Re: VMs: could it not be a hoax (I would like it not to be it)

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Gordon Rugg <g.rugg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> We can more or less rule out the possibility that
> the VMS is a non-encoded exotic
> language whose words correspond to Voynichese word
> breaks, since no natural language
> shows the more exotic features of Voynichese. 

I'm not quite ready to subscribe to that, although
it depends a bit on what one calls 'non-encoded'.
Is: 'rendering in a new script' a language
that is originally written in another script
(e.g. Arabic) or not written at all, a form of 
encoding or not? A couple of years ago I found
out that there is a language spoken in S.Italy
even today that is not written down. OK, it is a
Romance language (called Faetar), so not a 
candidate for us. But how many more such languages
could have existed 500 years ago?

> That still leaves a variety of possibilities,
> including the following:
> 1: a natural language whose syllables correspond to
> Voynichese "words" (e.g. the
> Chinese hypothesis)
> 2: an encoded form of a natural language not widely
> spoken in Europe 1470-1586, and
> therefore not yet investigated by cryptographers
> 3: an unusual cypher (or an ordinary cypher
> concealed in a lot of gibberish)
> 4: a hoax

For me, a hoax implies a deliberate attempt to
deceive. This may not have been on the VMs writer's
mind. It is eminently possible that he meant well
but still wrote gibberish that is not understandable
to anyone. So we need to add:
5) gibberish (glossolalia)

Furthermore, we should add:
6) synthetic language

All options can be questioned, but in my opinion
the 'hoax' theory is just one of several remaining
options - not the most likely.

Cheers, Rene 

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