The Voynich Ninja

So now Patrick Lockerby can take the Klaus Shmeh challenge:

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And if he really has a solution, he should be able to tell the difference between sense and nonsense and blog about it.

Too bad the test is so easy to cheat 

Re Klaus's test:

There's a fundamental flaw in the test in that it does not account for the possible shuffling of vords within the text. Some repetitions such as qokedy qokedy qokedy (was it this way?) suggest that such shuffling may be in place. In that case neither of Klaus's sequences would present a coherent text.

I split the posts about Klaus' test. In theory the idea of such a test is great, but I agree with Anton that it is flawed. Another flaw is that Klaus has no way of knowing to what extent the shuffled sentences he made are ungrammatical. Some languages will allow for more shuffling than English.

(29-07-2017, 02:07 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Re Klaus's test:

There's a fundamental flaw in the test in that it does not account for the possible shuffling of vords within the text. Some repetitions such as qokedy qokedy qokedy (was it this way?) suggest that such shuffling may be in place. In that case neither of Klaus's sequences would present a coherent text.

I don't think it's a fundamental flaw so much as a limitation. Very few tests will work in all circumstances.

If the VMS is constructed grammatically, it might be a valid test or at least interesting to try.

If the VMS is not constructed grammatically, it might still reveal certain patterns or differences, but they might be too subtle to be discernible. It probably wouldn't be useful.


I still think it's a cool idea even if it doesn't apply to all circumstances and maybe we can build on it and do some thinking about ways to test "translations".