>Until that point, the linguist had been trying in vain to decipher the text
Well no, the linguist tried in vain to do frequency analysis by hand on ~88 symbols for ~100 pages for a couple months before saying "bugger this for a game of soldiers" and went on with her life.
"She tried a few times to catalog the symbols, in hopes of figuring out how often each one appeared. This kind of frequency analysis is one of the most basic techniques for deciphering a coded alphabet. But after 40 or 50 symbols, she’d lose track. After a few months, Schaefer put the cipher on a shelf."
Like a lot of people that played Fez, I recently did some frequency analysis by hand, to crack the alphabet in that game. It was pretty tedious, and I messed up frequently. I wouldn't blame her for giving up after a few mistakes.
Well no, the linguist tried in vain to do frequency analysis by hand on ~88 symbols for ~100 pages for a couple months before saying "bugger this for a game of soldiers" and went on with her life.
"She tried a few times to catalog the symbols, in hopes of figuring out how often each one appeared. This kind of frequency analysis is one of the most basic techniques for deciphering a coded alphabet. But after 40 or 50 symbols, she’d lose track. After a few months, Schaefer put the cipher on a shelf."