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[split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
- [split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
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RE: [split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
Anton > 29-05-2018, 09:45 PM
Quote:If you had asked me to guess, just from glancing at it, I would have guessed the first part was Polish written in Latin characters
Well, Polish it is, it's a document between Polish and Russians at the time of the war of 1609-1618.
Quote:JKP, I think Anton's comment was poking fun at Tucker's bold claims in his new book and shouldn't be taken too literally
Yes, indeed, but those other researchers do propose it literally, there's the rub.
Quote:I actually wonder if anyone on the forum right now would argue against the glyphs bearing most resemblance to Latin script?
Overall, it does bear that, but, as my last example shows, other scripts also can feature something not only similar, but strikingly similar. I wonder if this s shape in Cyrillic is not borrowed from Latin tradition though, especially given that the document in question is quite late (as compared with 15c century). It's better to check earlier documents of the Lithuaninan Metrica, and also to consult palaeographic sources about this symbol. Surely, there's an explanation there, I just don't have much spare time right now and thus I just drop my findings onto the forum in order not to forget them.
Quote:Can you really trace the whole set to Latin scribal habits?
That's what I also thought of yesterday - it makes sense to comprise a list of "Latin-derived" Voynichese glyphs. This may suggest the "basic" or "fundamental" characters of the Voynichese alphabet, in contrast to other ones which - being rare or altogether non-existent in Latin scripts - would appear as "additional" or "secondary". This would be in contrast to the Curve-Line System approach which tries to do the same thing but from the perspective purely visual. -
RE: [split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
Anton > 29-05-2018, 10:21 PM
Here's an older example of s in Cyrillic (line 2, towards the right). It serves here as "t" as well. As far as I understand, this is a document issued by Casimir IV when he was not the Polish king yet. So it's something between 1440-1447. -
RE: [split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
Anton > 29-05-2018, 10:30 PM
Well, Russian wikipedia says (with no source quoted) that this "s"-like symbol was used to spare the space and expired in the middle of 18th century, but suggests that it was in use only in writings of the Western variants of Russian language (that essentially means the Grand Duchy of Lithuania), and was not used in Muscovia. -
RE: [split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
-JKP- > 29-05-2018, 11:06 PM
(29-05-2018, 09:45 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quote:Can you really trace the whole set to Latin scribal habits?
That's what I also thought of yesterday - it makes sense to comprise a list of "Latin-derived" Voynichese glyphs. This may suggest the "basic" or "fundamental" characters of the Voynichese alphabet, in contrast to other ones which - being rare or altogether non-existent in Latin scripts - would appear as "additional" or "secondary". This would be in contrast to the Curve-Line System approach which tries to do the same thing but from the perspective purely visual.
I've been trying to do that in my blogs, but each character takes a whole blog (or most of one) because most people are not familiar with the abbreviations and ligatures and how they can be combined in a multitude of ways. I've also made lists, both here and on Nick's blog, but I tend to get ignored when I do that... it seems that certain people disbelieve me even more if I don't include illustrations.
The problem is, Latin scribal conventions aren't just a list of shapes that you can write out like an alphabet, it is a system, like Lego blocks, where you can take certain combinations apart and re-combine them in different ways (that's why the full version of Cappelli is so long and it doesn't even begin to include all of them).
Also, what they mean is context-sensitive. The EVA-y character, in Latin, has a dozen meanings, five common meanings, and a number of less common ones. AND Latin EVA-y can be combined with other abbreviations, to extend it. For example, EVA-m is a very common Latin abbreviation (-ris/-tis/-cis), but you can take the two parts apart and add the end part to EVA-y and it is a completely valid construction in Latin. If one doesn't understand this, then one wouldn't recognize how often it happens in the VMS.
I have been trying to write it up for over three years, and it's not a trivial explanation. I will try this evening to put together a summary. It makes sense for me to do it since I have thousands of examples from actual manuscripts and I have them organized by their [relative] meanings so that I can pull out samples in minutes. It's the explanation, the write-up, that is time-consuming. -
RE: [split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
Wladimir D > 30-05-2018, 07:49 AM
ANTON. Perhaps this was due to Greek influence. One of the options for writing "τ" is similar to S-EVA.
Question to the connoisseurs of the Greek language, in the third figure (red circles) is
"τ" or something else?
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RE: [split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
-JKP- > 30-05-2018, 07:53 AM
Wladimir, I don't know Greek, I only know some of the scribal conventions and I can only read simple things like names (so someone can correct me if I am wrong), but I believe the letter you circled in red is hori.
