One of the most important points of interchange between the two verbum potentiae being studied here, QOKEEDY and CHOLDAIIN, concerns the glyph [ch] in CHOLDAIIN and the double glyphs [ee] in QOKEEDY.
To recap: my proposal is that the text has been extracted from two keywords, QOKEEDY and CHOLDAIIN and that these primal terms are set up as coinciding opposites. They interact on the basis of their samenesses and differences.
A point of (coinciding) sameness and difference is in the double [e] configuration.
It is simple and straightforward to observe:
The [ch] in CHOLDAIIN is two [e] glyphs with a ligature.
The glyphs stand apart in QOKEEDY but in CHOLDAIIN they are cojoined with a horizontal ligature.
The obvious similarity between these configurations is entirely obscured by the EVA choice of [ch] for what is in fact a double [e] with a ligature.
Assuredly, [ch] acts as a single glyph, and moreover, it seems to behave as a consonant. The EVA [ch] is not without foundation, and it is serviceable. But it is misleading, or at least fails to capture something important. [ch] is [ee] with a ligature.
Evidently, what are vowels in [ee], harden into a consonant as [ch] – if we have consonant/vowel alternation right.
Be that as it may, [ch] is another form of [ee].
* * *
Our two paradigmatic words, then, can be overlapped at that point. It is a point of coincidentia oppositorum.
But notice the other difference: in CHOLDAIIN this configuration is part of the prefix, while in QOKEEDY it is part of the suffix.
Overlapping then, occasions prefix/suffix exchange.
I have previously noted this as an important process in the creation of Voynichese words from the two paradigms.
In an earlier post I wrote:
An extensive phenomenon in the text is the bringing together of a prefix from one paradigm and a suffix from the other paradigm.
The basis of this exchange, very often, is the [ch] prefixing CHOLDAIIN being identified with the [ee] in QOKEEDY.
We can see this in a word like:
qokchdy
Here the [ch] of CHOLDAIIN has simply replaced the [ee] of QOKEEDY.
Or, vice versa, we see it in words like:
eeodaiin
eeol
These are cases of simple substitution. Plainly, the [ee] from QOKEEDY has replaced the [ch] in CHOLDAIIN.
The whole class of words starting [ee-] needs to be understood in this way. The [ee-] takes the place of [ch-]. (There might be cases where the ligature has been left off the [ch] by scribal error, but clearly there is a class of words starting [ee-].)
As well as substitution, though, there is, more commonly, addition, an augmentation. This is where [ch] is added to QOKEEDY but one or both [e] glyphs remain. Examples:
qokchedy
qokcheey
kchedy
okcheeo
okcheey
kcheedy
sokcheey
okchey
tchey
qokchey
The common word [chedy] – with over 500 instances - is a case of this. It is a truncation of [qokchedy] where the [ch] from CHOLDAIIN intrudes but one of the [e] glyphs of QOKEEDY survives the intrusion; then the [qok-] prefix is dropped.
This is what is happening wherever [ch] follows a gallows glyph – of which there are over two thousand instances.
The same process of addition applies vice versa, where the [ee] from QOKEEDY intrudes into (augments) CHOLDAIIN but the [ch] is not replaced. A common case of this is:
cheol and the variant cheor
cheeol and cheeor
cheeoldair
chedaiin
And, of course, in all cases we find variants where the [ch] has changed to [sh]:
sheol
sheeol
sheor
sheeor
shedaiin
sheedy
The additional [e] glyphs have been imported into CHOL, but the [ch] or [sh] survives the importation.
What determines whether the [ee] from QOKEEDY is replaced entirely by [ch], or whether only one [e] is replaced, or none, is not clear.
It is, however, a process of sympathy. There is sympathy between the [ch] in CHOLDAIIN and the [ee] in QOKEEDY.
Due to this sympathy between the two configurations, the prefixing [ch] from CHOLDAIIN is happy to relocate to the suffix of QOKEEDY. It can replace the [ee], or join it, in part or in whole.
To reiterate: Voynichese is a blending together of the two paradigms. How are they blended? Where do they meet?
The principle being applied, I maintain, is the coincidentia oppositorum, and the [ch]-[ee] configurations in the two paradigms are a central case of it.
* * *
Moreover, both things can happen at once. The exchange can go both ways. Consider a word like:
sheeetchy
This configuration is entirely about the sympathy of [ch] in CHOLDAIIN and the [ee] in QOKEEDY. The whole word is like a demonstration of it.
Sometimes in the course of the text we find what I call “rehearsals” of the various possibilities. Sets of adjacent words, or words scattered throughout a line, will rehearse various possible ways the [ee] and the [ch] can interact.
Quite often one word will have one [e] and the next will have two. For example:
cheo.cheeor
cheody.cheeody
Here we see a rehearsal:
ctheor.ctheol.cheeor.cheol
And another example:
cheody.cheeody.cheekeody
Or consider this line:
<f103r.28,+P0> deshedy.qokchey.dalkain.okaiin.chedy.qokeey.otain.ain.ol.cheey.lkeedy
At first we have [qokchey] and four words later we have [qokeey].
This is all interplay between the [ch] in CHOLDAIIN and the [ee] configuration in QOKEEDY – an exploration of their sympathies. It is an extensive phenomenon throughout the text. In fact, it emerges as altogether extensive. It is a core process.
* * *
To step back for a moment and reflect on this.
I propose that the relation between the two paradigms is, in essence, like that between the Heavens and Earth. QOKEEDY is celestial. CHOLDAIIN is terrestrial. Whatever they might mean, they have this symbolic association.
Philosophically, the [ee] in QOKEEDY are the celestial archetypes. In CHOLDAIIN they harden, instantiate, physicalize, condense into [ch]. The [ch] is the physical manifestation of the celestial archetypes.
And the prefix-suffix positions: what is second in the Heavens is first on Earth, and vice versa.
And yet, says the coincidentia oppositorum, there is no final schism, no final duality. What is on Earth is a (true) reflection of what is in Heaven, but in a different state, a different mode. If not, the celestial and the terrestrial could never meet or mix, and could never be reconciled. We would be left with the catastrophe of metaphysical dualism.
The celestial and the terrestrial are only opposites in one, limited sense. They are not stark opposites. They are coinciding opposites. They are opposites in sympathy.
I think “sympathy” – the type of word used in Neoplatonic and Hermetic philosophy – is the right term for this.
Heaven and Earth are opposites in sympathy. Our paradigms, QOOKEEDY and CHOLDAIIN, are opposites in sympathy.
We are to imagine – according to my conceptual reading of the whole work – that the celestial nymphs and the terrestrial nymphs are conversing or singing together. The refrain of the celestial nymphs is QOKEEDY. The cantus firmus. The song of the terrestrial nymphs – the counterpoint - is CHOLDAIIN. There are points of harmony and consonance. The [ee] in QOKEEDY and the [ch] in CHOLDAIIN is one of them, and one of the most important.
To study the whole phenomenon is to study the behavior of the glyph [e] and the glyph [ch] throughout the text. It is enough here is just outline the process. The sympathy between the [ch] in CHOLDAIIN and the [ee] in QOKEEDY is one of the most important foundations of all the permutations of words (configurations of glyphs) we see in Voynichese.
R.B.
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