Re: VMs: Arguments against a code book?

[Bruce Grant <bgrant@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jorge Stolfi wrote:

> Actually the resemblance between Herbal-A and Herbal-B is much greater
> than what would seem from this listing, because many of the Voynichese
> words listed above *do* occur in the other language, only with
> different frequency; whereas most of the Italian words above
>
>  che,di,il,un,la,con,l',le,d',ma,era(?),più,del,da,gli,come,è,
>  i,al,se(?),quel,s',don,io,lo,della,renzo,disse,due,suo(?),o,aveva
>  
> are not valid Latin words, and vice-versa
>
>  quod,est,ut,vel,quam,qui,sed,quia,autem,habet,sunt,secundum,
>  hoc,potestatem,ab,potest,nec,propter,tamen,principatus,ergo,
>  plures,quae,cum,potestatis,enim,plenitudinem,fidelium

This seems like a very interesting situation. It suggests to me what you 
might see if 1) two different writers were applying the same ciphering 
scheme independently, and 2) if it is not the particular words but some 
_feature_ of the words that conveyed the meaning.

To give an approximate idea of what I am trying to suggest, think of two 
people spelling English words using a phonetic alphabet of the type 
airline pilots use. To spell the word "APPLE" one person might say "ABLE 
PAUL PAUL LEO EDWARD" and another might say "ABLE PETER PETER LEO 
EASY".  In other words, they may be choosing from the same universe of 
acceptable words but making different choices of particular words to 
according to their whim.

Of course, in view of the large number of different words, the 
significant feature would probably be something more than a single 
letter of the word ... perhaps each word represents a syllable, for example.

Bruce


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