05-02-2016, 11:54 AM
While I am fully undecided whether the text is meaningful or not, there is clear evidence of planning, and the creation as a whole was not a purely mechanical process.
The strongest argument is the different word distribution in the labels, i.e. these don't follow Zipf's law at all.
What I could imagine is the following process. (Note, I don't really believe this myself, but it is a possible model).
The author wanted to invent his own language, and made a list of the most common words - a dictionary.
His words (the Voynich words) follow some system. Let's say that he started with the 500 most common words.
As he started to translate a text into his own language, he needed to keep adding words to his list. His system (e.g. if it is number-like) would allow this. This could explain how similar words are found near each other....
There is however a big "if" here.
I wonder whether it is possible to create a dictionary, by which each Voynich word can be matched to one plain text word in some language in such a way that the result is a meaningful text in that language. I.e.: can the Voynich MS be translated word for word?
This is really independent of whether the system behind the MS text includes encryption or not. Suppose the text was encrypted using many nulls, then several different Voynich words map to the same plain text word.
My tendency is to think that the answer is no. (but of course I don't know).
I believe that a lot of people are assuming (possibly not consciously) that the answer is yes.
For me it's a question that divides all possible solutions into two halves.
There is much more to be said about this (e.g. the relevance of the word spaces) but that will be for another time.
The strongest argument is the different word distribution in the labels, i.e. these don't follow Zipf's law at all.
What I could imagine is the following process. (Note, I don't really believe this myself, but it is a possible model).
The author wanted to invent his own language, and made a list of the most common words - a dictionary.
His words (the Voynich words) follow some system. Let's say that he started with the 500 most common words.
As he started to translate a text into his own language, he needed to keep adding words to his list. His system (e.g. if it is number-like) would allow this. This could explain how similar words are found near each other....
There is however a big "if" here.
I wonder whether it is possible to create a dictionary, by which each Voynich word can be matched to one plain text word in some language in such a way that the result is a meaningful text in that language. I.e.: can the Voynich MS be translated word for word?
This is really independent of whether the system behind the MS text includes encryption or not. Suppose the text was encrypted using many nulls, then several different Voynich words map to the same plain text word.
My tendency is to think that the answer is no. (but of course I don't know).
I believe that a lot of people are assuming (possibly not consciously) that the answer is yes.
For me it's a question that divides all possible solutions into two halves.
There is much more to be said about this (e.g. the relevance of the word spaces) but that will be for another time.