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+--- Thread: Which changes to EVA would have the most impact? (/thread-1281.html)
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Which changes to EVA would have the most impact? - Koen G - 11-12-2016
I think this is a very important question that might illuminate some things, yet I'm not sure if there is any answer readily available.
The question has been purposefully phrased in terms of "most impact" because I'm not primarily interested in rare characters and other freak occurrences, but rather differences that might affect entropy (thanks Anton) and similar properties.
I believe the alterations would mostly be to read as two separate glyphs something which in EVA is transcribed as one.
Perhaps the most obvious example is the different kinds of "caps" on the bench. I would try to distinguish there between the floater and the toucher.
But when I look at other glyphs, I also see significant variation, especially in the "tilt", for example in l and d. But those seem harder to tell apart.
What is your opinion? And is there a way we could test whether a split is meaningful?
RE: Which changes to EVA would have the most impact? - Anton - 11-12-2016
It depends on what impact one aims to achieve. In terms of raising entropy, combining glyphs will do. Like uniting benched gallows into single symbols (instead of groups of three or four symbols as they are currently treated in EVA) or counting iin for a single glyph.
RE: Which changes to EVA would have the most impact? - Koen G - 11-12-2016
I would mostly try to get it to become more normal
Though things like the distribution of gallows are transcription independent and still very un-languagelike.
I have no idea which transcription would be the best for bemched gallows. Counting the iin sequences as a single glyph would surely be something worth trying.
RE: Which changes to EVA would have the most impact? - Anton - 11-12-2016
The like tests are on my to-do list, however I don't know when I will be able to devote time to those.
RE: Which changes to EVA would have the most impact? - Witch Mountain - 12-12-2016
Dear Voynicheros, I like the EVA alphabet as-is personally. No alphabet will be 100% like the text, but EVA seems to get close enough for me.
RE: Which changes to EVA would have the most impact? - -JKP- - 12-12-2016
This is just a personal preference, but I rejected EVA immediately and created my own transcription method and fonts.
I can see EVA's utility for typing and for communication (it's clear that some thought went into it), and it has served this purpose reasonably well, but the problem is that it creates apparent (even if not intended) correspondences between letters and glyphs that may not have anything to do with the scribes' intention.
This is not necessarily the fault of those who designed EVA. I'm sure they knew what the EVA alphabet did and did not imply, but new researchers looking at the glyphs may assume other correspondences (in fact, one can tell from the dialog that some people assume a correspondence between Voynichese and known alphabets through the EVA shapes).
Another problem with EVA is the assumptions built into any Voynich alphabet about what constitutes a unique glyph. When I created my own transcription system, I made some adjustments to the search capabilities in case certain glyphs that imperfectly resemble one another might have separate "meanings". This is not an easy task, is an ongoing process, and would be a distinct challenge if an updated transcription alphabet were communally developed. In the case of EVA, what happened was that "extended" alphabets were developed as various researchers noted subtleties about the text, but this too is problematic as it builds on a foundation that is flawed to begin with (with no disrespect for all the work that went into developing EVA... you have to start somewhere).
RE: Which changes to EVA would have the most impact? - Koen G - 12-12-2016
Completely agreed, JKP. Just to be clear, this thread was not meant as an attempt to ditch EVA. It was quite a feat at the time and still serves its purpose well. I mainly wondered which changes one could make to EVA in order to possibly improve results. And if anyone had run some tests on that already. If I had spent more time on the text instead of the imagery and knew more about statistics and whatnot, this would be one of the first things on my to do list.
RE: Which changes to EVA would have the most impact? - Davidsch - 12-12-2016
...sigh...yeah if I had more time I could :
1* spend more time on research and less on typing text here
2* read more online and discover that many research has been done on the exact same thing
3* share more on the things already done and present it in a user friendly way, discuss it and discuss some more and then start at 1) again
RE: Which changes to EVA would have the most impact? - Koen G - 12-12-2016
Any actual thoughts on the subject to contribute, David?
RE: Which changes to EVA would have the most impact? - -JKP- - 12-12-2016
I think any attempt to "fix" or improve a fundamentally flawed concept is a problem. It may turn into a Medusa (as some of the extended EVAs illustrate). I think it needs a complete overhaul and I think it needs a different paradigm, a different way of approaching it.
The transcription, the alphabet, and the search mechanisms used to process the transcription are inextricably linked.
Rather than using a "font" for EVA, using something like PostScript, which is not just for drawing lines and text characters, but is a programming language in its own right, might be the way to go because adjustments could be made using an algorithm rather than applying a bandaid by redrawing the font or adding letters.
That's what I think would have the most impact.