The Voynich Ninja

Dear Lisa, many thanks for the specific feedback,

(11-05-2020, 02:55 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't think writing in a circle requires any particular skill or expertise, although it does imply that the page was rotated while writing. It may indicate a scribe's particular interest, but I don't think it indicates a particular skill.

Yes, that could be another reason, though it amounts to largely the same thing.
I am trying to imagine the setup, and tend to think of a bunch of 'amateurs' rather than a professional group who are being paid. Nothing I can prove it with of course.
In the more amateur setup, I could easily imagine that these complicated diagrams would be left primarily to one guy, either because he could do it best, liked it most, or the others didn't like it...
That would not be a good argument in a professional setup.

The other particular thing about these pages is the need for closer interaction with the drawing and the draftsman, and one might venture the thought that scribe 4 was him.

This is great !
Love all these new ideas and potential for further analysis and implications.
and a linguistic analysis to look forward, awesome. :excited:
  LFD.

Another interesting feature (IMHO) is the distribution of short end-of paragraph lines.
Usually, if they are clearly shorter than the normal text width, these are left-justified. However, as described You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , they can also be centred, right-justified, or have a left- and right-justified part. This happens more rarely. Now these features are shared by all scribes, with the notable exception of scribe 4.

For scribes 1, 2, 3 and 5, these features occur on several pages, and the number of pages is roughly proportional to the total number of pages written by each of the scribes. The only anomaly is that the so-called titles are only used by scribe 1.

Scribe 4 has only a little bit of 'text in paragraphs', so that might explain the complete lack for him.

The summary is that this does not seem to have been something that was a personal choice of the scribe, but was somehow agreed or prescribed.

(11-05-2020, 08:28 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The summary is that this does not seem to have been something that was a personal choice of the scribe, but was somehow agreed or prescribed.

Yes, it seems the question as to whether each scribe was to some extent autonomous or merely following the dictation of someone else is key. So can we say a given scribe made a significant choice to do something a certain distinct way? I suppose this would be reflected in how different the output of each scribe was. A group of collaborators as opposed to one author dictating to his scribes are two very different visions of creation, with unclear, yet I would think, very significant implications.

If it comes to undeciphered scripts I find it important to verify any argument given at least twice. Thankfully, the article contains a table with associations of folios to scribes as well as the criteria used for the assignments. Therefore it is possible to verify the assignments.

These are my main findings so far:

1) In the case of the [h] (EVA-[k]) the criteria for the scribes 1, 3, and 5 sound very similar to each other. In the case of scribe 3 the [h] is indeed "slightly more compact" but only since the whole writing is more compact. The "very slightly foot" (scribe 1) and the "minuscle tick at the foot" (scribe 5) are in my eyes just different words to describe the same observation. 


2) The article didn't discuss the fact that a wide variety of glyph forms exists for both glyphs even for a single page. See for instance the different foot sizes for [h] on a folio assigned to scribe 1 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.):
[attachment=4347]


3) The given criteria for [m] and [n] (EVA-[in]) for scribe 5 is a [m] with "a long, low final that finishes above the penultimate minim". If we check all instances of [m] and [n] the outcome is a wide range of forms. Decide yourself how many of the glyphs fit the given criteria:
[attachment=4348]

(you can also verify it yourself by using You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)


4) In case of scribe 4 it is hard to find further examples of glyphs matching the criteria for scribe 4. Even on the rosette folio itself the tall [m] "with only a slight curvature" is an exception:
[attachment=4351]

And also on other pages assigned to scribe 4 it is hard to find further instances of [h] with a "prominent final foot" or an [m] or [n] "with only a slight curvature".
(see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)

Maybe it is possible to name other criteria to distinguish between scribes. But based on the criteria presented in this article I came to the conclusion that the variance for the selected glyphs on a single page is too high to use this criteria to distinguish even between two different scribes.

Thanks for taking the time to go through my work so carefully, Torsten. I see your point, but as I mentioned when you brought this up on Twitter a few days ago, paleography is about tendencies, not about absolutes. These scribes are human, writing by hand, and even the most careful calligrapher is not going to make each character exactly the same every time. That's what the printing press is for. My conclusions are based on tendencies visible over the length of a scribe's corpora. But since paleography is subjective, not objective, you are of course welcome to have a different opinion.

Small question: f67r2 has text in a red ink, and is that writing in the same hand as the rest?

I think that whole page is written by the same scribe.

(12-05-2020, 11:58 AM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

Thank you for your answer, Lisa. Since paleography includes some subjective elements I find it especially important to understand the methodology used. In other words, also in paleography methodology matters.

You wrote in your article "Folio 57v is somewhat problematic: there is too little text to reliable run Currier's dialect tests, ..." (Davis 2020, p. 176). Now you say the "conclusions are based on tendencies over the length of a scribe's corpora". This sounds to me as if the corpora of a scribe was first determined by taking "Currier's dialect tests" and the illustrations into account. Is my understanding correct?

By applying the criteria given in your article I come to the conclusion that scribe 2 and scribe 4 was one and the same scribe. What would you say to such a suggestion as that?

(12-05-2020, 05:57 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think that whole page is written by the same scribe.

The page with red ink may be important for "profiling" scribes. This may be the only page where they used a ruler, both in the drawing and in the text, and the text is written in red.