Re: VMs: F66r

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Larry Roux <LRoux@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> [...] For instance, EVA
> "r" and EVA "m".  "m" is most probably "r" +
> something else (ie a plural indicator  -r vs -rs or
> -r vs -rment)
> But how far do you go in breaking the glyphs up
> without even a clue as to what the base language
> really is?  

One has to be very careful. It is indeed very
tempting to explore the 'system' of how the
various characters are composed. This is not
just a response to Larry's above E-mail, but
to many similar ones that have been posted
on this list over the years.

The i-based and c-based sets and the various
common  'flourishes' do allow for a lot of
classification and speculation. However, this
does not have to mean anything at all.

In the Latin alphabet, is E a modified version
of F? is Q a modified version of O? One could say
that I, L, D, F, H are I-based and C, G, O, Q
are C-based, but there are vowels and consonants
in both.

A more interesting example is the Thai alphabet,
which was designed to represent a spoken language
some 200 years before the VMs was written.
It would be an interesting exercise to find a
system. See for example:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~wjsn/thai.htm
(there must be better pages than this one, but I
could not quickly find any).

Similarities in shapes are found all over, and in
some cases similar shapes are used for similar sounds
but in more cases this is not so. Additionally,
very different shapes are used for identical sounds.

Back to the Voynich MS, though. It is quite 
peculiar that certain characters can be used to
replace others rather consistenly, still leading
to valid words. In some cases (but not all) 
the characters involved are also similar in shape.

This, I find very meaningful indeed, although
a good, consistent explanation for it is still
lacking :-/

Cheers, Rene


	
		
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