Quote:davidsch wrote: ...the [q] can not be separated form [qo]: The 133 times are errors and bad transcripts. (there are more arguments but too extensive for here)...
I respect your point of view, but I don't think the places where q is placed ahead of something different than "o" represent transcription errors (if it does, that suggests there are many transcription errors in the VMS).
As you know from my more recent posts, I think the "o" prefix is very frequently prepended by q but not always (that it is not a requirement for an "o-token" to follow the q or for q to only precede "o-tokens"). q doesn't even have to be at the beginnings of words.
In English, we have combinations like "th" or "qu" that are very frequent, but it does not mean that "u" is required to follow "q" (loanwords like faqir, shish qabab, or alternate spellings like cinqfoil have "q" not followed by "u".), it just does so most of the time.
If qo were a coherent entity (and ONLY supposed to be a biglyph), then I don't think the macron glyph-shapes would have been added next to q in several places (if the VMS macron has the same function as in Latin languages, then it represents omitted letters between q and "o").
I am always willing to change my mind if I see good evidence to the contrary... but for the moment, I'm comfortable taking the position that q is distinct to itself and what we see is q prepended to "o-tokens" rather than qo prepended as a unit to a shorter token.
There's always the possibility that it's both, just as "th" in English is sometimes treated as a unit (in fact, it used to have its own glyph) and also as separate characters.