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| The i-hooks and the tail coverage |
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Posted by: Anton - 29-07-2018, 10:32 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (13)
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This is what looks a very interesting matter, although there's no clear picture at the moment.
I was thinking over Nick's post You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about tails of n having been written in a separate pass.
Indeed, in many places (not only 38v specifically) it looks like the tails of n were added in a separate pass. What betrays that in particular is that if we consider n as the combination of i and the tail, then those i-components which have a tail appended usually have a more or less prominent "hook" (to which the tail is then appended). The concept is illustrated by the figure (38v, line 7) below which shows the hook in blue and the tail in red.
hook1.jpg (Size: 14.31 KB / Downloads: 250)
Note that the behaviour of non-vord-final i-shapes in vords ending with n is not unambiguous. They may have no hooks at all (38v line 5):
hook2.jpg (Size: 13.62 KB / Downloads: 265)
They may have hooks less prominent than the vord-final hook (see fig. 1 above), which is, I guess, the most frequent case.
They may also have hooks as prominent as the vord-final hook. In this example of 38v, line 3, the hook of the next-to-last glyph is the same as that of the last glyph, the latter being not very prominent per se.
hook3.jpg (Size: 13.51 KB / Downloads: 226)
Hooks of non-vord-final glyphs may be considered as natural connectors of several strokes of one glyph (e.g. like in Latin three "i" form an "m"). However, e.g. in this example (38v line 6), first two i shapes do have hooks (let's say, "connector hooks") and the fourth one also has a hook (let's say "terminal hook"), however the third one clearly does not have a hook:
hook4.jpg (Size: 13.64 KB / Downloads: 239)
Of course, this just may designate that the sequence shall be read as "m" plus "n" (due to no "connector" between the two).
Let's put the issue of "connector hooks" aside for now and consider terminal hooks, and tails thereto appended. Some of the terminal hooks are very prominent, some are not. Clearly, they are not "connector hooks" in any case (because no i-shape ever follows). So there must be another explanation for the nature of terminal hooks. The simplest explanation would be that they are kind of embellishment, the result of the sweepy movement of the pen at a vord's ending. There are apparently no very many vords ending with i, if any at all, so this assumption is not very easy to check. The problem with hooks and tails within the n shapes, however, is that the vord is ending with the tail, it is not ending with the hook. So two questions manifest themselves:
1) Why two passes? Why not put the n shape in a single pass?
2) Why the need for the hook within n?
The simplest answer to the first question is that inscribing the n shape in a single pass is impossible from the writing technique perspective - the pen must be lifted from the surface in the midpoint. However, this is disproved by the existence of shapes such as b - which are clearly written in one pass.
The simplest answer to the second question is that the terminal hook is an "intermediary embellishment". The i with an "embellishing" hook is put down, and then the tail is just appended in the second pass. However, there are r glyphs also - which do have prominent hooks in much fewer cases. It is true that r sometimes has a prominent hook (see example below, 38v line 7), which sometimes makes it look even more like s, but it seems that on the whole, prominent terminal hooks in r are far less common than in n. I also have a suspicion that joining tail to the i not exactly at the top of i but slightly lower serves the purpose of distinguishing r (with their potential confusing hooks) from s.
hook5.jpg (Size: 12.15 KB / Downloads: 242)
This direction of discourse leads one to suspicion that the terminal hook is placed as an indicator for to be used in the second pass - specifically, indicating that, by appending a tail, the shape is to be turned into n, not r. This is far not certain though, since, once again, r with hooks are there - albeit less frequent, they are quite numerous. So this is rather vague at the moment.
However, be it so or not, it is still not clear why bother with such "reminders" if the tail (be that for r or for n) can be appended in the first pass? You are placing a vord-final glyph. If you know that it should be r, place the r at once. If you know it should be n, place n at once. There is one evident explanation of this strange need for the second pass - that you do not know in advance whether it needs be r or n (or, say, l etc.). r , l and m clearly have the need to be written in two strokes, so they look just natural (in fact, many r's look like there are even three components within them, but that's another thread), but only n - that does not have that need - betrays these two strokes as two passes.
But there is something more which may either substitute this explanation of two passes - or even complement it. That's the "tail coverage", which is introduced by analogy with the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Indeed, one may notice that the tail of n (we'll come to other tails later) sometimes covers more than its own i, but also one or more preceding strokes (be they just i's or full EVA glyphs). Consider Fig. 4 above, where the tail covers four strokes, three of which do not belong to the n glyph. This occurrence is much like those in which the gallows coverage is manifested as something more that just pure embellishment. In here, there is little room between the lines for a sweepy curve with its natural radius to fit in - so the radius is made deliberately infinite, with the curve going horizontally - that is, in parallel with the baseline, in order to fit the "covering" tail in.
Sometimes the tip of the tail stops in between two preceding strokes so that it is not easy to determine the extent of the coverage (this is the case with some gallows also). There may have been some convention to resolve such ambiguities.
