(20-09-2019, 03:58 PM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Just a general remark about Fontana: His writings, which are not in normal script, are not ciphres in the real sense, they are inventrd symbols and seem not to have been intended as a 'secret'. That is one of the reasons I think the B. 408 author knew Fontana
Taking this back to basic semiotics and communication theory, I'm struck that the difference between a cipher, a constructed language (conlang) and a system of shorthand is really only one of the communicator's intent, which has mostly to do with who the audience of his message is. I define communication as one agent trying to exert their will on at least one other agent. This is why when attempting to understand any sort of symbolic communication, I find two good questions to start with are:
Who was (s)he trying to communicate with, and what effect was (s)he trying to have on them?
I'm not too familiar with Giovanni Fontana. Can you comment on any of the following?:
- What types of messages did Fontana use his novel writing systems to express?
- Who were the intended recipients of the messages Fontana wrote in the symbols he invented?
- How did Fontana's use of a novel symbolic communication system help him deliver his messages the way he intended to the people he intended them for?
We can (and IMHO should) ask these three questions about any person we suspect may have been a forerunner or influence on the creator of the VMS's patently synthetic set of symbols.
@ RenegadHealer
I am only a humble historian and philologist and palaeographer, at least as far as we are concerned with B. 408 (I am other things as well), I am not much up in semiotics and communication theory, but there are several books about F. you could read to answer your own questions, I am certainly not going to do your homework. From what I have read of you you are just picking brains.
(20-09-2019, 06:33 PM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.@ RenegadHealer
I am only a humble historian and philologist and palaeographer, at least as far as we are concerned with B. 408 (I am other things as well), I am not much up in semiotics and communication theory, but there are several books about F. you could read to answer your own questions, I am certainly not going to do your homework. From what I have read of you you are just picking brains.
Fair enough. I'll do some reading on GF and share what I find.
There is a thread here about Fontana.
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And not really related but 4th image down, Fontana has invented the Death-Star...awesome.
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(20-09-2019, 07:23 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is a thread here about Fontana.
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And not really related but 4th image down, Fontana has invented the Death-Star...awesome.
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Thanks for getting me started. Looks like a potentially interesting lead.
Why should I encrypt the VM? ..... Good question !
If I look at the hints like this, and I also assume that the book is to be looked for the origin in northern Italy. To deal with the little german where available,
also involve the history of the region, encryption has a possible, plausible explanation.
I personally assume that the VM comes from the northeast of Italy. When the area Tyrol from diocese Chur approx. 1365 went to the Habsburgs, the dialects were forbidden by law in different places in order to quickly get the German language through.
I see this as a possible explanation for an encryption.
By the way, I mentioned the grammar in Alemanic, there is actually none until today. There are only recommendations. Also the sentence order changes in relation to the High German.
I'd point out that we can easily read all the cipher and conlangs mentioned above.
They're in a different category to the voynich - and there doesn't seem to be any obvious connection between them.
@RobGea I just finished reading the thread here about GF. I think this post from Marco P pretty much answers my questions about his intentions in creating a new set of written symbols:
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I ended up doing some reading about oligosynthetic languages and logical and philosophical constructed languages like Lojban. What I see in common with Fontana's ciphers is an intention to categorize things in logical ways, so that, when it comes to written language, things in the same category get symbolized similarly. The intentions behind creating and using logical languages like Lojban include the elimination of ambiguity, increased efficiency of communication, and as in the Fontana quote that Marco provided, improved ease of memory.
I was thinking about Stephen Carlson's post earlier in this thread about a teacher seeing the contents of his lecture notes as worth money, and wanting to keep them free from the prying eyes of competitors and learners who hadn't paid tuition. I can see how someone like Giovanni Fontana might have influenced the author of the VM to invent a simple and logical symbolic language that was capable of representing all the concepts of the type of material he taught, but familiar only to him. The grammar would be very basic, almost list-like, just enough information to remind the teacher of points he needs to cover. The question in my mind, then, is whether or not the rules of Voynichese allow anywhere near the number of unique states and category-delineating classes of symbols to say everything necessary about all of the subjects the book discusses, in a compact but retrievable form. Looking at the work of Koen G and Torsten and everyone else here who is doing the math, I could really see this going either way. One of my planned projects is to map out all the possible unique states that the rules that govern 95% of the VMS's vords allow for. I'll post my first draft of it as soon as I get it into a presentable form.
And while we're on the subject, thank you Helmut for reminding me it's my turn to give something back. I don't have a lot to offer this quest, but I'm going to keep looking for opportunities to do original research and share it with the group, because you guys are awesome.
(20-09-2019, 09:54 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'd point out that we can easily read all the cipher and conlangs mentioned above.
They're in a different category to the voynich - and there doesn't seem to be any obvious connection between them.
I think one obvious connection is the area all these tings come from
Sorry Helmut, I was ambiguous there. I agree with your comment.
I should have said linguistic connection.