The Voynich Ninja

The VM is at times obsessive over text justification, usually ensuring a very straight left margin, and in places with strong indications that words have been forced into unnatural positions to finish off right margin justification.
Notwithstanding that, there is, normally, very little attempt at ruling to ensure sentences are straight. Sentences often wobble up and down.
This is the reverse of many western illustrated manuscripts, where ruling was the first task to be carried out.
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The left margin is obsessively neat, and the text is carefully written right up to the image, but no attempt at ruling.

Is anyone aware of any manuscript traditions that are so obsessive over justification but lax about ruling?

This is one of the prime examples where one can suspect that the first characters of lines were put down first of all.
That would explain the 'straight margin but no ruling' effect.
It would also explain the weird Eva-t in the line starting: tolShy qoky

Rene, do you mean they first wrote a vertical column of "initials" and then the rest?

This is a very interesting thought. Going over some pages, it also seems likt the first character is disconnected with a half space from the rest. If this is the case, then what to make of something like this? (f4r)

[attachment=6473]

The "first characters" would be [p, cho, qo, sho, d, o, qo, s, d]. The "o" is often part of the first "glyph". 
Moreover, the p-gallow is written slightly to the left and the [y] is in the column instead.

(30-04-2022, 07:09 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is one of the prime examples where one can suspect that the first characters of lines were put down first of all.

That, of course, implies that an exemplar was used, or at the very least, a rough draft.
I was researching this when I came across your site, Rene - as always, you're one step ahead 
Irrespective of this, I was wondering if this style of layout could be used to narrow down a possible geographical location, or scribal tradition, for the scribes.

To carry on with my previous thought, I find it strange that 5(?) different scribes all used the same technique to write out the manuscript. Why justify in this fashion if there is no visual border delineating the margins?

Why go to so much trouble to align the left and right margins but not bother to rule in between? In the example above, second line last glyph has been compressed to fit in.
Unless you argue that this is some sort of steganography (which I don't), then I assume this is simply the way they were trained to write.

Yeah it might be something as simple as training. Although the lack of ruling suggests "notebook" or informal style, so why do the margins and not the ruling?

If I recall correctly, ruling a text took quite some effort. So maybe guarding the margin is the easiest defense against total chaos?

The lack of scribal standards may imply that these writers were not scribes, in the professional sense. A writer without a ruler, to draw straight lines. Looks like they're working free-handed. The work of motivated amateurs, like the artistry.

Perhaps it would be better to identify the various VMs writers with the term "Hand" rather than "Scribe". There may be a sufficient period of time involved where a writer's style may have changed. Hand 2 and Hand 3 might be the same person.

The alignment of the script is not present everywhere, see 58r for example. It seems to be present only where writing was slow and careful. Which would be another reason to assume one hand and not five. And the thesis that initial letters of lines were written first seems far-fetched to me.

10r seems to be one where the alignment line is not perfectly vertical; it looks like it skews to the right before then skewing back to the left.  The LS initials at the bottom look squashed and out of place, as if added afterwards.

(30-04-2022, 09:10 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(30-04-2022, 07:09 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is one of the prime examples where one can suspect that the first characters of lines were put down first of all.

That, of course, implies that an exemplar was used, or at the very least, a rough draft.
I was researching this when I came across your site, Rene - as always, you're one step ahead 
Irrespective of this, I was wondering if this style of layout could be used to narrow down a possible geographical location, or scribal tradition, for the scribes.

The use of a rough draft is not necessarily involved. The first character of each line can be an indication related to the alphabet to be used in the line. Or the indication how to switch in between. Different alphabets can be just another  letter order or anything else.