Ruby's Greek Thread

[Oscroft]

As for your opinion that the letters in the EVA transcription cannot have phonetic values, I don't share it. 
Just because these values aren't known with sufficient certainty doesn't mean they don't exist. 
If you find my suggestions insufficiently substantiated, you are welcome to make your own.

OK, I really do think you've misunderstood what EVA is and what it means. I don't claim full expertise or authority, or anything like that. So what I'm talking about here is my own understanding of EVA - and I hope others might tell us if they think I have it right (and correct me if I'm wrong). But if I am right, then you're making a fundamental mistake.

It's not that that the phonetic values of EVA aren't sufficiently known - it's that it has none, by design. The EVA letters are arbitrary, and specifically do not have any intended phonetic values. EVA was developed as a way to communicate Voynichese through computer communications and using computer analysis - because computer-based code does not include Voynichese letters, which is why we can't even type Voynichese directly. So EVA is, in effect, a single substitution cypher with the sole purpose of representing Voynichese using computer-readable symbols.

EVA is not an attempt at a sound-alike alphabet. For example, an "m" in EVA does not mean the corresponding Voynichese letter is an "m" in any sense, and it is not intended to convey any association with any real-world "m" (or "mu" or anything similar). The developers of EVA could have chosen "z", "t", "%", or anything else to represent the same Voynichese letter - and any of those would fulfil the EVA purpose equally well. So comparing EVA cyphertext directly with real-world plaintext can not reveal anything useful.

I'll try to explain it further with a few examples - I have some thoughts, and just need time to work them out. So please bear with me while I do that. And, please don't see my comments as in any way meant to put down your efforts or anything - I'm just trying to help by giving honest feedback, which I'd hope should be welcomed.

Are you, in fact, making transliterated comparisons between EVA letters and Greek letters?

PS: I'll take that as a Yes.