28-09-2016, 03:34 PM
(Disclaimer: I studied linguistics but specialized in all the kinds that are not very useful in Voynich studies. Just to give you an idea, my master thesis was about spelling innovations in Dutch on the internet 
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What I'd really like to see is some solid overview of which linguistic patterns exist in the MS and what they could mean. What happens now all too often is that somebody appears to be on to something and then somebody else comes along and says "yeah but it could also be aan abbreviation" and then the line of research is abandoned.
My prediction is that if we had such an overview and used it to put proposed "alphabet" solutions to the test, they would all fall short.
I'm not sure if linguistic patters could detect the use of abbreviations, since we don't even know to what extent these abbreviations would be used regularly and consistently. I can't think of a way to distinguish possible abbreviations from things like case endings, for example.
)What I'd really like to see is some solid overview of which linguistic patterns exist in the MS and what they could mean. What happens now all too often is that somebody appears to be on to something and then somebody else comes along and says "yeah but it could also be aan abbreviation" and then the line of research is abandoned.
My prediction is that if we had such an overview and used it to put proposed "alphabet" solutions to the test, they would all fall short.
I'm not sure if linguistic patters could detect the use of abbreviations, since we don't even know to what extent these abbreviations would be used regularly and consistently. I can't think of a way to distinguish possible abbreviations from things like case endings, for example.