Which changes to EVA would have the most impact?

[Torsten]

The most important property of the text of the VMS is, that all the words are related to each other. This relation can be described by a set of rules. If you apply this set of rules to a word of the VMS this would result in other words which are also part of the manuscript. The most basic rule is for instance that a glyph can be replaced with a similar shaped glyph. For instance if a word contains the glyph ch a word containing sh instead of ch should also exist for the VMS. Another rule is that nearly every glyph can be removed. Because of this rule you can expect beside the word cheedy also the words chedy, chdy, eedy, cheed and cheey. A third more complex rule is that you can add a glyph to a word. For instance it is possible to add an 'o' in front of a word but the letter next to 'o' normally transforms into 'k' in this case. Because of this rule beside the word cheedy also words like okeedy and qokeedy exists.

If you want to examine the relations between words in the VMS the transcription alphabet doesn't matter. On the other hand also very rarely used glyphs or glyph variants exists in the VMS (see for instance You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). If this variants are important in your eyes each transcription alphabet would be imperfect.