(30-05-2018, 02:58 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Good point; interestingly, it appears to also represent "t".
Yes many of the shapes with tails have more than one interpretation in medieval script.
In Latin, EVA-s can be c-with-a-tail, e-with-a-tail, and, in the older medieval scripts when they wrote more rounded letter "t" it can be t-with-a-tail.
Similarly, EVA-r can be i-with-a-tail, r-with-a-tail and, if it has a little hook on the foot, t-with-a-tail.
And also... something I've pointed out in blogs... EVA-m in Latin is three different abbreviations and (as I posted on the forum when it was young), "all are represented in the VMS". By that I mean EVA-m is three different abbreviations in Latin because the "-is" suffix can be added to almost anything (this is why it's hard to explain this in a few words).
So, if it has a straight back, EVA-m looks like -ris in Latin. If it has a straight back with a tiny hook on the bottom, EVA-m looks like -tis in Latin, and if it has a rounded back (like a "c"), it is -cis in Latin. All three shapes exist in the VMS. I really have no doubt that whoever wrote it (or devised it) was very familiar with Latin script.
You can even find places where a scribe "slipped" and wrote EVA-y superscripted, which is how it was often written in Latin (it could be written both in line with the text and superscripted). This is how we can know that it is not intended as a "g" shape, that it is, in fact, a "9" shape as in the Latin abbreviation, besides the fact that it is positioned primarily at the ends of words (as in Latin), sometimes at the beginnings of words (as in Latin), and only rarely in the middles of words (as in Latin).
The same Latin conventions hold true for EVA-r and EVA-s in terms of position. There are only certain glyphs in the VMS that stand alone and they tend to be consistent with abbreviation shapes that stand alone in Latin. For example, EVA-s can stand alone. If it is interpreted as c-with-tail or e-with-tail then it is consistent with one-letter Latin abbreviations that can stand alone, such as "con" and "eius".
I can write about this for hours and hours because the VMS is loaded with examples. Note the macron on the 4o early in the manuscript. A Latin abbreviation convention. It shows up in a handful of places, but that's enough to show that the scribe was probably used to using it and perhaps slipped and sometimes added it in OR perhaps 4o is sometimes intended as 4'o (with omitted letters in between).
In Spanish the Latin abbreviation "con" is very commonly used (there are actually several ways to abbreviate "con" in Latin, it was a flexible system). In German manuscripts, the abbreviations for "-ris/-tis/-cis" (the shape like EVA-m) are very commonly used. The "cis" abbreviation, in Latin, is often also used as a paragraph-ending symbol in Latin and German manuscripts (which means it falls more often at the ends of lines and paragraphs, just as it does in the VMS).
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Many of these scribal conventions were inherited from Greek. For example, as I've mentioned before, adding a little loop to the top-right corner of the letter "pi" is the abbreviation for "po or "pe" and occasionally "peri". Latin does something similar, the little loop with a descender is "-is" and can be added to anything but is USUALLY added at the ends of words. Capital "i" with the "-is" abbreviation is also used to represent "Item" (it looks like EVA-k).
Many of the Latin scribal conventions are used in French, Italian, German, English, Czech, etc. Some of the gallows characters are similar to Greek scribal conventions, but even those carried over into Latin... a little more often in Greek, but benching occurs in both Greek and Latin. The bench character by itself (EVA-ch and EVA-sh) is a very common ligature in Latin.
