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Mark Knowles' theories of pharma and other labels
- Mark Knowles' theories of pharma and other labels
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RE: Mark Knowles theories' of pharma and other labels
-JKP- > 04-04-2020, 05:07 AM
Mark, I've been trying to be patient and fair and to give you time to become more acquainted with medieval scribal conventions, but it still appears from your posts, and from your chart, that you are not familiar with medieval character sets.
Almost everything you posted in this chart that you are trying to use as an argument for some direct relationship between the Tranchedino codes and the VMS is found in Latin manuscripts. Since they are sourcing the same scribal conventions, they may be coincidentally similar. There's no evidence in the glyph similarities that there is a direct relationship because these are almost all common to Latin.
There's NOTHING UNUSUAL about most of the characters you posted. They are normal and most of them are common.
- The g and m symbols are COMMON Latin abbreviations.
- ch is common in Latin-character manuscripts.
- ccc is COMMON in Latin-character manuscripts.
- The long-c is common in Latin manuscripts.
- Adding a small "o" (sometimes superscripted) is COMMON in manuscripts with Latin chars to create abbreviations like "g[rad]o" or "m[od]o" or quarto.
Crossing ascenders (similar to benching) is even sometimes used for long macrons in Latin manuscripts (although it is not typical to bench and also connect characters on either side in Latin). However, benching ascenders is COMMON in Greek, which is why I keep pointing out that some of the glyphs may have been inspired by Greek stacking conventions.
Chi-Rho and Pi-Rho are classic examples of "stacking" or overlaying concepts. This way of monogramming chi on top of the rho ascender, or pi on top of a rho ascender is very common in Greek. It is found in manuscripts, on Greek coins, and in some of the Greek numeral systems (they have more than one). I've repeatedly pointed this out in blogs and on the forum. There were numerous Greek communities in Europe in the 15th century, in Marseilles, in the Veneto, in Florence. The libraries in these areas are full of Greek manuscripts. Latin scribes were familiar with Greek conventions even if they didn't know Greek, especially those in communities where there were many Greek scribes, or where they were translating Greek manuscripts into Latin.
Many Latin scribal ligature and abbreviation concepts are borrowed directly from Greek.
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The ciphers collected by Tranchedino draw heavily from Latin characters/ligatures/abbreviations and also from Latin paragraph-reference markers (which use a lot of dots, small "o", and crosses). They also draw from Greek, mathematical, and astrological symbols.
The Italian diplomatic ciphers needed a huge storehouse of characters, many more than can be created out of a single alphabet. So, to create new symbols, they took standard characters and added an extra tickmark or line, or they overlaid them in the Greek manner.
I wasn't sure of the best way to comment on the individual examples in your chart so I overlaid the chart with colored text rather than trying to create a complex cross-reference post:
- The g and m symbols are COMMON Latin abbreviations.
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RE: Mark Knowles theories' of pharma and other labels
Mark Knowles > 04-04-2020, 12:41 PM
(04-04-2020, 05:07 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Mark, I've been trying to be patient and fair and to give you time to become more acquainted with medieval scribal conventions, but it still appears from your posts, and from your chart, that you are not familiar with medieval character sets.
You say that you have been patiently waiting for me to come to the acquaintance with the various scripts you refer to, so as to realise what you say is true. I have been patiently waiting for you to provide the evidence to support your assertion.
I think first of all it is worth acknowledging that despite what has been said your position differs from that of Rene and more specifically Lisa.
Rene says that the character set MAY have been influenced by medieval Latin characters/ligatures/abbreviations.
You say the character set comprises medieval Latin characters/ligatures/abbreviations. Though you in this statement have added some others, some which you have not mentioned before.
These are two quite different opinions. So Rene might be under the misapprehension that you share the same opinion, but you really don't. Tell me otherwise if you do. Or if Rene believes you both share the same opinion explain to me how that is the case.
You throw in Coptic, Slavic, Astrological, Greek and now Old Russian(Glatholitic? or do you include runes as well?) to your list. When you cast your net so wide in terms of different scripts your are bound to be more successful with finding matches.
This genuinely reminds me of Gerard Cheshire casting his net so wide in the influences origins of words in his proto-romance. You could consider listing scripts that you think they are unconnected to, it could be a shorter list.
