For further info, if anyone is interested, Stephen Bax claimed a decade ago to partially decode the manuscript; here’s a video with his reasoning, as well as the paper he released. Sadly Bax passed away in 2017 (may he rest in peace), so the work was left incomplete.

  • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyzOPM
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    15 days ago

    This video has some great info, and it’s easier to approach than videos talking directly about the entropy issue.

    Hypothetically speaking, if there’s a language encoded there, the problem of relatively few letters can be still addressed by multiple phonemes sharing the same letter.

    For example, not representing VOT distinctions - so pairs like “peat” vs. “bead” are written the same, even if phonemically distinct. It seems the Southwestern Paleohispanic worked like this, so even if it’s syllabary-ish you’d see way less symbols than you’d expect for one (only ~30).

    That introduces some complexity though - it’s the sort of thing you’d expect to see when a language is trying to adapt the writing system of another, and so far we didn’t attest the writing system elsewhere. Plus it makes Ockham’s Razor scream bloody murder.

    • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
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      15 days ago

      It’s also notable for the repetitive strings it produces that is very unlike most (all?) known languages, such as the famous: “qokeedy qokedy shedy tchedy […] qokal otedy qokedy qokedy dal qokedy qokedy rgam.”

      It’s also possible the manuscript could contain two (or more) different languages, or different encoding methods, depending on what it is. See: https://www.voynich.nu/extra/lang.html