Voynich manuscript finally deciphered?

[Darren_Garrison]

@DrDeth

But I will be fair. Read Pellings books, his translation of the Manuscript, and let us know if you think he is correct. Based upon your opinion the manuscript is a hoax, I don’t think you will think Pellings theories are right either.

He didn’t claim to have translated the manuscripts. As I quoted earlier:

“the VMs is a mysterious old handwritten book that nobody can read. Not even me!” and “we still know basically sod all about the VMs.” He says that he hasn’t decrypted it in a post two years after the publication of the book where the straw man you are flogging is supposed to have claimed to have decoded it.

But you live so deep in a reality distortion field and cargo-cult understanding of how science works, you will never let go of that litle delusion. The only reason you keep bringing Pelling up is because you are attempting some childish tit-for-tat, and Dunning-Kreugering it all up.

[Colibri]

@DrDeth

DPRK was talking about some previous translations, where did he do a serious analysis of Cheshires work? Which post of Yllaria’s are you talking about?

I didn’t say he did a serious analysis, I said he provided his own take on it. As for Yllaria’s comments, just read the thread. If you can’t figure it out, I’m not going to hold your hand.

@Yllaria

Did Colibri actually say the VM was a hoax? If so, I missed that.

Once again, DrDeth is misrepresenting what I said. I don’t think it is a hoax in the sense that the author was deliberately trying to mislead anyone. I said that I think it was a work of “outsider art” by someone who was learned but obsessive and perhaps mentally ill. He invented his own alphabet and language, which was meaningful only to himself. He may not even have intended for anyone else to see it. If someone was trying to mimic a language, but not writing or translating a real one, this could account for the text’s language-like attributes, as well as features that are unlike any known language.

[DPRK]

I’m all for delving in this thread into a “serious analysis” of that Romance Studies paper, but, wow, where to begin? The non-existent language he insists was spoken all over the place (except where it was “localized and anachronistic”), and is never defined or described in the paper, for instance? Each paragraph and page is more ridiculous than the one before— just read it. But, if you want to get the ball rolling, please go ahead and point out what claims even rise to the level where we can seriously analyse them.

[Colibri]

@DPRK

I’m all for delving in this thread into a “serious analysis” of that Romance Studies paper, but, wow, where to begin? The non-existent language he insists was spoken all over the place (except where it was “localized and anachronistic”), and is never defined or described in the paper, for instance? Each paragraph and page is more ridiculous than the one before— just read it. But, if you want to get the ball rolling, please go ahead and point out what claims even rise to the level where we can seriously analyse them.

But it’s peer-reviewed! He has a Ph.D.! That should be convincing!

[Darren_Garrison]

We probably wouldn’t be pounding on Cheshire so hard if he had the slightest trace of humility, instead of talking about how he had never heard of the manuscript before finding it, solving it in just two weeks because he is such a creative thinker, and how obviously intuitively correct he is. Besides reminding me of so many of the nuts that occasionally stumble on the Dope (such as a certain trap for men) Cheshire reminds me of the Super Awesome Genius writer in this current CS thread.

[Yllaria]

The Lexicon Valley podcast mentioned the recent VM “solution” and used it as a launch into romance languages. Linguist John McWhorter dissed the proposed translations while declining to name the author out of kindness.

Ouch.

[Yllaria]

Warning - that episode has more than the usual amount of odd song clips.

[Inner_Stickler]

@Yllaria

Warning - that episode has more than the usual amount of odd song clips.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s a bonus. I only got as far as the Jolson clip on my morning commute. I’m looking forward to finishing the episode this evening!

[Colibri]

Cheshire is at it again. It appears he has uploaded a new MS,

The Algorithmic Method for Translating MS408 (Voynich).

As far as I can tell, this MS has not been published in a journal or peer-reviewed, and contains no citations or references, except Cheshire’s own papers, all but the one we’ve been discussing unpublished.

It’s a great illustration of Cheshire’s “method,” which can largely be summed up as “making shit up.”

