The approach to the mystery of the Voynich language and text pursued in these pages proposes that the entire edifice of the language has been built on a model or paradigm, an examplar, a prototype, call it what you will.
As it happens, I think there were two of them: a dual paradigm system.
And I characterize these paradigms, or examplars, or prototypes, as verbum potentiae. Words of potentiality. The language has been unpacked from them. The text is implicit within them.
But what are the grounds for approaching the text in this way? Why suspect the text is based upon, generated from, extrapolated from, unpacked from – describe it how you will – primal models, Ur-vords?
Here is the case. It is worthwhile going back over it…
* * *
Firstly, on general appearances, we might suspect there are some basic patterns for Voynich words. All the text is strikingly similar. Ambiance de similitude. On any page we read [odaiin], [oldaiin], [daiin], [dan], [choldan], [kcholdor], [odor] and so on.
Bigrams, glyph combinations, prefixes and suffixes, all seem repeated, and oddly similar.
It is a subjective impression, but undeniable. Any casual reader will see it. It becomes even more apparent when we render the text into EVA.
* * *
Then, going on this general impression, we can compile similar words into groups and families.
We find that the text is extremely amenable to this.
It emerges that there are only a few groups of very large families of similar and related words.
We see patterns of permutation. Different studies detect different patterns, but they all detect long strings and groups and families of obviously related words (glyph configurations.)
The raw impression is of sameness and difference. “All the words in this book look the same, but they’re all different…”
This strongly suggests that there are models or paradigms or prototypes at the beginning of these permutating families of vocabulary. We can rightly suspect a common ancestor.
* * *
At this point there must also be the suspicion the text is generated in some mechanical fashion, some process that exhausts permutations.
The most common proposal, at this point, is some system of volvelles – letter wheels. Or perhaps a system of cardon grille. And there are other possible methods. Even a system of dice.
There have been several notable, and not insignificant - indeed challenging - studies of the Voynich text along these lines in recent decades.
But in that case, these ‘letter wheels’, or whatever, must be marked with the primordial configurations of glyphs. There must be a starting arrangement.
If the vocabulary in the text has been generated from ‘letter wheels’, or whatever, what is the arrangement of glyphs on the wheels? From what original configuration are all the permutations derived?
Again: in any proposal that the text is somehow generated (in some systematic way) it implies there is a starting arrangement.
The starting arrangement is thus the paradigm, or prototype. (Again, I think there are two, working in concert, a dual paradigm system.)
* * *
Independent of this, the sense of similarity in the text gives rise to another investigation.
We quickly find that one of the reasons for this ambience of similarity is that many glyphs are highly constrained as to what positions they can take and what combinations they can make.
The artificiality of the text takes the form of unnaturally tight rules in glyph behavior.
Many studies have been devoted to explicating these rules. (Stolfi’s studies were especially thorough.)
The strict nature of these rules – [q] is word initial and followed by [o] almost all the time, for example – could also be explained by, and suggests, some underlying format, or prototype.
Thus there has been a quest among researchers to set out the basic pattern of Voynich words. The examplar.
Some attempts have been able to account for a very large portion of Voynich words, although all encounter words – exceptions - that defy the model.
All the same, the idea that there is a model is entirely justified. The nature of the text, and the structures of Voynich words, suggests there is a model. (Or models.)
* * *
A revealing method of investigation was pursued by Patrick Feaster.
This follows the probabilities of the glyphs in terms of their preferred combinations.
Thus, [q] prefers to be followed by [o] – a very strong preference.
If we follow these preferences – the “line of least resistance” through the text – we arrive, remarkably, at a word found in the text, namely: QOKEEDY.
This is a word already proposed as a possible model for Voynich words.
But further, the preferences and probabilities are different in different parts of the text.
Overall, the text leads to the word QOKEEDY. But if we only consult the herbal pages (so-called Currier A) the line of least resistance – the preferred path – leads to the configuration: CHOLDAIIN. Also a word appearing in the text.
Regardless of the actual words, it is very notable that the Voynich language does this.
It does not happen, to my knowledge, in natural languages.
The preferred combinations of English letters does not lead, conveniently, to an English word.
E prefers R and R prefers A and A prefers N… but it does not spell an English word.
If the preferred pathways of English culminated in a word like ‘TYPEWRITER’ we would regard it as remarkable indeed.
In Voynichese this happens not once, but twice.
Since the text can be compacted down to these words, it follows the text can be expanded out from these words. They are the paradigms, the verbum potentiae, the starting point.
* * *
This is to examine the text without a prejudiced view of what it actually is. It is descriptive.
But it quickly becomes clear, surely, that this is not the behavior of a natural language. We are surely looking at some linguistic phenomenon other than a natural language.
Exactly how it was made – with volvelles, or whatever – and why, is not the question here.
Rather, we just want to establish that this is a valid and warranted approach to the text.
There are good reasons to suspect the text is based on a set of paradigmatic words: verbum potentiae. It is a justifiable line of inquiry.
It is a justifiable way to conceptualize the language.The text has been generated – extrapolated – in some way from basic models.
The models might be taken from a natural language, perhaps, but the Voynich text is itself an artificial construction.
This is not to say it is trivial, or a hoax, or meaningless, or even non-linguistic in the wider sense, nor even unintelligible in the last resort. But it is based on paradigmatic forms, Ur-vords. A wealth of evidence suggests so.
R.B.
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