09-03-2020, 10:25 PM
To my mind mind the question is mostly terminological, but there is a bit more... answering it implicitly suggests that if it is natural then we will apply methods specific for natural languages, if unnatural - then methods specific for unnatural languages. So then answering it is not very informative, but rather restrictive.
As an example, there is a book consisting only of words beginning with the letter A. Is it written in natural language?
More trickier example. Imagine that VMS was obtained from some text in natural language using trivial transformation T:
natural language -> T -> Voynichese
It’s often shown that T cannot be simple substitution.
Now imagine that VMS was written using several transformations:
natural language -> T1 -> T2 -> ... -> Voynichese
Assume some Tn is simple substitution, but the composition T1 -> T2 -> .... is not. Can we say VMS is written using simple substitution cipher? How restrictive would be the definite answer here?
Overall VMS most probably is in superposition of several states and lacks clear colors.
As an example, there is a book consisting only of words beginning with the letter A. Is it written in natural language?
More trickier example. Imagine that VMS was obtained from some text in natural language using trivial transformation T:
natural language -> T -> Voynichese
It’s often shown that T cannot be simple substitution.
Now imagine that VMS was written using several transformations:
natural language -> T1 -> T2 -> ... -> Voynichese
Assume some Tn is simple substitution, but the composition T1 -> T2 -> .... is not. Can we say VMS is written using simple substitution cipher? How restrictive would be the definite answer here?
Overall VMS most probably is in superposition of several states and lacks clear colors.