To: jim@rand.org Subject: Re: In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 18 Nov 91 10:37:36 PST." <9111181837.AA00659@mycroft.rand.org> Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 14:24:56 EST From: "Eric Brill" 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" Cc: jim@mycroft Subject: Re: In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 20 Nov 91 14:24:56 -0500. <9111201924.AA11363@unagi.cis.upenn.edu> From: Jim Gillogly Reply-To: jim@rand.org 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: <9111221847.AA11390@rand.org> From: reeds@gauss.att.com Date: Fri, 22 Nov 91 13:47:25 EST To: jim@rand.org 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: reeds@gauss.att.com Cc: jim@mycroft In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 22 Nov 91 13:47:25 -0500. <9111221847.AA11390@rand.org> From: Jim Gillogly Reply-To: jim@rand.org 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: reeds@gauss.att.com Subject: Currier 7 and J Cc: jim@mycroft In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 05 Dec 91 00:25:52 -0500. <9112050533.AA20636@rand.org> From: Jim Gillogly Reply-To: jim@rand.org 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: brent@mlacus.oz.au Cc: jim%rand.org@munnari.oz.au, jim@mycroft In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 28 Nov 91 11:35:52 +1100. <9111280201.11904@munnari.oz.au> From: Jim Gillogly Reply-To: jim@rand.org 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