[split] Implications of multiple scribes

[Torsten]

One problem in the interpretation of these figures is, that pages with relatively little text will have larger error bars, and we can't see that. The precise location of these pages is not as accurate as those of pages with a lot of text.

Only You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. you suggested to use percentages in order to give all pages the same weight. I appreciate that you now argue in the opposite direction.

With respect to the scribal hands, in my opinion (and based on the PCA plots) scribe 5 has his own little area on the right-hand edge of the language-B pages, while scribes 3 and 4 can hardly be distinguished from each other, but are concentrated below the scribe-2 language-B pages.
I consider this a weak confirmation both of Lisa's hand identification and the suggestion that different scribes generate different text properties. However, the second point is a correlation-type correspondence which may not be causal, but can be the consequence of another external cause/reason.

The observation that the scribes can hardly be distinguished from each other obviously contradicts the suggestion that different scribes generate different text properties.

Moreover, it is possible to describe the Voynich text as gradual evolution of a single system from 'state A' to 'state B' (see Timm & Schinner 2020, p. 7). You also argue that it is possible to split the stars section into two parts. You named the parts Stars-B (low correlation with Bio-B) and Stars-Bio (high correlation with Bio-B) (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Since the Voynich text is self-similar in this aspect it would also be possible to split Currier A into early Currier A (low correlation with pharma folios) and late Currier A (high correlation with pharma folios) etc. Since the statistical data point to a gradual evolution of a single system the idea of different scribes wouldn't help to explain the text we actually see.