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+--- Thread: Labels: What on earth is an "otaly"? (/thread-2333.html)
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Labels: What on earth is an "otaly"? - VViews - 09-03-2018
Hi everyone,
I'm starting this thread because I'm scratching my head over a specific vord, otaly.
Voynichese.com gives 19 occurrences of otaly throughout the manuscript.
It is found in both the main text and the labels. It appears nowhere in the initial big plant series of quires.
Focusing on the labels, here are the things that are labeled as otaly:
Nymphs/stars in the Pisces, Dark Taurus, Libra and Leo pages of the zodiac section (one in each).
A piece of tubing/fluid flow in Q13, and two different plants/roots from the small plants sections.
(It does appear in the text on one of the Q17 big plant pages, f94r, but again this plant looks very different from the two in the small plants section.)
![[Image: otaly.png]](https://voynichviews.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/otaly.png)
Full otaly search results: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
It seems to label completely unrelated things... or is there a connection between those things?
I know there are other examples of "labels" that label seemingly unrelated things, but this one really stood out for me.
RE: Labels: What on earth is an "otaly"? - -JKP- - 09-03-2018
I searched my transcript and found there are additional ones at 5:00 o'clock on the Green Aries labels, Gemini at 4:00 o'clock. Scorpio has a second one on the outer labels but it's off-screen for me on Voynichese.com. Also 99v top row labels, but that's also off-screen for me, so I can't tell if it's been marked already.
Is there a way to shift the zoom image so the whole thing can be seen?
I marked them (I think?) on Voynichese.com. I don't know if they stuck (they turned yellow). I usually use my own transcript so I'm not very familiar with how Voynichese works (looks like a very cool tool).
RE: Labels: What on earth is an "otaly"? - VViews - 09-03-2018
Hi JKP, and thanks!
I checked the ones you mentioned, the outer circle of scorpio does indeed contain another instance of otaly, as does the dark aries!
For some reason the site registers them as otyly and otoly, but in both cases you are right.
4 oclock Gemini: voynichese.com registers it as two separate words, "otal y", and indeed there is a bit of a space there (see attachment, rotated), but now this brings us to the issue of half spaces...
Looking at the 99r top row, I don't see the one you refer to. Perhaps it is an error in your transcript?
Some of the foldout side edges are missing from Voynichese.com, such as Virgo, Cancer and Leo, but all of Scorpio should be there.
Also I don't think the things you mark there can stay marked on the site. You can however post a link to a query to share it.
RE: Labels: What on earth is an "otaly"? - -JKP- - 09-03-2018
Half-spaces are a thorny issue I've been looking at for a long time. I have some ideas about what they might be but I'd like to study it more.
The one you're pointing out could almost be considered a full space. It's hard to know because EVA-y is so frequently at the ends of tokens, but also shows up by itself.
Quote:VViews: Looking at the 99r top row, I don't see the one you refer to. Perhaps it is an error in your transcript?
Sorry, transcript is correct (no otaly), I'm wrong. I think I cursor-skipped when looking at 99r and 99v and I've been up all night so brain is not completely in gear.
There are also a number of instances of qotaly.
RE: Labels: What on earth is an "otaly"? - VViews - 09-03-2018
(09-03-2018, 04:32 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There are also a number of instances of qotaly.
Yes, but it is never as a label, and of course, there is otal a rather common word (143 instances) but again, never a label outside of the zodiac section.
What intrigued me specifically about otaly is its use as a label, in three different sections.
And even more so the fact that it seems to label things that don't appear to be similar to one another at all.
RE: Labels: What on earth is an "otaly"? - Anton - 09-03-2018
Much the same thing for otol... All this only suggests that labels are not object identifications.
RE: Labels: What on earth is an "otaly"? - VViews - 09-03-2018
Anton: I couldn't agree more. They don't seem to be identifications.
Still, there might be a possibility that "labels" might describe something else about things, such as a property which they might have, or condition they might be in (for example: clean/dirty, pure/impure, hot/cold, boiled/raw, etc...) or an action which might be done with them (wash, rinse, boil), or something along those lines.
RE: Labels: What on earth is an "otaly"? - Anton - 09-03-2018
Yes, I think there are two main options - either they are attributes (such as cold/hot or, as you suggest, a modus operandi) or they designate relationships or "mappings" between different sets of objects. E.g. in a figure, stars are depicted and labeled, where labels are names of (for example) stones, because each star corresponds to a stone (or vice versa).
The third option would be numeric - such as quantities, - but given the vast amount of different labels, this would not sound plausible.
RE: Labels: What on earth is an "otaly"? - Koen G - 09-03-2018
As I've said before, all languages I know of can have various meanings for the same word.
There's also the possibility of various languages being used. There's an easy way to get an idea of this (though it only scratches the surface). Just enter any short word with relatively simple spelling (like CVC) into wiktionary and see how many languages you get.
For example, "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view." gives 14 languages, often with several meanings per language (in Dutch, "ros" means "red hair" and "horse").
Add to that the fact that scientific words (plant names, heavenly bodies...) are often loans or corrupted loans, and you get an increased possibility of multilingual input.
And finally, there is the in my opinion real possibility that Voynichese somewhat simplifies the spoken form of the language. This, again, increases the chances for homonymy.
Just to say, based on these data I don't think we can conclude that "labels are not object identifications". Maybe some labels are not, but mere homonymy is not enough to deduce this.
RE: Labels: What on earth is an "otaly"? - MarcoP - 09-03-2018
(09-03-2018, 10:28 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And finally, there is the in my opinion real possibility that Voynichese somewhat simplifies the spoken form of the language. This, again, increases the chances for homonymy.
This currently is my preferred hypothesis: a defective script producing a high number of homographs.
The idea of a possibly defective script was mentioned by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I guess that an abjad (a script where you only write consonants) could have this problem (but I think that Voynichese does represent vowels). In general, it could be that whoever designed the script failed to represent something important to distinguish words (as if one tried to write Chinese failing to represent tones).