(14-07-2026, 08:16 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.All these scripts are little relevant, having been created after 1800 to the late 1900, when phonetics and phonology were well understood, mature sciences. They are not surprising, while an ex-novo phonetic script in medieval times is.
One does not need advanced knowledge of phonetics and phonology to create a phonetic script. It is enough to realize that a spoken language consists of discrete bits of sound belonging to a small set of phonemes ("sound types") -- and the meaning is conveyed by the sequence of those phonemes, regardless of the speaker's voice pitch scale, timing, speed, loudness, regional and personal accent, etc.
The Egyptians figured out that fact around 3200 BCE and created the first known alphabet with 24 consonant signs (although they made limited use of it) . The Babylonians, Phoenicians, Maya, and many other people also invented phonetic scripts in antiquity. Anyone who could read and write in any phonetic alphabet (like the Latin one) would instinctively know that fact.
Many Europeans would be familiar with the Greek alphabet, besides the Latin one. Cryptographers would often invent new scripts. Some hoaxers like Kelley did the same. Someone who reached "China" (East or Southeast Asia, or maybe Tibet) would have seen many other scripts. On the other hand, while in "China" he would have very little opportunity to use the Latin script. The point is that, when he decided to create a script to record the dictated Chinese books -- a script capable of recording the peculiar sounds and tones -- he wold not have
necessarily chosen the Latin alphabet as the basis.
Quote:However, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was invented by local speakers, Bulgarians in this case (who, being literate, also knew Greek and Glagolitic, I surmise). You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was invented by Armenian speakers. The origin of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. [and Glagolitic] is unknown
But while the inventors may have been speakers of the local languages, their written language was
Greek. Yet when they had to develop a script for their language, they invented all or most of the letters, instead of trying to use the Greek alphabet.
Quote:Another, unrelated thing I find hard to accept is that someone can spend enough time in 'China sensu lato' to learn the spoken language and then fail to learn to write even one Chinese character. I'm pretty much sure that learning the Chinese writing is a daunting task, but where's the problem in learning some dozens characters? Spend a couple years in China and you're bound to learn some, how could that not happen?
He may have learned some, but what good would that do? I myself learned maybe 100 Chinese characters by the time I was 30 or so. Like big, small, fire, water, person, man, woman, tree, city, stone, left, right, soldier, exit, mouth, new, river, mountain, ... But still I could not read anything significant, not even a metro ticket, a store hours sign, a fast food menu... And moreover most of what one would consider words in Chinese are two-syllable compounds, like 电话 = "electricity"+"speech" = "telephone". Even if you learn the general meaning of the individual characters, you still would not know most compounds.
Quote:So why no Chinese characters at all in the whole manuscript
Why should there be?
While the Author probably invented the script primarily for his own use use, the fact that the VMS is on vellum, with lots of illustrations and blank spaces, indicates that he expected others to read it -- even if only his heir, or a scholar friend.
The Author's invented phonetic script would have been a big hurdle before that goal, but at least the would-be reader could learn how to pronounce the words, and maybe find someone else who understood the language.
A translation would have been much better, of course; but even modern Chinese scholars struggle to understand very old classics like the SBJ; so we can bet that, while the Author could read his notes aloud, he may have understood only 5% of that -- and, unless he was a doctor himself, would probably not know the Latin medical terms for the few conditions that he managed to understand.
On the other hand, using a few Chinese characters here and there, for basic terms like "water" or "woman", would not have helped the reader at all. If anything, the opposite.
Quote:the wiggles on the first page could be anything and they surely do not cry 'Chinese'
But You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view., so that the spine is on the right side (like Chinese books are bound), then...
Those glyphs do not look like Voynichese; they would stand out even among the "weirdos". Can you think of a better explanation for them?
(That old page of mine says that the top character, rotated, cannot be 大 ("big", "great") because the joined legs do not extend above the line. But I just found out that in the so called "Clerical" style, which is vaguely analogous in function to our Fraktur or Old English style, the 大 character is indeed written just like that You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view. weirdo, with no "head" sticking out at the top.)
By the way, the top character, turned upside down, also looks exactly like the Voynichese rare (probably non-phonetic) glyph "picnic table"
x. I wonder...
All the best, --stolfi
