The Voynich Ninja

Pages: 1 2 3

I'm working on several larger posts.. slowly, but I thought I'd fish out one of the images to share on this post as it seems useful.

Forth line down, first word is the prime example of EVA:d for apparent formation of the glyph, but then there's all this variation. Maybe it is normal variation, I don't know, but the interesting bit (to me) is that if this is so, and the scribe and the glyph are consistent, EVA:d is made from a "c" and "l"

Red = Prime example. White = Related to red. Purple = Less obvious

[Image: 7Nf4LcI.png]

(30-08-2024, 10:50 PM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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?

From my perspective, it is not obvious that a layperson should be capable of doing this. I'm not saying that it is out of the question, but I am very skeptical. It may require knowledge and experience that the average person simply does not have.

Let me give an example. This really aims at demonstrating something else, but it is not completely off the point here.

The following image will be very familiar to people who have seen German TV and shows two cartoon animals. What are they?

[attachment=9146]

I think that almost everyone will immediately recognise an elephant and a mouse. We don't need to think or analyse. This is what our brain returns immediately. Yet, if we were to analyse, lots of things would seem contradict this. An elephant is never smaller than a mouse. A mouse rarely stands on its hind legs, and has very different feet. Elephants are not purple.

The recognition of the mouse and the elephant is based on 'the whole', not on a collection of details.
I think that this is the same process whereby art experts recognise artists (also more obscure ones than Caravaggio or Vermeer) from their works, and medievalists can quickly place a rough date and region on an illustrated MS. Now in these cases it would be possible to some extent to point out details confirming the identification, but these would only be completely convicing to people with at least some background in the matter.

In the above case of the mouse and the elephant, one could continue to argue that the identification of the mouse and the elephant has to be wrong based on the above objections (size, colour, stance).

(31-08-2024, 01:40 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(30-08-2024, 10:50 PM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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?
It's a good thought experiment. I think another trained paleographer would need to be brought in.

Maybe so, but I feel that's skipping a step. What would the main obstacles be in the way of the layperson being able to do this? What would a layperson be most likely to get wrong by trying to apply Lisa's "key" as written, and why?

Quote:Let's imagine a similar scenario in a different field, one further removed from our personal sphere of interest. A sealed 16th century crypt is discovered, containing a dozen unknown paintings in the style of various masters. To determine the authorship of the paintings, would you even consider asking for the opinion of an amateur, or would you go straight to professional specialist?

The difference in that case, I think, is that "masters" in the sense you mean belong to a specific tradition that has been exhaustively studied and hotly debated by many people for many years. It would be easy to find relevant specialists. For an analogous scenario, I think we might instead need to imagine a crypt containing paintings from some mostly unknown civilization. Which isn't to say we might not still want to call in a trained generalist art historian, but the situation would be a little less straightforward.

(02-09-2024, 04:50 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.From my perspective, it is not obvious that a layperson should be capable of doing this. I'm not saying that it is out of the question, but I am very skeptical. It may require knowledge and experience that the average person simply does not have.

My thought experiment involved a layperson trying to apply the "key," but if the assignment were instead given to a trained paleographer or forensic handwriting analyst, I think the main question I meant to pose would remain. Could that future paleographer or handwriting analyst -- drawing on their general disciplinary training and experience -- use Lisa's "key" to make scribal attributions? Or would the attributions need to be based primarily on other, hard-to-articulate factors that the expert would need to (re)discover?

(02-09-2024, 04:50 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think that almost everyone will immediately recognise an elephant and a mouse. We don't need to think or analyse. This is what our brain returns immediately. Yet, if we were to analyse, lots of things would seem contradict this. An elephant is never smaller than a mouse. A mouse rarely stands on its hind legs, and has very different feet. Elephants are not purple.

The recognition of the mouse and the elephant is based on 'the whole', not on a collection of details.

This is a nice example. To follow up on the analogy: the "key" to the five hands would, I guess, correspond to a list of set criteria for distinguishing a mouse from an elephant. Does it have a trunk? Does it have whiskers? What shape are the ears, and how do they connect to the head? What color is it? How big is it? How is it standing? If we look for ourselves, we can see "mice" that are bigger than "elephants" and that aren't the expected color. But the evidence of trunks, whiskers, and ears is, in this case, more definitive. So we need either to weigh these criteria intelligently against each other (a process we could probably at least describe) or to rely on a gestalt impression (which we might not be able to put into words easily or at all). But either way, this would be an important part of the process to acknowledge and reflect on.

No use to worry about insignificant things!
If the scribers were two or five- who cares? Imagine- we are in the middle ages.
There are masters and subordinates, who try to understand something from science. They are the scribers.
Important is the contents of the document, which no one can read.
First of all- what is the language (languages)?
Second- who is the author (not the scribers)?
Third- what is the contents?
Last- what are the naked women in the baths (all the interest is them about)?
Who of all the bloggers here can provide an answer to the above questions?
NOBODY. At least We, who think to know something - we all are disillusioned.
Ask why, and I will tell you. Because the person, who is the author, knew much more, that we all know now.

@BessAgritianin
You just admitted that you don't know anything about anything.

