VMs: Re: Glyphset ramblings

["Jeff" <jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Barbara welome back. I am doing similar things to your methods. Looking at
it in details to map the linkages. Keep up the good work I think it will pay
dividends.

Jeff

From: "Barbara Barrett" <barbarabarrett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 30 January 2004 11:20


> Aside: Hy guys, it's good to be back ;-)
>
> > > Jeff Jotted;
> > > What theory does anyone have about
> > > the core ideas or characters from which the glyphs were originally
> derived?
>
> > Dennis Dotted;
> > I think these three are generally accepted.
> >
> > 1) Early Arabic numerals and medieval Latin
> > abbreviations, as mentioned by D'Imperio and seen in
> > Capelli;
> > 2) Early Renaissance cipher scripts, as seen in
> > Trandechino; and
> > 3) Medieval gallows-style letter embellishment, as I
> > show in a later reply to Petr Kazil.
> >
> > Other elements, such as Tironian notae, astrological
> > or alchemical symbols, etc. are much more
> > controversial.
>
>
> Barbara Babbles;
> The above have similarities, but so does early greek document hand (BC to
> 1st millenium); pi looks like t (eva) and the old form of Upsilon inverted
> becomes l (eva), there are remarkable style symilaries to Carolinginan and
> Mervoingian miniscules too (7 - 9th C). Also 7thC arabic, some syratic,
and
> a few characters in palmaryan.
>
> Epigraphically the simmilarity of forms is irrelevent for two reasons.
>
> One is that given similar materieals and writing methods indipendent
> creation of the same or similar letterforms is almost inevitable (EG:
> unrelated
> "runic" writings exist from China to Iceland - the medium - grained wood -
> and the writing tool - a sharp implement - demanded that similar forms
would
> be independently devised - note that while the graphemes are the same the
> phonemes they represent are different). Therefore similarity of
letterforms
> imparts no worthwile information.
>
> Second is even *if* (and it's a very big if) the VMS author(s) borrowed
> letterforms known to them, then it is highly unlikly (given that they
> obviously intended the contents to be
> confidential) that they would also borrow the phonemic or semantic
symbology
> too - however it it possible that the original form's meaning might
provided
> a clue to the VMS meaning via a memnonic - but such a memnonic would not
> exist outside the mind of the user and is useless too us as it is unknown
> and unknowable. A bit like trying to solve a cryptic crossword without the
> clues.
>
> I belive that looking (and even finding) similar letterforms to the VMS is
a
> dead duck, a blind ally, the expolration of which is ultimatly futile.
They
> can not either provided clues to the meaning of VMS letters, or be of any
> relevent in dating the VMS, for the reasons stated above.
>
> In epigraphy, similar letterforms are only given weight when a linear
> progression from a previous script can be shown, and even then treated
> very cautiously as possabilities rather than probabilities. As the VMS has
> no
> precedents, this line of investigation is fruitless.
>
> Personally I find such similarities a curiosity, but only a curiosity, and
> discount them as being of any use for decyphering the VMS.
>
> These days I'm discovering interesting relationships between the
letterforms
> in their means of construction in document hand. For example (deviating
from
> EVA here) the 4o ligature and the 4P "gallows" are one and the same
> consruction-wise - the diffences being hight above the base line and the
> continuation of the final cross -loop stroke back down to the baseline in
> the 4P form (unessesary in the word-initial form as the o is on the
> baseline and the 4 a descender).
>
> I suspect the the 4P is the paragraph-initial and medial form of the
> word-initial 4o and these contitute a single grapheme unit. but further
> investigations are needed to see if this is indeed so. IE I need to find
an
> eample where this is not the case - for having formulated the theory I'm
now
> obliged to find evidence to disprove it! For it's only by finding an
absence
> of a different usage that the idea beomes plausable.
>
> There are others but until I get my hands of a copy of the VMS and check
> every single page I can not say if these relationships are anything more
> than "apparent". These relationships need more thurough testing that I can
> give them at the momemt..
>
> My own theory is that that voynichese is a writing system, one wich uses a
> "logic" unknown to us. As such no amount of cryptography can possibly
> "crack" it. So my own invistigaton (preceding from the *assumptuion*) that
> it is a writing system is to unlock how that writing system works; eg I
> think the repeated words are not cryptographic nulls but integral to the
> orthography as either puncutualtion or grammer (eg a thrice repeated word
> could simply be a plural form. Doubles could be comas, stops, or starts;
> sets of repeats could be isolating clauses). Likewise I think each letter
> has more than one purpose depending upon word possition. In Labels I'm
> convinced that "o" is a grammatical type marker, but a phoneme or phonemes
> within the body text.
>
> Knowing how the system works will not in itself decipher it, but may
provide
> a key for doing so.
>
> Barbara
>
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