22-04-2021, 08:56 PM
JKP, thank you for the feedback about Old and Middle English. I appreciate it very much.
Part of my explanation for how the writing system works, and how English (and French, Latin words, etc.) was written in it, is that great effort was made to make as many words as possible resemble the spelling of "YORK" (EVA [chory] according to my hypothesis) in certain ways. In particular, the author wanted to make as many words as possible begin with his "Y" character (EVA [ch]) and as many words as possible end with his "K" character (EVA [y]). Further, the author simply wanted to use the characters in this word "YORK" (EVA [chory]) as frequently as possible no matter what.
[The "diary hypothesis" that I mentioned in the post about Edward, 2nd Duke of York, becomes important here. According to this hypothesis, it was a fanciful writing system and cipher that the author never intended for anyone else to ever be able to read or understand. That would explain many facts about the manuscript, including the lack of corrections and the lack of any other examples of this writing system in any other known extant document. (If it were a practical "Yorkist cipher" of the 15th century, it would require some kind of near-conspiracy theory to explain the lack of any other surviving examples of it.)]
So it appears to me that the English letters "k", "c", "g", "ʒ" as well as "gh" and "ng" were all written as his "K" character, EVA [y]. And it also appears that "i" is sometimes written as his "Y" character, EVA [ch], which is natural and also consistent with your comments, JKP, about the frequent use of "y" and sometimes its substitution for "i" in Old and Middle English. Of course, in a fanciful diary cipher, the author did not necessarily have to follow all of the same standard conventions for such distinctions as the one you mention between "y" and "iy". Alternatively, in the case of the occurrence of the latter letter combination at the end of a word, the Voynich ms author would have written any such word backwards in order to make the "Y" character (EVA [ch]) appear at the beginning of the word as written, to make it begin with the same letter as the word "YORK" (EVA [chory]). Likewise, any word beginning with English "k", "c", "g", or "ʒ" would also usually be written backwards, in order to make the "K" character (EVA [y]) appear at the end of the word as written, to make it end with the same letter as the word "YORK" (EVA [chory]).
Geoffrey
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct." - Niels Bohr
Part of my explanation for how the writing system works, and how English (and French, Latin words, etc.) was written in it, is that great effort was made to make as many words as possible resemble the spelling of "YORK" (EVA [chory] according to my hypothesis) in certain ways. In particular, the author wanted to make as many words as possible begin with his "Y" character (EVA [ch]) and as many words as possible end with his "K" character (EVA [y]). Further, the author simply wanted to use the characters in this word "YORK" (EVA [chory]) as frequently as possible no matter what.
[The "diary hypothesis" that I mentioned in the post about Edward, 2nd Duke of York, becomes important here. According to this hypothesis, it was a fanciful writing system and cipher that the author never intended for anyone else to ever be able to read or understand. That would explain many facts about the manuscript, including the lack of corrections and the lack of any other examples of this writing system in any other known extant document. (If it were a practical "Yorkist cipher" of the 15th century, it would require some kind of near-conspiracy theory to explain the lack of any other surviving examples of it.)]
So it appears to me that the English letters "k", "c", "g", "ʒ" as well as "gh" and "ng" were all written as his "K" character, EVA [y]. And it also appears that "i" is sometimes written as his "Y" character, EVA [ch], which is natural and also consistent with your comments, JKP, about the frequent use of "y" and sometimes its substitution for "i" in Old and Middle English. Of course, in a fanciful diary cipher, the author did not necessarily have to follow all of the same standard conventions for such distinctions as the one you mention between "y" and "iy". Alternatively, in the case of the occurrence of the latter letter combination at the end of a word, the Voynich ms author would have written any such word backwards in order to make the "Y" character (EVA [ch]) appear at the beginning of the word as written, to make it begin with the same letter as the word "YORK" (EVA [chory]). Likewise, any word beginning with English "k", "c", "g", or "ʒ" would also usually be written backwards, in order to make the "K" character (EVA [y]) appear at the end of the word as written, to make it end with the same letter as the word "YORK" (EVA [chory]).
Geoffrey
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct." - Niels Bohr