Re: VMs: Folio and Quire numbers

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> positing nulls in Voynichese is much like a
> scaled-down version of the hoax assertion:
> "that which cannot be comprehended must be 
> meaningless".

I know that you know it, but it is worth pointing
out that there is more to it than that.
The usual argument is:
1) cryptographers say it is too complicated to be
   a medieval code
2) linguists say that it is no known langauage
3) there is too much structure for it to be 
   meaningless (i.e. a hoax).

Now I tend to agree on (1). This probably puts me
in a minority group on this list :-)
On (2), I just remember that our favourite linguist
on this list never tired (at least until recently)
of indicating how all features one observed in the
VMs can also be seen in various different languages.
Of course, the language has not been identified,
but one could say that the text is language-like.
On (3), there is a really interesting contradiction,
because it is also often pointed out that humans
are not very good at making random sequences.
So in reality it seems to fit.
Friedman and Tiltman independently through that
the VMs was a constructed language (implying that
it is a meaningful text). Perhaps it really is a
constructed language, just to make something that
looks like text. A mysterious-looking text,
but one without meaning.

To really prove this, one has to show how it has
been done. Pending that, I cannot think of any
compelling argument why this could not be it.

Cheers, Rene

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