(18-08-2024, 06:31 PM)pfeaster wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So in this particular case, the hypothesis seems to be that the writer (if only one) would at some point have begun (for subjective aesthetic reasons, consciously or unconsciously) substituting the previously absent sequence [ed] in place of other sequences when copying words, but not substituting other sequences for [ed] in turn, or at least not at anything like the same rate. Is that a correct summary?
This description only holds under two assumptions: (1) an infinite copy iteration, and (2) direct relations for [Ed], [Eo], and [Ey]. According to my theory, both conditions are not fulfilled.
The first important point is that far more potential variations than just the changes between [Ed], [Eo], and [Ey] exist. For example, [chedy] could change to [chey], but also to [shey], [cheedy], [keedy], [tedy], and so on. The relation between words containing [Ed], [Eo], and [Ey] is therefore more complex.
Secondly, not for all words containing [Eo] similar words containing [Ed] or [Ey] exist. There are for instance also words like [cheol], [cheor], [sheol], and [sheor] which are not directly related to vords like [chey], [chedy] or [cheody]. (Therefore the part for Currier A in your graph shows the shift from words like [chol/chor] to words like [cheol/cheor] within Currier A).
Third, each page essentially starts fresh. Take folio 103r, for instance. The most common word on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is [qokeey], but you also find variations like [okeey], [qokeedy], and [oteey] (and notably, [shedy], [shey], [chedy], and [chey] are also You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). However, this doesn’t imply that the same vords are frequently used on f103v. Instead, the most common word on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is [shedy], along with related forms like [shey], [chey], and [chedy]. This means it is not possible to describe the Voynich text as an infinite copy iteration.
In essence, a word like [chedy] appears more frequently because it has many possible substitutions for its components. For example, [ch] can be replaced with [sh]. The [e] can be substituted with [ee] or [eee], and [dy] can be replaced with [y]. On the other hand, [cheody] includes an [o], which normally can be substituted with [a] or [y]. However, the scribe seems to avoid writing sequences like [ad] (possibly for aesthetic reasons, whether consciously or unconsciously). [y] on the other hand is only used frequently at first or last glyph of a word. There are only 47 instances of [ad] (There is for instance only one instance of [cheady] on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and there is no instance of [cheydy]). This means the only available transition for [od] is to remove the [o]. This suggests that the lower frequency of vords like [cheody] compared to vords like [chedy] is due to the scribe's tendency to avoid words like [cheady] and [cheydy].