VMs: Re: Piraha and the VMS

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

26/09/02 23:00:33, Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>By amazing coincidence, I happen to have a book about the Pirahã
>language (which had about 110 speakers left in ~1980).  Here is a 
>sample sentence from that book:

>  (1) xaíti xaibogi xaigahápiso xisibáobábagaí sagía xabáobihiabá

It is difficult to believe that such languages can really
exist, isn't it?


>Jacques suggests that those languages may show a better match to the
>VMS, if each word element is written as a separate word, eg.

Did I say that? I must watch my tongue.


>  (2) xaíti xaibogi xaig ahá p i so xisib áo b ábagaí sagía xab áo b i hiab á

>Perhaps...

No, it doesn't look like Voynichese at all. I do think it still 
would not, writing it in a syllabary.

Chinese is still the best match.

But the real point is: there are unbelievable languages out there,
on the very verge of extinction. Only 110 people left speaking
Piraha! We cannot rule out that the VMs is in a strange, now
long extinct, language of Europe.