01-02-2016, 08:42 PM
(23-01-2016, 10:47 AM)ReneZ wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.One of the most important aspects (IMHO) of the gallows is so obvious that it is rarely mentioned. This is, that Eva-k and Eva-t, which have a similar shape, can also occur in exactly the same contexts. Take any word with one of them, replace it, and you have another valid word (with a very high probability).
Without going into a list of possibilities how this could happen, I think it is very important.
Note that this also works for ch and sh, and r and l, just to name a few.
It does not work for k and p (or the other three similar options). Currier was adamant that p and f are never ever followed by Eva-e, though in more complete transcriptions one may find a few examples of that. In any case, k and t are of course very often followed by e. p and f might be interchageable, but I am not certain of that.
For me, this confirms the conclusion from entropy analyses and the existence of (not very strict) word patterns, namely that one should not hope to turn the Voynich MS text into a meaningful plain text by simple substitution.
This should be phrased more precisely of course. It means that any such plain text is necessarily in a language that exhibits the same features: special entropy, word patterns, replaceable characters.
While I cannot speak for the first of these characteristics, I would suggest that the other two are pretty normal for natural languages. Although the Voynich language my exhibit them more thoroughly than typical, I don't think they are peculiar.