glyph [d] as a substitute for [p] and [f]

[geoffreycaveney]

@geoffreycaveney, I'm intrigued. This is truly an innovative solution to the very real problem of the distribution of [f] and [p], which unless adequately explained, is pretty damning to most linguistic hypotheses of the VM.

However, I'm not satisfied with your solution's answer to the question of what [cfh] and [cph] should become when they're not on the first line of a paragraph or the first character of a line. If the distinction between [p] and [cph] is important in Voynichese, and there are minimal pairs that hinge on this distinction, it does not logically follow that the scribe would reduce both of these to [d]. For what it's worth, I'll abide [f] and [p] both mapping to [d], since it's not at all clear that [f] and [p] are not variations of the same glyph. But both of them and their benched varieties all mapping to [d] when not in the first line stretches credibility a bit.

Now, what I would be open to is [cfh] and [cph] regularly mapping to [*d] or [d*] or [*d*], where
[*]is a wildcard representing another repurposed Voynichese glyph, whose identity should be discernible via statistical analysis, if your theory holds up.

Thank you for the complimentary comment and for your thoughts on the topic. I appreciate it very much.

To reply to your argument about [cfh] and [cph], I guess I am not convinced that the distinction between [p] and [cph] is necessarily important in Voynichese. If we think of this script as a cryptographic cipher in modern terms, with a necessarily precise enciphering process requiring a precise deciphering process to read it, then yes, in that case we would need to suppose a clear and precise reason for the distinction between writing [p] in some places and [cph] in other places.

But if the script is simply the writing system of a natural language, the spelling could be just as illogical in some respects as most other natural languages' writing systems. Many languages' scripts have silent letters with no phonetic meaning in the contemporary language, and many languages' scripts have two different symbols or combinations of symbols to write the same sound.

If you read through my posts about my Judaeo-Greek theory of the Voynich ms, you will see that I basically identify Voynich [p], [f], and [d] as representing the Greek sounds "ph", "p", and "b". But the Judaeo-Greek script itself was ambiguous about its expression of these Greek sounds: It did not consistently distinguish Greek "ph" and "p", using Hebrew "pay" for both. It used both "bet" and "vav" for Greek "b", and it also used "vav" for Greek "o" and "u". (Greek "b" at this time was really pronounced "v", and it is natural to use "vav" for both "v" and "u", an overlap that occurs in many languages and writing systems.) Judaeo-Greek used "he" for the "h" sound that was typically not written in Greek or only marked with a "rough breathing" diacritic.

I basically identify Voynich [p] with Judaeo-Greek "pay" in this system, Voynich [f] with Judaeo-Greek "bet", Voynich [ch] with Judaeo-Greek "he", and Voynich [d] with Judaeo-Greek "vav". Sometimes the author just wrote [p] for Judaeo-Greek "pay" meaning Greek "p" or "ph"; sometimes the author wrote [cph] to specifically indicate "pay+he" for Greek "ph". Both of these, as well as [f] for "bet" for Greek "b"/"v", could be substituted with [d] for "vav". I admit this is a more natural explanation as a substitution of [d] for [f] ("vav" for "bet") and a less natural explanation as a substitution of [d] for [p] ("vav" for "pay"). But this is what I have been able to come up with.

Geoffrey