Core Glyph Set

There is an undetermined number of different glyphs in the Voynich text. For the record, however, there is a core set of glyphs that constitute the vast bulk of the writing. There are sundry glyphs that only appear here and there in small numbers but there is a clear group of glyphs that are found throughout the manuscript in all settings in abundant numbers. There should be no debate about this. It should be acknowledged and understood as a starting point by every researcher. There is a Voynich "alphabet". The core glyphs are as follows:

All of these glyphs can be clearly identified in the text over one hundred times. There are variants, and other glyphs, which appear far less frequently: this core set stands apart from them. The great majority - maybe 99% - of the text is written from these core glyphs. Some of them are more common than others, but none of them fall into the category of rare. Turn to any page, pick any word; these are the glyphs you'll find, with only rare exceptions.

None of the core glyphs comes from the set of geometric glyphs I have grouped together in previous posts. The next most common glyph not included in the core set, with just over thirty instances, is the glyph denoted as <x> in EVA: x.

It should be observed that there are twenty-three core glyphs, which is about the number of letters needed in a functional alphabet in a natural language.  The core set includes glyphs that are known as vowels in Latin and on that basis the set may be amenable to a basic division into vowels and consonants.

R. B.