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+--- Thread: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? (/thread-2394.html)
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - -JKP- - 19-06-2018
(19-06-2018, 01:29 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes Emma, the JKP chart looks very nice. But the counts on these anomalies are very low overall.
Also, based on my thorough (unpublished) analysis these (and other not gallow related anomalies) are errors, read: mistakes by the scribe.
Thus following these exceptions as entities is a waste of time, in my view. But hey, it's just my opinion. Time will tell.
I don't consider them anomalies. Some of these forms are not rare (half gallows are not rare).
They do not look like scribal mistakes to me. I have created four transcripts to date, have looked at every glyph in the manuscript numerous times, and there is method to how the gallows are created. The chart only picks out representative examples, the actual instances are far more than are included in the chart and they follow patterns.
It can't possibly be a mistake to deliberately tuck another letter under the bench in such a way that it does not touch the bench. That is not a scribal error, that is a choice.
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - Koen G - 19-06-2018
(19-06-2018, 03:16 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes. Exactly, although I suspect a few of the loopy shapes are embellishments (which were also relatively common, especially in legal documents).
Certainly, the more elaborate loopy constructions appear merely frivolous. If anything they might as usual indicate an important section.
I remain interested in the possible influence from legal documents as well. Especially since the VM was not made by the type of scribes trained to make expensive books of hours and the like.
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - Davidsch - 21-06-2018
(19-06-2018, 03:29 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(19-06-2018, 01:29 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes Emma, the JKP chart looks very nice. But the counts on these anomalies are very low overall.
Also, based on my thorough (unpublished) analysis these (and other not gallow related anomalies) are errors, read: mistakes by the scribe.
Thus following these exceptions as entities is a waste of time, in my view. But hey, it's just my opinion. Time will tell.
I don't consider them anomalies. Some of these forms are not rare (half gallows are not rare).
They do not look like scribal mistakes to me. etc.......
Yes, you wrote that and it's clear what you think.
Also, by posting Latin abbreviations examples in other threads, you are perfectly making your point.
It is is the most obvious, and the easiest, to assume what you see, is exactly what it means.
However, in the VMS, this is not the case, as I often tried to make my point. (but bounce back on a brick wall here)
Most examples (I estimate 80%) in your table are rare and therefore anomalies. I will not publish my research on this for many reasons.
But the contrary is also true: can you show they are common?
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - DONJCH - 21-06-2018
Quote:-JKP- Wrote:
Many examples of litterae elongatae have been posted to the thread and "Item" which is the "is" abbreviation added to capital-I and t have also been posted numerous times.
Many close analogues have been posted. To me, none was a 100% exact VMS gallows; all were flawed in some way and my objections were posted upthread. Obviously views of "100% accuracy" may vary.
Quote:-JKP- Wrote:
Quote: Wrote:My point remains though, why put a capital in the middle of a word, as happens throughout the VMS?If we knew for certain that the VMS was a cipher (we don't know whether it is, but let's say for a moment that it is) then a good cryptanalyst would never assume that a space is a word boundary.
- We don't know if it's the middle of a word; we only know that they occur within tokens.
-Yes exactly, perhaps this is an indication of that very thing.
- Lowercase letters are not always short. In western languages, the letters b, l, h, d, f, s, and others, all have ascenders and they are not considered capital letters.
-All of those will result in a loop down the bottom, which is not a standard VMS gallows. l is possible but I have not seen a gallows resulting from it yet. I think my Visigoth study was enough to establish "thin on the ground".
- Why assume the gallows are capital letters? They are glyphs, or possibly combinations of glyphs. They aren't even necessarily letters—they might be numbers.
-Because your best example was Item, which is a capital. But we could equally well ask what a suffix may be doing in the middle of a word?
-You just told Emma upthread that the VMS glyph usage was more typical of standard scribal abbreviations, rather than a cipher.
All I am trying to do is to follow to a logical conclusion your interesting observation that scribal abbreviations are followed systematically in the VMS. Of course, I am Jon Snow and know nothing!
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - DONJCH - 21-06-2018
(19-06-2018, 01:29 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes Emma, the JKP chart looks very nice. But the counts on these anomalies are very low overall.
Also, based on my thorough (unpublished) analysis these (and other not gallow related anomalies) are errors, read: mistakes by the scribe.
Thus following these exceptions as entities is a waste of time, in my view. But hey, it's just my opinion. Time will tell.
Davidsch, I think that is useful information. Can I ask how you define "rare"?
Also, even if rare, a slip may give insight into thought processes of the scribe.
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - Koen G - 21-06-2018
Given our current knowledge, can we best describe Voynichese script as a mix of 15th century abbreviations and ligatures on the one hand and habits from legal writing on the other?
