The Voynich Ninja

Have a look at f107r, line 15, second to las vord (raiin).

The r here betrays the way in which it has been written. It is extended EVA &172; (found most notably in f57v) with an apostrophe appended!

Does this designate the difference between two kinds of r (one with the tail modifier attached to the top of the line, another with the tail modifier attached slightly down from the top)? Or this is the way in which all r's are supposed to be composed?

I think, that these "biglyph" may be different. In this analogy, I suppose that, "biglypf" b = c + "big apostrophe" strapped to the lower end of the "c" symbol. Similarly, n = i + "big apostrophe."

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.   code 172 with an additional line.

The last paragraph of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. provides some ambiguous illustrations:

- last line, first vord: "r" looking as &172; but the diagonal is connected exactly to the top of the base shape, then the apostrophe is added. Maybe, it's i + horizontal + apostrope though.

- fourth to last line, first vord: connection is below the top, but only the apostrophe is present, no diagonal - so no traces of &172;

- third to last line: okair clearly shows no traces of a diagonal, while connection is below the top.

So far I can't see a clear system of distinguishing different versions of r from each other.

(20-11-2016, 04:43 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(19-11-2016, 07:46 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The text anomalies are very interesting, but really, let's not draw to conclusions from any visual presentation.

I can create visuals for any other letter and picture in the manuscript. 
Placing them in a particular order will not suddenly "reveal" how a character has evolved. In particular not if the anomalies are not on the same page.

Nor does it show anything for other characters that resemble the anomalies! There is no founded basis for that.

It does show what could be possible with imagination and a graphic editor, but it certainly does not show any chronological or other logical sequencing for the characters.

We can't make very many assumptions about chronological sequencing because:

1. We don't know the original intention as far as binding is concerned.
2. We don't know in which order the pages were written (many big projects like this one are not done in sequence).

For some things, if there is a significant evolution between consecutive pages on the same folio sheet, it might be possible to make some guesses about sequencing, but that happens rarely.


But I assumed it was obvious that we don't know the sequence. That doesn't mean we can't point out interesting patterns. In time, it might help sort out which marks are significant and which are not.

For the people who are willing to follow logical reasoning you can see that there are You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and classifications.


Based on simply the letters in the word you can see, which rules there are in the ENTIRE MANUSCRIPT. 

Looking at strikes, dots, lines and smears will not tell you anything about the evolution of a character. 

The evolution of characters is INSIDE REPEATED WORDS or chains of words, not by looking at glyphs.


Although there is no harm in having fun with glyphs and dreaming about the possible meaning and/or evolution, it is not really logical science. 

If you want to know how a dinosaur may have walked, you do not stare at mummified remains /fossils but you try to build a dinosaur based on the bones you collected.
Then you compare the skeleton with animals of which you do actually do know how they walk and move and compare that.
Based on similarities you will then draw conclusions which will be the best logical explanation for things.

The manuscript holds the "bones", those are the words. The glyphs are the fossils, and in my opinion the errors, the flaws and no information can be retrieved from them.

Quote:Looking at strikes, dots, lines and smears will not tell you anything about the evolution of a character.

It may or may not tell. It is true that it might not tell. E.g. if English "d" is comprised of "c" and "l", that does not mean that d = c + l. But one is not sure that with Voynichese we are dealing with plain text, to begin with. So analysis of the graphical structure of the glyphs may serve as support to hypotheses - the most recent example is Cham's curve-line system. Artifacts just serve as insightful hints and disclaimers. Like, when one sees a white crow, that effectively disproves the statement "all crows are black".

(22-11-2016, 11:32 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The manuscript holds the "bones", those are the words. The glyphs are the fossils, and in my opinion the errors, the flaws and no information can be retrieved from them.

I believe they can.

For example, I made the assertion several years ago, that certain shapes are based on Latin abbreviation/contraction conventions.

The proof of this is partly in the shape, partly in their position (with position being most important), but also... partly in the "mistakes".


In Latin, the "9" shape is usually superscripted, but not always. In the VMS, it is not superscripted, it is in line with the rest of the text.

This means an argument could be made that the shape is not based on the Latin 9 abbreviation (in fact, Koen made a completely valid observation that it might be an "a" with a tail). It's my observation that it looks the same and acts the same as Latin 9-abbrev, but I also acknowledge that the similarity could be coincidental. But... there are a couple of places where it is superscripted in the VMS text—the scribe made a mistake, perhaps from habit (since the 9 is usually superscripted in Latin). This mistake adds a puzzle piece to the argument that the shape is indeed based on Latin abbreviations.



This isn't the best example of a superscripted "9" (Latin -us/-um abbreviation symbol).
There are more unambiguous examples in the VMS, but this is the one I was able to find most quickly.



Also, variations in how a shape is used, like the line that crosses the gallows characters, might yield information on whether it's part of the shape or "added" to the shape to modify its meanings. Examples like this, along with the others, might tell us how the glyphs are constructed and which ones are ligatures and which ones are not. If we can answer this question, it might help us understand how many "characters" are in the Voynichese "alphabet" (assuming there is an alphabet):




It's pretty difficult to do computation attacks on things like glyph-frequency if you don't know which glyphs are one shape or two (or more) shapes combined.



Examining these oddball shapes does not mean we are ignoring other aspects of the text. Of course we are looking at things like glyph position and frequency (in fact, Wladimir was one of the first on the forum to propose meanings for some of the glyph-combinations and who posted extensive charts of vord-formation patterns, so he's obviously looking at usage and glyph-order in addition to shapes). In science you never know WHICH piece of data will fill in a gap in the knowledge, so you gather all you can.

I'm not convinced by writing, "yes it can be done" anymore.
This kind of discussions are going on way too long that way.

Show me conclusions and proof on what is what and why, specifically

* show the errors that were made, where and why
* show the correct spelling, words, where and why
* show the rules for the correct & erroneous spelling

David, there are various phases to an investigation. Collecting data is the first one, and people are doing a wonderful job in this thread. What you ask is a lot more work already, and would require someone to enter a next stage. Be patient

Remember that not so long ago, many people were under the assumption that Voynichese was oh so special because there were no apparent corrections or slip-ups. Even in order to thoroughly bury that misconception, this thread is valuable.

D/  You want all and at once! This we find out, when translated manuscript.
Not casual, some researchers already now use their own alphabet, which is different from the EVA (eg are considering  "bench" as  single symbol, the apostrophe is used ...)

For skeptics, existence a "point" character • bring other examples 1-7.
In Figure 6, at once three blots?
Figures 8-12 point + large apostrophe "• + ¬"

We should be careful.

The majority of 'artifacts' shown here are not corrections, but rather oddly shaped characters and odd combinations of characters or 'shapes'.

There is a generic type of correction in the MS that can be seen on a few pages, where (judging by the appearance of the page), the scribe, after finishing the page, seems to have decided that the ink was too light in many places, and retouched it.
This is a bit subjective, and others may want to see if they arrive at the same conclusion.

Two examples of such pages seem to me to be You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f79r, but I did not check all of them.