VMs: Re: DIE WELTWOCHE

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

05/06/02 10:24:03, Christoph Neidhart <neidhart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> asks:



1a. Do people out there think a solution is imminent?

I don't, and I am sure that I am not alone in this opinion.

1b. Where will it come from?

Easy question, difficult answer. Difficult? Impossible.
In these circumstances, my best bet is: "Through an
incredible stroke of luck." Say, someone notices this
plant on page xxx, and recognizes a near-extinct plant
which he has encountered in his travels, and the Voynich
caption is transparently the plant's name as still used
by the local people there. _And_ (notice the emphasis on
"and"), _and_ this does provide the key. This is all an
accumulation of very fortunate, very improbable circumstances:

    1. that the plant exists (or still exists)
    2. that its picture in the VMS is faithful enough
       to allow it to be recognized
    3. that the VMS reader has happened upon this very
       plant
    4. that its name has remained unchanged since the
       VMS was written
    5. that the rest of the VMS is written in the same
       language as that of the name of the plant.

Can it happen? Yes. Take the Easter Island hieroglyphs.
There is a key to their possible decipherment, and that
is two lines on a tablet which are demonstrably an astronomical
canon for predicting when to insert intercalary nights in
the lunar calendar they used. But the demonstration is based
on an incredible concurrence of lucky circumstances:

    1. that this particular text did survive, when, out of
       hundreds of tablets reported to exist in 1860, only
       two dozen have survived
    2. that a visitor to the island in 1886 did take down
       the names of the nights of the lunar month as they
       occurred during his stay
    3. that, in 1886, the lunisolar year happened to have
       13 months (when all other authors only recored 12)
       -- which gives a possible key for spotting texts
       which give the rules for inserting that month
    4. that the glyph for the full moon is a clear pictogram
       echoing Polynesian lore

However, this key "opens" no other tablet. Much as if, in the
VMS, the identification of the plants did not lead to
the decipherment of the text.


2. How do people one get hooked on the Voynich? I saw some notions
of terrible addiction. 

People having lost all critical faculties in the search for
a solution, yes. Newbold was one, Levitov another. I haven't 
seen signs of terrible addiction on part of the members of this
group. It is true that some of us worked very hard on it.
On the transcription for instance. On statistical analyses.
On software tools. But addiction? I doubt it. I did work very
hard on the VMS until a few years ago, but... (read on)


3. The list seems to be in a lull; does that mean people are frustrated?

... but I have nothing new to contribute. Every "new" idea I have
had lately has already been brought up and discussed. Every single
one. They seemed new only because I had forgotten about them, but
a search through the archives showed that they had been aired 
before, and discussed thoroughly. The only new stuff, really, is
the probable identification of some plants by Dana Scott. But 
I am totally ignorant of botany, so I have no business commenting, 
and I have nothing to contribute there.  

4. How serious is the research that has been done lately?

I'd say no research has been done, period. I do not count as
research the statistical analyses, nor the plant identifications.
I would count as research the DNA analysis of the vellum, a
chemical analysis of the inks, stuff like that. Statistical
analysis, at any rate, is difficult to interpret. I'd say most of
us concur that the VMS is not a cipher proper (its entropy is
too low), but is a text in some unidentified language, written
in a made-up alphabet. Knowledge of the statistical/mathematical
properties of human languages (as opposed to computer languages
and formal languages) is NIL. It has not advanced one nanometre since
the days of Trubetzkoy and Saussure. Far from it, it has regressed.

5. Are there people out there who still think the ms. is a hoax? 

Certainly. I do. Rather, I think that it _could_ be a hoax.
I also think that it could well be genuine.


5. Some people seem to lean toward the idea that its language is a
monosyllabic East-Asian language such as Chinese or Vietnamese; what
are the arguments and counter-arguments?

