The Voynich Ninja

I thought I should probably start a new thread to build on the discussion You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., since I don't want to take over the thread about the recent Atlantic article.

I've been taking a closer look at the formal characteristics Lisa uses in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to define each of the five distinct hands she has identified.  Among other things, I was curious to see how her classifications might fit in with an impression I have that the bifolio containing f1 and f8 was written by someone who was just figuring out how to use the script for the first time -- especially the first part of f1r, where the second, third, and fourth glyphs strike me as a first attempt to form [a], [ch], and [y], before the writer has quite settled on the stable forms they ended up having.  If something as basic as that was still unresolved, I wondered whether the characteristics Lisa used to identify the five distinctive hands might likewise have been in flux at the time when that particular bifolio was written.

Expressed in EVA terms, the characteristics Lisa cites as defining different hands involve the forms of [k] and [n].

For [k], the main distinctive features are:

1. "a sharp angle at the top of the first vertical as the quill changes direction, a bowed crossbar, a round loop, and a very slight foot at the base of the second vertical."
2. "a horizontal, straight crossbar, an oval loop, and an upwardly angled final tick."
3. "similar to that of Scribe 1, although slightly more compact."
4. "a perpendicular crossbar, an oversize loop, and a prominent final foot."
5. "tall and narrow, with a bowed cross-stroke that begins at the top of the vertical, and a minuscule tick at the foot of the second vertical."

So the questions we need to ask about the form of [k] when trying to identify a piece of Voynichese writing with a given hand are:

a. Is the cross-bar bowed or straight?
b. How and where does the cross-bar connect to the first vertical? 
c. Is the loop round or oval?
d. How large is the foot on the second vertical, and what form does it take?
e. Is the glyph as a whole unusually compact, or is it unusually tall and narrow?

The tokens of [k] on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. appear to my eye to alternate indiscriminately among all these options.  The cross-bar seems to have about a fifty-fifty chance of being straight or bowed, for example, though this would be hard to quantify in any rigorous way.  Loops are variously circles or ovals with their narrow axes horizontal, vertical, or diagonal.

[attachment=9079]

For [n], the definitive characteristics are:

1. "conclude with a backward flourish that stretches as far as the penultimate minim."
2. "final backstroke...is short, barely passing the final minim."
3. "final stroke...curves back on itself, nearly touching the top of the final minim."
4. "final stroke...is tall, with only a slight curvature."
5. "has a long, low finial that finishes above the penultimate minim."

The tokens of [n] on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are mostly of type 1, but with several cases that appear closer to type 3 and several others that appear closer to type 5:

[attachment=9081]

On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (adjacent to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on the same side of the bifolio), [k] varies similarly, including the mix of bowed and straight cross-bars:

[attachment=9080]

Meanwhile, [n] is again mostly of type 1, but with one very convincing example of type 3 (third in top row):

[attachment=9082]

On f8r, [k] again varies -- 

[attachment=9086]

-- while [n] is again mostly type 1, but with one very convincing example of type 5 (second in second row):

[attachment=9083]

On f1v, [k] varies yet again:

[attachment=9085]

There aren't many tokens of [n], but what there is looks plausibly like type 1.

[attachment=9084]

So for what it's worth, it looks to me as though when f1 and f8 were written, the writer was alternating haphazardly between the various forms of [k], and favored the form of [n] associated with hand 1 but was also quite capable of producing the forms associated with hands 3 and 5.  What do others see?

Thanks, Patrick, this is very interesting to look at. One thing I wonder is if the hypothesis holds that the first bifolio was for practice. Would a later herbal A bifolio give more consistent results?

Some people also have naturally varied handwriting. This is one of the reasons why my own handwriting is very ugly - I admire people who can be consistent like a typewriter. The differences between some of these types are small enough that they may occur naturally within the same hand. So then I assume we'd look for the dominant type, what the scribe is most likely aiming at.


