Near-monosyllabicity and Voynich: a Bavarian comparison

[JoJo_Jost]

The “Bavarian alphabet” in a functional sense could, if desired, be reduced to 20-22 letters.

I am not a language expert for Bavarian! But as far as I can tell, the consonants p/b and t/d as well as k/g are often neutralized or at least weakened depending on their position and context and are more or less interchangeable; the contrast is weak phonemically at best. The consonants could be reduced without greatly affecting language comprehension. This would leave the following consonants:

Plosives: p/b, t/d, k/g = effectively 3–4
Fricatives: f/v, s, sch, h = 4
Nasal: m, n, ng = 3
Liquid: l, r = 2
Semivowels: j, w = 2
Affricates (functionally relevant): z/tz, pf 2

Total consonants (functional): approx. 15–16

In spoken Bavarian, vowels are highly neutralized, so here too, this could be reduced:
a / o = often not stably separated
e / i = frequently contracted
u =  mostly independent
Weak reduction vowel = 1 (similar to e)

Remaining realistic: total vowels: approx. 4/5

i.e. an alphabet of 20 to 22 letters if these were to be contracted.

And so that you can see that this is not made up:


Examples

Blossom:
Middle High German bluome / blüete
Bavarian variants: bluad, pluat, plüat, pluet

Example: t / d

Middle High German tac (day)
Bavarian pronunciation: tog / dag
The initial sound can be realized as t or d without any difference in meaning. For the speaker, it is the same root; voicing depends on position.

tun / getan (t /d)
Middle High German tuon, getān
Bavarian: tuan / duan, tan / dan

krank
Middle High German kranc
Bavarian: krank / grank
However, k/g is less variable.

This also applies to vowels:

A / O
haben
Middle High German: hab
Bavarian hob, hab

hat / hot
machen / mochn
lassen / lossn
dann / donn
etc.

e / i
wenig / weng / wing

There are also known variations in e/ai (e.g., ein/ain).