VMs: Random Text Generation

["Robert Antony Hicks" <rob_hicks_vms@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All,

I have found an interesting little program on the net called LangMaker.  
It's a utility for assisting those weirdoes who like to create their own 
artificial languages (of course, I found it by accident), and is used to 
generate 'structured' random words.

You can download it at : http:\\members.aol.com\JAHenning

With the program it is possible to specify, in reasonable detail, a set of 
algorithms for the production of random words based on tables of word 
length, structure, letter sequences and frequency, etc.  The results for a 
very hasty attempt at Voynichese produced -

ton choy ofchoan qopchyain faiin dody ofain odoaiin cfhchyain shoar okair 
cphshyan doan otchys tos lod s okain shoaiin doan shoy shory docy don shoin 
cfhshyaiin don chody kaiin lol kody shoain opchoaiin chory okchoain cphchody 
chody kom shon kshyn doain choccy ofshoaiin kchoy doy shol shon tory okchom 
qocfhan shol shory shoan okshym ckhshoaiin dody cthshoain doain cthon shom 
lol shody shor...(etc)

Many of the features of the VMS are immediately visible (as they should be, 
because I told the program to do this).  With tweaking and some more 
detailed statistics, it should be possible to approximate Voynichese even 
more.  The reason I mention this is because it may provide a means of 
determining whether or not the VMS is a randomly-generated set of gibberish 
or something else.  My theory goes as follows -

If an algorithm can be created that approximates Voynichese so well that the 
generated text matches real Voynichese to, say, 90% accuracy (based on 
letter, bigraph, trigraph, word frequencies, zipf laws, etc) AND it is 
simultaneously found to be impossible to create a similar algorithm with the 
same accuracy for a real language, the implication would be that the VMS's 
scribe(s) used some sort of random word generation system.

Is there any fundamental flaw in this logic?  I'm not out to prove one way 
or the other whether the VMS is gibberish or not, but it seems to be a means 
of determining this important fact.

One could argue, I suppose, that any language could be modelled with an 
algorithm, as long as no limit was set on the complexity of the algorithm.  
Our VMS scribe(s), however, would have been limited to something very simple 
like a table of letter patterns and a knuckle-bone dice or two.

Any thoughts?

Rob



_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online 
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list