[Article] Glyph combinations across word breaks in the Voynich Manuscript

[Emma May Smith]

So, Currier says, "In no language I know of does the suffix of a word have anything to do with the beginning of the next." This is a bizarre statement to make, given that English does just this: a pear and an apple. It's facilely easy to disprove.

To disprove Currier you would need an example like "an apear and an apple".

See our paper, page 19, where we talk about initial consonant mutations in Welsh (they're present in other Celtic languages too.)

Another point is that Currier was studying the usage of 'words' before he discussed "Effects of the Ending of One 'Word' on the Beginning of the Next 'Word'". The paper does this the other way around. It examines the relation between glyphs but discusses the relation between words. How can you discuss something without studying it?

I don't understand your point. Our paper is discussing the relationships between glyphs, not words.

You are using a magnifying glass and what you see is a yellow spot. Then you argue that maybe the wall is yellow, or maybe there are some yellow squares, or maybe it is a large painting of Salvador Dalhi.

Yes, this is inductive reasoning. We move from the specific to the general. We're using observations on specific aspects of the text to construct a more general theory of the whole. This is a single paper, however, and provides only evidence and support, not a complete theory and its proof.

Moreover the paper describes relevant differences between Currier A and B and argues that "word-break combinations are more predictable than for Latin and English, and also more predictable in Currier B than for Italian" (E. Smith and M. Ponzi 2019, p. 14). It remains a mystery to me why the described observations should support "the possibility that the Voynich text is written a phonetically written language" (E. Smith and M. Ponzi 2019, p. 18)?

This is a fair point, but I think you're being very harsh that it constitutes a "mystery". Word break combinations in the Voynich text are rather more predictable than in Latin and English, and a bit more predictable than in Italian. Yet the differences between Latin and English on one hand, and Italian on the other, demonstrate that there is no simple level of predictably which describes a natural language. The conclusion at the end of the manuscript comes from dismissing other potential causes of word break combinations and accepting a linguistic one. It's a summary of all the evidence and arguments, not only predictability.

There are relevant differences between Currier A and B. With other words your discussion part is based on a single observation and this observation is not consistent for the whole text.

We try to explore our observations in a couple of different ways, to check how strong and consistent they are. We acknowledge they're not always as strong or consistent as we would like. We note some exceptions, such as the difference between Currier A and B, and the position of [l]. Our conclusions are not a solution but rather a summary of our research on the topic. We try to point toward the best explanation we can.

I would be happy to listen to arguments why a different explanation is better. But we must explain word break combinations. They are real phenomena and any theory which doesn't account for them must be wrong. Even a tentative explanation is better than complete ignorance.