Calgary engineer believes he's cracked the mysterious Voynich Manuscript

[Ahmet Ardıç]

If anyone wants to answer the questions below, I'm curious about your opinions. 

I also partially asked these questions to artificial intelligence;

How many different languages are there in the world?
If we were to write human sounds in modern and ancient European languages with Latin letters, which language would need the largest number of letters? How many letters should or are there in this language?
Which written language requires the largest number of letters in the entire Indo-European language family? How many letters are there in this language? I would like the same questions to be answered for the Semitic family languages.

You can see the AI answers below. Artificial intelligence says that the Indo-European language, which needs the most letters in Europe, can be written with approximately 28 (or maybe 32?) letters. (I would like to discuss the exact question and the answer given by the machine here.) Do you think the answer to the machine is correct? Which European language needs the largest number of letters? Considering the ancient sound structures of these languages, including today's European languages, which European language do you think needs the most letters?

   

Chat GPT4's answer was more detailed than GPT3.5.

Here is the answer:
Addressing your questions involves delving into phonology (the study of the sounds used in speech) and orthography (the method of writing a language). To analyze the complexity in representing human sounds (phonemes) in written form across different languages, we'll need to consider both modern and historical linguistic scenarios within the Indo-European and Semitic language families.
Indo-European Language Family
Modern and Ancient European Languages:

• Across all European languages, both modern and ancient, the distinctions are nuanced. Ancient languages like Classical Latin, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit had complex phonetic systems, but each was efficiently represented with an alphabet adapted to its sounds. However, if we consider languages in terms of needing adaptations like diacritics (marks added to letters), the picture changes.
  
• Old Church Slavonic and its derivatives in the Cyrillic script might be a contender among ancient European languages because of its range of sounds represented by a combination of basic letters and diacritics.
  

Language Requiring the Largest Number of Letters:

• Among Indo-European languages, Sanskrit stands out for its complex phonetic system, especially when represented in the Devanagari script, which isn't based on Latin letters but can be transcribed with them. Sanskrit phonology includes a wide range of vowels (both short and long), diphthongs, and consonants, including voiceless, voiced, aspirated, and nasal sounds, leading to a large number of distinct phonemes.
  
• When Romanized (transcribed with Latin letters), Sanskrit requires a significant number of additional diacritic marks to represent its phonetic nuances, arguably making it the language that would need the largest number of Latin letters for accurate transcription. The exact number can vary based on the transcription system, but it would easily surpass the basic 26 letters, incorporating diacritics to represent different phonetic qualities.
  

Semitic Language Family
Largest Number of Letters Needed:

• Semitic languages, including Arabic and Hebrew, use abjads—a type of writing system where each symbol typically stands for a consonant, leaving the reader to supply the appropriate vowel. This makes the phonetic representation seem simpler but can complicate precise transliteration into Latin script.
  
• Arabic could be considered the Semitic language that requires a large set of Latin letters for transcription due to its phonetic range, including sounds not found in many other languages, such as the emphatic consonants. However, the core Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters, and additional letters are used in some languages that use the Arabic script to represent sounds not found in Classical Arabic.
  
• Proper representation in Latin script would require the use of diacritics and additional letters to accurately capture these sounds, especially if we're including the variations present in modern Arabic dialects.
  

Conclusion:
In conclusion, within the Indo-European language family, Sanskrit (when its sounds are transcribed into Latin script) likely requires the largest number of letters due to its rich phonetic inventory. For the Semitic family, Arabic, when transcribed into Latin script, potentially requires a considerable array of letters and diacritic marks to represent its full range of phonemes accurately. The exact number of letters or symbols needed can vary significantly based on the transcription system used, but both languages would necessitate more than the standard Latin alphabet to represent their phonetic complexities accurately.