No. The "language" of the VMS displays the same distributional properties 
as Modern Chinese (and modern Chinese languages and dialects). But that
does not mean that it is in Chinese. I floated the original Chinese
hypothesis as a hoax, that Marco Polo had brought back two speakers
of Southern Chinese from his travels and had set them to writing
an encyclopaedia in their dialects. Then, much later, Jorge Stolfi
came up with statistical evidence that the language of the VMS
behaved much like Standard Modern Chinese. I thought to myself: 
"That cannot be right, he must have misinterpreted the statistics."
I took a very long, very hard look at his evidence, and I could not
fault it. Later, I learnt that some southern Chinese dialects were
characterized by extensive internal and external sandhi. It so
happens that, long ago, and independently from my Chinese hoax,
I had written here _seriously_ that, to me, the VMS language
seemed to be affected by extensive internal and external sandhi,
or vowel or consonant harmony. [Oh, BTW, Modern Chinese is no more
no less monosyllabic than Modern English. "Fox" is "huli", and that's two
syllables by me, "map" is "ditu" (how many syllables?), and 
"cuckold" is as many syllables as in English: "wangba" (I left
the tones out)]

At the time I thought of languages with internal flexions (such
as in English goose/geese, or Arabic nahr/anhaar) and of Celtic-
style lenition (e.g. Welsh ci/chi/nghi). I did not know about those
Chinese dialects. But, at any rate, the distributional patterns of
the VMS did not fit any of them, be it English, Arabic, Welsh.
The closest I could see were Malayo-Polynesian languages, but very
few have internal flexions, vowel harmony, etc., and none I know
of have extensive enough such features to fit the Voynich patterns.

I never even thought of looking at Chinese in that respect!
So Jorge Stolfi's evidence came as a complete surprise.
Chinese does fit. I suspect that those obscure southern
dialects would fit even better. One is called Hoklo (also
spelt Holo). But although they have millions of speakers,
they are practically undocumented. You won't find a "Teach
Yourself Hoklo" nor a "Teach Yourself Hakka." As for what
they were 400 years ago when the VMS must have been written,
no-one knows (languages do change, you know, sometimes
beyond recognition after just a few generations of speakers).


6a. Does the Voynich-community ever meet in the real world,

Some have, who live in the same countries (UK/Europe, USA). 
Living in Australia, which is a bit far from anywhere else,
I have never met any in the flesh (perhaps they are a hoax
too?). To my knowledge, I am the only member living in
Australia.

6b. or is this  solely an Internet-community? 
  How many people are involved in the deciphering
  on a regular basis?
  
"On a regular basis" I'd say "none." If I get a good
idea that has not been already explored, I'll certainly
get involved in the decipherment again. But, at the time,
I have nothing new to contribute, nothing worth investigating.

6c. Are you friends?

I don't know anyone personally. I don't think we're
bitter enemies either.

7. 

I know, I know, you had only 6 questions. But I want to answer
some you did not ask.

There is something unusual about the decipherment of the VMS.
There has been all kinds of stuff and nonsense published 
about it, first and not least Romaine Newbold's decipherment.
The latest worth mentioning I think, was Levitov's. The
unusual thing is, only very reasonable reports of its
decipherment (rather, lack of it) have been published
since this group came into being (12 years ago). There were
a few serious articles in Cryptologia, and, rather recently,
three in the general press. Fortean Times, Le Monde, last
New Scientist. Some think the Fortean Times article left
to be desired. I am far less critical. Compare that with
what has been published over the same period about the 
decipherment of the Phaistos Disk, of Linear A, of the
Easter Island tablets. Mostly stuff and nonsense on par
with the Weekly World News (you know: "Giant Three-Headed
Chicken Flies Over Empire State Building"). So I was very
worried when New Scientist wanted to do an article about
the VMS. They had published utter crap about the Phaistos
Disk and Easter Island. I even ended my phone conversation
with their reporter with "Don't stuff up." (yes, verbatim).
Well, they did manage to stuff up two figures, but that
was nothing compared to the Phaistos Disk disaster and the
Easter Island hocus pocus.  I confess to being quite 
puzzled as to why the VMS has not gone the same Three-Headed-
Chicken way as have the Phaistos Disk and the Tablets. Yet.