[split] Color annotations?

[MarcoP]

Any ideas about possible readings for the glyphs at the right in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and the centre of the flower in f28v?
(I include some Voynichese glyphs to give an idea of the scale)
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. describes the symbol in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as -A single 'g'-"
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: -EVA "y" with a trailing twiddle?-

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lists a few abbreviation of the type 9~, where the '9' stands for con-/cum- and the "~" for "r". The most common meaning appears to be "contra". I don't think this can make sense as a colour abbreviation: one can maybe interpret it as an indication to use something "contra"-sting with the blue of the other petals, but this is terribly far fetched.
   
I don't think there are colours beginning with con- in Italian. Could it denote a colour in German or in any other language?

The situation for You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is even worse. Rene's description: -Some apparent symbols in the middle of the flower. If this is writing, the script has not yet been identfied.-
Reuben doesn't attempt a transcription either.

[Helmut Winkler]

1) I don‘t think f. 9v is a color annotation. As far as I can see all the color annotations are on the plant, I rather think of something like conr = corr(ectio?) and one tends to forget that the con-abbr. is a numeral, an Arabic 9, it could be something like (mensis) novembris, just an idea
2) I read the letter on f. 28v as ij or y and the first thing that comes to my mind is ysop(-coloured), a dark blue or violet (Hyssopus officinalis), perhaps I am wrong but the plant on 28v reminds me a bit of the Italian carciofi, when their flower is open and whose colour is some violetblue

[Anton]

For 28v, we had an extensive discussion with Brian back in 2014 or 2015 in his blog. Brian wrote a post, there was a discussion in comments, and then he wrote yet another post. Unfortunately, he deleted (or hid) those two posts, I forgot for what reason. Basically,if I remember correctly, his point was that this sequence encodes a date, something like 1457 or 1475. I disagreed with that.

There are some interesting points about this sequence. First, it's very tiny, but, at the same time it's easy to find if you know where to look. Second, the symbols two to four look as if they were written in two passes - namely, first the sequence "i i i" was put down, and then the remaining elements were put down.

I suspect this is a reminder of some sort, but I don't know what to make of it.

[Wladimir D]

I'm on the side of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Several similar examples in text 1, 2, 3, 4 (?).

I believe that for the Y / staple the apostrophe (6, 7), the point (8), the horizontal bar (9) denote additional subsequent symbols / abbreviations.

   

[-JKP-]

Any ideas about possible readings for the glyphs at the right in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and the centre of the flower in f28v?
(I include some Voynichese glyphs to give an idea of the scale)
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. describes the symbol in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as -A single 'g'-"
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: -EVA "y" with a trailing twiddle?-

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lists a few abbreviation of the type 9~, where the '9' stands for con-/cum- and the "~" for "r". The most common meaning appears to be "contra". I don't think this can make sense as a colour abbreviation: one can maybe interpret it as an indication to use something "contra"-sting with the blue of the other petals, but this is terribly far fetched.

...

   

The squiggle isn't usually added to the "9" abbreviation in that way (I've looked at thousands, and it is usually vertical or backleaning or slightly detached), but this is the VMS, and many things are unconventional, so I suppose it's possible if it's meant to be ultra-abbreviated.


But consider this...


It's correct that the "9" at the beginning of a word in Latin is usually con-/com-. The "~" can be ir/er/re/ri/r/ar/ra or other homonyms that include "r".

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Aside: In fact, the squiggle on the bird-glyph on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the typical Latin abbreviation for ir/er/re/ri (if V~ is in the margin of a piece of poetry, it means V + er + [se] = "Verse" as a common convention).

The word "contra" was not usually written y~ (with the ~ attached to the serif and pointing right). Although there was leeway in how abbreviations were applied, most of the time "contra" was written like this

•  yr (imagine EVA-r with a foot so it looks more like a "t"), or
  
•  ytr (this is the one I see most frequently), or
  
• with the squiggle above the y as shown in Capelli.
  

...but it doesn't have to be Latin, Latin abbreviations were used in all the major western languages, so if it was meant to be the squiggle that usually includes an abbreviated "r"-syllable, one possibility is this:

y~ -  com- + er  (comer - Portuguese/Spanish/Galician for eat)


What's interesting about this is that pretty much all of the Viola plant is edible. The flowers are often used to dress up salads, so it is both a medicinal and a culinary plant. This is one of the reasons that I gave up an early idea that the VMS plants might be poisonous plants. Several of the identifiable plants can be eaten and are not toxic.

[ReneZ]

There are a couple of things about the stand-alone symbol in the right margin of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that one can say objectively, i.e. not (yet) speculating too much:

- The size of this symbol is clearly smaller than that of the main text. It is of similar size as the symbols drawn inside the flowers on the same page
- All larger symbols on this page are in 'Voynichese' writing, while the smaller symbols appear to be of the latin alphabet
- An Eva y with a horizontal serif at the top ( Y ) appears in a few words in the MS, to connect it to the next character. Stand-alone, it may appear just once out of several thousands of occurrences of y . It is a standard part of the letter 'g' in  many scripts of the time.
- In other herbal manuscripts, colour annotations may be written both inside and outside the plant drawing. An example is the already quoted Vicenza MS 362, fol.34r

Of course, we cannot be certain that this is a colour annotation. Same for the unreadable scribble between the petals of the top left flower.

[-JKP-]

...
- An Eva y with a horizontal serif at the top ( Y ) appears in a few words in the MS, to connect it to the next character. Stand-alone, it may appear just once out of several thousands of occurrences of y . It is a standard part of the letter 'g' in  many scripts of the time.

I completely agree with this, although I think Marco was right to point out that the serif on the Y to the right of the Viola flower has a wiggle in it and a wiggle almost always indicated an abbreviation in medieval text.

[Davidsch]

rot in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:  „You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.".

Der Bestandteil rot wird dagegen mit dem rotwelschen Wort rot für „Bettler" erklärt, das seinerseits mit rotte („Bande") oder mit You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. rot („faul, schmutzig") in Verbindung gebracht wird.You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

....

Do you remember the mud miel?

• in rotwelsch: Model, Maudel, Mudel, Muldel: „Frau, Mädchen“
  
  • Muß, Moß: „Mädchen, Frau, Dirne“, von dt. Mutze, „Vulva“, oder dt. Musche, „Hure“
    

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[-JKP-]

f39v

There are marks inside some of the other small spaces that are parts of the drawing, so it's difficult to tell if it's a coincidence that this resembles a letter. It would not be standard to find a capital-B in block printing during this time period so I'm reserving judgment on it, but it does LOOK like a letter to modern eyes.

[Koen G]

B for blank? Or blanc, blanco...