[Typhon]

then handwave away the 80% of the manuscript that has to be gibberish because the information density is too low to be some kind of natural language

Well, if you'd read more carefully, you'd know that Stephen Bax is precisely claiming that it is a natural language. And I don't know as much as you regarding the other translation attempts, but from what I gathered, they made assumptions which are incorrect from a linguistic perspective (e.g words "too long" or "too short" for it to be a natural language, which in fact only proves that it's likely not a european language)

[yohanatan]

I think you mis-read that sentence. The 'because ...' applies to 'has to be gibberish' not 'handwave away the 80%'. He's saying that it is impossible to be a natural language because the information density is too low and that this author as well as all others willfully ignore that reality.

[lotsofmangos]

So, presumably you think these folk are wrong then -

Probing the Statistical Properties of Unknown Texts: Application to the Voynich Manuscript

While the use of statistical physics methods to analyze large corpora has been useful to unveil many patterns in texts, no comprehensive investigation has been performed on the interdependence between syntactic and semantic factors. In this study we propose a framework for determining whether a text (e.g., written in an unknown alphabet) is compatible with a natural language and to which language it could belong. The approach is based on three types of statistical measurements, i.e. obtained from first-order statistics of word properties in a text, from the topology of complex networks representing texts, and from intermittency concepts where text is treated as a time series. Comparative experiments were performed with the New Testament in 15 different languages and with distinct books in English and Portuguese in order to quantify the dependency of the different measurements on the language and on the story being told in the book. The metrics found to be informative in distinguishing real texts from their shuffled versions include assortativity, degree and selectivity of words. As an illustration, we analyze an undeciphered medieval manuscript known as the Voynich Manuscript. We show that it is mostly compatible with natural languages and incompatible with random texts. We also obtain candidates for keywords of the Voynich Manuscript which could be helpful in the effort of deciphering it. Because we were able to identify statistical measurements that are more dependent on the syntax than on the semantics, the framework may also serve for text analysis in language-dependent applications.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...

[yohanatan]

Oh, I don't really have an opinion either way or the other (as I don't have enough information on it). I was just clarifying the intent of my grandparent.

[lotsofmangos]

Well, in clarifying someone else's intent you appear to have gone a bit further and seemed to be supportive of them about what is and isn't reality in this case, which doesn't seem to make much sense if you don't actually have an opinion on this subject.

How do you know their intent anyway? Are they actually your grandparent?

[yohanatan]

I think you mis-read my original post. The last sentence had this structure: "He's saying ... and ..." (i.e., he said both those things [including the one about reality]).

And, I knew his intent based on reading comprehension and context.