I mean, really, why would it be encrypted?

[nickpelling]

In my opinion, the categories of "language", "synthetic language", "cipher", "shorthand", and "steganography" are modern constructs, and are entirely unhelpful here, particularly when allied with the word "hypothesis" (as so often seems to happen). If people instead were to call them 'aspects' or perhaps 'views' of Voynichese, they might start to find far more useful things to say, and they might also start to find ways of working together.

The key problem is that they all seem to be justified simultaneously. So is it the artifact that is messed up or might it be our modern epistemological pigeonholes that are at fault? (Hint: the artifact is just fine.)