A case for Gibberish

[Mark Knowles]

Say F is a function which transforms a word meaning in English to the equivalent Voynichese word. I am not suggesting that the original language is English, but if it another language then that just requires a function which translates that language from English to that language incorporated into F.

So taking an example where:

F("wet") = EVA-okol
F("dry") = EVA-otol

Of course if we are dealing with abbreviations we are potentially saying that:

For some A and B            F(A) = F(B)          A != B

If we start to apply this logic to labels then for some labels it is straightforward as they are unique or rarely repeated.

The problem comes with labels that are repeated and in many different visual contexts.

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Maybe to modern thinking, but wet/dry hot/cold was absolutely integral to medieval thinking. EVERYTHING was classified this way. And not just wet/dry hot/cold, but sometimes also c 3, w 2 (cold to the 3rd degree, wet to the 2nd degree). Galen and Aristotle had enormous influence over medieval ways of perceiving the properties of things.

The same is true for good and bad. Every day of the year was classified as good or bad, according to the stars and manuscripts have lists and lists of good and bad days.

If you can point me to a manuscript which exhibits this kind of phenomena and where the repeated labels are all spelled rather similarly then I will be impressed.

The point is that of course almost anything is possible in theory to the conceive a realistic scenario that satisfies of the behaviour that we see with repeated labels seems pretty implausible. If you suggest otherwise then the only way I can see you supporting that assertion is with real world examples that are remotely similar.