Historical Context

[Koen G]

All translations proposed so far have one of two problems. 

1) It only works for a few words, translating a paragraph is impossible. This is because the beginning is easy. Pick a random language, and you will be able to start translating select Voynichese words. This works with any language. The true test is making sense of larger pieces of text. 

2) If they do manage to translate a larger text, the infamous "interpretative step" is involved. This is a step in the translation process where the translator uses the law of large numbers in his favors. For example, he may allow himself to add or change vowels. He will look for enough freedom to be able to turn any input into a string of existing words. The result is often still garbage. 

Changing to a related language does not fix the problem. There are fundamental properties of the Voynichese system we do not understand yet. Like why is entropy so low? As long as these problems aren't addressed first, you can plug in any language and you will fail, or end up in one of the two scenarios described above.