Can the tail of n cover anything beside just i shapes? Yes, it can - at least the glyph a . For that see e.g. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 7 or line 9 (at this point I'm tired preparing inline illustrations, sorry!  ). Interestingly, sometimes the tail covers the whole a, while sometimes it covers only the i component of the a (see e.g. f42r, next-to-last line).
What about tails of other glyphs? Although seemingly not as often, the tail of r can also exhibit coverage - see e.g. f42r, line 2. So does the tail of s. The tail of s is very interesting in this respect. Exactly like r or n are commonly preceded by i or i-containing shapes, s is commonly preceded by e. Thus the tail of s likes to cover one or more e shapes - see e.g. f42r, last line. I have seen (don't remember where) the tail of s covering l - which means that there is no curve-to-curve (neither, presumably, line-to line, in terms of Cham's CLS) rule for the tail coverage. In other words, tails of curve-based glyphs can cover line-based glyphs and (presumably) vice versa.
The b, which also visually derives from e , can exhibit coverage as well - see e.g. f42v, line 10, where it covers two preceding instrances of e.
Returning to s, it sometimes demonstrates behaviour not very fitting into the described model of tail coverage. First, s is often seen as vord-beginning character, and in such cases it is not rare that it covers the space preceding the vord. I can't imagine any plausible need for that. Worse than that, s is sometimes seen as line-initial character, and in such cases it sometimes has a deliberately long tail of large radius - exactly as if it should have covered a string of characters - but there are no characters. Refer to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 10 for an illustration. Unless the long tail of s as vord-initial character has some special significance, this strange behaviour is something that jeopardises the whole concept of tail coverage. So, while I don't have a shade of doubt that gallows coverage exists, I'll leave room for doubt in the case of tail coverage.
What could be the significance of tail coverage? One thing that it would not be is marking covered i's as strokes of a single glyph. That's because coverage is observed over e's as well - and e shapes are clearly standalone, not combinable into a single glyph. Other than that, I can imagine some operator over the preceding glyphs as operands. What it is exactly - I can't tell, same as for the gallows coverage.
I have not researched the peculiarities outlined above systematically and limited myself (for the moment) to only several folios. Bottomline at the moment looks to me as follows:
a) terminal hooks - not clear if they have any special significance. May serve as markers for converting i to n, but that's not very likely due to abundance of examples to the contrary. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 8 is a vivid example of how i with a prominent tail hook was converted to m, not to n. Most probably they are sort of embellishment (or, rather, outcome of a particular writing technique) for the vord-ending i-strokes before the tail of any sort is appended. What is important is that the presence of terminal hooks in n shapes betrays the two-pass nature of creating the flow of script.
b) connector hooks - not sure if they are really meant to combine i-strokes into a single glyph or not. Really an open question. More consideration needed.
c) tail coverage - more chances that it does have special significance versus simple embellishment. If so, it does not serve to mark stroke combinations as single glyphs. Might be some operator.
d) two-pass process - reflection upon why it is needed in the first place might be the clue to understanding Voynichese. A two-pass process is a paradigm fundamentally different from the simple (or not-so-simple) substitution (which is usually the heavy focus of Voynich-deciphering attempts). The two-pass paradigm also largely negates the idea of decomposition of Voynich glyphs as "base-shape+tail" constructs (as discussed in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)
The very division of the process in two passes means either one of the two following things, or both at the same time:
a) the scribe does not know in advance which exactly tail is to be appended
b) the scribe does not know in advance the extent of coverage to be introduced
Either of these means that the scribe does not know in advance the final look of the vord he is putting down.
Wow, this has been a long post. Thx for your patience. 
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| The Origin of [sh] |
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Posted by: Emma May Smith - 24-07-2018, 09:59 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (35)
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I want to offer an hypothesis concerning the origin of Sh. It's not strictly an explanation but a possible insight. I'm not sure it's true so I would like the opinions of others.
I guess we all agree that the lower part of Sh is the same as ch? And that the only difference is the 'plume', 'hat', topstroke, whatever you want to call it?
I think that when writing Sh the scribe wrote ch first and added the topstroke last. Would others agree?
If so, how long after the ch was the topstroke written? Can we show that it was written immediately after or that (at least in some cases) other glyphs were written between the ch and the addition of the topstroke? Would the lightness/darkness of the topstroke provide evidence?
Although I'm very uncertain about this hypothesis, I think it could serve to make an important point: whether ch and Sh are different glyphs, or the same glyph with different environments. The topstroke could be indicating that a later glyph/sound/part was omitted or altered.
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| Who sold the Voynich MS to Rudolf |
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Posted by: ReneZ - 19-07-2018, 03:52 PM - Forum: Provenance & history
- Replies (20)
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The quick answer is: I don't know, but Koen correctly pointed out:
Quote:Quote:I have a theory about who sold the MS to Rudolf.
Hey, as the Dutch saying goes, "who says A, must say B"
I mentioned a name in my 2012 presentation in Villa Mondragone. This is the Augsburg physician, paracelsan and manuscript collector Karl Widemann.
His name is also spelled in different ways.
He is still my best candidate, but the more interesting question is: what is the likelihood that he is indeed the man.
