A simple substitution experiment

[oaken]

I might recognize that this looked somewhat language like at the line ends, if I was paying attention, but I wouldn't be able to identify the language. If the vms is a cypher, I'm not even sure how a programmer trying a new approach would know they've decoded it if the plain text dropped out of a decipherment attempt unless they were familiar with that language, especially if the plain text as has sometimes been argued is itself anomalous (e.g unique example of a language or orthographic system, unusual dialect, extremely idiosyncratic).