Discussion of "A possible generating algorithm of the Voynich manuscript"

[Torsten]

What, then, of Torsten's ligatures? Some, like EVA qo, won't raise many objections. EVA ch and sh were designed in, along with c-gallows-h, so no problem there either. But ar / al / or / ol / am aren't so straightforward: because if you follow these through to their logical conclusion (as I tried to do in Curse), you have to also read o- +g as similar pairs: and from there to y- + gallows. At which point pretty much everything becomes strongly paired.

This only demonstrates that it is an error to generalize observations. Instead it is necessary to check each pattern on its own. For doing so it is necessary to look into the details (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) as well as in the statistics (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., p. 70). By checking the details it will become obvious that y- + gallows are not used as similar pairs.

More generally, the or / ar / ol / al ligature group seems visually inconsistent with the an / ain / aiin / aiiin group. In particular, given that r starts with exactly the same linear downstroke as i, there really should be no stroke harmony adjacency behaviour difference between their usage. But the statistics shout otherwise very loudly. 

That one factor is in place doesn't mean that this is the only factor.

The harmony adjacency behavior is a design preference the scribe had. It is not a rule the scribe could switch on and off. Therefore it is expected that we also see his design preferences in the statistics for <ol>, <or>, <ar>, and <al>.

How is it that the hypothetical autocopyist was able to maintain that statistical consistency over so many pages of text, and yet evolve the patterns of usage (from Currier A to B) so subtly?

The method for generating the text is the same for all pages (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., p. 3ff): "when we look at the three most frequent words on each page, for more than half of the pages two of three will differ in only one detail" (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., p. 3).

Concerning the evolution from Currier A to Currier B please read the explanation in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (p. 6) and also the answers I have given You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

But even though I can see why it is visually appealing to imagine that EVA -dy can be freely substituted for EVA -dy, it is oddly asymmetric that EVA -dy is almost never substituted for EVA -d.

Even if you repeat your oddly asymmetric argument it is still wrong (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Many things can happen but not all will happen. For example each attending team can win a championship but only one team does win.

Even if there are multiple ways to change a source word it is only possible to write one word at a time. This means we only see the variants the writer has written and not the variants he could have written. 

Moreover, glyphs like <d> are rarely used in word final position. Instead glyphs with a tail like <y> or <n> are preferred in this position.

Similarly, if EVA d- starts words with a curve, why do we see EVA dy- so rarely? Even something as apparently obvious as -dy hides a wealth of behaviors that are all linked together.

Currier wrote in 1976 "only a very limited number of letters occur with each other in certain positions of a `word`" (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). With other words "the shape of a glyph must be compatible with the shape of the previous one, and is also influenced by its position within a word or a line" (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., p. 10).