from Jim Reeds' Web site. There you find
  the computer studies that are not in D'Imperio's or Newbold's
  books. To do this, go to

  http://www.research.att.com/~reeds/voynich.html

  section 'Electronic information sources' and click on BIG.txt,
  BIG2.txt and BIG3.txt. Beware: approx. 5 Mb of text when
  unzipped.

  My personal feeling is that one of the main features of the
  Voynich text that might help 'crack' it is its low digraph
  entropy. For those not familiar with that: when transcribed
  into a Latin alphabet, the frequency of individual characters
  is rather like a normal language, but the way these characters
  form pairs is not normal. There is not enough variation there.
  When I'm not working on the transcription, I'm trying to devise
  a way to transform between texts with normal and low digraph
  entropies. And third on the list is to figure out the meaning
  of the 360 labels (I'm sure it's 360, not 365 :-) ) in the
  zodiac pages.

  And my pet theory is that Arabic is the base language of the
  Manuscript.

  Since I do have a tendency to ramble on in this mailing list,
  there is no need for me to say more right now :-)

  Cheers,
           Rene



From rand.org!jim Mon Dec  9 04:08 EST 1996 remote from fry
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9612090904.AA25520@sevengill.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: Where we stand
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To add to Dennis's thoughts
> 1)  The Voynich Manuscript is in an unknown human language.
Yes. I would set the prior probilities of what the language in proportion to
the number of literate representatives of the language in question. Since we
are talking medieval Europe, to me this means a very high chance (70%) that
the VMS is in Latin, perhaps 10% chance that it is German(ic), 10% French, the
remaining 10% divided among more exocitic choices, ranging from Arabic to
Welsh.

> 2)  This language is concealed by a word game (like Pig Latin in English,
> javanais in French, etc.).  I concocted an elaborate word game called
> Extended King Tut (EKT) which would have many of the statistical
> properties of Voynichese.
As the original proponent of this hypothesis I am still very much in favor of
it.  Certainly the encoding/decoding can't be more sophisticated than this or
the table cypher proposed by Marcus Sulla. In fact, I see even a simple table
cypher as something of a barrier to fluent writing, but perhaps with great
practice this could be overcome. There was at least one method proposed
(writing the nth subsequent letter of a codebook text, like the Vulgata) which
is so cumbersome as to make fluent writing impossible.

> 3)  At least some phonemes are written with two or more Voynich characters.
Yes, but this is not a great step in narrowing thing things down, consider
Latin (and subsequent) ph.

> I am still interested in M. Sulla's table cipher.
So am I. If I understand this right, we have to pick two tables, each of which
offers 25!/5!^5=6.23e14 possibilities. This is not open to brute force attack,
but if we could narrow it down a bit (e.g. ascribing reasonable values to some
of the botanical or astrological labels) it might very well become possible to
do an exhaustive search. But let me say in advance that the 10% or so Latin-like
that Marcus saw was less than convincing, especially for a method involving a
high degree of free choice.

Andras Kornai


From rand.org!jim Mon Dec  9 11:12 EST 1996 remote from fry
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  dberner asks:

  > Hello, i deleted post that described this system.
  > it offers fewer possibilities for decoding, if i remember
  > correctly, something like 1.6 something?
  > can anyone offer the exact number?

  If I may: there are two alphabets of 25 characters each
  involved, the code and the plaintext. For the plaintext
  the assumption is that there are 25 characters: the English
  alphabet minus 'j'. Each code character is to be mapped to
  one plaintext character. The same code alphabet is to be
  written above and beside the plaintext alphabet, all in
  squares of 5*5. This gives 25! possibilities, even
  (much) more than the figure Andras provided.
  Then, given these two alphabets, there is still a factor
  1.613 freedom per plaintext character, or 1.613**n for
  a string of 'n' characters. This seems like a lot, but if
  there is a real sentence in there it will be possible to find
  it.  If there is noise, it will still be possible (I think)
  to find occasional words.

  Cheers, Rene



From rand.org!jim Mon Dec  9 10:48 EST 1996 remote from fry
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>>> Andras Kornai <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> 12/09/96 04:04am >>>
To add to Dennis's thoughts

> I am still interested in M. Sulla's table cipher.
>So am I. If I understand this right, we have to pick two tables, each of
which offers 25!/5!^5=6.23e14 possibilities. 


Hello, i deleted post that described this system.  it offers fewer
possibilities for decoding, if i remember correctly, something like 1.6
something?  can anyone offer the exact number? 

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From: "Gabriel Landini" <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
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Hi all,
Jacques Guy wrote a programme that calculates the entropy of a piece 
of text. However, there seems to be a bug in the programme available 
through the linguistics directory at the garbo ftp site.
Apparently the programme does not stop reading at 32000 characters, 
(the physical limit) but resets itself and keeps reading.

Dennis sent me a version of the same programme that DOES stop at
32000 characters --and therefore is a "sensible" Monkey :-) 

It is available from the EVMT page for downloading together with a
doc file. Thanks Jacques and Dennis.

Regards,

Gabriel 

From rand.org!jim Mon Dec  9 14:45 EST 1996 remote from fry
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9612091932.AA18584@sevengill.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Where we stand -Reply
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 11:32:34 -0800 (PST)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <C12563FB:0057B681.00@esocmail1.esoc.esa.de> from "rzandber@esoc.esa.de" at Dec 9, 96 05:06:05 pm
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>   written above and beside the plaintext alphabet, all in
>   squares of 5*5. This gives 25! possibilities, even
>   (much) more than the figure Andras provided.
I'm sorry, but my understanding was that for any plaintext letter it makes
no difference which encoding letter in the same column (or when you go
horizontally, which row) you pick -- a system that gives many possibilities
for encoding, but only one for decoding. If my understanding is correct,
the order of material in the columns is immaterial, hence the division by
5!^5. If on the other hand, the *same* table must appear both to the left
and on top of the plaintext table, both rows and columns matter, there is
no division by 5!^5, but there is no squareing either. The result, just as
Rene says, is 25! in that case. Needless to say, not all 25! possibilities
are equally likely -- priority should be given to those that result from
the alphabet by some simple transformation (e.g. rotation by ninety degrees,
shuffling all vowels to the first row, that kind of thing).

>   Then, given these two alphabets, there is still a factor
>   1.613 freedom per plaintext character, or 1.613**n for
>   a string of 'n' characters. This seems like a lot, but if
>   there is a real sentence in there it will be possible to find
>   it.  If there is noise, it will still be possible (I think)
>   to find occasional words.
And if there is only noise (i.e. we don't have a solution) it will still be
possible to find words, more than occassionally. This is the part that bothers
me.

Andras


From rand.org!jim Tue Dec 10 00:12 EST 1996 remote from fry
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Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 14:07:34 +0900
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To: voynich@rand.org
From: jbauman@aa.mbn.or.jp (John Bauman)
Subject: a new member
Status: OR

I'm one of the new members whose presence has instigated some messages. I
have D'imperio and have copied Currier and D'imperio and the list archive
off the web. I have some knowledge aquired over the last 6 months or so.

Here's an excellent book that might give people a different perspective:

Breaking the Maya Code
Michael Coe
Thames and Hudson, 1992

Most study of the VMS has been based cryptographic methods and ideas. There
is another class of unknown writing, that of ancient written records that
have survived into the present. Many, but not all, of these have been
successfully "broken," most recently the Mayan hieroglyphs. The above book
is a description of how that was done, as well as a good introduction to
the process.

How's this for a theory:

Suppose someone developed the Voinich script as a way to write a language
that previously had no written form. There are precedents for this; the
monk who developed Cyrilic for Russian and the Indian who developed a
syllabary for Cherokee in the 19th century. This person or persons belonged
to a pre-literate culture close to Europe and somehow became educated. He
decided to create a script and came up with one that used some Latin
letters and some created letters. Both Cyrilic and Cherokee combine
borrowed and created characters. Many pre-literate cultures have extensive
oral traditions, usually in some kind of verse. The Homeric epics are a
good example of this. Perhaps the VMS represents the record of the oral
traditions of a culture, recorded by one or more of the keepers of that
tradition in a alphabet created for that purpose. If the language and
culture did not survive into modern times, then the problen is analogous to
the problem of an ancient script. It's not a cipher, it's an alphabet of an
unknown language.

Unfortunately, if nothing is known of the language, it may not be possible
to break the alphabet. Coe says that there are about 6 ancient alphabets
that remain unread, this despite a lot of fully-funded scholars attacking
them. I'm familiar with non-computer cryptography and if the underlying
language were Latin, I think it would have been read by now.

How do people feel about Currier's contention that the line is a functional
unit? Is this still accepted? It suggests verse to me. Has there been any
search for meter in the VMS? A theory of consonents and vowels will lead to
a theory of syllabification. It should be possible to test some guesses on
syllabification on some segments of the VMS that are transcribed onto
computer. A straightforward assumption that lead to a consistent number of
syllables per line would be suggestive.

John Bauman



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Subject: Re: where we stand -Reply
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Status: OR





  Andras Kornai writes:

  > And if there is only noise (i.e. we don't have a solution)
  > it will still be possible to find words, more than
  > occassionally. This is the part that bothers me.

  Which is indeed what I meant.

  Whereas I still like the idea, and think it merits a very
  close look, it also has its problems. For example:
  if the encoder arbitrarily picked the code for each character
  (out of the 26 possiblities), the single-character distribution
  of the code would be much flatter than it is now. If the method
  is the correct one, there must have been some kind of a rule,
  most likely following a sequence or depending on how
  the previous character was encoded. Otherwise we would not have
  seen a Voynich character distribution roughly following the
  Zipf law and the many full word repeats (and one can replace
  the term 'word' with 'character sequences' to allow for the
  insignificance of the apparent spaces in the Ms).

  I have been using the word 'code' in a more general meaning
  because the Ms is not necessarily a cipher Ms. However, since
  it is generally accepted that the Voynich text is not a mere
  character-by-character rendition of a known European language,
  if its base language is still a known one, some kind of
  operation has been performed on it in order to obtain the
  result we have in front of us, so I think the term code is
  justified.

  My very personal feeling is that we are not looking at
  'filler' text in the Brumbaughian sense of the word,
  since I think I occasionally see the writer cramp his
  text when running up to a plant drawing, in order to fit
  it in.

  Cheers, Rene



From rand.org!jim Tue Dec 10 09:14 EST 1996 remote from fry
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Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 08:05:58 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: where we stand -Reply
In-Reply-To: <C12563FC:00299F28.00@esocmail1.esoc.esa.de>
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Status: OR

On Tue, 10 Dec 1996 rzandber@esoc.esa.de wrote:

>   Whereas I still like the idea, and think it merits a very
>   close look, it also has its problems. For example:
>   if the encoder arbitrarily picked the code for each character
>   (out of the 26 possiblities), the single-character distribution
>   of the code would be much flatter than it is now. If the method
>   is the correct one, there must have been some kind of a rule,
>   most likely following a sequence or depending on how
>   the previous character was encoded. Otherwise we would not have
>   seen a Voynich character distribution roughly following the
>   Zipf law and the many full word repeats (and one can replace
>   the term 'word' with 'character sequences' to allow for the
>   insignificance of the apparent spaces in the Ms).


	One very interesting point M. Sulla made was to point out the 
vertical arrangement of characters on a page.  This would indeed suggest 
a table cipher, or the regular use of some other system to create 
vertical columns.  

Cheers,
Dennis


From rand.org!jim Tue Dec 10 12:47 EST 1996 remote from fry
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From: Karl Kluge <kckluge@eecs.umich.edu>
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Subject: Re: where we stand -Reply
Status: OR


May I suggest the following: pick a Latin text of the appropriate style and
period, encode it using the suggested scheme, and check for the statistical
properties of the Voynich that we've all come to know and love. 

Also, I seem to recall the original proposal saying that blanks are nulls,
not word separators -- doesn't the Voynich have distinctive "word"-initial
and -final characteristics which this leaves unexplained, or haven't I been
following closely enough?

