Text and context

[tavie]

I entirely appeciate the virtues of tackling Voynichese context-free -  such studies are of course necessary and valuable - but I don’t understand why people can be allergic to bringing context to the conundrum.

I'm probably not understanding what you mean by context, since I don't know what basis you have for saying people are allergic to it.  A lot of researchers try to look for clues in the imagery that might provide information on the Voynich's context, in the hope that it will help us decipher the script.

If by context you mean language, i.e. speculating that Voynichese is Language X and approaching decipherment from that perspective, then yes, there's definitely a good rationale for being allergic to that at this stage when we know so little.  

Many people think the largest obstacle to deciphering the Voynich is the sheer impenetrability of the script, especially the bizarre behaviour of many of its glyphs.  But that only comes a close second in my view.  The real largest obstacle to decipherment is how easy it is to read any language into Voynichese, and then fall prey to confirmation bias that leads you to ignore contradictory evidence and decide you have definitely found the answer.  Spending hours or weeks or years working towards a dead end and trapping yourself there may sound harmless, but it means losing your chance of finding the real solution.

In short: if you're set on going into the labyrinth, make sure you have a thread to find your way back!