"The Currier languages revisited" revisited

[kckluge]

If I understand correctly, an implication is that Currier A (as defined by the left-side cluster in the plots) is coincident with Scribe 1 plus Scribe 4. So the A/B split can be entirely explained by the different scribes (but for those three herbal pages)?

With the caveat that Scribe 4 also does one side of the big Rose foldout and those pages all cluster on the B language side with the text on Scribe 2's nine-rosette diagram, yes.

To which Marco replied

Ah, thank you. So Scribe 4 wrote both A and B pages, and there is no simple explanation for the two clusters. That's more interesting and more like the Voynich (nothing is ever simple).

Looking at Lisa Fagin-Davis' "How Many Glyphs and How Many Scribes?" paper, I see I need to make a correction and a further caveat -- she says, "Quire 14 is the famed 'Rose' foldout, with six panels on the obverse written by Scribe 2 and the nine-segment Rose on the other side apparently (but not definitely) written by Scribe 4."

So a) I had Scribes 2 & 4 flipped with regard to which side of the foldout sheet each did, and b) it could still be the case that Scribe 4 only works in a variant of the A language (subject to the debate about the status of Zodiac labelese) since Lisa leaves some wiggle room regarding whether or not Scribe 4 did the rose diagram.

If Scribe 4 *did* do the rose side of the big foldout, that is interesting in and of itself because it implies

1) that he/she knew there were distinct A & B languages/dialects, and 

2) made the deliberate decision to write the rose diagram non-label text in a B language dialect to go with Scribe 2's use of a B language dialect for the non-label text on the other side of the sheet rather than in the A language dialect Scribe 4 wrote the Quire 9-12 circular diagram/zodiac page non-label text in.