For his translation, he selects the text associated with a plant he confidently identifies as the Oblong-leaved Sundew.

@Cheshire

To ensure clarity, portfolio 53 (right) has been used for this demonstration, as identification of the illustrated species of plant, Oblong-leaved Sundew (Drosera intermedia), is beyond doubt: see Figures 10 & 11.

However:

@Cheshire

By comparing the manuscript image of the Oblong-leaved Sundew (Drosera intermedia), Figure 10, with a photograph of the real plant, Figure 11, we can see that the artist was reasonably accurate in botanical terms. The only significant inaccuracies are the precise architecture of the stem and the number of petals on the flowers. Nor are the beads of sticky mucilage (dew) shown on the leaf trichomes (hairs), indicating that they had not seen the plant in situ, and were drawing from a dried, pressed and browning specimen without detailed knowledge of its predatory mechanism.

In other words, the illustration lacks any characteristics definitively (or even approximately) identifying it as a sundew. The only point of resemblance I can see is the spiky projections around the edge of the leaves. The flower not only differs in the number of petals (5 in most sundews, at least 18 in the illustration, and maybe more, since it looks like a double row of petals is indicated) but in its basic structure, having an inferior ovary (below the petals) while sundews have a superior ovary (above the petals). There seems to be a central disc, rather than a set of five stamens and a pistil. If I had to guess, the flower appears to be something in the family Asteraceae (the composites, including daisys, etc.)

And it’s not merely the “precise architecture of the stem” but the entire form of the plant that is wrong. The sundew has a basal rosette of single leaves on long petioles, with a floral spike coming out of the middle. The illustrated plant has a single stem with branches with multiple leaves emerging from them, and terminated by a spike with 12 open flowers. Sundews normally have only a single flower open at time. And then we have the entirely bizarre roots, which appear to have square nodes along their length. In short, there is nothing to identify the illustration as a sundew aside from focusing on a single element to the exclusion of all other details.

So, what is Cheshire’s “algorithm”? Aside from the first sentence, he seems to have dropped references to “proto-Romance.” Instead:

@Cheshire

We can see, from this example page, that the manuscript language is predominantly Latin, with a minority of words having originated from other sources and been incorporated. … As the manuscript originates from Ischia during the Crown of Aragon, it is primarily a combination of Latin and western Romance.

Of course, there is no actual evidence that the MS is from Ischia other than Cheshire’s assertion.

But:

@Cheshire

As with all Latin palaeography, the sentence structure used in the manuscript is often inversive and fragmented, so it becomes necessary to piece the sentences together in accordance with modern linguistic habits, by rearranging the words and using connectives to make sense of them. The process requires the application of time and intuition to arrive at reasonable interpretations of intended meaning.

@Cheshire

The translations then follow a simple algorithmic pattern of prioritisation: < Latin < Vulgar Latin < Archaic Western Romance < Western Romance < Eastern Romance < Other Languages. This is known scientifically as ‘array priority queueing’. Thus, being the root language, Latin is always given top priority, followed by the other categories in sequence if necessary: i.e. in the absence of a higher priority representative. By deploying this simple method we know that all permutations have been optimally ordered and attenuated to arrive at the most plausible translations.

The words and their meanings were sourced by using a combination of prior knowledge and research by using the internet and books. In addition, there are various online search engines, dictionaries and translation tools for locating documents, phrases, words and abbreviations, and for verifying their meanings or definitions.

Rather than an objective algorithm, his “system” is to search through Latin, all Romance, and “Other languages” (which appear to include Basque, Greek, and Arabic) until he finds a meaning that suits him, then rearranging the words subjectively to make some kind of sense.

After all this, he manages to translate a mere 9 lines of text on the page with the plant illustration, and what he comes up with is this:

@Cheshire

The Snare Plant is considered good for a pregnant woman because it is a trap for goodness. It is best given straight from the cooking pot, by passing a bowl to the childbearing mother as a protective halo for her growing belly. A little of the remedy is also good for controlling the pregnant belly by removing anger during night madness, by assisting with deep breathing as we talk her through it. And, when the mother is crying like a lioness with the pain of labour contractions, and this dominates the birthing chamber, the remedy becomes a friend in helping to forget the work of the Devil.

