One of the conclusions that follows from my recent bout of investigations into the Voynich language is that the curve and line system – investigated by Brian Cham, but noted earlier – is the product or outcome of a deeper system.
The bedrock text, as I now understand it, is a sequence of [o] glyphs:
…oooooooooooooo….
The entire text is made of modifications to this underlying ground.
The modifications are made, moreover, by a process of division.
This process of division is illustrated in the T & O symbols found in the manuscript.
This symbol shows a circle being divided and then divided again.
The first division (the diameter) creates the duality of circle and line:
…o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o|o…
The curve and line system described by Cham emerges from this more primal pattern.
The second division (creating the cross) is expressed sequentially by distinguishing between the two divisions using a double line:
…o||o|o||o|o||o|o||o|…
The lines are marked in our glyph system as the gallows, the glyphs with elevated vertical stilts.
The other glyphs are modifications of [o] created by the same process of dividing and dividing again.
Thus glyph [e] is a half circle, the first division.
The form [ee] is the bifurcation of the [o].
The glyph [d] is a way of depicting a further division.
The special glyph [q] – numeral 4 - is an expression of the circle crossed.
Similarly, the glyph [a] is based on the first division of the circle into hemispheres – the glyph [o] cut in half by a line.
The line in the case of [a], however, is a backslash. It leans backwards, against the flow of the text.
Similarly, certain ligatures and flourishes, or what I call plumes, are curves that go against the flow of the text.
There are two categories of curves; those that go with the flow of the text, and those that go the other way, counter to the flow.
There are two categories of lines: those that mark the bifurcation of the bedrock text and so just punctuate the flow, and those that lean back against the flow.
Plumes, in a way, are the opposite division of the [o] glyph to the [e]. They are curves that face the other direction.
Plumes always reach beyond – above or below – the main text; above the head line or below the base line.
* * *
To modify Brian Cham’s system, I want to introduce two types of lines and two types of curves.
There is a system of c-curves and backslashes, as Cham describes, but it is a sub-system.
The gallows are types of lines. They do not move forward with the text but neither do they impede the flow of the text. They punctuate the underlying flow into rhythms.
The [i] glyph – the backslash – is a division of the primal [o] glyph but in that case the line leans back against the text, leftwards.
The plumes are types of curves. The typical case is the glyph [s]. The c-curve at the base goes with the flow of the text, but the plume attached to it curves upwards – above the head line – and backwards, against the text.
We can make divisions of the circle clockwise or anti-clockwise, to the left or the right.
To Cham’s system we must add leftwards and rightwards curves. [s], [r], [n] and [y] are common glyphs with backwards facing curves.
The plume or tail of the [y] glyph goes below the baseline, not above the head line, but it is a rule all such backwards curves extend above or below the main text.
It emerges, then, that – conceivably - we could make the entire glyph set from various divisions of the model provided by the T/O symbol.
The T/O symbol is a type of master glyph the divisions of which are expressed in the Voynich glyph set.
As I have conjectured many times, the model for this whole system is the YEAR. Our bedrock stream of undifferentiated [o] glyphs is not a linear stream as I showed it above, but a circle, the circle of the YEAR – which is both a temporal and a spatial symbol in itself.
The flow of a linear text, left to right, is the same as a circle moving clockwise.
Again: this is to explore the text at its most fundamental levels, seeing it as essentially a symbolic system.
The words I have identified as the dual paradigms of the running text, QOKEEDY and CHOLDAIIN, describing each as a verbum potentiae, are developments, it turns out, from a more primitive paradigm, OTOPO, and it in turn is a development from the base cycle of [o] glyphs and lines.
To break down the steps:
1.Undifferentiated [o] glyphs
2. [o] glyphs alternating with lines
3. [o] glyphs alternating with double lines and single lines
4. The primitive paradigm: OTOPO
5. The celestial (Voynich B) paradigm: QOKEEDY
6. The terrestrial (Voynich A) paradigm: CHOLDAIIN
At each of these steps new glyphs are introduced or glyphs are modified with ligatures and plumes as expressions of the process.
Assuredly, circles and lines are such basic things that, with a little imagination, you can see them in almost any text anywhere. My task is to demonstrate that this is what is actually happening in this text.
My fondest hope, at this stage, is to show a simple step-by-step means by which the whole edifice of Voynichese might be constructed using nothing more than the T/O symbol, a device for rendering the year as text.
R.B.
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