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Is there any character like that?
- Is there any character like that?
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RE: Is there any character like that?
ReneZ > 21-04-2025, 07:13 AM
(20-04-2025, 08:11 AM)ErinaBee Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Is there any character in the VM that is generally thought as 1 character but some people believe it to be 2 distinct characters with very subtle differences?
Perhaps one of the best examples is the character Sh .
The curl on top of this character can take on many different shapes, and it can also be more to the left or more to the right.
One possibility is that these are handwriting variations.
On the other hand, Glen Claston strongly believed that these represent several different characters, and he based his complete transliteration of the MS on that.
You can see the various different shapes he distinguished here:
(You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
See at: 2, 3, 5, !, #, %, + .
On the other hand, people who try to treat the Voynich MS text as a simple substitution cipher will sooner or later realise that this does not work.
Very ofter they try to fix it by assuming that a single Voynich character can represent different plaintext characters.
In this case, this is not based on variations in the Voynich characters. They just choose the one or the other that seems to make valid words. -
RE: Is there any character like that?
R. Sale > 21-04-2025, 07:08 PM
Yes, indeed. The basic question is, what's with the 'macron'? - if that is what we can call the upper part. Handwriting variation is a fact, even for a single individual, let alone the possibility of five "scribes". GC's transcriptions were detailed, but how does that now apply according to the five hands?
EVA 'cheody' is a vord in recent discussion. Potentially a name for the moon or a lunar adjective. It occurs 32 times with a macron.
The same vord, with no macron, occurs 70 times. What's with the macron? Is it optional? Some hands do and others don't. Or what's going on? -
RE: Is there any character like that?
BessAgritianin > 22-04-2025, 06:33 AM
Based on my experience, the symbols below represent the most unrecognizable interpretation in readings from the text:
is not equal to
is not equal to
maybe there are more digraphs from these.
Some of the recognitions: "ch", "eh", "oh" etc. -
RE: Is there any character like that?
Koen G > 22-04-2025, 08:26 AM
Try writing a few pages with quill on parchment and then look at your letterforms under a microscope (which is what this zoom level amounts to). Reading a handwritten text involves our brains constantly filtering out irregularities.
Unless you're like a friend of mine, her handwriting is incredibly consistent. They called her the human typewriter.
Myself, I couldn't produce two identical letters if my life depended on it. -
RE: Is there any character like that?
Hider > 22-04-2025, 10:08 AM
[
quote="Koen G" pid='66048' dateline='1745306812']
Try writing a few pages with quill on parchment and then look at your letterforms under a microscope (which is what this zoom level amounts to). Reading a handwritten text involves our brains constantly filtering out irregularities.
Unless you're like a friend of mine, her handwriting is incredibly consistent. They called her the human typewriter.
Myself, I couldn't produce two identical letters if my life depended on it.
[/quote]
Quite pessimistic.
With a good course in calligraphy, and in the Middle Ages it was a compulsory discipline in educational institutions, letters were written uniformly. -
RE: Is there any character like that?
Koen G > 22-04-2025, 10:22 AM
(22-04-2025, 10:08 AM)Hider Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.With a good course in calligraphy, and in the Middle Ages it was a compulsory discipline in educational institutions, letters were written uniformly.
This is just not true. Sure, it is possible that high-end manuscripts reached something we could call uniformity, but this is clearly not the genre we have in front of us with the VM.
This is the page I happened to have bookmarked to remember the German "recipe book" website: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
For all intents and purposes, this page is randomly chosen. Or pick any other one. Pick any letterform and subject it to the same zoomed-in scrutiny some people apply to the VM writing. You'll be surprised at the variation even within the same page. -
RE: Is there any character like that?
oshfdk > 22-04-2025, 11:04 AM
(22-04-2025, 08:26 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Try writing a few pages with quill on parchment and then look at your letterforms under a microscope (which is what this zoom level amounts to). Reading a handwritten text involves our brains constantly filtering out irregularities.
I think there is a caveat. If Voynichese is a ciphertext, we shouldn't exclude the possibility of the message encoded using tiny variations of strokes or letterforms (as in the Francis Bacon cipher, however, it postdates the MS by 200 years). For me the more important sign is not how small the variation is, but how unambiguously it splits letterforms into distinct groups. So, if it can be shown that for each ch it's clear whether it's tip over the bar, tip under the bar or tip joining the bar kind, then maybe it's worth investigating. On the other hand, if each time you have to guess which one of the variants it is, this is not a good sign.
I've collected a set of ch variants from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f16r, and there doesn't seem to be any consistency in how the left curve and the bar are connected. There are a few outliers and a lot of variation in between. So, I don't think there are three different characters.
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RE: Is there any character like that?
Koen G > 22-04-2025, 12:44 PM
The only way I see an argument like this work, is if it can be demonstrated that the variants are used in different context. That would be a very convincing argument, and an exciting find. Without that, I'm afraid it's just looking at sloppy writing under a microscope. -
RE: Is there any character like that?
oshfdk > 22-04-2025, 01:07 PM
(22-04-2025, 12:44 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The only way I see an argument like this work, is if it can be demonstrated that the variants are used in different context. That would be a very convincing argument, and an exciting find. Without that, I'm afraid it's just looking at sloppy writing under a microscope.
I agree and I think there is one more caveat: if Voynichese is a ciphertext, the meaning of "context" could be a bit unusual. For example, if the characters are reordered or regrouped, the context for each particular character could be not the characters that immediately precede or follow it. -
RE: Is there any character like that?
ErinaBee > 22-04-2025, 01:08 PM
(21-04-2025, 05:04 AM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(20-04-2025, 08:11 AM)ErinaBee Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Is there any character in the VM that is generally thought as 1 character but some people believe it to be 2 distinct characters with very subtle differences?
I would rephrase your question:
"Is there one character that is definitively singular in identity, without representing anything beyond itself?"
From a layperson perspective (like we all obviously are), characters appear to have fixed meaning. But is it so?
My humble experience teaches me- not.
I'm not talking about something like Vigenere or something. I'm talking about 2 characters that have subtle differences in appearance like how the stroke connects or how pointy is it. AgaTentakulus's twin letter system is exactly what I'm talking about.
(20-04-2025, 02:07 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have written a paper about this possibility.
I even think it is likely, considering the slow progress in decoding. It would almost double the entropy.
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What is the list of all twins, and what is the difference I should look out for?