Even with all these contortions, the text is still largely gibberish.

And what are the known medicinal uses of sundews? Do they have any connection to pregnancy or birth? From Wiki:

Sundews were used as medicinal herbs as early as the 12th century, when an Italian doctor from the School of Salerno, Matthaeus Platearius, described the plant as an herbal remedy for coughs under the name herba sole. It has been used commonly in cough preparations in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Sundew tea was especially recommended by herbalists for dry coughs, bronchitis, whooping cough, asthma and “bronchial cramps”.[21] A modern study has shown that Drosera exhibits antitussive properties.[22]

Culbreth’s 1927 Materia Medica listed D. rotundifolia, D. anglica and D.linearis as being used as stimulants and expectorants, and “of doubtful efficacy” for treating bronchitis, whooping cough, and tuberculosis.[23] Sundews have also been used as an aphrodisiac and to strengthen the heart, as well as to treat sunburn, toothache,[24] and prevent freckles. Today, Drosera is usually used to treat ailments such as asthma, coughs, lung infections, and stomach ulcers.

:smack:

[Darren_Garrison]

I have to give him credit where credit is due—it is impressive that he manages to get anything done with legions of squirrels constantly attempting to bury him for winter.

[Morgyn]

@Darren_Garrison

I have to give him credit where credit is due—it is impressive that he manages to get anything done with legions of squirrels constantly attempting to bury him for winter.

<laughing helplessly>

I hereby award you one (1) Internets. That comment is GOLD.

[Darren_Garrison]

So, there is a new (non-Voynich) paper out with Cheshire-level insanity. Why post about it here? Because It puts a(nother) nail in the coffin of “if it is published in a peer-reviewed journal, it must be true.”
(Incidentally, “Dong-ta-ra-con-ching” means “many pregnant women escaped the volcano in the queen’s boat” in proto-Romantic.)

[davidm]

@Darren_Garrison

So, there is a new (non-Voynich) paper out with Cheshire-level insanity. Why post about it here? Because It puts a(nother) nail in the coffin of “if it is published in a peer-reviewed journal, it must be true.”
(Incidentally, “Dong-ta-ra-con-ching” means “many pregnant women escaped the volcano in the queen’s boat” in proto-Romantic.)

The term “full-overlapped gravitational field energy”, and the name “Philip Moriarty”, make me suspect that the paper was submitted as a joke.

[Darren_Garrison]

Hey, I just noticed another deciphering from July!

[Musicat]

@Darren_Garrison

Hey, I just noticed another deciphering from July!

And as soon as we find a second example of that kind of text/language, that analysis will be worth considering. 700 years and counting…

[davidm]

That code must be easy to crack. Lots of people have done it.

[Darren_Garrison]

We missed another one: a guy just got an award (!) for his book last year identifying all the Voynich plants.

[Melbourne]

@Darren_Garrison

We missed another one: a guy just got an award (!) for his book last year identifying all the Voynich plants.

That’s THE guy, referenced in post 1.

I don’t know if the The American Botanical Council agrees with the plant identifications, or simply thinks it’s an amazing piece of speculative fiction by a respected botanist. I suppose either could be true.

[Colibri]

@Melbourne

I don’t know if the The American Botanical Council agrees with the plant identifications, or simply thinks it’s an amazing piece of speculative fiction by a respected botanist. I suppose either could be true.

The American Botanical Council is not any kind of scientific authority, but rather an independent non-profit organization that promotes herbal remedies. It is so unimportant that it lacks a Wikipedia entry. I wouldn’t consider that the award validates the identifications in any way.

[Darren_Garrison]

@Melbourne

That’s THE guy, referenced in post 1.

Okay, same guy, but actually a second book. The one from the OP was Unraveling the Voynich Codec. The award-winner is The Flora of the Voynich Codec. Maybe he got a three book deal.