Re: Reading the Voynich MS in Voynich

[Dennis <ixohoxi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Adam McLean wrote:
> 
> 
> Is the use of the transcription into Latin characters a
> hinderance to our investigation of the manuscript ?  Has
> transcribing it into our familiar English alphabet actually
> removed  us somewhat from the context and we have
> lost some facet of the work which is contained
> somehow in the shapes of the Voynich characters
> themselves?

	In my entropy paper, I showed that the differences in
entropy values 
among the various transcription systems is enormous.  
The older systems, Currier and FSG, combined a lot more 
squiggles into one letter than the newer systems do.  

> When, a few years ago, I tried to do some work on
> the manuscript, I felt unhappy with using the
> transcription and instead built up a database of
> the words in the manuscript and displayed them using
> the Voynich font.  I did not at that time have any
> revelations or insights, but I wonder if we are really
> losing something when we think of 'tchedy' without
> seeing instead the actual Voynich characters.

	Even using the Voynich font could easily be deceptive,
since it's based on our transcription systems.  We
still argue over what squiggles make or do not make a
difference.  

	Mark Sullivan spoke of seeming vertical alignments of
characters.  That's the sort of thing we could be
missing.  

	However, I don't think that we need an absolutely
perfect system to solve the VMs.  Crippies have always
had to deal with garbled reception, etc.  So long as a
lot of it is right, we have a chance.

Dennis