116v

[ololololo]

@ Stolfi: You can't be serious. 

You guys didn't want to believe that the "8" could be written larger than lowercase letters—I proved that. Now it's not big enough??? a.o. Seriously? And this in a medieval manuscript, where many personal quirks come into play when writing a letter? (take a look at how strangely he writes the “b”)

You guys refused to believe that the “8” as an “s” can appear not only at the end of a word but also within a word. I proved that too—not with one, but with two examples!

And now the counterargument being put forward is that, while it does exist within a word—something that was previously dismissed as completely nonsensical—it’s supposedly because the first example involves “two words written together” (what kind of argument is that , the 8 IS in the middle!) and then, in the second example, syllables or endings have to be taken into account? 


For even if that were the case: “en” is by far the most common final syllable in German. A German writer could have interpreted it as “pals-en,”

That would be typical, e.g., with verbs: bau -> bauen / riech - riechen, lauf -> laufen, renn -> rennen (in each case, the root is used this way, e.g., as an imperative: bau! and also in the form of: ich bau (i built)/ and bauen = infinitive)

But even with nouns that have an “s” before the “en,” such as “Wesen, Eisen, Gewissen, Kissen, etc.,” the “en” is clearly recognizable as an ending. Certainly, ‘sen’ and “en” are two possible syllables here, but in the Middle Ages, this clear distinction did not exist - that is modern German (This can be seen in the highly varied and, often unusual hyphenation in the manuscripts from the time).

So that’s not an argument against it either.

The fact is: There are 8=s in the middle of words.

Even if you don’t like that because it weakens your theory that this is a desperate attempt to reconstruct Voynichese, you need significantly (!) more assumptions to support this thesis.

The likelihood that it’s just a normal charm in the form of a marginal note is much higher. Especially since there are so many German words in it, including “palsen” = “balsam” 
and the typical Charm words. six marix morix vix (six = "sechs", vix = "schnell" (fast))

so nim (so take)
gas = es af 
mich = (me)

And no, I'm not going to keep looking for something; I've already proven my point.

You don't have to search, but you can analyze it
In fact, I think it might be a clumsily written letter s in the form of an 8. But at the same time, we must remember that, in general, the font You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is not very close to the "classic" one (which has many manuscripts written on it, like the ones you gave as an example, @JoJo_Jost), and 8 may not be the only s.
 Let me share a few assumptions:
1). All three glyphs of 8 on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are different. This may be because the author wrote these marginalia with a thin pen (compared to other European manuscripts, the letters on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are quite small) and, perhaps, was very poorly able to use it. This can also be indirectly confirmed by the different shapes of the letter b (in one case it is angular, in the other it is rounded).
2). The author could see how s was written as 8, but did not understand how it was written that way, and tried to reproduce it.
3). If the author of the marginalia was one of the VMS scribes, then he could, out of habit, write d instead of s-8. I don't see anything strange in this, because having written about 200 pages of an unknown letter to you, over time some of its features will become a habit.