VMs: Reversed syllabic ciphers...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

It struck me last night that one other feature of reversed syllabic ciphers 
is that they can be used to encode pairs of adjacent letters on adjacent 
words, thus blurring the distinction between words. As an example, applying 
Tranchedini's code to his own name:-

	nicodemo tranchedini da pontremoli
-->	n.ic.od.em.ot.r.an.[che].d.in.id.ap.on.t.r.em.ol.i

Because of this combinatorial nature (ie, word-ends get combined with 
following word-starts), adding random spaces to the text would sharply 
increase the number of apparent "words" in the text - while many common 
short words (like "da") would disappear into the "syllable salad".

Notice also that this was state-of-the-art ciphering circa 1450, and that 
code-makers appear to have continued to rely on it for some time.

Could the VMs be using a reversed syllabic cipher (RSC)? You might think 
that, as RSCs introduce many new symbols to the cipherbet, it would be the 
very opposite of what we observe in the VMs (ie, an extremely compact 
monoalphabetic-looking cipherbet). However, looking more closely at the 
details reveals that these (vowel, consonant) pairs were typically encoded 
as pairs [or groups] of letters in a fake alphabet (ie, as a verbose cipher).

Certainly, the VMs seems to have many structural & behavioural features in 
common with RSCs... perhaps part of the VMs' system will ultimately prove 
to be closely analogous to a RSC. We shall see...

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


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