RE: VMs: Tironian notes

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxx>]

Nick wrote:
> The (perhaps surprising) answer is "not necessarily".
> For example, imagine
> constructing a list of syllables (ba be bi bo bu, etc),
> do a frequency
> analysis on them (for your text), and then take (say)
> the most common 50 -
> and let's say these comprise (say) 70% of the text's
> contents (finding out
> an actual value for this for various languages circa
> 1500 would be an
> excellent statistical exercise to carry out, but one
> which I have
> shamefully failed to do to date).

I've actually done a bit of this, and it turns out that the VMS
word lengths are somewhat shorter than most European languages at
this time.  It seems that they are already "abbreviated".

> If you look at everyone's favourite source of easy (but
> false) answers in
> the VMS - the Pisces diagram - I would argue that the
> likelihood of labels
> like "oty" containing full-blown word-like information
> are fairly small.
> Even taken pair-wise, the famous <otolal> in the centre
> (which, of course,
> would probably be composed of <ot-ol-al>) is fairly
> enigmatic - even if
> <ot> represents a letter (or even a syllable), why
> would so many labels
> begin with it?

Now now, not *everyone* makes false assumptions, although the
nature of an assumption is that it is but a guess.  I had no luck
with Pisces, but when I got over the idea that the labels were
absolutely written in Latin, things got better.  The false
assumption here may be that all labels are written in Latin.

Labels mostly beginning with "o" doesn't pose a problem for me, as
the first glyph is usually indicative of the starting point.  It's
the 9 "o"s preceeding the label on f70r1 that causes me some
concern! :-)  This isn't any different than the prevalance of
gallows characters beginning pages and paragraphs.  I have several
details on this, but not something I'm willing to discuss in
public at present.  It's a pepperoni thing...

> I think the answer perhaps comes on the following
> pages: if you look at
> Aries and Taurus (which have been split into two
> volvelles each), the
> labels are nearly twice as long as on most of the
> single-sign volvelles
> (like Pisces) (look at the central ring of Sagittarius,
> for example!)

Here you make the assumption that these rings are labels, and not
a continuous ring of text that forms thoughts and sentences.  I'm
not willing to make that assumption, but I admit that I haven't
concentrated any work on the Zodiac section as yet.  Still stuck
in the herbals, and working my way up.

> Finally: as far as f89r1 (and in fact all the
> antidotarium) goes, I'd guess
> that the labels are most likely simply to be numbers
> and/or apothecary
> shorthand. Your "serpentaria" label ends with <daiin>,
> which I guess is
> "oncia tria", three ounces. As for <ar-ar-cho->, I
> don't know - but to my
> eyes, <ar-ar> seems too well-structured to be text or
> cipher, except if
> considered as pairs.

So if these are weights and measures, where does the author
identify the *unidentifiable* components?  Surely not from the
fantastical drawings? :-)  Seriously though, this does deserve a
much more thorough discussion.  There are many pros and cons to be
weighed here.

GC

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