The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[eggyk]

Even without knowing the language (written or spoken) the Author in theory could have recognized those fields because they are almost always at specific places in the recipe, and are introduced by specific characters: 味 = "flavor", 一名 = "another name", and 生 = "provenance,habitat".  To exclude those fields he would have to skip from the 味 (inclusive) to the next 主 (exclusive), and anything from the first 一名 or 生 to the end of the recipe.  Which is my case, in fact.

If he didn't know the written or spoken language, he would not have been able to recognise those fields, even in theory. In order to remove them, he had to know what the symbol was and what the section represented. 

Anyway, if Voynichese is indeed a phonetic script, and the Author understood the spoken language, no matter how he got the phonetic representation he would have realized that those fields of each entry were useless -- if not before he started, then shortly into the project.  He surely knew the spoken words for "sweet", "sour", "warm", "another name", "grows", etc; and any doctor would have explained to him that those flavors and provenances are not literal ("excuse me, but how can rooster quills be sweet and warm?") but codes into Chinese medical theory -- and useless outside of it.

Why would the doctor explain that to him? The classical chinese text would not have provided an understandable flow of intelligible language when spoken character by character. Therefore I would assume such a flow would not have been understood by the VMS author as it was spoken, and that those sections wouldn't have been particularly more or less understandable than any others, so he would likely not have asked for an explanation. 

This would be different if the dictator read the characters and translated full sentences/concepts into the understandable local dialect which the VMS author understood. But in that case the structure of the SBJ content would be changed. 

If the concept was explained to him by the doctor, wouldn't writing it down still hold the knowledge of what it meant within the context of chinese medicine? Later on, the VMS author would speak out loud "is sweet, warm" and say "ah yes, sweet+warm means this in chinese medicine".

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Let me use an analogy close to my experience to perhaps get my point across: Let's say there's an englishman going to the netherlands. The englishman knows many dutch words, enough to have day to day conversations. Lets say for the sake of analogy that the englishman cannot read dutch text at all.  

One day, a dutch family all read a written dutch message from someone that they all seemingly find informative, provoking a strong emotional reaction. The englishman, curious, asks to be told what the message said so he can write the message in english for his english family back home. His family love a bit of gossip. 

But as his dutch isn't too great, he asks for it to be read word for word. It's going okay until: 
maar - but 
vanmiddag - this afternoon
kwam - came
de aap - the monkey
uit de - out of the
mouw - sleeve

"???" says the englishman. He knows all of the words, yet none of the meaning. 
"maar vanmiddag kwam de aap uit de mouw? They had a monkey?"
"nee nee, that is saying... uhh de secret.. intentie of him was then clear" says the dutchman
"Ah, the cat was out of the bag then!" replies the englishman
"Een kat?"

The analogy here is thus: the dutch saying in this scenario is the classical chinese section that makes no sense when directly spoken character by character. The meaning of the phrase isn't conveyed word by word, but rather as a block. 

Literally, it is maar+vanmiddag+kwam+de+aap+uit+de+mouw   ---->  "but this afternoon came the monkey out the sleeve"

but in reality it is being read as:
maar vanmiddag [kwam de aap uit de mouw]  ------> but this afternoon [came the monkey out the sleeve] -----> but this afternoon [the concept of a hidden motive being revealed]

The only reason the englishman knew to ask was because the dutch saying was nestled between content that he understood. The only reason the dutchman felt the need to explain was because the englishman knew to ask. In the chinese character by character dictation scenario, the entire content is comparable in intelligibility to that dutch saying. There wouldn't be sections he understood, and sections he didn't. He wouldn't understand the structure of anything, other than grasping a word here or there outside of its full context.