Re: VMs: Re: Moot points, getting long

[Koontz John E <John.Koontz@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 9 Aug 2004, GC wrote:
> > This is what I meant with making decisions. This
> > is unrelated to the fundamentals of the
> > transcription alphabet being used. In any
> > system you have to decide which set of
> > squiggles belong to each individual transcription
> > symbol (or pair or triplet or...).

This all reminds me of the process of learning a new language - as a field
linguistics exercise, anyway.  At first you try to note down every
phonetic (here orthographic) distinction you can detect, because you don't
know what's significant.  Even so you probably miss some distinctions, but
you rely on a dialog with an consultant - in more innocent days known as
an informant - to draw your attention to distinctions you have missed, and
to dissuade you from those you have perceived that are not significant.

Of course, in all such exercises the most efficient and widely accepted
criterion for successful perception of a distinction is a commutation test
demonstrating a contrast with a minimal pair.  There are, of course,
languages that make minimal pairs hard to come by and for those cases
there are more elaborate forms of argument.

Following these procedure Eventually you learn what is "emic," and you
stop writing "etically."  Unfortunately, of course, in the case of the VMs
script we have no consultant, and the only clear proof that a hypothetical
emic analysis of the orthographic system is correct is that it leads to
making sense of the VMs.

Are there any alternatives?  Can we suppose we have achieved an
(ortho)graphemic analysis without also providing a translation?  At the
risk of getting myself in trouble with both the linguists and
Voyno-logists, I might hazard an opinion that if you spent long enough
listening to a language and were in general savvy enough about how to
listen to languages you might be able to learn the phonological (emic)
system, or the bulk of it anyway, without actually understanding the
language.  This would be easier the closer it was to something you did
understand.  The trouble, of course, is that the necessary length of
exposure, at least when combined with some degree of interaction with the
speakers, usually also leads to learning the language, which so far
hasn't happened here!

In spite of that, by analogy with the above, I suspect that we could reach
a point where from constant exposure and accumulated experience we were
sure we understood the significant orthographic distinctions of a new
script without actually knowing what the message was.  This would be
easier the closer it was to something we did understand, though we are not
in a position to be be sure of that at present with the Voynich script.
To the extent the script is not along lines we are used to, and to the
extent we are, to coin a phrase, looking at it with tin eyes, we might
well be fooling ourselves.

My guess is that if and when a significant portion of us agree that we
understand things we probably will, but only probably.  We might never get
there, of course, And, of course, a person might also be right about the
system without having convinced anyone else.

I certainly find the ongoing discussions fascinating - and in many cases I
see that they were ongoing as long ago as D'Imperio's summary.  I don't
get the impression there is as yet any consensus, only some more or less
convenient conventions.

> The 'a' in <fachys> is a perfect example.  This is written with one stroke,
> not two, and cannot be justified as lumping together with other 'a's, which
> is why in my previous discussions I've referred to this as an "alternate a".
> If your transcription records this variation separately, it certainly
> changes the <a> statistic, and you may also discover that this is one of
> those 'cyclic' glyphs I've been mentioning, that disappear and reappear only
> in conjunction with certain other glyphs.

In my own fumbling attempts to reproduce the script with pen and pencil I
have noticed that I am not at all sure how to write it effectively.  How
many strokes, in what order, and what direction?  I'm like a child drawing
a letter (sometimes backwards) instead of writing it.  It occurs to me
that if the script is the result of a single more or less discrete act
of creation, even the creator(s) must at some point have been in a
similar position.

Of course, we needn't assume that we have in the VMS the entire corpus of
Voynich script, from the first fumbling steps on.  Still, unless the VMs
is only a chance-preserved example of a ongoing tradition, now lost, or a
similar example from late in a much more voluminous but brief experiment
by a small cadre, we might still expect a significant degree of variation
and progression in the writing of the script.  This might be exhibted to
such an extent that perhaps all of what are currently considered to be
different hands might be the same individual at different points in his
life.  Episodes in the production of the VMs might have been separated by
some writing not preserved, of course.

It might be interesting to consider what the expected impact on the script
would be if it were the result of one intensive effort, the product of a
lifetime, the work of a pair of collaborators, a committee effort, the
work of a "lost tradition of several centuries duration," etc.

In regard to the last, I'd have to say that the very absence of integrated
material of other origins, as opposed to extraneous annotations probably
added later, suggests that there is no question of a lost tradition.
This material seems to float in a deliberate void, suggesting it was
composed in a private alternative script to conceal something (or
nothing).  It makes no direct or obvious references to cultural or
personal context.  Any original extraneous material has been removed, if
there ever was any.  It's frustrating to think that any such material
might have been gathered in a separate file for further consideration by
an early custodian!
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