Re: VMs: VMS EVA ii combinations

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

15/12/2003 6:41:32 AM, Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>My interpretation:

>daiidy       seems just about allowable.

No. An i-stroke is always followed by an i-stroke,
a c-stroke (EVA e) by a c-stroke. <d>, starting with
c-stroke can only be preceded by <e> or a letter
ending in a c-stroke.

The rule is so regular that when you look at the
few instances of <ich> you see that the <c> of <ch> 
is actually a straight line, slanted. In other 
words, an <i>.

>skaiiodar    not

Indeed, emphatically not. Same reason as above.

>daiim        is a good VMs word

Yes.

>cphodaiils   is odd, but valid

<ls> is odd, yes, but possible.
>
>The first word could be a contraction of two
>(or a scribal mistake). The second one, if the
>scribe was not drunk, it may have been a foreign
>word which he just 'transcribed phonetically'. 
>
>I don't know anything about hapax legomena,
>but if one were to search the VMs mailing list
>in a couple of years, this sequence would stand
>out as not occurring for more than ten years,
>then suddenly to appear in the corpus a few times
>in a row, then to (perhaps) disappear again.
>
>This sort of thing also happens in the VMs.
>
>Is it a sign of meaningful content?

It can be. And it can also be a sign of glossolalia.

I'd also say that it is a sign that this is probably 
not a polyalphabetic cipher.



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