VMs: f65r, possible crib.

["Smári P. McCarthy" <spm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Howdy folks,

  Working on the assumption that the label next to the flower drawing on
f65r is either the name of the flower (Possibly Edelweiss, Leontopodium
alpinum?), or some description of the flowers features, I did a bit of a
quick statistical roundup that somebody (besides me) might find
interesting:

The text of f65r is:   otaim.dam.alam=

Please note that the sentance appears on the bottom third of the page,
near the curly bits on a leaf of the flower. 
( http://130.132.81.124/VOYNICHIMG/size4/D0017/1006190.jpg ), 
so it's probably rather something to do with the leaves than say, 
the flowers themselves or the roots.

So what I did was, I searched for each individual word and....

== otaim ==
  2 instances:	f65r,	f111v

	f65r is of course the crib origin.
	f111v is in quire 20 (stars/recipies), and the page seems to be a list
of something. Possibly an index of ingredients, materials, or something?

  I'm assuming the word has something to do with this particular flower,
rather than flowers in general. Perhaps "otaim" means "edelweiß",
although it would be presumptuous to take that as granted, it could mean
"marshmellow" for all we currently know. It's infrequency however is
definately a good sign that it's related to the drawing.

== dam ==
	207 instances, some of which as parts of other words. Appears in pretty
much all quires. Seemingly unremarkable - grammatic function unknown,
I'm guessing it's possibly a common, but not too common, verb.

== alam ==
  28 instances: 

Prefixed:
	talam (f55v), 
	ealam (f58r), 
	dalam (f58r, f65v, 67v2, f70r2, f86v6, f107v, f108v), 
	qokalam (f58r), 
	okalam (f72r1, f108v), 
	otalam (f72r2, f99r),
	opalam (f103v), 
	sholalam (f58r), 

Suffixed:
	alamchy (f68v2)
Both:
	chalamy (f68v2)

Alone: (neither prefix nor suffix)
	f58r, f58v (twice), f65r, f104r, f107r, f108r, f111r (twice), f111v.

	Appears mostly in folios 55 through 68, which are the end of quire 7
(herbal), all of quire 8 (mixed) and the first page of quire 9
(astro/cosmo). Other appearances are in f70r2 (quire 10, astro/cosmo),
f86v6 (quire 13, biological) and f104 through f111v (stars/recipies).

	I'm guessing this word has something to do with flowers in general. The
word 'chalamy' can probably be ignored, and likewise 'alamchy', but the
prefixes are interesting. 'dalam' is the most interesting prefixed
version - perhaps the prefixing has something to do with number, case
(prefix agglutination?), or simply different meanings based on the same
word - perhaps different types of flowers, leaves, or whatever the base
'alam' means. Since they word never occurs in the first few quires, I'm
assuming it has little or nothing to do with the biological buildup of
the flowers per se, but rather a noun describing something about the
flowers in general, viz-á-viz stalk, leaves, crown, petals, &c.

My guess is that the sentance is of the form  Noun-Verb-Noun.

This might help.

---
On page f67v2 the word 'dalam' appears with the word 'soaiin'
On page f68v2 the word 'alamchy' appears with the word 'otchos'

These need more research, but I need sleep first. 
---



Anyway, perhaps I'm just banging into walls with this, but they seem
soft and cuddly like in insane asylums, and I like they feel. This is
the first interesting thing I've came across that I've analysed at all,
so please don't kill me off too harshly. My approach, for now at least,
seems to be trying to find uncommon words with obvious connections
and trace those connections to their (il)logical conclusions. This may
give me static on the long run, but for now it's giving me oversight, 
which is good. But at any rate, please give me comments!

	- Smári.

-- 
Smári P. McCarthy
spm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
(+354) 662 2701
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