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+--- Thread: Splitting word across lines (/thread-2454.html)
Splitting word across lines - lelle - 16-08-2018
In medieval manuscripts, does word-splitting across lines occur?
For example, I want to write the word abracadabra but run out of space on the current line and thus I split it into abra(linebreak)cadabra. Is this the way it's done or is this being taken care of in some other fashion?
Thanks in advance
RE: Splitting word across lines - -JKP- - 16-08-2018
Yes, very very frequently. Sometimes almost every line has a split word at the end, if the columns are narrow.
Some scribes don't put a hyphen at the end. Some use a single hyphen, some use a double hyphen (like an equals sign).
I'll grab some examples for you (back in a few moments)...
Okay, here are some examples. Note that the one from 1440 on the upper right has both a line-continuation character (double-hyphen) and erasure symbols (the dots under the word):
![[Image: LineContinuation.png]](https://voynichportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/LineContinuation.png)
RE: Splitting word across lines - lelle - 18-08-2018
Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my question. So then possibly the VMs could be inspected with regards to which words can be compiled across line breaks plus 0/1/2 characters in order to find what makes up a "word". For example if we consider "chodaiin" to be a frequent word then surely cho<linebreak, and possibly one or two line break markers >daiin should be found in the corpus as well.
My point is that maybe splitting across lines might help us determine what makes a word boundary. Or it might hint in the nonsense -direction if no word splitting across lines is found.
Edit:
Or we might of course find out if, for example, aiir is an atom (if it is never being split across line boundaries)
Do you follow my chain of reasoning?
Thanks
RE: Splitting word across lines - Anton - 19-08-2018
The idea is interesting, but is there any line-break-candidate glyph, to begin with?
Even m is not line-ending exclusively, and moreover it's found as folio-ending as well (in which case there's no line to break).
Overall, I have the impression that word-splitting here is something that is avoided
RE: Splitting word across lines - Common_Man - 19-08-2018
I also have the idea that word splitting was fully avoided, since the Voynich writer might've been unaware of the "sentences" idea but was more familiar with the "one line conveys one idea" kindof thing.. No evidence to substantiate though
When were full stops introduced in different parts of the world? I know it should've been a lot earlier than the 15th century date we've got, but still it seems a plausible theory.
Edit - 3rd century BC.. No idea why this has no punctuations..
RE: Splitting word across lines - lelle - 20-08-2018
(19-08-2018, 01:41 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The idea is interesting, but is there any line-break-candidate glyph, to begin with?I guess someone clever could make a computer program determining, through statistics, which words seem to be split over a line (with our without linebreak-glyph).
I'll add it to my "to do when clever - list"
RE: Splitting word across lines - Anton - 20-08-2018
Well, it's not a point of being clever, it's a point of being proficient in programming (I'm not, beside some very basic scripts).
RE: Splitting word across lines - -JKP- - 21-08-2018
(19-08-2018, 01:41 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The idea is interesting, but is there any line-break-candidate glyph, to begin with?
Even m is not line-ending exclusively, and moreover it's found as folio-ending as well (in which case there's no line to break).
Overall, I have the impression that word-splitting here is something that is avoided
In Latin, the EVA-m character serves two purposes... it is an abbreviation symbol (for ris/tis/cis) (usually at the ends of words) and also as a sentence/paragraph-end marker. Not every scribe uses it both ways, but some do.
RE: Splitting word across lines - MarcoP - 21-08-2018
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., I pointed out a case in which a label possibly recurs in the text but split across two lines.
It's You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. bottom.
However, the significance of this is quite dubious for several reasons: matches between "small-plants" labels and text are so rare that they might well be coincidental, dar appears as an individual word in the same page, ofaldo and ofaldar are similar but not identical....