VMs: Blanks: trying to summarize...

["Maurizio M. Gavioli" <mmg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

thanks for the many answers / comments / etc. on the blank issue. Trying to 
summarize (and hoping not to over-simplify), I think the following points 
can be considered very probable:

1) late medieval / early modern ciphers usually omitted the blanks (mainly, 
if I understand correctly, to obfuscate word boundaries). However, those 
cyphers were in the vast majority applied to short messages rather than 
long texts like the Vms.

2) It is unlike (or at least it would be anachronistic) that Vms. blanks 
were 'fake' blanks re-inserted (randomly?) after cyphering the text.

3) It is practically impossible, for the time, that blanks belongs to the 
cypher algorithm.

These points together make the very PRESENCE of blanks in the Vms. 
unexplicable or at least problematic, if the ms. is considered a cypher text.

To this, another aspect has to be added:

4) In the Vms., at least looking at the portions of running texts, strings 
delimited by blanks 'look like' words:

there are patterns -- as shown, for instance, by the stem + ending 
hypothesis --, there are frequent and rare words, there are preferred 
initial and final letters, etc... Of course, the fact that (again, if I 
understand correctly) statistical distributions do not match any reasonably 
applicable language cannot be disregarded, but the former elements cannot 
be disregarded either.

Do all these elements substantiate the hypothesis that the Vms. is not a 
cypher text at all?

SVBEEQV,

        Maurizio


 Maurizio M. Gavioli -  VistaMare  Software
 via San Bernardo 5, I-16030 Pieve Ligure, ITALY
 http://www.vistamaresoft.com/

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