Possible Ways to Improve EVA (Version 1.0)

Possible ways to improve EVA (version 1.0)

Konstantin Hamidullin ∗

July 7, 2020

Abstract

The Extensible Voynich Alphabet or EVA was designed to represent the text of the Voynich manuscript, a mysterious 15th century manuscript. This short article proposes ways to extend EVA focusing on ligatures and plumes.

1 Basics

The Extensible Voynich Alphabet or EVA was designed by René Zandbergen and Gabriel Landini to have standard method of representing the text of the Voynich manuscript ([2]). Main properties of this alphabet are the similarity of Voynich glyph and corresponding Latin letter, the pronouncibility, the possibility to define extended set of elements (”rare characters”). A lot of tools use EVA for text representation. While EVA is well-defined to describe composite glyphs and complex ligatures, this feature is rarely applied strictly (see for example [3]). Correct ligature designations such as Sh and cTh are mostly used when the text is rendered with specially designed font; in general sh and cth are preferred. For ligature ”cth with angled c” the ambiguous notation ith is often used, while it can be precisely described by the means of EVA as ITh. Plumes over o and i are mostly omitted.

∗email: [email protected]

1 2 Discussion

In EVA each gallow letter (t, k, p, f) has its ”strikethrough” counterpart (T, K, P, F). These are needed for correct representation of single gallow letters and gallow letters ”enclosed” in ligatures. However, modern font standards (such as True Type Font or Open Type Font) include options for rendering the same symbol differently depending on the context. Thus it is possible to use t, k, p, f in all situations, transferring visualization issues to the font engine, and releasing letters T, K, P, F (for example P can then be used for p variant with e over it - see f1v, penultimate word). For complex ligatures EVA provides two options: one can either use figure braces to mark ligature’s beginning and end or use uppercase letters ([2]). So ”cth with angled c” can be transliterated as both {ith} or ITh. But here one can see that c and h already act as braces, so additional braces like { and } are excessive and really needed only in case of uncommon appearance of c or h. Glyphs with plumes above them can be included in extended EVA set, but it would be more convenient to represent them as two symbols: first one for base glyph, second one forthe plume. Moreover, one can take advantage of the Unicode standard and map plume to some combining diacritical mark ([1]). However, this would probably require additional keyboard layout (such as Czech or Latvian) to input Voynich text. And given that most of people (including the author of the article) generally avoid using T for t in ligatures, the necessity of switching layouts for writing accurate Voynichese would probably be met with even less enthusiasm.

3 Possible improvements

Since EVA alphabet proved to be very convenient for Voynich researchers, any breaking change should currently be avoided. Thus for example introduction of a new symbol to distinguish separate s and s as part of ligature sh is undesirable. The list of proposed changes is:

• Discard T, K, P, F. Use t, k, p, f for default gallow forms everywhere.

• Use c as ”the beginning of the ligature” and h as ”the end of the ligature”.

• Introduce C as ”the custom beginning of the ligature”: symbol before C starts ligature. Introduce H as ”the custom end of the ligature”: symbol after H ends ligature.

2 • Introduce ' as ”the plume”: previous symbol is drawn with plume above it.

• Use " as ”the inter-letter plume”: plume is drawn between letters (see ”Unofficial EVA” in [2]).

• s before h is contraction for c".

• c can be considered as contraction for eC. h can be considered as contraction for He.

4 Samples

This section provides several samples of transliteration of Voynich words using proposed changes. Special True Type font was developed to render EVA. Images courtesy of Beinecke Digital Library.

Image Location EVA with proposed up- Possible rendering with dates True Type Font

f1r, paragraph 1, line 5 ydaraiiC"hy ydaraii"ey

f2r, paragraph 2, line 3 qo'ky qoky

f2r, paragraph 2, line 3 sai'in saiin

f4v, paragraph 1, line 5 ctHo eto

f8r, paragraph 1, line 4 shesed e"eesed

f11r, paragraph 2, line 1 c"ephy e"epey

f13r, paragraph 2, line 3 qokChy qokey

f16r, paragraph 3, line 1 ypchocfHy ypeeoefy

f16v, paragraph 2, line 1 chcfehy eeefeey

3 f27r, paragraph 1, line 2 cHoain eoain

f28r, paragraph 1, line 2 cHty ety

f37v, paragraph 4, line 4 y!chockahy y!eeoekaey

f42v, paragraph 2, line 6 cte"hes (uncertain) ete"ees

f71v, inner circle @faiCHfom @faifom

f84v, image 2 yc"khy ye"key

f88r, paragraph 2, line 1 koaiCpehy koaipeey Table 1: Samples

References

[1] Combining character. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combining_character.

[2] Rene Zandbergen’s site on the Voynich manuscript - Transliteration of the Text. URL: http://www.voynich.nu/transcr.html.

[3] The Voynich manuscript browser. URL: http://www.voynichese.com/.