RE: VMs: Operators

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Larry Roux <LRoux@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> 1) One would think that if it were a simple
> substitution cipher (ie EVA "l" = "s") that someone
> would have figured it out by now.

Even stronger: the low entropy of the text shows
that it cannot be a simple substitution of a very
common plaintext language (such as Latin, English).
There must have been at least an extra step.

> 2) The statistics show amazing flatness.  Usually
> this is not seen in known languages

There are no flat statistics in the VMs that I
am aware of. Everything is very close to 'normal'. 
 
> 3) Repeated words.  While languages do allow words
> to be repeated (ie "she is very very pretty" or
> "vous vous..") we see this too often in the Voy. 
> Some words are repeated 3 or 4 times consequetively.

This is true. I think there is only one case of a
4-word repeat in the entire MS though. Also, 
it is not obvious how this would be more indicative
of a cipher.

> 4) the words appear strange.  some "sentences" are
> something like "abcd abed abcde abce" 

This is indeed one of the main peculiarities of
the Voynich MS.

> Not everyone believes it is in some complex cipher. 
> It very well could be a made-up language, a phonetic
> kind of writing, or something else.

I was in a poll once, and 6 of 7 people agreed
that it was more like language than cipher (FWIW).

Cheers, Rene


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