19-09-2019, 12:00 AM
davidsch, I get the hint that you're thoroughly sold on the hoax hypothesis. But if you're implying that the hoax hypothesis is becoming consensus here, or is the only rationally tenable VMS theory anymore, I'm not sure I agree with you on that.
bi3mw, he'll have to speak for himself, but I think Torsten's point is that the preferred type of correction evident in the VMS is actually a more severe indictment of the meaningful text hypotheses than a lack of any sort of corrections would be. If I follow Torsten correctly, it appears to him that after randomly generating >2 identical or nearly identical vords, the scribe seems to have been like, Uh oh, too many repetitions will arouse suspicion. Better add another stroke to one of those words that makes it different from the others! I think this point has merit.
On the other hand, I can think of an alternate explanation for, say, amending 'chedy chedy' to 'chedy shedy'. I know that in Arabic, the vowel marks are not usually written, because they're usually not necessary for comprehension. But every now and then context does not make it clear which vowel sounds should be inserted where, and in that case, just enough vowel marks will be written on that word to clear up this ambiguity. Assuming the VMS's text is meaningful in some way, It's possible, for example, that EVA 'chedy' can stand for more than one meaning and pronunciation, depending on context. But more than one 'chedy' written back to back would provide a reader two few contextual clues to tell how to pronounce each one. So amending one of them, either by expressing the idea with a different but similar-looking word, or by adding a mark that's usually understood to be there but omitted in one of the uses of 'chedy' but not the other, serves this purpose.
Ockham's Razor favors Torsten's idea over mine, no contest. But it's not the only possible explanation.
bi3mw, he'll have to speak for himself, but I think Torsten's point is that the preferred type of correction evident in the VMS is actually a more severe indictment of the meaningful text hypotheses than a lack of any sort of corrections would be. If I follow Torsten correctly, it appears to him that after randomly generating >2 identical or nearly identical vords, the scribe seems to have been like, Uh oh, too many repetitions will arouse suspicion. Better add another stroke to one of those words that makes it different from the others! I think this point has merit.
On the other hand, I can think of an alternate explanation for, say, amending 'chedy chedy' to 'chedy shedy'. I know that in Arabic, the vowel marks are not usually written, because they're usually not necessary for comprehension. But every now and then context does not make it clear which vowel sounds should be inserted where, and in that case, just enough vowel marks will be written on that word to clear up this ambiguity. Assuming the VMS's text is meaningful in some way, It's possible, for example, that EVA 'chedy' can stand for more than one meaning and pronunciation, depending on context. But more than one 'chedy' written back to back would provide a reader two few contextual clues to tell how to pronounce each one. So amending one of them, either by expressing the idea with a different but similar-looking word, or by adding a mark that's usually understood to be there but omitted in one of the uses of 'chedy' but not the other, serves this purpose.
Ockham's Razor favors Torsten's idea over mine, no contest. But it's not the only possible explanation.