And if so, might it be a good forum task to collect some more legal documents and try to get a better view on the evolution and geographical distribution of relevant scripts?
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - MarcoP - 21-06-2018
(21-06-2018, 07:20 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Given our current knowledge, can we best describe Voynichese script as a mix of 15th century abbreviations and ligatures on the one hand and habits from legal writing on the other?
And if so, might it be a good forum task to collect some more legal documents and try to get a better view on the evolution and geographical distribution of relevant scripts?
I am not sure there is an influence of legal scripts in particular. I also believe that digging into the evolution of scripts is best done with a good book (I have a couple of titles I want to check).
What I liked of the (soon forgotten) original idea of this thread was looking for a single source with as many matching glyphs as possible. We know it will not be 100%, but I believe it is a worthy hunt. As you pointed out, the best parallels that have been mentioned appear to be later than the VMS: finding something similar but earlier would certainly be another small step forward.
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - MarcoP - 21-06-2018
(19-06-2018, 07:38 AM)DONJCH Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On another scan throiugh Capelli, I found another possible precursor for EVA-t.
(Really just honing my image handling here!)
This is assuming that lower case analogues for gallows are acceptable, but why would an otherwise knowledgeable scribe suddenly start writing suffixes in uppercase? Does this give us some insight into his mind? Or was he a bonehead blindly copying from a text where upper and lowercase were similar, like the Oresme text? (I do not believe the latter for a minute)
Here is an example from BNF Lat 8432 (France? 1444)
Bottom of left page:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I think the first line reads:
Exora se mori greg(is) ut curam gerat alt(is)
[Remember to your flock that they will die, so that they care for what is above]
In the same ms, I have seen the same ligature used for "gl" ("gladiat").
The third word of the next line seems to me a decent Sh, but I am unable to read it.
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - -JKP- - 22-06-2018
(21-06-2018, 07:20 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Given our current knowledge, can we best describe Voynichese script as a mix of 15th century abbreviations and ligatures on the one hand and habits from legal writing on the other?
And if so, might it be a good forum task to collect some more legal documents and try to get a better view on the evolution and geographical distribution of relevant scripts?
Litterae elongatae are common in legal documents (it gave them more "presence" and made it harder to forge them since you needed good calligraphic skills to draw them) but they are by no means restricted to legal documents. There are many books on various subjects that include them, especially on the top line.
The geographical distribution is everywhere. Scribes traveled, just as doctors and teachers used to travel. It was an itinerant lifestyle. They took their scribal habits with them. Documents from London look very much like those from Vienna or Naples, there are only small differences, like the direction in which a tail swings, or whether the e is a loop or a c-shape. They all used the same basic abbreviations, even when writing in the vernacular. Many manuscripts written in Gothic cursive sit in repositories with question marks next to the place of origin even after paleographers have tried to puzzle them out. The early Italic/Humanist styles are easier to place up until the 16th century, when they were widely adapted in place of Gothic cursive (it was more readable), then it became harder to know where they were written, but generally those in Italic/early humanist style were from the region bordering Lombardy down through central Italy.
RE: Which other manuscript contain the most Voynichese glyphs? - DONJCH - 22-06-2018
(21-06-2018, 08:49 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Nice one Marco! Does this show that a textbook can be a useful guide to a manuscript search?(19-06-2018, 07:38 AM)DONJCH Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On another scan throiugh Capelli, I found another possible precursor for EVA-t.
(Really just honing my image handling here!)
This is assuming that lower case analogues for gallows are acceptable, but why would an otherwise knowledgeable scribe suddenly start writing suffixes in uppercase? Does this give us some insight into his mind? Or was he a bonehead blindly copying from a text where upper and lowercase were similar, like the Oresme text? (I do not believe the latter for a minute)
Here is an example from BNF Lat 8432 (France? 1444)
Bottom of left page:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I think the first line reads:
Exora se mori greg(is) ut curam gerat alt(is)
[Remember to your flock that they will die, so that they care for what is above]
In the same ms, I have seen the same ligature used for "gl" ("gladiat").
The third word of the next line seems to me a decent Sh, but I am unable to read it.
gis has the correct shape alright; the problem being (if it is a problem), it's lower case, and if we make it a capital G, we lose the left loop.
Whether it is a problem depends on what stage the scribe sat back with a bottle of vino to make up the glyphs and give them an independent life of their own.
Yet JKP says the glyphs retain their positional characteristics and that this could explain such features in the VMS so I think origin and case do matter if the scribe was systematic.
I agree with your identification of the 3rd word on the next line, given that his c looks like an r. Your translation helps a lot!
Question: what are the random full stops about?