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Voynich Article in The Atlantic
- Voynich Article in The Atlantic
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RE: Voynich Article in The Atlantic
R. Sale > 15-08-2024, 11:13 PM
The primary contention of this potentially ground-breaking investigation might be called the 'Hypothesis of Five Hands', in other words, five differing styles of glyph formation in the written Voynichese text.
The question I have has to do with the subsequent assumption that 'five hands' means there were five scribes. Five scribes necessarily constitute five individuals, and suddenly there's this small group of people communicating in this unknown language.
The question is, to what extent might a person's writing style be influenced by injury to the fingers etc., or by a progressive disease such as arthritis?
In other words, instead of the scenario where five guys in a back room wrap up production in a week and a half, could it be that some arthritic old lady took years to make the VMs and her writing style changed over time? -
RE: Voynich Article in The Atlantic
pfeaster > 17-08-2024, 03:51 PM
(15-08-2024, 11:13 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The question I have has to do with the subsequent assumption that 'five hands' means there were five scribes. Five scribes necessarily constitute five individuals, and suddenly there's this small group of people communicating in this unknown language.
The question is, to what extent might a person's writing style be influenced by injury to the fingers etc., or by a progressive disease such as arthritis?
I'm not sure disease or injury would have changed the factors on which the "five scribes" hypothesis is based. They center on abstract forms of glyphs that don't seem likely to have been affected by a writer's physical state. On the few occasions I've encountered documents written by someone whose writing definitely suffered from a hand injury -- it looks wobbly and the person explicitly wrote about the injury and difficulty -- you'd never mistake the handwriting itself for that of another person.
That said, I wish I knew more than I do about the dynamics of people learning to write, and especially adults learning to write unfamiliar scripts.
For example, Athanasius Kircher reportedly learned Coptic, including its distinctive alphabet, during the 1630s. I don't know whether specimens of his handwritten Coptic survive spanning the time from his first fumbling efforts (ca. 1633) to the proficiency he must have gained by the time he wrote his Coptic grammar (published 1636). I'd be surprised, however, if the ways in which he wrote each of the Coptic glyphs didn't change over those years as his habits evolved and then stabilized, or as he returned to the subject after being away from it for a while (if that ever happened).
Can anyone point to any literature in paleography or forensic handwriting analysis dealing with this specific kind of scenario? -
RE: Voynich Article in The Atlantic
BessAgritianin > 18-08-2024, 07:06 AM
(15-08-2024, 11:13 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The primary contention of this potentially ground-breaking investigation might be called the 'Hypothesis of Five Hands', in other words, five differing styles of glyph formation in the written Voynichese text.
The question I have has to do with the subsequent assumption that 'five hands' means there were five scribes. Five scribes necessarily constitute five individuals, and suddenly there's this small group of people communicating in this unknown language.
The question is, to what extent might a person's writing style be influenced by injury to the fingers etc., or by a progressive disease such as arthritis?
In other words, instead of the scenario where five guys in a back room wrap up production in a week and a half, could it be that some arthritic old lady took years to make the VMs and her writing style changed over time?
Exactly!
Or the scribe was under the influence of some drink or some herbal tea of his?
Or there was a way to print in some way with stamps made from clay or potatoes or something.
The idea of more scribes is not new. So what is the new thing in all the article except that we learn more about SF? -
RE: Voynich Article in The Atlantic
LisaFaginDavis > 20-08-2024, 11:36 PM
It is of course POSSIBLE that the five different varieties of Voynichese script were all written by the same hand (just about ANYTHING is remotely possible), but it is EXTREMELY unlikely. Part of the discipline of paleography has to do with ductus, that is, the movement of the hand holding the writing implement. The same scribe might write the same character faster or slower or more or less carefully over the course of their lifetime, but generally speaking, the platonic ideal of that character won't change. For example, I've been writing [&] the same way my whole life, but over the course of time even if the character may look different, the series of penstrokes I use, their sequence and direction, will remain consistent.
As for the article in the Atlantic, it is not intended to be a scholarly or academic essay. It is for the general public, so I would not expect there to be anything there that is new to Ninja readers. -
RE: Voynich Article in The Atlantic
Aga Tentakulus > 21-08-2024, 12:50 PM
But you can also see the differences.
And you can also make them visible. Now not only the hand changes, but also the writing style.
A bit much to categorise it as the same.
I can see it, but I can't assign it to the individual writers. -
RE: Voynich Article in The Atlantic
pfeaster > 21-08-2024, 09:38 PM
(20-08-2024, 11:36 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Part of the discipline of paleography has to do with ductus, that is, the movement of the hand holding the writing implement. The same scribe might write the same character faster or slower or more or less carefully over the course of their lifetime, but generally speaking, the platonic ideal of that character won't change. For example, I've been writing [&] the same way my whole life, but over the course of time even if the character may look different, the series of penstrokes I use, their sequence and direction, will remain consistent.
I can well imagine this being true of "ordinary" writing, once a person's habits have stabilized.
Do you know of any studies of the handwriting of someone who has devised a new writing system and has then gradually internalized it and adjusted it over time? I'm not sure how often this situation is likely to have come up within the field.
Here's a little raw material, for whatever it might be worth:
Back when I was around thirteen or fourteen, I designed a private script for use among a small group of my friends. Here's one of the first things I wrote in it:
Here are the first few entries in a diary I kept in the same script a year or two later:
Here's something I wrote around five years after coming up with the script -- a copy I'd made for myself of some of a friend's poetry in high school:
Today, around forty years after first designing the script, I'm definitely out of practice, but I just grabbed a random book off the shelf and copied out the first paragraph while trying not to think too much about what I was doing (and I can spot at least one actual mistake):
Finally, here's something written by one of my friends who had also learned the script:
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RE: Voynich Article in The Atlantic
asteckley > 23-08-2024, 02:19 AM
(21-08-2024, 09:38 PM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Back when I was around thirteen or fourteen, I designed a private script for use among a small group of my friends. Here's one of the first things I wrote in it:
I can definitely see a few similarities to Voynichese.
OK Patrick! Fess up... you're the author of the VMS aren't you.
