Does network complexity help organize Babel's library?

In this work, we study properties of texts from the perspective of complex network theory. Words in given texts are linked by co-occurrence and transformed into networks, and we observe that these display topological properties common to other complex systems. However, there are some properties that seem to be exclusive to texts; many of these properties depend on the frequency of words in the text, while others seem to be strictly determined by the grammar. Precisely, these properties allow for a categorization of texts as either with a sense and others encoded or senseless

Manuscrito de Voynich - Análisis del algoritmo de codificación con los métodos de cifrado conocidos en la época medieval y resultados de las marginalias que no fueron encriptadas

In the present study I describe and analyze two objectives, the first is about opposition and equivalence of the Voynich manuscript coding algorithm with the known in medieval period methods of ciphering. According to the results of my innovative research of the Voynich manuscript was written in medieval Galician (Galician-Portuguese). Its coding algorithm was influenced by the substitution cipher of using a polyalphabetic cipher for the most part of its text, as well as it was definitely influenced by transposition cipher for double ciphered alchemical text. However, it should be mentioned that there are significant differences between the codes that were used in the medieval period and the encoded algorithm of the Voynich manuscript. For the reason that made deciphering more complicated over the centuries, substitution encryption of a polyalphabetic cipher was used partly and simultaneusly with monoalphabetic cipher in addition to uncoded text at all. Therefore the main thing to take into consideration is that the second objective of the most interest in this particular article are parts of the Voynich manuscript texts – marginalies– that were not encrypted at all and their reading.En el presente estudio describo y analizo dos objetivos, el primero es sobre la oposición y la equivalencia del algoritmo de codificación del manuscrito Voynich con los métodos conocidos de cifrado del período medieval. Según los resultados de mi investigación innovadora del manuscrito Voynich, este fue escrito en gallego medieval (gallego-portugués). Su algoritmo de codificación fue influenciado por el cifrado de sustitución del uso de un cifrado polialfabético para la mayor parte de su texto, así como definitivamente fue influenciado por el cifrado de transposición para texto alquímico de cifrado doble. Sin embargo, debe mencionarse que existen diferencias significativas entre los códigos que se usaron en el período medieval y el algoritmo codificado del manuscrito Voynich. Por la razón que hizo que el descifrado fuera más complicado a lo largo de los siglos, el cifrado por sustitución de un cifrado polialfabético se usó en parte y simultáneamente con cifrado monoalfabético, además del texto sin codificar. Por lo tanto, lo principal a tener en cuenta es que el segundo objetivo de mayor interés en este artículo en particular son partes de los textos del manuscrito de Voynich –marginalias– que no se cifraron en absoluto y su lectura

Probing the Statistical Properties of Unknown Texts: Application to the Voynich Manuscript

While the use of statistical physics methods to analyze large corpora has been useful to unveil many patterns in texts, no comprehensive investigation has been performed on the interdependence between syntactic and semantic factors. In this study we propose a framework for determining whether a text (e.g., written in an unknown alphabet) is compatible with a natural language and to which language it could belong. The approach is based on three types of statistical measurements, i.e. obtained from first-order statistics of word properties in a text, from the topology of complex networks representing texts, and from intermittency concepts where text is treated as a time series. Comparative experiments were performed with the New Testament in 15 different languages and with distinct books in English and Portuguese in order to quantify the dependency of the different measurements on the language and on the story being told in the book. The metrics found to be informative in distinguishing real texts from their shuffled versions include assortativity, degree and selectivity of words. As an illustration, we analyze an undeciphered medieval manuscript known as the Voynich Manuscript. We show that it is mostly compatible with natural languages and incompatible with random texts. We also obtain candidates for keywords of the Voynich Manuscript which could be helpful in the effort of deciphering it. Because we were able to identify statistical measurements that are more dependent on the syntax than on the semantics, the framework may also serve for text analysis in language-dependent applications

Mathematical Modelling in Engineering & Human Behaviour 2018

This book includes papers in cross-disciplinary applications of mathematical modelling: from medicine to linguistics, social problems, and more. Based on cutting-edge research, each chapter is focused on a different problem of modelling human behaviour or engineering problems at different levels. The reader would find this book to be a useful reference in identifying problems of interest in social, medicine and engineering sciences, and in developing mathematical models that could be used to successfully predict behaviours and obtain practical information for specialised practitioners. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the new developments of applied mathematics in connection with epidemics, medical modelling, social issues, random differential equations and numerical methods

Gallows Variants as Null Characters in the Voynich Manuscript

This study intended to determine how the elimination of gallows variants from the transcription set change the results of statistical queries on the Voynich manuscript. It was hypothesized that the gallows variants in the Voynich manuscript alphabet are null characters, and that removing them would not have a statistically relevant impact on correlational power curves. Voynich-based text samples were created that manipulated and removed gallows variants in different ways. These were analyzed and compared to the original text, looking for similarity and divergence. The actual analysis was a straightforward application of Spearman's rank correlation coefficient to nine separate data samples, along with the source text and two natural language control files written in vulgate Latin and Arabic, respectively. The study demonstrated that the removal of gallows variants effected the statistical measures in ways inconsistent with null characters