[Movie] Voynich Talk E3: Why your Voynich theory is wrong (pt2)

[Koen G]

I just uploaded a new video to YouTube. It is the second part in a series where I try (try!) to explain to theorists why their substitution cipher doesn't work. In contrast to the last video though, which focused on the well-known and often discussed entropy problem, this one should also offer some food for thought for those familiar with the statistics. The question I explore is this: if we follow the logic of a substitution cipher, and compare Voynichese to the writing systems of natural languages, then how many letters does its alphabet have? People often claim that Voynichese has a large alphabet, but the opposite is true: it' much too small.