European Voynich Alphabet
Encyclopedia
The European Voynich Alphabet, or EVA was created by René Zandbergen and Gabriel Landini in 1998 as a system to transcribe the various graphemes ("letters") which make up the text of the Voynich manuscript
into Roman
characters.
With EVA, every Voynich sign is represented by a roughly similar-looking letter of the Latin alphabet. For example, the Voynich symbol is assigned to the Roman character "p". Thus, the Voynich Manuscript can be translated into a computer-readable form which allows for ready statistical analysis (frequency of individual letters, relationships of letters to each other, etc.). As a side effect, EVA-transcription makes it possible to discuss strings of the Voynich text via email
or on the Web
.
One of the aspects in the choice of which Voynich grapheme should be represented by which letter, was readability of the transcribed words. It is possible to "read" the better part of EVA-transcribed text aloud, as the transcription results typically in strings like qocheedy daiin. (It is unclear in how far the fact that this is possible at all points to features of the hypothesised underlying source language or enciphering mechanism.)
Since the Voynich manuscript alphabet is unknown, it's often questionable whether two differing symbols actually describe two different graphemes, or whether they are only variants of the same grapheme. EVA has been attacked on this grounds as discarding subtle grapheme details which may be relevant to understanding the text. Other criticism focused on the fact that for the sake of readability, visual similarity has been lost. (This means that the Latin letters chosen don't always resemble their Voynich counterparts visually, and thus are more difficult to memorize.)
There are several other transcription schemes for the Voynich manuscript, but EVA is still the most widespread. In email conversations, strings of EVA characters are conventionally enclosed in angle brackets, like
Voynich manuscript
The Voynich manuscript, described as "the world's most mysterious manuscript", is a work which dates to the early 15th century, possibly from northern Italy. It is named after the book dealer Wilfrid Voynich, who purchased it in 1912....
into Roman
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
characters.
With EVA, every Voynich sign is represented by a roughly similar-looking letter of the Latin alphabet. For example, the Voynich symbol is assigned to the Roman character "p". Thus, the Voynich Manuscript can be translated into a computer-readable form which allows for ready statistical analysis (frequency of individual letters, relationships of letters to each other, etc.). As a side effect, EVA-transcription makes it possible to discuss strings of the Voynich text via email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
or on the Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
.
One of the aspects in the choice of which Voynich grapheme should be represented by which letter, was readability of the transcribed words. It is possible to "read" the better part of EVA-transcribed text aloud, as the transcription results typically in strings like qocheedy daiin. (It is unclear in how far the fact that this is possible at all points to features of the hypothesised underlying source language or enciphering mechanism.)
Since the Voynich manuscript alphabet is unknown, it's often questionable whether two differing symbols actually describe two different graphemes, or whether they are only variants of the same grapheme. EVA has been attacked on this grounds as discarding subtle grapheme details which may be relevant to understanding the text. Other criticism focused on the fact that for the sake of readability, visual similarity has been lost. (This means that the Latin letters chosen don't always resemble their Voynich counterparts visually, and thus are more difficult to memorize.)
There are several other transcription schemes for the Voynich manuscript, but EVA is still the most widespread. In email conversations, strings of EVA characters are conventionally enclosed in angle brackets, like
External links
- The Voynich Manuscript
- TrueType Type 1 fonts of European Voynich Alphabet
- "Voynich 101", a recent alternative transcription system