RE: Voynich Reconsidered
Anton > 21-02-2023, 09:34 PM
Mathematically that's correct, but from what I've seen in practice, generally when people consider it from the angle of "plaintext vs ciphertext" they don't think of maths, but rather of the underlying cultural case study. One case is when some guy from a land long lost to where no pathway goes writes a text in a now forgotten language, in an arcane script. The case when another guy enciphers commonplace Latin (Spanish, Greek etc.) with a substitution cipher is quite different.
Culturally, a cipher is a technique used to conceal. In this view, natural language written in some script is not a "cipher"text, and it has not been "encrypted", for cryptography is secret writing, and there is no secret in plain words put on paper.
Putting aside some most extravagant natural language theories, generally people are considering a forgotten language or (another case) an unknown script designed specifically for ethnic group having no their script of their own. Researchers pursuing or inclining to this strand may be linguists or people with some background in linguistics.
On the contrary, when people try to find substitution cipher solutions, that's mostly because they are novices in the VMS, and its perceived "simplicity" blinds them at first. A substitution cipher is the simplest cipher, so it's entertaining to seek for possible solutions, especially if they are limited to suggesting several keywords.
Just a passing note (I have not read the blog post above discussed).