The Voynich Ninja

Assuming the month names tell us anything about the plaintext language stacks a lot of uncertainties.

* Was the person who wrote the marginalia involved in making the MS or are they a later owner?
* If they were involved, where were they from?
* If they were involved and we know where they were from, what was their relation to the (almost certainly earlier) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. marginalia writer who wrote in German-ish?
* If they were involved in a leading role and we know where they were from, did they actually use a plaintext in the same vernacular as the month names?
* If they were involved in a leading role and we know where they were from and they did actually use a plaintext in the vernacular, which of the (evidently) several language groups/dialects they were familiar with did they select?

Note that the answer to all of those questions is "we don't know".

As for the languages involved, I'd say we're almost certainly looking at a peripheral form of French. Currently the evidence weighs strongest in favor of northern influences, but opinions here may vary.

Rationally (but what about the VM is rational), a Flemish background would make more sense than an obscure Northern French dialect. The County of Flanders was an economic and cultural powerhouse with ample connections throughout Europe. Flemish artists and traders could be found anywhere, but especially in Northern Italy where wealth and art also gathered.

Regardless of the origin of the month names in the VM, we should not overlook that they don't necessarily mean the VM traveled to that region.The author of the month names might just have come from such a place, but it tells us little about where the VM was when he added the month names.

And Flanders was part of the Burgundian state.
<Subtle old VMs references to the Valois Melusine of Luxemburg and the Order of the Golden Fleece.>

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I agree, the majority of the places that stand out have either been part of Flanders historically or, like Hainaut, connected to it through the Burgundians. 

More broadly speaking, it is extremely plausible in these places to presume language mixing:

• Someone who grew up in a Flemish dialect but learned French.
  
• Someone who grew up bilingually.
  
• Someone who grew up speaking French but had a lot of contact with Flemish speakers.
  

In the areas highlighted by our search, there's a good chance for any literate individual to have been in one of those cases. Basically modern day Belgium and large parts of northern France. If you consider the whole area of Burgundian influence, you can even go broader.

The main outlier might remain the Norman entry?

(22-05-2026, 10:56 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I agree, the majority of the places that stand out have either been part of Flanders historically or, like Hainaut, connected to it through the Burgundians. 

I asked Gemini about Flemish and how different it was from medieval Dutch (which I already try to include in my tests), the below is what Gemini said. Does this look reasonable? Personally, I'm mostly interested in language statistics and spelling conventions.

Gemini AI Wrote:To understand medieval Flemish, it helps to clear up a common modern misconception: in the Middle Ages, Flemish was not a separate language from Dutch.
Instead, "Flemish" (Vlaams) was the most culturally dominant and prestigious dialect of the broader language we now call Middle Dutch (Dietsch or Dietsc). Between the 13th and 15th centuries, the wealthy trading cities of Flanders (like Bruges and Ghent) were the economic powerhouses of northern Europe, meaning their specific regional dialect became the literary and administrative standard for the region.
Here is a breakdown of what it looked like, how it compared to its neighbors, and its closest linguistic relatives.

What Medieval Flemish Looked Like
Medieval Flemish was written in the Latin alphabet using Gothic scripts, but because there were no standardized spelling rules, writers spelled words phonetically. The same word could be spelled three different ways on the same page.
If you looked at a Flemish manuscript from the 14th century (like the famous epic Van den vos Reynaerde — Reynard the Fox), you would notice a few distinct visual characteristics:

• Vowel clusters: To show a long vowel, scribes often wrote it double or added an 'e' or 'i' after it. You would see spellings like ae, oe, and ij (e.g., jaer for year, doen for to do).
  
• The letter 'C' and 'K': These were used interchangeably for the hard 'K' sound (e.g., clene or klene for small).
  
• The 'ghe-' prefix: Where modern Dutch uses ge- for past participles, medieval Flemish heavily favored ghe- (e.g., ghemaect instead of gemaakt for "made").
  
