14-02-2016, 09:19 PM
@Sam
> 1) There's at least some word order in the VMS.
I disagree.
"There are only 35 word sequences which use at least three words and appear at least three times. Only for five of these sequences is the word order unchanged for the whole manuscript, whereas for 30 out of 35 phrases the word order does change." (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as Timm 2014: p. 3)
Moreover "An additional observation is that in 24 out of 35 cases these repeated sequences use at least two words which are either spelled the same or very similarly." (see Timm 2014: p. 3)
Sometimes similar words are used together. But even for them the order of words doesn't matter.
> there is certainly some evidence for word inflection
Did you mean with inflection the use of similar words like in 'daiiin' - 'daiin' - 'dain'?
It is also possible to connect totally different words like 'daiiin' and 'chedy' this way:
'daiiin' - 'daiin' - 'dain' - 'chdain' - 'chedain' - 'chedan' - 'cheda' - 'chedy'!
> 2) From what I've read, there are natural languages with a lower entropy than the VMS ...
This languages are Japanese and Hawaiian (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). But there is no doubt that the VMS belongs to Europe.
Moreover the line structure also holds some information. Therefore you have to subtract the entropy for the line structure.
> 1) There's at least some word order in the VMS.
I disagree.
"There are only 35 word sequences which use at least three words and appear at least three times. Only for five of these sequences is the word order unchanged for the whole manuscript, whereas for 30 out of 35 phrases the word order does change." (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as Timm 2014: p. 3)
Moreover "An additional observation is that in 24 out of 35 cases these repeated sequences use at least two words which are either spelled the same or very similarly." (see Timm 2014: p. 3)
Sometimes similar words are used together. But even for them the order of words doesn't matter.
> there is certainly some evidence for word inflection
Did you mean with inflection the use of similar words like in 'daiiin' - 'daiin' - 'dain'?
It is also possible to connect totally different words like 'daiiin' and 'chedy' this way:
'daiiin' - 'daiin' - 'dain' - 'chdain' - 'chedain' - 'chedan' - 'cheda' - 'chedy'!
> 2) From what I've read, there are natural languages with a lower entropy than the VMS ...
This languages are Japanese and Hawaiian (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). But there is no doubt that the VMS belongs to Europe.
Moreover the line structure also holds some information. Therefore you have to subtract the entropy for the line structure.