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+--- Thread: The pragmatic nature of the script (/thread-1508.html)
RE: The pragmatic nature of the script - Koen G - 08-02-2017
It's also worth noting that in the VM we don't get very elaborate initials. The closest parallels are "gallows with extra curls" or the big red weirdos on the first page.
RE: The pragmatic nature of the script - Anton - 08-02-2017
I think the simplest reason for the script being "fluid" is that it was understood in advance that much is to be written using the script. Simple (vs ornate) script just saves effort of writing.
RE: The pragmatic nature of the script - davidjackson - 08-02-2017
Quote:Anton: Natural languages also can have ornate letters, even hieroglyphics apart. Consider, for example, the glagolithic alphabet.
Glagolithic was an invented alphabet. 9th century, wasn't it?
Quote: Anton: I think the simplest reason for the script being "fluid" is that it was understood in advance that much is to be written using the script. Simple (vs ornate) script just saves effort of writing.Yet other scripts, designed from the ground up, did not have this consideration, as discussed above.
Quote: ReneZ: I guess you are (also) referring to the pseudo-scripts that were popular from 1300-1500 in Western art. [..] In the middle ages one could apparently learn the names of the people who invented all the know alphabets:Yes, although here you are also talking about Renaissance linguistic epistemology. My thoughts as I wrote the post were, I confess, more along the lines of the invented scripts we read about in the archives of the Spanish Inquisition - impressive looking charms (and curses!) sold by charlatans to the gullible. Interestingly enough, the Church in Spain did not consider this sort of hedge magic to be real and vendors uncovered by the Inquisition were usually prosecuted under civil law rather than being subjected first to church Inquisition.
RE: The pragmatic nature of the script - Davidsch - 08-02-2017
The scribist wrote me that it was his normal work to obfuscate official correspondence
and in his spare time he liked to scribble things on the pieces of skin that were left over.
Over the years it became quite a piece of work and when he needed the money
he threw them in a box and sold it to a noble man. He told him, it contained the secrets of female herbal medicine.
However, some nice drawings he kept for himself and some he gave away as a gift.
RE: The pragmatic nature of the script - Anton - 08-02-2017
Quote:Glagolithic was an invented alphabet. 9th century, wasn't it?
Yes, but it was script invented to write natural language.
Quote:Yet other scripts, designed from the ground up, did not have this consideration, as discussed above.
As you say,
Quote:They are like this because they weren't designed to encode an entire book, only phrases or even words.
RE: The pragmatic nature of the script - ReneZ - 09-02-2017
It seems highly relevant that the Voynich script looks fluid when writing its "own language":
torchey otaiin chary oteory otal
but not when writing anything else:
the quick brown fox etc
RE: The pragmatic nature of the script - Koen G - 09-02-2017
(09-02-2017, 08:19 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It seems highly relevant that the Voynich script looks fluid when writing its "own language":
torchey otaiin chary oteory otal
but not when writing anything else:
the quick brown fox etc
Good point Rene so called Zandbergen
Exactly! And I think we can also say why this is the case. If we write it normally using EVA, it quickly becomes too busy. Strokes stick out everywhere and look out of place.
Now on the one hand, we've gotten used to the "flow" of Voynichese and we notice immediately when something is up. When typing in English, we create all kinds of sequences which are just impossible in Voynichese.
But on the other hand, it can't just be that. If I type a bunch of nonsense in a normal font, the font still looks fine. "oror quookedy cheol" sounds like nonsense, but the letters themselves flow just fine. So the point is, which you likely mean, that there is such a flow to Voynichese.
One might say that this flow is in the "language", but I personally don't think that's the case. I think the flow is rather in the script. Too many glyphs look like versions of another glyph with an extra stroke or other embellishment. A flourish. Those usually occupy specific places in the word, which is why you get some of Voynichese's unusual statistics.
And if you use anything else than Voynichese for the input of an EVA font, the flourished versions get all over the place, which looks weird.
RE: The pragmatic nature of the script - Anton - 09-02-2017
I think by "fluid" David meant the simplicity of glyphs, not the structure of vords.
RE: The pragmatic nature of the script - davidjackson - 09-02-2017
That's an interesting observation. It brings me back to Brian Cham's Curve Line System - every curve glyph is usually followed by a line glyph, and this accounts for Rene's observation above.
RE: The pragmatic nature of the script - ReneZ - 09-02-2017
(07-02-2017, 10:29 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The Alphabetum Kaldeorum already appears in the travel reports of someone called Jehan de Mandeville (before 1371) and turns out to be basically the same as the Aethicus alphabet
By a case of total synchronicity, I saw that a MS copy of de Mandeville's travels was recently scanned from microfilm (i.e. in B/W) at the Vatican digital library. It is profusely illlustrated. The various alphabets are easy to find.
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