glyph [d] as a substitute for [p] and [f]

[nablator]

Hello Geoffrey,

I see two problems with the equivalence of EVA-p/f and d, and I am not convinced.

First the successful replacement of one or several EVA-p/f with d (or the opposite) is not necessarily evidence that they are the same word spelled differently, anymore than the French words: pain, pin, fin, faim, daim are the same. (The final ain/aim/in sound is the same but the words have nothing else in common.) One must be careful about "tunnel vision" (optimistically interpreting evidence as a success and failing to see other possibilities) that goes hand in hand with confirmation bias. We all fall for it, I am not immune and I am not blaming you.

Looking at the big picture (I imagine it is what RenéZ has done) replacing a glyph (or group of glyphs) by another and getting a valid Voynichese word is a more general phenomenon than just EVA-p/f = d, one that is so widespread that it does seem highly significant. For quantitative assessments, here are counts of how many times a replacement in the set of words from main text paragraphs, of glyph(s) (in the first line of the table), one-by-one or all together, by other glyph(s) (in the first column) produces a different valid Voynichese word. (This was done with my transcription.)

   

With the TT transcription:

   

As you can see in the p/f/d lines/columns there are many possibilities. No reason to cherry-pick p/f for d over other candidates, even if the hypothesis of the equivalence of some glyphs is right, which I doubt very much.

In my opinion the set of common glyphs is already quite small: there are probably no homophones at all. I suspect something more devious than homophones and nulls is at play, allowing the substitution of some glyphs and combinations of glyphs only in some contexts, not generally.

EDIT: oops, wrong order in the first line, it's cKh, cTh, cPh, cFh.