27-04-2021, 12:21 PM
(This post was last modified: 27-04-2021, 12:45 PM by geoffreycaveney.
Edit Reason: added EVA [sh] = "th" to correspondence table
)
Since I have made several amendments to the proposed correspondences of Voynich characters and "Yorkist" letters since I last posted provisional lists of them, I am now posting here an updated table of provisional Voynich character : "Yorkist" letter correspondences. I may make a few observations about this table:
As I observed much earlier in this thread, there is a tendency to "favour" the end of the alphabet and "disfavour" the beginning of the alphabet in this cipher system. The logical motivation would be that "York" begins with "Y", near the end of the alphabet, whereas both parts of "BolingBroke", the Lancastrian king Henry IV's name, begin with "B", near the beginning of the alphabet. Further, the first two vowels of the word "Lancaster" are both "A". I now believe that the letter "a" may have simply been omitted from words wherever it occurred. (This is different from the "lipogrammatic" concept of not using any words that contain the letter "a" that I had suggested earlier and which was discussed in another thread.) The writing of the French preposition "avec" without the "a" in the center ring of text on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. persuaded me to hypothesize the omission of the letter "a" as a general rule of the cipher.
Speaking of French "avec", I only checked this just now, but I find that the Voynich word I interpret as "avec" in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , EVA [oteey] or Currier [OPCC9], actually does occur with dramatically greater frequency in Language B sections of the manuscript than it does in Language A sections. Thus this piece of evidence is in line with my current working hypothesis that the base language of Language B is primarily some form of French, whereas the base language of Language A is primarily Middle English.
I also observe that by writing the table, after the special letters of "YORK" and "M" (for "MortiMer", the Yorkists' claimant to the English throne against Henry IV), in backwards alphabetical order, it is noticeable that the characters with more basic or simpler forms tend to represent letters toward the end of the alphabet, whereas characters with more complicated forms tend to represent letters toward the beginning of the alphabet. Thus the consonants "t, s, p" have simpler forms than the consonants "f, d, soft c" which have more "verbose" character combination forms. This is also in line with the "backwards alphabetical" theme of the cipher design. It suggests that the designer of the cipher and script may have begun from the end of the alphabet and worked backwards in creating the characters.
[Note: Post and attached table edited to include EVA [sh] = "th".]
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Geoffrey
As I observed much earlier in this thread, there is a tendency to "favour" the end of the alphabet and "disfavour" the beginning of the alphabet in this cipher system. The logical motivation would be that "York" begins with "Y", near the end of the alphabet, whereas both parts of "BolingBroke", the Lancastrian king Henry IV's name, begin with "B", near the beginning of the alphabet. Further, the first two vowels of the word "Lancaster" are both "A". I now believe that the letter "a" may have simply been omitted from words wherever it occurred. (This is different from the "lipogrammatic" concept of not using any words that contain the letter "a" that I had suggested earlier and which was discussed in another thread.) The writing of the French preposition "avec" without the "a" in the center ring of text on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. persuaded me to hypothesize the omission of the letter "a" as a general rule of the cipher.
Speaking of French "avec", I only checked this just now, but I find that the Voynich word I interpret as "avec" in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , EVA [oteey] or Currier [OPCC9], actually does occur with dramatically greater frequency in Language B sections of the manuscript than it does in Language A sections. Thus this piece of evidence is in line with my current working hypothesis that the base language of Language B is primarily some form of French, whereas the base language of Language A is primarily Middle English.
I also observe that by writing the table, after the special letters of "YORK" and "M" (for "MortiMer", the Yorkists' claimant to the English throne against Henry IV), in backwards alphabetical order, it is noticeable that the characters with more basic or simpler forms tend to represent letters toward the end of the alphabet, whereas characters with more complicated forms tend to represent letters toward the beginning of the alphabet. Thus the consonants "t, s, p" have simpler forms than the consonants "f, d, soft c" which have more "verbose" character combination forms. This is also in line with the "backwards alphabetical" theme of the cipher design. It suggests that the designer of the cipher and script may have begun from the end of the alphabet and worked backwards in creating the characters.
[Note: Post and attached table edited to include EVA [sh] = "th".]
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Geoffrey