More rigorously testing the hoax hypothesis

[MarcoP]

@Koen: Didn't you have collected meaningless texts here in the forum some time ago ? But unfortunately I can no longer remember the corresponding thread.

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This was the thread, but as Koen says these experiments did not go far. Thankfully, we now have Gaskell and Bowern's paper as a more solid base for discussion.

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The two general approaches outlined above (MATTR and vocabulary-matching) seem promising, but I think they both suffer from the problem that they are fundamentally measures of structure rather than measures of meaning. It's easy enough to take structure as a reasonably proxy for meaning, but as our experiments show, it is quite possible for a text to be both structured and meaningless.

Personally, I don't see structure as a proxy for meaning, but as something that can be discussed on an objective ground and can be more easily agreed upon. If one looks at ancient texts, much of their content is meaningless gibberish, for instance the Alchemical Herbal is a collection of unidentifiable plants with unheard names and unbelievable properties. Is this meaningful?

Is the Books of Revelations meaningful?

And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.

I think that focussing on structure and grammar is easier. We can all agree that the Alchemical Herbal is written in grammatical Latin (or Italian) and that King James Bible is written in grammatical English. I would like to know if the Voynich manuscript follows a grammar: it would be great if that was the grammar of a natural language, but identifying any grammar would be a huge step forward. I think this step must be taken before we can discuss meaning.