[split] Verbose cipher?

[geoffreycaveney]

Back on the topic of this thread, the work by Koen and Marco was of course intended to see how one can bring the entropy of the MS text to a level compatible with known plain texts by combining characters, i.e. trying to identify components of a verbose cipher. In the course of that, they had many dozens of different 'alphabets', as the plots at Koen's blog shows.

As far as I recall, this iterative process did not include the option to 'undo' earlier combinations as a next step. If that would be allowed, the number of different 'alphabets' grows even further. Another thing they did not do was to consider certain characters as equivalent. Doing that really explodes the number of possibilities.

If one would allow all that, indeed a genetic algorithm seems like the most suitable approach.

Now coming to the VCI 'alphabet', this is not a transcription / transliteration, but an interpretation, and it is based on just one of the above-mentioned myriad of possible 'alphabets', all of which are equally (im-)probable.
It is based completely on speculation.

The most significant divergence of VCI from Koen's final (best) verbose cipher analysis that I can see is treating EVA [ar] as two units rather than as a single unit. Yes, that was an element of interpretation. Also, equating EVA [qo] and [qok] was a significant adjustment. Other differences appear to me to be mainly cosmetic, and can be transparently adjusted as necessary: It is a simple matter to express EVA [lch] as <sj> rather than <š>, EVA [rch] as <lj> rather than <l'>, etc. I made it very clear that I had an objective reason for treating all [ch] ligatures and glyph sequences in VCI in the manner that I did, motivated by the very low [och] / [ch] ratio in comparison with [ockh] / [ckh] and [octh] / [cth]. But again, it is simple enough to express EVA [lch] as VCI <sj>, [rch] as <lj>, etc., and they are exactly in line with Koen's best version. 

In many cases one can add the lower case vs. capital distinction if desired where VCI equates two glyphs or sequences: For example, one could express EVA [r] as VCI <l> but EVA [or] as VCI <L>, and EVA [a] as VCI <a> but EVA [al] as VCI <A>, etc. This makes it very convenient to treat the two glyphs/sequences as either identical or distinct, simply by toggling case-sensitive vs. not case-sensitive, as I have already aimed to do with EVA [p] = VCI <P> and EVA [f] = VCI <T>, etc. 

Of course others are welcome to propose their own transcriptions based on Koen's or others' verbose cipher analysis. Whether it's VCI or another version, I think it provides an interesting different way to look at and think about the ms text.