VMS/J.R.R.Tolkien

[Steve Ekwall <ekwall2@xxxxxxxx>]

 From: Dennis <ixohoxi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 To: Richard Shand <rshand@xxxxxxxx>
 Subject: Re: Voynich Questions
 
 Richard Shand wrote:
 > 
 > Dennis,
 > 
 > Greetings!
 > 
 > I hope you are doing well.  Here is an observation from one of
 > another member of the Mystae that you might want to respond to.
 > ________________________________________________
 > 
 > >I've had some interesting "cross-connections" about the Voynich manuscript.
 > >This 'private alphabet' reminds me of the private language games of J.R.R.
 > >Tolkien. He invented languages _first_ you know, and then made up a world
 > >to suit his languages. :) Anyway, he spent alot of time crafting both
 > >languages and alphabets and he actually kept a diary in one of his private
 > >scripts. Or tried to. His biography explains how it actually went:
 > >
 > >The only difficulty was that he could not decide on the final form of it;
 > >he kept on altering the letters and changing their use, so that a sign that
 > >was used for 'r' one week might be used for 'l' the next. Nor did he always
 > >remember to keep a record of these changes, and after a time he found it
 > >difficult to read the earlier entries in the diary.
 > >
 > >Humphrey Carpenter, "J.R.R. Tolkien: The Authorized Biography", p. 100
 > >(first page of the chapter  "Oxford Interlude")
 > >
 > >It seems quite likely to me that whoever made the Voynich manuscript might
 > >also have changed the symbols IN THE PROCESS of writing it. A 'private
 > >language' -- or alphabet -- always has that hazard. If you are the entire
 > >user community you can change it at a whim. Has anyone analyzed different
 > >segments of the manuscript to see if there is more consistency in parts
 > >than in the whole? Or contra-wise, if there are large differences in the
 > >usage of various symbols between different partsof the manuscript? The
 > >information available about Tolkien's creative process could be invaluable
 > >in thinking of other ways to approach the Voynich manuscript.
 
 	For a long time we believed that there was an "A"
 Voynichese and a "B" Voynichese.  There are sizable
 statistical differences between "A" and "B" texts; I
 believe that Captain Prescott Currier discovered this. 
 The penmanship of "A" and "B" are also different.
 
 	It has occurred to us that the differences between "A"
 and "B" might have been due to the same person's
 writing at different times in his/her life.  
 
 	However, we've found that there are comparable
 differences between different texts in a given
 language.  Caesar's *Gallic Wars* and the Latin Vulgate
 Bible show comparable differences.  
 
 	In the early years of VOYNICH-L, some people discussed
 Tolkien's Elvish.  
 
 	Here are some papers that address this issue.
 
 "Currier A and B: two different languages?" by René
 Zandbergen
 http://web.bham.ac.uk/G.Landini/evmt/lang.htm
 
 "Zipf's laws in the Voynich Manuscript", by Gabriel
 Landini
 http://web.bham.ac.uk/G.Landini/evmt/zipf.htm
 
 	In Gabriel's paper, he notes:
 
    "Note that the distance between A and B languages at
 r300 is smaller
 than that between of Genesis and Isaiah in Latin, which
 are written in
 the same language. Also note the small number of common
 words between
 the two texts in Latin. The size of the complete Emma
 is 5.47 times
 larger than the first 10 chapters."
 
 	I'm cc'ing this to the list to see what other ideas
 anyone has.
 
 It's good to hear from you!
 Dennis Stallings
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry about the bandwidth - as you BOTH have a good point(s) here
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Just for ~Grins~ J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in the "authorized edition" of
THE HOBBIT (Ballantine Books) 1937,1938 & 1966 (my source) on pg 62: 
2p: ~REF: _their MAP for the journey ahead!~ (as read by 'ELROD')_

<quote>
"He took it and gazed long at it,and he shook his head for if he did
not altogether approve of dwarves and their love of gold, he hated
dragons and their cruel wickedness, and he grieved to remember the
ruin of the town of Dale and it's merry bells, and the burned banks of
the bright River Running. The moon was shining in a broad silver
cresent. He held up the map and the white light shone through it. 

  'What is this?' , he said. 'There are MOON-LETTERS here', beside the
plain runes which say 'five feet high the door and three may walk
abreast.'

  'What are moon-letters?' asked the hobbit full of excitement. He
loved maps, as I have told you before; and he also liked runes and
letters and cunning handwritting, though when he wrote himself it was
a bit thin and spidery.

   'Moon-Letters ARE rune-letters, but you cannot see them,' said
Elrod, 'not when you look straight at them.  They can only be seen
when the moon shines behind them, and what is more, with the more
cunning sort it must be a moon of the same shape and season as the 
day when they were written. The dwarves invented them and wrote them
with silver pens, as your friends could tell you.  These must have
been written on a midsummer's eve in a crescent moon, a long while
ago.' .......

   'What do they say?' asked Gandalf and Thorin together, a bit vexed
perhaps that even Elrod should have found this out first, though
really there had not been a chance before, and there would not have
been another until goodness knows when.

'Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks,' read Elrod, 'and the
setting sun with the last light of Durin's Day will shine upon the
key-hole.'   "


<End Quote>
......................
-=se=-
Best to you and yours;