Over the past weekend I stayed home and played a bit with the word-pair tables above. I printed the Voynich word-pair table and cut it up into little index cards, one for each left-word. Then I tried to group the left-words into classes, based on the most popular words that followed them. I identified the following classes: (1) positional class: a coarse classification, based on how often the word occurs in line-final position, i.e. right before "//". Very often final: oea 8a qoHa oHa eoe Moderately often final: czcc8a oeccc8a eccc8a am ccca ccc8a oeHc8a or oHae qoHae qoe oe qoHam oHam zam 8am 8ar 8ae oHcc8a cccHca Hc8a qoHcca oHc8a Rarely if ever final: cccca oeHcca oHcca oHca zccHca zcccHca qoHan qoHcc81 qoHc8a qoHca ccccHca zcc8a zccca zcca cccc8a zccc8a Presumably, if a word is unusually common in that position, the cause is that it often occurs at the end of sentences, hence at the end of paragraphs, which always end at the end of a line. (2) post-contextual class: a finer classification, based on the few most common words following the word in question (including "//", if common enough). Mostly followed by {// zcca}: oHa oea Mostly followed by {// zcc8a, ccc8a}: qoHam qoHc?m oham qohae oHae zamm ram, oHc?m 8am 8ar 8ae or oe qoe Mostly followed by {// 8am zam}: qoHa Mostly followed by {// qoHc8a}: ccc8a oeHc8a ccca Mostly followed by {// qoHa}: cccHca oHcc8a Mostly followed by {// qoHcc8a qoe}: oeccc8a eccc8a ezcc8a Mostly followed by {qoHc8a qohcc8a ccc8a}: qoHc8a qoHcc8a Mostly followed by {zcc8a ccc8a oe}: qoHar oHar qoHoe zoe Mostly followed by {qoHam qoHc?m qoHc8a qohar //}: zcca zccca zcc8a zcccHca Mostly followed by {qoHcc8a}: zccc8a cccc8a Mostly followed by {qoHae qoHc?m qoHa}: ccccHca qoHca Mostly followed by {qoHc8a qoHca}: oHca zccHca Mostly followed by {qoHc8a oHc8a}: Hc8a oHc8a qoHcca The `qoHc?m' words are generally instances where Friedman has [4ODAM] and Currier has [4ODAN]. The general impression is that of words in a natural language (as opposed to random words). I wrote a script to compute and print word-pair frequencies. To save memory, the words are divided into two sets, the "keys" K (usually the 20-so most common words) and the "bores" B (all the rest); and only the K-K, K-B, and B-K sub-tables are computed. cat bio-j-jsa.wds \ | sed \ -e 's/[ql]j/H/g' \ -e 's/[ql]g/P/g' \ -e 's/cs/z/g' \ -e 's/ij/k/g' \ -e 's/ix/e/g' \ -e 's/is/r/g' \ -e 's/iiu/n/g' \ -e 's/y/i/g' \ -e 's/ci/a/g' \ -e 's/cg/8/g' \ -e 's/ir/w/g' \ -e 's/in/m/g'\ > .wds cat .keys // zcc8a ccc8a oe oHc8a qoHcc8a qoHc8a qoHa qoHae qoe eccc8a oHcc8a zccc8a ccca zcca cccHca zccHca ccccHca zcccHca zccca cccca zam 8am 8ar 8ae oHae oHam oHar qoHan qoHam qoHar qoHcca oHcca or lines words bytes file ------ ------- --------- ------------ 7054 7054 43161 .wds 34 34 192 .keys To avoid excessive words, I decided to replace all words containing any `?' by `???'. Here are the tables (as redone on 97-08-08): cat .wds \ | sed -e '/?/s/^.*$/???/g' \ | enum-word-pairs \ | count-diword-freqs -v keyfile=.keys max word length = 11 (key,key) word pair counts: ----- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- q c z o q e o z c z c c q z c o H o q c H c c c c c z c q q q o o c c H c H q o c c c c z c c c c c c o o o o o o H H T c c c c c o H q c c c c c H H H H c c z 8 8 8 H H H H H H c c O / 8 8 o 8 8 8 H a o 8 8 8 c c c c c c c c a a a a a a a a a a c c o T / a a e a a a a e e a a a a a a a a a a a m m r e e m r n m r a a r ----- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- // 765 . 