VMs: RE: Qoteedy nine

["John Grove" <4groves@xxxxxxxxx>]

	Well, I think you already know my answer -- All 9's are made up
of two strokes - the c followed by the end ligature... The disjointed ones
might be caused by re-inking - but that would be evident if the common
cause...

	So, it becomes very difficult to truly decide whether you have a new
'glyph' or just a pause-in-writing that affects 1 in 8 characters (or you
have an encoding mechanism based on 8-bits of information and one of them
is damaged).

	I think upon very close inspection, you'll see a number of the
standard glyphs have either spacing or angle variations that make one wonder
whether they are still the same glyph... 8's for example have some
interesting
features. One looks quite vertical, while others are leaning drastically to
the right;
still others have that annoying open space at the bottom - some of which
extend
below the line like a 9; There is also an 'i' form of the 8 to be dealt
with, and
some 8's that look like they consist of a little bowl with an 'L' on top.

John.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-voynich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-voynich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of GC
Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2002 2:49 AM
To: Voynich Ms. mailing list
Subject: VMs: Qoteedy nine


One of the glyphs I've been having some problems with is the <y>
or {9} symbol, and I'd like a little feedback from those who've
stared at these pages for a long time, if it's not too much
trouble.

The standard version of this glyph appears like a scripted "9",
but on several occasions, not nearly as numerous, I've found that
the downward curve of this glyph is sometimes written straight,
like a "q" instead of a "9".  This does not always occur at the
end of words either.  A third variation is a disjointed "q", as if
written as a {c}, a visible space, and a straight downward stroke
added on.

At first I thought that space might be limited, or some other
quirk of penmanship was responsible, but in almost all cases there
is more than enough space to complete a curved downward stroke,
and the pages these appear on are populated with {9} glyphs
written correctly.

A sample of text yielded 224 of the variant {9} and a count of
1,514 of the standard {9}.  Since I'm attempting to base my
assumption of a glyph's existence primarily on the number of times
it occurs, this is a significant enough sample that I cannot
discount it as a possibility.

If you were lucky enough to download the very detailed images put
up by Jacque Guy (or was it Jorge?) of folio 87v, you'll find one
of these variant {9} glyphs at the end of the first word of line
five in the "top" image, one at the end of the next-to-last word
of the second line of the "bottom" image, and one at the beginning
of the fourth word of the fourth line in the "bottom" image.  This
makes three of these variant glyphs on the same page.  Variants
tend to group, so this is in keeping with a pattern.

In the interest of encoding as much information about the text as
I can in a transcription, I've given these variants their own
designation, but I'm wondering if anyone else who has transcribed
at least a part of this mansuscript has questioned these marks,
and if not, what rationale did you use to record these as a
variation of penmanship instead of a variant glyph?

GC