(21-05-2026, 03:29 PM)Jorge_Stolfi wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Sorry, I don't understand this argument.
Take for example
56 otedy 56 oteedy
2 ytedy 12 yteedy
If, after a suitable warm-up period, the words otedy and oteedy are equally frequent (as shown), and the mutation process can create ytedy from otedy, it should also create yteedy from oteedy. Then ytedy and yteedy should be equally frequent too. But their ratio is only 1:6.
As I see it, the only ways your model would create the above counts are (1) the mutation of the prefix o->y is sensitive to whether the suffix is edy or eedy, or vice-versa, or (2) the seed text had those four words in those approximate skewed ratios (maybe no ytedy at all), and the mutation rules cannot create enough ytedy from otedy or from yteedy to raise the ytedy:yteedy ratio above 1:6. Isn't that so?
If (1) is the case, then the method is even more complicated than it seemed at first.
If (2) is the case, then the method must be relying a lot more on the seed text being "Voynichese-like". Which essentially replaces the question "how could the Author have generated the VMS text" to "how could the Author have generated a seed text with the same vocabulary and word frequencies as as the VMS text".
No?
No, there are far more words than just these four. They exist in a multidimensional network of dozens of related forms. The scribe doesn't choose between "otedy" and "oteedy" in isolation — he chooses among the entire visible pool of similar words:
| -kedy | -keedy | -key | -keey | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| o- | okedy (118) | okeedy (105) | okey (63) | okeey (177) |
| y- | ykedy (23) | ykeedy (30) | ykey (8) | ykeey (58) |
| ot- | otedy (155) | oteedy (100) | otey (57) | oteey (140) |
| yt- | ytedy (24) | yteedy (28) | ytey (13) | yteey (28) |
And the network extends far beyond these sixteen forms. Here is a larger sample for the ok-/k-/t-/ot- prefix group alone (not even including the y- or qo- variants):
| ok- | k- | t- | ot- | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -aiiin | okaiiin (4) | kaiiin (3) | taiiin (1) | otaiiin (1) |
| -aiin | okaiin (212) | kaiin (65) | taiin (42) | otaiin (154) |
| -ain | okain (144) | kain (48) | tain (16) | otain (96) |
| -an | okan (5) | kan (3) | tan (1) | otan (5) |
| -aiir | okaiir (6) | kaiir (—) | taiir (—) | otaiir (4) |
| -air | okair (22) | kair (14) | tair (13) | otair (21) |
| -ar | okar (129) | kar (52) | tar (43) | otar (141) |
| -ail | okail (1) | kail (1) | tail (—) | otail (1) |
| -al | okal (138) | kal (23) | tal (20) | otal (143) |
| -am | okam (26) | kam (9) | tam (—) | otam (47) |
| -os | okos (8) | kos (3) | tos (4) | otos (4) |
| -or | okor (34) | kor (26) | tor (23) | otor (46) |
| -ol | okol (82) | kol (37) | tol (48) | otol (86) |
| -o | oko (8) | ko (2) | to (2) | oto (9) |
| -y | oky (102) | ky (25) | ty (16) | oty (115) |
| -ey | okey (63) | key (14) | tey (11) | otey (57) |
| -eey | okeey (177) | keey (44) | teey (20) | oteey (140) |
| -eeey | okeeey (27) | keeey (11) | teeey (1) | oteeey (8) |
| -chey | okchey (32) | kchey (21) | tchey (22) | otchey (31) |
| -chy | okchy (39) | kchy (29) | tchy (24) | otchy (48) |
| -shy | okshy (10) | kshy (5) | tshy (5) | otshy (4) |
Twenty-one suffix rows, four prefix columns, eighty-four cells — and nearly every cell is filled with an attested word. There is no 1:1 relationship between two similar Voynich words. Each word exists in a network of variants. The frequency of any specific word reflects its entire history of being produced and being used as a source for further copying — across all production sessions and across the full evolutionary gradient.
The "ok-" and "ot-" forms are consistently more frequent than "k-" and "t-" forms — because "ok-" and "ot-" are the full forms while "k-" and "t-" are the prefix-reduced variants. But within each prefix group, the ratios aren't uniform either — "okeey" (177) is more frequent than "okey" (63), "okaiin" (212) is more frequent than "okain" (144), reflecting which forms the scribe happened to use as sources more often.
Some cells are empty — "kaiir" (—), "tail" (—), "tam" (—). Not because a rule forbids them but because the scribe never happened to produce them. Different contingent choices would fill different cells.
That is what I mean by "frequent words are more likely to be selected as copying templates, generating more variants." Not that each word generates its variants at equal rates — but that the entire network of similar words feeds back on itself, with frequent forms generating more variants and rare forms generating fewer.
(For a more complete word grid documenting these networks across the entire VMS vocabulary, see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or [Timm 2014](You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.), pp. 66–82)