About [daiin]

The model of Voynichese being explored here provides an explanation for the word [daiin]. 

As any Voynichero knows all too well, this is the most common word in the text, and has been subject to untold speculation. 

In any linguistic model, it must be a very common word. The usual suggestion is a word like “and”. But it hardly behaves like a conjunction. 

The mystery of Voynichese is the mystery of [daiin]. 

What is it? Why is it so common?

By my account, it represents the common division of the quarters of the year by three.  

It is the standard way in Voynichese (a fusion of linguistics and cosmology) to express a quarter of the year divided by three.

We can set it out thus:

In this arrangement the [a] is distinguished because it represents the CARDINAL sign of the three. 

The [d] and the [n] mark the quarters: solstices and equinoxes. 

We could place them at any of the quarters: in the first instance, the word is about the division of the quarters into three.

This, of course, is the standard division of the zodiac, the dodectomery. Each of the four quarters is divided into three zodiacal months . The 90 degrees of the quarter are divided into three lots of thirty degrees.

This would give an explanation as to why [daiin] is so abundant in the text: 

It signifies the standard and common and usual division of the quarters into zodiacal months, or signs. 

The manuscript is conspicuously cosmological/astrological; we might expect the most common word in the text to have a common cosmological/astrological significance. 

It might just mean: divide 90 by 3. 

More fully it means: the arc between the solstice and the equinox is divided into three equal parts. 

The arc is marked by [d] and [n] and the division is marked by [aii].

Again, as I have explored in previous posts, it is the distinction between tall and short glyphs:

The short [aii] is nested or framed by two taller glyphs. 

I plot this configuration onto the circle of the year. 

To be sure, this does not clarify everything about [daiin] but it does provide a reasonable explanation, in terms of my proposed system, as to why [daiin] is so common. 

Namely, it is the most common way of dividing the arc from solstice to equinox, or equinox to solstice, a quarter of the year. 

By extension, it invokes the standard twelvefold division of the circle: 4 x 3 = 12. 

* * *

Again we see that the “vowels” are divisions. Indeed, I am presenting a whole series of Voynich glyphs as a system of division. Here the [o] glyph divides into three. 

Specifically, the configuration [aii] encodes the way the cardinal sign generates the fixed and mutable signs.

But the idea is that the power of the cardinal sign is extended and diminished and exhausted by this distribution. 

The transition from c-curve to backslash (accomplished through the [a] glyph) is a step down: and it is exhausted at the [n] glyph. 

To offer a full interpretation [daiin] means:

1. Take the power of the quarter [d].

2. It is deployed and exhausted over the next ninety days, i.e. it will be exhuasted by the next quarter [n].

3. Divide this period into three equal parts.

4. The first part is the cardinal sign, the pure form of the power of the quarter.

5. The cardinal sign expends  the power of the quarter and the [a] glyph transforms the text (from c-curves to backslashes).

* * *

Note that in this account the glyph [n] does not really mark the next quarter (solstice or equinox), but rather is a FINAL glyph and so marks the end of the cycle initiated by [d].

[n] marks the end of a quarter, not the beginning of a new one. 

In this way we can also give a satisfactory account of the characteristics of [n], including its visual form. 

Note too that visually the [d] glyph signifies the equinox (equal night and day). 

The quarters to which [daiin] is likely to refer then are those from equinox to solstice, with [n] marking the solstice in each case. 

R.B.