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Info on the Voynich Manuscript
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re:
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 18 Nov 91 10:37:36 PST."
<[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 14:24:56 EST
From: "Eric Brill" <[email protected]>
Hi. I have a question about the Voynich Manuscript. In your transcription,
there are lines with dashes not at the end of the line. Since a dash (-)
is supposed to indicate a new line, how am I to interpret this? Below are
some examples:
04901B BZCOF9/O8AU/4O9-OVZO8/S9BSC9/9BSC89AN-SOVO-SCBS89-
04902B 8SC9/2AM/A7CCO89/9FCQC9/SC89/9PC89/89-SCQC89/E2-
04903B OAM/ZQ9/QC89/OEO9/9FZ89/OESC89/89E-9ZCC9/2AM/2-
04905B 2AM/ZC89/CC89/CC89/2S9/8AM/QC89-4OFCC89/4OFC89/QC9-
Thanks for your help,
-Eric Brill
To: "Eric Brill" <[email protected]>
Cc: jim@mycroft
Subject: Re:
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 20 Nov 91 14:24:56 -0500.
<[email protected]>
From: Jim Gillogly <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 11:49:57 PST
Sender: jim@mycroft
Eric -
The dashes in the middle of a "line" (at least on page 049, which is 26R)
correspond to interactions between the text and the illustrations. On this
page there's a plant with two branches going up through the text. On the
right-hand side of the page there's imperfect registration as the text
resumes on the far side of the branch. I assume D'Imperio marked it this
way as a warning that the text *might* be broken there.
It looks like a matter of interpretation, and in my statistics I've been
treating it as a continuous line. If we start making sense anywhere we
should go back and revisit situations like this in the original.
Jim
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 13:47:25 EST
To: [email protected]
Jim G.:
I snagged a copy of your voynich.tar, and have been having fun
looking at it. Can you tell me what # means? And the other
funny chars: $ * , _ ? There seems to be a bunch of - in the
middle of a line; is this correct? There are a bunch of lines
which end with neither - nor #; is this correct? (I have not seen
D'Imperio's book, which might answer these questions.)
I have been studying (1) 'word formation rules': trying to
come up with simple finite state grammars for words,
(2) word lengths, (3) word frequencies, and (4) KWIC charts.
In (1)-(3) of the above I see differences between the A and B
sub corpora.
I have vague hypotheses. It might be in beebop, either generated
on the fly, or from crib sheets of particles to reuse, or it
might be in something like pig Latin. In the latter case, since
the word lengths are so short, a word might stand for a letter,
as in 'ajay imway emway' for Jim, etc.
Jim Reeds
To: [email protected]
Cc: jim@mycroft
In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 22 Nov 91 13:47:25 -0500.
<[email protected]>
From: Jim Gillogly <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 11:22:57 PST
Sender: jim@mycroft
Hi, Jim R...
The # looks to me like a paragraph break. Look at page 55R (107), for
example; the two #s correspond to short lines, including the one at the
end. This doesn't seem consistent throughout.
I can't read text where there's a *, so I treat that as "illegible".
Sometimes it's clear but not in the alphabet. For example, on 3R (005)
line 9 the * is an inverted v in *OR.
The "," may be errors. For example, my copy of Folio 3R (005) line 7
clearly has 408AM where D'I shows 40,AM.
Now turn to Folio 40R (077). The underscore appears to be an error:
the word in the middle of line 4 is clearly 8AR. Next the "-" in the
middle of the line: there's a plant illustration on that page, with the
flower at the top and the stem going up between sections of the text.
The text isn't perfectly registered on both sides of the stem, which
bulges out like an opium poppy at that point (I'm not a botanist, and
the flower isn't a poppy). The "-" in the middle of the line indicates
where the stem goes. Not all pages with stems through the middle have
a "-" -- I think she put them in where it wasn't clear that the text
continued through; i.e. the stuff on the right of the stem may be
a continuation of the stuff on the left, or the stuff on the right may be
its own block of text.
To: [email protected]
Subject: Currier 7 and J
Cc: jim@mycroft
In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 05 Dec 91 00:25:52 -0500.
<[email protected]>
From: Jim Gillogly <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 91 14:09:48 PST
Sender: jim@mycroft
> I AM STILL COMPLETELY UNSURE OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN P. Currier's 7 and J.
I looked carefully at page 6, and the 7 looks absolutely dead nuts on the
J to me. So far as I'm concerned, we should treat them identically.
E looks like it's written right to left, like Enochian. Hmm.
to clam up about his methods.
Jim
To: [email protected]
Cc: jim%[email protected], jim@mycroft
In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 28 Nov 91 11:35:52 +1100.
<[email protected]>
From: Jim Gillogly <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 91 19:20:37 PST
Sender: jim@mycroft
> One more question: with D'Imperio's book unavailable here, would you be
> able to give me a brief explanation of Prescott's notation? Thanks for
> all your help, Jim...
The easiest way to get into it is to look at a local sample, like the
Codebreakers page, which is 15201-15237 in D'Imperio's transcription,
and compare them.
Most of the letters are reminiscent of the appearance of the Voynich
letter, but not all. People are working on HP Laserjet II and Postscript
fonts, which I will post or mail when I get them -- that should help.
/ word division
- line division (there are internal line breaks for illustrations sometimes)
* illegible
= paragraph end
, occasional typo for '8' (it was keypunched in the 70's)
There are a few other odd special characters -- ask if they get in the way.
4 The V char looks like a 4
O V looks like o
8 V looks like 8
9 V looks like 9
2 V looks like a rounded 2 or Z
E V looks like a cursive lower case l
R V looks like a question mark without the .
S V looks like cc ligature
Z V looks like cc ligature with a comma on top
P Draw a vertical line up, small loop 270 degrees counter-clockwise,
short segment, 270 again and down parallel to first line
B Start like P, but take a 90 degree smooth turn to cross first vertical
F Like P but with a cusp instead of a loop on the left
V Like B but with cusp instead of loop on left
Q P character written over S character
W B character written over S character
X F character written over S
Y V written over S
A like lower case a
C like lower case c
I like lower case i without the dot
G like Voynich IE
H like Voynich IIE
1 like Voynich IIIE
T like Voynich IR
U like Voynich IIR
0 like Voynich IIIR
D Short stroke down right, then loop up like a paren: \)
N like Voynich ID
M like Voynich IID
3 like Voynich IIID
J like Voynich F, but with second downward stroke curving left slightly
K like Voynich IJ
L like Voynich IIJ
5 like Voynich IIIJ
6 Sort of like an ampersand
7 I can't tell this reliably from a J. Good thing it's uncommon.
Hope this gets you started -- again, I recommend looking at an existing
page and generate your own crib sheet. Let me know if you have trouble
connecting (say) folio 55r with page 107.
Good luck!
Jim
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