Scribal hands and Currier languages

[Torsten]

While writing my latest blog post, I read on Rene's site You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that Currier concluded that six to eight scribes wrote in the manuscript. That's main text, ignoring marginalia. I have no experience with telling apart different handwritings, so I thought I'd ask here.

Has this been confirmed? Has anyone else studied this in detail? 
Of how many hands can we be certain? Again, only considering core text, not marginalia or quire numbers.
And how do the different hands correspond to Currier A and B? 

For Currier A word types similar to [daiin] and [chol] are typical whereas for Currier B types similar to [chol] are rarely used. Instead many types which  are rare or doesn't exist in Currier A are used in Currier B. Typical word types for Currier B are words like [chedy]/[shedy] or words starting with [qo] like [qokain]/[qokaiin] or [qokeedy]/[qokedy].

Lets compare the statistics for words similar to [chol] and [chedy] in Currier A and Currier B. In Currier A the words [chol], [shol], [sho] and [chy] are frequently used. In Currier B everything changes. The words [chol], [shol], [sho] and [chy] are less frequent then in Currier A. Instead the words [chey], [shey], [cheey] and [sheey] are frequently used. 

Currier A - statistics for words similar to [chol] and [chedy]:
char  ( 30) chear  ( 22) cheear  (  1)
chal  ( 15) cheal  (  7) cheeal  (  1)
chor  (182) cheor  ( 59) cheeor  (  8)
chol  (280) cheol  ( 71) cheeol  (  3)
cho   ( 48) cheo   ( 12) cheeo   (---)
chy   (104) chey   ( 78) cheey   ( 34)
chdy  (  9) chedy  (  2) cheedy  (  3)
chody ( 44) cheody ( 27) cheeody (  4)

Currier A - statistics for words similar to [shol] and [shedy]:
shar  ( 12) shear  (  5) sheear  (  2)
shal  (  1) sheal  (  2) sheeal  (---)
shor  ( 69) sheor  ( 26) sheeor  (  4)
shol  (118) sheol  ( 37) sheeol  (  5)
sho   (106) sheo   ( 15) sheeo   (  1)
shy   ( 65) shey   ( 60) sheey   ( 39) 
shdy  (  2) shedy  (  2) sheedy  (  1)
shody ( 26) sheody ( 15) sheeody (  2)

Currier B - statistics for words similar to [chol] and [chedy]:
char  ( 36) chear  ( 23) cheear  (  1)
chal  ( 27) cheal  ( 22) cheeal  (  1)
chor  ( 27) cheor  ( 31) cheeor  (  4)
chol  ( 89) cheol  ( 88) cheeol  (  6)
cho   ( 12) cheo   ( 33) cheeo   ( 16)
chy   ( 31) chey   (238) cheey   (122)
chdy  (119) chedy  (470) cheedy  ( 52)
chody ( 42) cheody ( 46) cheeody (  8)

Currier B - statistics for words similar to [shol] and [shedy]:
shar  ( 19) shear  ( 15) sheear  (---)
shal  ( 13) sheal  ( 12) sheeal  (  1)
shor  ( 18) sheor  ( 24) sheeor  (  1)
shol  ( 55) sheol  ( 64) sheeol  (  9)
sho   ( 14) sheo   ( 20) sheeo   (  7)
shy   ( 32) shey   (193) sheey   ( 92) 
shdy  ( 38) shedy  (401) sheedy  ( 78)
shody ( 24) sheody ( 25) sheeody (---)

And are we even certain about the clean distinction between these "languages" to begin with?

There is no clean distinction between Currier A and Currier B. The following table shows the frequencies for some words typical for Currier A like [daiin] and [chol] and for Currier B like [chedy], [qokaiin] and [qokeedy]. By doing so it is possible to order the sections of the VMS in a way that two sections with similar frequencies follow each other. This way it is possible to demonstrate a steady development from Currier A to Currier B.

section               daiin aiin qokaiin chol cheody chedy shedy qokeedy  total word count
Herbal in Currier A     403   33       1  228      8     1     0       0        8087
Pharmaceutical (A)       99   39       2   45     18     1     1       0        2529
Astronomical             23   38       0    8      8     4     0       0        2136
Cosmological             36   56      18   19      7    24    17       4        2691
Herbal in Currier B      72   72      20   13      7    62    35       9        3233
Stars (B)               122  193     114   62     33   190   113     137       10673
Biological (B)           84   32      88   14      0   210   247     153        6911

There is no difference between Currier A and B regarding the usage of spelling variants. In both "languages" words common on one page are maybe rare on the next page. The statistics can even differ for the two sides of the same folio. The only pattern which can be found on every page of the VMS is that they contain similar words like [daiin] and [aiin] or [chol] and [chor]. Typical for Currier A and B is that an additional gallow glyph was added in front of the first word for a paragraph. There is also the same preference to use line initial glyphs like [y], [o], [d] or [s]. The method for creating the text is the same for the whole manuscript [see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.]. Therefore I would say that there was only one scribe.