23-10-2026, 06:35 PM
(23-10-2026, 11:33 AM)Jorge_Stolfi wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The evidence for that is that they are quite common through the entire the head line of each parag, independently of its length, and rare elsewhere, in every section.
Yes, I agree this is the obvious assumption, that these represent some sort of stylized or elaborate form. The issue appears to be that P words substantially differ from K/T words, and no glyph combination can turn a P word into a K/T word.
For examplle, Pch is relatively common across the entire manuscript. However, Kch and Tch words substantially decline in popularity in Pharma, within the same bifolio, and never recover. Pch words continue to remain roughly as common even in bio.
So on theory, I agree that the only interpretation of P that makes sense is that it is an elaborate form. The issue is that it does not seem to behave in the same way as K/T words at all.
Even if we assume your 'section' view is correct, and vocabulary differs by section. We would then expect P to also show these changes. If for instance, -edy is used because it is topically necessary, we would expect P words to also feature this, but they don't. That is the issue. You cant simply replace P with any combination of T/K glyphs and have their word pools match. P words appear to have fundamentally different word construction rules.
What's more, the difference between P and K/T words increases along my gradient. So P is generally closer to K/T words in Herbal A, while it is much more different in stars and Bio.
(23-10-2026, 11:33 AM)Jorge_Stolfi wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This last argument seems to imply that the puffs are just a calligraphic variation of letter that have other forms in the body of parags, used to mark the head line of each parag (like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. uses a different font) and occasionally for some "important" words in the body of parags.
This also doesn't fit -- because we would then expect the following words to resemble those from the sections, which they do not. For some reason, P words strongly reject association with e words, even when most words end up gaining E associations. The P words appear to be following completely different rules.
This would completely make sense if P/K were initially identical in some archaic voynich phase, that occurred before the VMS was written. If K/T then acquired different construction rules, while P/K remained the same (possibly due to less use), it would explain just about all of these observations. No single replacement can turn a P word into a K word, because K words have undergone transformations that P has not.
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