Re: VMs: Line and paragraph as structural unit (Noise or data ?)

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

5/25/03 10:06:18 AM, Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


>I would be interested to see the result of applying Sukhotin's vowel 
>algorithm to a text enciphered using a paired 15th Century cipher - I 
>predict it would yield extremely strong false positives (and that this is 
>in fact what is happening with the VMS).

Well, do it! The executable (for DOS) is somewhere next to BITRANS and
to MONKEY on the EVA site. I think it is called VOWELFQ. I still find
it strange that it should give as vowels Voynichese letters or combinations
(<ee>) which happen to have the same shape as vowels in the common medieval 
script known as Beneventan. And that EVA <a> <o> and <e> look so much
like our own a, o, and e.


>>If you rummage through the archives, you will find very old
>>posts from me where I opine that <y> is an unstressed,
>>undifferentiated vowel, a schwa in other words.

>Such a small alphabet to have a schwa! And so common a letter! And to have 
>schwas at the start of so many labels! How wonderful! :-)

Yes. The realization of /a/ (and often /o/ and /e/) in unstressed 
positions. Many languages do it. Russian for instance. As for having 
a schwa at the initial, look at English: "again", "alive", "ahead", 
"among", "aghast", "ahoy", "around". "Amazing" isn't it? 

Further, many languages have a schwa-like vowel, even in stressed
position. Indonesian, and most languages of Indonesia. That schwa-like
sound (like a French "eu", a German ö) is actually much more frequent 
than the straight "e" as in "get". With good reason: this "e" is historically
derived from "ay"--the original language had no "e" sound.


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