06-03-2022, 07:07 AM
(07-12-2021, 07:14 PM)Mark Knowles wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think often people start with an idea for a language they think the Voynich might be written, because it is a language they have interest in.
They probably take a few words they have an idea for a crib from and then assign Voynich symbols accordingly. Then to make the other words fit they fall back on variable spelling, arbitrary spacing, no grammar(word salad), various related languages/dialects, words that vaguely plausibly could be consistent with the pictures we see in the Voynich and limited selective text translations. All together these provide the degrees of freedom necessary to make a theory fit.
Now they may arrive at their primary language of choice directly from their crib or from some similarity to symbols from another language. The likelihood that they crib words are correct is most likely high debatable and so their assignment of symbols.
Obviously there are variations on this method and other degrees of freedom like anagrams.
Agreed. The proper approach is to first determine the historical context of VM production. I don't see that anyone has yet done that.