+- The Voynich Ninja (https://www.voynich.ninja)
+-- Forum: Voynich Research (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-27.html)
+--- Forum: Analysis of the text (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-41.html)
+--- Thread: No text, but a visual code (/thread-2384.html)
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
RE: No text, but a visual code - -JKP- - 19-05-2020
Ruby, I've written quite a few forum posts and blogs about Greek influences in the gallows chars. I think the lowercase are mainly influenced by Latin, but there was a considerable overlap between Greek and Latin scribal conventions (e.g., the way abbreviations and ligatures are designed) and it's my feeling that there is more Greek influence in the gallows that there is Latin. But the majority of the glyphs follow Latin conventions.
The problem with the Glagolitic alphabet that you linked is that there is only a very small degree of overlap. With Latin, there are many characters that overlap, and with the gallows, there are Greek scribal concepts that overlap. Glagolitic is only a small overlap and probably coincidental (and probably partly because some of the Glagolitic shapes come from Greek).
RE: No text, but a visual code - Ruby Novacna - 19-05-2020
(19-05-2020, 02:45 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The problem with the Glagolitic alphabet that you linkedI think you zoomed wrong, the letter I indicated is eta greek. Don't look at the column of glagolitic letters.
RE: No text, but a visual code - -JKP- - 19-05-2020
I know the Greek alphabet quite well. I don't know very much grammar, but I can read names and simple text in Greek if it's subject matter that's familiar to me (not technical). I even know some of the more common scribal abbreviations.
I've been saying all along that I think there's some Greek influence in the VMS. But it's a smaller proportion—most of the glyphs are based on Latin.
RE: No text, but a visual code - Antonio García Jiménez - 19-05-2020
This is one of the most recurring topics in the forum
If I say that the VM script has unknown glyphs or characters is because that is the expression Georgius Baresch uses twice in his letter to Kircher in 1639.
I have to confess that one of the things that surprises me the most since I started researching the VM is how little ancient testimonies are taken into account. We can take it for granted that in the more than 50 years that the VM was in Prague it was seen by dozens of learned men.
Why don't we have any testimony that the VM glyphs are bases on Latin, Greek or any other known language?
Didn't all those wise men at the court of Emperor Rodolfo know the scribal conventions?
RE: No text, but a visual code - -JKP- - 20-05-2020
Yes, the Latin scribal conventions were still somewhat known in the late 16th century, although they were starting to disappear.
Latin scribal conventions in the 16th century
The printed book had a strong influence on the decline of scribal conventions. Most of the ligatures and abbreviations were dropped because they were hard to mimic with lead type. They kept a few of the most common ones, but those were gradually disappearing by the 17th century. Latin was disappearing, as well, and with it, the Latin scribal conventions. People bought books instead of copying them out by hand.
So, the well-studied scholars knew them. I've sampled a few handwritten texts from the late 16th century that demonstrate that some of the scribes still knew most of the conventions from the 15th century. But... overall, the later writers didn't see them as often and didn't know them as well.
So... the use of certain ligatures and abbreviations that are shaped like some of the glyphs in the VMS had mostly disappeared by the 17th century.
Knowledge of Greek
There were some people who were very interested in Greek (e.g., John Dee studied Greek and Hebrew, Kircher was a polyglot, and Greek was studied by some of the classical literature and theology students), but it was not a subject everybody studied. Even if they knew the Greek alphabet (which was often included in Latin manuscripts), they didn't always know Greek scribal conventions. You have to actually read manuscripts to learn those because different scribes apply them slightly differently.
Glyph shapes and their relationship (or lack of relationship) to language
But, knowing Latin and Greek shapes does not help one to read the VMS for two reasons... because it is not structured like natural language, and the two shape groups are combined in a way that is atypical (something both Marci and Kircher would have recognized). Recognizing shapes is not the same as reading it and if you couldn't read it in those days and the characters were unfamiliar (or combined in an unfamiliar way), the general term for foreign characters was "hieroglyphics" (today we use it to mean Egyptian characters).
So what about not being structured like natural language...
The shapes and whatever meaning the text might contain are not consistent with one another in the sense of letters and words. For example, there are no words in Latin or Greek (or other languages) with four of the same letters in a row, but this happens somewhat frequently in the VMS. It's even possible that the tail on "aiin" is an additional minim since a tail (connected macron) is how scribes added extra letters. If so, then it happens very frequently in the VMS.
It's also possible that ch is a ligature, a joined shape of two ee characters in a row. If so, then it happens very frequently in the VMS. This characteristic of replication and positionality are not properties of natural language (unless some significant secondary processing is applied to the glyphs, as in ciphertext), and judging by the little bit that Kircher wrote about the VMS, he seems to have recognized this, just as the code-breakers in the Study Group recognized this.
The VMS puts some of the characters in the same positions as Latin, but the smaller proportion that I believe may be derived from Greek, the ones that look like ligatures and abbreviations (and superposed characters), are not positioned as such. It seems more likely that the VMS glyph designer borrowed the shapes and concepts, but did not use them for their traditional function.
P.S., Antonio, the reason I posted about Greek was not in direct response to your posts, but rather to Ruby's post, since she introduced the topic of Greek letters. I know you already think that the glyphs have been re-purposed for other uses, but Ruby's blogs have been about linguistic solutions, which is a different approach from yours. I have been posting for quite a few years that some of the letters (especially the gallows characters) are inspired by Greek but that does not necessarily mean that the text is Greek.
RE: No text, but a visual code - Antonio García Jiménez - 22-05-2020
I would like to attack the VM script with something new. I propose consider the spaces between glyph groups as arbitrary. They are not spaces. The scribe omitted the symbol (o) in all spaces to give the appearance of words to the glyph groups. Each line therefore form an unbroken chain of symbols, what would explain the line as a functional unit.
The (o) is the most frequent symbol. In each space there can be one or more (o)
I propose to imagine the glyph groups moving along the chain. That would explain the rare group repetition. It's the same group that is moving.
Movement is the key. The script moves!!!
RE: No text, but a visual code - RobGea - 22-05-2020
I really do not understand what you mean, perhaps you could provide some kind of example.
RE: No text, but a visual code - -JKP- - 22-05-2020
Antonio, I look at it that way. For a very long time, I have considered the spaces to be "suspicious". I do not assume the tokens are words.
RE: No text, but a visual code - DONJCH - 22-05-2020
(22-05-2020, 02:03 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I really do not understand what you mean, perhaps you could provide some kind of example.I think it means simply to replace each space with an o.
Each line becomes a string of unbroken text.
RE: No text, but a visual code - Antonio García Jiménez - 24-05-2020
To better visualize in the mind the unbroken chain of symbols, I suggest looking at (a) and (y) as variants of (o). They are actually an (o) with a small tail and with a big tail. These three symbols are present in almost all the glyph groups of the VM. All other symbols are attached to these.
It is important to consider each line as a chain that closes in a circle. Each line of the herbal section is closed in a circle as if it were in a circular line of the cosmological diagrams.
I'm just trying to approach the script in a way other than linguistics