Gallows Glyphs

The unfortunately named gallows glyphs are at the heart of the mystery of the Voynich language. 

They stand out. As we cast our eyes over the text, they are surely the peculiar and unusual feature. 

In other manuscripts, anything that resembles them are usually no more than ornamentations, or at best pilcrows, forms of text dividers. 

Here they have clearly been repurposed and developed as a distinct set of glyphs: meaning and function unknown. 

Recent studies I have pursued have suggested another way of looking at these glyphs. 

I won’t retrace the steps, but here is a summary of some findings, exploring some implications:

* * * 

Firstly, the primordial gallows glyph is, by my account, not [k] but [t].

 

This is the first glyph in the series. It is the glyph in the primitive paradigm, and accordingly it is prolific in Labels.

At the next level, with the formation of the dual paradigm needed to compose running text, this glyph mutates to [k]. 

It becomes the [k] in QOKEEDY, what I have characterized as the celestial paradigm, the paradigm that predominates in the Currier B folios. 

In the manuscript as a whole, [k] is more common than [t], and we might think it is primary. But there is an underlying primitive paradigm, and the primitive paradigm has [t]. It is the primal gallows glyph. 

The difference between the two, it then emerged, was that the glyph [t] shed the glyph [q], and that the glyph [k] is the glyph [t] without the glyph [q]. 

Thus does the celestial paradigm begin [qok-], developing from the primitive form: [ot-].

In subsequent investigations it then emerged that the circle or loop in the [t] glyph – retained in the [k] – is an [o].

That is to say, the glyphs [q] and [o] are implicit in the glyph [t]. 

This requires much further study, but the essential thing is that the glyph appears to act as a collection of resources that can be mobilized in the formation of the language and text. 

The gallows glyphs are composite forms. The component parts have different functions. 

There have been numerous previous studies attempting to deconstruct the gallows glyphs. Various approaches are deployed, from paleographic to symbolic. 

Linguistically, there has been much discussion about what the gallows glyphs might be – whether they are bigrams, or double letters, or what?

Here we arrive at a different way of considering their construction and purpose. 

* * *

Let us just consider the glyph [t] as the archetypal case. We can break it down as follows:

There is a [q] – or the numeral 4. 

There is an elevated (or supercript) [o]. 

Each of these is held aloft, elevated, placed on stilts by a vertical line, above the line of the text, superscript. 

* * *

Notice in the glyph [t] the symmetry of the elevated triangle in the [q] and the elevated circle in the [o]. 

It is another case of the circular/rectalinear contrast.

The [t] glyph holds aloft a triangle and a circle. 

We can render the glyph as:

Now we simply design a glyph that contains these forms in a continuous flow of the pen. That is the Voynich glyph [t].

This is a picture of the resources of the glyph, without orthography, ligatures and the like. The glyph reduced to stark geometry. 

When [q] is separated and [t] mutates to [k] the geometry of the glyph becomes:

We can complete this by providing the corresponding forms of the other two glyphs.

Here are the resources of [p] by this scheme: 

And here are the resources of [f], which is [p] with the [q] separated:

This is to reduce the gallows system to its simplest elements in the most brutal way. 

It is a system of superscription. Certain resources are held above the line of the script, in superscript, and this means they are held in reserve, waiting to be mobilized later. 

* * *

The vertical lines in this schema are architectural, and so are likely to come first. The vertical lines – the elevators – provide the scaffolding for the triangle and the circle, that is, the [q] and the [o], and the [d] in the case of [p] and [f]. 

But notice that they can stand alone, as does the elevator of the [q] component on the glyph [t]. It is no longer holding a triangle aloft, but it remains, and so it must have some function beyond holding the triangle of [q] in superscript. 

Regarding [q], note that the triangle remains in superscript, so when the [q] separates from [t] it takes the vertical elevator with it. Otherwise, the triangle would be at line level. For whatever reason, it remains in superscript. 

* * *

The primitive paradigm, recall, took the form of the gallows glyphs alternating with a continuous sequence of [o] glyphs:

…otopo…

If we deconstruct the gallows glyphs to just vertical lines we arrive at this:

…o||o|o||o|o||o|…

The [q] element and the elevated [o] loops are then incorporated into synthetic glyphs using these vertical lines. 

At this point, we must suppose, the author/scribe – the designer of the script – has adapted Latin ornamentations, or pilcrow marks – something familiar - for his purposes. 

The immediate objective, of course, was a design to facilitate an easy flow of the scribe’s quill.

Whatever precedents the designer may have had in view, or in memory, in the design of [t] he has incorprated the [q] (numeral 4, triangle) and the elevated [o], (circle, loop), into a single glyph, built upon the vertical scaffolding. 

The author/scribe designer has in turn developed a set of four gallows glyphs, a veritable system, along these lines. 

This, surely, was an innovation at the very core of his project. We are not mistaken to think that the system of gallows glyphs he has devised are at the heart of Voynichese. 

