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A brief summary of Voynichese spelling and grammar - davidjackson - 05-03-2017
This post attempts to collate distinct discussions of observed tendencies within Voynichese which could be called spelling and grammar.
I include links to the different threads where each phenomenon is discussed. Please do not discuss the phenomenon here but in their respective threads - use the reply feature exclusively to alert me to phenomenon I have missed, or where I have made a mistake. Replies will be deleted once they have been dealt with in order to keep things tidy. I am linking to discussions that have appeared on this forum, not to third party websites.
Disclaimer: I use the word "rules" lightly here. We are discussing patterns in the text, not proposing any definitive rules.
I'm sure I'm missing quite a few so let me know what to add - this is my first draft.
Spelling rules
Vord rules
- y appears either mainly as a suffix (in more than one third of the corpus) and occasionally as a prefix; rarely as in the middle of vords.
- q is a prefix followed by o in about 90% of all appearences. It is often followed by a gallows character, or if not, by d or l. It sometimes appears prefixed by another o (oqotar f10r, shoqoky f49r, etc). It can rarely appear by itself in the middle of vords. qo appears as an unique vord 29 times. However, almost all vords prefixed by q appear elsewhere in the corpus without that prefix. No label uses that prefix.
- Glyph i is followed by another i or n in 90% of all occurrences, and almost all n will be preceded by i. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
- q almost always appears at the beginning of a vord before o . It is also common after a vord ending in y. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Paragraph rules
- f and p appear predominantly in the first lines of paragraphs (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Furthermore, Currier Prescott (1976) notes that neither glyph are ever followed by c.
- m appears predominately at the end of lines but not paragraphs – and when it appears in the middle of lines, it has a tendency to cluster groups of words ending in m (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
- Certain bigrams can be substituted within vords to create (almost always) a new valid vord. (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). These are grouped into character classes:
- Asymmetric vord pairs. For example, the word or occurs 366 times and the word aiin occurs 470 times. But the phrase or aiin is much more common than aiin or. (Taken from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) Word order is important for several other "phrases" - the list is omitted for brevity here but can be found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Editor's note: Care should be taken to distinguish between genuine vord pairs and single vords that have been mis-transcribed with a space.
- Line initial words. There are no popular words used to start lines. In the entire corpus (excluding one word lines) ychor starts 16 lines, followed by dcheo which starts 6 lines. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.| You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. | You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
- Bigrams. It has been suggested that parts of the corpus can be broken down into 26 bigrams. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
- Repetition. The same vord can be repeated in sequence for no apparent reason (this may simply be dittography caused by scribal eyeskip). The same word is repeated three times in 35 different phrases (T. Timm).
- Currier languages. There are statistical differences in the appearance of vords between quires. These differences have been collated into two "languages" by Currier. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
- A table showing how glyphs are constructed is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
RE: A brief summary of Voynichese spelling and grammar - MarcoP - 10-03-2017
I think this has been mentioned several times on the forum, but I could now only find You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Torsten:
similar words tend to follow each other.
For instance:
<f76v.P.18;H> lshey.qockhedy.qodeey.qolkeedy.qokedy.chol.chedchey.daiin.olkedy-
<f77r.P.34;H> {figure}qokeedy.qotedy.qokeedy.qokeedy.qokeey.r!aiin.al-
<f77v.P.1;H> qetedy.shedy.qotol.odal.chal.dar.qopshedy.qotedy.qotedy.qokedy.dal-
This is similar to the above mentioned "Repetition", but it does not necessarily involve identical words. One could generalize repetition by saying that identical or similar words tend to repeat in sequence.
RE: A brief summary of Voynichese spelling and grammar - davidjackson - 10-03-2017
Yes, I've been trying to think of a way to express this.
RE: A brief summary of Voynichese spelling and grammar - stellar - 10-03-2017
@David
I agree that the VMS does show prefixes from my observation of the cipher I created and its advanced. Regardless of EVA or My interpretation of the VMS as in a cipher I really do feel you are right about prefixes, but I'm not entirely sure the suffixes are part of a cipher which indicate syntax.
RE: A brief summary of Voynichese spelling and grammar - Koen G - 17-06-2021
(17-06-2021, 11:02 AM)Zenasavan Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Omg, I thought that I won't ever need this in my life!
I'm just going to quote this spammer before banning him
RE: A brief summary of Voynichese spelling and grammar - Barbrey - 26-07-2021
Hi Davidjackson, I don't understand point 2 under vord rules. You say 4 is always a prefix, then that if it appears as a suffix, it doesn't need the 4. Does it ever appear as a suffix?
RE: A brief summary of Voynichese spelling and grammar - Anton - 26-07-2021
(26-07-2021, 01:50 AM)Barbrey Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi Davidjackson, I don't understand point 2 under vord rules. You say 4 is always a prefix, then that if it appears as a suffix, it doesn't need the 4. Does it ever appear as a suffix?
It's evidently a typo, and "suffix" is to be read as "prefix" here
RE: A brief summary of Voynichese spelling and grammar - davidjackson - 26-07-2021
I have replaced the entry with:
q is a prefix followed by o in about 90% of all appearences. It is often followed by a gallows character, or if not, by d or l. It sometimes appears prefixed by another o (oqotar f10r, shoqoky f49r, etc). It can rarely appear by itself in the middle of vords. qo appears as an unique vord 29 times. However, almost all vords prefixed by q appear elsewhere in the corpus without that prefix. No label uses that prefix.
RE: A brief summary of Voynichese spelling and grammar - Anton - 26-07-2021
Actually there are a few labels starting with q, 66r for example.
RE: A brief summary of Voynichese spelling and grammar - radapox - 05-09-2021
Thank you, David, for this thread. Would it be useful to include or mention Jorge Stolfi's prefix/midfix/suffix analysis here? You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.