2 4 1 3 28 15 2 9 10 3 . 4 1 2 . . . . 1 1 13 15 4 3 1 . . 5 12 2 13 2 1 zcc8a 204 9 5 5 5 3 13 16 5 3 8 . 1 . 2 3 . . 1 . . . . . . 2 1 . . 2 11 2 4 1 . ccc8a 172 11 1 4 1 3 5 9 1 6 8 3 . . . . . 3 1 1 . . . 2 1 . . 1 1 4 4 6 4 . . oe 127 16 10 6 2 1 1 . 2 . . 1 3 3 2 1 2 . 1 . 2 2 1 1 1 1 . 3 . . . 1 . . 1 oHc8a 83 3 4 1 1 4 2 8 2 1 1 2 . 1 . . . 1 . . . 1 . . . . 1 1 . . . 1 . 1 . qoHcc8a 183 4 2 6 . 2 8 15 2 8 2 5 5 . 1 . 1 . 2 . 1 1 . 3 2 . 1 2 . 2 4 5 5 . . qoHc8a 198 6 8 8 2 7 14 14 5 6 4 2 2 1 1 1 2 1 . . . . . 1 2 3 2 1 2 3 . . 2 1 . qoHa 79 20 1 3 . . . 2 1 3 2 2 2 . 1 1 1 . . . . . 3 4 . . . 1 . . . 1 . . . qoHae 113 9 7 9 . . . 1 1 2 2 1 . 1 2 2 3 1 1 3 . . . 2 5 3 . . 1 . . . . 1 1 qoe 81 9 6 9 3 1 . . . 1 2 . . 2 2 . . . . 1 2 1 1 . . . . 2 1 . . . . 1 1 eccc8a 52 9 3 1 1 . 3 2 3 . . . . . 1 . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . . oHcc8a 56 5 3 2 1 2 3 3 4 1 1 . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . 1 . . 1 zccc8a 36 . . 1 1 . 5 3 . 1 3 1 . . . . . . . . . 1 . 1 . . . . . . 1 1 2 . . ccca 67 4 . . 1 . 3 1 2 . 2 2 . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 1 . . . 1 1 2 1 1 1 . zcca 69 3 1 1 2 . 3 4 3 . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 . . . . 1 4 1 1 . . cccHca 50 4 1 . . . 1 . 4 2 . 1 1 . . 1 . 1 . . . . . 1 . . . 1 1 2 1 . 2 . 1 zccHca 37 . 1 . . 1 . 3 1 . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . 1 . . . . . . 1 . . 1 . . ccccHca 35 . . . . . 1 . 2 3 . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . 2 . . 1 . . . . 1 zcccHca 31 . . . 1 . 2 2 1 3 1 . . . 1 1 . . . . . . . 1 . 1 1 . . . . 1 1 . . zccca 23 . . . 1 . . 2 . 1 . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . 1 . . 1 . 2 . 1 . 2 cccca 31 . . . . 1 . . . . . 1 . . . 1 . . . 1 . . . 1 . 1 . . . . 2 . . . . zam 31 3 2 2 . . . . . . 1 . . 1 1 2 . 1 . 1 . . . 1 . 1 . . . . . . . . . 8am 73 8 3 2 2 2 . . . . . . . . 5 3 1 2 2 1 . . . 1 . . 1 2 1 . . . . . . 8ar 51 5 4 1 4 . . . . . . . . . . 2 . 1 1 . . . . . 1 . 1 1 1 . 1 1 1 . 1 8ae 50 8 4 2 1 . . 1 . . 1 2 . 1 . . 1 . . . . . . 2 1 1 . . . . . . . . 2 oHae 39 4 1 4 1 . . . . . . . 1 1 . 1 1 . . . 1 . . . 1 2 . . . . . . . . . oHam 37 3 3 1 1 2 . . . . . . 1 . 1 . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . oHar 35 1 4 3 2 3 . 1 . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . 2 1 . . 1 . . . . . . qoHan 54 1 1 3 1 2 . . . . . . . 1 2 . 6 1 . 1 1 1 . 1 3 2 1 2 1 1 . . . . 1 qoHam 91 5 6 5 1 1 1 1 . 1 . . 1 . 2 . 2 5 5 1 . . 2 . . 1 1 1 . . 2 1 . . . qoHar 48 1 7 2 4 . . . . 1 . . 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . 1 qoHcca 81 3 3 3 1 1 2 6 1 3 . 1 2 . . . . . . . . . . 2 1 1 1 . . 1 2 . 1 4 1 oHcca 34 1 . . 1 . . . . 1 2 1 . . . . 1 . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . 1 1 1 . . or 40 3 3 1 1 . . . . . . . . 1 2 . . . 1 . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ----- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- TOT 7054 765 204 172 127 83 183 198 79 113 81 52 56 36 67 69 50 37 35 31 23 31 31 73 51 50 39 37 35 54 91 48 81 34 40 Incidentally: Rene Zandberger just posted his guess at the names of the planets: EVA Frogguy JSA Tables above freq ------------- -------------- ------------------- ------------- ---- okal olpax oljciix oHae 97 dolchsody 8oxctso89 cgoixcccsocgcy 8oecczo8a 0 yfain 9ljaiv cylgciiiu aPan 0 ytoaiin 9qpoaiiv cyqjociiiiu aHoam 0 ofar,oeoldain olja2,ocox8aiv olgciis,ocoixcgciiiu oPar,ocoe8an 2,0 opcholdy oqjctox89 oqgccoixcgcy oPccoe8a 0 okain.am olpaiv aig oljciiiu ciiij oHan aik 16 0