Re: VMs: Re: The Currier papers

["GC" <gc-@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rene,

Thank you for this.  As I said, I was looking for something of the
'historical', something that I could quote without interjecting my own
admittedly biased opinion as to transcription methodology.

A couple of questions you did not answer, and I do not like to press, but
historical curiosity leads me to follow up.  I am not averse to the need to
have a transcription that reflects ambiguity, as I'm currently on my sixth
version of Voynich transcription.  My transcription changes are based on
statistical observations and the increased availability of better and more
revealing images.  Every increase of information availability causes a
rethink and a rewrite, each lesser than the previous, but a rewrite
nonetheless.  Why hasn't this occurred in EVA?

GC



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rene Zandbergen" <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 2:55 AM
Subject: Re: VMs: Re: The Currier papers


>
> Hello GC:
>
> > If you don't mind, I'd ask for historical reference
> > only, what led you to participate in the EVMT and
> > help produce a
> > transcription that has nothing to do with either
> > observed or statistical
> > properties of the text, and is counter-intuitive the
> > the very information you've posted by Currier?
>
> It was long recognised that Currier's alphabet was
> not adequate for more detailed transcription:
> - his choice to make all I-shaped strings single
>   characters, while the C-shaped strings remained
>   strings of C's.
> - Some characters were recognised by the FSG alphabet
>   and are absent in Currier.
> - There was analysis by D'Imperio and taken further
>   by Reeds, of the various ligatures, which would
>   need to be encoded using numbered codes.
>
> When starting to do an improved transcription,
> the original idea was to use the far more accurate
> Frogguy alphabet. In the end, its principles were
> kept in the newly designed Eva alphabet which
> differs mainly in that it reduces the use of the
> quote and eliminates the need for numbers for some
> of the most frequent characters (4, 2, 8, 9).
>
> The real difference lies in the fact that Eva
> is 'extended' and has an a priori designed means
> to allow inclusion of rare characters, either
> as ligatures, or through use of numerical
> codes referring to the high ascii area.
> Thus, all characters that anyone identifies as
> being significant, can be added in this area.
>
> Of course, opinions will differ forever on what
> is 'significant' in the above sentence.
> All transcribers have different opinions.
> We are now far ahead of Currier when it comes to
> our capability to observe the VMs text.
>
> I have said from the beginning, and still
> want to stress, that the individual characters
> in the Eva alphabet are not meant to identify
> individual units of meaning. Thus, it was possible
> to transcribe without making any decision on
> that, and the decision is left to the user of a
> transcription file. The availability of Jacques
> Guy's tool BITRANS, to apply such decisions
> very easily, played a big role in this appraoch.
> I used do it myself when I still did numerical
> analyses.
>
> This is it, from a historic point of view.
> A good, detailed transcription exploiting the
> capabilities of the Eva alphabet is not yet
> available. Most transcriptions in the interlinear
> are converted (automatically, using BITRANS)
> from texts in FSG or Currier.
> Takeshi used Eva from the start, but rarely
> (if at all) used ligatures or high-ascii values.
>
> Cheers, Rene
>
>
>
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