The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Didn’t they generally begin with a Latin version first?

Maybe the VMS Author did so too...

Also, the purpose was to create a written text where there was none for the native speakers, not specifically for the foreigner’s understanding.

For private use, rather than for the locals or for "people back home" (like the Jesuits who needed to report to Rome so that others could be trained), a foreigner would need to develop a script for the local language only for situations like the proposed scenario: namely, to record a text dictated by a native speaker, or record a speech or lecture for later study.  A script based on the Latin alphabet would be too slow for those purposes.  That is why shorthand systems, for any language, do not use Latin letters.

In fact, the Author would need something closer to a shorthand than to IPA.  Which is probably what Voynichese will turn out to be.

For other private situations, like writing a diary or recording any information that he understood, that hypothetical foreigner would surely use his native script and language.

There may have been many cases of foreigners inventing phonetic scripts for the private dictation/lecture uses above.  But those systems would almost certainly be lost by the time their creators sailed off for the last time.  The Chinese Origin Theory says that Voynichese survived only because the Author, back in Europe, arranged for a clean copy of his notes to be made on vellum, with all those boobs intriguing illustrations.

All the best, --stolfi