And this is where it gets difficult.
What is certainly true is that in 1599 Rudolf asked a commission from one of his main financial advisers You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. (He did that quite frequently).
In this case it was to acquire a set of books from Karl Widemann, for 500 Taler. Geizkofler was supported somehow by Matthias Peugl, and one or the other described the books as 'selzam', which I tentatively translate as 'unusual'.
The books were sent to Hans Popp, one of Rudolf's 'Kammerdiener' in Prague.
On a side note, around 1586-1587 Widemann was in Prague working for Rudolf and in Trebon working for Vilem Rosenberg. He also knew, or even worked together with Edward Kelly.
The "theory" part of this is that these books are the Voynich MS, still in several parts, or the MS was one of them.
At least one book that Widemann sold to Rudolf (then or at some other time) has been preserved and is now in Leiden: Voss.Chym. Q56 , and that can hardly be qualified as 'unusual'.
Anyway, several sources are still to be followed up, and it isn't going very fast 
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| Folio numbers |
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Posted by: nablator - 18-07-2018, 04:27 PM - Forum: Physical material
- Replies (9)
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I thought it would be useful to have a conversion table here between the sequential images numbers on the Beinecke website
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You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
and the usual folio numbers. Maybe on the folio browser too. Looking at the combo box now, it seems some numbers are off. (?)
1 [Front cover]
2 [Inside front cover]
3 1r
4 1v
5 2r
6 2v
7 3r
8 3v
9 4r
10 4v
11 5r
12 5v
13 6r
14 6v
15 7r
16 7v
17 8r
18 8v
19 9r
20 9v
21 10r
22 10v
23 11r
24 11v
25 13r
26 13v
27 14r
28 14v
29 15r
30 15v
31 16r
32 16v
33 17r
34 17v
35 18r
36 18v
37 19r
38 19v
39 20r
40 20v
41 21r
42 21v
43 22r
44 22v
45 23r
46 23v
47 24r
48 24v
49 25r
50 25v
51 26r
52 26v
53 27r
54 27v
55 28r
56 28v
57 29r
58 29v
59 30r
60 30v
61 31r
62 31v
63 32r
64 32v
65 33r
66 33v
67 34r
68 34v
69 35r
70 35v
71 36r
72 36v
73 37r
74 37v
75 38r
76 38v
77 39r
78 39v
79 40r
80 40v
81 41r
82 41v
83 42r
84 42v
85 43r
86 43v
87 44r
88 44v
89 45r
90 45v
91 46r
92 46v
93 47r
94 47v
95 48r
96 48v
97 49r
98 49v
99 50r
100 50v
101 51r
102 51v
103 52r
104 52v
105 53r
106 53v
107 54r
108 54v
109 55r
110 55v
111 56r
112 56v
113 57r
114 57v
115 58r
116 58v
117 65r
118 65v
119 66r
120 66v
121 67r1
121 67r2
122 67v2
122 67v1
123 68r1
123 68r2
123 68r3
124 68v3
124 68v2
124 68v1
125 69r
126 69v
126 70r1
126 70r2
127 70v2
128 70v1
129 71r
130 71v
130 72r1
130 72r2
130 72r3
131 72v3
131 72v2
132 72v1
133 73r
134 73v
135 75r
136 75v
137 76r
138 76v
139 77r
140 77v
141 78r
142 78v
143 79r
144 79v
145 80r
146 80v
147 81r
148 81v
149 82r
150 82v
151 83r
152 83v
153 84r
154 84v
155 85r1
156 85r2
156 86v4
156 86v6
157 86v5
157 86v3
158 Rosettes foldout
159 87r
160 87v
161 88r
162 88v
162 89r1
162 89r2
163 89v2
164 89v1
164 90r1
164 90r2
165 90v2
166 90v1
167 93r
168 93v
169 94r
170 94v
170 95r1
170 95r2
171 95v2
172 95v1
173 96r
174 96v
175 99r
176 99v
177 100r
178 100v
178 101r1
178 101r2
179 101v2
180 101v1
180 102r1
180 102r2
181 102v2
182 102v1
183 103r
184 103v
185 104r
186 104v
187 105r
188 105v
189 106r
190 106v
191 107r
192 107v
193 108r
194 108v
195 111r
196 111v
197 112r
198 112v
199 113r
200 113v
201 114r
202 114v
203 115r
204 115v
205 116r
206 116v
207 [Back flyleaf recto]
208 [Back flyleaf verso-inside back cover]
209 [Head]
210 [Tail]
211 [Fore-edge]
212 [Spine]
213 [Back cover]
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![[Image: 68v1.png]](https://voynichviews.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/68v1.png)
![[Image: capture-d_c3a9cran-984.png]](https://voynichviews.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/capture-d_c3a9cran-984.png)
![[Image: f70r1nopaint.png]](https://voynichviews.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/f70r1nopaint.png)
![[Image: image.jpg?q=f86_ins_ros-1316-1168-291-266]](https://voynich.ninja/extractor/image.jpg?q=f86_ins_ros-1316-1168-291-266)