03-07-2018, 10:25 AM
As far as classifying scripts, paleography is a grayscale. There are many hybrid scripts, and every writer had individual habits.
The Book hands (more formal handwriting) are more easy to recognize (and more consistent) because books were mostly written by trained scribes (many of whom traveled), or at scriptoria. The French manuscripts from the late 1400s are good examples. The same is true of the clerical hands used for legal documents. But the handwriting in books can vary quite a bit because scholars copied each other's manuscripts so they could have a copy.
Cursive hands probably varied the most because school notes or personal memoirs didn't have to meet any professional standards—they were written for the use of the writer. Some are barely legible.
But to get to the VMS...
One of the most distinctive letters in the VMS marginalia is the letter "g". It has an elegant down-left-pointing oval for the loop, an s-curve tail that does not loop back onto the top loop, and an add-on lowered serif. All these characteristics are less common in cursive hands (writing it this way is slower), but can be found in book hands. However, book hands (those with serifs and calligraphic thick and thin balance) don't match well to the marginalia when all the letters are considered together.
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Here are some samples of letters that match fairly well to the marginalia (for scripts that score at least 70 or higher out of 120 in terms of similarity to the VMS). As can be seen in the first row, the letter "g" in similar scripts can sometimes be distinctly different.
The number above each sample is the approximate date (bibliographers and historians are unsure of many of these dates, so they may be ±20 or 30 years). The number on the bottom is the score for overall similarity to the VMS marginalia. A perfect match on every letter would produce a score of 120. It is extremely difficult to find texts that score 77 or higher and only about 13% score 70 or higher.
![[Image: GSimilarity.png]](https://voynichportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/GSimilarity.png)
The Book hands (more formal handwriting) are more easy to recognize (and more consistent) because books were mostly written by trained scribes (many of whom traveled), or at scriptoria. The French manuscripts from the late 1400s are good examples. The same is true of the clerical hands used for legal documents. But the handwriting in books can vary quite a bit because scholars copied each other's manuscripts so they could have a copy.
Cursive hands probably varied the most because school notes or personal memoirs didn't have to meet any professional standards—they were written for the use of the writer. Some are barely legible.
But to get to the VMS...
One of the most distinctive letters in the VMS marginalia is the letter "g". It has an elegant down-left-pointing oval for the loop, an s-curve tail that does not loop back onto the top loop, and an add-on lowered serif. All these characteristics are less common in cursive hands (writing it this way is slower), but can be found in book hands. However, book hands (those with serifs and calligraphic thick and thin balance) don't match well to the marginalia when all the letters are considered together.
---------------------------
Here are some samples of letters that match fairly well to the marginalia (for scripts that score at least 70 or higher out of 120 in terms of similarity to the VMS). As can be seen in the first row, the letter "g" in similar scripts can sometimes be distinctly different.
The number above each sample is the approximate date (bibliographers and historians are unsure of many of these dates, so they may be ±20 or 30 years). The number on the bottom is the score for overall similarity to the VMS marginalia. A perfect match on every letter would produce a score of 120. It is extremely difficult to find texts that score 77 or higher and only about 13% score 70 or higher.
![[+]](https://www.voynich.ninja/images/collapse_collapsed.png)