The Voynich Ninja

In my previous post You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I suggested that "a" letter could actually be "ei" and people in general said that it is possible. Now I would like to go deeper into analysis of Voynich letters because some of them may be something different then it seems at first glance.

First of all, there is something like diacritical marks which can be added to many letters. They don't exist in English but do exist in many other languages:


I won't go into any serious linguistics here but I would say that they change the letter a bit but not totally. Take the Spanish word "Español", "ñ" is not "n" but is not totally different from "n", it's some altered variant of "n".

And now how would you say, does Voynich script has its own kind of diacritical marks?

I would say it's possible. Have a look:
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Do you think it's possible that for example "r" is "i" with some "accent" added?

And would you agree that the same accents may be added to "i" and "e"?
And are  "i" and "r"  in the same relationship as "e" and "s"?

Personally I think it's possible. But there is a question - what next? Does it give us any advantage if we decide that these letters are related, are diactrical variants of other letters?

Did anybody research it further?

'?' one is EVA-b.

As far as I can see, this looks the same as the Curve-Line system: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

This is the corresponding chart from CLS:

[attachment=10187]

The "plumes" (or whatever the correct paleographic term is for this) look a lot more like macrons (connected to the letter, which was common in some cursive gothic manuscripts of the 14th and 15th century) than any diacritical mark that I've ever seen. g and m are also common Latin abbreviations for -cis and -tis endings.

Thank you for the link. Now I feel a bit ashamed, it seems I was reinventing the wheel 
This link actually should be at the top of this website in big, red letters.

Quote:The "plumes" (or whatever the correct paleographic term is for this) look a lot more like macrons (connected to the letter, which was common in some cursive gothic manuscripts of the 14th and 15th century) than any diacritical mark that I've ever seen.

My growing feeling is that Voynich script is "deceitful", possibly on purpose. It makes you see letters different then they are.

Take "y" letter. It often appears at the word end andisactually similar to "9" digit and to a sign that was used to mean "us" and also appeared at the end:

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Thaurus

But Voynich "y" is different. It's not "9" symbol but "c" letter (read in EVA as "e") with a tail:
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Someone who is dead for over 500 years is still playing tricks with us and giving us red herrings. If a Voynich letter resembles you something then it's most probably something else.

It's even worse....

Eva-y looks like a c with a tail. (Attached to the top and going down).
So does Eva-s (top and going up) and Eva-b (bottom and going up).

However, the fourth possibility does not exist: attached to the bottom and going down
Why?

Instead, we have attached to the top, going up a bit and then going down (Eva-g).
Why?

W.r.t. diacritics, these are usually not connected to the letter. They can have several functions:
- indicate stress
- indicate length
- make it a different letter
- distinguish it from a similarly spelled word (usually with a historically different sound)
- possibly others that I am not aware of

I know Rafal's list was not meant to be complete, and I find this one interesting:
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There's also EVA-a vs. EVA-s - both seem to be the base + the "diactritic" drawn by moving the pen backward. Which makes the aiii/.../ and sheee/.../ sequences corresponding just the line vs. curve versions of the same. There's also the case for EVA-l being the line version of EVA-o - assume EVA-o is curve + another curve connecting back to it, now add the same second curve to the line - it's easy to move over the line instead of connecting back to it.

(19-03-2025, 08:43 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[..]

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Thaurus

But Voynich "y" is different. It's not "9" symbol but "c" letter (read in EVA as "e") with a tail:
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Someone who is dead for over 500 years is still playing tricks with us and giving us red herrings. If a Voynich letter resembles you something then it's most probably something else.

„Thaurus“ and same other added notices in a kind of darker ink were made much later, in another alphabet, language and writing. These will not help anyway, another one who is dead for less than 500 years played an additional trick on us.
We may forget this one better.

You can take the whole thing a step further with "a" or "ei". It might as well be "eii" (if you just consider the building block pen strokes). 
There's always some odd-ball cases, but for the most part I believe this to be correct.

"eii" choose a "swish" or add 1-3 more "i" then finish with a "swish". 

(19-03-2025, 05:20 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.'?' one is EVA-b.

As far as I can see, this looks the same as the Curve-Line system: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

This is the corresponding chart from CLS:

if I understand correctly, the CLS proposes:
e - i - a
s - r
g - m
b - n - u
y - l
d - j