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Single Leg Gallows
dashstofsk > Yesterday, 09:22 AM
I think the time has come to say something of my thoughts of the single leg gallows characters. These being f p .
Within the manuscript gallows characters are seen to be written tall in some places and short in others. Here is part of f106v.
Page first lines and paragraph first lines where the line above has ended early seem to be the places where gallow characters are written tall. Or where a line slopes and creates a gap above. These are places where there is room to extend upwards. You can see this clearly in f111v. Where space is limited t k can easily be written short, and often so. But not f p . They cannot easily be written short because they need more room for the backwards line. So this explains why they don’t appear often within a paragraph of packed text. The authors avoid using them there. In a number of occasions where they do come mid-paragraph they appear deformed or collide with neighouring words.
Here also ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ) tchedarchy fchosaiin polaiin polkeeey was written tall, but the line sloped too much and the author then added an extra line sairy ore daiindy ytam to fill the gap.
The authors do like to write f p with a downward swing at the end of the backward line. So whenever they come after another character they need extra height to avoid a clash.
This might possibly be the explanation why f p often appear as the first character in a word, where they can be written freely without being obstructed by any leading character. When they come as the first character of a paragraph first word they are often elaborately fashioned. It might just be a fad of the authors, to want to start a paragraph with the wiggliest possible character.
So f p are being used where it is convenient, and not according to any rule or method, neither linguistic, grammatic, cypheric nor cryptographic. They cannot be separate letters in some language alphabet. The close similarity in the appearance of f p k t suggests that f and p might be nothing more than stylised variants of the more commoner double leg gallows. No particular purpose for them. Just a preference of the authors for writing them that way. -
RE: Single Leg Gallows
oshfdk > Yesterday, 09:29 AM
I generally agree with these observations, but I'm not sure about this conclusion:
(Yesterday, 09:22 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So f p are being used where it is convenient, and not according to any rule or method, neither linguistic, grammatic, cypheric nor cryptographic.
because
(Yesterday, 09:22 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In a number of occasions where they do come mid-paragraph they appear deformed or collide with neighouring words.
This looks like a contradiction to me. If they are used where it is convenient and not according to any rule, why the need to deform them and make them collide with neighbouring words just to squeeze them inconveniently mid-paragraph? -
RE: Single Leg Gallows
dashstofsk > Yesterday, 09:41 AM
(Yesterday, 09:29 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.why the need to deform them and make them collide with neighbouring words just to squeeze them inconveniently mid-paragraph?
Because the authors are not obliged to have to write to any specification or style or format and can write what they like and may have decided on those occasions that they would like to write those characters and in their haste started to write them and then only half way through noticed oops not enough space to write them and then said to themselves oh too bad it will just have to come out funny and most probably no-one will ever mind given that no-one will ever be able to understand what we have written. -
RE: Single Leg Gallows
oshfdk > Yesterday, 10:02 AM
(Yesterday, 09:41 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Because the authors are not obliged to have to write to any specification or style or format and can write what they like and may have decided on those occasions that they would like to write those characters and in their haste started to write them and then only half way through noticed oops not enough space to write them and then said to themselves oh too bad it will just have to come out funny and most probably no-one will ever mind given that no-one will ever be able to understand what we have written.
I guess until the manuscript is decoded or somehow conclusively proven to be meaningless, there is no way to argue against this explanation. Which to me is its main weakness: if there is no way to prove it wrong, there is no way to prove it right either.
On the positive side, I agree that the author appears to be at certain liberty when choosing glyphs, but I don't think this is due to the lack of rules, I think it's because of the rules. Say, if encoding certain plaintext is possible using p or using Sh, the scribe would rather use p where there is a lot of vertical space and sh where vertical space is restricted. And sometimes mid-paragraph they would miscalculate. -
RE: Single Leg Gallows
Koen G > Yesterday, 10:34 AM
It's an interesting way of looking at it. So when there is room, "something" can turn into [p] or [f].
Are they top line forms of [k] and [t]? The correspondence (one and two loops) would suggest so. But on the other hand, all gallows like to appear on the top line. Wouldn't this oversaturate top lines with gallows? -
RE: Single Leg Gallows
davidma > Yesterday, 10:50 AM
(Yesterday, 09:22 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So f p are being used where it is convenient, and not according to any rule or method, neither linguistic, grammatic, cypheric nor cryptographic. They cannot be separate letters in some language alphabet. The close similarity in the appearance of f p k t suggests that f and p might be nothing more than stylised variants of the more commoner double leg gallows. No particular purpose for them. Just a preference of the authors for writing them that way.
I think this could be right, however statistical analysis shows that f and p behave more like ligatures at paragraph start for other characters, if i remember correctly F stands for id (and potentially eid) and p for qd. The paper im referring is the "voynich symbols revisited" one, found here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -
RE: Single Leg Gallows
ReneZ > Yesterday, 10:53 AM
With respect to the rule that p and f are predominantly found on top lines of paragraphs, or more generally, when there is space available above (that also includes circular writing and labels)....:
For me, the most interesting thing about this is that it is not so much a rule, but that it is 'just' a very strong trend. There are too many exceptions.
