Eleven Moon Phases in Folio 86v?

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Somehow it seems strange to me that the changing of a diacritical marking is going to alter the meaning of the word itself. Diacritical markings only modify the relevant letter, but they do not change it to a different letter. Are there any examples in relevant languages where this situation of 'macron duality' exists? Is there a real difference between the markings, or is it just a case of multiple scribes and not the neatest examples of handwriting? Is there a VMs version of 'moon' without any macron?

Diacritics  can be used to indicate stress, vowel length, or a different vowel sound.  Changing any of these details usually changes the word, to another inflection of the same root or to a completely unrelated word.  Diacritics can also  be used to distinguish homophones (different senses of the same spoken word). Depending on the language, some diacritics may be omitted when they can be guessed by native speakers.

Italian: canto = I sing, cantò = he sang  (shift of stress and different vowel sound)
Portuguese: avô = grandpa, avó = grandma  (different vowel sound)
French: ou = or, où = where (same sound, different meanings)
Spanish: cana = gray hair, caña = reed (different consonant)
German: Vogel =bird,  Vögel = birds (different vowel)
Portuguese: maca = doolie, maçã = apple (shift of stress, different consonant, different vowel)
Italian: botte = barrel, botte = blows (different vowel, not marked in writing)

All the best, --jorge