Gallows Island

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Captain Currier can tell you better: 

"[...] not true! These two letters are not the same as those two, as the statistics show. The letters t k  are followed anywhere in a word by our little friend e about half the time (say 750 out of a total of 1500), including initially. These two, that  p f are never, ever, anywhere in the manuscript, followed by e. [...]

Yes, I know that very well.  That is why I wrote "The p and f gallows are most likely just calligraphic variants of t and k, or of some combinations like te and ke (it is still unclear which ones)"

The rules for replacing taks by puffs may have been complex and not necessarily invertible.  In French typography it was customary to omit diacritics when text was written in all caps, even though they are often essential to identify a word, e.g. to distinguish "ou" (= "or") from "où" (= "where") and "du" (= "of the") from "dû" (= "owed").  People were supposed to guess the missing diacritics, and context was usually sufficient for that. 

And then there is the issue of whether the hook in the arm of p/f is significant or not.  And, if so, whether the Scribe was aware of that detail, and did not add or omit the hook at random...

All the best, --jorge