15-04-2021, 04:29 AM
I just began a new thread about lipogrammatic texts in general, in which an author uses only words which do not contain a certain letter (or letters). The idea is worth considering generally in regard to the Voynich ms text, regardless of which language the text is written in. I mentioned in passing there that this idea occurred to me while investigating the possibility of a Middle English text written using only words that do not contain the letter "a".
Although the transparent hypothesis of EVA [a] = actual "a" has always seemed both natural and fitting to me, seeming at first appearance to work fairly well, relatively speaking, with the various language hypotheses that I have considered over the years, a Middle English hypothesis actually raises serious problems with this idea, and perhaps with the occurrence of the letter "a" in the text in general.
First of all, the obvious question: where and what is the indefinite article "a"? Now it could have been written "an" more often and more generally than it is in modern English, but Chaucer for example simply used "a" very frequently, and he is about as close to the timeframe of the Voynich ms text as we can hope to get among the most prominent Middle English authors (along with Wycliffe). Nor do I find a good candidate for the word "an" either. Nor do I find a promising proposal for prefixing this article, as EVA [a], to its noun in the same way that I find the promising idea of EVA [ch-] as a prefixed definite article representing the Middle English abbreviation dotted "y" for "ye"/"the".
But the issue of "a" actually came to my attention as I considered the frequent Voynich ms vords EVA [ar], [dar], [al], and [dal]. I still think EVA [r] = Middle English "r" works well, for example it extends naturally to the frequent Voynich ms vords [or] = "our" and [chor] = "your". Now while one might think that [ar] = "ar" is surely an alternate spelling of "are" in Middle English...actually, it's not. Rather "are" was the alternate spelling of the primary form "aren". The form "ar" was rather only an alternate spelling of Middle English "here" -- meaning modern English 'their'! -- but only in certain dialects in Kent, West Midlands, and that curious "Yola" or "Forth and Bargy dialect" in Ireland. Moreover, the vord EVA [ar] occurs most frequently in the final (so-called "Recipes" or "Stars") section, as well as in Herbal B, but NOT frequently at all in the bathing women section. It seems strange that a word meaning "their" would be rare in a section full of illustrations of an obviously plural group of people, but frequent elsewhere.
Even more of a problem is the vord EVA [dal] = "sas" ?! if [a] = "a". Now I can find perfectly good Dutch, French, and Swedish words "sas", but not in English! (The word "sass" is more modern, comes from "sauce", and the Middle English forms all had the letter u/w/l in them between the "a" and the second "s".) I would have to stretch to argue that French "sas" meaning "sieve" or "lock (of canal)" was somehow used repeatedly throughout the herbal, pharmaceutical, and bathing women sections of the Voynich ms.
And so, I arrive at the hypothesis that perhaps EVA [a] actually does not represent Middle English "a", but rather "i"! This would give us EVA [ar] = "ir" meaning 'her' (an alternate spelling of "hire"), and it actually makes sense that such a singular form could be frequent in the final section and elsewhere, but not in the bathing women section where the people are plural and when they would address each other in the singular, they would use 2nd person rather than 3rd person forms. As for EVA [dal], now we have Middle English "sis" -- an actual word derived from Old French "sis" meaning 'six' -- and meaning in Middle English "a throw of six in dice; the highest throw"; also "good fortune", and further part of the phrase "sis foil" meaning "a design or device in the form of a plant having six leaves". Now I have not checked every occurrence of EVA [dal] in the Voynich ms text to see if there is any apparent connection to illustrations of six women or plants with six leaves, but at least this is a more promising possibility than a sieve or lock of a canal that is not even a Middle English word at all.
The EVA [a] = Middle English "i" hypothesis also gives us the natural [al] = "is" correspondence. (English "as" would not be bad, but this is even better.) Finally, according to this hypothesis, EVA [dar] = Middle English "sir"! I actually have mixed feelings about this one, since with [a] = "a", Middle English "sar" as an alternate form of "sore" meaning 'sore, hurting, in pain' would actually be a good semantic fit as well for the herbal and pharmaceutical sections where it occurs with great frequency. Still, as the 10th most frequent vord in the entire Voynich ms text, a standard formal term of address such as "sir" that can be repeated over and over again may be a more likely candidate than a particular adjective, no matter how well suited it is semantically to the sections where it occurs frequently. (Test: [dar] occurs 72 times in the bathing women section. Is this more likely to be "sir" or "sar"='sore'?)
