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+--- Thread: Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ? (/thread-1877.html)
RE: Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ? - peteb - 29-04-2017
...... to continue,
It’s not enough to say the roots of an unfathomable script come from another language because the other language has its own roots and they in turn have theirs. Languages have always swarmed through the borders, adding to themselves and taking away from others and always the subtle encryptions of secrecy.
RE: Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ? - peteb - 29-04-2017
I'll carry on if nobody minds ..
I've read David Jackson's sticky post and the comments, one in particular:
"Indeed Marco and Jkp. I think that a visual look at the layout of these glyphs tends to make you think that they can't be letters, but must instead by a sense marker of some sort - a pilcrow or system of per cola et commata." (My italics)
Pilcrow I understand - what I'd like to propose is that what you call the Voynich Gallows glyphs (I can't see where to attach an image of them here, there are several) operate under similar language rules as do the 'Gallows glyphs' in more than a dozen Indian dialects, here are some (+ Arabic)
Awadhi (अवधी)
Bodo (बड़ो)
Hindi (हिन्दी)
Kashmiri (कॉशुर / كٲشُر)
Konkani (कोंकणी
Magahi (मगही)
Marāṭhī (मराठी)
Marwari (मारवाड़ी / ماروڑى)
Mundari (মুণ্ডরি / मुण्डरि / ମୁଣ୍ଡରି / Muṇḍari)
Nēpālī (नेपाली)
Pāli (पालि)
Rajasthani (राजस्थानी/راجستھاني)
Sanskrit (संस्कृतम्)
Saraiki (ਸਰਾਇਕੀ / सराइकी / سرائيكى)
Shina (षीना / ݜینا)
RE: Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ? - davidjackson - 29-04-2017
There is no such thing as "Indian language". The country of India has over 122 officially recognised languages, many of which have nothing to do with one another. But many of them use the same script, as we Europeans do.
That list of languages you posted above are all part of the Indo-Aryan body of languages. They are written using a type of script know as the Brahmic family of scripts, which across Indo-Aryan variants are often characterised by the heavy line which runs along the top of the script.
The list you posted offers the language name in English followed by the name in Devanagari and sometimes followed by the name in the native script. Note the last entry Shina - it's written in English, Devenangari and the Shina script.
The strong top stroke of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.language has nothing to do with the Voynichese gallows. Devanagari (Wikipedia notes it is the script for more than 120 languages, in the same way that the Roman alphabet is the language for dozens of European languages) uses the top stroke to denote consonant clusters.
It could be postulated that Voynichese gallows coverage has a similar function, but it is not extensively used enough in Voynichese for this to be affirmed as a rule.
@PeteB - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. explaining how to insert images from the manuscript into your posts from the text editor.
RE: Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ? - peteb - 29-04-2017
davidjackson ... I know, but I am inhabiting the time between the 5th and 15th century. My intention is to follow the migratory path of the Indian / Gypsy tribes who eventually made it to Europe (all in a very general sense).
I hesitated in putting everything into the one post, preferring to draw a reader along to the end. Another two posts of the same size should do it.
Is this a satisfactory way of using the forum?
RE: Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ? - davidjackson - 29-04-2017
Yes it is, no problem there.
However, to avoid nit-pickers (like myself) it's best to use technical terminology correctly, as many of us do have a non-trivial knowledge of the field.
RE: Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ? - peteb - 29-04-2017
davidjackson: Message received.
I note that Rene Zandbergen has made a comment in another place with regard to Voynich theories - as follows.
1) One makes an assumption.
2) One finds an explanation for a detail that is consistent with this assumption.
3) One then concludes that the assumption must have been correct.
[font='Open Sans', sans-serif]There is a great risk of circular reasoning in all this:[/font]
[font='Open Sans', sans-serif]This is not my intention, although dealing with five centuries of human history in only a couple of paragraphs carries some risk.[/font]
[font='Open Sans', sans-serif]Some background.[/font]
[font='Open Sans', sans-serif][font=Georgia, Times, serif]The phen speaking Rom gypsies who first appeared in Europe in the 11th century were thought to have been part of a larger migration who wandered for several centuries through what is now Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, and to the south of the Caspian sea.
[/font][/font]
On reaching northern Mesopotamia and the eastern boundary of the Byzantine Empire towards the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century they split into three groups. The ben speaking Dom who took the southern route or stayed in the Middle East, and two phen speaking groups, the Lom, who went north and the Rom, who took the western route.
[font='Open Sans', sans-serif][font=Georgia, Times, serif]Source: Gypsies in the Ottoman Empire: A Contribution to the History of the Balkans by Elena Marushiakova, Veselin Popov. Oct 2016.[/font][/font]
[font='Open Sans', sans-serif][font=Georgia, Times, serif][font=Georgia, Times, serif][i]“There is no record of any written (Gypsy) language(s), although there are several suggestions for Romani, including one based on Devanagari."[/i][/font][/font][/font]
[font='Open Sans', sans-serif][font=Georgia, Times, serif][font=Georgia, Times, serif]Source: Ian Hancock, Professor, Department of Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas.[/font][/font][/font]
[font='Open Sans', sans-serif][font=Georgia, Times, serif]With respect to Ian Hancock, I would like to prove him wrong ... [/font][/font]
RE: Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ? - ReneZ - 30-04-2017
Pete,
as long as you haven't drawn any conclusions yet, there is not much reason to worry about circular logic.
You were asking whether other people have looked at this before and (again) you should look at what has been done by some people at Stephen Bax' blog, in particular Derek Vogt. What he has been doing is completely in line with what you are thinking about: a previously unwritten gypsy language.
His videos on youtube have been quoted a few times by now. (Posted as "Volder Z" - easy to find).
RE: Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ? - Koen G - 30-04-2017
So do you hope that, if 15th century Romani.writings could be found, they would look like Voynichese?
I'd first wonder whether it would be realistic for them to bevable to read and write in the first place. This was not a trivial thing in the middle ages. Especially to produce a codex would require some tradition and expertise.
That said, it might be of interest that there are indications that at least part of the VM was originally not in codex form, but as loose sheets. I am also relatively certain that the VM is a copy of earlier documents.
So in short, my first question would be: is it feasable at all for nomadic peoples to produce hundreds of pages in illuminated writing?
RE: Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ? - davidjackson - 30-04-2017
There's a hole with no bottom!
No reason they shouldn't, but then one would expect different visual themes in the book from a nomadic culture.
RE: Indo Aryan Origins of Voynich .. ? - peteb - 30-04-2017
Rene, thanks ... I tried listening to Vogt earlier but he had too many words to take in.
Koen, nomadic peoples sometimes settled on the outskirts of great cities and over time were absorbed into the population. They would be the ones more likely to produce a manuscript.
Written languages are much the same as fingerprints.