[split] (lack of) scribal mistakes / corrections

[-JKP-]

A synthetic language is one that is made up, an invented language (usually one that works according to a set of rules).

An abjad is a language written without vowels.


So, let's pretend we are inventing a language. Let's say that it's based on root words, so that alterations in the word can create other words.


For example, maybe bk stands for the idea of a book.

Now if we add + in front then it is someone who makes books, thus +bk would be a bookmaker or +cr might be a carmaker, or +drs might be a dressmaker.

If we want to turn it into a verb, maybe we add - to the end, so bk- becomes booking cr- becomes "carring" (the concept of driving or going in a car), or drs- becomes dressing (or dressmaking).

So a grammar is established based on root words with different beginnings or endings (or other ways of manipulating the words). A number of ancient languages were written without vowels, and some languages (like Hebrew) have a root-word structure to create new words. It wasn't until literacy began to expand that they started adding vowels. In many Asian languages, as you know, the vowel sound is built into the syllable or character and doesn't need to be explicitly written.

So we know it's possible to write readable text without vowels. And we know there are languages that have a root-word structure.

If you put those two ideas together, you end up with something SIMILAR in structure to the VMS EXCEPT (and this is an important difference), the Voynich tokens have too many glyphs that are always in the same position in the word compared to natural languages that work this way.

So there's always the question, is Voynichese a natural language? Or something else? A synthetic language? A symbolic language? A nonsense text?

I know people have mentioned that dain daiin and daiiin look similar to Roman numerals (I think so too). But I think it goes beyond that. I think Voynichese, overall, is more similar to Greek or Roman numerals in the way the glyphs are positioned than it is to natural languages (IF the spaces are assumed to be word breaks). With numerals, position is everything.The number 53 is not the same as the number 35, and Roman numeral VI is not the same as IV. Numbers always have to be written in a certain order or we have no way of interpreting which one is the larger quantity. The order of the VMS glyphs is quite rigid. ot is not usually found at the ends of tokens and daiin dy or am are not typically found at the beginnings of tokens (although they can stand alone). There are certain glyphs that can move around, but there are some that move around much less than one might expect in natural language. How often is i found at the beginnings and ends of tokens?


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Position is, in some way, very important to Voynichese.  It might be a consequence of how the tokens are constructed (e.g., picking them off of charts in a certain order?) or it might be a positional code (in which the position conveys information about the glyph or the token). I am doubtful that it is a natural language, the positions of the glyphs don't vary enough. So perhaps it's synthetic or symbolic. If it is natural language, then it's probably a multi-step code, not a straight substitution code, and the spaces might have to be evaluated differently.