
A Use for Big Data: Cracking the Voynich Manuscript - jcr
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/finally-a-use-for-big-data-cracking-the-voynich-manuscript
======
ars
Has anyone tried to write gibberish while pretending to be language? (i.e.
don't just write scribbles, but make an effort to look like language - but
don't actually have a meaning.)

And then analyze it to see if you can tell.

~~~
Swizec
I used to dabble in the creation of naturalistic languages. As soon as you
have a syllable structure you can start writing things that look like language
but aren't.

Once you add grammar you get things that _are_ language, but are still
gibberish until you write a dictionary.

The most notable example of this would be Tolkien's Middle Earth. He created
tens of languages to various degrees of completeness. Qenya, for instance, is
so complete you can write books and poetry in it. It's even taught at Oxford.
That's elvish.

But dark elvish, the writing on The One Ring, has only been constructed to the
extent that he could write that inscription. Nothing else of it exists.

Or you can even go for a much simpler example - a markov chain. "trained" on
an English corpus it will produce texts that _look_ exactly like English. But
because it doesn't adhere to any grammatical rules it produces nothing but
gibberish.

------
bakhy
I read only to the end of the first paragraph, where it says that big data
_might_ crack the enigma.

I think their title needs a question mark somewhere.

~~~
ehurrell
I think people are learning Betteridge's law of headlines [0] so questioning
title constructions are more obviously link-bait.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines))

------
dsfsdfd
Vortex should be Vertex in the article... Just appeasing my OCD monster

------
bresc
It just doesn't look worth cracking... Probably someone wrote down what he
thought would be super secret information, that nowadays seems laughable...

------
Animats
XKCD's explaination: [http://xkcd.com/593/](http://xkcd.com/593/)

------
danjayh
Nice title. "Finally, a use for Big Data..." \-- as if it were a technology
lacking in practical applications.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Yeah, it's kinda linkbaity and probably made that way because either the
author / editor doesn't understand big data or thinks it's just another media
buzzword, or to actively try and draw readers in that take offense to the
title.

