The Voynich Ninja

This is an interesting discussion in itself, so I decided to open a separate thread.

This thought occurred to me right after reading Cham's You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about the "Curve-Line system" which, among other things, makes accent on how some Voynich characters can be decomposed into more elementary characters - the basic e or i and one of the possible "tail modifiers" - an idea generally expressed earlier by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

It appears that the gallows can well be decomposed in a similar way (please excuse awkward graphics, I'm not a professional web designer):

[attachment=13]

All four plain gallows result from combining either EVA "q" or the vertical line with one of the two tail modifiers (marked as t1 and t2). Note that these tail modifiers, when combined with elementary e or i, mostly yield valid Voynichese characters:

• e + t1 = d
  
• e + t2 = g
  
• i + t1 = z (?)
  
• i + t2 = m
  

The only point of question here is the third expression. "z" is a valid character that is encountered, though rarely, in the VMS, but in contrast to i which is normally at a 45 deg. angle, z is perpendicular to the baseline. So it is not clear whether z is really meant to be a combination of i and t1.

A question may arise why p and t gallows, if indeed containing q as component, do lift over the text line and not extend below the baseline (as the normal q would). There is a ready answer - this is to make the "coverage" behaviour (explained You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) possible!

One also may argue that a standalone vertical is not met with in the VMS. Maybe it is not (I'm not sure), but I remember seeing vertical as a component in some rare characters.

The "long straight line" is certainly a stroke which occurs in both the gallows and [q], and I think there is an argument--although not strong--for believing they are the same stroke. The difference being their relation to the baseline.

What it could mean is hard to guess. It could be that, like with [i] and [e], it is simply a fundamental stroke of writing the characters and has no meaning. Much like in Roman script [d] and [b] have a tall straight ascender and are both voiced consonants, but any similarity in appearance is coincidence. This would be backed up by the utterly different ways in which [q] and the gallows characters work.

However, I think that some mistakes in the writing of individual characters in the text give away the workings of the writer's mind, and that they at least had a strong connection between the gallows and [q].

Overall, it is not something I have been able to figure out.

I just checked the selection made by Vladimir Dulov of the Russian VK group (hope he'll join our forum) for examples, there are some for the vertical with a tail modifier: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

E.g. f77r, paragraph 2, line 10, last vord.

Yes! I have noticed them too.

But by far the most interesting specimen is f1r. In the third paragraph, second to last line, half way in. It seems to be a compound of [q] and [p]. Curiously, it is in the right place for a [q], and there is another gallows character in the same word, which isn't very common*.

Was this a mistake, an experiment, or what? And what could it mean?

One possibly concerning [q], though at this moment speculation, is that it is both a kind of gallows characters and an enclitic word such as "and". If we imagine that the word for 'and' had a main sound, such as /n/ in Bantu languages, then gallows could have sounds like /n/, /m/, /ng/ and so on, while [q] is a modified version designed to sit at the beginning of a word. In that way, [t] could stand for the sound /n/ in general, while [q] (just half the character) could stand for /n/ as it is found in Bantu languages to mean "and".

*It seems to be perfectly acceptable to have two gallows in a single word. The total number of such words runs into the middle hundreds. It isn't the usual structure though, so this is interesting.

One more curious example is the benched gallows in f85v, line1, where both t1 and t2 are appended to the "basic" q shape.

I want to add this observation:  look at our (Latin) alphabet and try to find the same structure.

You can for example see the obvious patterns:  
a= c+i
b=reversed c + l
d= c+l
etc

I and has not waited the comments on the site Bax, of the possibility of the existence of symbol "vertical line". Thus I bring a new argument. By analogy with figures 1-5 see Fig. 6, 7. Here, the bottom of leg of gallows concern the (thick) "vertical line".

Gallows "t" in Figure 8, author initially wanted to write on the second floor (two hooks on the legs are visible). But then extend legs to the base line. Such the inconsequential adjustment is necessary only, if the text makes sense ?!

(28-02-2016, 04:43 PM)Wladimir D Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I and has not waited the comments on the site Bax, of the possibility of the existence of symbol "vertical line". Thus I bring a new argument. By analogy with figures 1-5 see Fig. 6, 7. Here, the bottom of leg of gallows concern the (thick) "vertical line".

Gallows "t" in Figure 8, author initially wanted to write on the second floor (two hooks on the legs are visible). But then extend legs to the base line. Such the inconsequential adjustment is necessary only, if the text makes sense ?!

Those are good examples.


The original was superscripted and later lengthened. I've often wondered if this character is a pilcrow. In medieval documents the pilcrow wasn't always at the beginning of a line, it could occur mid-text as well.

Extending the leg would make it look less like a special character/symbol and more like a letter and perhaps that was the reason for altering it.

(20-01-2016, 03:05 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is an interesting discussion in itself, so I decided to open a separate thread.

This thought occurred to me right after reading Cham's You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about the "Curve-Line system" which, among other things, makes accent on how some Voynich characters can be decomposed into more elementary characters - the basic e or i and one of the possible "tail modifiers" - an idea generally expressed earlier by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

It appears that the gallows can well be decomposed in a similar way (please excuse awkward graphics, I'm not a professional web designer):

The "Frogguy" transcription alphabet developed by Jacques Guy in the early 90's decomposed gallows in precisely this way:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Quote:All four plain gallows result from combining either EVA "q" or the vertical line with one of the two tail modifiers (marked as t1 and t2). Note that these tail modifiers, when combined with elementary e or i, mostly yield valid Voynichese characters:

• e + t1 = d
  
• e + t2 = g
  
• i + t1 = z (?)
  
• i + t2 = m
  

The only point of question here is the third expression. "z" is a valid character that is encountered, though rarely, in the VMS, but in contrast to i which is normally at a 45 deg. angle, z is perpendicular to the baseline. So it is not clear whether z is really meant to be a combination of i and t1.

The character you've labeled <z> is actually EVA <j>, and it is quite rare, but it does show up.  I've wondered if the scribe (who I think was a copyist) had trouble distinguishing between <d> and <j>, and if there should actually be more instances of <j> in the text.