22-10-2024, 11:53 AM
Patrick: I see what you mean. I agree that it's prudent to keep all options open, even though at the moment I'm more inclined to explore what happens when certain glyphs are made equivalent to one another.
It probably makes sense to consider the behavior of [p] and [f] in this context as well. The existence of Grove words seems to point to at least one instance where the unexpected glyph is "extra", which could be seen as an argument in favor of your view. However, [p] and [f] are not extra in other cases, where they seem to replace something else. Moreover, there's a pretty good parallel in paragraph or "item" markers in the behavior of Grove words, so they don't need any special pleading. It may then be that the esthetic of this paragraph marker is maintained throughout the top line.
Also we obviously don't need simple substitution for positional variants or abbreviations to be relevant. They could be examined independent of the system. The structure of Voynichese words so strongly suggest that [m] is a part of the word, it's needed to "finish" the word in an appropriate manner. So it's probably a line-final variant of something else. The question remains why this variant is only triggered in some cases, and whether there is anything more to it.
It probably makes sense to consider the behavior of [p] and [f] in this context as well. The existence of Grove words seems to point to at least one instance where the unexpected glyph is "extra", which could be seen as an argument in favor of your view. However, [p] and [f] are not extra in other cases, where they seem to replace something else. Moreover, there's a pretty good parallel in paragraph or "item" markers in the behavior of Grove words, so they don't need any special pleading. It may then be that the esthetic of this paragraph marker is maintained throughout the top line.
Also we obviously don't need simple substitution for positional variants or abbreviations to be relevant. They could be examined independent of the system. The structure of Voynichese words so strongly suggest that [m] is a part of the word, it's needed to "finish" the word in an appropriate manner. So it's probably a line-final variant of something else. The question remains why this variant is only triggered in some cases, and whether there is anything more to it.