
A quantitative, semantics-neutral benchmark for the Pisces subsystem of the Voynich Manuscript. Includes clustering hierarchies and spatial dispersion statistics to test generative text models. Abstract: Decipherment claims for the Voynich Manuscript frequently fail due to a lack of reproducible structural benchmarks. This paper presents a semantics-neutral analysis of the 30 labels on folio f70v2 (Pisces), establishing a multi-layered profile of the text’s behavior. Using hierarchical agglomerative clustering (HAC) and Levenshtein distance, we identify tight morphological paradigms—notably an otal- family and an ok/ot- + -dy/oly family—alongside stable structural outliers. We extend this analysis with positional dispersion metrics, revealing that while some paradigms exhibit regional arc-biases, others (the otal- group) are over-dispersed globally around the wheel. These patterns, contrasted with the rapid clustering collapse and low entropy of the qo- dominant inner rings, suggest a non-local, rule-based generative mechanism. We provide a full dataset and pipeline as a falsifiable standard; any viable model for the manuscript must not only match global statistics but also reproduce the specific clustering hierarchies and spatial asymmetries identified in this subsystem.
Computational Linguistics, Pisces f70v2, Voynich Manuscript, Levenshtein Distance, Cryptology, Hierarchical Clustering
Computational Linguistics, Pisces f70v2, Voynich Manuscript, Levenshtein Distance, Cryptology, Hierarchical Clustering
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