Re: Possible alternate lines (Reintroducing myself)

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Philip Neal <philipneal_vms@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote,

replying to:

>> From: Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

>> Apart from your observation about alternate lines
>> appearing slightly cramped in the biological 
>> section (they certainly do), have you found any
>> other support for the idea that some pages could
>> have been written in two (alternate line) passes?

> I am going entirely by the appearance of the page in
> suggesting this.
> Subjectively, I can't detect any difference between
> the language of
> odd and even lines. They are both language B: indeed
> they are both
> the same subset of language B, distinguished from
> Herbal B by the
> almost complete absence of words ending in '-ody'. I
> am stating an
> impression here: I will collect statistics some
> time.

A few comments on this thread, if I may:

I distinctly remember from the times I was 
transcribing, that some pages in the MV give the
clear impression they were not simply written
to to bottom in one go. Indeed, I have also
noticed before that sometimes there seemed
to be something wrong with the ascenders and
descenders, things fitting exactly in a space that
should not have been there at the time. I will
check my notes about this. The thought about
alternating lines had not occurred to me.

The handwriting of Herbal-B looks quite different
from the Bio-B. The original classification by
Currier,
of a slanted, cramped and even rather ugly 
writing style in the B-language section, really only
applies to the Herbal-B, and not so much to
the stars-B and Bio-B sections. Have a look at:
http://www.geocities.com/voynichms/illustr.html
but yes, it is quite subjective.

I can also confirm from my experience (and numerical
results) that there are clear 'dialects' in the
different sections. Sometimes a single feature
like words ending in -ody as mentioned above can
be found. Remember further that Currier based
his A/B classification only on a subset of the MS.
He did not use the astro section and little
of the pharma (IIRC). These two actually bridge
the gap between the two. This gap can be illustrated
by words which 'belong' to each section, and which
show a typical transition in the language or 
spelling or whatever:

chol -> cheol -> cheody -> chedy

I don't mean to imply that these words all mean the
same! These are simply words which can be found
particularly in specific parts of the MS.

I'm still unable to explain the strage distribution
of the word 'qokeey' in the stars section, 
and on pp. 58r and 58v.

Well, that's enough for now,

Rene

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