Re: Voynich and African Writing Systems (Coptic)

[Dennis <ixohoxi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lisa Karnan wrote:
> 
> Writing systems are not independent of language.  The scribes of the Voynich MMS could, certainly, have used > a far-flung writting system to represent ordinary Latin but then we're stuck with the problem of > transmission: how did they learn said far-flung script?  And if this hypothesis is true, are they using the > far-flung script accurately?
> If so, the base language would still be identifiable as Latin.

	I don't see this.

> Coptic (Hellenistic Egyptian written in an adapted Greek alphabet) looks terribly outlandish at first blush, but Greek loan-words -- even badly spelled ones -- are still clearly Greek.

	The Coptic script was based on *uncial* Greek script,
which I think is very beautiful.  If you were familiar
with the Greek uncial, I don't think Coptic would look
strange at all, because Coptic *was* Greek uncial, with
a few signs from demotic Egyptian added.  

> It would help immensely to know what language the Voynich MMS was trying to represent -- Champollion learned > as much as he could about Egyptian (including studying Coptic) before he deciphered hieroglyphics:  to > assume hieroglyphics represented Greek instead of Egyptian would have been a dire false start.

	Don't forget that Thomas Young was probably the one
who first thought that the signs in Egyptian cartouches
were alphabetic rather than morphographic - which our
friend Athanasius Kircher had not believed. But it is
indeed true that Champollion's Coptic made the
difference.

	Knowing the underlying language would indeed help
*enormously*.  That's one reason for finding the date
and place of provenance.  We usually say "northern
Italy" for various reasons.  I think the reasons are:

	1) Prof. Sergio Toresella noted that his "alchemical
herbals" were mostly found in northern Italy,
especially Venice.  The herbal images in the VMs really
don't look anything like the ones in the alchemical
herbals, but the alchemical herbals could have given
the author(s) the idea - which is what Toresella thinks
himself.

	2) The list of Renaissance cipher scripts, some of
which look Voynich-like and also could have given the
VMs author(s) an idea, was compiled by the chancery
crippie Trandechino - in northern Italy (which, be it
remembered, was also where the Renaissance was
flourishing).

	3)  Rene has noted that the astrological ms. which
contains diagrams with nymphs positioned around the
diagrams in a very Voynich-like fashion, was in
northern Italy at the time.  

	We feel pretty sure that the Voynich script was
derived from precedents available in this area, so the
problem of transmission is solved.  However, this does
not mean that the underlying language was necessarily
one used in the area.  Especially, Venice was a
cultural crossroads for all the Mediterranean area. 
Such things as Turkish, Arabic, Berber, Hungarian,
Croatian, Slovenian, Albanian, Greek, German, Hebrew,
Yiddish, Ladino, Russian, and Ukrainian could have
shown up in Venice, as well as the more obvious
Spanish, Catalan/Occitan/Provencal, French, the various
forms of Italian, Friulian, and Latin.  

	But you never know.  Kober and Ventriss didn't think
at first that Linear B was Greek, but Ventriss changed
his mind when he saw that Greek fit well.  

	I think the only thing we can do is to assume an
underlying language and work for awhile with that
assumption.  Even if the assumption proves false, we
would still learn a lot.  My choice is still medieval
French.  The folks who think Chinese should take that
and run for awhile.  

Dennis