Expert Opinions on 'daiin'

[Mark Knowles]

I question whether rarity is so relevant in this context and in the context of the Voynich text as a whole.

il represents about 0.02 % of all (composite) characters in the MS.

In a cipher letter of 500 characters, a character that has a frequency of 0.02% has a probability of appearing in this letter, at all, of 0.1. It may appear in one of ten such letters.
Clearly, it plays no role at all in the approach to solving the cipher.

I disagree. The frequency of the symbol is non-relevant. If it is deliberate and not a writing mistake then it is important, not because it conveys a lot of information in the text, but because it testifies to the nature of the cipher. It is often stated that Voynichese has a small cipher symbol set and I think there are a variety of symbols which indicate that in total it has a much larger symbol set. It is like a zoologist saying that because platypus are rare they should be considered not to exist. If zoologists ignored species that are rare then it could lead to have a much poorer understanding of evolution and biological systems. When you find a rare symbol in the Voynich It stills demands an explanation. You could say, that it is a writing mistake, that it is a null designed to confuse the reader, that is a symbol with its own unique substitution or maybe you have another explanation for it; what I think you can't justify is just ignoring it. It is lazy and bad practice to just ignore things that don't fit your theory and I don't think rarity is an excuse.