The Voynich Ninja

Unfortunately, I don't have time to blog about this, which is too bad because I have so many examples, but one thing we have to keep in mind about the VMS main text is that constructed alphabets (and also a high proportion of cipher texts) are almost all different from evolved alphabets in certain specific ways.

What many constructed alphabets and ciphertexts have in common is

• many disconnected letters,
  
• letters that tend to be more upright than slanted, and
  
• often more rounded forms.
  

In time, as people get used to writing new glyph shapes, they tend to write faster and the script tends to become more connected, sometimes more slanted, and often more angular (partly due to speed, partly due to the connectedness).

If you look through the various scripts on Omniglot, you will find that many of the ones that "feel" more like VMS glyphs were alphabets invented by missionaries in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. This gives an idea of what I mean by "constructed" texts. When a script is newly invented, the designers seem to be thinking more about shape than ease of quick writing.


So, we cannot be certain that the VMS glyphs are similar to the scribe's native script because it MIGHT be a constructed alphabet or MIGHT be a cipher text and thus may have certain characteristics in common with other invented texts (e.g., Georgian, which was a constructed alphabet, or various ciphertexts). Resemblance to natural scripts (e.g., Italic/Humanist, which is more spaced and rounder that Gothic Cursiva) might be coincidental (and it might not... but we don't know for sure).


But, as frustratingly obtuse as the VMS can be, I think there are some clues in the main text. For example, the way the swept-back tails are drawn is very typical for 15th century script and might illustrate habits of the hand. Whether the leaning-back letters are normal for the scribe who designed the VMS glyphs is very difficult to determine (I have found a small number of hands like that), so the "a" might be an invented shape rather than the scribe's usual shape, although the "o" might be the scribe's natural "o" since it doesn't lean. There might even be a systematic reason for the backleaning letters. For example, maybe leaning glyphs are numerals, or cipher-letters, or something that was originally intended to stand out from regular letters (as on folio 116v) so they could easily be distinguished at a glance.

I do not understand why everyone agreed that on the marginalia 17r the first letter of the third word is "L". Compare with the others on 17r and 116v. There is nowhere else a corner (break) in the vertical line (see the red arrow). There are also the remnants of ink (thin lines? Green arrow), which together with the vertical line can be interpreted as one of the variants of writing the letter "k". (we have nothing to compare it with. On the margins of VMS "k" is missing).
If this is a "k", then this can be a phonetic adaptation of qu to ku, a clerk for whom Latin was not the native language, and there were no strict grammatical rules.
Apparently for this reason, the author, who compiled a guide to "abbreviations " You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.   placed abbreviations that begin on u, v, w in one section (see pages 447-464 of the pdf file).
[attachment=2221]

You're right, Wladimir. It doesn't look like the other ell shapes. It has a bend and a dotty thing to the right. It's quite possible it's a "k".

If it is a "k", then it's probably not Latin (badly spelled), it could be eastern European (eastern European languages also used Latin abbreviations, so the ending is not unusual... that shape can be -orem, -rem, or -em, and occasionally other endinigs). And... it could be some western language depending on how well the writer spells.

(29-06-2018, 09:58 AM)Wladimir D Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I do not understand why everyone agreed that on the marginalia 17r the first letter of the third word is "L".

Hi Wladimir, Vogt and Schwerdtfeger (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 2010) mention the possibility that the letter is a B or maybe a K. Personally, I agree with them: L is the most likely candidate, but there are other possibilities. I believe the reading  "lucem" to be uncertain: this is why I added a question mark to it. Anyway, this thread is focused on paralleling the whole Latin alphabet with specific manuscripts. I would like to avoid discussing every single character here: Vogt and Schwerdtfeger have already done that, and I would refer to them and/or to specific threads (e.g. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) for such discussions. Thank you.

I split Marco's original thread in an attempt to keep the focus. Since a lot can still be said (or refreshed) about the marginalia script in general, we can do so in this thread. The other thread should be about comparing the script to other manuscripts.

Purely because I don't think many people realise the scales involved, here is a photo of the actual text compared to a modern printed book

[attachment=2222]
From which you can see that the scribe not only had a steady hand (I certainly couldn't write that small, even with modern materials) and also had good eyesight.

 I think we can assume it was a young man who wrote this

Interesting that you mention a young man, David. Something had been bothering me, which made me thing the writer may have been a student. 
You see, as Marco said before, this is a clear cursive script. Many letters are written connected. But then on the other hand, sometimes ligatures are not made where we would expect them. Also there's quite some variation in glyph shapes. And that taken together with the unusual slant of the glyphs... May this signal uncertainty or lack of experience with this way of writing?

(29-06-2018, 08:40 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Purely because I don't think many people realise the scales involved, here is a photo of the actual text compared to a modern printed book


From which you can see that the scribe not only had a steady hand (I certainly couldn't write that small, even with modern materials) and also had good eyesight.

 I think we can assume it was a young man who wrote this

I've been SORT of assuming those who created the VMS were probably younger rather than older, for this exact reason but... in my family eyesight is good, they don't need reading glasses until their late 60s and 70s and most of them never need prescription glasses (distance vision is good even in late years) so... there always seem to be exceptions. The odds are that they are younger rather than older, however.

From what I can tell from reading about it, many of these kinds of projects seem to be primarily by men in their mid-20s to early 40s, although in northwest Europe quite a few of the illuminators were women.

(29-06-2018, 10:04 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Interesting that you mention a young man, David. Something had been bothering me, which made me thing the writer may have been a student. 
You see, as Marco said before, this is a clear cursive script. Many letters are written connected. But then on the other hand, sometimes ligatures are not made where we would expect them. Also there's quite some variation in glyph shapes. And that taken together with the unusual slant of the glyphs... May this signal uncertainty or lack of experience with this way of writing?

Hi Koen,
actually, I wrote that "the script is a Cursiva as defined You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.".
That same site briefly discusses the difference between "cursive" and "Cursiva" You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (page bottom).

Quote:Cursive, as a technical term, means a script written with comparatively few lifts of the pen. That is a distinction based on ductus. Cursive can also be used to mean simply “rapidly written” or “messy”

I don't think the script is "cursive" in any of the two senses. It may be partially connected, but certainly much less so than most contemporary scripts.
On the other hand, Cursiva is defined strictly in terms of character shapes.

About the  student idea you and David discuss, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was mentioned in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as a partial match for the marginal Latin script. It has reasonably spaced characters and minimal or no abbreviations. Character shapes are also more or less close.

The ONB titles it "Libellus dialogorum latinus pro instruendo Maximiliano I. conscriptus" - "A Latin booklet of dialogues written to instruct Maxmilian I". It was clearly written and used for the instruction of a child (so it must be dated to 1465ca, since Maximilian was born in 1459).

The booklet includes basic Latin moral sentences and something like a tiny German-Latin dictionary that the infant student decorated with his clumsy sketches. It seems reasonable to believe that, if this kind of simplified script was used for teaching how to write, early writing attempts would also be close to it.
Different languages, a simplified script, sketches: these could all indeed be phenomena related with some kind of learning.


BTW, the recently discussed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. also are early grammar exercises, but the author appears more mature than a young child.