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No text, but a visual code - Printable Version

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RE: No text, but a visual code - -JKP- - 27-05-2020

The gallows characters (except for k) are not Latin. The language does not read as Latin.

Many alphabets have "c", "o", "s", and "p" shapes, but the character set as a whole might still be completely unfamiliar to someone who only knows the Latin character set.



Take out the gallows chars and you have Latin chars, but that doesn't make it Latin language. The chars are in the wrong proportions and are too repetitive, and in Latin you don't find 4 of the same character in a row. In other words, given the peculiarities of position and characters-in-a-row and some of the gallows characters, it becomes a hieroglyphic (unfamiliar) character set.

Hieroglyphs was a general term for foreign alphabet.



It can be a foreign alphabet and still have letters in common with Latin.


I think it's exactly because the shapes WERE familiar that they understood that it could not be read as Latin, because Kircher's social group knew Latin.

The majority of people announcing Latin solutions do not know Latin. They keep insisting it's Latin even though the text they present isn't close to Latin, even when people who know Latin point this out, so it's pretty evident that people who don't know Latin have the "impression" or the conviction that it's Latin, but not the actual knowledge necessary to judge.


RE: No text, but a visual code - -JKP- - 27-05-2020

(27-05-2020, 09:07 AM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
That most of the VM shapes are consistent with Latin shapes it's not a fact at all, it's just your opinion.
...
  


No, Antonio, it's not my opinion, it's a fact. Most of the VMS chars are consistent with Latin.


What makes you think they are not shaped like Latin characters? Which ones do you think are not Latin? I have thousands of samples to support every one of my statements about the Latin shapes. These are not esoteric shapes, they are COMMON shapes. In fact, that's one of the things one notices right away about the Latin shapes... they used the common abbreviations and ligatures, not the rare ones.


The idea about the gallows chars maybe being inspired by Greek concepts of superposition is my opinion. I haven't been able to prove it to myself or others, but I think it's possible.


RE: No text, but a visual code - ReneZ - 27-05-2020

(27-05-2020, 09:21 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why did Baresch speak about hieroglyphs

To be precise, he didn't. In his 1639 letter he used the terms:
  • Scriptura incognitorum characterum
  • characteres illos fictionis ignotae
In Kircher's prior response to the earlier letter by Moretus and Barschius, he uses:
  • nescio quibus steganographicis mysterijs
The term 'hierogpyphics' originates from a statement by Arthur Dee, and almost certainly refers to another book, not the Voynich MS. This term was also used (presumably by John Dee) to describe some of the writing on the wall decorations of the house he stayed in Prague, namely that of Simon Hajek, father of Tadeas Hajek


RE: No text, but a visual code - -JKP- - 27-05-2020

Thanks for the clarification René.

I have seen the word "hieroglyphics" in numerous early printed books (sorry, I didn't keep links, it was just one of many things I noticed) and they were usually talking about unfamiliar alphabets. I'm not sure exactly when (or where) the word became specifically associated with Egyptian writing.


RE: No text, but a visual code - -JKP- - 27-05-2020

I took a quick look around to make sure I remembered this correctly... In Hymni Heroici tres (1511), Mirandola refers to "Hieroglyphicis Aegyptus" in a section with a big title with the word Egypt, so even though the context is obviously Egypt, he still felt the need to specify that he was talking about Egyptian hieroglyphics (and not some other foreign alphabet).

Oonselius's Hieroglyphica sacra (1627) discusses a variety of sacred languages in numerous contexts (including Jerusalem), only one of which is Egyptian. In other words, he uses hieroglyphics as a general reference to foreign scripts.


RE: No text, but a visual code - Koen G - 27-05-2020

Thanks, Rene. The point remains though, even more clearly. "Unknown characters", while the majority should have been familiar in shape. Of course as JKP says, part of the characters were unknown and the set as a whole was certainly confusing.


RE: No text, but a visual code - ReneZ - 27-05-2020

Even at first sight, the characters t  k  ch  d and y appear quite prominently, and these are not letters from the Latin alphabet. As soon as numbers (  l  d  y ) appear in the middle of words, one is also permitted to start thinking of secret writing.


RE: No text, but a visual code - -JKP- - 27-05-2020

When I say the Latin character set, I don't explicitly mean the Latin language. I mean Latin characters used to write Latin, French, Czech, Italian, German, English, Scandinavian, Spanish, and other languages. They use many of the same ligatures and abbreviations.

