VMs: Short string

["Brian Tawney" <btawney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

Does anyone think there is any significance to the fact that you can form
about 62% of the words in the manuscript by removing letters from this
string?

qzvpschotskfhleeeodayiiiixrngmly

In fact, of the remaining 38% of the words in the manuscript, 31% of them
are composed of only two substrings that can be created by removing letters
from this string.  So 93% of the words in the manuscript are composed of one
or two strings that can be generated in this way.

I can't think of anything in natural language that behaves this way except
for numbers.  For example, you can create all Roman numerals between 1 and
4999 by removing letters from this string:

mmmmdcccclxxxxviiii

(Or alternately, if you want to allow sequences like mcmxliv, this string:
mmmcmcdccccxlxxxxiviiii)

I am reminded of Roman numerals partly because the letters that frequently
repeat in Voynichese are e and i...which resemble the roman numerals for 100
and 1.  Taken together with other letters that look like Arabic numerals,
it's hard not to think of them as numbers.

I'm sure in the many years of research on the manuscript this ground has
been covered before...I'm just curious what the general opinion is.

Brian Tawney



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