Edit to add: I tried something similar a few months ago but had to give up. The inconsistency was driving me crazy. You seem to have a firmer grasp on the situation

I feel like a broken record - scribes are humans, not machines. This is a handwritten object, not printed. There will always be variation. It is possible to convince yourself (as some have argued) that the scribe changes witih each new line or page. It is possible to convince yourself (as some have argued) that the entire manuscript is written by a single scribe. My own experience and expertise after studying and cataloguing more than a thousand medieval manuscripts and fragments led me to my conclusions about how many scribes there are in the VMS and which leaves they wrote. Hundreds of scribes, five scribes, one scribe...all are possible, but they are not EQUALLY possible. I think I will not participate in these conversations going forward, as I have explained my methods and methodology on numerous occasions, and there are still those who insist that because there is variation I must be wrong. Variation is always present. The question is how different do two samples have to be before they represent two different hands, and how similar do two samples have to be before they represent a single hand. Paleographers disgree on where to make those distinctions. Should two scribal samples be considered different until they can be proven to be identical, or should they be considered identical until they can be proven to be different? These are the kind of theoretical discussions that paleographers have, and different paleographers come down on different sides of the question. In the end, all you can do is make your case and explain your methods. As I've said on multiple threads, paleography is subjective. Any and all are welcome to disagree with me, but I stand by my work, supported by thirty years of extensive experience with medieval manuscripts and acknowledged expertise.

(24-08-2024, 09:33 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.One thing I wonder is if the hypothesis holds that the first bifolio was for practice. Would a later herbal A bifolio give more consistent results?

Interesting question!  Here's a similar set of displays for the next bifolio in (f2+f7):

[attachment=9090]

Caveat: I'm not a trained paleographer.  But I'd say the forms of [k] in this bifolio look marginally more consistent here than they did in f1+f8.  There seems to be less variation in the shape of the loop in particular, with fewer pinched ovals and more roundness overall.  However, there's still significant variation in the form of the cross-bar.  As before, it would be hard to assess this quantitatively because the "types" seem to span a spectrum rather than falling into easily distinguishable clusters.  But there are certainly multiple tokens with horizontal cross-bars and multiple tokens with bowed cross-bars.  There are also tokens where the cross-bar follows at a sharp angle from the top of the first vertical and tokens where it appears to have been drawn in a second noncontinuous stroke (or at least there's no perceptible widening of the vertical to suggest it was "retraced" on the way to the start of the cross-bar).

Surprisingly (?), the forms of [n] seem to be a bit less consistent here than on f1+f8.  There are still plenty of Hand 1 type flourishes, but they're now accompanied by a higher proportion of shorter types, including one particularly extreme Hand 3 type (f2r, 3rd row, token 4).

If f2+f7 was written by the same person who wrote f1+f8, but a little later, then the main change in habits in between would seem to have been in the direction of:

(1) Round [k] loops, but still with sporadic ovals
(2) Shorter [n] flourishes on average, but still with plenty of long ones thrown into the mix

In other words, it looks like the writer retained the wide repertoire of glyph forms we see in f1+f8 but is now using some of them in different proportions.  Specifically, they've settled on a comfortable default motion for drawing a [k] loop, and they've become more economical (so to speak) with the lengths of their [n] flourishes.

If it hadn't been for Lisa's paper, I doubt it would have occurred to me to focus on these particular telltale features, and I absolutely defer to her expertise in applying the disciplinary tools of paleography.  That said, I don't think we should be so hasty to dismiss the possibility that the different "hands" could represent the evolution of a single writer's habits while learning and internalizing a new script (a scenario that I sense just doesn't come up much in paleographic studies).  If we were in fact dealing with such a case, I believe we'd expect not to see sharp, clear, absolute, unambiguous divisions between "hands," but gradual transitions in which the relative proportions of different features would vary -- something like the "transitions" between Currier A and Currier B.  This would, I'll admit, be a fiendishly difficult thing to track on a large scale.  But armed with Lisa's descriptions of the different hands, and her You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as a "cheat sheet," I have to say I'd be hard-pressed to identify either f1+f8 or f2+f7 unambiguously with Hand 1.  That could be because I'm misinterpreting what the distinguishing features are or because I lack the specialized training needed to recognize them properly.  But as far as I can tell as an interested layperson, both bifolios seem to mix forms associated with multiple hands.  Even Lisa's Figure 7 contains what look to me like counterexamples alongside the ones she's circled:

[attachment=9091]

Here, the [aiin] I've highlighted on the left seems like a better fit for Hand 5, while the [aiin] I've highlighted on the right seems like a better fit for Hand 2, 3, or 4.  Again, I may be misinterpreting what the definitive characteristics are, or how consistent we should expect them to be, and if so, I'd welcome clarification.

But if an evolutionary interpretation of handwriting differences were to be borne out by further investigation (which is, of course, a big "if"), it seems to me there would be some significant implications for the status of Voynichese as a writing system.  In the "five scribes" hypothesis, there should have been at least five people who had already been using Voynichese extensively enough before writing the text we have today to have developed stable, personally distinctive habits around its use, comparable to the mature "hands" of professional scribes.  But in this alternative hypothesis, there might have been nothing at all written in Voynichese prior to f1r.  We may instead be faced with one person's initial and ongoing experiments with an entirely new and untried writing system.  Rather than identifying different scribes, differences in handwriting might then instead provide valuable insight into chronology -- but with all the same investigative tools and methods (e.g., use of Lightbox) still being applicable.

(25-08-2024, 03:36 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think I will not participate in these conversations going forward

That would definitely be our loss, and I hope I haven't been discourteous.

Let me try formulating a version of my hypothesis that's more consistent with yours, just to show that they're not mutually exclusive, and that being interested in the one doesn't have to mean rejecting the other.

If we accept as established fact that there were five scribes, each responsible for the parts of the VMS you've identified them with, those five scribes would each need to have learned to write Voynichese at some time and (except perhaps for the "inventor") from some source.  The hypothesis on the table is that this learning curve took place, at least in part, while the VMS was in process of being written (most notably f1r), and that it will have left evidence of itself in subtle changes in handwriting over time (as each scribe gained more experience).  So if, instead of just identifying a bifolio as Hand 1 or Hand 2 and being done with it, we were to study the range of variation within each of the various Hand 1 pages, what might we learn about the personal learning curve of Scribe 1 as a writer of Voynichese?  And what might we learn, separately, about Scribe 2?  Or the others?

You're not being discourteous, I'm just frustrated by having to constantly explain how paleography works! What you suggest is of course possible, but I don't think it is likely. The manuscript - with only a handful of identifiable "mistakes" and corrections - is more likely written by scribes who knew what they were doing.

In my view, the Voynich manuscript is a book of variations.

On a larger scale, we can observe the evolution from Currier A to Currier B. Word types containing the sequence [ed] become increasingly frequent, such that as <chedy> is used more often, similar words like <shedy> or <qokeedy> also rise in frequency. Simultaneously, words with the prefix <qok-> become more common, while words typical of Currier A, such as <chol> and <chor>, gradually disappear. Moreover, dramatic differences can be observed even within the same quire. For example, the glyph EVA-[m] is absent on some folios in Quire 1 but frequently used on others, as seen in the bifolio f2/f7 versus f3/f6. (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

At the word level, for each common word type, there are typically multiple variations differing by only a single quill stroke. For instance, along with the word [daiin], the text also contains [dain] and [daiiin]. However, less common alterations also occur, such as changing an [i] to [r] or an [e] to [s]. For example, in addition to [daiiin], there are two instances of [dairin] (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Similarly, alongside [chedy], a few instances of [chsdy] can be found (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

At the glyph level, it's possible to observe multiple variations. For instance, there are two variants of the [s] glyph. The first variant consists of two quill strokes, suggesting that an [e] was altered into an [s]. A notable example of this variant is the unique glyph group [qoesedy] in line <f82r.P2.24>. (For reference, the corresponding variation [qoeeedy] appears three times in the text.) Typically, an additional quill stroke is used to change [e] into [s] or [ch] into [sh]. However, this technique isn't limited to these transformations. In some cases, the plume is also added to other glyphs, as seen with [qoky] and [saiin] in line <f2r.P.10> (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). 

