I mean, really, why would it be encrypted?

[DonaldFisk]

One problem is the rather liberal use of the word 'cipher' and 'encryption'.

Friedman did not really say that it is not a cipher. This would require a definition of 'cipher'.
He did say that it looked more like an early form of synthetic language.

By "synthetic language" do you mean "constructed language" (such as Klingon)?    The term You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is used by linguists to describe natural languages which build words up out of parts.