Re: VMs: Further investigatio of folio f1r

["Barbara Barrett" <barbarabarrett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Jan Jotted;

> I did compare the "letter" frequency of the VM transcript (EVA)  with
letter
> frequency of  medieval Latin by St. Augustin (in his Confessions, Book 1,
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/latinconf/ ,
> and got interesting correlation at
http://www.angelfire.com/electronic2/ohlas/VM/b16.htm
>
> Since we can rely more on high frequency letters, the Latin there was much
> closer to the VM frequency than I ever expected. I also gave it to my
> colleague in  Germany to recalculate it independently, but he got the same
> results. We can also see that the medieval  English - or few other
languages I
> tried  - are far off  - again in the area where it counts most.
>
> Mind you, it was letter frequency,  not word frequency, which of course
lead
> our linguists to look for unknown language :-). Now our observation would
> point to either monoalphabetic substitution cipher, OR transposition
cipher
> (even multiple) OR the  combination of both. I think we gave up Latin too
easy,

Barbara Babbles;
I agree. IIRC in the comparison between the VMS and Latin was with Modern
Latin (the Vulgate), however, I believe there are over 40 orthographic and
spelling differences between Medieval Latin and both Modern and Classical
Latin (I can't find by tome on medieval Latin to confirm this). This also
changed from country to country: eg Irish Medieval Latin wasn't the same as
say English or German Medieval Latin.

I think more than substitution is at work.

In the 18/19/20thCs the preoccupation in invented writing systems was
showing phonetic relationships via form (eg; Cloebrain, Shavian, Sindarin)
in the 16/17th invented writing systems were preoccupied with showing
semantic relationships via form (eg; Common Writing, Real Character, Organic
Alphabet); way before that, in the 8thC  the preoccupation was with clarity
(Carolingian Minuscule) which resurfaced with the Humanists in standard
writing 800 years later.

In between the preoccupation was with grammar and reading aloud; originally
punctuation was only a guide to correct reading aloud. Punctuation marks
were also seen by many to be very ugly and I'm certain more than one scholar
expressed a desire for a system that didn't need punctuation marks, where
the orthography would function as punctuation.

I believe a writing system invented between the 8th and 16thC would reflect
those preoccupation's. The writing system would visibly reflect grammar and
instruct in vocalization. Therefore in the VMS the "o" before many labels
for example could mean "declaim a noun", the i, ii, iii, + l/m/n/r sequences
could grammatically classify the sentence. Repeated words could be
declamation instructions (the word only being read once, but the repeat
instructing how to voice the next section). *If* this is the case with the
VMS then each letterform would have values beyond the purely phonetic.

What I'm trying to think of now is a set of circumstances in which the above
*could not* be true; ie; I'm trying to see if I can eliminate the theory
before pursuing it!

Barbara




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