Distinguishing Characters

[Mark Knowles]

It is an intriguing notion, but can you give a practical example or parallel to what you are referring? Otherwise it seems like an imprecise theoretical idea.

My anti-Polybius cipher, maybe as part of a board game.

And why would this phenomenon emerge only once with the Voynich and not independently in other instances?

There was never a need to give the encipherer/scribe enough liberty to evolve various quirky non-random behaviors. The VM was done for fun, not necessity.

P.S.: Polygraphia III: "The cipher that pretends to be an artificial language" (Jürgen Hermes) could have been used in a creative way by selecting between the many alternatives for each pseudo-word to (for example) simulate grammar or maximize similarity.

I don't know your anti-polybius theory, but is that based on knowledge of the polysius square? If so then it does have a source.

From my recollection Jurgen Hermes talks about Trithemius, although obviously as he is aware Trithemius post-dates the Voynich by some time.

Generally innovations have a historical context and historical influences. It is very unusual for things to emerge seemingly independently from history.