Similarity of Voynichese glyphs according to their immediate statistical environment

[Mauro]

Some more data, and an answer to Stolfi.

I re-did the same distance analysis separately on the Balneological and the Herbal A sections. Beyond considering 'ch', 'sh', ckh', 'cth', 'cph' and 'cfh' as stand-alone glyphs this time I also collapsed every multiple occurence of 'i' and 'e' to a single 'i' and 'e' (I don't think this changed anything in the results).

These are all the most similar couplets, in green those with a distance < sqrt(2)/8 (the 12.5% percentile), in yellow with a distance  < sqrt(2)/4 (the 25% percentile), only the average distances, sorry:

   

Now answering Stolfi:

I have long suspected that  ee is a single glyph in the same class as Ch and Sh (or maybe just an error for Ch); while an e alone is a modifier for the previous k, t, Ch, Sh, CKh, or CTh; and eee is an ee modified by e. 

I also believe that the I in Ih,IKh, ITh is an error, and should be C; that CTHh and CKHh should be CThe and CKhe; that ir should be iin; that  m is an abbreviation for iin; and that b, u, g are just badly shaped versions of other glyphs.

And finally I suspect that p and f are fancy forms of te and ke, respectively.

Would your analysis be compatible with some or all of these hunches?

From the data above, I would say there's some (weak) support for 'm' being a variant of 'r', but I did not test 'm' vs. 'iin', nor the other cases you pose. But in general I can 'easily' apply any kind of substitution, for instance 'iin' = 'X' and then calculate the distance from 'm'. Just it's not fully automated, I need to copy two big tables in Excel and then get the final results manually from there, so it takes time and I cannot do it now (and surely I will not code anything for the foreseeable future). So I'm sorry but you'll need to be patient, and I'll check if 'ee' is close to 'ch/sh', 'r' to 'iin' and 'm' to 'iin'.

Or you can download my software tool from GitHub You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and do it yourself (ask for directions in case, but it's easier to do than to explain)