1. whether there are 2 or 5 writers decides on the theory and technique to be applied. If one person does something ambiguous, you can speak of a variant or an outlier. If 5 people do the same thing, there is an intention behind it. That's why Lisa's work is so important.
2. who the author was is irrelevant.
3. i don't have to be able to read the text to understand something. I can't read the operating instructions for a video recorder in Japanese either, but I know what it's about. Provided you know what a video recorder is.
4 What are the nymphs? Based on the video recorder, they are three Swedes in Upper Bavaria. They certainly only have a symbolic meaning. For me, they represent plants. Different plants have different times in sowing and harvesting and the hoped-for active ingredient. (Farmer's calendar)

Not thinking about something has to be right. After all, 90% of the population doesn't think properly.
If you describe yourself as Nobody, that's fine.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

(02-09-2024, 10:05 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.@BessAgritianin

You just admitted that you don't know anything about anything.

1. whether there are 2 or 5 writers decides on the theory and technique to be applied. If one person does something ambiguous, you can speak of a variant or an outlier. If 5 people do the same thing, there is an intention behind it. That's why Lisa's work is so important.

2. who the author was is irrelevant.

3. i don't have to be able to read the text to understand something. I can't read the operating instructions for a video recorder in Japanese either, but I know what it's about. Provided you know what a video recorder is.

4 What are the nymphs? Based on the video recorder, they are three Swedes in Upper Bavaria. They certainly only have a symbolic meaning. For me, they represent plants. Different plants have different times in sowing and harvesting and the hoped-for active ingredient. (Farmer's calendar)

1. I am far from judgement for Lisa´s work.
Ambiguous is the answer. The coder(s) have intended to keep it secret, not to reveal it. If only one person knew the code and some copy-workers tried to write without knowing the contents- very possible. This I am stating from point of view of being able to interpret some of the text.
2. Who the author is - explains the whole exotic imaging. To state that is irrelevant to me is not excusable.
There is a name and will be revealed in some future publication.
3. Completely wrong. The text has very meaningful and scientific for the middle ages content.
4. No, they are not. Now You understand that content is important.... Because the "video recorder" may be a telephone for example.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

(31-08-2024, 06:15 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The crossbars of [k] glyphs are important precisely because they speak to the ductus...a bowed crossbar results from the scribe NOT lifting the pen at the top of the left-hand leg but pulling the pen down to start the crossbar. A horizontal crossbar results from the scribe lifting the pen at the top of the left leg and starting the crossbar with a new stroke. It's the difference between a scribe writing the glyph with one stroke or two. Try it yourself. If you write a [k] with one stroke (starting at the bottom left), you'll tend to have a bowed crossbar. if you write with two strokes, the crossbar will tend to be horizontal.

There was no need for the scribe to deliberately aim for a horizontal crossbar. Therefore, even if a scribe writes EVA-[k] with two strokes, it can naturally result in a bowed crossbar.

There are numerous instances where a slight foot also appears at the base of the first vertical stroke. In my view, these foots suggest that the scribe started the left vertical stroke at the top. This occurs in several instances of EVA-[k] (see examples 1, 2, 3, and 5), as well as for instances for EVA-[t] (see example 3). For a scribe starting at the bottom left and writing the first vertical stroke from bottom to top, as you suggest, I would expect to see such a foot at the top of the stroke instead. Based on the observation of these foots, I conclude that the scribe likely wrote the vertical strokes from top to bottom.

After writing the first vertical stroke from top to bottom it was necessary to lift the pen in order to write the crossbar with a new stroke. In some instances it is still possible to observer two separate strokes (see the following examples from some Herbal A folios).

Example 1 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
[attachment=9151]

Example 2 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
[attachment=9154]

Example 3 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
[attachment=9153]

Example 4 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
[attachment=9149]

Example 5 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
[attachment=9152]

As JKP explains in the thread You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., there may be valid reasons for using multiple quill strokes to form a single glyph. In fact, handbooks on calligraphy emphasize that multiple strokes should be used to shape letters (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). For example, it is even recommended to write letters like [O] or [Q] using two or more strokes. Therefore, observing a scribe writing a glyph like EVA-[k] with just a single quill stroke would indeed be quite unusual, wouldn't it?

(31-08-2024, 06:15 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Please note that I have written "TEND TO BE" not "ALWAYS ARE," because humans are not automatons. Handwriting is about tendancies, not about perfect repetition. This is why paleographers still disagree about how many scribes wrote The Book of Kells, for example. I'm not sure how many more times I can say it: paleography is subjective. People disagree, and such disagreements are rarely resolved to everyone's satisfaction. All we can do is interpret the evidence in accordance with past experience. There cannot be an absolute right or wrong where a subjective analysis is concerned, but I stand by my results.

The criteria you proposed in your papers, such as the length of the backward flourish for EVA-[n] and the crossbar of EVA-[k], are central to your argument: "This final curve, a finial flourish, varies significantly from one scribe to the next. In fact, the shape and endpoint of the final flourish of [n] are nearly sufficient to determine scribal identity in the Voynich Manuscript, especially when combined with other features such as the [k] and general characteristics like angle and spacing" [You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.].

On folio You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., the final backstroke of [m] and [n] is short, barely extending beyond the final minim (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). The instances of EVA-[k] on this folio are written with two strokes. Based on the criteria outlined in your papers, the scribe of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. aligns with the characteristics of Scribe 2. However, you have identified the scribe as Scribe 1. In my view, this identification contradicts the evidence provided by your flourish and stroke patterns.

[attachment=9155]

Pages: 1 2 3

Bluetoes101

ReneZ

pfeaster

BessAgritianin

Aga Tentakulus

BessAgritianin

Torsten