The Voynich Ninja

here is a curious thing about the 327 parags of the Starred Parags section:

No two parags end with the same pair of words.

If we look only at the last word of each parag,  we still get 271 distinct words.

Of these, 236 occur in only one parag. Those that occur at the end of two or more parags, and their counts, are 

  7 chedy

  5 cheody
  5 lchedy
  5 qokeey

  4 otain

  3 alkam
  3 cheey
  3 chey
  3 keedy
  3 otaiin

  2 aiinal
  2 am
  2 choty
  2 daiin
  2 lam
  2 lkaiin
  2 lkeey
  2 lky
  2 okaiin
  2 okain
  2 okal
  2 okaly
  2 okeedy
  2 olaiin
  2 olam
  2 olor
  2 olshedy
  2 oraiin
  2 oram
  2 oteey
  2 qokaiin
  2 qokain
  2 shedy
  2 sheody
  2 shol


It was already known that the first words of parags tended to be unique, but that was sort of expected because they probably were the name of the plant or whatever that the parag was about.  As is typically the case with herbals and materiae medicae.  

But it is intriguing that the last words are mostly unique too...

All the best, --stolfi

(20-01-2026, 02:53 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  2 aiinal

aiinal seems only to occur once as the last word of a paragraph, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. at line 12. Then in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. it appears at the end of line 48 ( and possibly also at the end of line 45 ), but neither of these two is a paragraph last word.

(20-01-2026, 04:16 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.aiinal seems only to occur once as the last word of a paragraph, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. at line 12.

107r.12 and 107r.47

Yes, I see now. ZL has it as optional:

<f107r.47,+P0>    okain.cheey.lol.loeey.[o:a]iinal<$>

(20-01-2026, 04:16 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.aiinal seems only to occur once as the last word of a paragraph, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. at line 12. Then in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. it appears at the end of line 48 ( and possibly also at the end of line 45 ), but neither of these two is a paragraph last word.

I changed a few parag breaks in my transcription, based on several considerations. Report coming... Maybe I got that one wrong. Will check again...

Al the best, stolfi

(20-01-2026, 02:53 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.236 occur in only one parag

Surely not. This figure is the number that occur only once as the last word in a paragraph.

I can count only 81 that appear once in quire 20 and that appear at the paragraph end. The proportion of paragraph last words being unique ( 81 out of 327, ~25% ) seems to be only a bit more than the average for quire 20 ( 2052 singles in 11816, ~17% ).

(20-01-2026, 05:55 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This figure is the number that occur only once as the last word in a paragraph.

Yes, sorry, that is what I meant. I was looking only at the last words.

All the best, --stolfi

I find this very interesting. 

Of course, everyone is surely aware that exact counts cannot be made due to transliteration uncertainties, including uncertain spaces.