The Voynich Ninja

JKP: Do you regard the "4" as in "4o" as being a "4" or not? If you do I can present my case that in a gallows character we have the same shape. If you don't think we can say that, do you think we can say what any Voynichese shape is?

Doesn't Occam's razor mean that we should assume it is a "4" shape before we assume it is a different shape that has been obscured? For example it could be a "z" shape or an "x" shape that has been heavily obscured, but presumably we shouldn't give that hypothesis nearly the same weight as that it is an unobsured "4" shape.

JKP: If I understand what you are saying correctly then I think you miss what I am saying. I am saying that left part of the t ligature is an upshifted VMS symbol "4", though I am not overly fond of the term "upshifted" here. Of course the similarity could be incidental, but again I think Occam's razor comes into play. The similarity between any Voynich symbol and any other symbol in any other script may be incidental, but I think it is not unreasonable to make that association in some cases. In fact you try to make this kind of precise association with the latin script, so you must think it possible. Otherwise we can't associate the "8" symbol with the "8" shape.

Edited to delete.
Pfff forget it, nevermind.

(15-05-2019, 07:49 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.JKP: Do you regard the "4" as in "4o" as being a "4" or not? If you do I can present my case that in a gallows character we have the same shape. If you don't think we can say that, do you think we can say what any Voynichese shape is?

Doesn't Occam's razor mean that we should assume it is a "4" shape before we assume it is a different shape that has been obscured? For example it could be a "z" shape or an "x" shape that has been heavily obscured, but presumably we shouldn't give that hypothesis nearly the same weight as that it is an unobsured "4" shape.

I read the q as a shape. That's all. A shape. Does the left part of t have the same shape? Yes. I've blogged about this, so obviously I have acknowledged the similarity.

Are they related? Maybe. If t is a ligature, maybe q is the left part of that ligature. And maybe not. Maybe the similarity in shape is part of some personal symbol system of the creator.

In Latin, the B and P have the same shape at the top, but they are not related meanings, they are only related shapes.

You don't seem to like the idea of it being obscured, but if it is a down-shifted left-part-of-t then it is somewhat obscured by shifting it and removing the right loop. I haven't suggested any strange obscurations like z or x, only the more natural or obvious ones, so I have not moved far from Occam's razor.

For example, here is similarity between q and y. Is it possible that q is a disguised y [font=Sans-serif](might the scribe have unconsciously written EVA-q instead of EVA-y, or is it simply a mistake, or is something else going on)[/font]?



Also, notice the EVA-r on the first word, second line. I've often said this might not be "r" (many of the "solutions" assume it is "r"). In Latin this is not always "r", it is sometimes "i" with an "us" (y abbreviation) tail. You can see in this example, the "us/um" symbol is clearly written and clearly differentiated from the stem. This is how it is often written in Latin. Clearly the scribe was used to Latin scribal conventions. Things like this appear on almost every folio.

JKP: When you say: "Maybe the similarity in shape is part of some personal symbol system of the creator." Well, could that again be true of any shape whether it be "o", "a" or "8"?

Yes, B and P have the different meaning, but are similar shapes, but I don't think that is what we are talking about here. If I draw a large B on a piece of we will say it corresponds to the letter "B" not that it is a modified "P". I am asking for the same standard that we employ with other shapes whether in the Voynich or elsewhere, not a philosophical discussion about what we meam by a symbol or shape.

You are right we have moved less far from Occam's razor than in the other cases with your obscuration, but we have moved from Occam's razor all the same.

(15-05-2019, 09:03 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.JKP: When you say: "Maybe the similarity in shape is part of some personal symbol system of the creator." Well, could that again be true of any shape whether it be "o", "a" or "8"?

Yes, that's how I think about it. I do not assume the "a" shape is "a", but the SHAPE is certainly consistent with Latin "a". However, it might be a constructed shape (e.g., c + i for example).

Quote:Yes, B and P have the different meaning, but are similar shapes, but I don't think that is what we are talking about here. If I draw a large B on a piece of we will say it corresponds to the letter "B" not that it is a modified "P". I am asking for the same standard that we employ with other shapes whether in the Voynich or elsewhere, not a philosophical discussion about what we meam by a symbol or shape.

Mark, when it comes to philosophical discussions, it appears that you are more philosophical than I am. I'm a fairly practical person—I'm the one posting actual examples from the Voynich text.

The original question did not mention the word 'transcription' at all, but this term is coming up in the discussion.

I hope that that was *not* the point of the question.

The choice which character to use to transcribe a particular shape is a completely free choice of the designer of the alphabet. It is pointless to argue which character should be used.

Eva does not use numbers so 4 was not an option for q .
If there were some desire to use characters in transcription alphabets that are close to the shape in the MS, then the shape that should be transcribed with a 4 should be l , not q .

Of all characters (that are not numbers) that could be used to transcribe q , q is the most suitable because:
- the shape is similar so it is easy to remember
- q is the only character that is almost always followed by one single other character, just like q

ReneZ: The question of transcription was not the purpose of my original question.

My question was to argue that we can associate visually the symbols from left of the "t" gallows with a "4" just as I would with the "4" in the "4o".

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JKP: I can post pages and pages of examples here as there are pages and pages of t characters etc. However I was trying to establish a basic simple principle, that you disagree with, and without agreement on that principle any examples would be superfluous.

I think if we cannot say a letter is a latin letter "a", but merely consistent with it then does not that logic apply to all written symbols that are not in the Voynich.

JKP: If I were to write a sentence in English by hand then how could you recognise any of the symbols as coming from the latin alphabet and not some other source without any additional evidence? It seems that we are talking about reasonable inferences here, not theoretical possibilities.

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JKP: If I write the letter/number "4" can we not say that it corresponds to the number 4 and not is a symbol that I have made up.

JKP: I feel like we are getting into the area of common sense and practical reasoning. Yes, in theory, all sorts of things can be true, but in practice it seems reasonable to conclude that "8" is an "8" and not an obscured "S", though in theory it could be.