15-05-2026, 01:41 PM
Thank you for running that again oshfdk!
I'm surprised my tone-number conjecture did worse, but that's why we look at data. So, the logic of the "slots" alone does not drive the similarities we're seeing in the <a> chart and to a lesser extent the nuclear vowel chart, which is good to know. After reflection, I suppose it makes sense. Sound change famously causes uneven distributions in the phonotactics of a language, so that roughness is an expected feature of tracking more distinctions. You would need a representation that evened that out, which I believe phonological representations are very unlikely to do. I would predict this roughness would be present for any Romanized Mainland Southeast Asian language because that roughness is a product of sound change which affects all languages.
I cannot slam the door closed with this analysis, and I invite a counterexample, but I do take this as further grounds to argue Voynichese is not a phonological representation of an underlying language. The emphasis of my conclusion here is on "phonological representation", but that comes part and parcel with the hypothesis that there is no underlying language, and that's a fair interpretation as well.
I'm surprised my tone-number conjecture did worse, but that's why we look at data. So, the logic of the "slots" alone does not drive the similarities we're seeing in the <a> chart and to a lesser extent the nuclear vowel chart, which is good to know. After reflection, I suppose it makes sense. Sound change famously causes uneven distributions in the phonotactics of a language, so that roughness is an expected feature of tracking more distinctions. You would need a representation that evened that out, which I believe phonological representations are very unlikely to do. I would predict this roughness would be present for any Romanized Mainland Southeast Asian language because that roughness is a product of sound change which affects all languages.
I cannot slam the door closed with this analysis, and I invite a counterexample, but I do take this as further grounds to argue Voynichese is not a phonological representation of an underlying language. The emphasis of my conclusion here is on "phonological representation", but that comes part and parcel with the hypothesis that there is no underlying language, and that's a fair interpretation as well.