Voynichese Phonotactics

[Emma May Smith]

The reason why I somewhat insisted on this in the other thread is exactly this. One-to-one substisubstitution solutions just beg to be checked against what Voynichese syllable structure allows - or at least very strongly prefers. Apparent syllable structure is one of the few footholds we have, but it is often ignored. It also allows us to poke huge holes through most proposed solutions, but the matter often remains so vague that it is again ignored. It would indeed be nice to compose an overview of these preferences, which could be used as an immediate test for solutions, and might provide some new insights.

I'm sure you've read my website thoroughly, haven't you?

Seriously, though, while I'm willing to talk about how I think the structure of Voynich words work, I'm wary that this is my interpretation and not a proven fact. A lot depends on a core assumption (in addition to assuming that the surface patterns are linguistics) and a chain of argument.

The main assumption is that the script is more-or-less alphabetic. This means that one character represents a single sound, or a narrow range of similar sounds which the reader can understand dependent on context. The size of the script is suggestive of an alphabet because, even differentiating as many characters as possible, we can only count fewer than 30 characters. This is too few for any reasonable proposal based on a different kind of script. Of course, what counts as a single character is contestable. The status of e and i sequences is, even now, unsettled (I would suggest that strings such as eee and iin are single characters, but it is unproven).

There is also the possibility of digraphs, so that a single sound is represented by two characters. I think lk is a possible digraph (again, unproven) but others could exist. These problems stack up, so that a string such as lkcheey could be read as having as many as 6 sounds or as few as 4. I would suggest the lower number is better but the upper number is feasible.

These questions aside, how we work out syllable structure will depend on what characters we assign to be vowels (or capable of forming a syllable nucleus). Once we make the first argument for those sound values both the structure of the syllable, and possible sounds for other characters, soon follow. I would argue that o, a, and y are vowel sounds, but am interested in hearing counter proposal (and arguments).