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And you probably already know that the shape that looks like EVA-s often stands for eius in Latin (e + tail). -
RE: [split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
Helmut Winkler > 30-05-2018, 09:20 AM
(29-05-2018, 07:12 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.JKP, I think Anton's comment was poking fun at Tucker's bold claims in his new book and shouldn't be taken too literally
I actually wonder if anyone on the forum right now would argue against the glyphs bearing most resemblance to Latin script?
That said though, I would say that the combination of all the gallows characters and the way they consistently rise above the other glyphs is unusual. Can you really trace the whole set to Latin scribal habits?
JKP is quite right when he says the whole set is Latin. And the Gallows are not different from 'Lombarden' or 'Versalien' -
RE: [split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
Wladimir D > 30-05-2018, 02:33 PM
On the Cyrillic page published by Anton, besides s, there are a few more monograms, which can be interpreted as code 174 (extended EVA). -
RE: [split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
Anton > 30-05-2018, 02:58 PM
Good point; interestingly, it appears to also represent "t". -
RE: [split] Humanist handwriting in the MS?
-JKP- > 30-05-2018, 08:40 PM
(30-05-2018, 02:58 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Good point; interestingly, it appears to also represent "t".
Yes many of the shapes with tails have more than one interpretation in medieval script.
In Latin, EVA-s can be c-with-a-tail, e-with-a-tail, and, in the older medieval scripts when they wrote more rounded letter "t" it can be t-with-a-tail.
Similarly, EVA-r can be i-with-a-tail, r-with-a-tail and, if it has a little hook on the foot, t-with-a-tail.
And also... something I've pointed out in blogs... EVA-m in Latin is three different abbreviations and (as I posted on the forum when it was young), "all are represented in the VMS". By that I mean EVA-m is three different abbreviations in Latin because the "-is" suffix can be added to almost anything (this is why it's hard to explain this in a few words).
So, if it has a straight back, EVA-m looks like -ris in Latin. If it has a straight back with a tiny hook on the bottom, EVA-m looks like -tis in Latin, and if it has a rounded back (like a "c"), it is -cis in Latin. All three shapes exist in the VMS. I really have no doubt that whoever wrote it (or devised it) was very familiar with Latin script.
You can even find places where a scribe "slipped" and wrote EVA-y superscripted, which is how it was often written in Latin (it could be written both in line with the text and superscripted). This is how we can know that it is not intended as a "g" shape, that it is, in fact, a "9" shape as in the Latin abbreviation, besides the fact that it is positioned primarily at the ends of words (as in Latin), sometimes at the beginnings of words (as in Latin), and only rarely in the middles of words (as in Latin).
The same Latin conventions hold true for EVA-r and EVA-s in terms of position. There are only certain glyphs in the VMS that stand alone and they tend to be consistent with abbreviation shapes that stand alone in Latin. For example, EVA-s can stand alone. If it is interpreted as c-with-tail or e-with-tail then it is consistent with one-letter Latin abbreviations that can stand alone, such as "con" and "eius".
I can write about this for hours and hours because the VMS is loaded with examples. Note the macron on the 4o early in the manuscript. A Latin abbreviation convention. It shows up in a handful of places, but that's enough to show that the scribe was probably used to using it and perhaps slipped and sometimes added it in OR perhaps 4o is sometimes intended as 4'o (with omitted letters in between).
In Spanish the Latin abbreviation "con" is very commonly used (there are actually several ways to abbreviate "con" in Latin, it was a flexible system). In German manuscripts, the abbreviations for "-ris/-tis/-cis" (the shape like EVA-m) are very commonly used. The "cis" abbreviation, in Latin, is often also used as a paragraph-ending symbol in Latin and German manuscripts (which means it falls more often at the ends of lines and paragraphs, just as it does in the VMS).
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Many of these scribal conventions were inherited from Greek. For example, as I've mentioned before, adding a little loop to the top-right corner of the letter "pi" is the abbreviation for "po or "pe" and occasionally "peri". Latin does something similar, the little loop with a descender is "-is" and can be added to anything but is USUALLY added at the ends of words. Capital "i" with the "-is" abbreviation is also used to represent "Item" (it looks like EVA-k).
Many of the Latin scribal conventions are used in French, Italian, German, English, Czech, etc. Some of the gallows characters are similar to Greek scribal conventions, but even those carried over into Latin... a little more often in Greek, but benching occurs in both Greek and Latin. The bench character by itself (EVA-ch and EVA-sh) is a very common ligature in Latin.