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+--- Thread: Choice of glyphs (/thread-2729.html)
RE: Choice of glyphs - Mark Knowles - 08-10-2019
(07-04-2019, 01:33 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So I've been thinking for a while... if we can assume that these glyphs were chosen, then what was the rationale behind their inclusion? It's quite a peculiar set.
....
But why construct a glyph set that relies so heavily on numbers and abbreviation symbols?
I would suggest the glyph set is arbitrary. Without wishing to sound like a broken record, an arbitrary set of characters, like we find in the Voynich, is pretty normal in diplomatic ciphers.
RE: Choice of glyphs - ReneZ - 09-10-2019
Mark, as long as you keep ignoring what other people have been telling you over the space of more than a year now, related to diplomatic ciphers and the Voynich MS, you are not going to make any progress and you will remain a prisoner within the confines of your theory.
The essence of what you write is wrong and can easily be demonstrated to be wrong:
1) arbitrary characters are not a property of diplomatic ciphers alone.
2) the Voynich MS glyph set is not arbitrary like cipher alphabets
I attach two pieces of very well known cipher text that are not diplomatic ciphers, either in their application (they appear in technical / philosophical manuscripts) or in their definition (they are mono-alphabetic). The first is from MS Pal.Germ.597, German, dated to 1426. The second is from MS BSB Cod.Icon 242, Italian, dated to 1420-1430 (Fontana's Bellicorum Instrumentorum).
Now compare this with the Voynich MS writing which is allows almost fluent, almost cursive writing:
RE: Choice of glyphs - -JKP- - 09-10-2019
Mark, I'm not even sure what you mean by arbitrary.
Voynichese is almost the opposite of arbitrary. Besides the regularity of the curve/line shapes, and the regularity of the positions of the glyphs (and their neighboring glyphs), there is also this...
The symbol y is a very common abbreviation symbol in languages that use Latin characters and is usually at the end of words, sometimes at the beginning of words, and rarely in the middle of words. It also sometimes stands alone (depending on the language).
In the VMS, the y symbol is usually at the end of tokens, sometimes at the beginning of tokens, and rarely in the middle of tokens. It also sometmes stands alone.
Okay, maybe one glyph can be similar to Latin shape and position by accident... but the same thing happens with the m and g glyphs...
The symbols m and g are common abbreviation symbols (ris and cis) in Latin languages and they are usually at the ends of words or the ends of paragraphs (it does double duty as an end-paragraph marker in some languages). They are rarely in other positions.
In the VMS the glyphs m and g are usually at the ends of words or at the ends of lines. They are rarely in other positions.
It would be VERY hard to explain this many similarities on the basis of coincidence and these patterns are definitely not arbitrary or accidental, they are consistent throughout the manuscript.
RE: Choice of glyphs - MarcoP - 09-10-2019
Hi Rene,
if by "cursive" you mean hasty, slanted and with connected characters, these features also occur in some pages in Fontana's manuscripts. These two samples are from Secretum de thesauro, BNF NAL 635 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
About the two ciphers you attached, I would say that MS Pal.Germ.597 looks arbitrary, like a diplomatic cipher, while Fontana looks even more systematic and less arbitrary than Voynichese.
(09-10-2019, 08:26 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The symbol y is a very common abbreviation symbol in languages that use Latin characters and is usually at the end of words, sometimes at the beginning of words, and rarely in the middle of words. It also sometimes stands alone (depending on the language).
In the VMS, the y symbol is usually at the end of tokens, sometimes at the beginning of tokens, and rarely in the middle of tokens. It also sometmes stands alone.
Okay, maybe one glyph can be similar to Latin shape and position by accident... but the same thing happens with the m and g glyphs...
The symbols m and g are common abbreviation symbols (ris and cis) in Latin languages and they are usually at the ends of words or the ends of paragraphs (it does double duty as an end-paragraph marker in some languages). They are rarely in other positions.
In the VMS the glyphs m and g are usually at the ends of words or at the ends of lines. They are rarely in other positions.
It would be VERY hard to explain this many similarities on the basis of coincidence and these patterns are definitely not arbitrary or accidental, they are consistent throughout the manuscript.
I agree and I would add the curl-like macron ligature that looks like in iin iiin
... bonum nostrum aut deus aut a deo est Unde non ... (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)
On the other hand, also the -tis abbreviation that looks like k tends to appear at the end of words in Latin manuscripts, while k is a rare suffix in Voynichese.
Anyway, the fact that the similarity between Voynichese and Latin abbreviations is not accidental seems quite clear.
RE: Choice of glyphs - Koen G - 09-10-2019
Beautiful sequence Marco. I feel like I could almost convert it to EVA with a lot of iiins
RE: Choice of glyphs - -JKP- - 09-10-2019
Marco, yes, thank you for mentioning the "tails" (the end-connected macrons).
RE: Choice of glyphs - ReneZ - 09-10-2019
Hi Marco,
with cursive, I mean 'running'. Less lifting of the pen is necessary.
In your two examples of Fontana's cipher, the right-hand sample (perhaps bottom sample for people with smaller screens) is much more cursive (in this sense) than the other.
I agree that there is some system in the way Fontana defined his characters, but it does not seem to have been designed with 'flowing writing' in mind.
RE: Choice of glyphs - -JKP- - 09-10-2019
Here's a Latin excerpt that shows the frequency of the Latin y abbreviation at the beginnings and ends of words (most scribes used it a little more often at the ends than at the beginnings). I have marked them in red:
I also marked two occurrences of the b9 abbreviation (-bus) and of the -tis abbreviation (which is similar to -ris m and -cis g). There are also numerous tail-macrons and bar macrons that cross through ascenders (as in "v[e]l").
This is very much the same pattern we see in the VMS and because of its position at the ends of numerous tokens, I am suspicious that VMS dy is intended to look like (or perhaps function like) Latin by.
RE: Choice of glyphs - Aga Tentakulus - 09-10-2019
RE: Choice of glyphs - -JKP- - 10-10-2019
They all used macrons... Latin, German, French, Italian, English, Czech, Spanish, Polish, Scandinavian, Belgian, Dutch...
There were small regional differences in abbreviations and ligatures but, for the most part, they all learned the same conventions. Even quite a few of the Greek conventions were similar because the Romans adapted their scribal conventions from the Greeks.