VMs: EVA

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear all,

just a short note to clarify, since there were some
comments about an EVA transcription.

EVA is actually the name of the transcription
alphabet most commonly (but not exclusively) used.
The most complete transcription is available at
the web site of Jorge Stolfi, which is usually
referred to as the 'interlinear' file. It has
essentially all existing transcriptions combined
in it, and is the only one that covers the entire
MS.
It is 'just about to' be updated with the 
transcriptions made by Gabriel and myself in the 
late 1990's.

EVA used to mean 'European Voynich Alphabet' but
this politically incorrect name has been abolished
and it should now be understood to mean:
'Extensible Voynich Alphabet'.
It uses a-z (and A-Z) for the common characters
and is extended into the high-ascii area for
variants of common characters, and the so-called
weirdoes.
The current interlinear file does not include
these extended characters, but the soon-to-be-
published new version will.

Still, all transcriptions made so far date from
before the release of the high-res colour scans
at Beinecke, so there are numerous inaccuracies
in them.

The alternative transcription alphabets of Currier,
FSG and Frogguy can be translated to Eva
without loss of information (they can be
translated back). For Frogguy this is not trivial.
The alphabet used by GC in his transcription
alphabet could also be translated to Eva without
loss of information, if his 'variants' were all
properly introduced in the high-ascii area, but
GC does not approve of this idea, so this has 
not materialised (yet).

The Eva alphabet does not imply any assumption on
which particular strokes should represent one 
'character'. This decision is left to the 
interpreter of the MS and its transcription.

It is clear that the Eva character 's' and the 
first half of 'sh' are *NOT* the same. Most 
probably Eva 'ch' and Eva 'sh' represent one 
chartacter each. This notation has been selected
as a compromise, to keep the character set 
within 26, and some other considerations.

Much more could be written here, but since all
this is known to the maority of the list members
I will not bore you any further :-) (for now)

Cheers, Rene


		
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