VMs: Language structure

[pklist01@xxxxxxxxx]

First : I have changed my e-mail address, so this is a small test if it
still works. I'm Petr Kazil.

Second : I'm sorry to repeat something that's been discussed in the
archive. And the first thing that I'll build as an exercise in VB.NET will
be an archive searcher :-)

Third : I'm reading Umberto Eco's book on artificial languages. I have
come acroos several schemes of philosophical languages where all terms are
expressed as a tree-structure (like the library Dewey ? code). The idea
is:

Inanimate = a
Animate = b
- people = c
- animals = d
-- cats = e
-- horses = f
--- riding horses = g
--- ponies = h

To use the term "pony" you would enumerate the whole path to the term. So
in this case it would yield : pony = bdfh

This might explain some characteristics of Voynichese like:
- very lookalike words
- order of "letters" in words is predictable
- some very short words

But it would not explain:
- repeating words

Also the idea is quite a bit younger that 1430. Still such a complex
unwieldy concept might have been attractive for earlier ages. LLul's and
Trithemius' schemes were maybe even more unwieldy.

But such a structure might also have been used in producing "glossolalia"
like language. And I might imagine an alchemist buliding a hierarchy of
angels and then using such a code to make a summarized incantation.

I know I'm cutting an awful lot of corners here and I know we're going
round in circles, but we have no other choice :-)

Fourth : Rafal, I'm reading the book "Pamietnik znaleziony w wannie" bu
Stanislav Lem (in translation). There is a whole hilarious chapter on
cryptography Stanislaw Lem-style. It would be something to make us all
laugh. Can you lay your hands on an english translation? I'll try to find
it here in the Netherlands but it's just s slight chance.

Greetings, Petr



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