Re: The French Hypothesis, Etc.

["Gabriel Landini" <G.Landini@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 13 Dec 2001 at 17:39, Dennis wrote:
>  2)  280 Voynichese words constitute 80% of the Voynich
> text, as Robert Firth showed.  Yet the remainder is
> 8000 words!!!  Are even natural languages like that? 

Just for the record. I am not sure that the estimate is correct. 
Perhaps the 280 figure was estimated based on some fragments only 
while the 8000 words comes from my estimate from the unchecked 
version.

In the unchecked version, the most common 280 words make up for  
58.72% of the vms.
To get the 80%, you have to include 1504 words. That comes down to 
words with frequencies of 3 or more in the entire ms.

>  If it really is a philosophical language, it sounds
> really tough to me.  Perhaps that's the tripartite
> paradigm: the combination of three groups of qualities,
> like Ramon Lull's wheels of correspondences.  But how
> do you solve a whole a priori language?  It would have
> to at least be related to the ones we know about.

Do you mean the underlying grammar?

Cheers,

Gabriel