Re: VMs: Odd Thoughts

["Maurizio M. Gavioli" <mmg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 20:16 17/03/2004 -0600, Dennis wrote:
>         Might we use a style analyzer program to compare A and
> B?

I doubt. Style analyzers usually rely (also) on semantic data which totally 
lack in this case.

>   Might a handwriting analyst be able to tell us
> anything?

I don't know. For instance, in the old days at the University, we were also 
taught about hand recognition. My practice in this is now very rusty, but I 
still have serious doubts that there are several hands in the Vms or, at 
least, as many hands as Currier said there are. In my perception, the 
entire writing aspects of the ms. still need a deep analysis.

>         I do NOT think our basic statistics on the VMs should
> be in EVA.  EVA's authors never intended it to
> represent a single Voynichese grapheme with a single
> transcribed grapheme.  Currier or CurEVA would be
> better choices for base statistics.

I think the shortcomings of EVA in this aspect are obvious to everyone and, 
as you say yourself, this was not a goal the designers of EVA had in mind.

I would believe, however, that any statistical analysis done without 
knowing exactly which are the graphemes is doomed to be of more or less 
limited meaning and would reflect more the hypotheses of the scholar than 
the 'facts'. On the other hand, given the very analytical nature of EVA, I 
think that it might be a good base for grounded assumptions on which the 
graphemes are (also on statistical bases), and some of this has been done, 
I think. So, I see a value for EVA also in this area.

My 0.02 ?...

        Maurizio


 Maurizio M. Gavioli -  VistaMare  Software
 via San Bernardo 5, I-16030 Pieve Ligure, ITALY
 http://www.vistamaresoft.com/

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