There is something to be said for showing rather than telling. You state what you say are parallels for characters, but you don't show real examples of them in other manuscripts; that would be much more persuasive. When I have looked at the examples you give on your blog they are very limited and frequently poor matches. If these parallels are so apparent you should show examples as I have. (I note you have just posted on Greek characters, which I haven't studied yet, but it appears that you don't provide examples from other than the Voynich.)
Expecting me to be familiar with something that you don't seem familiar enough with to provide real examples from manuscripts is unreasonable. I shouldn't be expected to guess which symbols you believe are identical or related. -
RE: Mark Knowles theories' of pharma and other labels
ReneZ > 04-04-2020, 12:47 PM
(03-04-2020, 10:14 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have attached an image showing shared cipher symbols that I have seen.
Mark, you list 12 characters, but the combined character sets of all existing transliteration systems for the Voynich MS list close to 300 different characters. Tranchedino undoubtedly has even more. The overlap of only 12 can be considered fairly strong counter-evidence against your proposed correspondence.
Almost all of the characters you listed are extremely rare in the Voynich MS. Given that the MS has of the order of 160,000 symbols, then a character that appears fewer than 16 times appears only once every 10,000 characters. In the Voynich MS only at most 30 characters exceed that limit.
The ch with a dot above was recognised by GC five times in the MS. That is once every 32,000 characters. One can check them in the text. They appear here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 1 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 1 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 8 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 23 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 3
One can doubt in some cases if the dot is an intentional pen stroke, and in some cases one can see a faded loop of Sh as well. -
RE: Mark Knowles theories' of pharma and other labels
Mark Knowles > 04-04-2020, 01:06 PM
(04-04-2020, 12:47 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(03-04-2020, 10:14 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have attached an image showing shared cipher symbols that I have seen.
Mark, you list 12 characters, but the combined character sets of all existing transliteration systems for the Voynich MS list close to 300 different characters. Tranchedino undoubtedly has even more. The overlap of only 12 can be considered fairly strong counter-evidence against your proposed correspondence.
Almost all of the characters you listed are extremely rare in the Voynich MS. Given that the MS has of the order of 160,000 symbols, then a character that appears fewer than 16 times appears only once every 10,000 characters. In the Voynich MS only at most 30 characters exceed that limit.
The ch with a dot above was recognised by GC five times in the MS. That is once every 32,000 characters. One can check them in the text. They appear here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 1 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 1 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 8 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 23 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. line 3
One can doubt in some cases if the dot is an intentional pen stroke, and in some cases one can see a faded loop of Sh as well.
I don't understand why the frequency of a glyph should be relevant. Surely the question should be what can we say confidently the glyph looks like. I selected some characters illustrating the breadth of Voynich characters. If a character is used less frequently in a cipher it doesn't make its appearance less relevant.
I did not list the very common EVA-a and EVA-o as I thought it not necessary to include them. I presented a range of glyphs not 300. I presented much more from another source then JKP, who hasn't presented any.
If this overlap is easy to find then you or JKP should have no difficulty in finding these glyphs in other non-Voynich sources. -
RE: Mark Knowles theories' of pharma and other labels
-JKP- > 04-04-2020, 02:18 PM
(04-04-2020, 01:06 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
If this overlap is easy to find then you or JKP should have no difficulty in finding these glyphs in other non-Voynich sources- I have no difficulties finding the Latin characters/abbreviations/ligatures in non-Voynich sources. They are COMMON. I have posted MANY examples on my blog and on the Ninja forum.
- I have no difficulties finding Latin numbers that match VMS chars in non-Voynich sources. They are COMMON and I have posted numerous examples on my blog and on the Ninja forum.
- I have no difficulties finding the Coptic/Old Russian A in numerous manuscripts. It is only one character and it is a moderately rare character. I think I've posted examples, but I'm not sure.
- I have mentioned the Greek "atto" char a number of times. I have probably also screensnapped abbreviations that are similar (the staircased abbrev. symbols with dots) but I don't know if I've posted them.
- I have no difficulties finding examples of Greek benching and stacking concepts. They are common and I have posted examples on my blog.
