Voynichese is a numeric cipher?

[Jorge_Stolfi]

While studying Roman numeral systems and ciphers, I found two features. ... 1). The asymmetry of character distribution: Due to the constant ratio of 14:5 in Roman numerals, the density of symbols of the first rank (I, X) in the ciphertext is significantly higher than that of the fifth‑rank symbols (V, L). ... 2). Since the cipher alphabet is based only on basic Roman numerals and does not encode any digrams such as IV/VI,

The possibility that the Voynichese words could be numbers in some "Roman-like" number system You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  But the only similarities to Roman numerals were (1) the distribution of word lengths in the lexicon was equally compact and symmetrical, and (2) the words seemed to consist of a number of slots in a fixed order, and each slot could be empty of filled with a small set of alternatives specific for that slot.

However, Voynichese words were quite unlike Roman numerals in the order of slots and the number of different choices for each slot.  Hence that "14:5" ratio would not apply.  

In that page I proposed an alternative number system that could perhaps be similar to that used in the VMS.  But then I realized that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and many other East Asian languages, so I dropped the "numeral" idea...

All the best, --stolfi.