Excuse me, Marco, I should not take part in discussions on the frequencies of letters, because I do not understand big thing. Several languages = several alphabets? Regarding the letter "4o" ("g" glagolitic), I made some suggestions on my blog, you can read to get an idea.
Stephen Bax and Derek Vogt have proposed the idea that EVA:daiin could be a conjunction. On Stephen's site, there has been some discussion about how to possibly understand more of q- and daiin as possible conjunctions.
Here is something I just posted You are not allowed to view links.
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Quote:Here are some data that I think could be relevant, but I currently have no idea of how to interpret them.
Emma May Smith has posted about the very interesting You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (line as a functional unit) phenomenon.
Interestingly, EVA:daiin and the EVA:q- prefix exhibit very different behaviors when examined with respect to their position in lines. Considering the initial herbal section (f1r-f57r, 9507 lines), daiin occurs in 403 lines, q- in 635: the numbers are close enough to be meaningfully compared.
daiin appears at the beginning of lines 12.2% of the times (49 times), at the end of lines 15.6% (63 times). These frequencies are compatible with what is statistically expected if the word was unaffected by LAAFU.
On the other hand, q- appears in the first word of lines 29.9% of the times (190 times), at the end of lines 4.7% (30 times). The q- prefix is strongly affected by the position in lines, with a clear preference for appearance at the beginning of lines: in that position it is more than 6 times as frequent as at the end of lines.
Correction: I previously forgot to remove {plant} annotations from the transcription I used. This caused a significant under-estimation of end-line occurrences.
The corrected numbers are:
daiin tot:404 | initial:50 (12.4%) | final:100 (24.8%)
q- tot: 655 | initial:191 (30.1%) | final:59 (9.3%)
Marco, that's an interesting statistic regarding words beginning q. In the section I examined, Quire 20, q words stayed away from line beginnings!
Have we found another Currier A/B feature?! It seems we are measuring slightly different things, so I can't be sure.
(24-10-2016, 07:01 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Marco, that's an interesting statistic regarding words beginning q. In the section I examined, Quire 20, q words stayed away from line beginnings!
Have we found another Currier A/B feature?! It seems we are measuring slightly different things, so I can't be sure.
You are right, Emma!
I think we do have another Currier A/B feature to explain: the Herbal section exhibits a LAAFU effect on q-words that cannot be observed in Quire 20 (f103-116).
In quire 20, I count 857 lines with q- words. 68 line-initial (7.9%), 106 line-final (12.4%).
This seems to indicate a preference for line endings (the opposite of what happens in the Herbal section).
My impression is that the apparent preference for line-ending is largely due to the fact that the initial words of lines are often occupied by Grove words. Since Quire 20 contains many short paragraphs, the impact of Grove words is significant.
If we don't consider the first lines of paragraphs in Quire 20, I count: 601 lines with q-words. 60 line-initial (10.0%), 72 line-final (12.0%).
If the occurrences were completely random, one would expect the percentage of line-initial and line-ending to both be close to the lines/words ratio (10.4%). This seems to be the case: I would say that in Quire 20 q-words are more or less independent on line position.
PS: I found a major error in the previous statistics, I am sorry. See update in the previous post.
I don't think that the VMS may possibly be written in Latin.
Yet, the Latin conjunction "et" may sometimes parallel Voynich:q- when used in medical recipes.
In this example (from You are not allowed to view links.
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7succ^ro. 7viole.7casiafistl'a.7tamaridi.7
et succus rosae et viole at cassia fistula et tamarindi
Compare the distribution of "et" with q- words You are not allowed to view links.
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I am pretty sure that similar lists were written in other languages as well.
There are two conventional signs for et, 7, a Tironian note and &, a ligature. I must onfess, that I think Beinecke 408 is in Latin, nevertheless, I think you could be right.
(26-10-2016, 05:42 PM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There are two conventional signs for et, 7, a Tironian note and &, a ligature. I must onfess, that I think Beinecke 408 is in Latin, nevertheless, I think you could be right.
A shape that looks like a capital Z was sometimes also used. Also, the e+t ligature, which evolved into the ampersand sign.
Hello everyone !
I keep believing that "4o" is the letter "d" and I totally agree that in addition to its natural presence in a few words, it can mean "and".
Just consult the dictionary of ancient Greek for "de" (You are not allowed to view links.
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Ruby