In lines <f10r.P.9-12>, the sequences begin with [oy], [oq], [ro], and [ro] (as seen in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). However, the shape of the [r] in these two instances is highly unusual. (Note: Additionally, the sequence [oq] is also rare in the Voynich text. There are only 20 tokens starting with [oq]).

Irregular variants also exist for gallow glyphs. For example, the word type [chcthedy] is generally written as expected six times, but on page <f115v>, it appears with an additional quill stroke connecting [ch] to [k] (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Another example of an ambiguous glyph is the [p] in [pchol] in line <f14r.P.8>, where it's unclear whether this glyph represents [p], [k], or an entirely new character (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

What does this mean? 

Given that the Voynich manuscript employs an unknown writing system, and that variations appear to play a significant role within it, it is exceptionally difficult to determine the reasons behind the variations we observe in glyphs like EVA-[k] and EVA-[n].

One possibility is that the handwriting of a single scribe evolved alongside the "generating algorithm" of the text. To my untrained eyes, the writing in Currier A appears more broadly spaced and seems to have been written more slowly and carefully, whereas the writing in Currier B appears more compact and fluent. This could suggest that the scribe became more experienced with the new writing system over time. Another possibility is, of course, that these variations are the result of two different scribes working on the manuscript. However, I find this explanation less likely due to the numerous similarities in the script, particularly in the case of EVA-[k]: "For nearly every page it is possible to find instances of <k> written with bowed and with horizontal crossbar, respectively. Additionally, on nearly each page some instances of <k> show an overlap between vertical stroke and crossbar, also indicating two strokes." (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)

It's also important to consider that we analyze magnified images of the manuscript. Since it is a handwritten object, some degree of variation is expected. However, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the scribe intentionally wrote certain glyphs differently for unknown reasons. (We cannot even be certain whether what we transcribe as a single glyph was, in the eyes of the scribe, actually one or two distinct glyphs. Nick Pelling is even suggesting that the length of the flourishes for EVA-[n] transports some meaning: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

(25-08-2024, 07:28 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You're not being discourteous, I'm just frustrated by having to constantly explain how paleography works! What you suggest is of course possible, but I don't think it is likely. The manuscript - with only a handful of identifiable "mistakes" and corrections - is more likely written by scribes who knew what they were doing.

That's a reasonable position to take.  Still, doesn't the following text look like it was written by someone who knew what they were doing?

[attachment=9101]

It wasn't, or at least not fully, in spite of appearances.  This first issue of the Phonographic Star was published by the faculty and students of a school who were enthusiastic about Isaac Pitman's newly introduced "phonographic" shorthand but hadn't quite mastered it yet.  Some shortcomings involve the choice of symbols, while others involve how the symbols were formed: for example, some of the curves are too shallow to be distinguished clearly from straight lines.  The writing in later issues became more proficient on both counts.  But I know that mainly because I can read it, and because I know how phonography was "supposed" to work in early 1844.

Four hundred years separate this example from the VMS.  But I don't see why someone just learning to write Voynichese wouldn't have been likely to experience analogous difficulties if it was as novel and experimental a writing system in the early fifteenth century as Isaac Pitman's phonography was in the early 1840s.  So I guess I'm wondering whether some parts of the VMS might be comparable in proficiency to that first issue of the Phonographic Star, if it helps to have a concrete point of reference.

[attachment=9118]

A: If it's the same, why are there corrections? it wouldn't really matter.
‘h...n’. What is an ‘h’ now? It's just a bit longer on one side.

B: Sometimes you have to contrast the words to see the difference. It's not just the slur, it's the interaction of all the characters.

C: It's easier to compare apples and oranges than shorthand and Arabic. We are simply not used to the characters.
In terms of the characters, Cyrillic is easier to memorise than shorthand.

