I'm currently working on a translation of a number of words, in a way similar to Bax's work.
I don't have a value yet for several "minor" glyphs, which is not a big problem. Most common glyphs are determined and work well. There is, however, also a set of very frequent glyphs that still give me headaches.
It's the one that looks like Greek "pi", EVA "ch" and its various hats. I guess a total of three or four related signs, depending on how you interpret the hats.
There is one thing I'm sure of: it's a ligature or abbreviation representing two to three sounds. The middle sound is a vowel. The first sound appears to be a /k/ or a /t/, depending on the hat. The last sound is usually an /r/, though in one instance I'd really like to read it as a /k/.
So typically I'd get something like /kur/, /kir/, but also /tek/. This doesn't seem to work in all cases though.
I'm relatively new to Voynich studies, and haven't read any interpretation of these glyphs as ligatures yet, though I'm sure many of you have. So are there any parallels in medieval manuscripts?
That's interesting, since EVA <sh> is based on a medieval Latin abbreviation for the letters "circ". There's a table in the back of D'Imperio that shows this.
Where do you get your proposed sound values from?
Circ? Seriously? Would the first c be pronounced /k/ or /s/?
I'm finishing my paper now, I hope it will be ready soon. I want to get it out there already.
What I'm doing is partially analogous to Bax's famous paper, but I'm working in another section of the manuscript that allows for a number of non-linguistic additional checks and double checks. This makes it a very time consuming process: I have to go through a lot before I allow myself any degree of certainty about a glyph.
I was very cautious to avoid being influenced on my reading of the glyphs, so I have not compared them with other works until recently. I even avoided learning EVA values to keep my mind free from outside influence. I checked later and found out that a number of my values do correspond to EVA values, and a number to Bax / Voght values as well, but there are also a number of significant differences.
(I don't see this as a problem. If the writing system is based on the Latin one, as I suspect, an amount of convergence is to be expected).
(02-03-2016, 03:38 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Circ? Seriously?
Look here: You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.
The table is on page 97 of the PDF, or page 95 by the numbers on the pages themselves.
Quote:Would the first c be pronounced /k/ or /s/?
I only know basic Latin, but I'm pretty sure "c" is always a hard /k/ sound.
Quote:I'm finishing my paper now, I hope it will be ready soon. I want to get it out there already.
What I'm doing is partially analogous to Bax's famous paper, but I'm working in another section of the manuscript that allows for a number of non-linguistic additional checks and double checks. This makes it a very time consuming process: I have to go through a lot before I allow myself any degree of certainty about a glyph.
I was very cautious to avoid being influenced on my reading of the glyphs, so I have not compared them with other works until recently. I even avoided learning EVA values to keep my mind free from outside influence. I checked later and found out that a number of my values do correspond to EVA values, and a number to Bax / Voght values as well, but there are also a number of significant differences.
(I don't see this as a problem. If the writing system is based on the Latin one, as I suspect, an amount of convergence is to be expected).
I didn't find Bax' ideas to be too convincing to be honest, but it will be interesting to see what you've come up with.
Quote:I didn't find Bax' ideas to be too convincing to be honest, but it will be interesting to see what you've come up with.
I liked Bax's "down to earth" approach, but it suffers from a number of bad assumptions, which make his glyph values unreliable.
(For example, why assume that the first word is the plant name? Why assume SOV word order? Why assume that the word appears in a more or less neutral form, unaltered by grammar?)
I'm hoping to remedy this in my paper, but I'm stil ironing out the final bumps. Like this annoying "pi" glyph.
Is there any consensus on the amount of glyphs these are? There is "pi" without anything, pi with a curvy line that touches the middle, pi with the same curvy line that touches the left leg, and pi with a curvy line that just kind of floats there. Am I correct in assuming these four forms?
Edit: just saw the second table in the link you posted, that's quite enlightening. Thanks!
(02-03-2016, 04:22 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Is there any consensus on the amount of glyphs these are? There is "pi" without anything, pi with a curvy line that touches the middle, pi with the same curvy line that touches the left leg, and pi with a curvy line that just kind of floats there. Am I correct in assuming these four forms?
Pretty sure there's no consensus. EVA considers all forms with the "curvy line" to be equivalent and they are transcribed as <sh>. I think the Voyn_101 transcription by Glen Claston recognizes a few different forms of <sh>. To me it seems that while <sh> is definitely written in different ways in different places, if these were intended to be different glyphs (which I'm not sure about) then the scribe (who I think was a copyist) did not reliably distinguish them.
(02-03-2016, 04:06 PM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I only know basic Latin, but I'm pretty sure "c" is always a hard /k/ sound.
By the time the Voynich Manuscript was written different pronunciations of Latin had emerged throughout Europe. Without knowing for sure where the manuscript was produced, the writer may have considered <c> to have a sound other than /k/.
(02-03-2016, 04:22 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Is there any consensus on the amount of glyphs these are? There is "pi" without anything, pi with a curvy line that touches the middle, pi with the same curvy line that touches the left leg, and pi with a curvy line that just kind of floats there. Am I correct in assuming these four forms?
I'm sure Rene will be along in time to make this point (which he has made many times before), but I'll make it for him here: the VMS is really quite small--not much bigger than a sheet of A5--and so beware assigning differences to minute variations in characters which the unaided reader would not have easily been able to make out.
It's not known whether it's a ligature or a "letter" or sometimes one or the other. It's also not known whether the cap over some of the bench chars changes the letter although they both appear to behave in the same way, so there might not be a distinction.
There are some indications on the first page that it might be a ligature because at first (assuming the first page was the first page) it wasn't connected as smoothly and consistently as in later pages (I illustrated some examples here):
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view. (from 2013)
We don't know what it stands for, but I described some of its behavioral characteristics here:
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view. (more recent)
The fact that it is sometimes cut in half suggests it MIGHT represent more than one character under some circumstances.
I should probably add that I've assumed for a while now that <sh> was taken from the abbreviation for "circ" because of its shape, not for its sound value. It seems that whoever devised the script wanted a glyph that resembled <ee> in some way, because this glyph can often occur in the same position of a word as <ee> does (i.e. substitute for it).
Thanks everyone for the valuable replies.
Emma - I thought the same, I remember having read that the /k/ - /s/ shift occurred in "vulgar Latin" at some point. But I'll assume that I'll be on the safe side if I stick with my current /k/ sound. Which suits me the best anyway.
JKP - Your observations about the first page are very interesting. I've often thought that, if this was a devised script, it should have taken quite some practice on the scribes' behalf. I'd have never considered looking at the first page for evidence.
To your question "I’ll leave you to ponder that example and decide whether the dynamics of the bench character can help us better understand the VMS “alphabet”". my answer is YES :)
Sam - I agree, even though I have one clear case where the sound value is /kur/. I don't see any cases where I can interpret it as only vowels...