28-03-2021, 12:05 PM
The VMS text is enigmatic on many levels - on the character level, on the word level, on the line level, and even on the alphabet level as well. Dealing with the word and line levels, one notices several features that are simply too well-manifested to be neglected:
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Shifting to the folio and paragraph levels, there have been some You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the attempts to detect the structure of narration in the VMS text.
The latter point suggests that the plain text, beside being encrypted on the character or/and word level, also underwent some kind of shuffling on the word level - and this has been my idea since I finished that blog post of mine. This point is made stronger if the former three bullets are cumulatively taken into account. In fact, shuffling would explain them all right away.
Vord shuffling would also explain why the text is so difficult for us to decode: to approach vord meanings, one would strongly prefer correct vord order, and, on the other hand, it is difficult to approach correct vord order without any idea of the individual vords' meaning. Much like the chicken-and-egg problem, you see.
Now, what could have been this shuffling? Let's say we are pretty sure that it could not have been as simple (or as complex - for the medieval mind) as pure random shuffling of all vords in a folio. That's because that would have been a one-way process, and the output text would have been made virtually impossible for the reader to decode. Unless - and here is the first option that I can suggest right away - shuffling is run against very short vord chunks of constant length. Suppose you break the whole text into three- or four-word chunks, and then shuffle words randomly within those chunks. Then the plain text order would be fairly simple to reconstruct for anyone who has the idea of the grammar of the language of the plain text. Note that, in principle, the chunks do not have to be line-based. In other words, suppose e.g. that we have a three-line source text, the first three-word chunk can be comprised of the first words of the three lines, the second chunk then would be comprised of the second words of the three lines, and so forth. The shuffling is thus vertical instead of lateral. In principle, this is compatible with examples shown in the multipass thread where it appears as if first vords of lines in a paragraph were written in a single pass, and general sequence of writing was not left-to-right, top-to-bottom, but rather top-to-bottom, left-to-right - at least in part.
The second option that I can imagine is technically also shuffling from the perspective of the observed result, but from the perspective of the algorithm I would rather call it "loading". Suppose that one has the available portion of folio space (it may be as simple as a rectangle box or it may be more complex as the folio space limited by images and other portions of the text), and then he proceeds with loading that space with vords, placing vords into certain (possibly even voluntary) positions of that space. What would be the mechanisms that would allow the reader to reconsruct the original vord order? I can think of some, as follows.
a) A static pre-determined map of where exactly you should place each word of plain text. Possibly not the most probable option, since consistent regularity would probably have been discovered by researchers quite quickly.
b) A deterministic algorithm of dynamic word placing. Think of the knight's move for example. Possibly not very probable as well, since that would not explain the right-alignment feature mentioned above, unless there are some specific alignment adjustments in the algorithm.
c) The dedicated pointer. This is like option a), but the presence of dedicated pointer allows you to implement different order for each new case. The dedicated pointer is some sequence or pattern in the text which specifies where each word is located.
d) Positional markers. This is actually an extended variant of option b), only this time the algorithm is supported by positional markers in the text. The abundance of gallows which visually look like markers indeed, and also the baseline jumps of the leading o (and sometimes y) characters, vaguely hint at this possibility.
e) Each vord has a pointer in itself as to where the next vord is located. The leading or the traling character may serve as such pointer, or the gallows character may, as well. Note that the character serving as a pointer does not necessarily mean that it does not contribute to the semantics of the vord. The pointer function may just be an additional function of certain characters - or of characters occupying certain position in a vord.
f) The gallows coverage may also contribute to the vord order in some way.
So... if there is the lost order, then why not go and recover it?
What I'm pretty sure of, is that approaching the VMS text as the simple left-to-right, top-to-bottom word flow is a dead-end.
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- You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
- You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Shifting to the folio and paragraph levels, there have been some You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the attempts to detect the structure of narration in the VMS text.
The latter point suggests that the plain text, beside being encrypted on the character or/and word level, also underwent some kind of shuffling on the word level - and this has been my idea since I finished that blog post of mine. This point is made stronger if the former three bullets are cumulatively taken into account. In fact, shuffling would explain them all right away.
Vord shuffling would also explain why the text is so difficult for us to decode: to approach vord meanings, one would strongly prefer correct vord order, and, on the other hand, it is difficult to approach correct vord order without any idea of the individual vords' meaning. Much like the chicken-and-egg problem, you see.
Now, what could have been this shuffling? Let's say we are pretty sure that it could not have been as simple (or as complex - for the medieval mind) as pure random shuffling of all vords in a folio. That's because that would have been a one-way process, and the output text would have been made virtually impossible for the reader to decode. Unless - and here is the first option that I can suggest right away - shuffling is run against very short vord chunks of constant length. Suppose you break the whole text into three- or four-word chunks, and then shuffle words randomly within those chunks. Then the plain text order would be fairly simple to reconstruct for anyone who has the idea of the grammar of the language of the plain text. Note that, in principle, the chunks do not have to be line-based. In other words, suppose e.g. that we have a three-line source text, the first three-word chunk can be comprised of the first words of the three lines, the second chunk then would be comprised of the second words of the three lines, and so forth. The shuffling is thus vertical instead of lateral. In principle, this is compatible with examples shown in the multipass thread where it appears as if first vords of lines in a paragraph were written in a single pass, and general sequence of writing was not left-to-right, top-to-bottom, but rather top-to-bottom, left-to-right - at least in part.
The second option that I can imagine is technically also shuffling from the perspective of the observed result, but from the perspective of the algorithm I would rather call it "loading". Suppose that one has the available portion of folio space (it may be as simple as a rectangle box or it may be more complex as the folio space limited by images and other portions of the text), and then he proceeds with loading that space with vords, placing vords into certain (possibly even voluntary) positions of that space. What would be the mechanisms that would allow the reader to reconsruct the original vord order? I can think of some, as follows.
a) A static pre-determined map of where exactly you should place each word of plain text. Possibly not the most probable option, since consistent regularity would probably have been discovered by researchers quite quickly.
b) A deterministic algorithm of dynamic word placing. Think of the knight's move for example. Possibly not very probable as well, since that would not explain the right-alignment feature mentioned above, unless there are some specific alignment adjustments in the algorithm.
c) The dedicated pointer. This is like option a), but the presence of dedicated pointer allows you to implement different order for each new case. The dedicated pointer is some sequence or pattern in the text which specifies where each word is located.
d) Positional markers. This is actually an extended variant of option b), only this time the algorithm is supported by positional markers in the text. The abundance of gallows which visually look like markers indeed, and also the baseline jumps of the leading o (and sometimes y) characters, vaguely hint at this possibility.
e) Each vord has a pointer in itself as to where the next vord is located. The leading or the traling character may serve as such pointer, or the gallows character may, as well. Note that the character serving as a pointer does not necessarily mean that it does not contribute to the semantics of the vord. The pointer function may just be an additional function of certain characters - or of characters occupying certain position in a vord.
f) The gallows coverage may also contribute to the vord order in some way.
So... if there is the lost order, then why not go and recover it?
What I'm pretty sure of, is that approaching the VMS text as the simple left-to-right, top-to-bottom word flow is a dead-end.