• Merged words: Prepositions and articles were often smashed together, just as people spoke them. Aan het (on the) became ant, and in het (in the) became int.

I'm using "Flemish" because we're talking about the Burgundian sphere, and then we're dealing with the County of Flanders. This did not cover all of modern day Flanders, but did include parts of modern day northern France.

When it comes to spelling conventions, for the purpose of Voynich research I don't think it's necessary (or useful) to split Middle Dutch into different regions.

(22-05-2026, 01:26 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I asked Gemini about Flemish and how different it was from medieval Dutch (which I already try to include in my tests), the below is what Gemini said. Does this look reasonable? Personally, I'm mostly interested in language statistics and spelling conventions.

Gemini AI Wrote:Medieval Flemish was written in the Latin alphabet using Gothic scripts, but because there were no standardized spelling rules, writers spelled words phonetically. The same word could be spelled three different ways on the same page.

In my opinion, this is by far the most relevant variable regarding medieval flemish/dutch convention. Compared to the french, which is surprisingly consistent in its spelling, the dutch is all over the place. For july, you can have hoymaent, hooymaent, hoymaant, hooymaendt, hoymaant, hoymaend etc etc, too many to list. I would imagine that two people writing the same work in the same spoken dialect may give you different statistical results. It becomes frustratingly clear in correspondance books like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. 

As for the difference between flemish and dutch, I think it was likely much the same back then as it is today, a gradual continuum of dialectal differences spanning from france to NW germany. Many may have also spoken their local dialect too (or their local low saxon language/dialect), influencing their choice of spelling in varying amounts per person.

The same is true for German, by the way, people wouldn't even spell their own name consistently.

I've added another big wave of ~45 entries (mainly 'Livre d'Heures') from Gallica. Of course, that includes many more of the "standard french months" too, but hopefully in the future they will come in handy with paleography, comparing different zodiac symbols or something else. For that big block of standard scorers i've rearranged them so that the locations are grouped up more neatly. 

From a couple of notable ones: 

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One astrology book from the 14th century contains 3 sets of months, each different. Of interest may be the 2nd and 3rd set, which appear to be written in the same hand but with a different ink/quill (I'm not a paleographer so I'm not 100% certain it is the same hand). The months mirror eachother, but critically the 'ui' in both june and july are also written as 'oi' .

marz auril may* joing joignet aoust septēbre octembre nouēbre decēbre (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)
mars auril may* juing juignet aoust septēbre octēbre nouēbre decembre (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)

Just an another potential piece of evidence showing that 'joi' and 'jui' could perhaps -in some places- both be used to represent the same sound. 

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Both of these infuriate me, because after all this time searching for a rare 'o' in iollet, both decided to give me an 'o' in may instead.. And both really are "moy", not a smudged "may". Both are supposedly from different centuries. Assuming that both are mistakes, it shows that those mistakes can happen even from a less likely 'a' -> 'o', and even in a richly illuminated header. 

So yes, if I had a dollar for every time I've seen 'moy' instead of 'may', i would have 2 dollars. It's not a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. 

(23-05-2026, 05:38 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And both really are "moy", not a smudged "may". Both are supposedly from different centuries. Assuming that both are mistakes, it shows that those mistakes can happen even from a less likely 'a' -> 'o', and even in a richly illuminated header. 

Not sure if they are mistakes. The pronunciation of "oi" = "oy" could be "é" or "oué". Pronunciation and orthography evolved. The conjugated verbs ending with "ois", "oit" are nowadays written "ais", "ait", pronounced "è".

Quote:Before the spelling reform in the third decade of the 19th century, [the verb "could"] was written "pourroit" but pronounced "pourrè." In Old French, the diphthongs oi/ai/ei were interchangeable and varied according to region and dialect.

Quote:Avant la réforme de l'orthographe dans la troisième décennie du XIXe siècle, on écrivait pourroit, mais on disait pourrè. En ancien français, les diphthongues oi/ai/ei étaient interchangeables et variaient selon la région et le dialecte.

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