So there you have it. What do you think? Do you prefer "ar", "sas", "as", and "sar", or rather "ir", "sis", "is", and "sir"? If it is the latter, then perhaps the Voynich ms text is a lipogrammatic Middle English text composed without the use of any word containing the letter "a".
Geoffrey C.
Although the transparent hypothesis of EVA [a] = actual "a" has always seemed both natural and fitting to me, seeming at first appearance to work fairly well, relatively speaking, with the various language hypotheses that I have considered over the years, a Middle English hypothesis actually raises serious problems with this idea, and perhaps with the occurrence of the letter "a" in the text in general.
First of all, the obvious question: where and what is the indefinite article "a"? Now it could have been written "an" more often and more generally than it is in modern English, but Chaucer for example simply used "a" very frequently, and he is about as close to the timeframe of the Voynich ms text as we can hope to get among the most prominent Middle English authors (along with Wycliffe). Nor do I find a good candidate for the word "an" either. Nor do I find a promising proposal for prefixing this article, as EVA [a], to its noun in the same way that I find the promising idea of EVA [ch-] as a prefixed definite article representing the Middle English abbreviation dotted "y" for "ye"/"the".
But the issue of "a" actually came to my attention as I considered the frequent Voynich ms vords EVA [ar], [dar], [al], and [dal]. I still think EVA [r] = Middle English "r" works well, for example it extends naturally to the frequent Voynich ms vords [or] = "our" and [chor] = "your". Now while one might think that [ar] = "ar" is surely an alternate spelling of "are" in Middle English...actually, it's not. Rather "are" was the alternate spelling of the primary form "aren". The form "ar" was rather only an alternate spelling of Middle English "here" -- meaning modern English 'their'! -- but only in certain dialects in Kent, West Midlands, and that curious "Yola" or "Forth and Bargy dialect" in Ireland. Moreover, the vord EVA [ar] occurs most frequently in the final (so-called "Recipes" or "Stars") section, as well as in Herbal B, but NOT frequently at all in the bathing women section. It seems strange that a word meaning "their" would be rare in a section full of illustrations of an obviously plural group of people, but frequent elsewhere.
Even more of a problem is the vord EVA [dal] = "sas" ?! if [a] = "a". Now I can find perfectly good Dutch, French, and Swedish words "sas", but not in English! (The word "sass" is more modern, comes from "sauce", and the Middle English forms all had the letter u/w/l in them between the "a" and the second "s".) I would have to stretch to argue that French "sas" meaning "sieve" or "lock (of canal)" was somehow used repeatedly throughout the herbal, pharmaceutical, and bathing women sections of the Voynich ms.
And so, I arrive at the hypothesis that perhaps EVA [a] actually does not represent Middle English "a", but rather "i"! This would give us EVA [ar] = "ir" meaning 'her' (an alternate spelling of "hire"), and it actually makes sense that such a singular form could be frequent in the final section and elsewhere, but not in the bathing women section where the people are plural and when they would address each other in the singular, they would use 2nd person rather than 3rd person forms. As for EVA [dal], now we have Middle English "sis" -- an actual word derived from Old French "sis" meaning 'six' -- and meaning in Middle English "a throw of six in dice; the highest throw"; also "good fortune", and further part of the phrase "sis foil" meaning "a design or device in the form of a plant having six leaves". Now I have not checked every occurrence of EVA [dal] in the Voynich ms text to see if there is any apparent connection to illustrations of six women or plants with six leaves, but at least this is a more promising possibility than a sieve or lock of a canal that is not even a Middle English word at all.
The EVA [a] = Middle English "i" hypothesis also gives us the natural [al] = "is" correspondence. (English "as" would not be bad, but this is even better.) Finally, according to this hypothesis, EVA [dar] = Middle English "sir"! I actually have mixed feelings about this one, since with [a] = "a", Middle English "sar" as an alternate form of "sore" meaning 'sore, hurting, in pain' would actually be a good semantic fit as well for the herbal and pharmaceutical sections where it occurs with great frequency. Still, as the 10th most frequent vord in the entire Voynich ms text, a standard formal term of address such as "sir" that can be repeated over and over again may be a more likely candidate than a particular adjective, no matter how well suited it is semantically to the sections where it occurs frequently. (Test: [dar] occurs 72 times in the bathing women section. Is this more likely to be "sir" or "sar"='sore'?)
So there you have it. What do you think? Do you prefer "ar", "sas", "as", and "sar", or rather "ir", "sis", "is", and "sir"? If it is the latter, then perhaps the Voynich ms text is a lipogrammatic Middle English text composed without the use of any word containing the letter "a".
Geoffrey C.