The Voynich Ninja

I also fear we may have blind spots, but maybe not from lack of searching. Maybe it's the octembre effect? This particular lemma stands out so much and is incredibly easy to google/search, so we do find a lot of results in the regions that use "octembre" more often.

Mainly in reference to the remark about saint names for dating, but maybe also relevant to this project as a whole: There is a useful handbook on medieval and early modern calendar systems. While originally published in the late 19th century, there is an online version, unfortunately in German as the main language, but a lot of it is in Latin, French etc. anyway: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

(10-06-2026, 04:28 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I also fear we may have blind spots, but maybe not from lack of searching. Maybe it's the octembre effect? This particular lemma stands out so much and is incredibly easy to google/search, so we do find a lot of results in the regions that use "octembre" more often.

I'm pretty sure its not an octembre effect, as the vast majority of entries weren't found based on octembre. Almost all entries so far have been from: 

Gallica searches for "calendrier", "calendar", "livre d'heures", and "horae". 
The JONAS variable "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.".

Neither of which should favour or not favour a specific variant of octobre. However, they do favour manuscripts and works designated or partly designated as french. They also tend exclude manuscripts that themselves are predominantly Latin but may contain notes or marginalia in the vernacular (especially the JONAS variable). Perhaps these potential SW France entries are not designated as either "french" or "oil-francais" and as such have been overlooked so far. 

When I asked google AI (pinch of salt) why I may not have found many occitan manuscripts from that area, it did mention that due to multiple reasons official works in the SW were pushed to be done in Latin, instead of local vernacular. Latin manuscripts and specific Occitan searches might be promising search avenues.

Right, but the spreadsheet also includes entries found by earlier researcher, which also trend Northern French. And I know that there was quite some interest in Occitan month names in the past. In fact, my reason for making this thread initially had been that people said "northern French" and "Occitan" and even "German" with the same confidence, and I wanted to collect the actual evidence that had been presented up to that point, because I had no idea who was right.

I suspect that people have, in fact, looked elsewhere, but that the encountered sequences have often not been worth mentioning. Go too far south and you get wildly different spellings. Move into Germanic areas and you lose the -re endings (and gain Mertz). 

That said, I would not yet rule out French/MHG border areas like Alsace and Switzerland. The more south-eastern French dialects would certainly make for a neater connection to regions of interest for the VM.

There is now a "Less interesting Sequences" tab on the spreadsheet. In order to fill out some of the areas we've been missing, it's required to search through manuscripts from germanic areas and the South of france, researching dutch, german, occitan and latin manuscripts. That leads to sifting through many manuscripts with non-interesting sequences, so instead of discarding them they're being added so they may be used in the future. 

This may be useful in particular for: 
-Research into the diacritic use for 'may' (found frequently in may/mayus)
-Locating a rough origin for some interesting manuscripts (using saints, paleography etc)
-Having a large database of zodiac depictions
-Insight into vowel and consonant shifts/blends over time and location (p <-> b / au <-> ou)

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However, now and again there are interesting sequences when researching this way. 
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15thC, Unknown Origin, but the title says schwäbisch, so maybe Swabia?

mercze
abrellen / apprelle
meige / maygen
brachmonet / brauchet, brouchmonot
hȯmonet
augste / ougst
herbstmonet
andern herbst 
dritten herbst
wintermonet

This manuscript must have been from an area where the b/p sound was close enough to be interchangeable (at least in vernacular spelling). I think this has been assumed to be the case for a while, but this is finally a solid example. 

Seperately, it also shows both Ougst and Augste being used, which gives us some insight into pronunciation for both. Honestly, whoever wrote this seems to have not particularly cared which vowels were used in words, as long as one was there.

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1368-1405AD, Germany?

mertz
aberell
erst may
ander may
prauchmon
erst awst
ander awst
erst herbst
ander herbst
christmon

'Aw' in august has only been confirmed in Metz, France (3 times) and in Huy, Belgium (once). Normally in 'awost' or 'awoust'. It's very unusual to see anything but some form of 'augst' in german sequences, so "awst" is a huge outlier. Perhaps awst indicates an origin somewhere in western germany or luxembourg?

What's also kinda(?) weird is the fact that we see 'aberell' for april, yet we see 'prauchmon' for july instead of the more common 'brachmon'. Perhaps just another indicator that the b/p usage was quite fluid.

(15-06-2026, 04:25 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Normally in 'awost' or 'awoust'.

Most languages avoid the "vg" sound, difficult to pronounce.

No problem with "avgust" in the Balkans (Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro).