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Re: The letters <p> and <f>, again
[Oops, I had sent this reply to Rene only instead of the whole list. Sorry...]
> [Karl Kluge:] D'Imperio points to f57r where there is a repeated
> sequence of characters, except in one sequence V occurs for B.
> On that basis, she suggests that perhaps B = V (and therefore,
> possibly F = P) (i.e., p = f and k = t rather than p = t and f =
> k).
Yes, you will find a formatted copy of that sequence in
http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/Notes/034/Note-034.html
Here it is :
| 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
- + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
1 | o l j r v x k m f &L t r &H &G y &I &Y
2 | o l d r v x k m f &L t r &H &G y c &Y
3 | o l d r v x k m p &L t r &H &G y c &Y
4 | o l d r v x k m p &L t r &H &G y c &Y
- + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
See that page for the meaning of &L, &H, &G, &I, &Y.
Here it is converted to Currier (except for the weirdos):
| 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
- + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
1 | O E 7 R v x F J V &L P R &H &G 9 &I &Y
2 | O E 8 R v x F J V &L P R &H &G 9 c &Y
3 | O E 8 R v x F J B &L P R &H &G 9 c &Y
4 | O E 8 R v x F J B &L P R &H &G 9 c &Y
- + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Indeed the occurrence of <f> and <p> in homologous positions (column
09) could mean that they are equivalent. But, in that case, then we
should also conclude that <r> = <s> --- which is not impossible, but
very unlikely. On the other hand, the consistent use of <k> on column
07 and <t> on column 12 should also be taken as proof that these two
letters are distinct.
However, position 09 may be a special one. If the period boundaries
are indeed between positions 17 and 01 -- as suggested by the break at
10:30 and the <dairar> label -- then position 09 is precisely the
center of the period. Or, if the &L weirdo (which looks a lot like the
number "17" in old German digits) marks one end of the period, then
the other end would be either column 11 or column 09. Note also that
we have <f> in two consecutive periods, and <p> in the other two.
So perhaps <f> and <p> are indeed distinct, and the switch is
a meaningful part of the pattern.
In any case the, letters on that ring (and some of those on other
rings, too) seem to be symbols -- "keys" of some sort -- rather than
letters with phonetic value. So their possible equivalence *as keys*
may not have much relevance for other text. E.g. the English letters
"A" and "a" are phonetically equivalent, but are distinct symbols in
math. Conversely "u" and "v" are phonetically distinct, but
can be interchanged in Latin words or Roman numerals.
Besides, the handwriting on this page seems to be uglier than average;
the two <f>s in particular look quite different from each other, and
several of the symbols don't occur anywhere else. So perhaps *all* 17
symbols were meant to be weirdos, distinct from ordeinary letters; and
what we see is the result of an ignorant scribe interpreting some of
those weirdos as variants of the ordinary letters which he had
previously learned to copy.
> [Rene:] Stolfi's table shows that one can usually exchange <k>
> for <t> (or v.v.) and come up with a valid Voynich word.
Note that the table did not list complete words, but only word
fragments.
Indeed, swapping <k> for <t> in a whole word generally produces
another valid word. Ditto for swapping <p> with <f>. *But these
swaps change the word frequencies substantially*, and there
doesn't seem to be a clear pattern.
So I would rather believe that <k> and <t> are "phonetically" similar,
but semantically distinct (like "t" and "d" in Spanish or Italian,
say), and that the vocabulary is so "dense" that almost any
phonetically valid string is a common word.
> This is also true for the pair <f> and <p>. At the same time, it
> shows that you cannot exchange {<k> or <t>} for {<f> or <p>}
> (although there may be exceptions).
True, but the point is that the most obvious differences betwen <k/t>
and <p/f> seem to disappear if we replace *some* of the <p>/<f> by
<pe>/<fe>, some <cfh>/<cph> by <cphe>/<cfhe>, and omit the ligatures
in some of the <ch> that follow those letters.
> The appearance of <f> and <p> at top lines of paragraphs only
> (virtually), should remind us of the gallows in the letter shown
> in Capelli, where these are purely ornamental additions to
> existing letters at the top and bottom lines only.
Surely <k> and <t> are not ornamental; their distribution is too
consistent for that.
> Do we get valid Voynich words if the f's and p's are simply
> removed?
Good question.
Here is a tentative answer. Below are the words with <p>/<f> gallows,
where both variants together have at least 5 occurrences in the book,
for which omitting the gallows produces a word with less than 5
occurrences. (The first line says that the words <qotchdy>, <qokchdy>
<qopchdy> and <qofchdy> occur 19, 44, 15, and 1 times, respectively,
while <qochdy> does not occur at all.)
gallows letter
---------------------
t k p f - rest of word
--- --- --- --- --- -------------
19 44 15 1 0 qo-chdy
21 38 30 8 2 qo-chedy
21 16 16 5 1 o-chdy
123 137 8 3 2 o-al
61 65 9 1 2 qo-chy
75 138 9 1 2 chc-hy
And here are those where the <p> and <f> variants occur
at least 5 times, and the gallows-less variant occurs
more than 10 times:
gallows letter
---------------------
t k p f - rest of word
--- --- --- --- --- -------------
128 120 10 3 13 o-ar
142 202 13 4 23 o-aiin
10 7 4 2 15 y-chey
3 0 12 0 31 -chedar
9 10 4 2 24 qo-
1 5 4 4 35 ol-chedy
73 252 4 1 23 qo-aiin
0 1 7 0 35 -olchedy
0 0 7 1 44 -olaiin
12 3 8 0 44 c-haiin
3 0 6 1 41 -chodaiin
110 40 11 6 148 c-hy
15 20 10 4 136 -chdy
6 4 6 2 83 -cheody
5 6 3 2 63 -cho
8 3 6 1 86 -chody
29 20 33 10 496 -chedy
15 1 3 2 68 c-har
6 6 12 1 165 -cheol
0 13 6 2 117 l-chedy
19 20 12 2 199 -chor
3 4 5 0 92 -cheor
23 28 3 4 148 -chy
6 6 4 4 167 -cheey
57 22 16 3 384 c-hol
47 36 22 3 518 -ol
20 20 10 2 334 -chey
47 10 6 0 199 c-hor
14 20 9 3 384 -chol
53 29 6 4 334 c-hey
41 47 5 4 336 -ar
20 21 7 1 335 -or
42 62 7 0 431 -aiin
23 61 5 0 334 che-y
9 5 3 2 423 -shedy
14 4 5 0 496 c-hedy
It seems that the <p> and <f> gallows are deletable when they
occur at the beginning of the word (with or without
platform. On the other hand, the instances that cannot be
deleted are generally receded by <o> or <qo>.
For comparison, let's look at the <t>/<k> gallows too. Below are the
words with <t>/<k> gallows, with combined counts >= 10, for which
omitting the gallows produces an invalid word. (The first line says
that the words <qotey> and <qokey> occur 23 and 106 times,
respectively, while <qopey>, <qofey>, and <qoey> do not occur at all.)
gallows letter
---------------------
t k p f - rest of word
--- --- --- --- --- -------------
23 106 0 0 0 qo-ey
56 62 0 0 0 o-ey
36 60 0 0 0 o-eol
43 45 0 0 0 -edy
24 54 0 0 0 y-eey
19 44 15 1 0 qo-chdy
30 24 0 0 0 o-eody
24 24 0 0 0 y-eedy
6 39 0 0 0 l-eedy
1 40 0 0 0 l-eey
21 20 0 0 0 y-edy
1 38 0 0 0 ol-eey
7 32 4 2 0 chc-hey
9 30 0 0 0 qo-eody
16 23 0 0 0 -eol
12 26 1 0 0 qo-am
5 28 0 0 0 l-edy
4 26 0 0 0 ol-edy
9 18 0 0 0 o-eeol
5 21 0 0 0 -eody
10 16 1 0 0 o-aly
11 14 0 0 0 o-eeody
12 13 0 0 0 o-ody
12 12 1 0 0 y-al
5 17 0 0 0 qo-aly
9 13 1 0 0 y-eody
13 9 3 1 0 qo-chor
8 11 0 0 0 o-eal
12 7 0 0 0 o-edar
3 15 0 0 0 qo-eed
9 9 0 0 0 qo-ody
5 12 0 0 0 y-eol
8 8 0 0 0 y-eeody
9 7 0 0 0 o-o
6 9 2 4 0 -
6 9 4 0 0 chc-hedy
8 7 0 0 0 y-ain
2 12 0 0 0 qo-echy
4 10 2 0 0 cheoc-hy
7 7 0 0 0 cho-ey
10 4 0 0 0 y-am
4 9 0 0 0 o-shy
5 8 0 0 0 qo-eo
1 11 0 0 0 y-eeol
4 8 0 0 0 -eeody
4 8 0 0 0 -eor
6 6 1 0 0 o-oldy
1 10 0 0 0 ol-ey
3 8 0 0 0 qo-ed
3 8 0 0 0 qo-edar
4 7 1 0 0 o-aldy
5 6 0 0 0 y-eeey
6 5 0 0 0 choc-hey
8 3 0 0 0 o-eed
3 7 0 0 0 -eo
4 6 0 0 0 chy-y
4 6 0 0 0 qo-chd
4 6 0 0 0 y-eor
5 5 4 0 0 o-ary
Given that about half of the word occurrences have no gallows, the
fact that words like <qoey> don't occur seems quite significant. There
are a dozen more common <t>/<k> words where deleting the gallows
produces a valid but very rare word.
On the other hand, here are some common <t>/<k> words where the
gallows apparently can be omitted:
gallows letter
-------------------------------
t k p f - rest of word
--- --- --- --- --- -------------
40 300 0 0 14 qo-eey
82 137 4 0 10 qo-y
72 301 0 0 18 qo-eedy
128 120 10 3 13 o-ar
55 132 1 0 10 qo-ar
142 202 13 4 23 o-aiin
73 252 4 1 23 qo-aiin
34 34 3 1 12 cho-y
1 45 1 0 13 l-aiin
1 28 0 0 12 ol-ain
1 17 0 0 13 l-y
2 11 0 1 11 ol-ar
10 7 4 2 15 y-chey
12 5 1 1 15 y-chor
110 40 11 6 148 c-hy
6 6 3 0 12 y-chol
9 10 4 2 24 qo-
1 31 0 1 44 ol-aiin
1 10 0 0 17 ch-ain
11 33 0 0 73 -ain
1 11 1 0 25 she-
2 18 1 1 44 ch-aiin
6 13 2 0 47 ch-al
1 19 0 1 55 ol-y
12 3 8 0 44 c-haiin
23 28 3 4 148 -chy
8 6 2 0 42 -ody
16 5 1 0 63 c-ho
12 12 2 0 72 -air
17 22 2 0 135 -y
47 10 6 0 199 c-hor
18 4 2 0 86 c-hody
41 47 5 4 336 -ar
15 20 10 4 136 -chdy
12 5 2 1 69 o-
5 7 2 1 50 che-ar
23 61 5 0 334 che-y
53 29 6 4 334 c-hey
15 1 3 2 68 c-har
42 62 7 0 431 -aiin
3 12 1 0 68 ch-ar
6 4 2 0 47 c-hal
57 22 16 3 384 c-hol
7 9 0 0 83 -am
19 20 12 2 199 -chor
12 16 1 0 148 ch-y
21 28 2 0 262 -al
5 6 3 2 63 -cho
8 2 3 0 58 -odaiin
47 36 22 3 518 -ol
7 34 0 0 268 she-y
14 11 1 1 167 c-heey
8 13 0 1 143 shee-y
3 11 0 1 98 sh-y
6 4 3 0 72 -cheo
3 21 0 1 167 chee-y
6 5 3 1 83 c-heody
8 3 6 1 86 -chody
6 4 6 2 83 -cheody
20 21 7 1 335 -or
20 20 10 2 334 -chey
0 13 6 2 117 l-chedy
4 6 1 1 98 -shy
5 7 0 0 121 -sho
10 6 2 2 165 c-heol
3 13 0 0 167 ch-eey
29 20 33 10 496 -chedy
14 20 9 3 384 -chol
6 5 0 1 136 c-hdy
6 6 12 1 165 -cheol
6 6 4 4 167 -cheey
5 6 0 0 167 che-ey
1 9 0 0 158 qo-l
6 4 4 0 180 -shol
8 6 2 0 268 -shey
14 4 5 0 496 c-hedy
9 5 3 2 423 -shedy
It seems that the cases of "essential" <t>/<k> gallows are generally those
words with <o>, <qo>, or <y> prefixes; and words where the gallows
has a platform, or is followed by "e"s. The "removable" <t>/<k> gallows
also seem to include a large fraction of initial cases. (I believe that
John Grove has already noticed that.)
Of course, the fact that a given letter can be removed
from many words does not mean that it is superflous. (Consider
final "s" or "y" in English, or
> Or are they ornate variations of other letters?
On the whole, considering their distribution whithin paragraphs,
I would say that they are ornate versions of *something* --- probably
combinations of letters.
> On a more frivolous note, having recently been to Prague I find
> it irresistable not to learn a bit more about the Czech language.
> (I can already say: "do not enter or leave the train, the doors
> are about to close") :-)
Let me see, I bet it it sounds something like
"U concete prosím u vístup a nástup ..." 8-)
> To the point. Czech has a number of orthographic rules which remind
> me a bit of some of the observations made by Stolfi (no 'e' after
> 'f' or 'p').
Unfortunately many other languages have these rules, too.
(Even... you know which one. 8-)
All the best,
--stolfi