Is [a] always [a]?

[Koen G]

The problem is that with scripts like these you don't know for sure until you know which words you're supposed to be reading, until you can do some contextual guessing. Look at all the trouble we're having with the marginalia. The only words we know how to read for sure are the month names, and that is because the images tell us to expect month names.

But for the other marginalia, as soon as there are minims involved, you're in trouble if you don't know enough context. The same might be true with VM minims, only here we don't even know what kind of system we're looking at.