Re: VMs: Glyphset ramblings

[Dennis <tsalagi@xxxxxxxx>]

Barbara Barrett wrote:
> 
> Aside: Hy guys, it's good to be back ;-)

	It's good to have you, Barbara!

> 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.

	Yes, in that case.  Also, Burmese script was written
on palm leaves with a stylus, so it used entirely
circular strokes.  But with a pen on vellum, a wide
variety of styles is possible, so the argument doesn't
hold.  I agree that the phonemic values of graphemes
may not carry over, and will not if it's a cipher
script.  
 
> 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.

	To the last I at least partly disagree.  The
provenance of the letter forms may tell us something
about the time, place, or culture where it originate,
although I agree this is problematic.  We need every
clue we can get. The similarity of the gallows to the
medieval letter embellishments we've seen is very
striking, for instance.  I still don't agree with Nick
here. 

> These days I'm discovering interesting relationships between the letterforms
> in their means of construction in document hand. 

	I think that this line will be productive.  Your
experience in epigraphy will prove invaluable!

> 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.

	An interesting thought, and I encourage you to pursue
it.  Remember that triple repeats are rare even in the
VMs.

Dennis
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