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+--- Thread: The Impossibility of Double Gallows (/thread-129.html)
RE: The Impossibility of Double Gallows - Helmut Winkler - 11-02-2019
It is one of the most prominent features of the VMs that there are practically no marked abbreviations, that is more than striking for a medieval ms., there aren't any even on 116v
RE: The Impossibility of Double Gallows - -JKP- - 11-02-2019
ju
(11-02-2019, 01:16 PM)nickpelling Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
If it was a universal mark or part of the system (as you seem to assume), we'd expect to see it throughout the text: but we don't.
Why does something have to be frequent to be "legitimate"?
In addition to these uncommon 4o patterns, there are also some uncommon characters that are clearly written and easy to distinguish from other characters but infrequently written. Are we going to call them copying errors?
I don't think anyone would call x a copying error, even though it is infrequent. In fact, some glyphs only occur once. I don't think we should be too quick to dismiss variants of 4o as "copying errors" just because they are infrequent.
I wouldn't go so far as to argue that the 4o macron-shapes represent "a universal mark or part of the system" (or to deny that they are such), but I DO think they are deliberate (not mistakes) and deserve attention (provide clues).
RE: The Impossibility of Double Gallows - nickpelling - 11-02-2019
(11-02-2019, 09:29 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why does something have to be frequent to be "legitimate"? (...)
I don't think we should be too quick to dismiss variants of 4o as "copying errors" just because they are infrequent.
'legitimate' is your phrasing, not mine: I would expect that once we (somehow) get started cracking the Voynich's text, just about everything will ultimately turn to be meaningful, with the possible exception of line-initial EVA 's' (which I suspect is just the way the first column gets padded out sometimes - and please don't ask me why that should be the case, all I'm saying is how it looks to me).
At the same time, when we still don't even have anything approaching a high-level conceptual framework for all these marks to fit into, these 'diacritic'-like marks can add up to quite a heavy distraction. But really, the 99% of 'qo's that are just plain 'qo' are what need the real attention, because they are without much doubt central to The System, whatever The System is.
I don't quite agree with Helmut Winkler's view that the Voynich's relative lack of diacriticals is somehow unusual: but perhaps this is because I date the Voynich Manuscript to a few decades after the centre of the radiocarbon dating curve. By the 1460s (rather than the 1420s), the few remaining Tironian-style abbreviations were rapidly dying away, and were mainly being kept alive in monastic communities.
RE: The Impossibility of Double Gallows - Linda - 11-02-2019
(11-02-2019, 09:29 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.ju(11-02-2019, 01:16 PM)nickpelling Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
If it was a universal mark or part of the system (as you seem to assume), we'd expect to see it throughout the text: but we don't.
Why does something have to be frequent to be "legitimate"?
In addition to these uncommon 4o patterns, there are also some uncommon characters that are clearly written and easy to distinguish from other characters but infrequently written. Are we going to call them copying errors?
I don't think anyone would call x a copying error, even though it is infrequent. In fact, some glyphs only occur once. I don't think we should be too quick to dismiss variants of 4o as "copying errors" just because they are infrequent.
I wouldn't go so far as to argue that the 4o macron-shapes represent "a universal mark or part of the system" (or to deny that they are such), but I DO think they are deliberate (not mistakes) and deserve attention (provide clues).
I tend to agree. Same goes for the images.
RE: The Impossibility of Double Gallows - ReneZ - 12-02-2019
(11-02-2019, 04:39 PM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is one of the most prominent features of the VMs that there are practically no marked abbreviations, that is more than striking for a medieval ms., there aren't any even on 116v
No doubt this is a relevant observation, but there can still be several different explanations for it.
It may be tempting to consider this a feature of a later humanistic influence. However, the hand of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is clearly gothic.
If the majority of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. text is a spelll, then I think this could also explain the absence of abbreviations.
Spells should be written out it full.
RE: The Impossibility of Double Gallows - Helmut Winkler - 12-02-2019
It does not matter if the Voynich scribe left abbr. markings out to speed up his writing (that is what I think) or had some other reason, the question is how to 'isolate' and dissolve his abbreviations
RE: The Impossibility of Double Gallows - -JKP- - 12-02-2019
Considering the positions of the "9" symbols (consistent with Latin abbreviation symbols of the same shape), and the relative shortness of VMS tokens compared to most natural languages, it's quite possible Voynichese is full of abbreviations.
RE: The Impossibility of Double Gallows - Common_Man - 12-02-2019
Isn't it possible that someone was copying some centuries old manuscript to a new set of vellum (which was carbon dated to 1404-1438 period) and the underlying language was a lot more primitive than we thought
Rather than Voynichese being something derived from Medieval latin conventions, couldn't it be something that contributed to (preceded) the development of the Latin scribal conventions as you all know it? Just an idea..
RE: The Impossibility of Double Gallows - -JKP- - 12-02-2019
(12-02-2019, 11:49 AM)Common_Man Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Isn't it possible that someone was copying some centuries old manuscript to a new set of vellum (which was carbon dated to 1404-1438 period) and the underlying language was a lot more primitive than we thought
Common_Man, how far back were you thinking?
The Greeks of pre-Roman and transitional Greco-Roman times left behind some pretty sophisticated writing that was still respected and copied in the Middle Ages. Latin derived many of its scribal conventions from Greek manuscripts, so these ideas were around long before the Middle Ages.
The SHAPES in the VMS are mostly derived from Latin, but if Voynichese includes abbreviations or ligatures (it looks like it might, but it hasn't been confirmed one way or the other), these conventions have been around since before the Carolingian era. The underlying language and scribal conventions of the Greek and Greco-Roman periods is not what we would call primitive.
Many of the same scribal concepts for ligatures and abbreviations in Greek manuscripts also existed in India around the same time, so these scribal concepts were not limited to the Mediterranean. I don't get the impression that languages were primitive at the time, either (I'm not a linguist, so maybe someone who is could say more about this). They may have been less blended (and less standardized) than they are now, but I don't get the idea that they were primitive.
RE: The Impossibility of Double Gallows - DONJCH - 13-02-2019
(10-02-2019, 05:07 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The afore mentioned counts and percentages can be discussed, but really, it is an accurate count you can crosscheck.
Because the counts and very very low percentages are the basis and fundaments of my current conclusions,
it would be possible to discuss from that position on forward that
1. It could be established that the scribe made much errors and mistakes, if you are open for it. Then specific textparts need to be discussed.
2. this is only useful if there are mutal agreeable assumptions (read: starting points).
3. And then there is the method used for comparing textparts must be accepted on every end.
We still do not know what benchmark percentage you use to decide what is genuine and what is error.
Without that we cannot proceed in a logical manner.