VMs: RE: Nabataean /sefira?

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Luis Velez wrote:


>Another hint related to the finding was formulated by Dan (Gibson) in his
Nabataean hypothesis:

>"The length of the words is too short for European languages, but seems to
indicate an unvoweled >text as used in most Semitic scripts (such as Aramaic
in its various forms (including
>Nabataean), Syriac, Hebrew, or Arabic. "

http://nabataea.net/vconnect.html


I could certainly spend a great deal of time challenging Dan Gibson's
observations point by point, but it's been done already, and no person of
one belief has yet changed to another (that I'm aware).  I will once again
reiterate (is that a redundant redundancy?) that the simplest theory that
meets all criteria is most probably the closest to the truth.  The script
may *look* oriental (I never thought so), but a majority of the glyphs were
standards in Latin abbreviation  and shorthand, and a few rare glyphs have
only one documented origin to date, which happens to be English shorthand.
The clothing styles are western, the hair is blond and brunette on average,
and what religious imagery that exists is Christian.  The text is
overwhelmingly written left to right, and any section, page or paragraph
that is more right justified than left has escaped my notice, although I
have commented on the amateurish attempt to full justify in several
passages, which was common in western illuminated manuscripts of the period.
Scribes employed as copyists were trained in the art of metering and
measuring to achieve proper full justification of text, but this manuscript
does not exhibit that training.  Another nail in the coffin of the "ignorant
scribe" theory, and one more point for the "original author" theory.

No physical evidence of oriental origin has been presented to date that
confutes this short list, so I doubt I'll have to bring out the long,
detailed list to make my point.  (No offense Dan, we're both just striving
for the answers here, and finding the truth is first achieving the
enlightenment that there is no such thing as a free pizza - it's a lot of
hard work!)

Matters Touching on Word Length -

There are many factors that determine word length in a document.  We usually
don't have this problem to consider, but in the VMS the first factor would
be to determine exactly what constitutes a "character" or glyph.  Only after
this determination is made can a "character" count be properly compiled to
determine word length.  Researchers have historically had to rely on
illegible copyflow to make this difficult determination, while others have
abandoned the purist pursuit altogether and concocted strings of characters
to make the VMS "pronounceable".  "Qoteedy" will never be able to provide
you with anything close to an accurate glyph count, and without that
statistic no VMS enthusiast can hope to achieve any factual determination of
language, let alone any other accurate statistic necessary to cryptologic
practitioners.

Natural and social factors affecting word length include language, subject
matter, spelling choices (time-period related), regional dialects and
educational level of the author.  Given the apparent age of the VMS, we must
also ask if the author used Latin phrases mixed with native language, or
whether he wrote almost entirely in the "vulgar tongue".  In the herbal
section for instance, we can reasonably ascertain from close examination
that the common Latin names for plants have not been used.  It is therefore
likely that the majority of the document is indeed written in the vulgar
tongue.

The cipher system employed may also have an effect on word length, in that
it may have been easier to encode certain "variant" spellings than to encode
"common" spellings.  If this practice were consistent, word length
statistics would be rendered useless.  (I don't think this practice was so
common that word length should not be investigated, and there is much we can
learn from what we have in front of us in any event.)

One last consideration that has an effect on word length is the cipher
system itself.  The number of "half spaces" in this document is tremendous,
creating a very high number of two and three letter "words".  This is
difficult to fathom in any language, which to me begs the logical conclusion
that these "half spaces" are an artifact of the encipherment method, and
that when they are ignored the word length comes more in line with known
western languages.

What do I mean by "artifact"?  Simply that the author encrypted in two or
three letter strings on average, and needed to let himself know that there
was a change in the system after a two or three letter group.  The small
spacing was to indicate that the "word" itself continued and was connected
to the previous cipher group.  He wrote a group, left a small gap and then
finished the word, leaving a larger gap between words.  Any cryptologist who
grasps this concept immediately understands a great deal about the encoding
process.

An observation that has caused me to focus on subject matter is the fact
that the "word length" when half spaces are ignored is much higher in the
star section at the end than in the herbal pages.  A dissertation of ideas
would be in a more natural language than the structured "hot and dry in the
2nd degree" of an herbal, and I believe this is reflected in the cipher
text.  A second observation I've made note of concerning subject matter is
that the length of paragraphs and number of words in the herbal section is
in line with those found in an actual herbal from this time period.  This is
a natural connection considering the structure of a western herbal follows a
specific format, and even if the author was writing his own ideas, it's
unlikely he'd break too far from this familiar format when discussing a
certain plant and its virtues.

At http://www.voynich.info/vgbt/Strong_files/ you'll find most of Askham's
Herbal and one of his prognostications transcribed with just such tests in
mind.  I will also be adding a free-flow treatise by the same author, as
well as an early work, a translation of Sacro Bosco in the author's own hand
from 1526/27 - the spelling and language differences by this author between
1526 and 1550 are utterly astounding!  (The early work reflects his Yorke
upbringing, the later his Cambridge education.)

I'd like to see more of this "subject matter" work available for statistical
review in different languages.  A sampling of 20-30 entries on plants,
totaling 10,000 characters, in Latin, French, German, Italian, etc.  It
would be nice if they were the same plants, and even better if they were the
same herbal translated into these languages from the late 15th century,
early 16th century, but that would probably require too much divine
intervention to be achievable.  Still, you have to get your numbers from
somewhere, and when you're dealing with an enciphered manuscript of unknown
origin, it's best to focus on numbers from the period and the proper subject
matter.  Genesis in Latin is certainly *not* the same as student notes on
Agnus Castus, in any language.

Just my opinion, FWIW.

GC




______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list