VMs: VMS not Welsh? oh well....

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxx>]

Without proper decipherment techinques in place, the VMS is as
Welsh as it is Chinese.  Both are equally as valid.  There's a
major move based on physical evidence toward an Italian
provenance, which is a very logical way to travel, IMHO.  But even
this avenue leads to the same conclusion - the VMS is not
"language", but something else.  It cannot be directly translated
character-for-character, glyph-for-glyph, into any language.  I
think most of us can at least agree on this point.

Since it doesn't correspond directly to any given language (and a
great many have been tried), suggestions are being made that
perhaps certain glyphs correspond to groups of characters (sh, ch,
tt, tte, oo, ou, etc., to use English as an example.)  This
doesn't work either, in any language.  You can test it and come up
with a few things that look real, but in the end we all know that
the numbers don't match the form of any natural language, and no
matter how we try, we can't make the VMS conform to our
expectations.  Somehow this simply makes some work harder in their
given direction.  I don't make this observation as a detraction to
the efforts of others, in any way.  The added effort one is driven
to in order to verify their own beliefs is indeed a valuable part
of the scientific method and indeed a mathematical phenomenon.
The more effort expended in proving something, the less likely a
factual presentation will occur, and the less likely the statement
will be proved to be true - since truths have the ability to stand
on their own without any external effort whatsoever.  Call it the
George W. Bush phenomenon, if you will. :-(

I have a couple of problems with the dating of the astromical work
being done.  Concensus to date placed the VMS between 1450 and
1550, with leaners divided between the low and high end of the
date.  D'Imperio gave a good synopsis of this, and why it couldn't
have been beyond 1550, but I'm too lazy to go to my shelf right
now.  Many early researchers cut this down, saying that the work
was probably 1500-1550, for various reasons.  My personal dating
places it between 1526 and 1550, and more probably centered around
the few years before and after 1538.  That's a far cry from 1605,
but I've yet to prove conclusively to others that my viewpoint is
the correct one.

This sounds very arrogant to write, and I don't doubt I'll gain a
few disparaging remarks because of writing it, but folks, I'm
right.  I'm going to say straight out that you need to go back and
really look at Dr. Strong's papers.  He wasn't entirely there - he
didn't have our information - but he had the kernel.  I won't say
anything further about it, and leave it at that, other than to let
you know that I like deep crust, with lots of extra cheese.  And
pepperoni - lots of pepperoni.

GC

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