Re: VMs: Fw: Arctos

[Nick Pelling <nickpelling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jeff,

At 01:43 16/05/2005 +0100, Jeff Haley wrote:
> Oh I see! So what you are saying is that manuscripts written
> in Latin never contained any Greek. Oh well that told me.
> Except that I could probably find an awful lot of examples
> very quickly that do. However that is not the case here. The
> word Arctos appears in more than one Latin dictionary. At
> the time of the VMS many Greek works were being recovered
> either directly or via arabic sources. The words would already
> have had at least an indirect Latin equivalent.

All I'm counselling is etymological caution. If your decryption is based on 
a Latin plaintext, surely having one of your first decrypted words actually 
being Greek somewhat weakens your claim?

Also: you must remember that many Latin words weren't invented by the 
Romans. My guess would be that "arctos" only became sort-of Latinised much 
later with "Ursus arctos" ("bear bear"). (And "Arcturus/i" is another word 
entirely.) To assert a word is often to assert a date...

IIRC, Leonell Strong claimed to have decrypted several words that 
subsequently turned out to be much later coinings than his claimed date - 
all partly interpretative decryptions (whether from inherent systemic 
ambiguity, or from choosing multiple code-tables) which work backwards from 
cribs share this same risk...

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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