Re: VMs: Arguments against a code book?

[knoxmix@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Stolfi, 

Very impressive. I hope you will keep us up to date as you examine 
this. Voynichese in OKO-code to Vietnamese looks close although not a 
likely contender. The 4 and 5 letter words being equal at the top of 
the curve are not as important as the overall shape of the curve, I 
think.

I have been looking for a certain cursive Hebrew script with several 
names, none of which I remember, and did not find it but found 

http://www.fathom.com/course/72810016/session1.html

which does give some idea of the variety of old scripts. A few of 
these have a vague similarity to Voynichese if (here I go again) 
turned upside down. The Sefer ha-Razim "The book of Secrets" or "The 
Book of Amulets" on page 2 is pretty interesting but includes magical 
properties of the  number "7", which may be true of some of the other 
Hebrew writings. I don't think we see any evidence of "7" in the VMS.

I am thinking of a wholesale merchant with his catalog of exotic 
plants and medicine. The more exotic, the more potent (and 
expensive).  

Ciao ........ Knox

On 14 Jul 2004 at 3:09, Jorge Stolfi wrote:

> 
> I wrote:
> 
>   > the "Towneley Plays" ... was it here that I got the hint?
> 
> It was here indeed, from Knox's site
> 
>   http://home.earthlink.net/~knoxmix/id7.html
> 
> As Knox notes, the word length distribution (WLD) of the TPs is very
> "binomial-like". (But still not as symmetric as the Voynichese WLD,
> though.) I presume that it is due to most words in the TPs being
> monosyllabes.
> 
> Both are very different from the WLDs of "literary" texts in many
> languages. Here are some preliminary plots which you may find
> interesting. Sorry for the lack of explanations, I am working on them.
> 
>   Voynichese, Latin, Portuguese, German, Russian:
>   http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-1
>   -euro.png
> 
>   Voynichese, GordonRuggish (software), GordonRuggish (manual)
>   http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-
>   1-rugg.png
> 
>   Voynichese: Text, Labels, Both
>   http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-
>   1.png
> 
>   Voynichese, WarOfTheWorlds, CulpeperHerbal, TowneleyPlays
>   http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-
>   2.png
> 
>   Voynichese in OKO-code, Vietnamese, WarOfTheWorlds, TowneleyPlays,
>   Latin
>   http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-1
>   -qoko.png
> 
>   Voynichese, Arabic(-V), Arabic(+V), Hebrew(+V), Hebrew(-V), Geez(+V)
>   http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-
>   1-smit.png
> 
>   Voynichese, Latin, Greek, Spanish, Geez(+V), Arabic(-V)
>   http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-
>   3.png
> 
>   Voynichese, Vietnamese, Tibetan, ChineseNews, ChineseNovel
>   http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-
>   4.png
> 
>   Voynichese, CnineseBible (two versions), ChineseNews (two versions),
>   ChineseNovel
>   http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-
>   5.png
> 
>   Voynichese, Tibetan (two old buddhist texts), Tibetan (modern
>   budhist text)
>   http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-
>   6.png
> 
>   Voynichese, English (Roman-numbered codebook), Chinese (fancy-number
>   codebbok)
>   http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-
>   8.png
> 
>   Voynichese, Chinese (compact phonetic script), Tibetan, Vietnamese
>   http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-
>   9.png
> 
> Note the close match with the vowelless Arabic text (the Holy Quran),
> it was quite a surprise. Who has got the Arabic pizza ticket? 8-)
> 
> All the best,
> 
> --stolfi
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