Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS

[Jorge_Stolfi]

I assume that the VMS is, in any case, a composite manuscript. The topics of the individual sections could therefore very well be independent of one another. The fact that the various parts were written in different languages is also not unusual.

Recapping 70 years of statistical chewing by many people, the statistics of the two "languages" seem too different for a simple change of topic and/or style (like, from conditional "if one takes..." to imperative "take..."); but too similar to be really two different languages.  

My recollection is that many words, including some very common ones, occur in both "languages" with similar frequencies; while many words are completely replaced.  And there seem to be a radical "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view." that acts on characters in such a way that the lexicons and word frequencies become surprisingly similar.  I doubt that one could do that with two different languages, even close ones like German and Bavarian, Spanish and Portuguese, or Tuscan (modern Italian) and Neapolitan. 

Thus my guess is that the difference is mostly a "spelling reform" (or, if you believe it is encrypted, a change in the encryption algorithm).

All the best, --stolfi