Re: Voynich (Left to Right or Right to Left text?)

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

On the subject of writing direction, Jorge Stofi
wrote:

> From all these hints, I am satisfied that the VMS
> --- more precisely, the one at Beinecke --- was
> written left-to-right,  top-to-bottom ---
> i.e. the standard European writing order.  
> 
> Of course, there is still the possibility that the
> book was  originally written R-to-L, but copied in
> the reverse direction, either due to the scribe's 
> ignorance, or for added secrecy...

*IF* the language of the VMs is not syllabic, but
based on an alphabet of somewhere between 20 and 36
characters, then the assumption that the original text
is left-to-right (independent on the writing or 
copying order) has been confirmed by the observation
that the variation of characters before word spaces is
less than that of characters after word spaces (in
terms of conditional entropy). This is true for Latin,
English and Voynichese (OK, that doesn't cover all
alphabetic languages in the world :-) ). Also, in all
three languages, word spaces are the 'characters' 
which allow more variation around them than most 
others (again in terms of conditional entropy).

I used to have plots showing this. One is at
www.voynich.nu/latin.gif 
Note the position of the vowels, and of the letter
'q' where the 'right entropy' (variation of following
characters) is zero. Word space is represented by
an underscore.
The VMs one is at .../currier.gif 
The word space is at approximately the same location.
The characters for which Currier used vowels are 
also near the top, but the delineation is nowhere 
near as clear as for Latin.

Cheers, Rene

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