A One-Page Ledger Method for Generating Voynich-Like Text

[Torsten]

I'm not convinced the ho/ed bigram evidence supports a continuous drift model. If ed/Currier B/Scribe 2+ emerged gradually through incremental copy-mutate, I would expect broad transitional zones and smooth redistribution of ed behavior across folios. Instead, the ed distribution appears highly clustered, with long stable low-ed regions written by Scribe 1 followed by abrupt activation zones written by Scribe 2+.  That aligns much more closely with production/scribal boundaries than with lexical drift.

The attached charts are difficult to reconcile with a purely continuous evolution model. ho/Scribe 1/Currier A folios remain remarkably stable and locally reducible, while ED+/Scribe 2 behavior expands abruptly rather than progressively. That looks less like slow drift and more like a regime change in production methods or weighting strategy.

The "ed" bigram frequency is actually a projection of the word-level <chol> to <chedy> evolution onto the character level. <chedy> contains "ed". <shedy> contains "ed". The "ed" frequency per section is the <chedy>-family frequency - just measured at a coarser granularity.

The intermediate forms document the transition step by step: <chol> → <cheol> → <cheo> → <chey> → <chedy>. Each step is a minimal modification of the previous form. The intermediate forms are attested in the text with specific frequencies that trace the gradient across sections (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

Whether this looks abrupt or gradual depends on whether you view it in the current binding order or in the writing order. In the current binding order, Herbal A and Herbal B bifolia are interleaved within the same quires — early-production and late-production pages sit next to each other. That creates the "abrupt activation zones" you see in your charts. In the reconstructed writing order (Herbal A → Pharma A → Cosmo → Herbal B → Stars (Quire 20) → Biological (Quire 13)), the same data forms a smooth gradient with no abrupt transitions. The first step from <chol> to <cheol> even happens within Currier A. Words like <cheol> are more frequent in the Pharma section than in the Herbal A section.

Your own You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. experiment actually demonstrates this. You showed that starting from one page and expanding incrementally produces viable Voynich-like text — with the vocabulary evolving as the scribe writes. That's continuous evolution from a seed. The <ed> gradient across the manuscript is the same process scaled up. The "abrupt" boundaries disappear when you reorder folios by vocabulary similarity rather than by folio number.