Karl

From rand.org!jim Tue Dec 10 16:06 EST 1996 remote from fry
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Message-ID: <961210155643_1752910615@emout03.mail.aol.com>
To: voynich@rand.org
cc: Katharine5@aol.com
Subject: manuscript
Status: OR

Please send me an application  for enrollment on the mailing list.  I was at
Arlington Hall Station from 1942 to 1946 and I was one of the 22
cryptanalysts whom Col. Friedman achose to work on the manuscript after our
photo unit went to NYC to take pictures of the Voynich while it was in the
bank vault.  I am anxious to talk to any other of those who were  there.

From rand.org!jim Tue Dec 10 22:29 EST 1996 remote from fry
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From: RSRICHMOND@aol.com
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Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 22:20:00 -0500
Message-ID: <961210221959_1589041823@emout02.mail.aol.com>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: new on the Voynich list
Status: OR

I'm one of the new people on the Voynich list. I first read about the Voynich
manuscript about ten years ago, and looked for it not too long ago on the
Web. I'm a pathologist with possibly relevant interests in calligraphy (an
odd hobby for a doctor!) and linguistics.

I guess I get to have a theory, too. No chariots of the gods, honest! 

It seems to me that the Voynich MS hand is derived from the chancery cursive
hands that evolved in Europe between 1560 and 1590. The date 1608 obviously
would fit quite well with that. I would suggest having a look at the Dover
reproduction (my copy's gone astray) of the works of the three great chancery
cursive masters Arrighi, Tagliente, and Palatino. The latter was particularly
interested in foreign alphabets and ciphers, and there a number of them in
his book.

The Voynich MS letters look to have been written rather than drawn,
suggesting that the writer wasn't having to look up cipher values in a table
but was simply writing a language in an alphabet that had become for him
writing, rather than drawing letters. This state takes the human mind a while
to achieve: I write Shaw alphabet and Greek, but I draw Hebrew letters
because I don't write the language much.

The language appears to have a small number of phonemes. The languages of the
Malayo-Polynesian family, as many observers have suggested, are the most
likely possibility. The many languages of the Philippines make that area I
think a very likely candidate, since the Spanish began extensive colonization
there around 1565, with many Roman Catholic priests in isolated outposts.

Imagine then a young priest posted to the Philippines in the late 16th
century. He reduced a local language to writing, as was becoming a widespread
practice then - he would have known, for instance, about literary Nahuatl
(since the Philippines were a province of Mexico!). Isolated, though, he went
native, succumbed to the pleasures of the flesh, and kept some sort of
record, using his invented alphabet and the local language. Perhaps he simply
recorded his amorous doings with his wife - such records can become very
repetitious.

A natural disaster, an epidemic, or an invasion obliterated the community and
all memory of it. All of the priest's writings met the fate of most paper,
except that someone carried off a curious book with pictures of naked ladies
in it.

Now you Voynich scholars may smile - I'm a rank beginner here - but how much
of the problem could this explain?

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN

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To: voynich@rand.org
From: sulla@globaldialog.com (M. Sulla)
Subject: Repeating Columns
Status: OR

I have been  observing the vertical columns of repeating characters.  Some
are very pronounced, others are probably random.  By noting the sequence of
occurance, I seem to be getting a rough sequence of "O,Z,E,A,C,8,9, 4".
Sometimes the column starts in the middle, sometimes it runs in sequence
backwards.  I do not think this is random.

What is of interest is that 4 out of 8 of these characters show up on my
proposed key grid on the top row, and the far right column.

I am seeing  three and four columns per line when they occur, I think this
lends support to a 5X5 or similar size grid.  I reckon that a 25x25 grid
would show a much greater variety in the columns.  These columns also seem
to be more common in the longer text sections, where logic would indicate
that the scribe might get tired and bored, and just repeat his picks off
the the tables.

The occurance of  similar pairs in vertical columns is evidence for a more
complex protocol than I intially envisioned.   Perhaps a pair of
characters intersects on each key grid, and the intersection of the two
intersections points to the value.  Toss in "absolute values" (Double
characters written as one) and it could get quite complex, while still
having a simple written key.

I would really like to know if any one other than Rene has found any words,
or does anyone have any  constructive criticism or suggestions?

Still working at it,

Mark S.

M. Sulla   sulla@globaldialog.com
http://www.globaldialog.com/~sulla/nakedgod.html
rura cano rurisque deos.          --Tibullus



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  Dear all,

  Karl Kluge writes:

  > May I suggest the following: pick a Latin text of the
  > appropriate style and period, encode it using the suggested
  > scheme, and check for the statistical properties of the
  > Voynich that we've all come to know and love.

  The problem is that each individual Latin character can
  be encoded in 26 different ways, one single character or
  5*5 different character pairs. I tried to do what you
  suggest (in a way). I took one short string and encoded
  it using Mark's original table, aiming at 'real' Voynichese
  words.  The result (as I posted) was:

    ZC9  OP989  ARAR  8AR  2  SOR  SXOSC8

  Noone cared to decipher it. Does that mean nobody tried or
  nobody succeeded. All words except the last one are frequent
  Voynich words. This here actually says 'michiton oladabas'.

  To find a 'controlled' way of selecting one of the 26 options
  each time (i.e. according to a list or some other rule) and
  end up with proper Voynichese is a much more challenging
  task...

  > Also, I seem to recall the original proposal saying that
  > blanks are nulls, not word separators -- doesn't the
  > Voynich have distinctive "word"-initial and -final
  > characteristics which this leaves unexplained, or haven't
  > I been following closely enough?

  It's a possibility that can't be overlooked. One can't be
  sure either way. Generally, spaces will follow characters
  that end with a more or less elegant tail (up or down),
  where I couldn't say there has to be a causal relation
  (or if so, which is causing which).

  Cheers, Rene



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Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 07:59:28 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: where we stand -Reply
In-Reply-To: <C12563FD:002C4BB2.00@esocmail1.esoc.esa.de>
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Status: OR

On Wed, 11 Dec 1996 rzandber@esoc.esa.de wrote:


>   > Also, I seem to recall the original proposal saying that
>   > blanks are nulls, not word separators -- doesn't the
>   > Voynich have distinctive "word"-initial and -final
>   > characteristics which this leaves unexplained, or haven't
>   > I been following closely enough?
> 
>   It's a possibility that can't be overlooked. One can't be
>   sure either way. Generally, spaces will follow characters
>   that end with a more or less elegant tail (up or down),
>   where I couldn't say there has to be a causal relation
>   (or if so, which is causing which).

	In my status post, I forgot to mention an important element of my 
EKT hypothesis, which is

4)  The average length of Voynich words is rather low, but EKT and many 
other word games can generate very long words.  Therefore, the word 
divisions in the Voynich text probably represent syllable divisions but 
not necessarily word divisions.  Short words were written as is, while 
long words were broken up into syllable clusters.  

Cheers,
Dennis 

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Status: OR





  Olivier wrote about my 'michiton oladabas':

  > That was hard to find, as it is not in a language I know.

  ..which is a pity because we'd all love to know what it means.
  And I was worried it would be too obvious....

  Then Olivier presents several passable solutions in different
  languages. Good work.
  To me this indicates two things:
  - The cipher is not very well reversible (but that does
    not disqualify it).
  - One has to be very critical about the plaintext resulting
    from it. Word fragments are clearly no evidence of success
    because we have now seen that they can be generated almost
    at will.

  Cheers, Rene



From rand.org!jim Wed Dec 11 09:41 EST 1996 remote from fry
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Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 15:34:12 +0100
From: CLARY Olivier <Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr>
Message-Id: <199612111434.AA01860@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: where we stand -Reply
Status: OR

Rene wrote:
>   [...] I took one short string and encoded
>   it using Mark's original table, aiming at 'real' Voynichese
>   words.  The result (as I posted) was:
>     ZC9  OP989  ARAR  8AR  2  SOR  SXOSC8
>   [...] All words except the last one are frequent
>   Voynich words. This here actually says 'michiton oladabas'.

That was hard to find, as it is not in a language I know. Well, I tried again.
  ZC9OP989ARAR8AR2SORSXOSC8
  prieciniototnotlaetabearn     absolute values
  mtkcdhoiotosooqledqbeabs      pairs

In my first attempt I thought you were encoding an English sentence, and I
was not fully successful. But if it came from the Voynich, it could be just
a part of a sentence, like:
  pric h i t s o le tbe as
  priech i t s o le tbe as
  Preach it, so let be as...
(either written phonetically, or "priech" due to influence of "priest").
Now, French was said to be a more likely language:
  m ic h iot s otle taba r
  m ic h iot s otle taba s
  mi chiot sot le Tabar
  (half a) dump puppy, le Tabar
where I was pleased to recognize the placename "le Tabar" which is the area
of the metro station "Universite" about 1 km from here, in Toulouse, France.
An alternate possibility is "le tabac" = tobacco, prononced "taba", so that
"tabas" could again be an old or bad orthography. The starting "mi" = half
is also more likely to be the end of another word.
Why not try also Hungarian?
  m ic h i t to tle taba s
  Mi csitt otlet a bas...
  What a (good?) idea is fuc... (it is a pity the word stops here)
where I suppose "csitt" (with the ch sound written "ch" like in old texts),
an expressive/onomeatopic word to call for silence, would be some old slang,
since another expressive word "csat" has derivates like "csattanos" = striking.

-- Olivier

From rand.org!jim Thu Dec 12 14:11 EST 1996 remote from fry
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: subscribe`
Status: OR

Hi - Am looking forward to getting updated info on manuscript.  When our
transcription 
was finished it was to be punched into IBM cards for different sorting.  The
primitive computer of the 1940's.  Please put me on the subscribe list.
   Hoofbeats4.  I ran a resident horsemanship camp for 20 years, teaching
Combined Training, the Olympic 
Equestrian sport that used to be a test for the cavalry .See ya.

From rand.org!jim Sun Dec 15 03:08 EST 1996
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From: bgrant@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Bruce Grant)
Subject: Genetic algorithms
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 02:46:06 -0500 (EST)
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Status: OR

As an earlier posting to this list points out, a scheme like Mr. Sulla's,
based on a decription table, allows for an astronomical number of possible
tables, making it difficult to determine what the actual table used might
be. It seems to me that one way to approach the problem of determining such
a table would be with a genetic algorithm, such as the one described in
Richard Dawkins' book _The Blind Watchmaker_.

For example, if the hypothesis is that the underlying text is Latin, the
general approach is this:

1. Start with an arbitrary table.
2. Make _n_ copies of the table.
3. Make a small number of random changes ("mutations") to the tables.
4. Use each table to decrypt the text (this assumes that the decryption
   algorithm is deterministic.)
5. Score each table based on how "Latin-like" the decrypted text is.
6. Make _n_ copies of the highest-ranking table.
7. Go to step 3.

The test for "Latinity" of the resulting test might be based on letter
frequencies, presence of Latin words or endings, etc. (This is probably a
non-trivial task.)

In Dawkins' example, this technique is used to see how quickly a random
sentence can "evolve" into a given sentence. To do this, the random sentence
is mutated and scored based on how many characters it shares with the target
sentence.

One case where I think this approach might be fruitful (though I haven't had
time to test it yet) is to test the theory that the VM consists of plaintext
interspersed with nulls, and that the different characteristics of the A and
B-hand text results from different choices of nulls by two different
scribes.

The approach would be to choose a set of possible nulls, make copies, mutate
the sets of nulls, and score each set based on how much the A- and B-hand
texts look similar when the nulls in the set are deleted from the text.  

(However, since the two texts would have identical characteristics if the
set of nulls contained every letter in the alphabet, it would probably be
necessary to constrain the sets, for example, by requiring the mutations to
leave the _number_ of characters in the set of nulls constant.)

Bruce Grant

From rand.org!jim Mon Dec 16 08:53 EST 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: voynich@rand.org
Cc: "George W. Pugh" <76055.1073@CompuServe.COM>,
        James Sr Bolner <poboln@unix1.sncc.lsu.edu>,
        Evelyne BORNIER <ebornie@tiger.lsuiss.ocs.lsu.edu>,
        Valerie LOICHOT <valerie-loichot@washcoll.edu>
Subject: Catharism and Levitov
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  *Levitov*
  
     Leo Levitov published his purported solution of the Voynich 
Manuscript in *Solution Of The Voynich Manuscript: A Liturgical Manual 
For The Endura Rite Of The Cathari Heresy, The Cult Of Isis* (Aegean 
Park Press, 1987).  I have not actually read Levitov's book.  I have 
only read Terence McKenna's review of it, "Has the World's Most 
Mysterious Manuscript been Read at Last?",  *Gnosis Magazine,* No. 7, 
Summer 1988, pp. 48-51, and Jacques Guy's linguistic critique of it at 
ftp://rand.org/pub/voynich/levitov   .  According to Terence McKenna's 
review, Levitov claims that Catharism was actually a survival of the 
Greco-Roman-Egyptian cult of Isis and that the Voynich Manuscript is a 
liturgical manual of this cult.  He further claims that the Voynich 
nymphs in the tubs are undergoing a Cathar sacrament called *Endura* - 
group suicide by opening veins in warm water.  

     One often hears that the Catholics succeeded in wiping out 
all documents of the Cathar religion and that recorded statements by 
Cathars were forced by torture and therefore unreliable.  Mary 
D'Imperio makes such a statement somewhere in the mail archives.   
This situation has left a vacuum that many, particularly occultists, 
have sought to fill with their own pet ideas.  Levitov is one of many. 

*Montaillou*

     However, there are some reliable accounts of Catharism.  One 
of the best is *Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error* by Emmanuel Le 
Roy Ladurie (translated by Barbara Bray), 1978, George Braziller, 
Inc., New York.  The French original is Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, 
*Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 a` 1324*, (1982, e'dition revue 
et corrige'e, E'ditions Gallimard).  The English translation has a 
good introductory chapter and, at the end, an index of the main 
families of Montaillou, very useful in understanding social relations 
in a small mountain village.  I will be quoting the English version 
from here on. 

     The introductory chapter states the background succinctly.  
"Though there are extensive historical studies concerning peasant 
communities there is very little material available that can be 
considered the direct testimony of peasants themselves.  It is for 
this reason that the Inquisition Register of Jacques Fournier, Bishop 
of Pamiers in Arie`ge in the Comte' de Foix (now southern France) from 
1318 to 1325, is of such exceptional interest.  As a zealous churchman 
- he was later to become Pope at Avignon under the name Benedict XII - 
he supervised a rigorous Inquisition in his diocese and, what is more 
important, saw to it that the depositions made to the Inquisition 
courts were meticulously recorded.  In the process of revealing their 
position on official Catholicism, the peasants examined by Fournier's 
Inquisition, many from the village of Montaillou, have given an 
extraordinarily detailed and vivid picture of their everyday life." 
(p. vii).  To show in detail the everyday life of a medieval village 
is the purpose of Le Roy Ladurie's book.  

     Further on, the introduction notes, "At the head of the 'office' 
was of course Jacques Fournier himself, a sort of compulsive Maigret, 
immune to both supplication and bribe, skillful at worming out the 
truth (at bringing the lambs forth, as his victims said), able in a 
few minutes to tell a heretic from a 'proper' Catholic - a very devil 
of an Inquisitor, according to the accused.  He proceeded, and 
succeeded, essentially through the diabolical and tenacious skill of 
his interrogations; only rarely did he have recourse to torture.  He 
was fanatical about detail, and present in person at almost all the 
sittings of his own court."  (p. xiii).  Because of this, the 
Inquisition Register and Le Roy Ladurie's book also give an accurate 
picture of Catharism. 

     The introductory chapter summarizes the Cathar religion just 
as succinctly.  "Catharism or Albigensianism was a Christian heresy: 
there is no doubt on this point at least.  Its supporters considered 
and proclaimed themselves 'true Christians', 'good Christians', as 
distinct from the official Catholic Church which according to them has 
betrayed the genuine doctrine of the Apostles.  At the same time, 
Catharism stood at some distance from traditional Christian doctrine, 
which was monotheist.  Catharism accepted the (Manichaean) existence 
of two opposite principles, if not of two deities, one of good and the 
other of evil.  One was God, the other Satan.  On the one hand was 
light, on the other dark.  On one side was the spiritual world, which 
was good, and on the other the terrestrial world, which was carnal, 
physical, corrupt.  It was this essentially spiritual insistence  on 
purity, in relation to a world totally evil and diabolical, which gave 
rise retrospectively to a probably false etymology of the word Cathar, 
which has been said to derive from a Greek word meaning 'pure'.  In 
fact 'Cathar' comes from a German word the meaning of which has 
nothing to do with purity.  The dualism good/evil or God/Satan 
subdivided into two tendencies, according to region.  On the one hand 
there was absolute dualism, typical of Catharism in Languedoc in the 
twelfth century: this proclaimed the eternal opposition between the 
two principles, good and evil.  On the other hand was the modified 
dualism characteristic of Italian Catharism: here God occupies a place 
which was more eminent and more 'eternal' than that of the Devil." 

     "Catharism was based on a distinction between  a 'pure' 
elite on the one hand (*perfecti*, *parfaits* [Perfects], *bonshommes* 
[Goodmen] or *he're'tiques [heretics]), and on the other hand, the 
mass of simple believers (*credentes*).  The *parfaits* came into 
their illustrious title after they had been initiated by receiving the 
Albigensian sacrament of baptism by book and word (not by water).  In 
Cathar language, this sacrament was called the *consolamentum* 
('consolation').  Ordinary people referred to it as 'heretication'.  
Once he had been hereticated a *parfait* had to remain pure, 
abstaining from meat and women.  (Catharism, though not entirely anti-
feminine, showed  no great tolerance of women.)  A *parfait* had the 
power to bless bread and to receive from ordinary believers the 
*melioramentum* or ritual salutation or adoration.  He gave them his 
blessing and kiss of peace (*caretas*).  Ordinary believers did not 
receive the *consolamentum* until just before death, when it was plain 
that the end was near.  This arrangement allowed ordinary believers to 
lead a fairly agreeable life, not too strict from the moral point of 
view, until the end approached.  But once they were hereticated, all 
was changed.  Then they had to embark (at least in the late Catharism 
of the 1300s) on a state of *endura* or total and suicidal fasting.  
>From that moment on there was no escape, physically, though they were 
sure to save their souls.  They could touch neither women nor meat in 
the period until death intervened, either through natural causes or as 
a result of the *endura*." (pp. viii-ix).  

     The rest of the book is consistent with this picture.  In 
particular, there is a vivid eyewitness account of an *endura*.   
Brune Pourcel of Montaillou gave this testimony to Fournier's 
Inquisition.  "Fifteen or seventeen years ago, said Brune Pourcel 
(i.388), one dusk, at Easter, Guillaume Belot, Raymond Benet (the son 
of Guillaume Benet)  and Rixende Julia, of Montaillou, brought Na 
Roqua to my house in a *bourras* [a rough piece of canvas]; she was 
gravely ill and had just been hereticated.  And they said to me: 'Do 
not give her anything to eat or drink.  You mustn't!' " 

     "That night, together with Rixende Julia and Alazai"s Pellissier, 
I sat up with Na Roqua.  We kept on saying to her, 'Speak to us!  Say 
something!' " 

     "But she would not open her lips.  I wanted to give her some 
broth made of salt pork, but we could not get her to open her mouth.  
When we tried to do so in order to give her something to drink, she 
clenched her lips.  She remained like this for two days and two 
nights.  The third night, at dawn, she died. While she was dying, two 
night birds commonly called *gavecas* [owls] came on to the roof of my 
house.  They hooted and when I heard them I said: 'The devils have 
come to carry off the late Na Roqua's soul!' " (p. 226) 

     There is no resemblance here to Levitov's claim that Catharism 
was the antique cult of Isis - and certainly no truth to the picture 
of the Voynich nymphs' opening their veins to bleed to death in the 
hot tubs! 

*Anthology of Medieval Occitan Prose*

     In his review, Terence McKenna refers briefly to the *Cathar 
Ritual of Lyons*.   In his *Anthologie de la Prose Occitane du Moyen-
A^ge, Volume II [ Anthology of Medieval Occitan Prose, Volume II]*  
(1987, Vent Terral), Pierre Bec gives an excerpt from this *Cathar 
Ritual* in the original Occitan along with a modern French 
translation, a brief introduction, and some notes.  (Occitan is the 
regional language of southern France spoken in the Cathar area.  It 
does not look much like French to me.  I cannot tell how much it is 
like medieval French, Provencal, or Catalan.)  He notes, "This 
document is practically the only direct source (outside the 
information furnished by Catholic documents) concerning Cathar rites 
and ceremonies.  Therefore its importance is considerable"  (p. 75).  
The excerpt is the ritual of *consolamentum*, which is, as noted 
above, the baptism with the Holy Spirit by laying on of hands that 
made one a full  Cathar.  The excerpt and notes are sufficiently long 
that I don't think I can present them without obtaining  permission.  
For now, suffice it to say that the ritual is replete with New 
Testament quotations and is consistent with what has been said so far.  

*World-Wide Web*

     An Altavista search of the World-Wide Web turned up some good 
sources. 

http://www.isabel-uk.com/menu1.htm

     *Catholics, Heretics and Heresy*,  by Gilles C. H. Nullens.  A 
book online on Catharism.  It discusses Le Roy Ladurie's book quite a 
bit.  In section 1.2,  *Introduction to the Cathar Religion*, he 
mentions four surviving Cathar documents: 

     1.  A Latin manuscript "The Book of the Two principles" kept in 
     Florence is a translation made in 1260 from a work by the Cathar 
     Jean de Lugio from Bergamo and written in 1230. 

     2.  The Latin translation found in Prague in 1939 from an 
     anonymous treaty written in Languedoc at the beginning of the 
     13th century. The author could be the Parfait Barthelemy of 
     Carcassonne. 

     3.  Latin Ritual of Florence 

     4.  Occitan Ritual of Lyon 

http://home.sn.no/~noetic/legcat.htm

     Societas Gnostica Norvegia: The Legacy of the Cathars.  There is 
much Cathar material here and many links to other sites.  Included are 
two excerpts that it says are from the Lyons Cathar Ritual: 

     The Apparelhamentum, confession of sins.
     Traditio, immersion into the community of parfaits.  

     The *Traditio* contains much of the material from Bec's 
*consolamentum*, although it also has a lot of variations from the Bec 
version.  Perhaps it actually comes from the Latin Ritual of Florence 
noted above by  Gilles C. H. Nullens.  

http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/consolamentum.html

     This is a comment on the Cathar ritual of *consolamentum* that 
says that Le Roy Ladurie's account of the *endura* may be typical only 
of very late Catharism. 

http://www.surfsup.net/cathar/index.html

     The Web page of The Assembly of Good Christians, which claims to 
be a modern Cathar church! 

*Other Resources*

     I have read a French pamphlet about Catharism by regional tourist 
authorities in southwestern France but no longer have it.  It strongly 
resembled the material in Gilles C. H. Nullens' book.  This pamphlet 
did note that people who had reconverted from Catharism to Catholicism 
had left accounts of Catharism 

*Conclusion*

     In the face of all this, little more need be said about Levitov's 
ideas.  The known information about Catharism totally contradicts them. 

     However, beyond the details of their beliefs, the story of the 
Cathars arouses a melancholy sense of *deja vu*.  The way in which the 
Cathars were slaughtered by the Crusade and then systematically and 
ruthlessly rooted out by the Inquisition seems all too familiar.  Our 
age has used its advanced technology to implement genocides and secret 
police but it did not invent those things.  Indeed, one of the 
punishments that Bishop Fournier's Inquisition imposed on Cathars was 
to *make them wear yellow crosses!*  Yes, we've seen it all before, or 
rather since.  Therefore I close this essay with three quotations. 

"Kill them all, God will recognize his own." - Papal legate Arnaud-
Amalric at the siege of Be'ziers, 1209, during the crusade against the 
Cathars, on how to tell Cathars from Catholics. 

"Kill them all, let God sort 'em out." - American soldiers during the 
Vietnam War (1959-1975), on how to tell Vietcong guerrillas from 
innocent civilians. 

"The more things change, the more they remain the same." - French 
proverb.  


From rand.org!jim Mon Dec 16 18:32 EST 1996
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Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 11:46:21 -0500
Message-ID: <961216114620_776372595@emout09.mail.aol.com>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: footnote to the Cathars
Status: OR

Dennis Stallings' review of Catharism seems to separate this fascinating
topic from the Voynich MS.

Another footnote: Some of you of a certain age (as the French, and perhaps
the Occitans) say will remember - maybe thirty years ago - The Singing Nun.
Her bright little song "Dominique" was all over the AM radio then. All you
could catch was "neekaneekaneek" and I - and I think many others - assumed
that that it was a song about a young girl.

A few years ago I chanced on the old vinyl record of The Singing Nun, and
there were the words to the song, in parallel columns of French and English.
The song turned out to be about Saint Dominic, described in the English as
"fighting sin like anything". But the French words said something like
"contre les Albigeois".

So this bright little song, with its tune that persisted in your brain like
"Small World" on the Disney ride, turned out to celebrate a genocide!

And let us hope and believe, at this holy season, that God in God's infinite
justice and mercy didn't sort 'em out.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville TN

From rand.org!jim Mon Dec 16 18:11 EST 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9612161849.AA27392@sevengill.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Catharism and Levitov
To: denstall@tyrell.net (Dennis Stallings)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 10:49:22 -0800 (PST)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.961216074235.13571B-100000@tyrell.net> from "Dennis Stallings" at Dec 16, 96 07:44:03 am
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Dennis,

in addition to the sources you listed, I found the general background
information on Catharism in Baigent and Leigh's "Holy blood, Holy Grail" quite
reasonable, though the overall theory expounded in the book is of course more
than a bit conjectural.

AUTHOR:   Baigent, Michael.
TITLE:    Holy blood, Holy Grail / Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry
            Lincoln.
IMPRINT:  New York : Delacorte Press, c1982.
          xvi, 461 p., [24] p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.

In general I see very little reason to connect the VMS to Catharism, which was
effectively wiped out several centuries before the 16th century date that
Panofsky (whose judgement is good enough for me) assigned the VMS. _Some_
relation to _some_ heterodox or heretical teachings is virtually guaranteed by
the very nature of the book (after all, there would have been little reason to
keep othodox stuff encoded), but I see no reason to favor catharism to other
lines of esoteric thought/worship/practice.

Andras Kornai

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This morning while I sat in the tub, lightning (metaphorical) struck.  I
seem to remember a similar idea from a while back, so pardon if I have
stolen yours.  Re:
] A Proposed Partial Solution to the Voynich Cipher
] Mark Sullivan,
] Nov. 28,1996

A variant of this might be to assume that some of the null characters
are actually the equivalent of a "backspace" key-- e.g., "exemq^Hpli
gratia."  After putting in all of that work to cover encode 60% of the
page, a minor goof could be corrected in this way and add to the
complexity of the code.

]         Nulls appear frequent and are written by alternating two letters in
] different combinations.

This could be explained by using an "oops" character.

Of course, considering the source, this idea may be all wet.

the spiegel
-- 
*=*=*=*=*=*=*+*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*+*=*=*=*=*=*=*
  Ken Comer  |     http://www.metronet.com/~kcomer     | aka spiegel


From monty.rand.org!jim Tue Dec 17 12:56 EST 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: kornai@almaden.ibm.com
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Catharism and Levitov
In-Reply-To: <9612161849.AA27392@sevengill.almaden.ibm.com>
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On Mon, 16 Dec 1996 kornai@almaden.ibm.com wrote:

> in addition to the sources you listed, I found the general background
> information on Catharism in Baigent and Leigh's "Holy blood, Holy Grail" quite
> reasonable, though the overall theory expounded in the book is of course more
> than a bit conjectural.

	I looked through this book.  I don't remember the info there 
about Catharism.  The overall theory is indeed more than a bit 
conjectural; it struck me as the ultimate conspiracy theory.  ;-)

	I'm most familiar with the picture of Catharism in Montaillou.  
There the Inquisition was breathing down everyone's neck.  The Cathars in 
the village hid the Perfecti in their houses.  Some scenes show the 
Perfecti hiding in barrels.  I do wonder what Catharism looked like when 
it was the majority religion and could be practiced freely and openly. 

	The modern Cathar church, the Assembly of Good Christians ('good 
Christians' was yet another term for the Perfecti), sounds interesting.  
They seem to have eliminated the negative features of medieval Catharism, 
like the extreme dualism of matter and spirit.  They practice the 
Eucharist, which the medieval Cathars never did.  

Cheers,
Dennis

From monty.rand.org!jim Tue Dec 17 12:56 EST 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: RSRICHMOND@aol.com
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: footnote to the Cathars
In-Reply-To: <961216114620_776372595@emout09.mail.aol.com>
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On Mon, 16 Dec 1996 RSRICHMOND@aol.com wrote:

> Dennis Stallings' review of Catharism seems to separate this fascinating
> topic from the Voynich MS.

	The facts exclude Levitov's idea of Catharism, but not necessarily
Catharism itself.
	As Andras noted, the dates seem wrong for Catharism to be 
involved in the VMs.  The last French perfectus was burned around 1325.  
I know little about Italian Catharism, but I believe it survived somewhat 
longer.  Many on the list have assigned dates of 1450-1500 to the VMs, so 
perhaps Italian Catharism could have been involved.

> So this bright little song, with its tune that persisted in your brain like
> "Small World" on the Disney ride, turned out to celebrate a genocide!

	Amazing!

> And let us hope and believe, at this holy season, that God in God's infinite
> justice and mercy didn't sort 'em out.

	Amen, and thank you!  Take a look at the Commemoration of the 
fallen Cathar Martyrs at Montsegur at 
http://home.sn.no/~noetic/legcat.htm  

Dennis

From monty.rand.org!jim Tue Dec 17 12:53 EST 1996
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Date: 17 Dec 1996 09:30:37 -0500
From: "Guy Thibault" <gthibault@mercure.artefact.qc.ca>
Subject: Objet-  Dominique nique niq
To: "Voynich List" <voynich@RAND.ORG>
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Hell everyone,

Yes indeed I remember that song too... I am now that "old" but I heard it
on the Simpsons! MilHouse's girl friend was sent to a Catholic private
school for girls run by french Canadian nuns, and they were signing
that song ;-)

I never thought it might be related to the Albigenois. What a small =
world.

Thinking of the Inquisition reminded me that it was not soly directed at =
the Cathar,
who succeeded in attracting many people of influence, power and money... =
But also
at the Templar knights. Indeed the fall of Montsegur castle has always =
left a doubth
as to where might the treasure be! (that of the Cathars or the knights?) =
Philip Le Bel
was after the money of the knights, and Clement VI (or is it IV?) went =
along... Might as
well get rid of Heretics while getting their land and money ;-) There is =
many such
exemple of destitution in the name of the Church. Esclaramonde de Foix is =
amongst the
more famous. There is also Godfroie de Bouillons on the Templar side. I =
think he died
"roasted". It is said he sang on the stake refusing to tell where the =
treasure was!

Those were interesting times. Lots of reasons to hide stuff in a cipher =
book.  One book
that I read some years ago was quite "amusing" and strangely accurate, as =
far as I could
confirm its theory from our University's library. It is called "Holy =
grail across the
atlantic". I forgor the name of the author, but if one wants such details =
just drop me
a email and I'll forward ISBN and such. The basic idea behind this book =
is to "reveal"
that a group of Cathar fled the inquisition in 1398 (long after the fall =
of Montsegur)
and escaped to what is now Novae Scotia with the help of Earl =
Henry-Sinclair and some
maps he founds that showed the way.. Remember the Templar knights were =
also known
for their boats (and pirating? which might be the source of their =
incode?). Ideed Dante
in his Paradisio refered to the knight as the temple with anvious sails =
("Temple au
convoiteuses voiles", from my french translation of Dante's divine =
comedy). 

By the way, those people (about 200) in Novae Scotia are rumored to have =
been 
"smugled" in Montral by Champlain (who was "in on it", so much so that =
the King
of France wrote letters to him complaining about the low level of =
immigration from France...
Yet the population of Montreal was growing at the time). Also Montreal =
was the name of
a cathary castle ;-)

Who said History was dull  :-D

Merry Christmas to one and all.

GT


From monty.rand.org!jim Tue Dec 17 12:32 EST 1996
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From: the spiegel <kcomer@metronet.com>
Message-Id: <199612171614.AA16592@metronet.com>
Subject: Making sense of nothing...
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 10:14:24 -0600 (CST)
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Forwarded message:
] > A variant of this might be to assume that some of the null characters
] > are actually the equivalent of a "backspace" key-- e.g., "exemq^Hpli
] > gratia."  
] > 
] > ]         Nulls appear frequent and are written by alternating two letters in
] > ] different combinations.
] > 
] > This could be explained by using an "oops" character.
] 
] Maybe the VMs was dictated. The writing is a phonetic alphabet and
] encodes a chant or repetitive religious service of some sort.
] 
Possibilities for the "null" sequences:
+ "oops" character  (erase previous character/word)
- external reference (see other book, section 'g')
- this character in this context really does mean nothing
+ internal reference (see section 'g')
- musical note, chant, somatic instruction, etc. (raise your 
  right hand while reading this)
- "grade", source, or other editorial comment by the scribe

"+" indicates might be within the realm of the knowable even if it 
    is not explained in the text
"-" indicates that, unless it is specifically described somewhere 
    within the text, it is not knowable.

Others?

the spiegel
-- 
*=*=*=*=*=*=*+*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*+*=*=*=*=*=*=*
  Ken Comer  |     http://www.metronet.com/~kcomer     | aka spiegel


From monty.rand.org!jim Wed Dec 18 03:47 EST 1996
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  Dear all,

  if I may add a few things that came to mind during the
  recent discussion about Cathars:

  - The original note by Dennis Stallings does indeed
    confirm the disqualification of Levitov's solution,
    and explains very well what Jacques Guy in his
    linguistic article hints at with one sentence.
  - A Cathar background per se cannot be excluded, although
    Robert Firth pointed out in one of his notes that the
    Ms really does not seem to be of *any* religious content
    (but see below for one of my little crackpot(?) theories).
  - Then:
    > As Andras noted, the dates seem wrong for Catharism to be
    > involved in the VMs.  The last French perfectus was burned
    > around 1325.
    Whereas I personally agree, Voynich (the man) dated the Ms.
    around this time. Maybe just to fit his Bacon theory,
    maybe not..
   - Occitan was mentioned. For immediate (good) info, try:
     http://bambi.lptl.jussieu.fr/users/vanDenBossche/OC/presoc.htm
     As most of you know, Occitan is a direct descendant of old
     Languedoc, the language spoken south of the Loire, and which
     'lost out to French' as the national language.
     It is as good a candidate for the original language as many
     others, although D'Imperio specifically mentions it as being
     rejected by some study (no details, unfortunately).
   - Then:
     > Those were interesting times. Lots of reasons to hide stuff
     > in a cipher book.
     In those days, being found with a book with pictures of
     mysterious herbs written in a secret language would mean
     an immediate trip to the pyre (or after a detour through some
     unpleasant dungeons).

   My previously announced silly idea: in the centre circle of
   the mega-foldout on ff.85-86 there are some objects (reportedly
   six but they are too vague to make out) that could be pharmaceutical
   jars like the ones in the pharma pages, but to me they look
   quite like the images of minarets in old Arabic manuscripts.
   The centre circle could represent the Arab world, or Mecca.
   The other circles could represent other parts of the world
   or the Universe in a more abstract sense (Earth, Fire, the lot).
   In fact I like Greece or Italy for the top right circle. If has
   a castle not unlike Rhodos or Patmos, but a tower that
   more resembles the Veneto style. Some Greek(?) houses,
   a volcano (when was Santorini first identified as a remnant
   of an eruption? I have a feeling that it was much later).
   Maybe this represents.....  Atlantis :-)
   No, strike that last one.

   Merry Christmas,
          Rene



From monty.rand.org!jim Wed Dec 18 09:21 EST 1996
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  Dear all,

  The 'Spiegel' mentioned the earlier idea that corrections
  in the Ms may have been indicated by a 'backspace' or
  'ignore previous' character. I'm not too familiar with old
  manuscripts, but I suspect this would be extremely
  unusual. (Yes, I know I brought it up myself a few months
  ago).
  First I'd like to point out that occasionally one may see
  in the Voynich Ms. things that *could* be corrections, essentially
  overwriting an erroneous character with seomthing else.
  Not more than once every10 pages or so, so that may not
  be enough.
  Secondly, if one makes the (contestable) assumption that
  errors occur stochastically, the 'backspace' character should
  be a relatively low-frequency one, for which the distribution
  of the preceding character is roughly the same as the normal
  single character distribution. I remember looking at such stats
  and I think none qualifies, but I did not look especially for this.
  I'd like to welcome anybody else to try it out and report....

  Cheers,  Rene



From monty.rand.org!jim Wed Dec 18 09:05 EST 1996
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Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 07:43:27 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: the spiegel <kcomer@metronet.com>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Making sense of nothing...
In-Reply-To: <199612171614.AA16592@metronet.com>
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On Tue, 17 Dec 1996, the spiegel wrote:

> Possibilities for the "null" sequences:

> - external reference (see other book, section 'g')
> + internal reference (see section 'g')

	I had thought that the labels might be something like this.  The 
labels tend to be rather short, so I thought that they might be 
references ( 'g' ) or abbreviations ( 'hth' for 'helianthus' ).  These 
would then be expanded somewhat by a word game.

	However, as I recall, the plant labels almost never appear in the 
text in the herbal sections.  This suggests that the labels are indeed 
names rather than references.  That points toward the abbreviation option 
in my hypothesis.

Cheers,
Dennis

From monty.rand.org!jim Wed Dec 18 09:14 EST 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Levitov, heretics, catholics
In-Reply-To: <C1256404:002CA4AD.00@esocmail1.esoc.esa.de>
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On Wed, 18 Dec 1996 rzandber@esoc.esa.de wrote:

>   - A Cathar background per se cannot be excluded, although
>     Robert Firth pointed out in one of his notes that the
>     Ms really does not seem to be of *any* religious content

	I don't have my D'Imperio in front of me, but she does mention one
page with Christian imagery.  I'll look for the reference.  Otherwise,
this is correct. It's something I've often wondered about.  From what
little I've seen of alchemical texts, they usually lack Christian imagery
too. 

Merry Christmas to all,
Dennis

From monty.rand.org!jim Wed Dec 18 16:56 EST 1996
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	(rzandber@esoc.esa.de)
Subject: Re: Levitov, heretics, catholics
Status: OR


   My previously announced silly idea: in the centre circle of
   the mega-foldout on ff.85-86 there are some objects (reportedly
   six but they are too vague to make out) that could be pharmaceutical
   jars like the ones in the pharma pages, but to me they look
   quite like the images of minarets in old Arabic manuscripts.
   The centre circle could represent the Arab world, or Mecca.
   The other circles could represent other parts of the world
   or the Universe in a more abstract sense (Earth, Fire, the lot).
   In fact I like Greece or Italy for the top right circle. If has
   a castle not unlike Rhodos or Patmos, but a tower that
   more resembles the Veneto style. Some Greek(?) houses,
   a volcano (when was Santorini first identified as a remnant
   of an eruption? I have a feeling that it was much later).
   Maybe this represents.....  Atlantis :-)
   No, strike that last one.

Good eye, and I think close but not quite. *My* previously announced
idea is that this represents the old alchemic notion of how the four
elements earth, air, fire, and water are created from the qualities
wet, dry, hot, and cold. The circle in the upper right with the T-O
map and little castle would be earth. The structure is then something
like this:
         dry
fire O -- O -- O earth
     |\   |   /|
     | \  |  / |
     |  \ | /  |
hot  O--- O -- O  cold
     |  / | \  |
     | /  |  \ |
     |/   |   \|
air  O -- O -- O water
         wet

From monty.rand.org!jim Thu Dec 19 09:29 EST 1996
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Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 08:15:17 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de, voynich@rand.org
Subject: Christian Imagery in the VMs
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.961218080345.25134E-100000@tyrell.net>
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On Wed, 18 Dec 1996, Dennis Stallings wrote:
 
> >   - A Cathar background per se cannot be excluded, although
> >     Robert Firth pointed out in one of his notes that the
> >     Ms really does not seem to be of *any* religious content
> 
> 	I don't have my D'Imperio in front of me, but she does mention one
> page with Christian imagery.  I'll look for the reference.  Otherwise,
> this is correct. It's something I've often wondered about.  From what
> little I've seen of alchemical texts, they usually lack Christian imagery
> too. 

    D'Imperio writes: "Another important detail to be noted in several 
of the drawings of this section [biological drawings, nudes] is a 
small cross with one long arm (for example, at the top of folio 75r, 
serving as a focus for diverging rays; on 75v to the right within a 
field of rays and clouds; on 78r at the focus of a grape- or cloud-
like cluster at upper left; and on 79v, top, at the focus at the focus 
of a frilly canopy of rays over the head of a figure who also holds a 
cross in her hand).  These symbols are quite small and unobtrusive, 
but usually seem to form a central focus or origin for rays descending 
upon the female figures.  The crosses provide an unmistakeably 
Christian frame of reference for the doctrine being expounded by the 
scribe of the manuscript - a point not specifically remarked upon by 
other students to my knowledge." (p. 20). 

    I can make out most of these in the various Voynich images I have.  
    
    Otherwise, Christian imagery is notably absent in the VMs.  Unless 
I am mistaken, the few alchemical texts I have looked at (eg., the 
*Mutus Liber*) also mostly lack Christian imagery.   

Cheers,
Dennis 


From monty.rand.org!jim Thu Dec 19 13:35 EST 1996
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Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 13:29:17 -0500
From: David Berner <dberner@genetics.com>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: email address
Encoding: 7 Text
Status: OR

hi this is just to inform anyone who cares (probably very few) that i'm
not longer at the address dberner@genetics.com as of friday 12/20/96
i do not have a new address at present.
jim reeds, you'll want to remove me from the list.  (you're still the list
manager, right?)

david berner

From monty.rand.org!jim Thu Dec 19 13:51 EST 1996
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Message-ID: <32B98C56.506B@izone.israel.net>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 20:41:26 +0200
From: Gadi Guy <gadi@izone.israel.net>
Reply-To: gadi@izone.israel.net
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Hi, I got a new account, 
I need to unsubscribe my previous email,
and subscribe the new one -
I quite forgot how to do it.

Help??

-- 
   Gadi Guy

 "Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
       Abominable unutterable, and worse
Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived"
          Paradise Lost / John Milton

From monty.rand.org!jim Thu Dec 19 13:54 EST 1996
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From: jimg@mentat.com (Jim Gillogly)
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To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Voynich administrivia reminder
X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII
Status: OR

Changes of address should go to voynich-request@rand.org -- for now.
If you prefer a more human-looking address, it's jim@acm.org.

	Jim Gillogly
	jim@acm.org

From monty.rand.org!jim Fri Dec 20 14:47 EST 1996
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From: reeds@research.att.com
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Date: Fri, 20 Dec 96 14:33 EST
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Voynich -like book for sale
Status: OR


I just saw an ad for the "CODEX SERAPHINIANUS" for sale, at Moe's books
in Berkeley, California.  This a modern-day enigmatic book which many 
people think of when they hear about the Voynich manuscript.  The
blurb is at http://moesbooks.com/codex.htm and reads:

---
Ordering Information and Order Form

Yep, the most requested book on Internet and we've got the deluxe edition in stock -- for the
moment.... It is now completely out of print.

Serafini, Luigi. CODEX SERAPHINIANUS: NOUVELLE EDITION AUGMENTEE DE
CODEX DE LUIGI SERAFINI PRESENTEE PAR ITALO CALVINO. $435, postpaid
(surface UPS).

The slipcased edition, limited to 5000 copies, printed in Italy on special Fabriano paper. If
anything, this deluxe edition is even more beautiful than the original. Introduction in French
by Italo Calvino. The book is in fine condition.

---
Too much for me, I'm afraid.


Jim Reeds


From monty.rand.org!jim Fri Dec 20 22:20 EST 1996
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From: j.guy@trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9612210316.AA06251@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: Voynich -like book for sale
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 14:16:03 +1100 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <199612201939.LAA18429@mail3.pilot.net> from "reeds@research.att.com" at Dec 20, 96 02:33:00 pm
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> Serafini, Luigi. CODEX SERAPHINIANUS: NOUVELLE EDITION AUGMENTEE DE
> CODEX DE LUIGI SERAFINI PRESENTEE PAR ITALO CALVINO. $435, postpaid
> (surface UPS).

Yes, the fancy edition by Franco Maria Ricci.  They're a dime store...
of the days when a dime bought a lot. Every single one of their
books (all bound and boxed in black silk) was priced at FF1500 in
their Paris shop. That's US$300. The only exception was Diderot's
Encyclopedia which weighed in at ... FF50,000! (Yes, ten grand)

Just about what the Beinecke would love to extract from amateurs
for a third-rate copy of the VMS. So, considering, the Codex at
US$400 is a reasonable buy .... ahem!


(Back from holidays. Staying away from computers for 3 weeks 
did me a lot of good. My brain is working, my eyes see clearly.
Soon, alas, the silicon screen will have enslaved me again).


Frogguy.

From monty.rand.org!jim Mon Dec 23 13:32 EST 1996
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Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 12:17:52 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Corrections, Word Divisions
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.961223121541.9148J-100000@tyrell.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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Status: OR

        Just got back from a weekend in Houston, Texas, USA.  At the
Museum of Fine Arts, there was a very good exhibit of artifacts from
ancient Egypt, from the Old Kingdom to the Coptic period. 

        They had a full scroll of the Egyptian Book of the Dead on
display, fully rolled out, 18 feet (5.5 meters) long.  The display note
said, "Since there are no erasures on the scroll, the scribe copied the
entire scroll without a single mistake." 

        The Museum also had a display of manuscripts, typescripts, and
drawings from the J. Pierpont Morgan museum.  There were many beautiful
illustrated medieval manuscripts.  On the perennial question of word
divisions: one illustrated Italian manuscript of canon law from about 1340
had no word divisions at all.  An illustrated Coptic manuscript of 900
(decidedly a different culture!) also had no word divisions.  All the
other manuscripts, including those from 1000-1200 AD, had full, normal
word divisions. 
 
        In any case, two very fine exhibits.  Well worth seeing, if you're
in Houston in the near future. 

Cheers, 
Dennis
 
 


From monty.rand.org!jim Thu Dec 26 03:44 EST 1996
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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 02:31:39 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Undergrad project: decipher VMs!
In-Reply-To: <199612201939.LAA18429@mail3.pilot.net>
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.961226022510.28871C-100000@tyrell.net>
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	Hope everyone had a nice Christmas!  Get a load of this:

John Hopkins Computer Science Department
Undergrad Catalog

600.465 Introduction to Natural Language Processing

This course will explore both formal and practical issues in natural
(human) language processing by machine. Hands-on experimentation 
will be emphasized. Topics to be covered include: 

     Information Theory. 
     Learnability Theory. 
     Language Modelling. 
     Grammars and Parsing. 
     Probabilistic Grammars. 
     Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution. 
     The Lambda Calculus and Compositional Semantics. 
     Model Theory. 
     Discourse and Pragmatics. 
     Grammar Induction. 
     Natural Language Front Ends 
     Machine Translation. 
     Spoken Language Systems and Speech Recognition 
     Information Retrieval. 
     Spelling and Grammar Checkers and Correctors. 
     Cryptology. 
     Decyphering the Mysterious Voynich Manuscript. 
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   !!!!!!

3 credits 

Taught by Eric Brill.  His home page, which has links to home pages
for this course:
http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~brill/

	Does anyone know anything about this?  Am I dense or something?

	BTW, I came across this while searching for VMs images on the 
Internet.   So far, all I've found are f3v and f79 from the Rand FTP and 
echoed many other places, and f33v, f34r, and f77v on 
http://www.jyu.fi/~paasivir/jpg/voynich/  Risto Paasivirta's Web site. 
Does anyone know of any others?

Cheers,
Dennis


From monty.rand.org!jim Thu Dec 26 10:05 EST 1996
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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 08:51:05 -0600 (CST)
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To: voynich@rand.org
From: sulla@globaldialog.com (M. Sulla)
Subject: More Observations
Status: OR

Here in Wisconsin it has not been above 0 in two days, and we have six
inches of new snow....good voynich weather.

I have been studying F75 because the prevalence of vertical columns might
indicate sloppy encryption.   I have been looking for patterns in the
associations of letters to each other, trying to refine the columns and
rows in my key.

I started listing the occurances of single and double letter words and
quickly noticed that the distribution of "OE" through this section
indicates a conjunction.

According to my key, "OE" = E,  which is 'and' in Italian.  Since E is a
most common letter, this means nothing until I noticed the group "SE.OR" .
In my key "SE.OR" = ED , which is the Italian word 'e' before a vowel.
Therefore I would guess that the group ZCOEO is a pronoun (because of its
length)  that begins in a vowel.

My proposed key seems to work in extracting  C M O I where numbers are
expected, but gets progressively skewed after the letter K.  ( My V values
are not right.)

I have also noticed frequently that the vertical columns are three or four
characters in length.  Frequently these characters are closely associated
on my key grids.  I have been looking for patterns in these groups that
would identify an axis over to the letter grid, but have had no luck so
far.  Note: a group of three letters could surround a value on the key key
grid, and therefore indicate the axis that would intersect on the letter
grid---this could really throw off frequency counts.

Presently I am inclined to think that the spaces are not null, but the word
length is an indicator on how to decipher.   I think that in most cases
each word is equivalent to a letter-- a four bit word of 36 values would
give 1.7 million words-- plenty to account for the lack of repetition.

There are so many tantilizing patterns that I feel like Sagana is
tormenting me with a platter of food. (for you Horace fans)


Any help would be appreciated,
Still grinding away,

Mark Sullivan

M. Sulla   sulla@globaldialog.com
http://www.globaldialog.com/~sulla/nakedgod.html
rura cano rurisque deos.          --Tibullus



From monty.rand.org!jim Thu Dec 26 18:47 EST 1996
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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 17:02:42 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: VMs List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Word Division
In-Reply-To: <9612140040.AA27400@sevengill.almaden.ibm.com>
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--1913651334-90554287-851641362=:2453
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

	If, as Andras Kornai and I think, the repetitiousness and low
entropy of the Voynich text are due to a word game (Pig Latin, etc.), one
would expect words to be rather long.  However, Voynich "words" are rather
short on the average.  I wondered if maybe divisions are at syllables but
not necessarily words.  Short words would be represented as is; long words
would be broken up into groups of syllables. 

	Andras and I have been discussing this question. 

> >       You've always been pretty emphatic that word divisions are really
> > word divisions.  What do you think of this?

> Well, spaces are deeply ingrained, and if you try to fool with them they
> are almost guaranteed to come back in the form of overcompensation (leaving
> less space than you normally would). It's true that I only looked at a few
> pages in real photocopies, but I haven't seen any traces of such an effect.

	In the few old manuscripts I've seen, there are no word divisions
at all in the really old ones (say before 800 AD or so) and word divisions
in the modern manner in most of the newer ones.  However, my experience
here is very limited. 

	I looked in the mail archives.  Jacques Guy found an
eleventh-century text where short words were clumped together, but long
words were not broken up within a line.  Long words were broken according
to syllables across line boundaries, but this is exactly what modern
typographic usage does, using hyphens. 

	Karl Kluge and Michael Roe did studies to find repeated strings in
the VMs.  Michael Roe found some rather long strings (up to 31 characters
plus spaces!) but no examples of words dividing differently.  However, I'm
not sure whether his search algorithm would have excluded that or not. 

	Karl Kluge searched for star labels in the text.  Some of these
seem to divide into words differently, but this could also be roots and
affixes being used differently.  Here are some examples. 

	(BTW, I've included all the mail archive stuff in the file
attached. The stuff on repeated strings is always interesting to look at. 
I'd especially recommend it to the newcomers.)

labels:<68109A> OP989
voynich:02509A  2O89/SO89/OPSO89/4OPS9/FOM/29/ZO/P9/89-
voynich:04211A                            2OFAM/OP9/89-
voynich:05401A        FZOE/4OOW/ZOR/BZOW/ZCBS9/4OP9/89/ZOR9-
voynich:14931B ...SC9/8AN/Z89/4OFC8AR/OES89/2OF/OP9/89/ESC89-
voynich:02001A    BAM/8AM/ZCO/BSCC9/4OP9/8AM/QOR/OP989/2AN-
voynich:08303B ...9/ZCO89Z/9OEOR/9PCC89/FAM/SF9/4OP989/8ARAM/9FAJ-
voynich:09908A         OZOE/O8AM/XC9/XCO89/4OFC9/OP989-
voynich:15808B ...ZC89/4OFAN/ZCOE/4OFS89/4OFS89/4OP989-
                                                 -----
labels:<68112A> 9PSO89
voynich:01401A         BOE9Z9/ZC9/PSO89/4OBS9/OPZOE/89/8AM/PZO8O89-
voynich:01511A ZOE/SCO8AM/8AM/8O/9PSO89/SOP/SOP9/OPARM-
voynich:08706A   OPSAR/OFSAR/8AM/9PSO89/PSOEOE/OPAE/8AE/8AR9-
voynich:10003A PSO89/Q9/SXC9/4O8/9PSO89-8SOE/2AM/9PAJ-
                                 ------ 
labels:<22437A> 9FS89
labels:<68123A> 9FS89
voynich:06609B EZCO89/W9/4OFCC9/FCC89/FS89/SC89/4OFC89/S89/ARE/Z2/OE8AM-
voynich:06610B           8AM/S89/PC89/FS89/OFCC89/SCX9/S89/FAN/SCAR/OR/...
voynich:07506B .../ZC8AJ/4OVSC89/ZC89/FS89/8989/OBSCFAM/ZOXC9/Z8AEO/R9-
voynich:07602B     2OR/Z9FAR/SOE/4OP9/FS89/OEF9/8AR/S89/9FAE/OEFC8AM/O89/89-
voynich:07905B       4OPS9/2AE/9PCC89/FS89-8SC89/FCC89/8SC89/8AEAN#
voynich:08402B ...9/OFCO89/OF9/OFAE89/FS89/OFAR-
voynich:09703B .../OFCO89/43FC89/SO89/FS89/BS89/SFAM/O8AJ-
voynich:09809B   9PZCO8/AN/ZCZ9/CSC89/FS89/OPAM/OFAM/OF9-
voynich:09811B          ESC9/FAR/9FS9/FS89#
voynich:16620B ...C89/OFAN/ZC9/4OFC89/FS89/OFC89/OFC9/89/OFC89/OEZ89-
voynich:06509B                       9FS89/4O8-AR-SQ-AX9-92AT/AT/SO8AR/PAJ-
voynich:07903B     4OF/RA9/4CFC89/9S89FS89-4OFC89/4OFC89/ZCFS9/SCF9/8AE9-
voynich:09001B ...E/9VSC9/POS29/OFAR/9FS89/8AM-
voynich:10306A ...R/OXO8OR/SAN/4OFO8-9FS89/SCC2/8AE-
                                     -----
labels:<68128A> OR8AM
voynich:00402A .../4OPSO/EOCCC2/4OP9/SOR/8AM-
voynich:01003A                4OPSO/9POR/8AM/8AM/OPSOR/8AM/4O*/8ARSOR/88-
voynich:01310A                 2/SAN/SOR/8AM/SX9#
voynich:01408A ...CCO89/4OPSC9/PC9/OFSOR/8AM-
voynich:01801A     VOSOR/OBORO89/OB9/ZOR/8AM/4OBS9BSO/4OVOE/ZOE/YOE/8AM-
voynich:02306A                  PSOR/8OR/8AM/4OPSOE/OFS9/OFSOR/OM/SX9/8-
voynich:02503A           98AM/OE/S9/FSOR/8AM/OEOE-
voynich:02601A ...9VO8AN/OP9/S9/89/9BSOR/8AM/FOE/98AN-
voynich:02608A                    SOFZOR/8AM/OFZ989/8AM/8OE/8AT/8AJ-
voynich:02803A                       QOR/8AM/4OFOR/OFCOR/OFAM-
voynich:03221A ...COR/ZOEOR/OR/ZCQ9/BCOR/8AM-
voynich:03512A                 9FSOR/SOR/8AM/8AMOE-
voynich:03609A                   8AM/SOR/8AM/4OFO4/9/OFSAD-
voynich:03610A           4OPOE/8OR/OFSOR/8AM/QOR/OPAJ-
voynich:04104A ...Y9/8OROM/9BSOE/29/2SOR/8AM-
voynich:04110A                  FSOE/SOR/8AM/QOM/8SOR/SC9/4OFOE/89/OBSOE/...
voynich:04205A                8OR/9FSCOR/8AM#
voynich:04302A                 PO/AR/SOR/8AM/SF8AN/OPS9/EOESO2/8AM/8AJ/...
voynich:04403A  ...OE/CCC2/OE/8AM/OFCCOR/8AM/4OPSOE8-
voynich:04802A              8SOR/QOR/SOR/8AM/2/OFCCAM/8AM/XC9/8AM-
voynich:04803A    ORSO/FSOR/SOE/8AM/ZYOR/8AM/8ZC9/8AIIP9-
voynich:05301A     BSO8AR/ZO8/SOW9/OBSOR/8AM-OPSOE/S9/4OE/89-
voynich:05404A  .../O/SP9/4OPOE/ZCOE/ZOR/8AM/4OP9-
voynich:05506A        SOFZ9/ZOQ9/ZOR/ZOR/8AM-4OFA3-
voynich:05607A                4O8SO/FSOR/8AM/9FAM/8--Z89-SOQ9/ZCF9-
voynich:05711A ...COR/SC9/2OCCC/98C9/2OR/8AM-
voynich:05810A          ZO/ZCOE89/OPSCOR/8AM-
voynich:06203A                       ZOR/8AM/SX9/8ZO/8AN/8AM/2-ZOFC9/FA-
voynich:06714A    QOE/SOE/AM/4OPS9/OPSOR/8AM-ZOE-4OPAM-
voynich:07006A                   8AM/QOR/8AM/8AE/892-
voynich:07107A         2OR/SC9/FOR/4OFOR/8AM#
voynich:07111A                     OFSOR/8AM/X9/8AN/8AM#
voynich:07204A          8ZOR/89POR9/8ZOR/8AM-
voynich:07207A                    4OPSOR/8AM#
voynich:07216A                     4OPOR/8AM/SOPAM-
voynich:07306A 9ZO/ZO/FO2-8AM/OFO9/SOSOR/8AM#
voynich:07403A               4OFCC9/FCOR/8AM/OFC9/FCC9/8AM/8AT/8AM/2-
voynich:07407A        8AM/4OE/S9/8AN/2OR/8AM-8AN/8AE89-
voynich:07701B ...Z89/OEFC89/OBSC2/AR/OR/8AM-
voynich:07909B ...FC89/SC89-SXCO89/SCFOR/8AM/SCO/AE/OPC89-
voynich:08802A                  OFOE/SOR/8AM/Q9/OFSOE/SOJ/OFOEOD/89-OFSOE/2-
voynich:09502A ...PS9/SOZ9/4OBSAR/4O/8OR/8AM-
voynich:09503A             8ZO/8SOR/8SOR/8AM/8OR/SCO/RAM#
voynich:09619A SOFCO/ZO/SCOR/SCOFSCP/SOR/8AM/89-8AM/4OF6-
voynich:09807B   PC8AM/O8AM/ORO/FAM/9FOR/8AM/SOF9/4OPS89/FC9/8ATAJ-
voynich:09909A                       POR/8AM/8AK/4SO8AE/8AE/4O89/4OCPAJ-
voynich:16343B     8AM/OE/8AN/SC9/E8AEOR/8AM/ZCOE/SC89/4OP*/RAR-
                                      ------
labels:<68130A> 8OESC89
voynich:15303B 4XC89/SCF9/8OE/SC89/4OFC89/4OFAN/OEFC89-
voynich:16202B ...9/4OPOE/8OE/SC89/ZC89/89/8AROPC89/SCPC89/EOFAJ-
voynich:16611B          ZC8OE/SC89/OFC89/OPOE/SXC89/4OPC89/8OFC89/8OE/...
voynich:16210B             8OESC89/ESC9/ROE/ROE/SCC9/2ANSC9-
                           -------

	Like I said, this could be just roots and affixes combined
differently. I'm more impressed by the *absence* of the sort of thing I'm
looking for in the rest of the data. 

	It looks like word divisions really are word divisions.  If so,
and a word game is being used, that suggests to me that vowels are being
omitted.  That might point to a Semitic language.  Also possible are the
extensive use of abbreviations or a Jakob Sylvestre-type code. 

	I'm still not sure.  Mostly, I'd like to hear some more
discussion. In particular, I'd like to hear what our new resident
medievalist, Mark Sutherland, has to say. 

Cheers,
Dennis
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--1913651334-90554287-851641362=:2453--

From monty.rand.org!jim Thu Dec 26 18:32 EST 1996
Received: by fry; Thu Dec 26 18:32 EST 1996
Received: from mail3.pilot.net by research; Thu Dec 26 18:31:12 EST 1996
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Received: by tyrell.net id AA04050
  (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for voynich@rand.org); Thu, 26 Dec 1996 17:21:16 -0600
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 17:21:16 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: VMs List <voynich@rand.org>
Cc: Richard Shand <rshand@wimsey.com>
Subject: Re: Catharism and Levitov
In-Reply-To: <l03010902aee75eafc045@[204.191.170.218]>
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.961226171608.2453E-100000@tyrell.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: OR

         Since my recent Web-surf looking for Voynich images, I'm glad
that I wrote this article!  No one on the list has ever taken Levitov's
book seriously, but there are a lot of people out there who do, largely
because of Terence McKenna's review of it. 

        When Jim Gillogly get the ftp site running again, I suggest we put
my article there besides Jacques Guy's.  I'll edit it a little, call it
levitov2, and anyone who wants to can point to it. 

        Because I did quote the book *Montaillou* rather extensively, I
wonder if I need to ask the publisher's permission.  Can anyone advise? 

       On Richard Shand's Voynich web page, he quoted McKenna's article
extensively, although he also quoted Jacques' review too.  I sent him my
article and my Voynich mini-FAQ. 

On Wed, 25 Dec 1996, Richard Shand wrote:

> Thank-you very much for you criticism of Levitov's book.  I have updated my
> section on  the Voynich Manuscript with a few chosen quotes from your
> informative e-mail and FAQ.  [If you wish I can add your e-mail address
> where I list your name as source.]   I must admit that I had serious
> misgivings about Levitov's rather tedious translation as it did not square
> with what I knew about the Christian basis of Cathar ritual.
> 
> >"Kill them all, let God sort 'em out." - American soldiers during the
> >Vietnam War (1959-1975), on how to tell Vietcong guerrillas from
> >innocent civilians.
> 
> I am not familiar with this quote and it sounds apocryphal.  

        Also, historians are still arguing over whether Arnaud-Amalric
actually did say "Kill them all, God will recognize his own!" at Beziers
during the Albigensian Crusade.  However, they agree that the soldiers did
kill everyone in the city, to the last man, woman, and child. 

>I am aware
> that too many US commanders were cynically indifferent to civilian
> casualties, but to draw a direct analogy between the Vietnam War and the
> Albigensian Crusade is a bit of a stretch.  When I served in Vietnam, my
> unit ran an orphanage and we often lived with the Vietnamese in villages or
> compounds.  Add to that the fact that American veterans returning to
> Vietnam today are very well received by the people of that devastated
> country.  I am certain that there are no parallels between these events and
> what transpired between the Cathars and their persecutors.

	I agree with this and will change it in the final version.

> This one small objection aside, your e-mail was most informative and
> welcome.   I will check out the links you've listed and continue to update
> my page on the Voynich manuscript.  If you have any more information on the
> progress of research on the manuscript I would be very interested in
> hearing from you.

	I told him about the list and Jim and Gabriel's Web pages.  The
more good info everyone gets, the better! 

Cheers,
Dennis


From monty.rand.org!jim Fri Dec 27 04:03 EST 1996
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  Dear all,

  the images at the Finnish site pointed out by
  Dennis are worth looking at. Two of them are
  in colour and in good quality. Never seen colour
  images before! Probably scanned from Blunt
  and Raphael or Kraus' 35 MSS.
  The third one is in such a horrendous B/W
  quality that it makes my Yale copy look good.

  I guess the Voynich topic in this undergrad course
  is similar to Bennett's work. Would be worth
  getting the lecture notes if that is possible....

  Cheers, Rene



From monty.rand.org!jim Fri Dec 27 04:32 EST 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
Message-ID: <C125640D:0031DA1B.00@esocmail1.esoc.esa.de>
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 10:27:15 +0200
Subject: Re: Word Division
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  Dear all,

  Dennis writes:

  > If, as Andras Kornai and I think, the repetitiousness and low
  > entropy of the Voynich text are due to a word game (Pig Latin,
  > etc.), one would expect words to be rather long.  However,
  > Voynich "words" are rather short on the average.  I wondered if
  > maybe divisions are at syllables but not necessarily words.
  > Short words would be represented as is; long words would be
  > broken up into groups of syllables.

  I like to look at Arabic for another example: breaks for
  orthographic reasons. The VMS language does not necessarily
  have to be Arabic. I think most people agree that the script
  has been designed for this manuscript. Maybe the person(s) who
  did that wanted it to be like Arabic.

  I think we are forced to rely on the possibility that
  deciphering the MS is possible without knowing
  exactly where the spaces are. Had the thing just been a
  Latin text with simple substitution, this would have been
  the case. If the spaces are a significant component of a
  cipher applied to the text, we seem to be rather stuck,
  because they are very hard to judge (as Gabriel can confirm).

  Cheers,  Rene



From monty.rand.org!jim Fri Dec 27 10:17 EST 1996
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Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 09:11:10 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: rzandber@esoc.esa.de
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Word Division
In-Reply-To: <C125640D:0031DA1B.00@esocmail1.esoc.esa.de>
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On Fri, 27 Dec 1996 rzandber@esoc.esa.de wrote:

>   I think we are forced to rely on the possibility that
>   deciphering the MS is possible without knowing
>   exactly where the spaces are. Had the thing just been a
>   Latin text with simple substitution, this would have been
>   the case. If the spaces are a significant component of a
>   cipher applied to the text, we seem to be rather stuck,
>   because they are very hard to judge (as Gabriel can confirm).

	Good point!  After all, in WWI and WWII field ciphers, the word 
divisions were broken up.  The cipher text typically was made up of 
five-letter groups.  Even with this, codebreakers on both sides routinely 
broke such messages. 

	Even so, the spaces in the VMs do mean something, perhaps 
something useful to us.  

Cheers,
Dennis

From monty.rand.org!jim Fri Dec 27 11:06 EST 1996
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Comments: Authenticated sender is <landinig@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
From: "Gabriel Landini" <G.Landini@bham.ac.uk>
Organization: The University of Birmingham, U.K.
To: voynich@rand.org
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 16:05:45 +0000
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Subject: Re: Word Division
Reply-To: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk
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Status: OR

Hi"

On 27 Dec 96 at 10:27, rzandber@esoc.esa.de wrote:
> 
>   Dennis writes:
>   > If, as Andras Kornai and I think, the repetitiousness and low
>   > entropy of the Voynich text are due to a word game (Pig Latin,
>   > etc.), one would expect words to be rather long.  However,
>   > Voynich "words" are rather short on the average.  I wondered if
>   > maybe divisions are at syllables but not necessarily words.
>   > Short words would be represented as is; long words would be
>   > broken up into groups of syllables.

If the Voynichese is abbreviated (let's say abbreviated Latin), then 
the word lengths are going to be short. This is the case also in 
syllabic (sp?) alphabets like Japanese; Toyota is written with 3 
hiragana characters (to yo- ta) while the romanised version uses 6, 
same with Honda (ho n da), 3 vs. 5.

>   I think we are forced to rely on the possibility that
>   deciphering the MS is possible without knowing
>   exactly where the spaces are. Had the thing just been a
>   Latin text with simple substitution, this would have been
>   the case. If the spaces are a significant component of a
>   cipher applied to the text, we seem to be rather stuck,
>   because they are very hard to judge (as Gabriel can confirm).

Yes I do confirm it! :-) But in any case the word lengths
distributions are quite similar in both Currier and FSG
transcriptions, so there may be something there... Despite that its
difficult to know for sure if a particular space is in fact a spacer
or not, in a large number of cases that is not difficult. I like the
idea of abbreviated Latin. If the abbreivation is consistent, then
word frequencies stats (Zipf's laws) are maintained. Watch this space
for some updates in this subject soon.

Happy new year

Gabriel

From monty.rand.org!jim Fri Dec 27 14:38 EST 1996
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From: <kornai@almaden.ibm.com> (Andras Kornai)
Message-Id: <9612271936.AA24644@sevengill.almaden.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Word Division
To: G.Landini@bham.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 11:36:06 -0800 (PST)
Cc: voynich@rand.org
In-Reply-To: <9612271602.AB03323@sun1.bham.ac.uk> from "Gabriel Landini" at Dec 27, 96 04:05:45 pm
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Gabriel Landini writes:
> But in any case the word lengths
> distributions are quite similar in both Currier and FSG
> transcriptions, so there may be something there... Despite that its
> difficult to know for sure if a particular space is in fact a spacer
> or not, in a large number of cases that is not difficult. I like the
> idea of abbreviated Latin. If the abbreivation is consistent, then
> word frequencies stats (Zipf's laws) are maintained. Watch this space
> for some updates in this subject soon.
Without taking a stance on whether the material as abbreviated Latin (which
would make lot of sense) or Arabic, or something else, the word spacing issue
must be amenable to statistical treatment. The distribution of adjacent letter
pairs and triples is markedly different at real word breaks and at points
within the words, at least if we assume a broadly phoneme-based (as opposed to
broadly syllable-based) writing. We should take a set of those spacers that
Gabriel says are clearly identifiable as such, and compare the distribution of
word-initial and word-final n-grams to word-medial n-grams. The prediction is
that if the "word" defined by the spacers are really words, we should have a
considerably more peaked distribution (fewer points, and more of the total
frequency concentrated on a few) for initial and final than for medial. Since
this is really the first step in separating the vowels from the consonants,
I'm sure someone must have done this already...

Andras Kornai

From monty.rand.org!jim Fri Dec 27 15:05 EST 1996
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From: Luis Velez <lvelez@Telcel.Net.VE>
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Many thanks to all of you from an avid lurker and amateur linguist who
wishes he would know enough to be able to share some decent thoughts &
ideas on this most special subject.

Is anyone familiar with a comparative approach between the enthropy
level of middle eastern ancient languages (akkadian, sumerian), middle
egyptian and the VMS?  Or approaches of any kind involving these
languages and the VMS?

I'll be very grateful. I hope you all had a Merry Xmas!

Luis V=E9lez
from the evergreen valley of Caracas, Venezuela

P.S: Dennis, thank you specially for the Finland link. And Jim, for
including me in.

From monty.rand.org!jim Sat Dec 28 09:33 EST 1996
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From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: VMs List <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Voynich Manuscript (fwd)
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 96 12:25:31 EST
From: Eric Brill <brill@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>
To: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
Subject: Re: Voynich Manuscript 

>Voynich Manuscript.  I'm surprised I haven't heard your name there.  
>You're probably lurking there, but just in case you aren't, I've attached:
>1)  Instructions for subscribing to the list (it's in the process of 
>being moved).
>2)  My Voynich Manuscript mini-FAQ, which has the URL's of list members' 
>Voynich Web pages.
>	We'd like to hear from you and know what approach you are using 
>to deciphering the VMs.
>Very Truly Yours,
>Dennis Stallings

Hi, Dennis.  Thanks for the info.  I believe I am currently subscribed
to the mailing list, but only check my mailing-list mail once every
2-3 months.  Unfortunately, my lectures on the Voynich are not about
my brilliant insights that have led to cracking it (because I have had
no brilliant insights that have led to cracking it :) ) but they are
just an introduction to the problem along with some observations about
the document and challenges for the students.

-Eric


From monty.rand.org!jim Sat Dec 28 21:35 EST 1996
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From: Karl Kluge <kckluge@eecs.umich.edu>
To: voynich@rand.org
In-reply-to: <9612271936.AA24644@sevengill.almaden.ibm.com> (message from
	Andras Kornai on Fri, 27 Dec 1996 11:36:06 -0800 (PST))
Subject: Re: Word Division
Status: OR


> The distribution of adjacent letter pairs and triples is markedly different
> at real word breaks and at points within the words, at least if we assume a
> broadly phoneme-based (as opposed to broadly syllable-based) writing. We
> should take a set of those spacers that Gabriel says are clearly
> identifiable as such, and compare the distribution of word-initial and
> word-final n-grams to word-medial n-grams. 

The program I wrote a while back can do this (calculate digraph statistics
for the characters before/after a space, "word"-initial and -final digrams,
etc.). For the "B" corpus within the D'Imperio transcription, here are the
results:

Digraphs whose max frequency global, line initial, etc. > 5.000000%:
                   line               word
     global   initial  final    initial  final    wf/wi
2A   0.5741   5.0347   0.0879   1.2934   0.0000   0.5281
2O   0.3903   6.8576   0.0000   0.4565   0.0127   0.4275
4O   6.0152  19.0972   0.0879  20.5935   0.1140   0.0000
89   9.1405   0.4340  23.5501   1.3568  31.5056   0.1257
8A   2.4609   6.8576   0.1757   5.3386   0.0127   0.0629
94   0.0323   0.0000   0.0000   0.0254   0.0000  17.8675
98   0.1000   0.1736   0.1757   0.1268   0.0000   5.1301
9O   0.0290   0.0000   0.0000   0.0507   0.0000   9.8202
9S   0.1064   1.6493   0.0000   0.1014   0.0000   5.0421
AE   2.3835   0.1736   5.9754   0.7989   5.6477   0.0000
AJ   0.4386   0.0000   9.3146   0.1775   0.3546   0.0000
AM   2.2061   0.1736   4.9209   0.9511   7.8004   0.0000
AN   1.7642   0.0000   3.6907   0.3424   6.1922   0.0000
AR   2.3480   0.2604   3.7786   1.0525   7.2306   0.0000
C8   7.6504   0.0000   0.6151   0.0127   0.7978   0.0377
C9   3.3575   0.0000   5.1845   0.0000  12.0805   0.0251
E9   0.4515   0.0000   6.5905   0.1141   0.7345   0.2515
OE   5.1379   2.6042   6.7663   8.1664   8.6489   0.1006
OF   5.8958   2.4306   0.0000   6.5052   0.1646   0.0754
SC   4.6186   1.4757   0.0000   9.8783   0.0127   0.0000
ZC   3.3414   2.4306   0.0000   8.3693   0.0633   0.0000
#     31005     1152     1138     7886     7897     7953


From monty.rand.org!jim Sun Dec 29 15:08 EST 1996
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Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 21:04:40 +0100
From: CLARY Olivier <Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr>
Message-Id: <199612292004.AA12489@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Cathar "endura"
Status: OR

I had a look at the _Que sais-je?_ #689 about _Albigeois et Cathares_,
by Fernand Niel (_Que sais-je?_ is a "pocket encyclopedy", a series of
very small booklets, each on a very specialized theme, with ~3000
titles), after a recent post quoted Leroy-Ladurie's book _Montaillou_.
Leroy-Ladurie seems to say that after the consolamentum (which made
one a "Perfect") was given to dying (ordinary) "Believers", then if
they recovered they had to fast to death (endura). But according to
Niel (whose list of books shows he wrote at least eight other books on
Cathars), it might have been so at most at a particular place and time.
He says recovered Believers could probably just follow their previous
lives if they did not wish to be Perfects yet.

Niel says the association between Catharism and suicide has been
propagated by Catholic sources and novel writers. The main origin of
this claim is that groups of Perfects prefered to throw themselves
into the fire singing psalms than make the smallest act against the
wishes of the consolamentum, like pronouncing an oath or eating meat,
and this could be viewed as a suicide. Also, Inquisition registers do
mention endura ordered to some people, mainly women, by the diacon
of their community, in very late Catharism (14th century), when Cathar
churches had already disappeared long ago. But there is no trace of this
during the great period of Catharism, and most such cases are related
to one of the last Cathar diacons, Pierre Authier, in the high Ariege
valley near the village of Ax. It seems this was an isolated idea of
someone who saw the end of Catharism near, kind of a heresy inside
the heresy. Still, it has been used a lot to show Catharism as an
antisocial, amoral, dangerous doctrine.

-- Olivier

From monty.rand.org!jim Mon Dec 30 04:05 EST 1996
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  Dear all,

  Karl Kluge wrote:

  > The program I wrote a while back can do this (calculate digraph >
  statistics for the characters before/after a space,
  > "word"-initial and -final digrams, etc.). For the "B" corpus
  > within the D'Imperio transcription, here are the results:

  (table deleted)

  The single character distribution before and after a space
  (taken from the A/B mixture in voynich.now) shows something
  I found interesting when I found it, but it may not mean
  much after all. The single character entropy of the characters
  preceding a space is lower than that after a space. This
  is similar for a Latin text, and I thought it was an indication
  that it's an inflected language, but maybe it's normal for
  all languages (by the way: should English be counted as an
  inflected language?).

  Cheers, Rene




From monty.rand.org!jim Mon Dec 30 10:50 EST 1996
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Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 09:37:30 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: CLARY Olivier <Olivier.CLARY@meteo.fr>
Cc: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Cathar "endura"
In-Reply-To: <199612292004.AA12489@sesostris.cnrm.meteo.fr>
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On Sun, 29 Dec 1996, CLARY Olivier wrote:

> I had a look at the _Que sais-je?_ #689 about _Albigeois et Cathares_,
> by Fernand Niel (_Que sais-je?_ is a "pocket encyclopedy", a series of
> very small booklets, each on a very specialized theme, with ~3000
> titles), after a recent post quoted Leroy-Ladurie's book _Montaillou_.
> Leroy-Ladurie seems to say that after the consolamentum (which made
> one a "Perfect") was given to dying (ordinary) "Believers", then if
> they recovered they had to fast to death (endura). But according to
> Niel (whose list of books shows he wrote at least eight other books on
> Cathars), it might have been so at most at a particular place and time.
> He says recovered Believers could probably just follow their previous
> lives if they did not wish to be Perfects yet.

	Le Roy Ladurie notes, "But Catharism was very strong in 
Montaillou, and elsewhere defection from the ideal was even more marked.  
Villages like Quie', Arques, Junac, and even Prades were not so united in 
their heresy.  Some individuals there might be temporarily won over to 
the consolamentum, but they afterwards rebelled against the rigors of the 
Endura." (p. 229, English ed.)  

	As I noted in my article, this site also discusses this issue:
http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/consolamentum.html
 
> Niel says the association between Catharism and suicide has been
> propagated by Catholic sources and novel writers. The main origin of
> this claim is that groups of Perfects prefered to throw themselves
> into the fire singing psalms than make the smallest act against the
> wishes of the consolamentum, like pronouncing an oath or eating meat,
> and this could be viewed as a suicide. Also, Inquisition registers do
> mention endura ordered to some people, mainly women, by the diacon
> of their community, in very late Catharism (14th century), when Cathar
> churches had already disappeared long ago. 

	Le Roy Ladurie's book is based on an Inquisition register. It's a 
notable one in that torture was not used to extract confessions, but 
extensive interrogation.  Hence the good information on medieval society 
- although one under extreme pressure from the Inquisition.  
	Le Roy Ladurie also gives instances of men being hereticated and
undergoing Endura. 

> But there is no trace of this
> during the great period of Catharism, and most such cases are related
> to one of the last Cathar diacons, Pierre Authier, in the high Ariege
> valley near the village of Ax. 

	Le Roy Ladurie says that Pierre Authie' and his brother Guillaume 
converted to Catharism in Lombardy, returned in 1300, and converted the 
village of Montaillou to Catharism.  There were several other Perfects 
there, though.  

>It seems this was an isolated idea of
> someone who saw the end of Catharism near, kind of a heresy inside
> the heresy. 

	This is possible.  *Montaillou* only shows Catharims in 
isolation, under extreme pressure.  I've wondered what Catharism looked 
like when it was the majority religion.  Do you know of any other books 
on this?

	And of course there's the modern Cathar church I mentioned in my
article.  They admit that the medieval Cathars made mistakes and have
eliminated many negative beliefs, such as the extreme dualism of matter
and spirit. 

Dennis


From monty.rand.org!jim Mon Dec 30 10:59 EST 1996
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Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 09:45:56 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Stallings <denstall@tyrell.net>
To: Luis Velez <lvelez@Telcel.Net.VE>
Cc: Voynich-L <voynich@rand.org>
Subject: Re: Greentings from a new member
In-Reply-To: <32C42BAA.37E0@telcel.net.ve>
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On Fri, 27 Dec 1996, Luis Velez wrote:
=20
> Luis V=E9lez
> from the evergreen valley of Caracas, Venezuela

=09Welcome!  I'd like to mark an occasion.  The list has always had=20
lurkers all over the globe.  However, I believe that you are the first=20
person in South America who has spoken up.  With you, we have had people=20
from all six inhabited continents who have spoken up at least once.
=09We're truly an international fellowship!  Not surprising,=20
considering the subject matter.
=20
> P.S: Dennis, thank you specially for the Finland link.

=09You're welcome.  I have found a total of five Voynich folios with=20
images on the Internet, and that's the only site with all five.  For=20
everyone's benefit, that's

University of Jyv=E4skyl=E4, Finland
Risto Paasivirta <paasivir@cc.jyu.fi>=20
http://www.jyu.fi/~paasivir/crypt/index.html

=09A Happy New Year to you, and to everyone!

Dennis


From monty.rand.org!jim Mon Dec 30 12:29 EST 1996
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To: voynich@rand.org
From: firthr@db.erau.edu (Robert Firth)
Subject: VMS spaces
Status: OR

Folks,

Yes, I did already compute the initial, final, and medial
frequencies of the Voynich symbols, but from the Currier
transcription so not necessarily too accurately.

And yes, the frequency lists are very different, enough to
suggest strongly that the space has a structural function
of some kind.  As two obvious examples, the symbol "4" is
almost purely initial (and not paragraph initial, by the
way); the symbol "9" is mostly final.

One hypothesis consistent with this datum is that the spaces
do indeed divide words.  The trouble is, there are several
other possible hypotheses:

(a) the spaces divide syllables.  All the syllabic languages
    with which I am familiar, when written with an alphabetic
    script, show clearly different patterns of initial and
    final letters

(b) the spaces separate symbols that cannot be linked under
    the rules of the orthography.  As, of course, with Arabic.

(c) the spaces are nulls, but inserted preferentially after
    or before a few specific symbols

(d) - a really wild one - by convention, the vowel "a" is
    suppressed in the Voynich script, and is assumed to occur
    after any consonant not followed by another vowel.  The
    space is then an "erase" character that must be placed
    after a consonant that is followed neither by "a" nor
    by any other vowel.  (Anyone for Sanskrit?)

Sigh.  That's been the trouble all alnong.  Too many hypotheses,
too few hard facts.

A Happy New Year to all extant members of Team Voynich.

Robert Firth



From monty.rand.org!jim Mon Dec 30 22:35 EST 1996
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Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 19:27:20 -0800 (PST)
From: "R. Brzustowicz" <brz@u.washington.edu>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Cathar "endura"
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.961230092145.10462D-100000@tyrell.net>
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The endura is not the only instance of self-starvation:  certain Jains
also do this (it is a very old Jain tradition).

Attainment-oriented religious suicide also exists (or existed, until the 
last century, if Needham is to be believed)  in China and Japan, in
connection with self-mummification.  This involve a progressively
extensive abstention fro foods, and ingestion of various mineral poisons
and preservative substances.

Probably not a great deal to do with the Voynich ms, however.

R Brzustowicz (brz@u.washington.edu)



