Quote:It can stand for a concept. It doesn't have to stand for a word.
What's the difference? Could you please provide an example? In a language, are not concepts conveyed with words?
Quote:1) I think the fundamental difference between you and me is that you think the ms. is a ciphre and I don't
I don't think this introduces any difference, since both cipher and abbreviation are operations on plain text in accordance with pre-defined rules, hence we may treat abbreviation as a kind of cipher.
Quote:89 would never stand as abbr. for deus, only de or ds (as a matter of fact I would say with a 89 you would have a nomenclator).
I once encountered "89" in a 15th century manuscript diagram and interpreted it as "deus". Perhaps I was wrong. That really does not matter. We may designate the abbreviated word whatever. Let's call it "XXX", or "ABC" or whatever you wish, and assume that this "ABC" maps to one or more possibilities.
Quote:Voynich words are an artificial partititioning of the flow of the text. Its like writing 'Gods av et heQ een'.
Thatis exactly what I meant when I wrote "OK then probably the script is taken not for its face value, but with some additional provisions - like adjacent groups of symbols not representing words."