Their concept of the "alphabet" was completely different from ours. Medieval scribes all learned alternate ending shapes (terminal characters), they all learned two shapes for "r", they all learned ligatures and abbreviations. Most of them learned the terminal "connected-tail" macron (the same shape as n u and b in the VMS).


The VMS glyphs are not all letters, some of them are symbols. Ligatures, abbreviations and possibly also numbers. I've said all along they were ligatures and abbreviations  (including post #312).


k is a very common abbreviation, as well. In Latin, Italian, French, German, and English, it stands for "Item". It is also a common ligature (French for "Il").

ch is a very common ligature in numerous languages. It is context-dependent. It can mean cr, cc, tt, tc, ct, rc, er, et, ec, ci, etc. They use the same shape, combined together, but you can always tell what it is by the letters that precede and follow it. The word echlesiastiea (and its abbreviation) is often written with this ligature.

The d shape represents both d and s in certain scripts. The d is not always a perfect figure-8, but there is one that exists in certain regions. The use of figure-8 for "s" is more limited but also exists. I have a number of examples.

The l shape is a specialized macron, an abbreviation symbol like an apostrophe, but it was being replaced with simpler macrons by the 15th century.

The l, d and 9 shapes were used as abbreviation symbols, but they can also be numbers. They were used both ways.

g and m are common in Latin texts. They are primarily used at the ends of words, as in the VMS, and at the ends of paragraphs or lines, as in the VMS.

The [font=Eva]y abbreviation is so common in Latin, they sometimes include it at the end of the alphabet in pen tests. In fact, it is also at the bottom of the alphabet on VMS You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , after the letter z. This character comes in two versions, straight tail and curly tail. They mean the same thing. In languages that use Latin scribal conventions, the y abbreviation was primarily used at the ends of words, sometimes at the beginnings of words, rarely in the middle.[/font]



All of the above are part of Latin scribal conventions. All of them are common. The one that is not common is x, but it's not common in the VMS either. It shows up occasionally in Latin astronomical texts, but is easier to find in Coptic Greek (and sometimes Old Russian) texts.


RE: No text, but a visual code - Antonio García Jiménez - 27-05-2020

It is your opinion JKP, not a fact at all. It's an opinion as respectable as all, but that I do not share. And I'm not going to speculate on what Baresch said to fit what I think. He said "Unknown characters", and nothing more.
 The VM is entirely a European product and its authors naturally knew and wrote in Latin. Some small features can be glimpsed in the script but nothing more.

For me Eva-i, Eva-l and Eva-d are numbers, and Eva-o is no the letter o, it is the symbol for the sphere degree. And Eva-a and Eva-y are the same degree representing stars, some below the ecliptic line and others above.

 It is my opinion, but I do not intend to impose it as a fact. I simply hope to convince the members of the forum and, like you, try to show documents that empirically support what I think. I have shown a page from an Arabic manuscript with the symbols Eva-t and Eva-k together and repeated several times on the same page as in the VM

It's the first time that I see it. Has anyone ever seen this? That is the question. Everything else is literature.


RE: No text, but a visual code - -JKP- - 27-05-2020

(27-05-2020, 05:05 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

 It is my opinion, but I do not intend to impose it as a fact. I simply hope to convince the members of the forum and, like you, try to show documents that empirically support what I think. I have shown a page from an Arabic manuscript with the symbols Eva-t and Eva-k together and repeated several times on the same page as in the VM

It's the first time that I see it. Has anyone ever seen this? That is the question. Everything else is literature.

Did you READ what I wrote?

I wrote that the manuscript has been linked numerous times (several times on this forum in fact).

I also explained what those characters are. They are talismanic characters intended to invoke or repel demons. I'm not going to rewrite all the rest of of what I wrote about them getting into western literature via Hebrew books of Kabbalah, just go back in the thread and read it.

And look at the bowl shape on the left in the Arabic manuscript (the diagram with the talismanic characters) and then click on the link I provided to see an actual talismanic bowl (in Mandaic, but they are essentially the same in other languages too, see Post #306). I'm probably the only one on this forum who knew what that shape on the left was and why the talismanic characters are written within that shape (in the Bodleian manuscript).

I studied these characters years ago.

So YES, we have seen this.