16-08-2017, 07:21 PM
(16-08-2017, 06:05 PM)nickpelling wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Usage of Tironian notae noticeably declined during the 14th century, and had almost entirely withered on the vine by 1450. What took their place were local scribal abbreviations, which form a topic that has not yet received anywhere near enough attention from Voynich researchers.
Over the last decade, I've collected more than a thousand samples of scribal text, selected from many more thousands for the ones that most closely match the main text and the marginal text. I have also collected thousands of samples of abbreviated text.
To analyze these samples, I developed a mathematical system to compare them to each other, to search and sort them, and to objectively compare them to the VMS text. I've also made them search-and-sortable according to date, location, style of text, and a number of other parameters.
The only reason I haven't written it up yet is because it's a massive undertaking to try to organize and describe it to a general audience (I'm not saying Voynich researchers are a general audience, many are clearly on the upside of the IQ curve, but not everyone has a paleographic and calligraphic background, so the backstory needs to be filled in for any of it to make any sense). I have pages and pages of description in note form and some finished pages but I suspect it will take months to finish it.
As much as I enjoy discussing the images, the text has always been my primary interest.