[Blog Post] The 490, and other starting character patterns

[Jorge_Stolfi]

I think you have raised something of genuine significance. But perhaps the way to analyse this further is not to look at 3 or higher character string repeats but to look at the distribution of 2-character repeats.

Even before that, one should compare the frequencies P(w) of line-initial words with the frequencies Q(w) of words in any position.  They are very different.  The statistics of line-initial glyphs is highly skewed because the statistics of line-initial words are skewed. Thus, one should try to understand and explain the latter rather that the former.

Suppose that on some other manuscript one finds that the letters "i", "x" and "v" seem to be very common at the beginning of the line, and there is an anomalously high frequency of repeated letters in consecutive lines, much higher than expected if they were chosen independently at random.  Those anomalies might be easier to understand that if one notices that the most common words at the beginning of the line are "i", "ii", "iii", "iv", "v", "vi", ...

Let's look at page f83r, in particular.  Say that a token (word occurrence) is "head" if it is the first of a line, "body" otherwise.

The following lists exclude words that occur only once, which we cannot tell whether they like to be head or body.  The counts are nt = total occurrences on page, nh = occurrences as head, nb = occurrences in body. (Sorry for the leading zeros, but it was the only way I found to prevent the MyBB editor from messing up the alignment of the tables).

These words seems to occur as both head and body:

nt nh nb word
-- -- -- ---------
05 03 02 saiin
04 02 02 daiin
03 01 02 dain
03 01 02 qokchedy
03 01 02 sar
02 01 01 qokain
02 01 01 qokshedy
02 01 01 sy

These words occur (practically) ONLY as head:

nt nh nb word
-- -- -- ---------
07 06 01 sol
03 03 00 tchedy
02 02 00 solkeedy
02 02 00 sor

These words occur (practically) ONLY as body:

Code:

nt nh nb word -- -- -- --------- 16 00 16 chedy 15 00 15 shedy 12 00 12 qokedy 09 00 09 lchedy 07 00 07 qoky 07 01 06 qokeedy 05 00 05 chey 05 00 05 qokaiin 04 00 04 aiin 05 01 04 dal 04 00 04 ol 04 00 04 qokal 04 00 04 qokeey 04 00 04 qoteedy 04 00 04 shey 03 00 03 otedy 03 00 03 qokchdy 03 00 03 r 03 00 03 s 02 00 02 checthy 02 00 02 cheey 02 00 02 dar 02 00 02 l 02 00 02 lkedy 02 00 02 lo 02 00 02 lsheedy 02 00 02 olchedy 02 00 02 oldy 02 00 02 otaiin 02 00 02 qokey 02 00 02 qotal 02 00 02 qotedy 02 00 02 sain 02 00 02 shckhedy 02 00 02 shcthy 02 00 02 shecthy 02 00 02 shedal 02 00 02 sheedy

And these are the words that occur only once on the page:

Code:

nt nh nb word -- -- -- --------- 01 00 01 air 01 00 01 altedy 01 00 01 ar 01 00 01 atal 01 00 01 chary 01 00 01 chckhal 01 00 01 chckhdy 01 00 01 chcthdy 01 00 01 chdal 01 00 01 chdy 01 00 01 cheal 01 00 01 chealror 01 00 01 checkhy 01 00 01 checphedy 01 00 01 ched 01 00 01 chedaiin 01 00 01 chedain 01 00 01 chedchy 01 00 01 cheeb 01 00 01 cheedar 01 00 01 cheeety 01 00 01 cheeky 01 00 01 cheg 01 00 01 cheky 01 00 01 cheol 01 00 01 chepol 01 00 01 chety 01 00 01 chkain 01 00 01 chkedy 01 00 01 chkeedy 01 00 01 chky 01 00 01 chldaiin 01 00 01 ckal 01 00 01 cthal 01 00 01 cthalsaiin 01 00 01 daiiin 01 00 01 dairydy 01 00 01 dalchdy 01 01 00 dcheokedy 01 00 01 dolshed 01 01 00 dsheey 01 00 01 kain 01 00 01 kesd 01 00 01 lal 01 00 01 lchcphedy 01 00 01 lchdy 01 00 01 lchs 01 00 01 ldalor 01 00 01 ldar 01 00 01 ldy 01 00 01 lkeed 01 00 01 lol 01 00 01 lpchedy 01 00 01 lshedy 01 01 00 ocheol 01 00 01 ockhey 01 00 01 okain 01 00 01 okair 01 00 01 okedy 01 00 01 okeedyldy 01 00 01 okeeol 01 01 00 olkeedy 01 01 00 olkeey 01 00 01 ols 01 00 01 olsaly 01 00 01 opshcdy 01 00 01 opshedy 01 00 01 oqol 01 01 00 or 01 00 01 otal 01 00 01 otar 01 01 00 otchdy 01 00 01 otchedy 01 01 00 otchey 01 00 01 otor 01 00 01 otshdy 01 01 00 pchedal 01 00 01 pchedar 01 01 00 pchor 01 01 00 pdalshdy 01 00 01 qcphhedy 01 00 01 qeeedy 01 00 01 qekeiiin 01 00 01 qekey 01 00 01 qetal 01 00 01 qockhey 01 01 00 qockhol 01 00 01 qody 01 00 01 qofshdy 01 00 01 qokchy 01 00 01 qokeal 01 00 01 qokedal 01 00 01 qokol 01 00 01 qokylddy 01 00 01 qolchey 01 00 01 qolkain 01 00 01 qopchedy 01 00 01 qopy 01 00 01 qot 01 00 01 qotaiin 01 00 01 qotar 01 00 01 qotchedy 01 00 01 qotedaiin 01 00 01 qoty 01 00 01 raly 01 00 01 rchedy 01 00 01 rches 01 00 01 rchs 01 00 01 sam 01 01 00 schedair 01 01 00 schedy 01 00 01 schety 01 00 01 shckhey 01 00 01 shcthey 01 00 01 shdy 01 00 01 shechy 01 00 01 sheckhdy 01 00 01 sheckhy 01 00 01 shecthedchy 01 00 01 shecthedy 01 00 01 shedaiin 01 00 01 shedkedy 01 00 01 sheekchy 01 00 01 sheey 01 00 01 sheol 01 00 01 shetar 01 01 00 shky 01 00 01 shocphedy 01 00 01 shol 01 00 01 shy 01 00 01 skal 01 01 00 skar 01 01 00 soiiin 01 01 00 sokeedy 01 01 00 solche'dy 01 00 01 solchedy 01 01 00 solcheol 01 01 00 solchkal 01 00 01 soldy 01 01 00 solkeey 01 01 00 solkey 01 01 00 solshed 01 00 01 tain 01 00 01 tal 01 00 01 tar 01 01 00 techedy 01 00 01 tol 01 00 01 ytaiin