The Voynich Manuscript as an Example of Oligo-Agglutinative Pasigraphy, Vol. II: The Semantic Classification System

Download or read book The Voynich Manuscript as an Example of Oligo-Agglutinative Pasigraphy, Vol. II: The Semantic Classification System written by Steve Bolton and published by Infinidata, LLC. This book was released on with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Class III problems are considered practically unsolvable in cryptology, but none has resisted cryptanalytic attack as persistently as the Voynich Manuscript. In the second installment of this 4-volume set, we present the semantic classification system that preceded the first complete but approximate translation of the entire manuscript. This contrasts with the piecemeal approach of all prior solutions that resulted in wildly diverent translations of minuscule selections of the text. This systemic attack on the entirety of the text and its unusual distributional features (such as extreme platykurtia, which forbid translation into any natural language) resulted first in superior transcription stability and an equally stable symbol set, based on intensive statistical analysis. The encoding scheme employs a 20-22 letter alphabetic script that most closely resembles a slot-and-filler, top-down, a priori pasigraphic system, with oligo-agglutinative features that are currently only considered a theoretical possibility in the linguistics field. The intricate affixing system is based mainly on precise placement of single letters to denote case roles, semantic classes and 3 primary parts of speech (exhibiting a strong noun surfeit). At the phrase level we find dominant SOV order and head-final, dependent-marked grammar compatible with heavily formatted, inline pharmaceutical lists; these result in short ranges of actionable information, which no competing solution can claim. Plant descriptions are demoted in comparison to other herbals, in favor of processing and dispensing details. This approximate solution is based on fuzzy set analysis techniques integrated with linguistic universals, a wide range of common statistics (Pareto and Sukhotin scores, Zipf slopes, Indexes of Coincidence, Agglutination and Synthesis and dozens of others) and many home-brewed fuzzy algorithms implemented in T-SQL and VB.Net, after the inadequacy of many advanced data mining techniques was demonstrated. Our methodology was validated when the project reached an inflection point, beyond which we were able to predict the identities and properties of plants based on the text alone. The project ended with plausible identification candidates for 121 of 126 herbal section plants and 7 others elsewhere in the manuscript, far beyond that of other published solutions. An incredible 100% of the 133 identified plants have dermatological uses. These can be divided into prominent subtopics like treatment of bites; anthelmintics; rheumatism and other musculo-skeletal ailments; inflammatory skin disorders; external and possibly menstrual bleeding; excision of blemishes; application of cosmetics; and cures dispensable in baths. The centerpiece of the manuscript is the "Rosette Folio," which depicts the grand design of a medieval bathhouse, keyed to specific astrological timings also defined by satellite diagrams following a precedence hierarchy. Each of these uses exhibit telltale polygraph correlations that fall into a handful of semantic hierarchies constructed from highly similar bases, such as skin color based diagnostic criteria, remedies/solutions, problems/diseases, plant parts and the like. These findings require 2 volumes to demonstrate and another volume of data and other supplementary material. Despite this complexity, they culminate in a drastic simplification of the script and the first-ever comprehensive translation of the Voynich Manuscript in Volume IV, albeit at low resolution.The first installment dedicated to linguistic analysis of the affixing system will be published concurrently with Vol. II, at which time the reference material in Vol. III: Dictionary, Figures, Tables and Other Supplementary Material will be made publicly available for free at the GitHub address https://github.com/InfinidataLLC/Infinidata-Voynich-Manuscript-Project