(29-04-2021, 09:43 PM)RenegadeHealer wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Geoffrey, allow me to make a suggestion. Your hypothesis is that the VMs is enciphered Middle English and has to do with Edward, Second Duke of York. Your null hypothesis, therefore, is that the VMs is not enciphered Middle English, and has nothing to do with Edward, Second Duke of York. Falsify this null hypothesis. If it’s not true that the VMs is not enciphered Middle English and has nothing to do with Edward, Second Duke of York, what might one expect to find? I strongly recommend inviting other researchers to help you with making a list of findable things in the VMs that one should expect to find, if your null hypothesis is wrong. Then go looking for those things. If you and/or other researchers readily find examples in the VMs of most of the items you listed, then reject the null hypothesis, and proceed from the assumption that against any appearances to the contrary, the VMs is enciphered Middle English, and has to do with Edward, Second Duke of York.
On the other hand, if your scavenger hunt doesn’t turn up much, that doesn’t mean your hypothesis isn’t true. But it does mean it’s probably too far-fetched to be worth pursuing further, barring you finding a multitude of things that resist any other plausible explanation.
But this is only a suggestion. It’s your project. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. ?
I think that this was already done.
I remember a post, but I have been unable to find it again, in which the top ten most frequent words in a Middle English text were listed. At least some of these words should appear with some higher frequency in any solution that suggests that this is the language of the source text.
This has not been achieved.
I am also reminded of a piece of knowledge that Voynich researchers of 15-20 years ago would all have known, but which now may be largely unknown. This is about a piece of proposed plaintext from Leonell Strong, in supposed Middle English, that was emphatically rejected by Mary D'Imperio. It said:
Quote:When skuge of tun'e-bag rip. seo uogon kum sli of se mosure-issue ped-stans skubent, stokked kimbo-elbow crawknot
Translating it to modern English may be left as an exercise to the reader, but could be looked up in D'Imperio's Elegant Enigma.