Re: VMs: Bear with me...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Crissi,

At 12:53 18/03/03 -0500, crissi wright wroght:
> Why would the writer(s) want to encode it in the first place?

Hmmm... I think the answer is "opinions differ". :-o  Pick any opinion you 
like from:
        persecution
        paranoia
        heresy
        note-taking
        communication
        because he/she/they could
        because he/she/they had plenty of spare time
        fun
        it's not encoded, it's nonsense
        it's not encoded, it's written in a shorthand we don't know
        it's not encoded, it's a language we know written in a way we 
don't recognise
        it's not encoded, it's just a language we don't know
        it's not encoded, it's an artificial language
        etc

Over the years, the ingenuity of list-members to extend this list has 
proven fairly unbounded. :-)

> do they know what area it originally came from?

Personally, I think the content and encoder came from Northern Italy 
(specifically Milan and perhaps Florence too), but that the encoder may 
have also been exposed to Arabic or Ottoman influences, perhaps in 
Constantinople post-1453 (OK, 1465-1466 if you really push me). :-)

But again, "opinions differ"... only this time the list of keywords is 
probably 10x longer than above. :-o

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

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