(I will use EVA translitteration in there)
Hello Voynich ninja,
I am a new enthusiast of the VMS, and I noticed something odd on my first parse through of the manuscript (what isn't odd in this piece, you'll say, butthis looks odder than the rest), that I haven't seen discussed yet : on both sides of f8 (and later in the MS, which seems to me to show a pattern from which something could be extracted by someone with knowledge), there is what looks like a ligature, using a character [t] to join two distinct [ch] segments. Each leg of the [t] starts between the [c] and [h], and there are other characters in between.
The first occurrence is on f8r, at the start of the third paragraph, enclosing an [o] and a space, and the second [ch] group is at the start of its word [chay] (unsure on the exact symbols). Then we have the one at the top of f8v, enclosing [oj soo] and the second [ch] is word-final.
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Login to view. uses it to enclose two long words [oo rcholyCTHy] (the capital [CTH] represents the end of the "ligature")
An even fancier version appears at the top of f42r, enclosing [CTHo ofdaiin (cth)achCTHy] (CTH represents the boundaries of the symbol) and having two more loops on its inside
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Login to view. has the same [t] symbol spreading its legs around [o!chal chchs!y] (using the exclamation point as one leg if this [t]).
the CTH reappears on You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. (right below the "stream"), without any other character between its legs. It seems to be the first occurrence of this symbol alone, and the first I could find that is not with 100% certainty paragraph-initial (it's the leftmost character on its line and the stream looks like a nice divider, but the line right before is pretty full, so I could hear the argument those blocks are the same paragraph ; but let's say 95%)
I also want to exhibit f85r, where several seemingly-diacrited [ch] pairs appear ; maybe that mysterious CTH is a ligature of those, in contexts where there is space above the line.
The CTH itself (or something mighty close to it) reappears on the second paragraph of f86v, with the "c-loops" closed by the bars of the [t]. This occurrence is part of the word [CTHolCTHa]
A CPH glyph, with the P similarly extended over other characters and an extra loop and leg coming down between a second [ch] group, appears in f90r. Maybe this is proof that it's only an aesthetic enhancement and all this enumeration has been a waste of time (but that's research, a lot of wastes of time, until one pays off), maybe the component "second loop" is a meaningful symbol in itself which would lead to a rework of the symbols [t], [f], [p], [k].
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Login to view. is very interesting, regarding this symbol : we have only the right half of it, the first [ch] group is either erased or never existed. The ink on this page doesn't seem that faded, so I don't quite believe in the possibility it could have been erased. A multispectral pic would be hugely helpful.
And another asymmetric one appears on You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. (bottom paragraph) ; there, the left letter is a simple [o], with [OTiol soCTHey] the words below the bar.
On the next folio (f100r) is the first CTH I have seen to not be paragraph-initial, we find [OTHdaTOto] in the middle of the first line. The verso has another CTH, a much more classical one than the variants we saw earlier, with [CTHdeiCTHa] (uncertain of the transcription between D and the end of the CTH). Only peculiarity is that its left-part is closed (as the one on You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. is). We also find another one on the folded page f101r, which looks like a CT without the terminal H on the left part. You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. also has a CTH, with the top bar being composed of continuous loops, enclosing [CTHol dCTHoda].
Now I think I have them all, and I can proceed to real questions and spitballing.
First, have those been examined anywhere else ? What is the expert opinion on these ?
My own (near-layman) opinion, is that it looks like scribal flourish, some kind of illumination like we have on f1r, and may be used to distinguish writers or chronology but doesn't impart meaning. This idea jumped to my mind when I found that Q19 was littered with those (5 in 4 folii), while Q20, while being a wall of thext, doesn't have any.