Just take a closer look.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

(26-08-2024, 12:04 AM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Another possibility is, of course, that these variations are the result of two different scribes working on the manuscript. However, I find this explanation less likely due to the numerous similarities in the script, particularly in the case of EVA-[k]: "For nearly every page it is possible to find instances of <k> written with bowed and with horizontal crossbar, respectively. Additionally, on nearly each page some instances of <k> show an overlap between vertical stroke and crossbar, also indicating two strokes." (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)

I searched the forum for the keyword "crossbar" and ran across an You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on this topic which probably warrants a link here.

I'm sympathetic to Lisa's argument that occasional "exceptions" within a page shouldn't be taken as evidence against the broad patterns she identifies with different hands and different scribes.  I also appreciate her reminder that paleography is subjective, and while it's not entirely clear to me which aspect of it is subjective, I imagine it has something to do with taking a step back, absorbing the larger picture, and making a holistic judgment call informed by long experience.

Still, her writings and presentations lay out a methodology based on sets of contrastive features that might have taken a trained paleographer to identify as significant, but that seem as though anyone ought to be able to recognize once they know what to look for.  By the same token, it takes someone who knows at least a little about statistics to recognize the bigram [ed] as a significant tell, but once it's been identified, anyone ought to be able to recognize whether it's present on a given page or not.

With that in mind, I wonder if anyone on the list has managed independently to confirm a scribal attribution working from Lisa's descriptions of the five hands, especially distinctions among scribes 2-5, and would be willing to say something about what was involved in the effort.  To be clear: I'm not so concerned here with whether the "five scribes" hypothesis is right or wrong as I am with better understanding how much the attributions rely on the specific constrastive features Lisa has listed and how much they instead rest on more general impressions based on her decades of experience collating medieval manuscripts.  Her writings and presentations focus on the former, but maybe that's because the latter are difficult to put into words.  For myself, I'd have a hard time explaining how I can tell at a glance whether a French legal document was written closer to 1450, 1550, or 1650 even though I'd be entirely certain in each case that I was right.  I could point to specific letter forms that vary, but that's not what I'd actually be using as the basis for that initial judgment call; it's more a matter of overall appearance, based on having seen lots and lots of examples.  Maybe the five hands are more like that -- I'm not sure.  As it is, I'm frustrated that I can't seem to replicate Lisa's attributions, since based on her writings and presentations I've been under the impression that I should be able to on the basis of her descriptions.  If there's a good reason why I shouldn't be able to, I might feel better about it!

Now, if it were just a matter of knowing how many scribes there were, and what pages they each wrote, then it might be OK to defer to Lisa's clear expertise and move on with that knowledge in hand -- but I'd venture to say there's more to it than that.  Handwriting-related issues are entangled with a lot of other concerns and inquiries, and some of these overlap directly with features Lisa describes as hand-specific, which is in turn something any responsible Voynichero now needs to take into consideration.

(26-08-2024, 12:04 AM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Nick Pelling is even suggesting that the length of the flourishes for EVA-[n] transports some meaning: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

I recently broke down and grabbed a used copy of Curse of the Voynich, where I see Nick also covers this idea at pages 164-168.  Not only does he suggest that the form of the [n] flourish carries meaning, but he also argues that the parameter through which that meaning was encoded changed from length (at first) to shape (later on).  I won't weigh in here on the merits of the argument itself -- I just want to point out that if Nick were now to want to revisit his hypothesis to factor in Lisa's work, he wouldn't be able to do so without digging more deeply into the criteria for distinguishing among scribes.  Simply building on the conclusions would be pointless in this context.

And here's a quick thought experiment.  It's the year 2124, and a dozen disbound leaves from the VMS have just turned up in some overlooked corner of Athanasius Kircher's papers.  None of us here on this forum are still alive to greet the discovery, but Lisa's writings about the VMS are still available and well known.  Would a layperson of average abilities be able to take her written "key" to the five hands and use it to identify (correctly and confidently) which scribe had written each of the newly discovered leaves?  If not, what would the main obstacles be?