Re: VMs: Re: Moot points, getting long

["GC" <gc-@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Koontz wrote:

> 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.

This was my positive reference to the Frogguy alphabet by Jacques Guy.  It
is a 'first phase' to the traditional approach, and I see that you agree
with my premise that the first phase is to note down *every* orthographic
distinction, not exercise arbitrary judgment on what you think is
significant and what is not.  You're right again, in my first pass I missed
a few, but primarily because I was working with and attempting to reproduce
Currier concepts, which needed extending if they were to match the images
currently available.

In this case we do actually have an informant.  One only has to go back to
D'Imperio to realize that this is a contrived script, not natural, and could
be contrived for only one purpose, to hide something beneath.  Further
analysis indicates that the contrivances are numbered in form and variance,
a further example that the underlying language is familiar, and the method
of obfuscation is mathematically driven.  What is left in this case is to
record the glyphs as faithfully as possible and observe how the rarer glyphs
move, and extend that movement to the surrounding glyphs.

> 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 doubt that a 'significant portion' of us will ever agree on anything, but
one thing we all agree on is that when a solution is presented, it must pass
the test.  This is the only convincing evidence that may be presented.

> > 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.

Actually, I don't think the author suffered so much.  He would have been
writing with a quill since at least the age of 8, and it's obvious he was
familiar with Latin abbreviations and one or more systems of shorthand, as
demonstrated by the glyphs he chose for his cipher script.  Moreover, the
script construction follows the convention of of scripts designed for quill
writing, in that the strokes are primarily drawn from top to bottom right,
bottom to top right, and left to right, with the exception of closing
'tails', such as those faint traces on the {9} glyphs.  Whenever strokes
moved in this direction, the ink outlay was routinely minimal. These
features can be deduced by the fact that wherever heavy wet ink crosses it
produces a 'draw' that indicates the direction of the stroke.  Information
on stroke order, direction and glyph construction can be extracted from the
images, and is therefore not a matter of attempting to reconstruct, rather
one of simple tabulation of observation, though I happen to enjoy my efforts
to write with a quill.  Difficult, isn't it?

GC

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