The primary contention of this potentially ground-breaking investigation might be called the 'Hypothesis of Five Hands', in other words, five differing styles of glyph formation in the written Voynichese text.
The question I have has to do with the subsequent assumption that 'five hands' means there were five scribes. Five scribes necessarily constitute five individuals, and suddenly there's this small group of people communicating in this unknown language.
The question is, to what extent might a person's writing style be influenced by injury to the fingers etc., or by a progressive disease such as arthritis?
In other words, instead of the scenario where five guys in a back room wrap up production in a week and a half, could it be that some arthritic old lady took years to make the VMs and her writing style changed over time?
The question I have has to do with the subsequent assumption that 'five hands' means there were five scribes. Five scribes necessarily constitute five individuals, and suddenly there's this small group of people communicating in this unknown language.
The question is, to what extent might a person's writing style be influenced by injury to the fingers etc., or by a progressive disease such as arthritis?
In other words, instead of the scenario where five guys in a back room wrap up production in a week and a half, could it be that some arthritic old lady took years to make the VMs and her writing style changed over time?