The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[rikforto]

The entire origin of this specific theory (and the reason a dictation backstory has been proposed) is based on the supposed match in the relative positions of daiin with the relative positions of the word "use" in the SBJ. To 'retreat' in this position would be to retreat to the initial topic imo. 

I have said at length that that "match" is no such thing. In short, if you have to create a new critical edition of the Shennong Bencao Jing (where you delete the most common verb???), allow the edited characters to match 120 different Voynichese strings (not even orthographic words, conventionally understood), and only get a statistical match for a third of the entries you test, I don't think we can reject the null hypothesis that those cribs are spurious. I've said this, and other people have said most of this.

But Jorge is the one resting part of his argument on the idea that Chinese people are illiterate and just communicate in pictures, and I think it is worth correcting the record on that for its own sake, for reasons that should be plain from that formulation. But it is relevant to this thread, as he thinks it is entirely plausible that The Author could read all Chinese texts (which under this conception would not be "texts" as such) but for knowing the readings, has based his You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on those assumptions, has assumed that Chinese has no grammar (!!!) that would get in the way of doing that, and when asked about the plausibility of the text being in Chinese goes back to the dictation scenario. These problems would remain, albeit with less urgency, if I found the match convincing, but as things stand, I think they go to what a longshot this "match" is for exactly the reasons that Jorge has argued they are not problems