07-04-2019, 08:02 PM
JKP: Regarding your (2), I mean that in everyday use, the sign "a" stood and still stands for a vowel. Of course that doesn't mean it represents a vowel in Voynichese, but the people who included it in the set knew that it's usually a vowel.
That's what I'm getting at: what did the glyph mean to them before they used it in the VM? Which characters did they select? As you say, it's clear that by and large they selected abbreviations, ligatures and numbers.
On ciphers including number forms and abbreviations: that's an interesting observation. Might we know of a cipher that combines number forms and abbreviations to a similar extent as the VM does? That would be quite the indication.
That's what I'm getting at: what did the glyph mean to them before they used it in the VM? Which characters did they select? As you say, it's clear that by and large they selected abbreviations, ligatures and numbers.
On ciphers including number forms and abbreviations: that's an interesting observation. Might we know of a cipher that combines number forms and abbreviations to a similar extent as the VM does? That would be quite the indication.