HOW VOYNICH WAS WRITTEN

[-JKP-]

For interest's sake, I grabbed examples from my database that illustrate how this particular style of g was written in the middle ages (there were many other styles of g, but these have a flat extended top-stem and an open, not curled, descender). The second row includes the ones that most closely resemble the VMS glyph in the sense that a "y" shape is written first with the stem added after. They are sampled from words that could be clearly read so that the identity of the letter was known.




One additional note, letters that are written with a brush rather than a quill often have the characteristics of the VMS letter. The strokes are simpler and more direct and fade out more at the tips due to the way a brush moves, compared to a quill. This is probably drawn with a quill (note the darker edges on the downstem, something that happens more often with a quill than a brush), but perhaps it was written by someone used to handling a brush.


[Edit: addition] Here's another example. It's drawn as a "y" first and then the line is added across the top—the same way the VMS character is drawn. If you're wondering what it says, it stands for "grado" (first "degree"):