The Voynich Ninja

Godefroy also has Paris. I believe that that dictionary includes until the 15th century, so it is not clear to me if it was also used later. All examples known to me are in or before the 15th century though.

(18-06-2025, 04:05 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Godefroy also has Paris. I believe that that dictionary includes until the 15th century, so it is not clear to me if it was also used later. All examples known to me are in or before the 15th century though.

Yes, it's in the title: "du IXe au XVe siècle" You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I have found a really interesting Picard livre d'heures from the end of the XIVth century with the months in Picard.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Mars Auril Mai Jung Jugnet Aust Septembre Octembre Nouembre Decembre

Octembre seems to pop up only in documents from the north-east of France and it seems to be a regional spelling that disappeared in the 1500s at least from "official" books. It is frustratingly hard to find documents written in picard or other similar regional dialects online, but I feel we are on the right track, "jung" and "jong" aren't far away, and neither is "Aust" from "Augst".

I agree with the general sentiment that Octembre points to the northern French dialects. North of Paris, basically. 

I would say that the "g" in augst is still remarkable. Germanic influence? Places like Hainaut also got correspondence in Flemish. And I presume a city like Metz, where Octembre is also found, mixed French and Germanic influences as well.

(18-06-2025, 07:02 PM)davidma Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have found a really interesting Picard livre d'heures from the end of the XIVth century with the months in Picard.

Added, I would place it in the top 3 based on my improvised rating system. Which is open to criticism by the way. Currently I'm using:

• March: mars gets green, marz yellow
  
• April: any vowel in between the first two consonants gets yellow (averil, apuril). Abril would also get yellow but we haven't listed that yet.
  
• May: may and mai both get green
  
• June and July: starting letters i, j and y are considered equivalent; Yellow is earned by the present of an "o", or a monograph "u". 
  
• August: anything that ends in "gst" gets green. I gave yellow to "aust".
  
• October:  needs "octembre" for green.
  

Yellow is half point, green is full point.

If anyone notices anything that's off or missing with anything in the file, please tell me.

A few other interesting finds. One from Cambrai, the other from Metz (both NE France).

Heures de Boussu: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 1495

Mars Apuril May Jung Jullet Aoust Septembre Octembre Nouembre Decembre

Heures de Metz: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 1325

Mars Auris Mais Jung Julet Aous Septembres Octembres Nouembres Decembres
 

I must have gone through more than 120 lives d'heures and calendars from different places in France, and none come as close to the VM names as the Cambrai one. We have the consonant plus vowel in Apuril, we have J-u-ng and J-u-llet, and we have Octembre,  which to me is the strongest regional clue so far because it is completely absent from other dialects, no matter the century of reference. It is also not too far in time from our proposed timeline for the month names (i.e., added sometime after 1520/30 due to the circumflex but likely not after 1560). The only missing element is the g in Aoust. Other documents in Picard dialect do use the g in Aust, though. Picard was the spoken dialect in Cambrai at the time.

(19-06-2025, 12:10 AM)davidma Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A few other interesting finds. One from Cambrai, the other from Metz (both NE France).

Heures de Boussu: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 1495

Mars Apuril May Jung Jullet Aoust Septembre Octembre Nouembre Decembre

Also, in this one (as well as the one from Metz) y has a tittle. In the Cambria Ms, e has the right shape (though of course the script is much more formal).

May ... / La lune

[attachment=10844]

Added. For reference, I made a map of the locations of our entries that score 6+ points. This is basically the octembre-zone. A lot of entries are still with uncertain location though, I didn't add those.

[attachment=10845]

Some thoughts:

• The thing with Octembre is that it's very searchable. A unique piece of vocabulary without spelling variations. Might this be influencing our results in favor of any series that has "octembre"? Something like "yong/jong/iong" is much harder to search for because of false positives. And I assume focusing on the "b" in "aberil" would lead elsewhere.
  
• I'm starting to doubt the relevance of 16th century grammarians to this text. Maybe the circumflex is more like dots on the legs of y? Or whatever the usual hairline "tittle" is supposed to be? Either way, I would not let this guide the scope of the search.
  
• Octembre borders various Flemish/German regions. Influence from one of those may be taken into account.
  

(19-06-2025, 08:31 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Added. For reference, I made a map of the locations of our entries that score 6+ points. This is basically the octembre-zone. A lot of entries are still with uncertain location though, I didn't add those.

Paris is doubtful because octembre is rare. Maybe there were a few Picards living there or (more likely) it was such a big production center of manuscripts that copies were certainly done of various books that originated elsewhere.

(19-06-2025, 02:31 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Paris is doubtful

I agree that the presence or absence of Paris probably isn't the most informative.

Apart from Picardy, Lorraine (with Metz and Toul) is also in the Octembre region. The Lorrain dialect is known for its Germanic influences - it's right next to Alsace.