23-04-2017, 04:51 PM
Yes I also thought of that, but there is a problem with this interpretation.
Would it be so, the text would have exhibited some "relief" towards the bottom edge, in terms of text density. Imagine that a scribe has a pre-built source which he has to transfer to the secondary medium. Since the two media are of a different size, he is not sure in advance whether the source text would fit to the secondary medium on a 1:1 page-to-page basis. Hence he begins with high text density - small letter size and tight line spacing. But as he progresses towards the end of the (source) folio he would get more and more sure that the source text would fit the secondary folio (just because we know now that it actually did fit). Hence he would naturally decrease the density - at least by increasing the size of the characters and/or the line spacing. But that is not the case. The line spacing is not increased.
One explanation of the above migth be that the scribe uses some kind of grille which simply does not allow him to change parameters such as character size or line spacing. But in this case we would have to admit that he uses different grilles for different sections - I think the text in the botanical section is more "relaxed" in terms of density.
What conclusions can I derive?
1. A Voynichese paragraph cannot be interrupted by a page break. (Marco, JKP and others: is that common for plain text manuscripts of the time?)
2. Up to the very bottom of the page, the scribe still does not know in advance whether the next paragraph will fit the page or will not. Hence, to comply with 1), he postpones the next paragraph to the next page, to be safe.
3. From 2), it follows that plain text is "translated" to Voynichese on-the-fly, just along its being put down on parchment. If it were not so, - in other words, if the source text were prepared already in Voynichese, - situations like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -> You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. would not have taken place, because the scribe would be able to assess that the next paragraph safely fits into the same page.
Would it be so, the text would have exhibited some "relief" towards the bottom edge, in terms of text density. Imagine that a scribe has a pre-built source which he has to transfer to the secondary medium. Since the two media are of a different size, he is not sure in advance whether the source text would fit to the secondary medium on a 1:1 page-to-page basis. Hence he begins with high text density - small letter size and tight line spacing. But as he progresses towards the end of the (source) folio he would get more and more sure that the source text would fit the secondary folio (just because we know now that it actually did fit). Hence he would naturally decrease the density - at least by increasing the size of the characters and/or the line spacing. But that is not the case. The line spacing is not increased.
One explanation of the above migth be that the scribe uses some kind of grille which simply does not allow him to change parameters such as character size or line spacing. But in this case we would have to admit that he uses different grilles for different sections - I think the text in the botanical section is more "relaxed" in terms of density.
What conclusions can I derive?
1. A Voynichese paragraph cannot be interrupted by a page break. (Marco, JKP and others: is that common for plain text manuscripts of the time?)
2. Up to the very bottom of the page, the scribe still does not know in advance whether the next paragraph will fit the page or will not. Hence, to comply with 1), he postpones the next paragraph to the next page, to be safe.
3. From 2), it follows that plain text is "translated" to Voynichese on-the-fly, just along its being put down on parchment. If it were not so, - in other words, if the source text were prepared already in Voynichese, - situations like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -> You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. would not have taken place, because the scribe would be able to assess that the next paragraph safely fits into the same page.