Can it be done without a "Rosetta Stone"?

[Koen G]

Nice overview, Thomas. I guess it would also make sense to further divide the third type:

3A: We don't know which language the inscription is in. But it will turn out to be a known language like Greek.
3B: We don't know which language the inscription is in. Additionally, this language does not exist anymore and has not been recorded anywhere else.

In the second case, I don't see how we could move much further than some deductions based on statistics.


There are two aspects which makes Voynichese even worse though. 

1) We don't know what it is. If you find inscriptions on remains of buildings or stone tablets or what have you, you can generally assume with some certainty that it is a natural language. With Voynichese there's the whole "possibly hiding information" thing going on. The "cipher or not" question is not as resolved as one may believe.

2) We don't know where its from. We don't know its cultural background. It could have been made by immigrants, copied from whatever document... This is different than the Palmyra inscriptions or the Egyptian hieroglyphs.