Re: VMs: Operators

[Barbara Barrett <barbarabarrett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Larry Loquited in response to Graham's Gabblings and Jeff's Jottings;
> 
> Mainly the feel is that it is encrypted (in some fashion) due to
> several factors:
> 
> 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.

Barbara Blithers;
Indeed, even quite complex substitutions would have been cracked by now,
which is why I feel it's a writing system. I've spent years and years
working with various writing systems, even inventing them, and my gut
reaction looking at the Voynich is that I'm looking at a writing system.

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

Eh, what do you mean by flatness? I may be just being pedantic here, but
as the language of the Voynich is an unknown surley any statistics are
operating not upon the language but it's encipherment?

> 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.

Personally I don't see this as odd at all. It would be if the Voynich
writing system was just an unknown writing system for an unkown (or
known) langauge, but the writer(s) were also after security too, thus
methods such as repeating letters and words (as "nulls") is (to my mind
at least) to be expected. If one looks at the advice for the use of the
"public" secret cipher of Ogham in the 15thC "Book of Ballymote" one
finds such practices advised to give an extra level of befuddlement for
attempted readers, known by such prosaic names as; "Outburst of rage",
"Serpent in the Heather", "Well Footed" and "Vexation of the Poet's
Heart".

Then again this could be a matter of the script's orthography, repition
could serve many purposes, repitition of words could serve as emphasis
(in the same manner we use capitols, asterixes, underlining, and
italics) doubling and trebbling words could serve different types of
emphasis. When I have a copy of the text myself I'll look to see if
doubled and trebled words "bracket" other words/sentences. Although that
would prove nothing as in some writing systems only introduction is
nessesary. Trebeling a word might pluralise it; eg; "car car car"
instead of "cars"
Ancient egyptian worked in a similar way, although it used treble
logograms.

As for doubling letters I did a cypher once where all the letters were
unvoiced and a doubled letter was the voiced, as in Welsh spelling f = f
but ff = v. A trippled letter indicated an inital or final vowel to a
two letter word. I did not permit one or two letter words. It was also
phonetic and voweless, so all english words could be written with; p, k,
t, x (th) f, h, c (ch), l, m, n, N (ng), r, s, S (sh), w (wh), j (y).
EG: Mary had a little lamb, it's fleece was white as snow = 
    mrhtt llltl lmpp tttss flswzz wtsssssn

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

I've seen similar patterns, although I'm unshure where. I thought it was
in one of my egyptology books where an example was given of ancient
Egyptian rendered without logographs, determinatives, bi- or
tri-literals, but intirely in uni-literal consonants. The object was to
show the student the nesesity of the more complex graphemes and the
confusion that resulted when they were dispensed with. Another was a
list of english words (with very different meanings) which without
vowels became indistinquishable. However a quick search of my egyptian
primers has failed to uncover them. Another was in a semi encrypted
diary where when using an Athash or reverse script would make juxtaposed
words seem similar. Such mixed semi encription if expected is
transparent to the reader, but vexacious if unexpected; the Irish called
this technique "Outburst of Rage".

> 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.

My gut reaction is that the voynich is intended to be just picked up and
read, which rules out a complex encryption. I beleieve it is a phonetic
writing system with a complex orthography combined with semi-encryptions
of the kind I've outlined. But, this is just how I feel about it, I've
no evidence to back up my feelings, I've just this haunting deja vu type
notion that although I do not understand the script I've seen these
patterns before.

> In any case, it is encrypted in that it is not plain-text.  One would
> expect that a document of the timeframe most people believe the ms is
> from  (1200 - 1600) that we would be able to read it (ie it is
> probably not a lost language such as an egyptian dialect or
> something).

As you might guess from what I've written I think it is basically
plaintext, but "obscurified" in part rather than fully encrypted.

> Hope this helps.

Likewise ;-)

Barbara
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