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RE: No text, but a visual code
Bluetoes101 > 08-08-2025, 11:17 PM
(08-08-2025, 07:35 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If we assume the text is language... It's something I don't assume.
"There's no explanation for this behavior in a linguistic system."
If we say it is a abbreviation of a group of letters found in a language outside of the bulk text in which it is not normally found, that's an explanation. Maybe not a brilliant one, but it is one.
I can't really address this and not talk about language. -
RE: No text, but a visual code
ReneZ > 08-08-2025, 11:37 PM
Another possibility is based on an important fact which is entirely obvious but hardly ever mentioned.
If the Voynich MS text is the rendition of some source text, then this source text would be handwritten. Not printed. This means that the source text may well have had some variant shapes only on top lines of paragraphs due to the extra space, and the f and p are the result of that.
One can apply this also to line starts and line ends.... -
RE: No text, but a visual code
ReneZ > 09-08-2025, 07:00 AM
(08-08-2025, 10:44 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Rene may correct me, but IIUC in the Thai script there are elements of a letter that may be added at the left of the main body, at the right of it, or inside it.
All Thai syllables start with a consonant (sometimes two) and have a vowel (or diphthong or more) following. The vowel is not always written, but when it is, there are some that are indeed written before the consonant.
For example, my name would be written เรเน which spells e-r-e-n
Thus, there are symbols that typically appear at the start of words, and for other reasons there are others that will typically appear at the end.
However, this is not something very conspicuous, as words are written strung together. -
RE: No text, but a visual code
ReneZ > 09-08-2025, 09:27 AM
(09-08-2025, 07:16 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thanks! As for the "inside" part, I must have confused Thai with the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., in which some vowel sign are written around or bracketing the consonant.
No, that also happens in Thai. It would have made my answer quite a bit longer.
The (prefixed) vowel เ is also part of several such combinations, which makes it appear very frequently at the start of words. In dictionaries, sorting is primarily based on consonants, so words starting with เ appear throughout the dictionary.
You will also find ไ ใ and โ at word starts. Note: these are not gallows ;-)
ะ belongs at word ends, but altogether this is far from enough to build a word structure like Voynichese. -
RE: Gallows Island
Koen G > 09-08-2025, 01:23 PM
Thread split. -
RE: Gallows Island
cvetkakocj@rogers.com > 09-08-2025, 02:00 PM
(08-08-2025, 08:00 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.es, I know that very well. That is why I wrote "The p and f gallows are most likely just calligraphic variants of t and k, or of some combinations like te and ke (it is still unclear which ones)"
As Currier observed, many Voynich glyphs look like Latin letter used in medieval European scripts, letters such as a, c, d, e, h, i, l, m, n, o, r, u, v, z, however the Germanic letterforms k, t are missing, therefore, it is reasonable to assume that they stand for k and t. The Latin letters p, f are also missing and many researchers are transcribing EVA p and f as Latin p and f. Some experts on Voynich grammar, starting with Currier, also believe that EVA p and f might stand for abbreviated pe and fe, which according to the Voynich grammatical peculiarity of dropped vowels does not make much sense. Without knowing the language, one cannot assume, how many missing te and ke there should be. What I noticed missing is the letter combinations sv, cv, zv (Slavic) , zw, sw (Germanic), sue (Latin), that were frequently used in the 15th century. Assuming that these letter combinations are represented in the Voynich Manuscript as eva p and f, this would also explain relatively few initial s letters in the Voynich manuscript. Also, many important Slavic words that would be expected to have prominent place in the Voynich Manuscript, start with SV/ZV/CV. -
RE: Gallows Island
Jorge_Stolfi > 09-08-2025, 02:52 PM
(09-08-2025, 02:00 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As Currier observed, many Voynich glyphs look like Latin letter used in medieval European scripts, letters such as a, c, d, e, h, i, l, m, n, o, r, u, v, z, however the Germanic letterforms k, t are missing, therefore, it is reasonable to assume that they stand for k and t. T[...]
