I am currently translating into English an academic article discussing some recently-proposed hypotheses
for deciphering certain ancient steles. Those hypotheses include the so-called "Greek hypothesis", "Celtic hypothesis" etc.
As the word "hypothesis" keeps appearing over and over in my current draft, I am looking for some synonym to break this monotony.
The French original uses the word "piste" meaning "track,trail,lead" tempting me to use one of these, except that I never saw those words
used in that figurative sense in English.
Any quotes coming to your mind ?
Some example sentences :
The Greek [synonym here] explains those similarities better than the Celtic [synonym here].
Let us now explore another aspect of this Greek [synonym here].
Best Answer
Although a layman may treat the terms suggested in another answer as interchangeable, they are not totally so. About Education has an article explaining that more precise definitions are demanded in scientific registers:
'Assumption' would not normally be used to identify a hypothesis of major significance, and '[educated] guess' never.
'Conjecture' and 'postulate' are closer to 'hypothesis', but (and even scientific usage is not as precise as scientists might like to imagine) the order conjecture ...... postulate ... hypothesis probably indicates increasing confidence in the truth of the statement.
And it would be a mistake to break up set compounds such as 'Greek hypothesis', 'Riemann hypothesis', 'Goldbach's conjecture', 'Twin prime conjecture'.