The Voynich Ninja

What to make of something like this? The "e"'s are spiky and it's the same script type, only less cursive. But whenever there's a "y", it gets some kind of variable diacritic on it. In one case on the page I was looking at, it looks like a circumflex, but I don't know if that's a coincidence. Maybe the accents have something to do with pronunciation? 


[attachment=10827]

I can't properly look at it because Gallica keeps crashing on me. Here's a link to the MS: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(16-06-2025, 04:43 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What to make of something like this? The "e"'s are spiky and it's the same script type, only less cursive. But whenever there's a "y", it gets some kind of variable diacritic on it. In one case on the page I was looking at, it looks like a circumflex, but I don't know if that's a coincidence. Maybe the accents have something to do with pronunciation? 

This looks to me like the "long y" mentioned by Beaulieux in his Histoire, i.e. scribes used it instead of the i when appropriate since it was easier to write, interesting to see it in a document from 1510 but that goes to show that demarcation lines were blurred and these two tendencies (i.e. standardisation of accents on the one hand and older scripts/writing practices on the other) are likely to have coexisted for a long time. The first essay on accents in French dates from 1505 (always according to Beaulieux) but it was practically ignored, as were subsequent efforts before 1533.

A few more interesting finds on Gallica. I have limited myself to works written between 1500 and 1600. 

1. "Livre d'heures" You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 

Mars, Apuril, dotted May, Juing, Juillet, Aoust, Septembre, Octobre, Nouembre, Decembre

2. "Calendrier à l'usage du diocèse de Toulouse" You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.,

Mars, Auril, dotted May, Juing, Juillet, Aoust, Septembre, Octobre, Nouembre, Decembre

3. "Recueil de poésies palinodiques, exécuté pour Jacques le Lieur, échevin de Rouen et prince du Puy de l'Immaculée Conception", You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 1520

Mars, Auril, May, Juing, Juillet, Aougst, Septembre, Octobre, Nouembre, Decembre

4. "Heures à l'usage d'un diocèse des Flandres" You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.,

Mars, Apuril, May, Juing, Jullet, Aoust, Septembre, Octobre, Nouembre, Decembre

5. "Livre d'heures" You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.,

Mars, Auril, dotted May, Juing, Juillet, Aoust, Septembre, Octobre, Nouembre, Decembre

6. "Table d'astrologie et almanach a jamais, pour trouver tous les jours quelz signes regnent, la lettre dominicale, le nombre d'or, la Septuagesime, Pasques, les qualitez des signes, pour trouver les jours esleuz pour prendre medecine et seignées", You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 1572

Mars, Apuril, May, Jung, Juillet, Aoust, Septembre, Octobre, Nouembre, Decembre

7. "Livre d'Heures pour la diocese de Tolouse" You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.,

Mars, Apuril, May, Jung, Jullet, Auoust, Septembre, Octobre, Nouembre, Decembre

If you like hairline macrons, check out the 'y' in "Maÿus".

St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 827 p. 5

Lake Constance region · 1425/28

<e-codices link will open but not copy atm.>

I am not sure if codex Bodmer 113 has been mentioned in this context.

I have not found any month names, but the handwriting appears to me to have some similarities.
(So far this is the best I got - not yet very good).

I ran into it at an interesting site, by the way: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

It links to the full codex: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I think most will agree that this is not yet very similar, but let that be seen as a challenge...

I added all sets to the document so far. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

It shows pretty well where the problems lie. We focus on the "-embre" months in French dialects, but then certain things  are hard to find:

• aberil: "b" is absent so far, but we have some in between vowels.
  
• yong: there is usually a digraph for the vowel (ui) or a single "u". Having any "o" in there is rare.
  
• iollet: same.
  
• augst: this is almost always "aoust" without the "g". 
  
• octembre is rarer than octobre
  

(17-06-2025, 01:15 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It shows pretty well where the problems lie. We focus on the "-embre" months in French dialects, but then certain things  are hard to find:

• aberil: "b" is absent so far, but we have some in between vowels.
  
• yong: there is usually a digraph for the vowel (ui) or a single "u". Having any "o" in there is rare.
  
• iollet: same.
  
• augst: this is almost always "aoust" without the "g". 
  
• octembre is rarer than octobre
  

For what it is worth, I have noticed that the shift from aueril to apuril seems to happen in documents written after the first decades of the 1500s. 
The Jong in the VM could very well be "Joing", which is a common form of the month name in French, it is really hard to tell cause the space is very little and the writing is crammed, it wasn't uncommon to merge the i and the n. It is also interesting that there is vowel consistency between Jong and Jollet.
Augst is interesting since it doesn't look like it was written that way to save space. However, the final -gst is not unheard of in XVIth century manuscripts.
The one I am the most worried about is octembre, "octobre" seemed to be completely standardised by the 1500s, I have yet to find even one significant difference in spelling for that month name. All of the examples of "octembre" that i could find were from the 1300s/1400s. 

It would have been really good to have Janvier and Fevrier as well   Also something to keep in mind is that the VM was very likely destined to private use, so the scribe of the months might have used colloquial forms for the month names that would not be reflected in contemporary published books or "official" manuscripts such as record books and livres d'heures.

The thing with the introduction of the accent circonflex is something to keep in mind, but I also wouldn't use it as an absolute guideline. All in all our knowledge about this is pretty shaky at the moment. 

Octembre is a certainty and a good anchor point. If it is actually true that it disappeared after ca. 1500, then we must also take this into account.

I agree that the script is not one would use in a book of hours, and hence the actual vocabulary might have been less standardized as well. This should be less of a problem before the Age of Grammarians though.

In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
the names of the months in an astrolabe are analized in order to associate them with a specific region.
Octenbre also appears.

Octembre: so far, found in Picardy, Lorraine (Metz) and Belgium.

Hainaut is shared between France and Belgium:
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Watriquet de Couvin is from Namur, Belgium:
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Dictionnaire Godefroy:
[attachment=10840]
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Senlis is in Picardy, Tournai in Belgium.