# Last edited on 2012-05-21 22:17:04 by stolfi
# All of my emails that I could find that mention "pirahã" or "Daniel Everett"
~~~ 000 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Date: 2005-06-16
Folder: vm-folders/OUTBOX/2005-06-16-to-jguy.msg
To: "Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: [Voynich/Piraha] News from back behind down under
Hello Jacques, what is new?
I got the CD-ROM with the Rongorongo stuff: many thanks! Your copy of
the Pirahã book should have arrived by now. Did you get it?
Otherwise, I have nothing new of substance to tell. It has been many
months since I last checked the VMS list, and my new VMS interlinear
is still 98% ready, just as it was in March. I have been kept busy by
administrative work --- many meetings, spreadsheets, minutes,
regulationsons, contracts, buying orders, what should be the proper
spacing of urinals in the men's washroom...
I have even suffered an attempted coup d'état of sorts, by the
'fessors who run the paid extension courses --- which I quite foolishly
(but quite righteously!) tried to regulate. (Paid courses of any sort
in public universities are forbidden by our Constitution, but hey,
this is Brazil...) But I managed to survive the "coup", albeit by one
vote. Things are now quieter, and the problem of the paid courses has
been solved by the standard method, namely we formed a committee
to study the question and possibly propose something, eventually.
No news on Pirahã itself, either. However, that brief and innocent
conversation with Prof. Charlotte has cost me dearly. Unicamp has been
undergoing a lengthy evaluation process, and a month ago we got to the
stage where the deans of each area had to form a sub-committee to
evaluate and combine the internal responses to the external committes'
evaluations of the schools' quinquennial reports. Each committe had to
include two out-of-area deans. Now, which nerdy Scientist would the
Humanities deans invite to join them? "Why not professor Stolfi?",
proposed you guess who. The other Hum deans, knowing no better,
agreed...
By the way, that committee had its first meeting last week. It seems
that all the Hum deans will spend the July vacations in France. Who
knows, if you delay your return a bit, you may even run into Prof.
Charlotte (who appears to be French by birth). She had to rub it in:
"One advantage that the Humanities have over the Sciences is that our
committee meetings are held in Paris"...
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 001 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/voynich-97
From VM Wed Feb 24 22:01:23 1999
Message-Id: <342805D8.4622@trl.telstra.com.au>
Reply-To: j.guy@trl.telstra.com.au
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 11:09:28 -0700
From: Jacques Guy <j.guy@trl.telstra.com.au>
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: VMS: read on the conlang (CONstructed LANGuages) list
Two things. First, this proposal for generating
the vocabulary of an artificial language:
--- proposal "b" by Rick Morneau ---
Word := Root { Suffix }
Root := [ C1 V ] ( S V | C C1 V )
Suffix := C C2 V | C2 V ( S V )
{} enclosed item may appear zero or more times
[] enclosed item MUST appear one or more times
() enclosed item is optional
| logical "or"
C = any consonant (b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, s, t, v, x, z)
V = any vowel (a, e, i, o, u)
S = any semi-vowel (w, y)
C1 = any root-marking consonant (h, n, p, d, k, j, s, v, q)
C2 = any suffix-marking consonant (l, m, b, t, g, c, z, f, x)
[I spare you the rest]
Second (from Paul Kenneth Roser <pkroser@CSD.UWM.EDU>):
He's not kidding - the dental stop is released into a voiceless
loosely fricated bilabial trill. As I understand it this seems to be
allophonic with a plain /t/ in Piraha, but phonemic in a neighboring
(and soon to be extinct) language Oro Win (and Wari AKA Pacaas Novos,
can't recall if it is allophonic or phonemic there though). Ladefoged
& Daniel Everett did a write up on it in Language sometime last year.
Piraha also has a straightforward voiced bilabial trill that alternates
with a voiced bilabial stop, and a complex double flap that alternates
with a voiced velar stop. The double flap starts with a lateralized
retroflex flap, tongue moves forward, underside hits lower lip
(sublingual-labial) & is drawn back into mouth. My vote for the weirdest
sound in any living language.
----------------------------------------------------------
What do I want to say? I do not know myself. Evidence that
Voynichese could be an artificial language, and counter-evidence
that it could be a natural language. Imagine a Piraha-speaking
Indian transported to Northern Italy in the 1400's, and recording
his language in a distorted Roman alphabet! Piraha, by the way,
has only 7 consonants (seven) and three vowels. But it has tones
(I don't know how many). Consider how, out of those seven
consonants, three have two very different possible pronunciations
each: plain sensible t, b, and k, alternating with those utterly
insane articulations.
~~~ 002 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/misc/lastmail-2003-02-26
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Sat Feb 22 19:48:47 2003
Return-Path: <owner-vms-list@voynich.net>
Message-Id: <200302222241.h1MMfWJM003850@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 09:41:28 +1000
To: vms-list@voynich.net
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: VMs: A new proposal
Let us break up into two groups/teams, A and B.
Members of team A propose decipherments
I volunteer: I'll do vowelless Polynesian and
consonantless French; Jorge Stolfi will
do vowelless, consonantless Piraha and Chinese.
Members of team B examine those decipherments
in depth and report on their merits.
~~~ 003 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/misc/lastmail-2003-02-26
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Sat Feb 22 23:32:30 2003
Return-Path: <owner-vms-list@voynich.net>
Message-Id: <200302230225.h1N2P55R016254@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 13:25:01 +1000
To: vms-list@voynich.net
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Re: VMs: A new proposal
2/22/03 9:53:24 PM, "Larry Roux" <lroux@syr.edu> wrote:
> If you do "vowelless, consonantless" does it matter WHICH language
> you do it in? <grin>
Gotcha! (You did smell a trap, or didn't you?)
Yes. Piraha and Chinese have _tones_
~~~ 004 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: projects/voynich/docs/email-arch/edit-97.txt
From jim@monty.rand.org Mon Sep 22 21:14:11 1997
Message-Id: <342805D8.4622@trl.telstra.com.au>
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 11:09:28 -0700
From: Jacques Guy <j.guy@trl.telstra.com.au>
Subject: VMS: read on the conlang (CONstructed LANGuages) list
Two things. First, this proposal for generating
the vocabulary of an artificial language:
--- proposal "b" by Rick Morneau ---
Word := Root { Suffix }
Root := [ C1 V ] ( S V | C C1 V )
Suffix := C C2 V | C2 V ( S V )
{} enclosed item may appear zero or more times
[] enclosed item MUST appear one or more times
() enclosed item is optional
| logical "or"
C = any consonant (b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, s, t, v, x, z)
V = any vowel (a, e, i, o, u)
S = any semi-vowel (w, y)
C1 = any root-marking consonant (h, n, p, d, k, j, s, v, q)
C2 = any suffix-marking consonant (l, m, b, t, g, c, z, f, x)
[I spare you the rest]
Second (from Paul Kenneth Roser <pkroser@CSD.UWM.EDU>):
He's not kidding - the dental stop is released into a voiceless
loosely fricated bilabial trill. As I understand it this seems to be
allophonic with a plain /t/ in Piraha, but phonemic in a neighboring
(and soon to be extinct) language Oro Win (and Wari AKA Pacaas Novos,
can't recall if it is allophonic or phonemic there though). Ladefoged
& Daniel Everett did a write up on it in Language sometime last year.
Piraha also has a straightforward voiced bilabial trill that alternates
with a voiced bilabial stop, and a complex double flap that alternates
with a voiced velar stop. The double flap starts with a lateralized
retroflex flap, tongue moves forward, underside hits lower lip
(sublingual-labial) & is drawn back into mouth. My vote for the weirdest
sound in any living language.
----------------------------------------------------------
What do I want to say? I do not know myself. Evidence that
Voynichese could be an artificial language, and counter-evidence
that it could be a natural language. Imagine a Piraha-speaking
Indian transported to Northern Italy in the 1400's, and recording
his language in a distorted Roman alphabet! Piraha, by the way,
has only 7 consonants (seven) and three vowels. But it has tones
(I don't know how many). Consider how, out of those seven
consonants, three have two very different possible pronunciations
each: plain sensible t, b, and k, alternating with those utterly
insane articulations.
~~~ 005 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/voynich-2003-04-28-1-to-sort
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Mon Feb 24 21:38:55 2003
Return-Path: <owner-vms-list@voynich.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
Subject: VMs: RE: A new proposal
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 16:31:07 -0800
Message-Id: <03Feb24.163109pst.119054@gateway.madera.k12.ca.us>
From: "Jim Comegys" <Comegys_J@madera.k12.ca.us>
To: <vms-list@voynich.net>
If you are accepting members, I could do Nahuatl. Jim Comegys.
> From: Jacques Guy
>
> Let us break up into two groups/teams, A and B.
>
> Members of team A propose decipherments
> I volunteer: I'll do vowelless Polynesian and
> consonantless French; Jorge Stolfi will
> do vowelless, consonantless Piraha and Chinese.
>
> Members of team B examine those decipherments
> in depth and report on their merits.
~~~ 006 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Foder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/voynich-02
From stolfi Thu Sep 26 22:19:53 -0003 2002
From: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br>
To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Subject: Re: Piraha
In-Reply-To: <200209250531.g8P5VXh4019526@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
References: <200209250531.g8P5VXh4019526@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
Hi Jacques,
> [Jacques:] It might, only just might do, for Piraha, an
> Amazonian language with 7 consonants and 3 vowels, ignoring its
> two tones, and breaking up its consonant clusters, Linear-B
> style. (Jorge, they're your next-door neighbours, how about...
> oh, just pulling your leg).
Now this is funny... A couple of months ago, coming out of class, I
walked past a stand where our university press was trying to get rid
of a huge pile of remaindered books. Among them I found
Daniel Leonard Everett
A Língua Pirahã e a Teoria da Sintaxe -
Descrição, Perspectivas e Teoria.
Editora da Unicamp, Campinas, Brazil (1991)
Originally at ~US$10, it was on sale for ~US$2 --- how could I resist?.
The author is an American who lived for about 1 year in 1979-1980
among the Pirahã, who were by then reduced to 2 settelements with
110 total people, still largely acculturated. The book is a slightly
cleaned-up version of a doctoral thesis he presented at Unicamp's
Linguistics dept in 1983.
Half of the book is about heavy linguistics -- "govenrment binding"
and such -- which is all Navajo to me. (In the introduction the author
thanks Chomsky for the theoretical framework, comments, and personal
friendship. He thanks Jesus too.)
However the other half is a relatively understandable grammar of the
language, with lots of sample sentences and translations. One of these
nights, with no better ideas on how to waste my time, I started typing
them in, with the idea of adding the result to my haphazard collection
of texts in weird languages. Naturally I got bored around page 57, so
that joined my much larger collection of unfinished projects. For
whatever it is worth, here it is...
As you say, there are only three distinct vowel phonemes which can be
realized in various ways ("i" = any mid-front or high-front vowel,
etc.) There are three, possibly four tones; perhaps only two are
lexically distinct. I couldnt find out what he uses the diacritic for
(stress? tone? something else?). The "x" stands for a glottal stop.
All the best,
--stolfi
# Textos em língua pirahã
# De: Daniel Leonard Everett, "A Língua Pirahã e a Teoria da Sintaxe"
# Editora da Unicamp (1991)
# Da página 19:
#
# A língua pirahã é membro da família mura, a qual incluía os dialetos
# (agora provavelmente extintos) bohurá, yaháhi, mura, e, possivelmente,
# torá na literatura linguística. ... O pirahã é falado por aproximadamente
# cento e dez indivíduos no rio Maci, Amazonas. O povo é quase cem por cento
# monolíngue ...
# Agradecimentos (p. 5)
(000)
Hiatíihi hi báaxáí ti xahaigí xigiábikoí. Ti soxógió xabópai baisíhióxiai
ti xabiíhai hiaitíihi xigío. Baíxi Hioóxio hi gáísai "Ko Xoogiái, gíxiai soxóá
ti kapiiga xaoxaagá pixái hi ahoáti hiaitíhi ti xogibaí hiaitíini ti xogiágaó
xogibaí."
# p 23
(001)
@ ti xíbogi ti:baaí
= 1p leite beber:intensivo
% eu bebo muito leite
(002)
@ hi xápiso xaho:ai:i:haí
= 3p casca comer:atélico:próximo:certezaRelativa
% ele comerá casca
(003)
@ hi káxihí xoab:á:há
= 3p paca matar:remoto:certezaCompleta
% ele matou uma paca
(004)
@ xisááhai xitaí oho:áo:p:á
= gafanhoto folha comer:télico:imperfectivo:remoto
% O gahafanhoto comeu folhas
(005)
@ toipií hi xaoói xib:áo:b:i hi
= paritintin 3p estrangeiro flechar:télico:perfectivo:próximo:certezaCompleta
% O paritintin, ele flechou o estrangeiro
(006)
@ xíbogi, ti ti:bái
= leite, 1p beber:intensivo
% De leite, eu bebo muito
(007)
@ káixihí, hi xoab:á:há
= paca, 3p matar/morrer:remoto:certeza
% A paca morreu
@ káixihí hi xoab:á:há
= paca 3p matar/morrer:remoto:certeza
% A paca matou-o
(008)
@ hi xí xoh:i:hiab:a:há totohoi
= 3p 3p comer:epentético:negativo:remoto:certezaCompleta espécieDePassaro
% ele(humano) não o comeu (o totohoi).
# p 24
(009)
@ xí si xoho:áo:p:á:taío páxaihi xigagí
= 3p 3p comer:télico:imperfectivo:remoto:resultado galinha pimenta
% ele(animal) comia-a(inanimado), portanto (galinha, pimenta)
(010)
@ gahió xabo:op:ái pixái:xíga
= avião virar:ir:atélico agora:imediato
% O avião está voltando agora mesmo
(011)
@ pii boi:hiab:iig:á
= água vir:negativo:continuativo:remoto
% A água não está vindo
# p25
(012)
@ tiobáhai xait:á:hói
= criança dormir:remoto:ingressivo
% a criança foi dormir
(013)
@ kai:o hóao xab a:áti
= casa:locativo lado ficar:incerteza
% Fique ao lado da casa
(014)
@ bitó hi aba:hoí:hiab:a
= barco 3p ficar:vir:negativo:remoto
% O barco não parou
(015)
@ hoáoíi baábi hi xaagá
= espingarda ruim 3p estar
% A espingarda está ruim
# p 28
(016)
@ hi bihíhí:xigó xaagá:há
= 3p baixo:associativo estar:certezaCompleta
% Ele é baixo (traço físico)
(017)
@ kaisáo hoí hi xai
= caixa dois 3p ser
% São duas caixas
(018)
@ ti baáb iigá
= 1p ruim estar
% Estou doente
(019)
@ baábi hi xaagá hoáofi
= ruim 3p estar espingarda
% A espingarda está ruim
(020)
@ gó xaagá ti
= aqui estar 1p
% Aqui estou eu
# 29
(021)
@ ti poogahai xaíbái xao:xaagá
= 1p flechaParaPescar muito posse:ter
% Eu tenho muitas flechas de pescar
(022)
@ xipoógi hoaoíi hi xaagá
= [Nome] espingarda 3p estar
% É a espingarda de Xipoógi
# 30
(023)
@ baitói xoab:ái:p:í pixáí xisigíhií xisigíhií báaxai
= veado morrer:atélico:imperfectivo:próximo agora carne carne boa
% Um veado está morrendo. Agora tem carne, carne boa.
(024)
@ pii boi:baí:so bigí bíixi
= água vir:intensivo:temporal terra mole
% Quando chove muito a terra fica mole
(025)
@ xaoói hi xapisí bigaí
= estrangeiro 3p braço grosso
% O estrangeiro tem um braço grosso [= é forte]
(026)
@ giopaíxi xi sabí:xi
= cachorro 3p(animal) bravo:enfático
% O cachorro está bravo
(027)
@ kohoibiíhai kaiíi
= [Nome] casa
% A casa de Kohoibiíhai [OU] A casa é de Kohoibiíhai
# 31
(028)
@ xoogiái hi hi:ó xiíi xoab:ao:p:í
= [Nome] 3p cima:locativo pilha jogar:télico:imperfectivo:próximo
% Xoogiái jogava a pilha para cima
(029)
@ ti kaí:o xah:á p:i:tá
= 1p casa:locativo ir:puntiliar:próximo:ierativo
% Eu volto [= vou de novo] à casa.
(030)
@ ti gí kapiigaxotoii hoa:i
= 1p 2p lápis dar:próximo
% Eu dou o lápis para você
(031)
@ tiooii xohoa:o kapiigaxitoii xihi:aí:p:i:hai
= borracha lado:locativo lápis botar:atélico:imperfectivo:próximo:certezaRelativa
% (Alguém) bota o lápis ao lado da borracha
# 32
(032)
@ big:o xihi:aí:p:i tábo xap:ó
= baixo:locativo botar:atélico:imperfectivo:próximo tábua emCima:locativo
% (Alguém) bota (algo) em cima da tábua.
(033)
@ xopísi xaoígí:o xab:óp:ai
= [Nome] tarde:locativo virar:ir:atélico
% Xopísi chegará pela tarde.
(034)
@ xaxái xab:óp:ai:sai:xáagahá xahoahíai xahoigí:o
= [Nome] virar:ir:estar:normalizador:observação outroDia tarde:locativo
% Xaxái chegou/chegará outro dia à tarde
# 33
(035)
@ poi ba:áo:p:i:hai kahaixíói:hio
= pontaDeFlecha afiar:télico:imperfectivo:próximo:certezaRelativa faca:instrumento
% (Alguém) estará/está afiando a ponta da flecha com uma faca.
(036)
@ tagaság:oa xií bóí:ta:á xií xóihi taís:oa xií tá:bóí:xába:háí xií xogif
= terçado:instrumento árvore cortar:iterativo:remoto árvore pequeno machado:instrumento árvore derrubar:cortar:terminar:certezaRelativa árvore grande
% Com terçados [os pirahã] cortam árvores pequenas, com machados derrubam árvores grandes.
(037)
@ ti xií tó:p:á:há taísi tagasága:xai píai xií xóihi
= 1p árvore derrubar:imperfectivo:remoto:certezaCompleta machado terçado:instrumento também árvore pequeno
% Derrubei a árvore com machado e terçado; era uma árvore pequena.
# 34
(038)
@ pii boi:sai ti xahá:p:i:hiab:i:haí
= água vir:nominalizador 1p ir:imperfectivo:epentético:negativo:próximo:certezaRelativa
% Chovendo [=se chover], não irei.
(039)
@ hi gai:sai hi xog:i:hiab:a
= 3p dizer:nominalizador 3p querer:epentético:negativo:remoto
% A fala dele é [= ele falou] que ele não quer.
# 35
(040)
@ hi xoo:áo:b:á kapiigá kapiigá xogií
= 3p comprar:télico:perfectivo:remoto papel papel grande
% Ele comprou [= ganhou] papel [=dinheiro], papel grande [= muito dinheiro]
(041)
@ ti xahaigí xao:xaagá xahaigí xaíbá:koi
= 1p irmão posse:ter irmão muito:enfático
% Eu tenho irmãos, muitos.
(042)
@ ti bai xaagá giopaí xahóápátí giopaí
= 1p medo ter cahorro [Nome] cachorro
% Eu tenho medo do cachorro, do cachorro de Xahóápátí.
# 36
(043)
@ xoogiái hi xapisí biga aí biga:á
= [Nome] 3p braço grosso ser grosso:enfático
% O braço de Xoogiái é grosso [=forte], muito grosso.
(044)
@ xogaí xogií koíhi híaba
= roça grande pequeno negativo
% Uma roça grande, não pequena
(045)
@ hi si:bái:xi koíhi hiaba
= 3p chorar:intensivo:enfático pequeno negativo
% Ele chora muito, não pouco.
# 37
(046)
@ ti soxóá xi xoabá:aí xi kapágó:b:á
= 1p já 3p(animal) matar:atélico 3p atirar:perfectivo:remoto
% Eu já o matei [um animal], atirei nela.
(047)
@ xaíti xaibogi xaig:ahá:p:i:so xisib:áo:b:ábagaí sagía xab:áo:b:i:hiab:á
= cotia rápido mover:ir:imperfectivo:próximo:temporal flexar:télico:perfectivo:iniciativaFrustrada animal parar:télico:perfectivo:epentético:negativo:remoto
% Enquanto a cotia fugia, quase flechei; o animal não parou.
(048)
@ koó:xío xob:ái:p:í:i xapa hoaga:í:i
= dentro:locativo jogar:atélico:imperfectivo:próximo:certezaCompleta cabeça virar:próximo:certezaCompleta
% Jogou para dentro da caixa e virou-a de cabeça para baixo.
# 38
(049)
@ kahaibó bogíaga:hoag:á:há:taío
= pontaDeFlecha torcer:ingressivo:remoto:certezaCompleta:resultado
% Portanto, a ponta da flecha não torce.
(050)
@ ko kohoibiíai ti gí xahoa:o:sog:abagaí
= vocativo [Nome] 1p 2p falar:epentético:desiderativo:iniciativaFrustrada
% Ei, Kohoibiíai, eu quero falar com você.
# 39
(051)
@ hi topagahai hi xab:i:baí:só:ai hóki
= 3p gravador 3p tocar:epentético:intensivo:?:atélico [Nome]
% Seu gravador, ele toca muito, Hóki.
(052)
@ hi bai ai:hiab:a hi xaópí:koi xaoói
= 3p medo estar:negativo:remoto 3p bravo:enfático estrangeiro
% Ele não está com medo, [está] muito bravo, o estrangeiro
(053)
@ xisaitaógií ti xahaigí xigiábií hiaitíihi xigiábi:kói
= [Nome] 1p irmão como pirahã como:enfático
% [É] Xisaitaógií, meu amigo, [ele é] como um pirahã.
# 40
(054)
@ poiooí soxóá xa:xoba:áp:i:ta:á hoaagái xáisi tai:p:i:sai hoaagái
= [Nome] já ?:ver:puntilar:epentético:iterativo:remoto espécieDeFruta suco beber:imperfectivo:epentético:nominalizador espécieDeFruta
% Poiooí já está procurando a fruta, a fruta que tem suco para beber.
(055)
@ ti xoba:i:sog:abagaí hiaitíhi ti xahaigí
= 1p ver:epentético:desiderativo:iniciativaFrustrada pirahã 1p irmão.
% Eu quero ver os pirahã, meus irmãos.
# 41
(056)
@ hi xaho:áti kohoibiíhai gáta bogá:a:á:xai hi gáta gaigá:a:á:hoí:haí
= 3p falar:incerteza [Nome] alumínio sair:?:remoto?:atélico 3p alumínio amarrar:?:remoto:ingressivo:certezaRelativa
% Fale para Kohoibiíhai, o alumínio está saindo, [para] ele amarrar o alumínio.
(057)
@ hi hoagá xa:xapá:bó:í:hi ti hoagá xís:apaí ba:xap:áo:b:á:há xoig:iig:á
= 3p contraExpectativa ?:atirar:vir:próximo:certezaCompleta 1p contraExpectativa 3p(animal):cabeça ?:atirar:télico:perfectivo:remoto:certezaRelativa morrer:continuativo:remoto
% Embora ele tivesse atirado nele, embora eu tivesse atirado na cabeça dele, ele ainda está morrento [= não está morto]
(058)
@ xipóihií xab:óp:ai:so xaxái xipóihii ti xahá:p:i:t:aó
= mulher virar:ir:atélico:temporal [Nome] mulher 1p ir:imperfectivo:próximo:iterativo:temporal
% Quando a mulher voltar, a mulher de Xaxái, eu irei embora de novo.
# 43
(059)
@ hoaóíi baábi hi xaagá hóísai xáa
= espingarda ruim 3p estar podre ?
% A espingarda está ruim
(060)
@ hiaitíi xigía xahoa:op:ai:sog:abagaí
= pirahã associativo falar:ir:atélico:desiderativo:inciativaFrustrada
% [Ele] queria falar com os pirahã
(061)
@ poogahai xibá:bóg:á xib:áo:b:í:i
= flecha bater:vir:remoto bater:télico:perfectivo:próximo:certezaCompleta?
= Eu acertei [a cobra] com a flecha.
# 44
(062)
@ xogiágaó xis ohoa:í:haí kabatií xipóihií píaii
= todo 3p(animal) procurar:próximo:certezaRelativa anta mulher também
% Todos procuram a anta, as mulheres também [procurarão].
(063)
@ hi kági pío xait:á:há tihóá xait:á pío hoahóá xait:á pío tapaí píaii
= 3p esposa também dormir:remoto:certezaCompleta [Nome] dormir:remoto também [Nome] dormir:remoto também [Nome]
% A esposa dele está dormindo, Tihóá está dormindo também, Hoahóá está dormindo também Tapaí [está dormindo] também.
# 45
(064)
@ gíxa xa:oho:i:koí páohoi bobói píaii gíxai xaí:so xai:hiab:i:koí kapíi píaii
= 2p ?:comer:próximo:enfático pão bombom também 2p estar:temporal fome:negativo:pr'ximo:enfático café também
% Você comerá muito pão e bombom, quando estiver [na minha casa], você não terá fome, café também [você terá]
#46
(065)
@ ti ti xib:áo:b:a:í:xi
= 1p 1p bater:télico:perfectivo:?:próximo:certezaCompleta
% Eu me bati.
(066)
@ ti si xib:áo:b:a:í:xi
= 1p reflexivo? bater:télico:perfectivo:?:próximo:certezaCompleta
% Eu me bati.
@ ti si xib:áo:b:a:í:xi
= 1p 3p(animal) bater:télico:perfectivo:?:próximo:certezaCompleta
% Eu bati nele [animal].
(067)
@ ti gí xib:áo:b:á:há
= 1p 2p bater:télico:perfectivo:remoto:certezaCompleta
% Eu bati em você.
(068)
@ ti hi xib:áo:b:á:há
= 1p 3p bater:télico:perfectivo:remoto:certezaCompleta
% Eu bati nele.
(069)
@ gí ti xib:áo:b:á:há
= 2p 1p bater:télico:perfectivo:remoto:certezaCompleta
% Você bateu em mim.
(070)
@ hi ti xib:áo:b:á:há
= 3p 1p bater:télico:perfectivo:remoto:certezaCompleta
% Ele bateu em mim.
(071)
@ ti ti xib:áo:b:á:há
= 1p 1p bater:télico:perfectivo:remoto:certezaCompleta
% Eu me bati.
(072)
@ gí gí xib:áo:b:á:há
= 2p 2p bater:télico:perfectivo:remoto:certezaCompleta
% Você se bateu.
(073)
@ hi hi xib:áo:b:á:há
= 3p 3p bater:télico:perfectivo:remoto:certezaCompleta
% Ele se bateu.
# 48
(074)
@ hi hi xib:áo:b:á:há xoogiái tihóá
= 3p 3p bater:télico:perfectivo:remoto:certezaCompleta [Nome] [Nome]
% Xoogiái bateu em Tihóá.
(075)
@ hi hi xib:áo:b:á:há xigiágaó
= 3p 3p bater:télico:perfectivo:remoto:certezaCompleta todos
% Todos se bateram.
(076)
@ hi hi xib:áo:b:á:há kohoibiíhai xipoógi pío xaxái píaii
= 3p 3p bater:télico:perfectivo:remoto:certezaCompleta [Nome] [Nome] também [Nome] também
% Eles se bateram, Kohoibiíhai e Xipoógi também, Xaxái também.
# 49
(077)
@ hi hi xobai:so hi bai xaag:ábai
= 3p 3p ver:temporal 3p medo ter:términoFrustrado
% Depois que ele se viu, ele quase ficou com medo.
# 50
(078)
@ xogiágaó hi xobai:xiig:á
= todos 3p ver continuativo:remoto
% Todos vêem todos [OU] Todos o vêem [OU] Todos vêem.
(079)
@ xogiágaó hi hi xib:áo:b:a:í:xi xabagi kóxoí xiooitaóhoagí
= todos 3p 3p bater:télico:perfectivo:?:próximo:certezaCompleta [Nome] [Nome] [Nome]
% todos se bateram,
# 51
(080)
@ hi kahaí kai:xiig:á
= 3p flecha fazer:continuativo:remoto
% Ela está fazendo uma flecha.
@ kahaí kai:sai
= flecha fazer:nominalizador
% Fabricação/fabricador de flechas
(081)
@ hi xií kai:p:i:haí
= 3p coisa fazer:imperfectivo:próximo:certezaRelativa
% Ele fará coisas.
@ xií kai:sai
= coisa fazer:nominalizador
% Fabricação/fabricador de coisas
# First parsing/translation of (082) ignored; see the one below.
# 52
(082)
@ xi koho:ab:boi:sog:i:hiab:iig:a:há:taio
= 3p comer:ficar:vir:desiderativo:epentético:negativo:continuativo:remoto:certeza:razãoCompleta
% Portanto, ele veio ficar [no estado de] não querendo comer.
(083)
@ ko xoogiái gói tiobáhai xibíib:a:áti xab:óp:i:sai
= vocativo [Nome] 2p criança mandar:remoto:incerteza virar:ir:epentético:nominalizador
% Ei, Xoogiái, mande seu filho voltar!
(084)
@ ti gíxai xibíib:i:sog:abagaí kahiaí kai:sai
= 1p 2p mandar:epentético:desiderativo:iniciativaFrustrada cesta fazer:nominalizador
% Eu quero mandar você fazer uma cesta
# 53
(085)
@ giopaí gáihi kapióxio xigiábií
= cachorro aquele outro como
% Aquele cachorro se parece com o outro
(086)
@ xagí gahióo xogi ái xixi pii xigiábií
= caminho avião grande ser enfático água como
% A pista de aterrisagem é grande, como o rio.
# 54
(087)
@ kapiigaxiótoii xogií gáhi kapiigaxiótoii koíhi gáihi
= lápis grande aquele lápis pequeno aquele
% Aquele lápis é grande; aquele lápis é pequeno
(088)
@ gái kóihi:hi xigí xaaga:há
= aquele pequeno:enfático associativo estar:certezaCompleta
% Aquele é muito pequeno [= está associado com o traço pequeno].
(089)
@ xogi:ógi xigí ai kap:i:hai
= grande:grande associativo ser ir:próximo:certezaRelativa
% Aquele é grande mesmo.
# Example was "kap:í:hai", but text says "kap:i:hai"
(090)
@ kóíhi ai xai:hí kap:i:haí
= pequeno ser ser:enfático ir:próximo:certezaRelativa
% Aquele é pequeno mesmo.
# 55
(092)
@ xoogiái hi báag:a:há koíhi xisaitaógií hi báag:a:há xogi:ógi:hí
= [Nome] 3p vender:remoto:certezaCompleta pequeno [Nome] 3p vender:remoto:certezaCompleta grande:grande:enfático
% Xoogiái vende pouco, Xisaitaógií vende muito mais.
# 56
(093)
@ hiapióxio xihibaí baábi gíxai xihiabaí:baaí
= outro pagar ruim 2p pagar:muito
% Outros pagam mal, você paga muito.
(094)
@ xoogiái hi xob:áaxaí xapaitíisi hi xaohai:sai hiaitíihí xigiábi:kói
= [Nome] 3p ve:bem linguaPirahã 3p fala:nominalizador povoPirahã como:enfático
% Xoogiái, ele sabe falr bem a língua Pirahã, como os Pirahã mesmo.
(095)
@ xisaitasoí hi kapiigakagakai:baí xoogiái hi koíhi xabaxáígio
= [Nome] 3p estudar:intensivo [Nome] 3p pequeno somente
% Xisaitasoí estudava muito, Xoogiái [estuda] apenas um pouco.
# 57
# Example mostly in Portuguese with Pirahã pronounciation
# (096)
# @ batío pága póoko xoogiái hi máis paga bíi
# = [pt Nome] [pt]paga [pt]pouco [Nome] 3p [pt]mais [pt]paga [pt]bem
# % Martinho paga pouco, Xoogiái paga melhor.
(097)
@ xoi báaxaí:so ti baábi:hiaba ; xoi baábi:so ti baábi:koí
= tempo[clima] bom:temporal 1p ruim:negativo tempo ruim:temporal 1p ruim:enfático
% Quando o tempo está bom, não fico doente; quando o tempo está ruim, fico doente.
# (to be continued)
~~~ 007 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/voynich-02
From stolfi Thu Sep 26 23:00:32 -0003 2002
From: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br>
To: voynich@cryptogram.org
Subject: Re: Piraha and the VMS
In-Reply-To: <200209250531.g8P5VXh4019526@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
References: <200209250531.g8P5VXh4019526@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
Reply-To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br
> [Jacques:] It might, only just might do, for Piraha, an
> Amazonian language with 7 consonants and 3 vowels, ignoring its
> two tones, and breaking up its consonant clusters, Linear-B
> style. (Jorge, they're your next-door neighbours, how about...
> oh, just pulling your leg).
By amazing coincidence, I happen to have a book about the Pirahã
language (which had about 110 speakers left in ~1980). Here is a
sample sentence from that book:
(1) xaíti xaibogi xaigahápiso xisibáobábagaí sagía xabáobihiabá
which the author parses as
xaíti peccary
xaibogi quick
xaig:ahá:p:i:so toMove:toGo:IMPERFECTIVE:NEAR:TEMPORAL
xisib:áo:b:ábagaí toShootArrow:TELIC:PERFECTIVE:FRUSTRATED
sagía animal
xab:áo:b:i:hiab:á toStop:TELIC:PERFECTIVE:EPENTHETIC:NEGATIVE:REMOTE
and translates as
"while the peccary was fleeing, I almost shoot an arrow at it; it
didn't stop."
As you can see, Pirahã has rather long words, usually made of
a root with a couple of syllables and several suffixes, which
are often just one syllable or part thereof. I gather that most
American native languages follow this pattern, which also
fits Turkish and Hungarian (IIRC).
Now, this pattern defintely does not fit the VMS word length
distribution, which is practically zero beyond 10 letters or so.
Jacques suggests that those languages may show a better match to the
VMS, if each word element is written as a separate word, eg.
(2) xaíti xaibogi xaig ahá p i so xisib áo b ábagaí sagía xab áo b i hiab á
Perhaps...
However, it seems to me that a full decomposition would have the
opposite problem, namely we would get many more 1- and 2-letter words
than we see in the VMS. So, in order to get a good match, we may have
to assume a partial decomposition, where certain combinations of
suffixes are still written as single words.
Another problem with the "Amerind" theory is that the main roots in
indian languages are often 2 or 3 syllables long. These words would
not have the peculiar structure we see in the VMS words (at most one
gallows, different letters at beginning/middle/end, etc.).
Finally, the idea of writing each suffix as a separate word, as in (2)
above, would be rather peculiar, since all early European
transcriptions of Amerind languages which I have seen wrote them
attached to the root, like (1).
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 008 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/voynich-02
From VM Thu Sep 26 23:21:00 2002
Message-Id: <200209270200.g8R20XN27782@xingu.dcc.unicamp.br>
References: <200209250531.g8P5VXh4019526@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 23:00:33 -0300 (EST)
From: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: voynich@cryptogram.org (Voynich Ms. mailing list)
In-Reply-To: <200209250531.g8P5VXh4019526@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
Subject: VMs: Re: Piraha and the VMS
> [Jacques:] It might, only just might do, for Piraha, an
> Amazonian language with 7 consonants and 3 vowels, ignoring its
> two tones, and breaking up its consonant clusters, Linear-B
> style. (Jorge, they're your next-door neighbours, how about...
> oh, just pulling your leg).
By amazing coincidence, I happen to have a book about the Pirahã
language (which had about 110 speakers left in ~1980). Here is a
sample sentence from that book:
(1) xaíti xaibogi xaigahápiso xisibáobábagaí sagía xabáobihiabá
which the author parses as
xaíti peccary
xaibogi quick
xaig:ahá:p:i:so toMove:toGo:IMPERFECTIVE:NEAR:TEMPORAL
xisib:áo:b:ábagaí toShootArrow:TELIC:PERFECTIVE:FRUSTRATED
sagía animal
xab:áo:b:i:hiab:á toStop:TELIC:PERFECTIVE:EPENTHETIC:NEGATIVE:REMOTE
and translates as
"while the peccary was fleeing, I almost shoot an arrow at it; it
didn't stop."
As you can see, Pirahã has rather long words, usually made of
a root with a couple of syllables and several suffixes, which
are often just one syllable or part thereof. I gather that most
American native languages follow this pattern, which also
fits Turkish and Hungarian (IIRC).
.
Now, this pattern defintely does not fit the VMS word length
distribution, which is practically zero beyond 10 letters or so.
Jacques suggests that those languages may show a better match to the
VMS, if each word element is written as a separate word, eg.
(2) xaíti xaibogi xaig ahá p i so xisib áo b ábagaí sagía xab áo b i hiab á
Perhaps...
However, it seems to me that a full decomposition would have the
opposite problem, namely we would get many more 1- and 2-letter words
than we see in the VMS. So, in order to get a good match, we may have
to assume a partial decomposition, where certain combinations of
suffixes are still written as single words.
Another problem with the "Amerind" theory is that the main roots in
indian languages are often 2 or 3 syllables long. These words would
not have the peculiar structure we see in the VMS words (at most one
gallows, different letters at beginning/middle/end, etc.).
Finally, the idea of writing each suffix as a separate word, as in (2)
above, would be rather peculiar, since all early European
transcriptions of Amerind languages which I have seen wrote them
attached to the root, like (1).
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 009 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/voynich-98
From jim@mail.rand.org Fri Oct 2 01:32 EST 1998
Message-ID: <3614C69C.545F@alphalink.com.au>
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
References: <361399B5.57FF3800@sprint.ca>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1998 05:27:08 -0700
From: jguy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
To: John Grove <4groves@sprint.ca>
CC: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: The Nature of the Analyst
John Grove wrote:
>
> The forms all have counterparts starting with <i>: <ig>, <x>, <2>,
> etc. We
> also have <a> = <c>+<i>.
My view is that <c> and <i> are equivalent, each occurring in the
context
of strokes similar to itself. Cryptologia published an article of mine
a long time ago where I showed that the two sets of letters, the c-like
and the i-like, occurred in almost completely mutually exclusive
variation. That can be due (in a linguist's eye) to two things:
1. they are allographs of the same grapheme (like the two form
of small beta in Greek)
2. extension vowel or consonant harmony
Later, but still a long time ago, I argued on this list that <cc> and
<a> were two different ways of writing "a". It had not even occurred
to that <a> = <c> + <i>
> All the letters containing an initial
> "c"-curve are also the only letters that can be preceded in the same
> word by the little letter that looks
> like "c," e.g. <c89>, <ccc89>. On the other hand, the letters <x> and
> <2> (which have very high frequencies) can *never* be preceded by
> <c>, *ever*; they are instead
> preceded by <a>."
or <o>.
> Now the fact that he saw these things as 'two-stroke' characters
> seems promising to me -- as it supports my observations. However, it
> may simply be that Currier was employed in roughly the same field as
> I work in - and thus analyzes things from the same perspective. What
> was his job? If he was a crytanalyst
He was. But I am a linguist, and I reported the same phenomenon. I did
not know about Currier at the time, either. So that makes his
observation
all the more credible. When results converge...
> Jorge, on the other hand, has attacked the VMS from a linguistic
> point of view
Jorge is a computer scientist. So now that's three viewpoints that
converge:
cryptology, linguistics, computer science.
> - there are just not enough characters in just the
> right places to form a simple alphabetic language
Yes there are! Look in the archives, before the invention of EVA,
when we were groping for a "pronounceable Voynich", I came up
with two: one looking like a sort of mock-Latin which sounded
grand and mysterious (good for ceremonial magic?), another, more
serious that looked much like a sort of Indonesian. Piraha, a
south-american Indian language, has only three vowels and seven
consonants. But it has tones. So it doesn't Rotokas (in Papua
New-Guinea) which has five vowels and six consonants, but no
tones. Further, another thought. If you get your hands on
a New Testament in Bislama, the Pidgin English of Vanuatu,
you'll see words like "God", and "kot" (coat), and "gyaman"
(to lie). But Bislama has neither g nor d. "God" are "coat"
are pronounced exactly alike: kot. What gives? The spelling
was devised by a Rev. Camden, a Presbyterian. He it right,
but the native Elders complained that it made the language
look too "childish". So, very stupidly, he caved in, and
decided on a spelling partly based on English. Hence "God"
instead of "Kot". And "gyaman" instead of "kyaman". He
thought that "kyaman" was a distortion of "gammon" but...
it's a Chinese word! As for "mbusong" which his mob
pronounced "putsong", he wrote it like he heard it:
"pujong". Well, if I tell you that it meand "cork" you
may guess the etymology: French bouchon. Perhaps a similar
thing happened with the VMS, which would explain its
haphazard spelling.
At any rate the Voynich alphabet has enough letters to
write Rotokas or Piraha, and enough to spare to write
the allophonic variations of their phonemes. E.g.
in Rotokas, t is pronounced ts or s before i. In
Piraha t is pronounced either plain t, or t
accompanied by a bilabial trill (the choice is
apparently at the speaker's whim)
> There are three things
> about the lines that make me believe the line itself is a functional
> unit. The frequency counts of the beginnings and endings of lines are
> markedly different from the counts of the same characters internally.
That is normal. The frequency counts of the beginnings and endings of
lines in Italian are markedly different from the medial ones. Why?
Because an Italian word almost always ends in a vowel, but usually
starts with a consonant. No I haven't carried out any statistics on
that, but I learnt Italian reading Topolino when I was 15, and the
strange distribution of consonants and vowels had struck me: it did
not look like a "real" language. I mean... "tavola" to say "table"?
Are you joking? And this word: "popolo". Surely, Sir, you are
pulling my leg!
> There are, for instance, some characters that may not occur initially
> in a line.
In Ancient Basque, no word could start with a "k", a "p", or a "t".
Ancient Basque had no "m". When Basque acquired an "m", it was from
"nb" becoming "mb", then "m", so no word could start (or end) with
an "m". Since line length varies in the VMS, we can infer that the
authors did not break words. Or, if they did, they did it at
syllable boundaries. In all the languages I can think of right
now (French, English, Italian, Swahili, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese...)
the distribution of phonemes is quite different syllable-initially,
medially, and finally.
> Okay, if the first character of a line is a line indicator of some
> sort...
If the VMS is written in a natural human language, like the many I have
learnt, the even more many I know about, then there is nothing there
to write home about. The scribes did not break words randomly, like th
is, that's al
l fo
lks!
> Jorge? You've got
> quite a computer system for crunching numbers -- Is this worth
> looking into?
Of course it is worth looking into. But you don't need a high-powered
number cruncher. If you search the archives, you'll find a Pascal
program I wrote that computes letter frequencies in those different
positions. I must have written it almost 10 years ago when I had
only a state-of-the-art PC, a 386DX running at 33MHz, with a super
whopper 8M of RAM. I think that, somewhere in those archives,
there are tables of letter frequencies produced by that thing.
No, if there is a cipher there I think it can only be a Bacon
cipher, but not binary. If gallows were instructions to switch
to a different coding wheel, we'd observe strikingly different
letter frequencies between gallows, and strikingly different
letter groups. We don't.
~~~ 010 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/voynich-98
From jguy@alphalink.com.au Tue Oct 6 08:58 EST 1998
Message-ID: <361B0233.5A20@alphalink.com.au>
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 22:54:59 -0700
From: jguy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
To: stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br
Subject: Jorge's Chinese theory (well, I bear some responsibility too)
Jorge Stolfi wrote, in answer to Glen Claston:
> To a first approximation, the Voynichese words can be decomposed into
> the following "elements":
[fascinating stuff deleted]
Having read that, I am almost convinced that it is Chinese, or
a language with phonological properties similar to those of Chinese.
I am also convinced that it is not Mandarin, and that, if it is
Chinese, it is an archaic form, which still had initial consonant
clusters, like kl for instance. Mind you, I guess Thai or Burmese
could also fit the bill, but I know too little Thai and Burmese to
to tell.
> Yet they still fit 97% of all words in Rene's list (counting
> multiplicities), and 94% of all words in the interlinear file. The
> remaining 6% includes the words containing "whackos" (3% of all
> words), and long words that look like the concatenation
> of two ordinary ones.
That convinces me. Those are astonishingly good figures. Jorge
has the phonotactics of the language (or the structure of the cipher)
cracked!
> I can't imagine ...
[snip]
I agree with all that, but I'm only a linguist, with a bit of
statistician thrown in. No cryptologist at all.
> But many labels have only one Voynichese "word"
I tend to think that most are the equivalent of our Fig.1, Fig.2, etc.
in a very different. I hate to mention it, but Chinese has a
set of characters, each with is own pronunciation, the purpose
of which is ... how could I say? Referencing. Like A, B, C, D. Or
the symbols you sometimes find for footnotes: <asterisk>, <cross>,
<a double cross>, <the "paragraph" symbol>
> 4. Why aren't there recognizable European grammatical structures
> (gender/number agreement, noun and verb inflections, etc.)
> A: Because Chinese doesn't have such things.
True. There are no inflections at. There is reliable evidence that
Chinese once had inflections, but even then, they were very reduced,
even more so than modern English which is well on its way to losing
all inflections.
> 5. Why are there so many repeated and similar words?
> A: Partly because Chinese often uses repeated words;
> partly because Chinese words sound similar, and distinguished
> by features (such as tone) which Westerners have a hard time
> perceiving.
Both true.
> 6. Why did Sukhotin's algorithm (for vowel/consonant identification)
> fail for Voynichese?
> A: Because the algorithm depends on the fact that, in a Western
> language with well-tuned alphabet, vowels generally alternate with
> consonants; so that the counts of CV and VC digraphs (the "signal"
> on which the identification is based) dominate over the CC and VV
> counts (which are useless and potentially misleading "noise").
> Now, when Chinese is encoded with the Voynichese alphabet and then
> transcribed to EVA, we get only *two* CV/VC digraphs in each word
> (5-6 characters); or only *one* CV pair, and zero VC's, if space
> is treated as a character. So the data given to Sukhotin's
> algorithm was 15%-30% signal and 70-85% noise.
No on two counts. Firstly, we do not know that it failed, because we
still can't speak Voynichese. Secondly, because it assumes that the
letters have been correctly identified. We are not even sure what
constitutes a letter! Is <in> one or two letters? Is <iin> one or
two or three letters? We suspect, but we don't know. And *that* in
my view, is why Sukhotin's algorithm cannot give us a reliable answer.
We're feeding probable garbage, we're probably getting garbage back.
> 7. Why does Voynichese word and letter stats resemble those
> of natural languages (e.g. Zipf's law), rather than those
> of cipher text?
> A: Because Voynichese is unencrypted Chinese.
I prefer the stronger case:
Because Voynichese is an unencrypted natural language.
> 8. Why are there so few long words, when compared
> to Latin or English?
> A: Because Chinese words are monosyllabic, and syllables
> are obviously limited in length.
There are many languages with short, mostly monosyllabic words.
Not only in Asia. Many in Africa too.
> 9. Why are there two "languages", with radically different
> vocabularies but with similar word structure?
> A: Because the book is written in two Chinese dialects, (e.g.
> Cantonese and Mandarin), and the differences between Chinese
> dialects happen to be of that sort.
That is true of the dialects of many, many languages.
> 10. Why is there no punctuation?
> A: Traditional Chinese writing didn't use punctuation, so why use
> it in the new writing system? Besides, the author surely did not
> know the language well enough to make up good punctuation rules.
Plus, punctuation is rare in Medieval European manuscripts. One
reinforces
the other.
> 11. Why do we find elements like <y>, <r>, <s>, <d> alone, but
> not <k>, <ke>, <sh> etc.?
> A: Because the latter are consonants, while former are vowels.
Not *quite* necessarily. Some Chinese words/syllables consist of a
single consonant, e.g. sì "four" is just "sss". The vowel is just
an orthographic device. Others: cí "word" (t'sss), zì "character"
(dzzz), shì "to be" (sshh) etc. Some other Asian languages have
other one-consonant words like v, f, pf, bv (those count as one
phoneme). Cantonese has m, and ng. Lots of Chinese people from
Canton or Hong Kong are called Ng. But there are no words/syllables
consisting of just p, t, k, b, d, g. So your remark is still valid.
> 12. Why did the author write the VMs?
> A: for any or all of these reasons: (1) to test and debug the
> new writing system,
somewhat likely
(2) to convince the Chinese of the advantages
> of alphabetic writing,
most likely
> > How does PTTTTH!!!! translate into Voynich, anyway?
Isn't that the Piraha consonant that consist of a
t co-articulated with a bilabial trill, a t with a raspberry
in layman's words? Was the VMS written by Piraha Indians? You
know, Piraha, the language with tones, 3 vowels and 7 consonants,
spoken right next door to where Jorge lives? (I've been looking
for a Piraha grammar or wordbook. No luck so far)
~~~ 011 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/voynich-98
From jim@mail.rand.org Thu Oct 8 01:33 EST 1998
Message-Id: <m0zR13G-0004hzC@fwd01.btx.dtag.de>
References: <361399B5.57FF3800@sprint.ca> <3614C69C.545F@alphalink.com.au>
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 23:23:18 +0200
From: Zandbergen@t-online.de (Rene)
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: The Nature of the Analyst (fwd)
Frogguy replied to John Grove:
> > [John quoting Currier:] All the letters containing an initial
> > "c"-curve are also the only letters that can be preceded in the same
> > word by the little letter that looks
> > like "c," e.g. <c89>, <ccc89>. On the other hand, the letters <x> and
> > <2> (which have very high frequencies) can *never* be preceded by
> > <c>, *ever*; they are instead preceded by <a>."
>
> or <o>.
Exactly right. And in two sections of the Ms, <c> can approach <x> or <2>
if there is an <o> in between. There, <cox> and <co2> are quire frequent.
(EVA: eol/eor, Currier: COL/COR).
> > Now the fact that he saw these things as 'two-stroke' characters
> > seems promising to me -- as it supports my observations. However, it
> > may simply be that Currier was employed in roughly the same field as
> > I work in - and thus analyzes things from the same perspective. What
> > was his job? If he was a crytanalyst
>
> He was. But I am a linguist, and I reported the same phenomenon. I did
> not know about Currier at the time, either. So that makes his
> observation all the more credible. When results converge...
>
> > Jorge, on the other hand, has attacked the VMS from a linguistic
> > point of view
>
> Jorge is a computer scientist. So now that's three viewpoints that
> converge.
So it makes plain sense. But of course, in the Roman alphabet, we
see much the same. Letters are composed of a few basic strokes.
Same with Arabic, by the way. It is even more true for cuneiform
(anyone ever run Sukhotin on that?).
I suspect it to be less obvious in the non-alphabetic scripts from
the Orient.
> > - there are just not enough characters in just the
> > right places to form a simple alphabetic language
>
> Yes there are!
Enough, yes! All transcription alphabets have between 20 and 36
characters. But perhaps that's because the people who designed the
transcription alphabets wanted to have this number.
> E.g. in Rotokas, t is pronounced ts or s before i.
Very much like Dutch!!
In the cases where English and French would pronounce the
't' as 's' or '<integral>', Dutch would use 'ts' which is
reduced to 's' in day-to-day speech.
(Examples: nation, emotion)
> In Piraha t is pronounced either plain t, or t
> accompanied by a bilabial trill (the choice is
> apparently at the speaker's whim)
What's a bilabial trill??? I think I could make one but I'd
probably need to use my fingers...
> > There are three things
> > about the lines that make me believe the line itself is a functional
> > unit. The frequency counts of the beginnings and endings of lines are
> > markedly different from the counts of the same characters internally.
>
> That is normal. The frequency counts of the beginnings and endings of
> lines in Italian are markedly different from the medial ones. Why?
Jacques, Jacques, do you know what you are saying? This is true for
Italian sentences or words. But if a sentence wraps around to the
next line, you don't expect any non-standard behaviour at the beginning
of the new line.
Now if the writer is recording phonetic speech and makes a mental
pause at the start of each new line...
> No, if there is a cipher there I think it can only be a Bacon
> cipher, but not binary.
Well, some of the statistics are just screaming out loud that there
is a binary Bacon cipher beneath it all. Look at it like this.
Given the current character, what can the next one be (in EVA):
o/qo, ch/sh, o/a, in/iin, l/r, e/ee, y/dy, p/f, s/d...
Still, I would agree that it's pretty far-fetched.
Cheers, Rene
~~~ 012 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/A-2005-03
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Sun Mar 13 19:39:04 2005
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 19:39:02 -0300
Message-Id: <200503132239.j2DMd2t8029072@localhost.localdomain>
From: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br>
To: webteam@manchester.ac.uk
Cc: ipro@manchester.ac.uk
Subject: [MISC] Inaccuracies in web page
Please allow me to call your attention to some inaccuracies in the
web page
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/press/newsarchive/title,3978,en.htm
It says
Professor Everett has spent the last twenty-seven years studying a
group of tribespeople known as the Piraha. They live in a remote part
of the Brazilian jungle, and have no words for numbers, beyond what
loosely translate as, 'one', 'two', and 'many'. What makes them even
more unique is the fact that their word for 'one' can also mean 'a
few', while 'two' can refer to 'not many'.
Professor Everett and his wife have lived with the Piraha for up to
six years at a time, and are the only two people in the world who
speak their language. Piraha is the only language known without
numbers or counting of any kind.
Actually, according to Professor Everett's personal page and other
sources, he has been studying the Pirahã *over a period* of 27
years, but not continuously --- rather as several stays, each
lasting several months, which *added up to* over six years.
--stolfi
~~~ 013 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/A-2007-04
From dulcebs@unicamp.br Mon Apr 16 17:24:41 2007
Message-ID: <000501c78064$89493630$ac716a8f@ascom01>
From: "Dulce" <dulcebs@unicamp.br>
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Unicamp_na_M=EDdia_16/04/2007?=
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:19:20 -0300
Organization: Assessoria de Imprensa - UNICAMP
Unicamp na mídia
16/04/2007.....
Assessoria de Comunicação e Imprensa - UNICAMP
[...]
Tribo do Amazonas causa guerra na lingüística
Folha Online - Ciência - 16/04/2007
Uma tribo de caçadores-coletores do sul do Amazonas está colocando
lingüistas e antropólogos em pé de guerra. Segundo um pesquisador, a
língua dos pirahãs, um grupo de 350 pessoas que habitam o rio Maici,
perto da divisa com Rondônia, é tão excepcional que põe em xeque a
principal teoria vigente sobre a linguagem humana. (...) Andrew
Nevins, da Universidade Harvard, David Pesetsky, colega de Chomsky no
Instituto de Tecnologia de Massachusetts, e Cilene Rodrigues, da
Unicamp, afirmam --com base em trabalhos anteriores do próprio
Everett-- que o pirahã não apresenta desafio à Gramática Universal.
[...]
~~~ 014 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/A-2005-04
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Wed Apr 6 08:59:14 2005
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 08:59:12 -0300
Message-Id: <200504061159.j36BxCeo016173@manaus.ic.unicamp.br>
From: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br>
To: "Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: [Piraha] Talked to Charlotte...
Hi Jacques,
YEsterday, between two meetings, I managed to ask Charlotte about Pirahã.
As expected, she said that her advising was chiefly confined to the
second part of the thesis, where Pirahã is used as an example to
discuss some Chomskian theory or whatever. As for the first half, the
Pirahã grammar proper, she apparently trusted Daniel, without
checking.
She does not know of any independent studies, but directed me
to another IEL professor --- Filomena Sandalo, <sandalo@iel.unicamp.br>
--- who did her master's thesis under (or in collaboration with) Daniel.
I checked her official publications list
http://buscatextual.cnpq.br/buscatextual/visualizacv.jsp?id=K4787734H5
and found only one item about Pirahã:
SANDALO, F. Glides e Nasalização em Pirahã, Capanahua e Sateré.
In: II Congresso Nacional de Fonética e Fonologia, 1986, Brasília, 1986.
Palavras-chave: nasalização; fonologia gerativa padrão.
Her later works are about Portuguese and some languages of the Chaco region
(hundeds of km west of the Pirahã region). Her turf seems
to be phonetics rather than grammar.
Dr. Charlotte is such a nice and respectable lady, I just could not
dare ask her opinion on trilled bilabial africate plosives (or whatever)...
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 015 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Misc
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Mon Apr 23 22:04:14 2007
X-Original-To: stolfi@ic.unicamp.br
Delivered-To: stolfi@ic.unicamp.br
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 22:03:03 -0300
Message-Id: <200704240103.l3O1331k022517@dumont.ic.unicamp.br>
From: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: marcoantonio@imagelink.com.br
Subject: [IC/Ling] Indios Piraha
Prezado Prof. Marco Antonio,
Sou professor de computação aqui na UNICAMP, mas tenho um certo
interesse pessoal e profissional em linguística, em particular na
língua dos índios pirahã.
Há alguns anos comprei (em liquidação de estoque) uma cópia da tese de
Daniel Everett sobre a língua pirahã, publicada pela Editora da
Unicamp em mas agora esgotada. Por um caminho tortuoso, acabei ficando
interessado no assunto (aliás, antes mesmo dos pirahã ficarem famosos
devido ao artigo na Nature sobre a hipótese de Sapir-Whorf). Esse
interesse me levou, por exemplo, a escrever boa parte do artigo sobre
essa língua na Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/Piraha_language) ---
apesar de meu domínio da língua ser exatamente zero.
Li sua descrição do povo pirahã no site
http://www.socioambiental.org/pib/epienglish/piraha/.
Gostei muito do site, e fiquei impressionado com a qualidade
do conteúdo. Na verdade, é a melhor fonte que conheço sobre esse grupo
indígena. Meus parabéns!
Talvez lhe interesse saber que há algumas fotos dos pirahã num
relatório de uma expedição do Rondon, impresso como livro (2 volumes)
por volta de 1940 pelo Governo. Infelizmente, pelo que me lembro, não
há quase nenhuma informação útil sobre esse grupo no livro, e
inclusive eles são descritos como membros da família Tupi-Guarani.
(Imagino que o engano foi devido ao uso do Nheengatu como língua
franca.) O exemplar que eu vi pertence ao Prof. Anselmo Montenegro da
UFF, <aam@ic.uff.br>; se você está interessado, ele pode lhe dar os
dados bibliográficos.
Mas a razão principal para lhe escrever é que eu tenho sérias dúvidas
quanto à qualidade do material disponível sobre a *língua* dos pirahã.
Pelo que me consta, existem apenas duas fontes substanciais sobre
a gramática:
(1) a primeira metade da tese do Everett, que é uma descrição geral
da gramática do pirahã. Essa tese foi baseada em material colhido
pelo autor "de janeiro a março de 1979 e de abril a dezembro de
1980, quando ele era missionário do SIL. Outros estudos foram feitos
em várias ocasiões (por um total de quatro meses) com a ajuda de
informantes pirahã fora da aldeia." Segundo suas proprias
declarações, na época em que o trabalho foi escrito, ele tinha tido
"ao todo [...] aproximadamente quatoze meses de contato intensivo
com os pirahã."
(2) uma descrição da estrutura dos verbos pirahã, publicada em 1988
por Steven N. Sheldon (também missionário do SIL), mas possivelmente
baseada em dados colhidos vários anos antes.
As publicações posteriores de Everett sobre o pirahã parecem ser todas
sobre temas bem específicos, como fonologia/fonética ou a morfologia
de certos sufixos. Há umas poucas publicações de outros autores, mas
elas geralmente usam material fornecido pelo Everett, ou limitam-se
a aspectos não gramaticais, como fonética.
O problema é que a tese do Everett é um tanto confusa, e não consegui
nem determinar se sua gramática verbal é compatível com a do Sheldon.
Há algumas discrepâncias óbvias: por exemplo, o Sheldon afirma que a
fonética do pirahã usa três tons (alturas) de vogais, enquanto que
Everett só reconhece duas. Não sei dizer se essa diferença é
significativa (pode ser alofonia tonal ou algo assim). Parece haver
também discrepâncias na identificação de sufixos verbais.
O que me incomoda mesmo é o fato de que o Everett parece ser o único
não-pirahã que consegue entender a fala dos pirahã; de modo que
muitas de suas afirmações sobre a mesma não têm confirmação
independente, e só podem ser aceitas na base da fé em sua autoridade.
Sua orientadora de doutorado, a Profa. Charlotte Galves do
IEL-UNICAMP, é especialista em português e línguas latinas, e não
trabalha com línguas indígenas. Ela me disse que só ajudou o Everett
a colocar a gramática pirahã no contexto das teorias de Chomski; mas
não pode dizer nada sobre a gramática em si, pois essa parte foi
trabalho do Everett sozinho.
Minha incerteza se aplica inclusive à própria afirmação do Everett de
que ele domina o idioma. Acontece que vários episódios relatados em
seus próprios artigos sugerem fortemente que seu domínio da língua
pirahã é bastante limitado. Na verdade, essa seria uma explicação
bastante adequada para muitas das supostas peculiaridades do pirahã,
e inclusive dos resultados do experimento relatado na Nature!
Para tentar clarear essas dúvidas, estou tentando agora obter mais
informações independentes sobre as estadias do Everett e dos outros
missionários do SIL junto aos Pirahã, incluindo duração e natureza dos
contatos. Por exemplo: eles moravam junto aos pirahã, ou moravam junto
aos "brancos" e apenas visitavam a região periodicamente?
Você escreveu no site que dois casais de missionários do SIL viveram
com a tribo por vários anos. Na sua tese, Everett agradece a ajuda de
"Arlo e Vi Heinrichs, Steve e Linda Sheldon"; são esses os dois
casais? O site de bibliografia do SIL tem as seguintes publicações
deles:
Heinrichs, Arlo. 1964. "Os fonemas do Mura-Pirahã." Boletim do Museu
Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Nova série, Antropologica 21: 1-9.
Heinrichs, Arlo. 1967. "Notas preliminares sôbre núcleos oracionais
contrastivos em mura-pirahã." In Atos do Simpósio sôbre a Biota
Amazônica, vol. 2 , 127-31.
Sheldon, Steven N. 1974. "Some morphophonemic and tone perturbation
rules in Mura-Pirahã." International Journal of American Linguistics
40: 279-82.
Sheldon, Steven N. 1988. "Os sufixos verbais múra-piraha." Série
Lingüística 9(2): 147-75.
Desses, só tenho o artigo de Sheldon de 1988, disponível no prórprio
site do SIL. (Consta-me que ele é hoje Diretor Executivo da
Administração Internacional do SIL, e não faz mais linguística.)
Agradeço qualquer ajuda,
--stolfi
Jorge Stolfi
Diretor
Instituto de Computação, UNICAMP
~~~ 016 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Misc
From newsletter@email.newscientist.com Thu Jan 17 15:34:25 2008
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:33:49 +0000 (GMT)
Message-Id: <Kilauea274004-129950-160548882-3-1101@flonetwork.com>
From: "New Scientist" <newsletter@email.newscientist.com>
To: stolfi@ic.unicamp.br
Subject: 'Critter cams' reveal animals' secret lives
NewScientist.com newsletter,
17 January 2008
[...]
Interview: Out on a limb over language * (video available)
Linguist <b>Daniel Everett</b> went to Brazil as a missionary to work
with the Pirahã people. Instead of converting them, he lost his faith
and his family, and prompted a major intellectual row
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19726391.900?DCMP=NLC-nletterbanner&nsref=mg19726391.900
[...]
Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd 2007
~~~ 017 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/A-2006-03
From newscientist-e2-79739547@processrequest.com Mon Mar 20 14:19:16 2006
From: New Scientist <newscientist@processrequest.com>
To: "Sr. Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
Subject: Print Edition e-zine: Riddle of attraction
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 11:16:29 -0600
Message-ID: <20060320111629710@BSMX21>
New Scientist Print Edition e-zine:
20 March 2006 - issue number 2543
[...]
LOST FOR WORDS *
Their lack of mythology is just one small aspect of why the Pirah=E3
people in the Amazon rainforest are so fascinating. In addition,
they have virtually no notion of time, no creative storytelling,
very little art, no numbers and very few possessions. But perhaps
even more surprising is their peculiar language, which is now
challenging some of the most influential ideas in linguistics. Has
their language been shaped by some innate language instinct, or by
their extraordinary culture?
http://www.prq0.com/apps/redir.asp?link=3DXcdhciajDB,ZbichebaefDC&oid=3DUcjjbCB&iclitemid=3DYcdhbcefhDB&tid=3DWicgifeDD
[...]
~~~ 018 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/A-2006-03
From newscientist-e2-79274836@processrequest.com Thu Mar 16 14:48:53 2006
From: "newsletter@newscientist.com" <newscientist@processrequest.com>
To: "Sr. Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
Subject: Saved by 'sand' poured into your wounds
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 11:46:10 -0600
Message-ID: <20060316114610132@BSMX21>
NewScientist.com newsletter
16 March 2006
[...]
A people lost for words *
They've no myths, numbers or colours and few words for past or
present - no wonder the Pirah=E3 people defy our most cherished ideas
about language
http://www.prq0.com/apps/redir.asp?link=3DXcdhaecgCE,ZbichebaefDC&oid=3DUcjjbCB&iclitemid=3DYcdhbbjdbCH&tid=3DWicgfecCH
[...]
Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd. 2006
~~~ 019 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/A-2005-06
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Thu Jun 16 22:36:08 2005
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 22:34:04 -0300
Message-Id: <200506170134.j5H1Y4ug000478@belem.ic.unicamp.br>
From: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br>
To: "Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: [Voynich/Piraha] News from back behind down under
Hello Jacques, what is new?
I got the CD-ROM with the Rongorongo stuff: many thanks! Your copy of
the Pirahã book should have arrived by now. Did you get it?
Otherwise, I have nothing new of substance to tell. It has been many
months since I last checked the VMS list, and my new VMS interlinear
is still 98% ready, just as it was in March. I have been kept busy by
administrative work --- many meetings, spreadsheets, minutes,
regulationsons, contracts, buying orders, what should be the proper
spacing of urinals in the men's washroom...
I have even suffered an attempted coup d'état of sorts, by the
'fessors who run the paid extension courses --- which I quite foolishly
(but quite righteously!) tried to regulate. (Paid courses of any sort
in public universities are forbidden by our Constitution, but hey,
this is Brazil...) But I managed to survive the "coup", albeit by one
vote. Things are now quieter, and the problem of the paid courses has
been solved by the standard method, namely we formed a committee
to study the question and possibly propose something, eventually.
No news on Pirahã itself, either. However, that brief and innocent
conversation with Prof. Charlotte has cost me dearly. Unicamp has been
undergoing a lengthy evaluation process, and a month ago we got to the
stage where the deans of each area had to form a sub-committee to
evaluate and combine the internal responses to the external committes'
evaluations of the schools' quinquennial reports. Each committe had to
include two out-of-area deans. Now, which nerdy Scientist would the
Humanities deans invite to join them? "Why not professor Stolfi?",
proposed you guess who. The other Hum deans, knowing no better,
agreed...
By the way, that committee had its first meeting last week. It seems
that all the Hum deans will spend the July vacations in France. Who
knows, if you delay your return a bit, you may even run into Prof.
Charlotte (who appears to be French by birth). She had to rub it in:
"One advantage that the Humanities have over the Sciences is that our
committee meetings are held in Paris"...
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 020 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/A-2005-06
From MAILER-DAEMON Thu Jun 16 22:36:48 2005
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 11:36:18 +1000
Message-Id: <200506170136.j5H1aFWJ030719@mailproc3.alphalink.com.au>
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON@mailproc3.alphalink.com.au>
To: <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details
> Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 22:34:04 -0300
> Subject: [Voynich/Piraha] News from back behind down under
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<jguy@alphalink.com.au>
(reason: Service unavailable)
----- Transcript of session follows -----
Can't deliver: member's mailbox is full.
554 5.0.0 Service unavailable
~~~ 021 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/A-2005-06
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Thu Jun 16 22:36:08 2005
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 22:34:04 -0300
Message-Id: <200506170134.j5H1Y4ug000478@belem.ic.unicamp.br>
From: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br>
To: "Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: [Voynich/Piraha] News from back behind down under
Hello Jacques, what is new?
I got the CD-ROM with the Rongorongo stuff: many thanks! Your copy of
the Pirahã book should have arrived by now. Did you get it?
Otherwise, I have nothing new of substance to tell. It has been many
months since I last checked the VMS list, and my new VMS interlinear
is still 98% ready, just as it was in March. I have been kept busy by
administrative work --- many meetings, spreadsheets, minutes,
regulationsons, contracts, buying orders, what should be the proper
spacing of urinals in the men's washroom...
I have even suffered an attempted coup d'état of sorts, by the
'fessors who run the paid extension courses --- which I quite foolishly
(but quite righteously!) tried to regulate. (Paid courses of any sort
in public universities are forbidden by our Constitution, but hey,
this is Brazil...) But I managed to survive the "coup", albeit by one
vote. Things are now quieter, and the problem of the paid courses has
been solved by the standard method, namely we formed a committee
to study the question and possibly propose something, eventually.
No news on Pirahã itself, either. However, that brief and innocent
conversation with Prof. Charlotte has cost me dearly. Unicamp has been
undergoing a lengthy evaluation process, and a month ago we got to the
stage where the deans of each area had to form a sub-committee to
evaluate and combine the internal responses to the external committes'
evaluations of the schools' quinquennial reports. Each committe had to
include two out-of-area deans. Now, which nerdy Scientist would the
Humanities deans invite to join them? "Why not professor Stolfi?",
proposed you guess who. The other Hum deans, knowing no better,
agreed...
By the way, that committee had its first meeting last week. It seems
that all the Hum deans will spend the July vacations in France. Who
knows, if you delay your return a bit, you may even run into Prof.
Charlotte (who appears to be French by birth). She had to rub it in:
"One advantage that the Humanities have over the Sciences is that our
committee meetings are held in Paris"...
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 022 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From jguy@alphalink.com.au Sat Mar 12 02:26:06 2005
Return-Path: <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Message-Id: <200503120525.j2C5PjGE031996@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 15:25:57 +1000
To: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: I'll swap you...
... Rotokas for Piraha.
Remember that book you found going for $2, and
a good part of which you typed in and posted
to the Voynich list?
I am becoming more and more persuaded that
the Piraha "language" is a gigantic hoax thought
up by the Piraha indians (whatever language they
really speak). I found an August 1998 post from
the author, Daniel Everest, where he was announcing
a web site that would have 5 megabytes of corpora.
Today, almost seven years later, all I could find
was six texts, two of which were not even analyzed
and translated. There is a "dictionary" too, but
if that is anywhere near a full dictionary, then
Piraha not only has the smallest phoneme inventory,
but also the smallest vocabulary. And lots of words
found in those six texts are missing from the
dictionary too.
Now, if you are agreeable (I hope you haven't
thrown that book into the garbage bin?) I'll
send you a scan of my "Vocabulary of Rotokas
Pidgin and English" on a CD, in exchange for
a scan of your Piraha book. Oh, sure, that's
piracy, breach of copyright, and all that
(so call me Lampião) but what's the point
of spending the price of a bottle of wine
on stamps when a CD costs practically nothing
and sending it costs next to nothing?
Hmmm... perhaps you are not too keen on Rotokas.
Well, then, you name it.
Até logo. (I probably stuffed that up. My
Portuguese, from non-existent, has become
non-existent AND rusty)
~~~ 023 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Sat Mar 12 18:07:00 2005
Message-ID: <35418.143.106.23.232.1110661618.squirrel@webmail.ic.unicamp.br>
In-Reply-To: <200503120525.j2C5PjGE031996@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
References: <200503120525.j2C5PjGE031996@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 18:06:58 -0300 (BRT)
Subject: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
From: "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
> Remember that book you found going for $2, and a good part of which
> you typed in and posted to the Voynich list?
I posted only a couple of samples; the book is exactly 400 pages long
(the author's doctoral thesis at Unicamp's linguistics dept.)
Shortly after I bought the book, I typed a few more samples from it,
and part of its lexicon
http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/PUB/misc/misc/piraha.txt
http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/PUB/misc/misc/piraha.dic
I got down to sample sentence (096) on page 57; the last sample
in the book is (482) on page 216. As for the lexicon, it is 12 pages long,
and so far I typed one page and a half. So those two files look like
Stolfi's Never Finished Projects #231543-A and #231543-B.
> I am becoming more and more persuaded that
> the Piraha "language" is a gigantic hoax thought
> up by the Piraha indians (whatever language they
> really speak).
I can't swear for the honesty of all involved, but the probablility that
Brazilian indians --- who are at the very bottom of our social scale,
below migrant cane cutters, slum dwellers and homeless juvenile delinquents
--- could invent such an elaborate linguistic hoax is rather small.
If there is a hoax, they may be the actors, but the director must be
someone more sophisticated -- a la Tasaday.
There are several names and leads mentioned in the introduction, that may be
worth following. See below.
> I found an August 1998 post from
> the author, Daniel Everest, where he was announcing
> a web site that would have 5 megabytes of corpora.
> Today, almost seven years later, all I could find
> was six texts, two of which were not even analyzed
> and translated. There is a "dictionary" too, but
> if that is anywhere near a full dictionary, then
> Piraha not only has the smallest phoneme inventory,
> but also the smallest vocabulary. And lots of words
> found in those six texts are missing from the
> dictionary too.
> Now, if you are agreeable (I hope you haven't
> thrown that book into the garbage bin?) I'll
> send you a scan of my "Vocabulary of Rotokas
> Pidgin and English" on a CD, in exchange for
> a scan of your Piraha book. Oh, sure, that's
> piracy, breach of copyright, and all that
> (so call me Lampião) but what's the point
> of spending the price of a bottle of wine
> on stamps when a CD costs practically nothing
> and sending it costs next to nothing?
I will see what is the best way to get you a copy of the book.
(Please don't let me forget that promise.) Unicamp was supposed to
have all their theses available on-line, but at its bureucratic speed
we can't count on that project being implemented this century.
In a couple of days, a student of mine is expected to install a scanner
with automatic document feeder, and perhaps that will do.
But the simplest way is indeed to send you the book, air mail. The publisher is the
University's own ("Editora Unicamp") and they may still have a few left, so I
may not even have to part with my copy. As for the postage, its is bona-fide
research, so I can send it at the University's expense (1). (But please don't
let me forget that promise.)
Meanwhile, I will send you shortly some excerpts from the introduction,
that may help you to, ahem, refocus your hypotheses on the affair.
> Hmmm... perhaps you are not too keen on Rotokas.
> Well, then, you name it.
Rotokas would be fine as payment, but I am more curious about the Easter
Island script. Have you posted anything that I should look up? (I still
six six months of the VMS list to catch up with...)
> Até logo. (I probably stuffed that up....)
No, it's perfect. All the best, and au revoir...
--stolfi
PS. Next monday, as the newly-installed head of this dept, I am paying
a visit to the university's accounting officer --- the first step in
the quest to unravel the line "miscellaneous expenses: US$ 200,000.00"
in our financial report for last year. I gather that "coffee breaks"
may account for some US$ 10,000 of that total, but that may turn out
to be the noblest and most proper item of the lot. If you read that my
body has been found floating in the university's duck pond, you
already know why. 8-)
~~~ 024 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Sat Mar 12 19:54:31 2005
Message-ID: <35445.143.106.23.232.1110668069.squirrel@webmail.ic.unicamp.br>
In-Reply-To: <200503120525.j2C5PjGE031996@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
References: <200503120525.j2C5PjGE031996@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:54:29 -0300 (BRT)
Subject: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
From: "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Jacques, I typed in some excerpts from the book's introduction:
http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/misc/misc/piraha-intro.txt
I expect that your Portuguese, plus Romance interpolation, will be enough
for you to read the text. Some peculiarly Portuguese terms that may need
a dictionary:
orientador = thesis advisor
pesquisa = research
agradecer = to thank
marido = husband
espiada = peek
locucão = phrase
atualizar = bring up to date
trabalho = work; but "paper", "study", or "research" in scholar jargon
seringueiro = gatherer of native rubber-tree sap
artesanato = handiwork
ferramenta = tool
aldeia = settlement, village
Beware that the author often lapses into English-induced mistakes or strained phrasing,
like "providenciar" instead of "prover" for "to provide", or "cesta de alumínio"
(lit. "aluminum basket") instead of the more idiomatic "bacia de alumínio" ("aluminum
basinet"). So don't take his Portuguese as a model!
I translate the following so that you won't be led to question your command of Portuguese:
To my wife, Keren - she had to bear a husband who almost never wants to
leave home, who does not talk about anything but linguistics, who insists
on having his meals at the right time so as not to break his work plan,
who goes to bed when the family has been asleep for two hours, because
he was writing - thank you. Thank you also for inumerable contributions
to this thesis.
To my lord Jesus who touched me fourteen years ago when I was hooked
on "LSD", "speed", marijuana, and other "diversions"; who gave to my life
a purpose, a direction... My Lord and brother - thank you.
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 025 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Sat Mar 12 20:58:27 2005
Message-ID: <35518.143.106.23.232.1110671906.squirrel@webmail.ic.unicamp.br>
In-Reply-To: <35418.143.106.23.232.1110661618.squirrel@webmail.ic.unicamp.br>
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:58:26 -0300 (BRT)
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
From: "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: "Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Hi, I have fixed the broken links, and provided English translations of
Everett's Portuguese translations:
> http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/PUB/misc/misc/piraha.txt
> http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/PUB/misc/misc/piraha.dic
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 026 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder:
From jguy@alphalink.com.au Sun Mar 13 01:00:11 2005
Message-Id: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 14:00:00 +1000
To: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
12/03/2005 7:54:29 PM, "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br> wrote:
>I expect that your Portuguese, plus Romance interpolation, will be enough
>for you to read the text.
The only words I would not have understood were "pesquisa"
and "ferrementa". The rest I knew, or could guess from French,
Spanish or Italian. I even knew "seringueiro" from way, way
back when I was a teenager in France and there was an almost
daily radio broadcast about Brazil. I remember it always
started with a song, "Meu Brazil brazileiro" (it think it
was).
>Beware that the author often lapses into English-induced
>mistakes or strained phrasing, >like "providenciar" instead
>of "prover" for "to provide", or "cesta de alumínio"
>(lit. "aluminum basket") instead of the more idiomatic
>"bacia de alumínio" ("aluminum basinet"). So don't take
>his Portuguese as a model!
So after 25 years in Brazil, he still can't write proper
Portuguese? Eh bien, bravo le bonhomme!
And then, você escrivou (just showing off what's
left after 45 years of disuse, don't pay attention):
>I can't swear for the honesty of all involved, but
>the probablility that Brazilian indians --- who are
>at the very bottom of our social scale, below migrant
>cane cutters, slum dwellers and homeless juvenile
>delinquents --- could invent such an elaborate linguistic
>hoax is rather small. If there is a hoax, they may be
>the actors, but the director must be someone more
>sophisticated -- a la Tasaday.
I had a closer look at "Killing the Panther", this
time ignoring the Piraha and the interlinear translations,
only paying attention to the English. Look at what it
becomes:
Here the jaguar pounced upon my dog. There the jaguar
pounced on my dog and the dog died, it happened
with respect to me. There the jaguar killed the dog
by pouncing on it. With respect to it, the jaguar
pounced on the dog, I thought I saw it. Then I
recognized that the panther pounced on my dog.
Then the panther pounced on my dog. Then I said
that this (is the work of) a panther. Then I said
with respect to the panter, "Here is where it went.
I think I see (where it went)".
I shall spare you the rest.
It is entitled "Killing the Panther,
Author ?AHÓÁPATI (Brazilian name is Simão)
July 28, 1980 Maici River
Posto Novo
Collected, translated, analyzed, and transcribed by
Daniel L. Everett"
No, that is not a story. It is the same sentence
repeated over and over again with minor changes.
I guess that this is what happened:
Simão (in Piraha): "Here the jaguar pounced on
my dog."
Everett (in Portuguese): "How would you say then:
the jaguar pounced on my dog and the dog died?"
S.: ti kagáíhiaí kagi abáipí koái ?aí ti aiá ?aiá
E.: Now, how would say....
And that is how NOT to do fieldwork.
>But the simplest way is indeed to send you the book,
>air mail. The publisher is the University's own
>("Editora Unicamp") and they may still have a few
>left, so I may not even have to part with my copy.
I can send it back once I have scanned it.
>Rotokas would be fine as payment, but I am more
>curious about the Easter Island script.
>Have you posted anything that I should look up?
There is a long article of mine due to appear
in the next issue of the Rapa Nui Journal (I am
not sure what "next" is, the spring issue, or
the autumn issue). It is about the properties
of the script and, for once, I stick my neck out
and I suggest two or three phonetic values.
I have also received an e-mail from a couple in
North Carolina saying: here is a photo of a tablet
we bought 20 years ago in Easter Island, is it
worth anything? Ha, ha, another pitiful fake, I
thought to myself. But when I looked at it...
the writing had all the properties which I had
spent months explaining in my article. Nothing
like the fakes floating about. It cannot be
a genuine tablet. It would have rotted away long,
long ago. But it could just be a copy of a copy
of ... a copy of a genuine tablet, now lost.
I will write an article about it. Georgia Lee,
the editor of the Rapa Nui Journal, is interested
enough to publish it. I am also working on
"Frogguy for Rongorongo". And then, I'll have to
transcribe the rongorongo corpus into... shall
we call it "Frorongoronguy"?
I'll burn my Rapanui Journal article onto a CD, with
the photos of that tablet, and a few more things.
Just remind me of your snail-mail address.
Don't worry about the Piraha book. Plenty of
time. I have to go to France next month for
my brother-in-law's 90th birthday. Big do,
90 guests in a hotel in Tours booked for the
purpose for two full days.
I am not invited, I am _ordered_ to turn up.
So I won't be able to pay attention to Piraha
until I am back, mid-June.
The poor fellow is in a bad way. If I don't go
I may never see him alive again. Diabetis,
half-blind, had a pace-maker put in, can no longer
tell when a wine is corked--and he used to be so
keen on his wine collection. So that is why I just
have to go, even though I really don't want to go:
it's too sad.
So, remind me of your snail-mail address.
Mine is: PO Box 5088, Pinewood 3149 Australia.
The Australian Post Office is pretty sharp,
BTW, would you believe that I received a
parcel of documents addressed to me PO Box
5088, Pinelawn??? Yes, Pinelawn!
~~~ 027 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Sun Mar 13 16:08:15 2005
Message-ID: <36200.143.106.23.232.1110740894.squirrel@webmail.ic.unicamp.br>
In-Reply-To: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
References: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 16:08:14 -0300 (BRT)
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
From: "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Hi Jacques, you write:
> I had a closer look at "Killing the Panther", this
> time ignoring the Piraha and the interlinear translations,
> only paying attention to the English. ...
Yes, the book was quite disappointing in that respect: the longest sample
is just a couple of short sentences, and most of them read like phrases
from a language textbook. I just had a look at the "corpus" now available
over the internet, and it is not much better.
One would expect much better material from someone who had "almost 7 years"
of contact with the pirahã.
Frankly what disturbs me is that Everett seems to have remarkably little
empathy or intimacy with his informers. I may have told you that I have
recently corresponded with John Koontz about an Omaha-Ponca corpus that he has been
editing. The corpus was collected by two Americans in the late 19th century.
One of them was half-indian, but the other was a missionary turned Indian Bureau officer,
yet both were clearly working on a different level. That corpus has dozens of full-length
tales of mythology, tribal history, familiar events, etc.; the informers were
clearly communicating with the linguists as people talking to their equals, or almost.
Granted that the culture of the pirahã is much different, but I cannot believe
that such a talkative people (as they are described) would have so little to say.
I would rather believe that Everett was a bit short of a Margaret Mead or Levy-Strauss,
and could only communicate with them on a "stupid native to American tourist" sort of way...
By the way, I have typed in another couple of pages from the book, about the
pirahã phonetic system.
http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/PUB/misc/misc/piraha-tones.txt
Typing that text was a good exercise (I had only skimmed through that part before).
Curiously the book says that pirahã was thought to have three tones, and Everett
proposed four; but the modern sites say "two contrastive tones". (Indeed the book
gives no tone-contrasting pairs.)
Either way, do you count tones when counting phonemes, for Guinness-book purposes?
> I have also received an e-mail from a couple in
> North Carolina saying: here is a photo of a tablet
> we bought 20 years ago in Easter Island, is it
> worth anything? Ha, ha, another pitiful fake, I
> thought to myself. But when I looked at it...
> the writing had all the properties which I had
> spent months explaining in my article. Nothing
> like the fakes floating about.
Wow!
I presume that you are referring to your yet-unpublished article.
Is there a chance that a con artist would have seen your writings,
and used that info to make a "state-of-the-art" fake?
(Hmm... would that sort of thing count as a citation for academic
evaluation purposes? 8-)
> It would have rotted away long, long ago.
Why do you think so? It all depends on climate, I guess.
Here in Brazil even bone disappears after a couple of centuries, but
if the tablet was taken to a dry climate (such as much of California)
and just kept away from the rain, it could easily last centuries.
> Just remind me of your snail-mail address.
Jorge Stolfi
Instituto de Computacão
Caixa Postal 6176
13084-971 Campinas, SP - BRASIL
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 028 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Sun Mar 13 16:20:19 2005
Message-ID: <36214.143.106.23.232.1110741618.squirrel@webmail.ic.unicamp.br>
In-Reply-To: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
References: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 16:20:18 -0300 (BRT)
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
From: "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
FROM http://www.pitt.edu/utimes/issues/27/101394/16.html
[...]
Everett also is writing a paper describing a heretofore undocumented
grammatical sound that he heard in Brazil while working on his Wari
grammar.
In English, the sound is rendered as "tp~" and pronounced as the "t"
consonant sound followed immediately by what linguists call a
"bilabial trill," which sounds like a person releasing air between
vibrating lips in imitation of a snorting horse -- or flatulence.
"Phonetically, there are two sounds there but they are treated in
the language as a single sound. That combination has never been
treated as a single sound in any other documented language," Everett
said.
After hearing the sound for the first time from Wari speakers,
Everett was stunned to hear it again weeks later from the Piraha
tribesman who had been his main teacher of that language. "I have a
videotape of this scene, and you can see the shock on my face when I
heard it," Everett said, with a laugh. "I had never before heard
this sound from the Piraha in the 17 years I had been working with
them." Stranger still, Piraha and Wari are not related
linguistically. Everett theorizes that the two languages share the
"tp~" sound because, according to the Piraha, some Indians who spoke
the now-extinct Tora language -- which is related to Wari --
intermarried with the Piraha.
Why, then, didn't the Piraha pronounce the "tp~" sound in Everett's
presence until recently? Probably because it sounds funny to
Westerners, Everett said.
"These Indians tend to get made fun of when they use certain sounds
that are funny-sounding to us, so they substitute other sounds in
their place when they're talking to Westerners. This is a
socio-linguistically interesting phenomenon in itself," he said.
[...]
Tp~!! As the Italians say, "se non è vero è bene trovato"... 8-)
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 029 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Sun Mar 13 17:46:20 2005
Message-ID: <36255.143.106.23.232.1110746779.squirrel@webmail.ic.unicamp.br>
In-Reply-To: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
References: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 17:46:19 -0300 (BRT)
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
From: "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
FROM: http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/book/2-07-The_Marvellous_Case_of_the_Piraha.html
[...]
They cannot even draw straight lines; as Everett continues from above,
"In literacy classes, however, we were never able to train a Piraha to
even draw a straight line without serious 'coaching' and they are
never able to repeat the feat in subsequent trials without more
coaching." This is highly significant, given that the straight line is
itself an abstraction, being absent from nature, an abstraction,
moreover, fraught with powerful cultural and psychological
implications. At the most literal level, the Piraha do not engage in
linear thinking.
[...]
Omigosh! The poor wretches! I am writing right away to President Lula,
urging him to send those starving souls some emergency rations! Or at
least a supply of *stringed* bows and *straight* arrows, so that they
can catch their game without having to hand-throw theirarrows along
some fractal-like cuspidal umbilic curve.
Although, since their language lacks tense anyway, they probably cannot
tell the difference between "before eating" and "after eating". Maybe
that is why they have survived 200 years in contact with Brazilians and Tupi
without ever learning the use of food or ruled spreadsheets.
Thus I fully subscribe to the alert I just read in some linguistics chat site:
we simply *cannot* allow the pirahã to learn about numbers, colors, or Portuguese!
That could be as disastrous to their culture as, say, learning some French would be
to the American one.
All the best,
--stolfi 8-)
~~~ 030 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder:
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Sun Mar 13 17:46:20 2005
Message-ID: <36255.143.106.23.232.1110746779.squirrel@webmail.ic.unicamp.br>
In-Reply-To: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
References: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 17:46:19 -0300 (BRT)
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
From: "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
FROM: http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/book/2-07-The_Marvellous_Case_of_the_Piraha.html
[...]
They cannot even draw straight lines; as Everett continues from above,
"In literacy classes, however, we were never able to train a Piraha to
even draw a straight line without serious 'coaching' and they are
never able to repeat the feat in subsequent trials without more
coaching." This is highly significant, given that the straight line is
itself an abstraction, being absent from nature, an abstraction,
moreover, fraught with powerful cultural and psychological
implications. At the most literal level, the Piraha do not engage in
linear thinking.
[...]
Omigosh! The poor wretches! I am writing right away to President Lula,
urging him to send those starving souls some emergency rations! Or at
least a supply of *stringed* bows and *straight* arrows, so that they
can catch their game without having to hand-throw theirarrows along
some fractal-like cuspidal umbilic curve.
Although, since their language lacks tense anyway, they probably cannot
tell the difference between "before eating" and "after eating". Maybe
that is why they have survived 200 years in contact with Brazilians and Tupi
without ever learning the use of food or ruled spreadsheets.
Thus I fully subscribe to the alert I just read in some linguistics chat site:
we simply *cannot* allow the pirahã to learn about numbers, colors, or Portuguese!
That could be as disastrous to their culture as, say, learning some French would be
to the American one.
All the best,
--stolfi 8-)
~~~ 031 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Sun Mar 13 20:53:59 2005
Message-ID: <36341.143.106.23.232.1110758039.squirrel@webmail.ic.unicamp.br>
In-Reply-To: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
References: <200503130400.j2D3xx7Y018654@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 20:53:59 -0300 (BRT)
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
From: "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said...
FROM: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/press/newsarchive/title,3978,en.htm
Tribe and tested theory (13 Oct, 2004)
[...] Professor Everett and his wife have lived with the Piraha for up to
six years at a time, and are the only two people in the
world who speak their language. [...]
This is an article written by a "science journalist", so naturally it has about one
mistake per line. (They lived among the pirahã for a *total* of six
years, in periods of a few months or so. We can only guess how much of that time
was spent in some nearby brazilian town. It may be wrong about the "only two people
in the world" bit, too. But if that is indeed the case, then... hmm...
FROM: http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001506.php
Americans in their opinion are identified partially by
their ability to speak other languages (since the only Americans
they know are the only people they know that speak more than one
language). Even so, it is difficult for them to grasp the fact that
I can speak their language. They will often have conversations about
me in front of me and then look astounded when I enter into the
conversation --- even after all the years that I have worked
there. When we go to villages that we haven't worked in much
(i.e. other Piraha villages), they literally look at us with their
mouths open in disbelief when we address them in Piraha. They
eventually answer us, but the experience is clearly unsettling for
them. (Everett, personal communication)
You are right, this is looking disturbingly like another amazing hoax.
It seems that the whole bibliography on the pirahã is limited to a
couple dozen works by Everett, and a few more that take their data from
him. His other great discovery, the Oro Win language, is spoken by only
40-50 members of the Wari tribe, and they all speak Wari also.
Coincidentally both languages are VOS, even though they are unrelated.
Now I do not know what to think of it. It seems unlikely that pirahã
is a complete fabrication. If I had to pass judgement at this point,
I would guess that Everett has only a very, very poor understanding of
Pirahã, just enough for simple sentences; a very limited vocabulary,
and very poor pronunciation. His grammar is probably good enough
to pass simple tests by casual visitors, but parts of it may be faked
or incorrect, and many "features" of pirahã may be in fact attempts by
Everett to hide the gaping holes.
Thus pirahã may have embedding, but Everett never mastered it. Or the
indians learned that, when speaking to that dumb gringo, they had better
use only the simplest phrases, like speaking to a toddler. The disbelief
of his pirahã friends about his command of their language thus may have
a very simple explanation. So does the confusion of the pirahã when
asked (by the Everetts, presumably) to do Gordon's counting exercises,
and their failure to learn counting in spite of intensive efforts by the
Everetts. And so on...
Presumably he felt pretty safe in 1983, when he cheated his way through the
doctorate, as he expected the language to disappear in a few years.
But not only it survived, its features attracted much unwanted
attention; so he had to pile up lies and more lies to cover up his fraud.
He may have bribed a few indians and locals, too. (After all, by the Whorfian
theory, "a few" dollars would buy "a lot" of cooperation from the pirahã, right?)
Everett's speech on lying, and his latest phonetic discovery, may be prankish
clues that he is throwing us: "I see that the cat will be out of the bag at
any moment, so I had better have fun with it while I can".
At first I found it hard to believe that someone could progress through an
university career while standing on such a fraud. But then I recalled
Eric Thompson, the greatest authority on Maya script, who did not know the
Maya language...
I am looking up to the upcoming paper "Belated marking of untruthful statements by
the tp~ phoneme in the Pirahã-OroWin-Basque family" by D. E. Evrett, K. Everett,
and J. Krippendorf...
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 032 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From jguy@alphalink.com.au Mon Mar 14 00:39:35 2005
Return-Path: <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Message-Id: <200503140339.j2E3dNa0008865@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 13:39:28 +1000
To: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
13/03/2005 8:53:59 PM, "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br> wrote:
>Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said
....
> Americans in their opinion are identified partially by
> their ability to speak other languages (since the only Americans
> they know are the only people they know that speak more than one
> language). Even so, it is difficult for them to grasp the fact that
> I can speak their language.
I was told the same story about the Japanese 40 years ago!
It is true that, in those days, Japanese people did not
expect you to speak Japanese at all. But the Japanese
businessmen and engineers I met in Paris then (and who could
speak no French and very minimal English, if any) were
absolutely delighted to have a local who could speak Japanese.
> They will often have conversations about
> me in front of me and then look astounded when I enter into the
> conversation
*snicker* more probably, they are astounded at how godawful the
speech of the gringo is
> They
> eventually answer us
after they have painfully pieced together what the Professor's
gibberish might perhaps, just perhaps, mean.
> but the experience is clearly unsettling for
> them.
Eu você muy bem falar-com-lhe-ei, asím?
(Yes, I _know_ that it is not muy, but muito, I did it
on purpose!)
I imagine that that is how Everett's Piraha sounds to
the Piraha speakers. You likee brazileiro belong me?
Wouldn't the experience be unsettling to you if I were
a "linguist" from a vastly more technologically advanced
civilization (and unbelievably richer)?
>Now I do not know what to think of it. It seems unlikely that pirahã
>is a complete fabrication.
I don't think it is either. If Everett had fabricated it, I would
expect him to have made it more consistent. As it stands his
Piraha shouts at you, with lights flashing: BULLSHIT BULLSHIT
BULLSHIT
>If I had to pass judgement at this point,
>I would guess that Everett has only a very, very poor understanding of
>Pirahã, just enough for simple sentences; a very limited vocabulary,
>and very poor pronunciation. His grammar is probably good enough
>to pass simple tests by casual visitors, but parts of it may be faked
>or incorrect, and many "features" of pirahã may be in fact attempts by
>Everett to hide the gaping holes.
Yes.
>Thus pirahã may have embedding, but Everett never mastered it. Or the
>indians learned that, when speaking to that dumb gringo, they had better
>use only the simplest phrases, like speaking to a toddler.
True. Very common. It took the Sakao people a while to realize that
I wanted them to talk to me in proper Sakao, not in the ridiculous
baby talk used by the Presbyterian missionaries 50 years before.
> So does the confusion of the pirahã when
>asked (by the Everetts, presumably) to do Gordon's counting exercises,
>and their failure to learn counting in spite of intensive efforts by the
>Everetts.
If they had had Madame Pennec, my teacher when I entered primary school
(I never went to kindergarten), they would count to twenty within a
fortnight. I could not count when I went to primary school. Not even
to two! I might have been able to distinguish between one and several
but beyond that, nothing.
>At first I found it hard to believe that someone could progress through an
>university career while standing on such a fraud. But then I recalled
>Eric Thompson, the greatest authority on Maya script, who did not know the
>Maya language...
Well, take Thomas Barthel. The useful work, the tracings of the rongorongo
corpus, was done by research assistants. The rest is complete garbage,
from the inept transcription system to the bogus decipherments. And, in
his later years, he insisted on being called "Sir Thomas Barthel". "Sir"
mon cul.
~~~ 033 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From jguy@alphalink.com.au Thu Mar 17 09:18:00 2005
Return-Path: <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Message-Id: <200503171217.j2HCHhkx029483@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 22:17:51 +1000
To: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Piraha: it has to be a gigantic hoax
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Look at what Everett write in his article
"Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition
in Pirahã"
Note 24 p.65: "Martius's error is not as difficult to understand
as it might first appear, i.e. that anyone could think that Pirahã
vocabulary is/was Tupian. In my first visit to the Pirahã, they
tended to give Tupian (Nheengatu) words as answers to my attempts
to elicit vocabulary in their language. I might not have spotted this
for a while, since this was my first field experience except that
my wife, Keren Everett, speaks a Tupi language, Sateré, and told
me that those words could not be Pirahã unless Pirahã was Tupian.
However, right at the beginning, in the abstract:
"the fact that the Pirahã are monolingual after more than 200 years
of regular contact with Brazilians and the Tupi-Guarani-speaking
Kawahiv..."
So at first they spoke Tupian to Everett, and at the
same time they are monolingual! Well, those two pieces
of information being 64 pages apart, I wonder who else
will notice.
p.38 he quotes himself like this:
"Consider the following example of what Everett (1985) calls the
'sloppy phoneme effect' :
(6) tí píai ~ kí píai ~ kí kíai ~ pí píai ~ 'í píai ~ 'í 'íai ~
tí píai, etc. (*tí tíai, * gí gíai, *bí bíai) 'me too'
(7) 'apapaí ~kapapaí ~papapaí ~'a'a'aí ~kakakaí ~(*tapapaí, *tatataí,
*bababaí, *gagagaí) 'head'
(8) 'ísiihoái ~kísiihoái ~písiihoái ~píhiihoái ~kíhiihoái ~
(alternations with /t/s or involving different values for [continuant]
or [voicing] are unattested) 'liquid fuel'"
So "head" is indifferently xapapai, kapapai, papapai,
xaxaxai, or kakakai? No language can work like that and
remain functional.
He give the secret away p.62: "The absence of formal
fiction, myths, etc. does not mean that they do not
or cannot joke or lie, both of which they particularly
enjoy doing at my expense, always good-naturedly."
Those Pirahã probably speak some Tupi dialect when
Everett is out of earshot
~~~ 034 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Thu Mar 17 11:27:15 2005
Message-ID: <39275.143.106.23.232.1111069634.squirrel@webmail.ic.unicamp.br>
In-Reply-To: <200503171217.j2HCHhkx029483@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
References: <200503171217.j2HCHhkx029483@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 11:27:14 -0300 (BRT)
Subject: Re: Piraha: it has to be a gigantic hoax
From: "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
> So at first they spoke Tupian to Everett, and at the
> same time they are monolingual! Well, those two pieces
> of information being 64 pages apart, I wonder who else
> will notice.
Yep...
> "Consider the following example of what Everett (1985) calls the
> 'sloppy phoneme effect' :
> (6) tí píai ~ kí píai ~ kí kíai ~ pí píai ~ 'í píai ~ 'í 'íai ~
> tí píai, etc. (*tí tíai, * gí gíai, *bí bíai) 'me too'
> (7) 'apapaí ~kapapaí ~papapaí ~'a'a'aí ~kakakaí ~(*tapapaí, *tatataí,
> *bababaí, *gagagaí) 'head'
> (8) 'ísiihoái ~kísiihoái ~písiihoái ~píhiihoái ~kíhiihoái ~
> (alternations with /t/s or involving different values for [continuant]
> or [voicing] are unattested) 'liquid fuel'"
> So "head" is indifferently xapapai, kapapai, papapai,
> xaxaxai, or kakakai? No language can work like that and
> remain functional.
There is a section about that phonetic variation in the book. I try to
scan or type it.
It occurred me that perhaps the Pirahã language is used only for
whistling/crying. I vaguely remember reading that African tam-tam code
is a very degenerate form of the local speech, where nouns are
replaced by long paraphrases to compensate the fact that phonemes are
reduced to a few drum notes.
But a hoax or fraud still seems far more likely...
Meanwhile, I paid a visit to the Unicamp Press. The book is indeed sold out;
that copy I bought for $2 was their clearance sale. But that applies to
the room where they keep books for over-the-counter sales. In the adjoining room,
where they keep books for internet sales, they still had several copies,
priced $12 each. Since I was a Unicamp professor, they gave me a 50% discount.
I suppose that in the logic system of the Pirahã that may actually make sense.
Anyway, I have your copy, and I will be mailing it out today, at the
dept's expense. (I am presently sorting through last year's accounting
spreadsheets, and I have just spotted $100 for repairs to the
expresso-making machine. The *regular* coffee bill should be around
$2400, not including the biscuits and other amenities...)
> He give the secret away p.62: "The absence of formal
> fiction, myths, etc. does not mean that they do not
> or cannot joke or lie, both of which they particularly
> enjoy doing at my expense, always good-naturedly."
>
> Those Pirahã probably speak some Tupi dialect when
> Everett is out of earshot
Perhaps... Still, I find it hard to believe that they could mount such
an elaborate joke on their own. At the very least, Everett must have been
very, very willing to be deceived...
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 035 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From jguy@alphalink.com.au Mon Apr 4 03:10:13 2005
Return-Path: <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 17:09:59 +1000
To: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Message-Id: <20050404060957.9FCAC2FEFC@pop1.alphalink.com.au>
12/03/2005 6:06:58 PM, "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br> wrote:
(Yes you did, don't you remember?)
>Rotokas would be fine as payment, but I am more curious about the Easter
>Island script.
So this morning I burnt a CD with the whole of the
www.rongorongo.org web site, and a long article that
is due in the next issue of the Rapa Nui Journal,
then I looked for your snail-mail address in my Inbox
folder... nothing.
Admittedly, I have spring-cleaned my mailbox recently
and perhaps I was guilty of too much enthusiasm.
So, to what snail-mail address should I send this
CD?
Frogguy, aka Jacques Guy
~~~ 036 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Mon Apr 4 08:37:46 2005
Message-ID: <47840.143.106.7.33.1112614612.squirrel@webmail.ic.unicamp.br>
In-Reply-To: <20050404060957.9FCAC2FEFC@pop1.alphalink.com.au>
References: <20050404060957.9FCAC2FEFC@pop1.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 08:36:52 -0300 (BRT)
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Re: I'll swap you...
From: "Jorge Stolfi" <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br>
To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
> So this morning I burnt a CD with the whole of the
> www.rongorongo.org web site, and a long article that
> is due in the next issue of the Rapa Nui Journal,
> then I looked for your snail-mail address in my Inbox
> folder... nothing.
Jorge Stolfi
Instituto de Computacão, UNICAMP
Caixa Postal 6176
13084-971 Campinas, SP - Brazil
(there should be a cedilla in Computacão, but my browser
gives me "ć" whenever I try to type it...)
For my part, I mailed you the book last thursday, finally.
(Did you know that "tomorrow" in Portuguese means "within a week or two"?)
It was sent by air mail, so hopefully you will get it before june...
By one of those curious coincidences, last tuesday I attended
my first University Council meeting, and sitting two places away
was Dr. Charlotte Galves, director of Unicamp's Language Studies Institute
(= Dept of Linguistics and Literature). The name sounded familiar;
later I checked and, indeed, she was Daniel Everett's thesis advisor!
Since her turf is portuguese linguistics, presumably all she
knows about the pirahã and their language is what Daniel
wrote in his thesis. Nevertheless tomorrow I will have another
Council meeting, and perhaps I will have a chance to inquire about
any follow-up studies or whatever.
I don't know whether I will be bold enough to ask her opinion
about Daniel's latest discovery in Wari-Pirahã phonetics...
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 037 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From jguy@alphalink.com.au Thu Apr 7 07:38:16 2005
Return-Path: <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 21:38:07 +1000
To: stolfi@ic.unicamp.br
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Talked to Charlotte...
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Message-Id: <20050407103804.99A792FF06@pop1.alphalink.com.au>
6/04/2005 9:59:12 AM, Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br> wrote:
>Yesterday, between two meetings, I managed to ask Charlotte about Pirahã.
>As expected, she said that her advising was chiefly confined to the
>second part of the thesis, where Pirahã is used as an example to
>discuss some Chomskian theory or whatever.
As I expected, too.
>As for the first half, the
>Pirahã grammar proper, she apparently trusted Daniel, without
>checking.
*smirk*
>
>She does not know of any independent studies, but directed me
>to another IEL professor --- Filomena Sandalo, <sandalo@iel.unicamp.br>
>--- who did her master's thesis under (or in collaboration with) Daniel.
>I checked her official publications list
> http://buscatextual.cnpq.br/buscatextual/visualizacv.jsp?id=K4787734H5
Yes, I went there.
>and found only one item about Pirahã:
>
> SANDALO, F. Glides e Nasalização em Pirahã, Capanahua e Sateré.
> In: II Congresso Nacional de Fonética e Fonologia, 1986, Brasília, 1986.
> Palavras-chave: nasalização; fonologia gerativa padrão.
You know, this reminds me of this extraordinary Italian dialect,
which we once discussed on the VMs group, what was it ... Faetar!
>From a short wordlist I got from the woman studying it, Faetar
had retained the [nt] ending of the 3rd person plural. They were
many more fascinating things. And... what? her MA thesis was about
gemination! There were a hundred more interesting things to write
about. Gemination... merde... who cares when [sh] and [w] seemed
to occur in free variation. And many more such very weird phenomena.
Which made me think that Faetar was a half-artificial language,
elaborated so as not to be understood by outsiders.
>Her later works are about Portuguese and some languages of the Chaco region
>(hundeds of km west of the Pirahã region). Her turf seems
>to be phonetics rather than grammar.
>
>Dr. Charlotte is such a nice and respectable lady, I just could not
>dare ask her opinion on trilled bilabial africate plosives (or whatever)...
Bilabial trills.
Tell her that they are very common in Malakula (aka Mallicolo in French)
an island of the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), and that you find it
very interesting that they should occur in an Amazonian language :-)
~~~ 038 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From jguy@alphalink.com.au Thu Apr 7 07:48:46 2005
Return-Path: <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 21:48:41 +1000
To: stolfi@ic.unicamp.br
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Piraha] Talked to Charlotte...
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Message-Id: <20050407104837.25F022FEEB@pop1.alphalink.com.au>
I forgot to tell you...
I mailed you the CD this morning, with the article
about the properties of the rongorongo script.
And, for a fistful of megabytes more, I added
www.rongorongo.org
If you haven't received it by April 13th, complain!
(On April 14th I will be in Bahrein, on my way
to Paris).
~~~ 039 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From stolfi@ic.unicamp.br Sun Oct 2 02:43:23 2005
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 02:43:26 -0300
Message-Id: <200510020543.j925hQxr014234@belem.ic.unicamp.br>
From: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@dcc.unicamp.br>
To: "Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: [Voynich] Hello there, and VMS meeting
Hi Jacques,
I am writing to (1) tell you that I am still alive, (2) make sure
you are too, (3) make a proposal you can refuse.
As per (2), I just saw the news of the bombings in Bali, and learned
that there were Australian tourists among the casualties. I don't know
whether you would be counted as Aussie or French, so I am writing just
in case. Please reply...
As per (1), I am still too busy with admnistrative work to even read
the VMS list. My mail robot has been filing everything in a folder;
that's 98 MB since nov/2004. Gulp. I just checked the folder's last
message; it is by GC, and it implies that the VMS hasn been cracked
yet. Good to know.
Whhich brings me to (3). Last week's university council meeting lasted
10h 30m, not counting the 1h lunch served on the premises. That was
only 30m short of its own historical record. (And yet it was an `easy'
meeting , without a single item in the agenda that was really polemical.)
Anyway, while trying hard to stay awake at that meeting, it occurred
to me that a VMS workshop at Unicamp may not be such an
improbable project fter all.
Indeed, over the past few months I have glimpsed much bigger piles of
public money being wasted on much sillier projects; but all those
incidents were quietly smothered under a few sheets of paper with
stamps and signatures. Thanks of course to rule #1 of academic ethics
--- "thou shalt not point out thy colleagues' blunders, lest they
point out thine."
So the problem is not money, but marketing. Indeed, I think that a VMS
workshop could stand a good chance of being approved by funding
agencies, if we can dress up the proposal in a fashion that they like.
And Unicamp is always warmly disposed towards anything that would put
its name on the news.
We may have to put some extra honey on the cake, though. The best
thing would be if most of the people coming to the workshop could give
other "serious" lectures at Unicamp (and/or at other universities in
the State), before or after the workshop, as a "byproduct". Say, you
could give a lecture on rongorongo or polynesian linguistics at our
Linguistics Institute, Gabriel could speak on his medical image work,
Reeds and/or Gillogly could lecture on cryptography. (historical or
current), etc.. I think that several of the major VMS players could be
"milked" that way.
Of course, in your case we would have to finesse the Pirahã controversy
somehow, since Charlotte (who is currently the Linguistics's Institute
dean) would have to be involved. She has been still quite cordial at the
university meetings, and she probably has not been aware of the
Pirahã controversy. Perhaps she doesn't care at all for that old work,
which was quite outside of her field. So there may be no difficulty
there.
In your last message, you seemed interested in coming to Brazil. Well,
here is an half-invitation. What do you think? Should we try to make
it whole?
All the best,
--stolfi
~~~ 040 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: webmail-ic-2008-11-18/Voynich
From jguy@alphalink.com.au Sun Oct 2 05:28:09 2005
Return-Path: <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2005 19:30:23 +1000
To: stolfi@ic.unicamp.br
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Voynich] Hello there, and VMS meeting
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Salut Jorge,
> The best
>thing would be if most of the people coming to the workshop could give
>other "serious" lectures at Unicamp (and/or at other universities in
>the State), before or after the workshop, as a "byproduct". Say, you
>could give a lecture on rongorongo or polynesian linguistics
Rongorongo. I am fairly advanced now. I sent you my paper entitled
"Properties of the Rongonrongo Script", didn't I?
Did I tell you that I was contacted by someone who had bought a
tablet in Easter Island 20 years ago and was asking me what it
was worth? I had a look at the detailed photos I was sent,
fully expecting the usual stuff, fakes for tourists. Surprise...
the signs on it seemed to have the combinationatorial properties
of the genuine tablets, which I had explained in my paper. It cannot
be authentic, of course, but it could be a copy of a copy of a
copy of a genuine tablet, now lost. After, that what most
manuscripts of Antiquity are: copies of copies of ....
Which is leading me into the question of textual criticism
applied to texts in unknown languages.
I could also talk about data mining.
>Of course, in your case we would have to finesse the Pirahã controversy
>somehow
What, Pirahã? No, ichthyology and Amazonian fishes are not within
my competence :-) you see what I mean?
>In your last message, you seemed interested in coming to Brazil.
Oh, it's just someone I met I forgot where who said Brazil might
be a good place to go and retire (as long as you don't settle in
Cidade de Deus I expect).
>Well,
>here is an half-invitation. What do you think? Should we try to make
>it whole?
Oh yes, by all means! Yes!
Ate logo!
~~~ 041 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Sat Dec 18 20:44:26 2004
Message-ID: <50e9368804121814344ffbb8cb@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 17:34:53 -0500
From: Ross Bender <ross.bender@gmail.com>
To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: O.T.: The Indus Script--Write or Wrong? (Science)
In-Reply-To: <200412181913.iBIJCw8J009887@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
References: <200412181913.iBIJCw8J009887@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
FORMER ADJUNCT PROFESSOR AT OHLONE COLLEGE IN FREMONT, CA, PROVES
INDUS SCRIPT IS "GIBBERISH"
Science Magazine this week features three articles about an obscure
comparative cultural historian and hobbyist named Steven Farmer who
claims to have proven, with the aid of a computer, that the mysterious
3rd millennium Indus script is "sheer nonsense. Just a bunch of random
magical symbols, sort of archaic doodles."
The ancient Indus civilization, centered at the cities of Harappa and
Mohenjo Daro in what is now Pakistan boasted thriving cities of
perhaps 50,000 or more and splendid sewer systems.
Oddly enough, American scholars, who dominate the esoteric field of
Indus studies, have found that, while excavations show that the Indus
culture boasted standardized weights, wheeled carts and really
excellent sewer systems, including extensive wells and underground
pipes, it apparently lacked three-dimensional sculpture and other
hallmarks of true civilization such as extensive fortifications,
social stratification and extramarital sex.
With Farmer's stunning discovery that, despite an inventory of over
400 signs, Harappan civilization lacked a true writing system, the
icing has been put on the proverbial cake.
"Yup," said Harold Ramsbottom, instructor in aeronautics at the State
University of New York, Bootle, "that about puts the icing on the
cake. Also, the whole damn population seems to have just up and
disappeared in about 1700 BC. Apparently just got in their spaceships
and went back to Venus."
Popular science publications like Science Magazine have this year
emerged as leading debunkers of linguistic fact and fancy. Earlier
this year it featured an article by Peter Gordon, associate professor
of dry-cleaning at Teacher's College, Columbia, proving definitively
that the Piraha, an obscure Amazonian tribe, have no counting system
and a finite, non-recursive language.
In August, Scientific American caused a stir by featuring the work of
Gordon Rugg, a lecturer in software and Alzheimer's at Keele
University, north of Birmingham and south of Manchester, proving that
the Voynich Manuscript was a hoax.
John Morrison, Professor Emeritus of Pictish Languages and Cultures at
St. Andrews University, Edinburgh, blames the computer.
"These wee bairns get their hands on a computer and go stramashin'
aboot destroyin' years o' linguistic research in the blinkin' o' an
eye. Hae they nae real work tae go tae and too mooch time on their
hands?? Grand airs and patched breeks! Nae d-----d French jam for me,
laddie, I'm off to play the grahnd piahno. Con-fee-toor! Huh! Sticky
rubbish!"
Ross Bender
http://rossbender.org/irkswatch.html
~~~ 042 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Tue Jan 25 08:24:45 2005
Message-Id: <200501251016.j0PAGP3m028313@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 20:16:27 +1000
To: vms-list@voynich.net
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish
25/01/2005 12:54:56 AM, Arqy0plex@aol.com wrote:
> Then you discount any possibility of (any) Voynich symbols being composed
> of more than one letter? According to you, it absolutely must be "one
> symbol equals one letter" ?
That is not the point. The point is this: if you allow some Voynich
letters to represent digraphs and trigraphs then there will be too
few left to be single letters so that the alphabet won't even be
able to account for Rotokas (six consonants, five vowels) or
Piraha (three vowels, seven consonants in the men's speech,
six consonants only in the women's)
Then see what I wrote about <in> and <iin>
> >A weird sort of Welsh too. He gives <q> as the
> >article "y". But he also gives <o> as "o".
> Sometimes "o" really is just an "o"....
And I do believe that <o> is "o" in which case,
if the VMS is Welsh, <q> cannot be "y"
> >The VMS then would have an extraordinarily high
> >proportion of nouns starting with "o"--about 99%
> "o-", used as a prefix, can mean "of, from, with". Not counting words that
> actually begin with "o"..... (and there are many.)
> >Next, "y" never occurs before a word starting with a vowel.
> "Never"? Then some of the glossaries I referenced must be replete with
>
> typos: "ya"; "yach"; "yech"; "yedhow"; "yoch"; "yor".
Yes. They do not exist in Welsh. If they did, that would
be ia, iach, iech, ieddow, ioch, ior. Anyway, those are single
words, like iaith ("language" in Welsh). What the author is
claiming is that <q> = "y" and <o> = "o". If so the language
cannot be Welsh.
> In Welsh (and Cornish) pronunciation (especially at the beginnings of
> words), "m" often mutates into the sound of "b" or "p".
Nasalization and spirantization go the other way around,
e.g. ci "dog" -> vy nghi "my dog" (nasalization)
Or Breton ti "house" -> va zi "my house" (spirantization).
Nasals often become spirants, e.g. Gaelic mad -> mhad (pronounced
vad), Breton ar vor from *ar mor (lit.: the sea)
Those are features common to all modern Celtic languages.
They could be (relatively) recent (i.e. 2000 years old), as I see
no clear evidence of mutations (that's what those changes of the
initial consonants are called) in Pierre-Yves Lambert's "La langue
gauloise".
Even when they certainly existed, mutations were not always noted
in writing (viz. Old Breton texts quoted in Arzel Even's
"Istor ar Yezhoù Keltiek"--History of the Celtic Languages)
~~~ 043 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Tue Jan 25 18:35:26 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:25:05 -0700 (MST)
From: Koontz John E <John.Koontz@Colorado.EDU>
To: Voynich List <vms-list@voynich.net>
Subject: Letters (Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish)
In-Reply-To: <200501251016.j0PAGP3m028313@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501251136410.16376@spot.colorado.edu>
References: <200501251016.j0PAGP3m028313@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Jacques Guy wrote:
> 25/01/2005 12:54:56 AM, Arqy0plex@aol.com wrote:
> > Then you discount any possibility of (any) Voynich symbols being composed
> > of more than one letter? According to you, it absolutely must be "one
> > symbol equals one letter" ?
> That is not the point. The point is this: if you allow some Voynich
> letters to represent digraphs and trigraphs then there will be too few
> left to be single letters so that the alphabet won't even be able to
> account for Rotokas (six consonants, five vowels) or Piraha (three
> vowels, seven consonants in the men's speech, six consonants only in the
> women's).
I suppose both of you, when you say "Voynich letter," mean "EVA letter,"
or something like that? Or perhaps I could put it "Voynich letter" is to
be understood as "Voynich graph represented as one roman character in EVA
transcriptions"? Let's just say graphs - meaning things one tends to
perceive as individual characters given a background in writing with
Roman, Greek, or Cyrillic scripts. A different script background might
modify this inclination.
I really have no problem with "Voynich letter" if we all understand
certainly what it means and what the implications of that meaning are.
At present it strikes me as misleading. At some future point it ought to
mean "a basic transcriptional unit in the writing system used in the
Voynich manuscript." At the moment it means "whatever somebody thinks is
such a unit" and two people might think different things and, potentially,
both be wrong. So I go on here with "graph."
Given the regularity with which both the e (or c) and i graphs occur in
repeated sequences of themselves - homographic sequences? - it seems
highly unlikely that all the individual graphs are actually letters per
se. Probably sequences of graphs are representational units or de facto
letters. The usual EVA transcription tables take this into account for i,
though not e (or c), and I suspect most people ignore this ambivalent
admission of mapping issues most of the time anyway.
Apart from this, given the similarities in the range of curlicues attached
to e-like graphs on the one hand and the range of the same attached to
i-like graphs on the other, it seems similarly likely that many of the
unitary graphs of the VMs are actually multiple letters - letter sequences
- the curlicues or flourishes being separate logical entities attached to
preceding e's or i's in writing to form digraphs, and sometimes trigraphs
or worse when more than one flourish is attached.
I frankly have no idea what the proper decomposition of graphs into
"Voynich letters" is, but a few experiments with various approaches
suggests to me that there is no (worse) shortage of letters if one takes
this approach. Of course, word-lengths, distribitions and frequencies,
and even the association of probable consonant and vowel status with such
graphs as remain individual letters changes noticeably.
The only conclusion I have drawn so far is that we are probably taking the
wrong fork at the very outset if we take the obvious ink-delimited-by-
space approach to identifying a "Voynich letters."
~~~ 044 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Wed Jan 26 08:56:09 2005
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 23:04:59 -1000 (HST)
From: steve ekwall <ekwall2@diac.com>
To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish
In-Reply-To: <200501251016.j0PAGP3m028313@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0501252257540.27839-100000@localhost.localdomain>
Hi all :-)
EACH "character/glyph" CAN be a/is a LETTER (duh!)... however, one
must 'mirror' its DECODING KEY when you encounter the next 'gallows
character'... THAT "next gallows character" is indeed 'pointing' at a
(new/different) letter on a 'SIMPLE KEY TEXT'.
What you SEE is what you get... sorry I don't know the langauge or
maybe I could help more here.
best to you & yours there..
-=se=-
steve (the Time IS Now though :-)) ekwall
~~~ 045 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Thu Jan 27 02:07:43 2005
Message-ID: <41F868EB.3090102@mail.msen.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 23:07:07 -0500
From: Bruce Grant <bgrant@mail.msen.com>
To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish
References: <200501251016.j0PAGP3m028313@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <200501251016.j0PAGP3m028313@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Jacques Guy wrote:
> Piraha (three vowels, seven consonants in the men's speech,
> six consonants only in the women's)
Could you expand on this a little? Do women have a different vocabulary
in Piraha, or do they replace the "men-only" consonant with a different
one? Or do they just have to choose their words carefully? Is it some
kind of a tabu?
Bruce
~~~ 046 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Thu Jan 27 03:01:23 2005
Message-Id: <200501270453.j0R4rkm3022971@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 14:53:48 +1000
To: vms-list@voynich.net
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish
26/01/2005 11:07:07 PM, Bruce Grant <bgrant@mail.msen.com> wrote:
> Could you expand on this a little? Do women have a different vocabulary
> in Piraha, or do they replace the "men-only" consonant with a different
> one?
No. I read that recently. What happens is that two consonants
of the men's speech are undifferentiated in the women's speech.
I just did a Google search and found far too many hits (Piraha,
from unknown just a few months ago, is now quite popular,
isn't it?)
But I also found this:
lings.ln.man.ac.uk/Info/staff/DE/pronborr.pdf
which says:
"Piraha has just eight consonants in the segmental inventory of
men's speech, and seven in women's speech"
Eight and seven, not seven and six. Oh well...
I could not find which two consonants of men's speech had
merged into one in the women's.
I must say that I am starting to be a bit skeptical.
For instance, Piraha has only two numbers: "one" and
"more than one". The word for "one" also means "small"
and the word for "two" also means "big". Further,
they are both "hoi" differring only by the tone
(Piraha has two tones). If I remember correctly,
"one, small" is "hoi" in the low tone, "two or more,
or big" is "hoi" in the high tone.
Oh, granted, "nui" in the language of Easter Island
means both "big" and "many", but I am starting to smell
a hoax of Tasaday size (see:
"http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/webcourse/lost/Tasaday/Tasaday.htm")
"One" and "many", "small" and "big" differing only by
the tone? Possible, of course, but on top of the rest...
When I did my PhD I was tempted to make up the language
which was the subject of my thesis. Since no-one but the
natives spoke it, it would have taken years for my
fraud to be discovered. But I thought that it was too
much effort. There are documented cases when
the natives pulled the leg of the linguists, and
anthropologists, on a grand scale. The best known
is Margaret Mead's "Coming of Age in Samoa," unmasked
by Derek Freeman 20 years ago. The natives had been
taking the mickey out of poor Margaret. In fact,
Polynesians are adept at taking the mickey out of
outsiders.
I have also first-hand experience of a native trying to
take the mickey out of me in the Solomon Islands, and
second-hand evidence of the natives taking the mickey
out of William Thomson and, 30 years later, out of
Katherine Routledge, on Easter Island.
~~~ 047 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Thu Jan 27 04:46:30 2005
Message-ID: <41F88CA7.6010504@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 00:39:35 -0600
From: Knox Mix <knoxmix@earthlink.net>
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206)
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: VMs: Welsh/Cornish
References: <200501270453.j0R4rkm3022971@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <200501270453.j0R4rkm3022971@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
I read recently, and made a note:
Pirahã uses evidentiality to connote the speaker's assessment of the
evidence for a statement.
If I remember correctly (20 percent confidence) there are a few other
languages that do the same. I could use that.
Regards,
Knox
~~~ 048 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Thu Jan 27 07:48:01 2005
Message-Id: <200501270940.j0R9e5s0021930@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:40:08 +1000
To: vms-list@voynich.net
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Piraha (Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish)
27/01/2005 12:39:35 AM, Knox Mix <knoxmix@earthlink.net> wrote:
> I read recently, and made a note:
>
> Pirahã uses evidentiality to connote the speaker's assessment of the
> evidence for a statement.
I suppose that that means, in plain English: when you say something
you must necessarily express whether you know it by having seen
it yourself, or from having been told someone else (there may be
some more such "degrees of evidence", but I do not remember exactly).
> If I remember correctly (20 percent confidence) there are a few other
> languages that do the same.
Quechua does it. And Aymara. Natural: they are related. I don't
know if Guarani does it too. I would not be surprised if it
did.
The way in which they do it is similar to the way in which,
in English and in all European languages I can think of,
the grammar forces you to distinguish between singular and
plural, like it or not. Likewise, there is no way in which
you can say in Quechua "Pedro came back today" without making
it clear whether you saw him yourself or you heard the news from
someone. On the other hand, nothing forces you to distinguish
between singular and plural.
~~~ 049 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Fri Jan 28 01:19:16 2005
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 20:12:36 -0700 (MST)
From: Koontz John E <John.Koontz@Colorado.EDU>
To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish
In-Reply-To: <200501270453.j0R4rkm3022971@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501271943070.17024@spot.colorado.edu>
References: <200501270453.j0R4rkm3022971@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Jacques Guy wrote:
> I just did a Google search and found far too many hits (Piraha, from
> unknown just a few months ago, is now quite popular, isn't it?) ...
>
> I must say that I am starting to be a bit skeptical. ...
>
> Oh, granted, "nui" in the language of Easter Island means both "big" and
> "many", but I am starting to smell a hoax of Tasaday size ...
I can't attest to Piraha personally, but Daniel Everett has certainly been
been getting away with it since 1979.
His original U of Pittsburgh web site:
http://web.archive.org/web/20001206044500/amazonling.linguist.pitt.edu/
His current academic site:
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/DE/DEHome.html
The region in which Piraha is found is famous for languages that seem to
exist to prove that some supposed linguistic universal or another is at
best a statistical tendency. Another example is Hixkaryana, a Carib
language which (debatably) has OVS (object verb subject) word order.
Whether or not OVS per se it is definitely a bit unusual. There are
several other similar (OVS) languages in the area as well as languages
with other rare word orders.
~~~ 050 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Fri Jan 28 01:41:43 2005
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 20:35:58 -0700 (MST)
From: Koontz John E <John.Koontz@Colorado.EDU>
To: Voynich List <vms-list@voynich.net>
Subject: Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish
In-Reply-To: <41F88CA7.6010504@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0501272013330.17024@spot.colorado.edu>
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Knox Mix wrote:
> Pirahã uses evidentiality to connote the speaker's assessment of the
> evidence for a statement.
>
> If I remember correctly (20 percent confidence) there are a few other
> languages that do the same. I could use that.
Whorf's discussions of Hopi might be among the earliest quasi-popular
discussions of such things, but, of course, linguists have been bumping
into them for much longer. They're a feature of the Siouan languages
where they take the form of a particle at the end of the sentence,
enclitic to the verb. Not all sentences have them, but typical schemes
make distinctions like 'assertion from personal experience' vs.
'traditional knowledge' vs. 'deduction' vs. 'question' vs. 'command' vs.
'doubt, surprise' and so on.
In most Siouan languages there are characteristic male and female forms,
often differing by a vowel, e.g., 19th Century Omaha athi=i ha 'he has
arrived (male speaking)' vs. athi=i he 'he has arrived (woman speaking)'.
Or sometimes just athi=i 'he has arrived'. Or athi=i=the 'he has arrived,
he seems to have arrived, there is evidence that he has arrived, he must
be here'. Or athi=bi=ama 'he has arrived (they say, or at least it's part
of this story)'. The difference in these particles (when they differ) is
a large part of the distinction between "male speech" and "female speech"
in Siouan languages, and most of the rest of it is different terms for
'brother (of man)' and 'brother (of sister)', etc.
The fairly familiar Turkic languages, including (anatolian) Turkish, not
to mention many unrelated (or quite distantly related) neighboring
languages in the Caucasus and Central Asia generally oppose two past tense
forms that contrast 'deduction' with other categories. The deductive past
is usually called the perfect tense in popular grammars and perfect tenses
tend to have the implication of a deduction in them already anyway, e.g.,
often in English.
A reference of possible interest:
Wallace Chafe and Johanna Nichols (eds.), 1986. Evidentiality: The
Linguistic Coding of Epistemology. Norwood, New Jersey : Ablex.
All languages have mechanisms for conveying this sort of information,
e.g., Knox's 'If I remember correctly, ...' above. Not all languages make
a mandatory grammatical feature of it.
~~~ 051 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Fri Jan 28 02:57:38 2005
Message-Id: <200501280449.j0S4ndmq012216@pop2.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:49:41 +1000
To: vms-list@voynich.net
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: Piraha (Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish)
27/01/2005 8:12:36 PM, Koontz John E <John.Koontz@Colorado.EDU> wrote:
> I can't attest to Piraha personally, but Daniel Everett has certainly been
> been getting away with it since 1979.
>
> His original U of Pittsburgh web site:
>
> http://web.archive.org/web/20001206044500/amazonling.linguist.pitt.edu/
I don't know what to think of it. In the "word form inventory index"
I saw this:
áhwÉso
but neither w nor É (whatever that stands for) are
in the phonemic inventory (which gives 8 consonants,
BTW). There are many more cases of such "phonemes"
that are not in the phonemic inventory.
Since there is no phonological description
beyond that list of 8 consonants and 3 vowels,
there is no way of figuring out what that w and
that É are.
In the pages on personal pronouns having been
borrowed from Guarani I see:
/ti/ [töI]
/gi/ [nI]
So /i/ is sometimes pronounced [I] (in /gi/) and
sometimes [öI] (in /ti/). Possible, but is it
freely alternating, or is the alternation
conditioned by the environment? Same question
about /g/ being pronounced [n] in /gi/.
If they are freely alternating you should
expect [tI] and [töI] occurring indifferently,
ditto [nI] and [nöI] for /gi/. If they
are environment-conditioned, let's have the
rules, because I cannot figure them out at
all (polite way of saying: they do not make
any sense to me).
Or are they all typos?
> His current academic site:
> http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/DE/DEHome.html
I did not see much there, just a text in pdf which
I downloaded "Killing the Panther", and the word for
"panther" is "kopaíyai". But there is no "y" in the
phonemic inventory, so what is it really? Is the
text written phonetically? If so, why isn't
"ti" (me) written like in the article on the
borrowed pronouns, i.e. töi? So it must be
written phonemically... so I expect "kopaíiai".
Sentence #12 I see ka?áowí "basket". Again,
where does that "w" come from? There is no "w"
in the phonemic inventory, and no "u" either.
The only three vowels are a, i, o.
Sentence #16 "panther" is "kopaíai". Makes more
sense to me. So the "y" was epenthetic, so
would be the w of ka?áowí "basket", and
ka?áowí should be properly spelt ka?áoí.
Sentence #17 I see two occurrences of ?iowi "there"
so, logically, that has to be /?ioi/
Sentence #35, two occurrences of ?aowi "stranger"
which must be a _phonetic_ spelling for /?aoi/
and one new word -kwí, which does not make sense,
and yet does not appear to be a typo, because it
occurs in the next sentence again.
Look at the first two sentences now.
The translation of the first sentence does not
fit the Piraha text: "koái", parsed as "k-o-á-i"
"undergoer -die -move -into", is left
untranslated. But in the next sentence, where
"koái" is translated, it is parsed as
"k-o-ái" i.e. "undergoer-die-do".
The next occurrence of -ái as "do" is in sentence
#11, but the tone is wrong: "ai" instead of "ái".
Now look at what comes next: "koaí" (note the
high tone on the i instead of on the a), parsed
as: "k-oaí" = "undergoer-die". Either this
text is riddled with typos, or Everett could
not figure out the language at all, or...
take your pick.
Which has taken us a long, long way from the VMS...
~~~ 052 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Fri Jan 28 04:09:54 2005
Message-Id: <200501280603.j0S637ji021599@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 16:03:18 +1000
To: vms-list@voynich.net
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
Subject: More Piraha (Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish)
I am reading that story "Killing the Panther"
Sentence 11:
?í kagigía ?iowi hi áobísigío / kagigía ?iowi
(the slash denotes a pause)
Translation:
'Put the jaguar into the same basket with the dog.'
Problem is: the first kagigía is translated as
"with the dog" (lit. "companion"), and the second
as "into the basket".
Here is the breakdown of the first "kagigía":
kag companion, partner
-igí comitative (with)
-a be in
And here is the second "kagigía":
kag basket
-ig with
-í into
-a declarative
It looks like Piraha incorporates a large
telepathic component. It is not unique there:
so does the language of the Smurfs. Vous
schtroumpfez ce que je schtroumpfe?
Ça schtroumpfe de plus en plus le schtroumpf,
ce que schtroumpfent ces Schtroumpfs d'Amazonie.
~~~ 053 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Sat Jul 15 03:11:59 2006
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 02:09:31 -0400
Message-Id: <200607150209.AA382927470@mail.asus.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
From: "Dennis S." <tsalagi@asus.net>
To: <vms-list@voynich.net>
Subject: VMs: Kircher, Piraha
Hi Nick,
> Though GC turns his nose up at it, I'll happily admit to using Wikipedia
> (though not only in English)
Me too, because Wikipedia is fun! I can take it with a grain of salt.
After all, what *don't* you have to take that way these days,
especially in the field of VMs studies? I just became a Wikipedian
myself.
<Lots of good stuff on research snipped>
> Lots of fun stuff there, recommended (though not particularly VMsy).
> http://kirchersociety.org/
Lots of fun stuff indeed, although I doubt Kircher would be flattered.
This is slightly VMsy,
http://www.kirchersociety.org/blog/?p=394
Piraha has been mentionned here a few times because Piraha has a very
small phonemic inventory. The stuff on them sounds like an urban
legend, though.
Dennis
~~~ 054 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Sat Jul 15 05:43:51 2006
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 19:29:30 +1100
To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: Kircher, Piraha
References: <200607150209.AA382927470@mail.asus.net>
From: "Jacques Guy" <jbmguy@aapt.net.au>
Message-ID: <op.tcp1vgp4typ5yo@system>
In-Reply-To: <200607150209.AA382927470@mail.asus.net>
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 17:09:31 +1100, Dennis S. <tsalagi@asus.net> wrote:
> Piraha has been mentionned here a few times because Piraha has a very
> small phonemic inventory. The stuff on them sounds like an urban
> legend, though.
I am sure that Piraha is a hoax perpetrated upon a gullible linguist,
Everett, by an Amazonian tribe. He has been at it for 20 years or more
and only a handful of bilingual texts have been published. I found most
on the Net, and they do not make any sense at all. If Piraha does exist
then Everett cannot speak it (nor understand it), as his interlinear
translations show it abundantly. And those two words: hoi and hoí.
The first means "one" or "small", the second means "two" or "many" or
"big". Pull the other one. And they differ only by the tone of the
second syllable! What a joke.
~~~ 055 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Sat Jul 15 08:02:05 2006
Message-ID: <001301c6a7fc$20d0a660$0e698848@D674ZD61>
From: "mjmurphy" <4mjmu@rogers.com>
To: <vms-list@voynich.net>
References: <200607150209.AA382927470@mail.asus.net> <op.tcp1vgp4typ5yo@system>
Subject: Re: VMs: Kircher, Piraha
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 06:47:54 -0400
Mr. Guy wrote:
> I am sure that Piraha is a hoax perpetrated upon a gullible linguist,
> Everett, by an Amazonian tribe. He has been at it for 20 years or more
> and only a handful of bilingual texts have been published. I found most
> on the Net, and they do not make any sense at all. If Piraha does exist
> then Everett cannot speak it (nor understand it), as his interlinear
> translations show it abundantly. And those two words: hoi and hoí.
> The first means "one" or "small", the second means "two" or "many" or
> "big". Pull the other one. And they differ only by the tone of the
> second syllable! What a joke.
Just very briefly, Everett is considered competent in his field and he is
not the only linguist to have noted the peculiarities of the Piraha
language. The features he ascribes to the Piraha language and culture have,
in ones or twos (the primitive number system, the extreme concentration on
concrete experience), been noted in other "primitive" languages. The notion
of a hoax in this case is not particularly plausible. Everett does make
some (I think) overstated claims with respect to the language (with respect
to, for example, quantification and the lack of Piraha color terms), but he
is also aware of some of the short-comings of his arguments and has worked
to make his views more nuanced over the years.
So I think Mr. Guys views are very much in the minority in this case.
Cheers,
M.J. Murphy
~~~ 056 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Sat Jul 15 08:41:21 2006
From: MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com
Message-ID: <57f.120dea9.31ea2bc3@wmconnect.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 07:30:11 EDT
Subject: Re: VMs: Kircher, Piraha
To: vms-list@voynich.net
In a message dated 7/15/2006 3:33:21 AM Central Standard Time,=20
jbmguy@aapt.net.au writes:
> And those two words: hoi and hoí.
> The first means "one" or "small", the second means "two" or "many" or
> "big". Pull the other one. And they differ only by the tone of the
> second syllable! What a joke.
Why be so incredulous about such a small difference between such words?
Mandarin Chinese uses "mai3" for 'buy' and "mai4" for 'sell', with a difference
only in the tones, while the character for 'sell' is derived from the character
for 'buy', too.
Piraha may be a hoax, but the similarity of the words for 'one' and 'two'
aren't proof, or even good evidence, of it.
stevo
~~~ 057 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Sat Jul 15 09:10:37 2006
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 22:55:03 +1100
To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: Re: VMs: Kircher, Piraha
References: <748.1346-13651-1995257013-1152957364@seznam.cz>
From: "Jacques Guy" <jbmguy@aapt.net.au>
Message-ID: <op.tcqbd1nwtyp5yo@system>
In-Reply-To: <748.1346-13651-1995257013-1152957364@seznam.cz>
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 20:56:04 +1100, Jakub Jiricek <kachnitata@seznam.cz>
wrote:
> if the tones are phonemic, what's the problem?
The first problem, if you've been through Everett's published data,
is that the same morpheme often occurs with different tones (there are
only two tones, according to him, and they are pitch tones).
So either he is tone-deaf, or there is tone sandhi. Which he nowhere
mentions.
If there is tone sandhi (a normal state of affairs in tonal languages)
then we should expect the contrast "one, small" vs "two, many, big"
to become neutralized in some environments. In other words, you could
tell the difference between, say, "one snake" (or small snake) and "many
snakes" (or big snake), but not between "one ant-eater" and "many
ant-eaters". Strange.
If there is no tone-sandhi, and if Everett is not tone-deaf, then the
presence of the same morpheme occurring with different tones means
that tone is phonemic for some morphemes and not phonemic for others.
Very strange.
Further, the analogy thick/thin is not correct.
With thick and thin the final differs by two phonemic features:
voiceless vs voiced, and velar vs nasal. Actually, three: voiceless
vs voiced, velar vs alveolar, oral vs nasal. Hoi and hoí differ
by only one feature: the tone of the final vowel. Like thig/thick, or
thin/thim differ by only one feature: voiced/unvoiced for thig/thick,
alveolar/labial for thin/thim.
You'll answer back with Chinese "mâi" (third tone) "to buy"
vs "mài" (fourth tone) "to sell". To which I'll answer that the
two are variants of "to barter" (and in fact, in many languages the
word for "buy" is the same as "sell").
But "one or small" vs "two or many or big"?
And how about piranhas and anacondas? Piranhas are generally much, much
smaller than anacondas. Hoi piranha is either "small piranha" or
"one piranha", and hoí piranha "several piranhas" or "big piranha(s)".
I would expect "anaconda" to occur only in the "hoí number" (big, many),
the quantity of meat in an anaconda being a thousand times a piranha.
If it occurs in the "hoi number" (one, small), then the Piraha are
aware of relative size. And yet they do not distinguish size from number?
The matter is nowhere discussed in Everett's published material.
When someone makes fantastic claims, and Everett does, the onus of the
proof is on him.
~~~ 058 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Sat Jul 15 10:08:47 2006
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 23:56:01 +1100
To: vms-list@voynich.net
Subject: Re: VMs: Kircher, Piraha
References: <200607150209.AA382927470@mail.asus.net>
From: "Jacques Guy" <jbmguy@aapt.net.au>
Message-ID: <op.tcqd7nuutyp5yo@system>
In-Reply-To: <001301c6a7fc$20d0a660$0e698848@D674ZD61>
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 21:47:54 +1100, mjmurphy <4mjmu@rogers.com> wrote:
> Just very briefly, Everett is considered competent in his field and he
> is not the only linguist to have noted the peculiarities of the Piraha
> language. The features he ascribes to the Piraha language and culture
> have, in ones or twos (the primitive number system, the extreme
> concentration on concrete experience), been noted in other "primitive"
> languages. The notion of a hoax in this case is not particularly
> plausible.
I have Everett's book (Jorge Stolfi sent me a copy he found going for
two dollars). Of course, I cannot find it when I need it. I know it's
here in my study upstairs because I have come across it by chance the
other day and said to myself "I must return it to Jorge Stolfi". So
this has to be from memory. Until I find that damn book again.
Everett claims that the Piraha are fiercely monolingual. Refuse
to speak anything but Piraha.
Yet, in his introduction, he tells how, when he started
studying Piraha, his wife (who seems to be an Amazonian native)
warned him that his informants were talking to him in a dialect of ...
I forgot the name of the language (I seem to remember it started with
"M"... when I find that book again...). So much for monolingual
Piraha. And he does not say how he got them to switch to "real Piraha".
To me, it's clear. The gringo doesn't want us to teach him our language?
(A dialect of M...). He insists on something else? Never mind, we'll make
something up for him. A bit of this, a bit of that, keep him happy.
I went through something similar 30 years ago in the Solomon Islands,
but it didn't take me long to realise I was being bullshitted.
In his book he also tells how the Piraha see spirits which he cannot see.
He describes an episode when the whole tribe was on the river bank,
jumping, shouting and gesturing at the opposite bank. He inquired what
it was about. "Can't you see the devils on the other side?" No, he couldn't
(of course). His conclusion? They see things we cannot see. Yeah, sure, one
born every minute.
~~~ 059 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Sat Jul 15 12:38:51 2006
Message-ID: <000f01c6a823$1a7bcac0$0e698848@D674ZD61>
From: "mjmurphy" <4mjmu@rogers.com>
To: <vms-list@voynich.net>
References: <200607150209.AA382927470@mail.asus.net><op.tcp1vgp4typ5yo@system>
Subject: Re: VMs: Kircher, Piraha
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 11:26:54 -0400
Jacques Guy wrote:
> Yet, in his introduction, he tells how, when he started
> studying Piraha, his wife (who seems to be an Amazonian native)
> warned him that his informants were talking to him in a dialect of ...
> I forgot the name of the language (I seem to remember it started with
> "M"... when I find that book again...). So much for monolingual
> Piraha. And he does not say how he got them to switch to "real Piraha".
He also claims (in various articles) that they barter with the Portugese in
that neighboring language, if I recall correctly. But this is I think more
of an example of the fact that Everett is prone to overstatement. Poke him
and he'll say that they are just mostly monolingual etc.
>
> To me, it's clear. The gringo doesn't want us to teach him our language?
> (A dialect of M...). He insists on something else? Never mind, we'll make
> something up for him. A bit of this, a bit of that, keep him happy.
>
> I went through something similar 30 years ago in the Solomon Islands,
> but it didn't take me long to realise I was being bullshitted.
Remember there is (in modern times) also a fellow named Gorden who has
studied Piraha. He is generally in agreement with Everett, although they
differ on a number of issues (I think Gorden believes that a number of words
in Piraha function as color terms, for example). Everett also references
earlier work by missionaries, who pointed out in general terms the "oddness"
of the language much earlier.
And again, the Linguistic community has generally dubbed Everett competent
(for example, I don't think there is any real controversy concerning his
work on Wari and other languages. I would be inclined (although let me say
I am not a Linguist) to assume that, if they couldn't succeed in
bullshitting you, Everett would not fall prey either (he claims to have
spent about 7 years with the Piraha).
Cheers,
M.J.Murphy
~~~ 060 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/inbox-2003-05-22-semifiltered
From VM Wed Sep 25 09:29:30 2002
Message-Id: <200209250531.g8P5VXh4019526@mail3.alphalink.com.au>
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 15:31:22 +1000
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
To: voynich@cryptogram.org (Voynich Ms. mailing list)
Subject: VMs: Re: Question from a newbie
24/09/02 11:18:18, Dennis <tsalagi@asus.net> wrote:
> Welcome!
...
> I don't recall anyone's suggesting that [a syllabary]. The Voynich
> alphabet, as we've understood it, we think has about 23 'real'
> characters, plus ligature forms, rare characters, etc. That would be
> too few for a syllabary.
It might, only just might do, for Piraha, an Amazonian language
with 7 consonants and 3 vowels, ignoring its two tones, and
breaking up its consonant clusters, Linear-B style. (Jorge,
they're your next-door neighbours, how about... oh, just
pulling your leg).
It couldn't do for Rotokas, because its 6 consonants and
5 vowels make 35 different syllables, even though Rotokas
has no consonant clusters.
You have to turn to artificial languages, and even among
those, I see only Solresol which would easily be accomodated
(but Solresol was invented long after the VMs was written).
There is also Zikamu. But I invented it, and I swear,
solemnly swear under penalty of perjury, that I did not
write the VMs! Someone else must have done it, guv!
~~~ 061 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/inbox-2003-05-22-semifiltered
From VM Fri Sep 27 11:21:42 2002
Message-Id: <200209270911.g8R9BixL030595@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 19:11:43 +1000
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
To: voynich@cryptogram.org (Voynich Ms. mailing list)
Subject: VMs: Re: Piraha and the VMS
26/09/02 23:00:33, Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@ic.unicamp.br> wrote:
> By amazing coincidence, I happen to have a book about the Pirahã
> language (which had about 110 speakers left in ~1980). Here is a
>sample sentence from that book:
> (1) xaíti xaibogi xaigahápiso xisibáobábagaí sagía xabáobihiabá
It is difficult to believe that such languages can really
exist, isn't it?
> Jacques suggests that those languages may show a better match to the
> VMS, if each word element is written as a separate word, eg.
Did I say that? I must watch my tongue.
> (2) xaíti xaibogi xaig ahá p i so xisib áo b ábagaí sagía xab áo b i hiab á
>Perhaps...
No, it doesn't look like Voynichese at all. I do think it still
would not, writing it in a syllabary.
Chinese is still the best match.
But the real point is: there are unbelievable languages out there,
on the very verge of extinction. Only 110 people left speaking
Piraha! We cannot rule out that the VMs is in a strange, now
long extinct, language of Europe.
~~~ 062 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/inbox-2003-05-22-semifiltered
From VM Fri Sep 27 11:21:42 2002
Message-ID: <F76mQVuRWCy7rjcxtni0000a6c9@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 10:24:49 +0000
From: "Philip Neal" <philipneal_vms@hotmail.com>
To: voynich@cryptogram.org (Voynich Ms. mailing list)
Subject: VMs: Re: Piraha and the VMS
Jacques Guy wrote:
> But the real point is: there are unbelievable languages out there,
> on the very verge of extinction.
This is entirely true. Recent books by David Crystal and others have
drawn attention to language death as a neglected issue amid the
current enthusiasm for diversity. But...
> Only 110 people left speaking
> Piraha! We cannot rule out that the VMs is in a strange, now
> long extinct, language of Europe.
What is the evidence for extensive language death in late mediaeval
Europe? There were two main tendencies, both irrelevant here.
1. Certain vernaculars (Castilian, Catalan, High German, Dutch)
attained the status of standard written languages with the result
that related vernaculars (Gallician, Swiss German) were stigmatised
as rustic dialects and largely failed to make the transition to
printing.
2. Minority languages within a nation state (Welsh, Prussian) lost
or failed to attain official status and ceased to attract new
speakers by immigration and intermarriage.
Neither phenomenon is relevant to the suggestion that a language
isolate such as Basque could have survived past 1348-50, unnoticed
and unrecorded, and died out at a subsequent date. I think it
could be demonstrated from records of tax and property that there
was no such language in England and probably the British Isles.
Eastern Europe may conceivably be a different matter: the main
evidence here would be the chance recording of Crimean Gothic in
the 16th century.
Philip Neal
~~~ 063 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: MAIL/folders-splitted/vm-folders/inbox-2003-05-22-semifiltered
From VM Mon Oct 14 17:53:24 2002
Message-Id: <200210141640.g9EGdsbT031773@mail2.alphalink.com.au>
Reply-To: jguy@alphalink.com.au
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 02:39:16 +1000
From: Jacques Guy <jguy@alphalink.com.au>
To: voynich@cryptogram.org (Voynich Ms. mailing list)
Subject: VMs: Re: Paradigms Regained
14/10/02 04:56:19, Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@yahoo.com> wrote:
> (now why do I have this hunch that someone on
> the list will soon provide us with a sample
> language that has exactly this feature :-/)
Oh well, since you asked for it...
> Indeed. But how many tones should one allow as
> a maximum? I think I heard of nine tones in some
> context or other, but not in one single language.
Yes. Cantonese. Eight or nine tones depending how
you count them. I have come across mentions of
languages with more (12? 18?), but that was long
before VMs days (I mean, Net VMs), and that did
not strike me as weird at all (unlike Piraha),
so I made no mental note of it.
> A problem is that there are many
> words that do not end in:
> > ain aiin aiiin,
> > ey, eey, eeey.
> so what to do with these?
Oh, very simple. Vietnamese has six tones. But
only two in syllables ending with an oral stop.
Likewise Mandarin used to have five tones.
The fifth actually being a glottal stop ending
the syllable (and this glottal stop what the
remnant of a final p, t, or k -- which you still
have in Cantonese). So, at a slightly earlier
stage, syllables ending in p, t, and k, had
no distinctive tone. (In Cantonese they have,
but only _two_ tones, like in Vietnamese.
Copycats? Very likely).
> To make matters worse, the one language I know
> (Thai) that actually uses symbols (graphemes?) to
> indicate tones
And those symbols are actually superscript digits!
> doesn't use one symbol to indicate
> one tone, another to indicate another, but rather
> symbols that make a somewhat complicated modification
> of the default tone that follows a really complicated
> rule.
It has to do with the initial consonant. There are
two parallel sets. There no difference of pronunciation
for the consonant itself, but there is for the tone
of the vowel following. Khmer is similar, except
the difference is in the pronunciation of the
following vowel. It as if upper and lowercase
were significant in English and affected the pronunciation
of the following vowel, e.g.
"got" as in "got"
but
"Got" as in "goat"
Think of it as if Russian had two sets of
consonants, one palatalized, the other not.
> And this set of rules was designed by one
> man in the 13th Century. It was probably a bit more
> logical then
It almost certainly reflected the 13th-century pronunciation.
~~~ 064 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Tue Oct 30 18:53:25 2007
Message-ID: <BAY117-W4A0E18EF6957884B93724BE920@phx.gbl>
From: funny bunny <ice-bunny@hotmail.co.uk>
To: <vms-list@voynich.net>
Subject: VMs: Erhard Landmann + "michiton" info please?
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:35:58 +0000
Luca,
Just a passing comparison I found in Pirahã (see my last "code"
subject mail for code/natural languages/Pirahã ) that shows the x/sh
connection I was trying to explain. The "sh" of Sumerian is found in
words which contain "x" in other languages, as seen below if "x"
replaces the "sh" even some words of these two languages are very
similar. I know x/k works in a similar way. N.B. o would be u in
Sumerian.
Pirahã Sumerian
hand = xoi shu (xo?)
raise the hand = ? shu il (xo il?)
finger = ? shu-si (xo-si)
pretty = xo'i shuba (xoba?)
to fight = xoti' ti-sah (ti-x(a)?)
to drink = xit-a'ipi' ?
water chanel = ? shitan (xitan)
moan = xisi' she sha (xe xa)
cry = xisi' i-si-ish (i-si-ix)
This is just an example that came up, but I have found in the past
that the modern X corresponds as a later form of the earlier k and sh.
Bunny
~~~ 065 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Thu Nov 1 07:07:33 2007
Message-ID: <001d01c81c64$1f290b30$9672f21d@winxphome>
From: "Luca/Gmail" <piol.luca@gmail.com>
To: <vms-list@voynich.net>
References: <BAY117-W4A0E18EF6957884B93724BE920@phx.gbl>
Subject: VMs: Erhard Landmann + "michiton" info please?
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 09:49:30 +0100
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
Hi bunny,
btw Did you read the notes about sumerian language I posted you
yesterday?
I am, personally,very busy to release new album of my one-man band
(hopefully some months) so actually I don't spend much time on vms and
other things and this is why I rarely post to list and to Wayne (glad to
see you back; I posted you some notes and materials but didn't receive
answers).
Luca
~~~ 066 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/voynich
From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Thu Nov 1 09:12:00 2007
From: funny bunny
To: vms-list@voynich.net
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 9:12 AM
Subject: VMs: Erhard Landmann + "michiton" info please?
My Pirahã/Sumerian comparison list seems to have got a bit mangled by
the new windows live, everything keeps getting squashed up and losing
it's structure, so it may not be clear. I've tries to rearrange the
original list below but don't hold up hope for it staying that way once
sent.
Over time "is it not" becomes "isn't it" becomes becomes "innit?". The
theory any way (that I subscribe to), is that to start with there were
only a few basic sounds representing various things for example all
things soft, female and round would have the same sound. All things
scary, dark and childbirth would have the same basic sounds. Over time
these were joined together in various ways to make more complex and
seperate thoughts and to "represent" other things. Things like sun and
water have been around as long as we have and should have their identity
"set" early on, around words like bright, awe, father. Most early words
were "cv" or "vc" in form, over time the complex forms degraded as well
as became coplex, vowels were lost and consonant clusters formed, vowels
and consonants shifted (mostly in well known sequences). All I attempt
to do is ungroup the consonant clusters, consider what could be the
original vowels and consider the history of various letters, look at the
most ancient languages and see if I can apply that to the VM. I am not
looking for any language in particular, just doing a comparison. I would
like to see others do comparisons, the few that have been domne (Old
German/Erhard Landmann, Baby eye) have been laughed out BUT although I
have not chosen to use certain words out of posibilities, eye, bear,
ship and ray (bright) have all come up as posibilites for me too, how
strange to suffer from the same obscure translations by different means
and different language comparisons?
A few of the comparisons below, to show similarities in words like
"hand" can be found across time and continents. Nahuatl and polynesian
in the same way have comparisons to Egyptian, and so on back to when we
first came out of Africa (evolutionists/creationists alike - humans out
of Africa).
Pirahã hand = xoi
Sumerian hand with sh/x =xo
Pirahã cry =xisi'
Sumerian cry with sh/x = i-si-ix
The structure is in fact similar. Maybe I'm the only one to see it?
But anyway, no one has to to believe in the proto-language theory and
I'm not looking for permission, it is just my way and I try to see what
comes out of comparing the VM in the same way. :-)) As the Vm list
prides it's self on being tollerant of ALL ideas however far out I hope
to continue with my story, and post bits of it.
Are people seem so concerned that they will be laughed out of serious
acaedmic circles that they won't go where angels fear to tread?
Come on Jim, any chance of you having a go at Nahuatl? What have you
got to lose except your pride, your reputation, your friends, the
respect of the academic world......?
Ok! I get the idea.....still....I would like to see other attempts.
Bunny