I don't think that the Voynichese alphabet was meant to resemble European letters shapes at all. To me it is obvious that the Author created the alphabet from scratch by systematically combining pairs of simple strokes.
(In the above table, instead of the ligature line, the last column should be for h, which counts as a single stroke too. Combined with e and i on the left, it generates Ch and Ih, which are reasonably common glyphs.)
The primary concern of the Author apparently was to make the glyphs easy to write with a quill pen on vellum, which is best done with the pen moving in directions between Southwest and East for right-handed writers. Since he was not bound to the Roman letter values, he probably tried to assign similar glyphs to similar sounds, much like the creators of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. did.
All the best, --jorge -
RE: Gallows Island
cvetkakocj@rogers.com > 09-08-2025, 08:51 PM
(09-08-2025, 02:52 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(09-08-2025, 02:00 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As Currier observed, many Voynich glyphs look like Latin letter used in medieval European scripts, letters such as a, c, d, e, h, i, l, m, n, o, r, u, v, z, however the Germanic letterforms k, t are missing, therefore, it is reasonable to assume that they stand for k and t. T[...]
I don't think that the Voynichese alphabet was meant to resemble European letters shapes at all. To me it is obvious that the Author created the alphabet from scratch by systematically combining pairs of simple strokes.
The primary concern of the Author apparently was to make the glyphs easy to write with a quill pen on vellum, which is best done with the pen moving in directions between Southwest and East for right-handed writers. Since he was not bound to the Roman letter values, he probably tried to assign similar glyphs to similar sounds, much like the creators of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. did.
All the best, --jorge
Hi, Jorge,
I believe the alphabet you are using is too chopped-up. I was using basic EVA and adopted it for the Latin letters. However, my transcription does not reflect Latin language, but rather Latin letters which in different languages were read as the same, or as different sounds. In many vernacular languages that were written for the first time in the middle language, the letterforms were not standardized yet, particularly challenging were the minims, letters y and w. However, the recognizable words in different languages.
I understand that writing with a quill pen on a rough surface was not an easy task and often resulted in ambiguous letterforms, however the general shape can be recognized. Like the letter a for example.Look at the similar letter forms of a in the VM by five different scribes, and in 5 different 15th century manuscripts. Not all letters are so easily comparable, but if one follows the changes and use of the shapes of the Latin letters, some features of the letters might be recognized, like l as a straight line, and a three-angular cursive l. Besides, the cursive handwriting is always personal and often difficult to read. The most confusing feature of VM cursive writing is the connective line between two letters, that is often at the top, not at the bottom as we are used to. Considering this, it is easy to differentiate EVA m as a combination of letters i and l, or to interpret the slight space between minims as in or iv, instead of m or w.
I made some adjustments to EVA transliteration alphabet to turn it into transcription alphabet to convert Voynich glyphs to Latin letters, which does not mean that the VM language is Latin, because different Latin letters were often used for different sounds in different languages. When the vernacular languages accepted Latin alphabet, they often had to make adjustments for their unique sounds by:
- using one Latin letter for one or more sounds;
- using two or more Latin letters for a unique sound,
- dropping the letter (usually unstressed short vowel)
- using diacritic markers,
- slightly redesigning Latin letter form,
- inventing new letterform.
In the Voynich Manuscript, all these principles are at work. -
RE: Gallows Island
Bluetoes101 > 09-08-2025, 09:16 PM
Of the two proposed options for f/p I don't think either can be correct without "extra steps".
"f/p" seem unlikely to be fancy "k/t". This is because of the lack of proceeding "e"
"f/p" seem unlikely to be "ke/te" ligatures for the same reason - the lack of proceeding "e" (kee/tee)
Extra steps example
"kee" in "p = ke" logic might be resolved by "cph". This would mean "ch" ends "e", the start would make new problems in this theory.
This example is just what seems the easiest guess to me, but others may have better.