Why and how the text could be Bavarian

[Mauro]

Thank you —
what you wrote matches very closely with what I now measured. Your distance_following(k,t) = 0.12 comes out almost identical for me (0.122), even though I use a different transcription.

I also rounded to two decimals instead of three. Yes, almost identical.

In the letter-by-letter count, the immediate predecessor of k in “okaiin” and “qokaiin” is the same—an o. The q does not come immediately before the k and is invisible in this count. So “...ok...” and “...qok...” end up in the same category: “Predecessor = o.” Am I seeing this correctly?

Yes, exactly.

Counted this way, an “o” precedes “k” about 61% of the time and precedes “t” about 65% of the time—almost the same, which explains your small distance of 0.12.

Thank you.

But if you separate the two categories, it looks like this:

only  o before it     qo before it
k         30%                31%
t          46%               19%

k is neutral toward both channels, whereas t favors the pure “o” and avoids “qo.”

In absolute numbers: ok:ot ≈ 3032:2798 (almost 1:1), but qok:qot ≈ 3121:1121 (almost 3:1).

That’s why I think the totals (61% and 65%) are similar more by chance. The apparent similarity between k and t seems to be an effect of the merging.

Interesting. One thing I can do is to calculate distances considering also 'qok' and 'qot' as single glyphs ('atoms') and see what happens. The distances in respect with the previous characters should be (trivially) about zero between 'qok' and 'qot'. The distances according to the following character should be low, given the effect of 't' and 'k', but who knows, the VMS is always full of surprises. A comparison between 'qok/qot' and 'ok/ot' could be interesting too. Not sure when I can do that though, I'm pretty busy this week.

But of course, we don’t know exactly what “units” are. However, since q is bound to o 97.7% of the time, I treat the two glyphs in this combination—from q’s perspective—as a single unit—whether that’s correct, who knows

I would add: we don't even know if "units" are a real thing or not. That's said, considering 'qo' as a single glyph is a distinct possibility, however, also considering 'ok/ot' as glyphs and 'q' as a prefix is a possibility, as having 'qot, 'qok', ot' and 'ok' as separate single 'units'. I can't really say which is which, if any.

(P.S. Not only in Latin but also in German, “qu” is bound nearly 100 percent of the time—just as a side note)

In Italian too. However EVA 'qo' is arbitrary, I would not rely much on its similarity to Latin 'qu'. On a sideline: if I remember correctly, German is rather special because not only 'qu' is bound nearly 100 percent of the times, but 'ch' is bound too.