* * *

What do the vertical lines do?

They divide. They bifurcate. 

The paradigms unfold by a process of division and bifurcation. 

We see it in the bifurcation of [o] into [ee] in QOKEEDY, and in CHOLDAIIN – which I present as the terrestrial paradigm - we see it in the bifurcation of the word itself into CHOL.DAIIN. 

This bifurcation can be soft – as in a prefix/suffix break – or it can be severe and complete, a word break. 

In any case, the vertical lines are equipped with the devices necessary to accomplish these bifurcations. Most obviously, [q] separates, relocates, and shapes the prefix [_qok-] and the word break. 

The potential for the word break, and the division of prefix/suffix, was already implicit in the glyph [t]. The necessary resources were already there. 

It is the vertical strokes that say: break. 

To accomplish these breaks, they come equipped with the glyph [q] and an extra [o] (in superscript.) 

These synthetic gallows glyphs, and their system, are possibly the real genius of the work, and the language. The designer has hit upon a felicitious system, an artful system of cunning script design. The rest followed. 

The purpose, though, was to divide up a stream of [o] glyphs. 

* * *

Consider it this way – to put it starkly:

We begin with: oooooooooo

This then becomes chopped up with vertical strokes: o|o|o|o|o|o|

The vertical lines are then equipped with [q] and the elevated [o]. 

So it becomes: ototototototo

(In fact, it becomes: otopotopo, but we will leave the distinction between [t] and [p] aside for the moment.) 

It becomes a sequence of [o] glyphs interspersed with gallows glyphs. The gallows glyphs are developments of the simple vertical line, which is the absolutely primal element here, along with [o].

The vertical lines have been stacked with resources, ready to be deployed in the break up and bifurcations of the underlying stream of [o] glyphs. 

* * *

Just to show that this is not an altogether arbitrary analysis, we do in fact find depictions reminiscent of the above deconstructions - [o] glyphs held aloft. I point it out as a curiosity at this stage, but it accompanies the T & O symbol on the Rosettes foldout:

* * * 

This cannot be all, though. In a previous post I made the note that the gallows glyphs go with, belong to, are connected to, the paragraph structure that we see in most parts of the text. 

To revisit the points made there:

There is some necessary connection between the gallows glyphs and the division of the text into paragraphs. 

For a start, the glyphs themselves resemble glyphs used as PILCROWS (paragraph markers) in Latin manuscripts. 

Secondly, they very often seem to behave like pilcrows in the text. That is, a gallows glyph very often marks the beginning of a paragraph. 

Thirdly, where gallows glyphs begin a word at the start of a paragraph, it is usually redundant - if it is removed, a valid Voynich word remains. The gallows glyph has been added purely, it seems, because the word is the first in the paragraph.

Fourthly, the glyph forms [f] and [p] are almost always found in the first lines of paragraphs and have a general tendency to appear towards the top of paragraphs.

All of this says that the gallows glyphs are related to paragraph structures. They mark paragraphs and their behaviour in the text is specific to the paragraph structure, or is guided and shaped by the paragraph structure. 

Indeed, it is tempting to think that the gallows glyphs have been added to the glyph set for just this reason. They have been selected because they are pilcrows, because they traditionally concern paragraphs. 

* * *

Thus far in these studies we have only considered the place of the gallows glyphs in the paradigm, QOKEEDY. 

But we have also noted this distinction, implicit in the dual paradigm:

QOKEEDY is equipped with the resources that make paragraphs.

CHOLDAIIN is equipped with the resources that make lines. 

This is to say QOKEEDY contains a gallows glyph and CHOLDAIIN does not. 

Gallows glyphs appear at the start and top lines of paragraphs. 

In view of the understanding of the gallows glyphs outlined above – as synthetic, composite forms - their role in regard to paragraphs would seem to be to provide resources that are then expanded and unpacked in the text. 

How this works is unclear, but a full account of the gallows glyphs system must explain its connection to the paragraph as a distinct unit of text. 

* * *

Finally, stripping the gallows glyphs down to geometry in this way –

revealing interplay between circles and triangles – 

engineered into a system of script and superscript – 

with cosmological/cosmogonic implications - 

strongly suggests that we are encountering an order of ideas that is Neo-Pythagorean and more broadly Neoplatonic. 

Indeed, one recalls Plato’s (very Pythagorean) critique of the Greek atomists:

The atomists say that the elements (fire, water etc.) are the smallest units of the cosmos, and they compare them to the letters of the alphabet (stoichea). 

But their analogy is wrong, says Plato, for the elements themselves are constructed of geometric relations, specifically triangles. These triangles are the smallest unit. 

(Famously, Neils Bohr noted this as a foreshadowing of quantum physics. Plato’s critique of the atomists was right. There is a subatomic order, and it is inherently mathematical, a matrix of geometric relations, not balls of “stuff” floating in a vacuum. The deepest foundations of the cosmic text are geometric shapes.) 

R.B.