VMs: Re: Mandaeans and the VMS...?

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Rafal,

If you look at the two renderings of the Mandaic alphabet here...
        http://www.geocities.com/mandaeanworld1/alphabet1.html
        http://www.geocities.com/mandaeanworld1/alphabet3.html
...and at the example on the demon bowl here...
        http://www.lib.umich.edu/pap/magic/images/37.jpg
...I think it's reasonably clear that Mandaic itself is unlikely to be a 
source for the VMS' alphabet.

The only interesting points of note I can see are:

(1) In the second [-a] column in the second link above, the half-symbol for 
[-a] (which looks like "o") *precedes* the consonant shape. This gives a 
pair structure reminiscent of the VMS' "o-".

(2) There's a Hebrew transliteration of the Mandaic alphabet given on the 
same page - it's always possible that the VMS is some kind of 
transliteration of a transliteration of a language.

Combine (1) and (2), and you might produce a transliteration with many 
adjacent pairs reversed, perhaps giving the effect of passing the text 
through a kind of intermediate localised transposition cipher. Unlikely, 
but simple...?

That remote possibility aside, I think Mandaic can probably be removed from 
your list. :-)

Cheers, .....Nick P.....

> 2. Mandeans - in Mesopotamia; there are many mandean MSS from
>            the 16th-18th c. in the British Library, Oxford, Paris,
>            Berlin and Vatican; they are magical, astrological,
>            ritual and lithurgical; they were a gnostic sect and
>            their most important scripture (The Book of Adam)
>            is full of fantastic stories; the alphabet is quite
>            different from other aramaic scripts and is considered
>            to be sacred