This is also true for other (similar) types of rules, for example related to m or g .
I do agree with this, about p and f:
(Yesterday, 09:22 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.They cannot be separate letters in some language alphabet.
However, in the 1970's Currier already demonstrated that p and f are not alternatives for t and k, and more recently, Lisa did some more stats from which she concluded that the following would explain a lot:
f is an alternative form for te and p is an alternative form for ke.
(There is no typo here).
Over the years, I have developed an opinion, which would explain a lot of the unusual things we are seeing. This is that the text has been encoded somehow, with rules that allow for some flexibility or some choice by the encoder.
It would explain the lack of repeating sequences of words, and it could explain the differences between the various Currier or RZ languages. Furthermore, Lisa's equivalence above is one good example of it.
This could even explain the very strange behaviour of the text that Patrick Feaster has introduced here, and during his 2022 conference talk. -
RE: Single Leg Gallows
davidma > Yesterday, 11:00 AM
(Yesterday, 10:53 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Over the years, I have developed an opinion, which would explain a lot of the unusual things we are seeing. This is that the text has been encoded somehow, with rules that allow for some flexibility or some choice by the encoder.
It would explain the lack of repeating sequences of words, and it could explain the differences between the various Currier or RZ languages. Furthermore, Lisa's equivalence above is one good example of it.
This could even explain the very strange behaviour of the text that Patrick Feaster has introduced here, and during his 2022 conference talk.
Interestingly enough that is the conclusion reached by the authors of the paper I linked above, basically a single voynich glyph can encode more than one "real" plaintext letter and that the choice of which glyph to use and when was ultimately up to the scribe, hence why we see different scribes using different encoding patterns. They also argue that the very small number of glyphs that are not ligatures of others points to the code being some sort of numerical code. If i remember correctly they identify 10 voynich glyphs in total that do not behave like ligatures. -
RE: Single Leg Gallows
dashstofsk > Yesterday, 11:06 AM
(Yesterday, 10:02 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.if there is no way to prove it wrong, there is no way to prove it right either
Proof? You want proof? I have bad news for you. There is no proof. It is clear there never will be proof. If you are waiting for proof you will still be waiting in a hundred years time. Can you wait that long?
To understand the purpose of this manuscript we need instead to look at what is logical, possible, probable, plausible. It is my belief that people are thinking too hard about the manuscript. A simple solution is probably more likely. Something more in keeping with other 'secret' manuscripts of the period. A new alphabet for an existing language - not possible. An alphabet for an unknown language - improbable. Random gibberish - improbable, illogical. Encyphered text and to necessarily have to do it for all the ~36000 words - possible, not simple, not plausible. An artificial construction fraudulently created to sell on the market for a fortune in florins - plausible and simple. -
RE: Single Leg Gallows
oshfdk > Yesterday, 11:32 AM
(Yesterday, 11:06 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Proof? You want proof? I have bad news for you. There is no proof. It is clear there never will be proof. If you are waiting for proof you will still be waiting in a hundred years time. Can you wait that long?
I do want proof and I'm ok that it might take a while or forever.
(Yesterday, 11:06 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.To understand the purpose of this manuscript we need instead to look at what is logical, possible, probable, plausible. It is my belief that people are thinking too hard about the manuscript. A simple solution is probably more likely. Something more in keeping with other 'secret' manuscripts of the period. A new alphabet for an existing language - not possible.
I'd say "unlikely", but I agree, yes.
(Yesterday, 11:06 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.An alphabet for an unknown language - improbable.
Agree.
(Yesterday, 11:06 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Random gibberish - improbable, illogical.
Agree.
(Yesterday, 11:06 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Encyphered text and to necessarily have to do it for all the ~36000 words - possible, not simple, not plausible.
Not simple, but I'm not sure why it's implausible. As I said before, there are several possible explanations that would require encoding the whole thing:
- necessity to protect the author's anonymity, especially if the author was somewhat famous: so, the invented script that is not possible to match against the known handwriting of the author, and this could also explain the weird drawing style, if the author tried to draw in an unusual manner
- necessity to prevent the identification of the underlying language: maybe the context of creating the manuscript in a certain language would make it suspicious by itself, in some medieval contexts would probably work for Arabic, Hebrew, Greek
- necessity to hide the actual topic of the manuscript: suppose it's a highly satirical pamphlet against the royalty, or a copy of a known banned book, any part of the plaintext would reveal what it is. The images in this case could be metaphorical.
(Yesterday, 11:06 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.An artificial construction fraudulently created to sell on the market for a fortune in florins - plausible and simple.
I think we already had this discussion in another thread - my main argument against this is the lack of embellishments and the small format of the manuscript. The manuscript looks curious, but not necessarily highly valuable. I would expect something made for sale to be much more presentable.