08-04-2019, 06:35 AM
I can think of several reasons why there could be rare glyphs in the text.
In the style of Jacques Guy in the old days, it is possible to point to languages that have this. Thai is an example. There are characters that are simply used very rarely. For example the ฌ . It is completely to be expected to find books in which this character does not occur at all. I only know two words that use it. Others are ฑ ฬ ฎ that might just occur a handful of times in a book, or ฏ ฆ ฒ that may occur once every dozen or so pages.
But is is not necessary to go to exotic languages. These rare forms might stand for symbols that are rarely used, such as symbols for the planets or zodiac signs.
My favourite explanation is that we need to always keep in mind that, if the Voynich MS text is somehow a translation or encoding of a plain text, then this plain text was a handwritten one. This handwritten text naturally has normal handwriting variations, and depending on how this 'encoding' was done, they simply may represent rare forms that the encoder either did not understand, or decided to preserve as 'separate'.
The fact that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has many of such rare forms should mean something too.
Finally, one can think of explanations that fit in the scenario in case the MS text is meaningless.
In the style of Jacques Guy in the old days, it is possible to point to languages that have this. Thai is an example. There are characters that are simply used very rarely. For example the ฌ . It is completely to be expected to find books in which this character does not occur at all. I only know two words that use it. Others are ฑ ฬ ฎ that might just occur a handful of times in a book, or ฏ ฆ ฒ that may occur once every dozen or so pages.
But is is not necessary to go to exotic languages. These rare forms might stand for symbols that are rarely used, such as symbols for the planets or zodiac signs.
My favourite explanation is that we need to always keep in mind that, if the Voynich MS text is somehow a translation or encoding of a plain text, then this plain text was a handwritten one. This handwritten text naturally has normal handwriting variations, and depending on how this 'encoding' was done, they simply may represent rare forms that the encoder either did not understand, or decided to preserve as 'separate'.
The fact that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has many of such rare forms should mean something too.
Finally, one can think of explanations that fit in the scenario in case the MS text is meaningless.