(14-06-2018, 07:36 AM)Wladimir D wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I do not know if anyone previously mentioned the similarity of the statistics of the use of the symbol "m" (EVA) in the VMS and the Latin "z" .
1 / The vast majority of "m" (more than 90%) is written at the end of the words.
2 / very often (especially on pages where there is a lot of text Q13, Q20) "m" is written at the end of the line (perhaps to save space and not to transfer words to the next line).
In cases 1 and 2, "m" is probably an empty symbol / marker for omitting a part of a word.
3 / "m" in the middle of the word is a full-fledged phonetic symbol.
Thank you, Wladimir!
I discussed a similar observation in a comment You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
In that case (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Italy?, 1450 ca), I highlighted two different abbreviations that both tend to concentrate at the end of lines. The 3-like abbreviation appears to exclusively stand for "m" in that manuscript (the character looks somehow like a 90-degree rotated "m").
I believe that "z" was not properly a character of the Latin alphabet: it was only used for foreign (e.g. Greek) words. It is possible that the shape you discussed was initially used as an abbreviation and later adopted as a phonetic symbol for "z" in Germany, but I am speculating.