Phonology of Voynichese

[geoffreycaveney]

At the same time, any proposal will need to explain [qokeedy qokeedy qokeedy] and similar sequences anyway, which may be related to the unusual letter distribution features.

The statement that the systematic exact repetition of words could possibly "be related to the unusual letter distribution features" seems quite obscure to me.

Let me explain: If the author repeated certain words in the text extremely often, to a degree that is not typical of most written texts that we are familiar with, and if those certain words that are repeated extremely frequently happen to end in a final "-s" in the underlying language of the text, then this feature of systematic exact repetition of words could indeed also cause and explain an unusually high proportion of the total number of words in the text that end in a final "-s".

Example:

   

Now it just so happens that "kai Theos" ("and God"), if written as a single word "ka'-Theos", could indeed be a reading of [qo-keedy] in my system. But this is just a passing observation, not yet a part of a systematic interpretation of any particular passage of text.

Importantly, I also note that if certain conjunctions, prepositions, articles, and other particles that are typically written as separate words in standard Greek text, are rather in the Voynich MS typically written as prefixed elements of the following words, then this could dramatically reduce the frequency of vowel-final words in the whole text, since many of these words are vowel-final, which could in turn dramatically increase the frequency of "s"-final words, for example.

Those who propose that [y] represents a vowel, will need to demonstrate how the very limited inventory of other characters can possibly represent all of the consonant phonemes of a language. 

If you believe that Voynichese symbols are too limited to represent the sounds of a language, the problem is there independently on y being a consonant or a vowel. Not a good argument to disregard all evidence about y behaving as a vowel.

It is well known in linguistics that while vowel sounds are more important for recognizing words heard in oral speech, on the contrary consonant letters are more important for recognizing words that one reads in written text. This is why all-consonant abjads exist and have long existed historically, while nobody ever heard of a writing system that only represents the vowels and not the consonants. To see this, just compare "lng exstd hstrcll" and "o eie ioiay". 

The point is, if a particular writing system has the problem of a small number of characters to represent the entire language, it is much more important to reserve as many of them as possible to represent as many consonants or groups of consonants as possible, rather than to use too many of them to represent vowels. We can afford to sacrifice the representation of a vowel or vowels much more readily than we can afford to sacrifice the representation of a consonant or consonants.

Geoffrey