Re: VMs: Evita, EVA, and transcriptions.

["Larry Roux" <LRoux@xxxxxxx>]

Yes, EVA is not really intended to be a "these are the glyphs" font.  I am not happy with any of the fonts myslef yet.  Like you, I get the urge to create my own....sigh.

"I'm also coming to the conclusions from facts like most labels begging with the EVA o that each character on its own may have an orthographic/grammatical indicator value when used initially"

Yes!  My guess is that the initial "o" on labels is not a part of the word, but rather indicates something as to the transcription routine.  It probably indicates something like "this word is in Latin" or "This word is a single substitution cipher" or "use table x"....

Much like the line initial "p" or "k" the initial "o" is probably indicative of something....(but WHAT?!?!?!!)  You might also note that on several folios the initial character of each and every line is offset a slight bit from the rest of the text.  Perhaps the encryption scheme shifts each line and the initial character indicates what to do.

My brain hurts just thinking about it.....My head feels like it was FOldEd  <grin>






******************************
Larry Roux
Syracuse University
lroux@xxxxxxx
*******************************

>>> barbarabarrett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 02/12/04 09:32AM >>>

> >Knox knocked;
> >Evita considers each of the EVA characters
> >f, k, t, p, ch, c, sh, s, ai, al, am, ar, ee, eo, e,
> >in, ii, i, od, ok, ol, or, o, d, h, l, m, n, q, r, y,
> >more or less, to be a discrete letter,
> >many or all of which represent something else,
> >likely in an inconsistent and varying manner.

> Nick noted;
> Yet... I personally find it strange that "ok" is considered to be a
> composite letter but not "qo" or "dy" - or even "ot", for that matter.
> "ai[i][i]n" also seems to cause some problems here. Curious... :-o


Barbara babbles;
Transcription has concerned my lately because of my quill and faux vellum
document-hand experiments, and a very high quality 4-colour print of f75r.

The print is of such quality that one can see where the quill, stopped, or
paused; began or ended a stroke; when one line over-tops another etc, the
and the direction of quill travel.

for example there are two base elements that I'll call "c" and ")" and its
combinations of these 2 elements that create EVA; s b and y; Are these
really separate characters, or are they eva "e" with semantic, vocalic, or
phonemic, modifications? Should they be considered as 4 separate characters
or as a single character with a modification? This seems plausible as the
")" element (and its placement) also define the differences between EVA n
and r as attachments to EVA i. Likewise sometimes EVA "i"s are joined, as
are EVA "e"s (at the bottom) - are these meaningful graphemes in their own
right?

I've also noted a character, very similar to EVA k but which unlike the two
strokes k is single a stroke character - but the single stroke character has
no EVA value.

Likewise from a construction point of view there are three very different
diacritics that can go over EVA "ch". I call these "arrow" (point up
right/stop/ down right), "teardrop" (point start/ up left, curve to return,
left down and stop over point start), and (borrowing EVA terminology)
"plume" (leftward drawn spiral but sometimes more open than ")" ). EVA only
seems to recognize "plume" and that not as "ch+plume" but as "sh" suggesting
an s+h digraph but if the overbarred double c (EVA ch) is a single grapheme
in its own right then the diagraph suggestion is probably incorrect.

 Because the construction is very similar is there a difference between my
")" and the "plume"? Certainly I've found them as apparent attachments to
EVA a and EVA y. Which *suggests* to me that they are modifiers/additions of
some form. e might be a single phoneme, and b, s, and y make be syllabics!
It'll take some experimentation to determine which is which ;-)

Then again construction suggests that the ligature of EVA qo is the same as
EVA t, difference being that the former is a descender and the latter an
ascender of the same letter. Likewise EVA m and k may also be positional
ascender/ x-height variants of the same character: but then I've encountered
..

Allot of these things which experimentation suggest can be tested once I get
the full manuscript facsimile. To use frogguy for a moment if the 4o
ligature is always the word-initial form and 4P is the medial and paragraph
initial form, then finding 4o in medial or  final position or 4P in
interparagraph intial position will demolish this idea.

I'm chasing more slides for the quality of their reproduction (one can see
things not present in the digital scans) and having the BBC doc transferred
to DVD because the close up digital rostrum camera work will provide even
better examination of the characters on some folios.

Certainly examining the vms from an epigraphical perspective means that EVA
just doesn't cut the mustard. EVA may well have captured the relevant
graphemes, but only by making assumptions such as joined "e"s or "i"s
shouldn't be considered separate graphemes. But epigraphically it is only by
comparing the epigraphical structure or the grapheme elements to the
phonemic assumptions of EVA that the relevance of apparent "modifiers" can
be determined.

By this I mean I'll have to devise an epigraphical transcription system and
run it through the entropy programs etc to see if the results make more or
less natural language sense that the EVA results.

This will take years <slump>, and many re-runs with and without repeated
words to test if they're just orthographic indicators.

I'm also coming to the conclusions from facts like most labels begging with
the EVA o that each character on its own may have an
orthographic/grammatical indicator value when used initially.

OOOOOH me 'ed 'urts guvnah!

Barbara



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