+- 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: Thinking about anomalous gallows... (/thread-3156.html)
RE: Thinking about anomalous gallows... - ReneZ - 14-04-2020
I don't really doubt that many of the elaborate gallows at the starts of pages are ornamental embellishments. The 'Michelin man' on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. seems a clear example.
Similarly f78v.
RE: Thinking about anomalous gallows... - Aga Tentakulus - 14-04-2020
I also think it's just an ornament. An attempt to emulate other books.
I once thought it could be a number like in "Tausendschön" "Thousand Beautiful." But I don't think so.
RE: Thinking about anomalous gallows... - Emma May Smith - 14-04-2020
(14-04-2020, 08:32 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It does look like there are two different ways of writing [d], but i haven't decided whether I think these are actually different or are just two ways of writing the same graph. I keep changing my mind. The [cP] type, as it were, looks like a tail-less [g] to me, but I would leave it to the linguists to determine if they might serve similar linguistic functions.
The glyph [g] sits in the same category as [m] as being strongly word and line positional. They both occur at the end of words and the end of lines more than usual. To me, they bear more resemblance to [s] and [r] respectively. The leftward upper stroke in each being bent back and down below the base of the line.
They are not, however, just graphical variants. While [m] seems related to [r] in the way it works they can be contrastive in words. Rene has pointed out two adjacent words on a zodiac page which differ only in [r]/[m]. There are too few instances of [g] to know whether it's more like [s] or [d]. The problem is that [s] and [d] have a number of similarities themselves so there's no easy test.
RE: Thinking about anomalous gallows... - -JKP- - 14-04-2020
I am also uncertain if the variations in the d-shape are meaningful. And that's after creating 4 transcripts and looking at each glyph many times.
In most Latin texts, the d shape (as it is shaped in the VMS) is usually 8, sometimes it's d or s (but less commonly so). The less-common VMS d with a straight stem often seems deliberate, and is even sometimes a slight distance apart so that it looks like a ligature of c + loop.
Is it a normal variation in shape, with no difference in meaning? Or is it possibly a ligature and that's why it varies more than someone would normally vary an 8-shape?
There is a cl ligature in Latin. I see it fairly frequently, but the loop is usually longer than the loop on the VMS d, so the shapes are not perfect copies of each other.
RE: Thinking about anomalous gallows... - -JKP- - 14-04-2020
(14-04-2020, 08:47 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I don't really doubt that many of the elaborate gallows at the starts of pages are ornamental embellishments. The 'Michelin man' on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. seems a clear example.
Similarly You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
I agree that these are probably embellishments. It's a moderately common style. Even the ones with dots inside the loops.
RE: Thinking about anomalous gallows... - ReneZ - 15-04-2020
(14-04-2020, 09:38 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Rene has pointed out two adjacent words on a zodiac page which differ only in [r]/[m].
Indeed. It is not proof of anything, but I was always tempted to consider m an embellished form of r, while the example quoted by Emma (in the innermost part of Pisces) at least should give us some doubt.
If m only occurred line-finally, it would be even more suggestive that it is an embellished form, but there are too many exceptions to that.
With g I am more tempted to think that it could be an embellished d or y or even more probably a contracted dy
RE: Thinking about anomalous gallows... - ReneZ - 15-04-2020
(14-04-2020, 09:57 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I am also uncertain if the variations in the d-shape are meaningful.
GC recognises three main types of d, which he transliterates as 8,7 and 6. In addition, most alphabets recognise j as a separate character.
The frequency of occurrence of these three types is:
8: 10,346 times
7: 2715 times
6: 115 times
In comparison, m occurs around 1050 times (GC and ZL transliterations) and g around 160 times
RE: Thinking about anomalous gallows... - Wladimir D - 15-04-2020
JKP / There are no abnormal gallows in your table.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lisa/ As a specialist (learning handwriting) how you can explain strange statistical anomalies.
For instance. There are 90 benches of various types on the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. page. There are 206 characters on this page based on the “c” form. (d-28, s-6, o-100, y-30, a-15, e-33). In 6 cases, the left leg of the bench is a dot (blot), compared with the other 206 characters, where there is not a single blot. But the pen and hand remain unchanged.
Such examples can be given on different pages. For example, in benches 47r (4 blots), 47v (3 blots), and in other symbols there are no blots. In general, this rule can be extended to the entire manuscript (although there are blots in other symbols, but a very small percentage). Moreover, the height of the blot is in many cases less than the basic “c” - shape.
Can a blot (dot) be considered an independent glyph?
RE: Thinking about anomalous gallows... - -JKP- - 15-04-2020
Hello, Wladimir, good to see you again.
I wasn't trying to enumerate abnormal gallows. I was trying to see if gallows could be classified according to a set of basic shapes or patterns.
I was trying to determine which shape variations might be meaningful and which might only be embellishments. Most transcripts do not acknowledge these variations in gallows.
There's no way to know which ones to include in transcripts with their own character designations without first figuring out which shapes have significant differences but within discernible patterns.
I didn't include the abnormal ones in this particular chart because I felt it was important to first figure out which variations were most common or, at least, which ones were most consistent in how they are written (and then go from there).
RE: Thinking about anomalous gallows... - -JKP- - 15-04-2020
Aga Tentakulus Wrote:
Yes. These are all Latin scribal conventions. Common ones. And you have broken up the parts correctly (except maybe the 4, this is not usually broken in Latin).
But... did the VMS designer borrow only the shapes? Or do they have a similar meaning (not necessarily Latin, but conceptually similar)?
In the VMS are they also ligatures and abbreviations, or are they just borrowed shapes?