ololololo > 09-08-2026, 07:59 PM
(09-08-2026, 05:46 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the latter case, it’s unlikely, because if it’s dakakm, then km would be an invalid combination.(07-08-2026, 07:22 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The symbol z looks like a small version of k and appears very rarely in the manuscript.
And this is definitely not k, since the scribe of Astrology has no problem writing this gallows.
Why not?
Space is limited in this special field; not really a good chance to write the "full scale" gallows.
We see at some other occasions how exceedingly big these gallows were written when the sribes had enough space (like in a first line of a page, of a paragraph, or else).
The question here is: did the inventors of VMS alphabet / cipher set chose to produce different characters which are just a few millimeters different by height? Or did they prefer clearly different characters?
The second question is: does the tail at the end transport an additional meaning with the last character, apart from being just end-of-word?
In the last case, all three z would be identical, and maybe identical with k also.
Stefan Wirtz_2 > 09-08-2026, 08:37 PM
(09-08-2026, 07:59 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(09-08-2026, 05:46 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[..]In the latter case, it’s unlikely, because if it’s dakakm, then km would be an invalid combination.
Space is limited in this special field; not really a good chance to write the "full scale" gallows.
[..]
In the last case, all three z would be identical, and maybe identical with k also.
nablator > 09-08-2026, 08:38 PM
ololololo > 10-08-2026, 09:46 AM
(09-08-2026, 08:37 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But I don't get the idea of "invalid combination" here: why should something be invalid..?Essentially, “incorrect” means “non‑standard.” For the most part, m is located at the end of words and is not a highly interactive letter, appearing only after a o and i
oshfdk > 10-08-2026, 10:41 AM
(10-08-2026, 09:46 AM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Essentially, “incorrect” means “non‑standard.” For the most part, m is located at the end of words and is not a highly interactive letter, appearing only after a o and i
PIOCTOEMW > 13-08-2026, 07:29 AM
(07-08-2026, 10:41 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(07-08-2026, 07:22 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The symbol z looks like a small version of k and appears very rarely in the manuscript. I counted it 3 times; only 2 are present in the transcription by Tahakasi. It appears once in Botany (f17r), f58r–f58v, and on the diagram f67v1, and it is repeated twice in the word.
A glyph that is that rare can be assumed to be an "error" or simply a variant of some similar glyph. It will not be this simplification that will prevent us from cracking the manuscript.
Imagine that you are transcribing a book in Latin script but an unknown language and you notice that the letter "K" appears only three times in the whole book, while "H" occurs dozens of times per page. You decide to transcribe those three "K" as "H". Will that make any significant difference when you try to identify the language?
Besides, a case can be made that those "mini-k"s are indeed just k gallows. While there may be few instances that are that small, the vertical size of the gallows seems to vary by a factor of 2 or more. On that same text ring there are some ks whose "head" fits entirely inside the framing circle, and some ks whose "head" lies well beyond it. Are those two distinct "letters", too?
All the best, --stolfi
nablator > 13-08-2026, 11:55 AM
Grove > 14-08-2026, 01:31 PM
(02-08-2026, 09:50 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A glyph that is that rare can be assumed to be an "error" or simply a variant of some similar glyph. It will not be this simplification that will prevent us from cracking the manuscript.
DG97EEB > 14-08-2026, 07:12 PM
(14-08-2026, 01:31 PM)Grove Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(02-08-2026, 09:50 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A glyph that is that rare can be assumed to be an "error" or simply a variant of some similar glyph. It will not be this simplification that will prevent us from cracking the manuscript.
It is doubtful that assuming the glyph anomalies are some sort of simple variation of similar glyphs will prevent us from seeing the underlying text (assuming there is something), but there are hundreds of rare glyphs that often look like they are created from parts of other glyphs not normally joined together. The fact that so many exist seems like it serves a purpose to me, rather than an error. I get that you’re saying they can be treated as an error because they don’t impact most of the content on a page but I think they could help as a focal point for some investigation to try and break what makes them necessary to show up where they do.
Not that anyone has ever succeeded at this approach, but anomalies really can be helpful.
Bluetoes101 > Yesterday, 12:47 AM
(07-08-2026, 07:22 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What do you think about this letter? What can it tell us about the manuscript’s cipher?