22-05-2026, 11:48 AM
(21-05-2026, 06:33 PM)dashstofsk wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(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?A fabricated manuscript in a European alphabet would be less likely to succeed.
Okay for the invented script, but I am referring to the other features of the language -- like the short words with complex structure, and the repetitiousness. Features that Europeans at the time would not have seen in any language, known or unknown; including languages with "unknown" scripts like Ethiopian, Armenian, Georgian, Sanskrit... Those features would have made people think of nonsensical gibberish -- as they still do now.
Quote: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.
But that is an imagined scenario. Is it likely to have happened?
There was no lack of manuscripts in foreign languages and foreign scripts circulating in Europe at the time. That hypothetical collector of unreadable manuscripts would have quickly gone bankrupt...
All the best, --stolfi