To what extent should the translation respect the grammar?

[Juan_Sali]

Still, there are two very distinct flavours of the text. One does not allow the character combination ed , and the other strongly favours it.

Actually, words containing 'ed' are only very rare in Currier A (36 out of 11348 = 0.32%). There are 36 word tokens containing 'ed' in Currier A: 3 x <cheedy>, 2 x <shedy>, 2 x <chedy>, 2 x <okeedy>, <ded>, <aleedy>, <sheedy>, <oteedy>, <opcheedoy>, <cphoeedol>, <shesed>, <chedal>, <esedy>, <kcheed>, <olchedy>, <cthedy>, <shedaiin>, <ofchedol>, <qockhedy>, <chedo>, <qokchedy>, <yched>, <sheedom>, <ypchedy>, <chedain>, <ykeedy>, <lchedy>, <shopolchedy>, <cholkeedy>, <qokedy>, and <qokeed>.

Even though there seems to be a short transition stage in the MS, this difference is very significant, and not yet properly understood.

Actually, the word frequencies change all the time from page to page, from Quire to Quire, and also within Currier A and B. The discrimination between Currier A and B describes this observation in a simplified and unsatisfactory way.

The sequence 'ed' is used more and more frequently in Currier B. In Herbal B 16.3 % of the word tokens contain 'ed' (528/3233=16.3%), in Quire 20 (Stars) 19.4% (2073/10673 = 19.4%), and in Quire 13 (Biological) 27.9% (1925/6911 = 27.9%). The increase from 16.3 % to 27.9% is also significant and therefore needs an explanation. 

This is what we mean with "Now, reordering the sections with respect to the frequency of token <chedy> replaces the seemingly irregular mixture of two separate languages by the
gradual evolution of a single system from 'state A' to 'state B'" (Timm & Schinner, p. 6). See also my page at github.com: sYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Under the hypothesis: The whole VM is written in the same natural language with the same homophonic cipher system. 
Comparing texts with similar contents, the differences between scribes will be the homophonic parts of the cipher, as if every scribe enciphered what he/she wrote using the homophonics at will.