These comprise a minority of Voynich glyphs and are more speculative than the Latin shapemates, but that is because they are conceptual (benching/stacking is a concept, not a specific shape). I have discussed them in blogs and have posted examples.
Mark Knowles Wrote:You throw in Coptic, Slavic, Astrological, Greek and now Old Russian(Glatholitic? or do you include runes as well?) to your list. When you cast your net so wide in terms of different scripts your are bound to be more successful with finding matches.
Good grief, Mark, I've mentioned this character a number of times. It is ONE character in the VMS and this specific character is found in Coptic, Slavic, Greek, [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]sometimes in scientific texts,[/font] and sometimes Old Russian scripts (and NO Old Russian is NOT Glagolitic). ONE character, THIS character --> x. You completely mischaracterized what I wrote. I didn't say anything about a bunch of characters in different alphabets, I never have. Different alphabets in different languages sometimes use the same character-shape just as English and Latin and Greek all use the letter "o" and the [font=Eva]x character shows up in a few medieval languages.[/font] - I have no difficulties finding the Latin characters/abbreviations/ligatures in non-Voynich sources. They are COMMON. I have posted MANY examples on my blog and on the Ninja forum.
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RE: Mark Knowles theories' of pharma and other labels
Mark Knowles > 04-04-2020, 02:29 PM
(04-04-2020, 02:18 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have discussed them in blogs and have posted examples.
Well, you say that you have no difficulty in finding all my examples then it would be great to see images from your sources. From what I have seen on your blog these are very limited. Anyone can find the most basic characters EVA-o EVA-a EVA-d EVA-c EVA-l EVA-y EVA-q as I obviously can find in cipher keys; I hardly thought these basic characters worth mentioning. The more complex glyphs are the more interesting ones when it comes to looking at the source of the script that is why I tended to focus on them. So yes it would be great to see these easy to find genuine examples. -
RE: Mark Knowles' theories of pharma and other labels
-JKP- > 04-04-2020, 02:33 PM
Mark, I have posted benched and stacked characters, I have posted many examples and fairly long explanations of qo, m, g, y, r, and other common Latin characters. You keep saying you've read my paleo blogs but you must have missed several if you haven't seen these examples. They are not sparse. -
RE: Mark Knowles theories' of pharma and other labels
RenegadeHealer > 04-04-2020, 02:34 PM
@JKP thank you for the dense, chewy infographic that you made out of Mark's table. Please tell me you are, or at least have been, a teacher at some point in your life. If you ever write a book or teach a course on medieval European writing, I'll buy it.
Just a suggestion, but I recommend you write "Copyright 2020 J.K. Peterson, with credit to Mark Knowles" conspicuously on that infographic, and consider adding a few less conspicuous You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I speak from experience; in medical school I created a number of similar illustrated infographics for study purposes. I let classmates distribute them freely, in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin. I stopped being as giving when one of them was plagiarized and altered, and I had no way of proving that I was the creator of the original. It's a jungle out there. -
RE: Mark Knowles theories' of pharma and other labels
-JKP- > 04-04-2020, 02:36 PM
(04-04-2020, 02:34 PM)RenegadeHealer Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
Just a suggestion, but I recommend you write "Copyright 2020 J.K. Peterson, with credit to Mark Knowles" conspicuously on that infographic, and consider adding a few less conspicuous You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I speak from experience; in medical school I created a number of similar illustrated infographics for study purposes. I let classmates distribute them freely, in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin. I stopped being as giving when one of them was plagiarized and altered, and I had no way of proving that I was the creator of the original. It's a jungle out there.
Ouch, sorry to hear it. Yes, I guess I have to keep that in mind. It's a jungle out there. -
RE: Mark Knowles' theories of pharma and other labels
Mark Knowles > 04-04-2020, 02:48 PM
(04-04-2020, 02:33 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Mark, I have posted benched and stacked characters, I have posted many examples and fairly long explanations of qo, m, g, y, r, and other common Latin characters. You keep saying you've read my paleo blogs but you must have missed several if you haven't seen these examples. They are not sparse.
First point explanations are not examples. I can easily come up with explanations for all the Voynich glyphs. My suspicion is that when I saw your examples before, as I thought you linked to them, and wasn't struck by the parallels. However if you link to those posts I will see if there is one that I have missed.