Date: 26 April 2023
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Venue: Online (via Zoom)
Speaker: Dr Colin Layfield
This Seminar is being organised by the Institute of Linguistics & Language Technology at the University of Malta.
This event will be taking place online via Zoom with the following details:
Passcode: 271457
The Talk host will be Dr Colin Layfield (Faculty of ICT, Department of Computer Information Systems, University of Malta).
Seminar Title: Coherence in the Voynich Manuscript
Abstract:
The Voynich Manuscript is an enigmatic 15th century tome. What makes it unique is that it is written in an elegant and unique alphabet and script that, to date, has not been deciphered. Within its pages it contains many fantastical figures of strange plants, figures of a cosmological or zodiac flavour and arrangements of tubing and tubs and mostly nude female figures. The manuscript itself is named after Wilfred Voynich who acquired the manuscript in 1912 from the Jesuit monastery, Villa Mondragone, in Rome (fun fact, Jesuit Father Strickland, of Maltese origin [born in 1864], is largely considered to be the broker for this arrangement). There are three main theories surrounding the Voynich Manuscript. It is a previously unknown natural language, it is an enciphered document or it is an elaborate hoax. One avenue of investigation into the Voynich Manuscript is to see if it has characteristics that are in common with a natural language, for example it follows Zipf’s law. With this talk, we will explore the cadence and flow the manuscript to see if it follows similar patterns to known text.