21-05-2026, 06:33 PM
(21-05-2026, 03:48 PM)Jorge_Stolfi wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.why did he make Voynichese so unlike European languages?
Easy.
The scenario I can imagine is that perhaps some similar manuscript in the Arabic script was sold to someone who did not understand the text but who had the luxury and self importance to want to buy and hold such a manuscript, a rarity because it was not in a European language, and who was happy to pay a premium for it. Perhaps this purchase then came to the attention of some opportunist who then had the idea to ‘invent’ a manuscript, claim it to be a work from some distant land, with the intention of offering it to some similar person of importance for a similar premium.
A fabricated manuscript in a European alphabet would be less likely to succeed. People would try to 'read' the manuscript by trying to pronounce the words using European letter sounds and the nonsensical babble would make them suspicious. After all, the Latin alphabet was widespread. But with a foreign alphabet there would be uncertainty to the correct pronunciation and so would less likely be dismissed as a fraud.