Re: VMs: Arguments against a code book?

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote:

  > the "Towneley Plays" ... was it here that I got the hint?
  
It was here indeed, from Knox's site

  http://home.earthlink.net/~knoxmix/id7.html

As Knox notes, the word length distribution (WLD) of the TPs is very
"binomial-like". (But still not as symmetric as the Voynichese WLD,
though.) I presume that it is due to most words in the TPs being
monosyllabes.

Both are very different from the WLDs of "literary" texts in many
languages. Here are some preliminary plots which you may find
interesting. Sorry for the lack of explanations, I am working on them.

  Voynichese, Latin, Portuguese, German, Russian:
  http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-1-euro.png

  Voynichese, GordonRuggish (software), GordonRuggish (manual)
  http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-1-rugg.png
  
  Voynichese: Text, Labels, Both
  http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-1.png
  
  Voynichese, WarOfTheWorlds, CulpeperHerbal, TowneleyPlays
  http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-2.png
  
  Voynichese in OKO-code, Vietnamese, WarOfTheWorlds, TowneleyPlays, Latin
  http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-1-qoko.png
  
  Voynichese, Arabic(-V), Arabic(+V), Hebrew(+V), Hebrew(-V), Geez(+V)
  http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-1-smit.png
  
  Voynichese, Latin, Greek, Spanish, Geez(+V), Arabic(-V)
  http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-3.png
  
  Voynichese, Vietnamese, Tibetan, ChineseNews, ChineseNovel
  http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-4.png
  
  Voynichese, CnineseBible (two versions), ChineseNews (two versions), ChineseNovel
  http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-5.png
  
  Voynichese, Tibetan (two old buddhist texts), Tibetan (modern budhist text)
  http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-6.png
  
  Voynichese, English (Roman-numbered codebook), Chinese (fancy-number codebbok)
  http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-8.png
  
  Voynichese, Chinese (compact phonetic script), Tibetan, Vietnamese
  http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/wlds/langs-w-lengths-9.png

Note the close match with the vowelless Arabic text (the Holy Quran),
it was quite a surprise. Who has got the Arabic pizza ticket? 8-)

All the best,

--stolfi
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