Re: Back to basics - or musings of an old bore

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    > 1) It would be a cruel prank of nature indeed if the numerical
    > similarity of h1 and h2 between the Mss and Genesis in English
    > enciphered with a verbose cipher based on Tiltman's prefixes and
    > suffixes were mere coincidence,

I don't know... Tiltman's elements are parts of common Voynichese
words, several letters long. If you combine them in any semi-random
way, the letter and digraph frequencies of the resulting text should
still be similar to those of Voynichese. Hence the h1 and h2 entropes
are expected to be similar, too.

You should try encoding other texts with widely varying entropies, 
including random gibberish, to see whether English still gives
the best fit.

    > 2) The writing appears too fluid to be something as clunky as a
    > codebook. The scribes were relatively fluent (to different
    > degrees) in writing text in whatever system was involved.

This is a good point.  All I can think of:

  * The only handwriting expert whose opinion we have
    stated quite flatly that there was only one scribe.

  * The standard Chinese writing system is essentially a codebook 
    cipher, yet zillions of people have learned to write it fluently
    and quickly, without looking at the "code book".
    
  * The VMS at Beinecke may be a clean copy of a clunky
    working draft.

    > I really wish we knew more about what Manly had in mind when he
    > said the Mss was in "a comparatively simple cipher disguised by
    > extensive use of nulls." The next time someone is at Yale it
    > would be useful if they'd look at this 20 Mar 1920 letter to
    > Mrs. Voynich.

I would not put too much hope on that "solution"; it sounds like 
another case of self-delusion.

All the best,

--stolfi