The clue to the language can be the word "all?r". It does not seem to be two separate words, at least there is no observable space. Four letters out of five are quite clear. The fourth letter is ambiguous, but it is more likely to be an "o" than "e" or "u". I would say "u" is quite unlikely. "e" is possible, but from what I see, ceteris paribus my vote would be for "o".
Now, what is "allor" (or "Allor")? I guess in Italian it is the same as "allora" which means "back then".
What if we try to interpret the whole phrase in 15th century Italian? Marco, as a native speaker, do you have any ideas? (Mind that there could be proper nouns there!)
I think an important question is : is this marginalia in the same hand as the last folio?
If it is, it is unlikely to be in a different vernacular.
I guess here is some resource for 17th century Italian: You are not allowed to view links.
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It's a pity I don't speak Italian except "Bella Ciao" and "Bandiera Rossa", so it's a bit difficult for me to use this resource.
I can find "allor" and "mal" there (both are valid modern words as well), but "lier", "lior", "mallier" or "mallior" fail to be found.
(27-03-2016, 09:09 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think an important question is : is this marginalia in the same hand as the last folio?
If it is, it is unlikely to be in a different vernacular.
Why not? For example, if a person spoke both German and Italian, he could use both.
(27-03-2016, 08:59 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Now, what is "allor" (or "Allor")? I guess in Italian it is the same as "allora" which means "back then".
What if we try to interpret the whole phrase in 15th century Italian? Marco, as a native speaker, do you have any ideas? (Mind that there could be proper nouns there!)
The main difficulty is that Italian words end with a vowel, these don't seem to do so.
In poetry, it was common to drop the ending vowel, so you can get "allor" for "allora" (then) "mal" for "male" (bad) etc. This sometimes happens in prose as well, but it is and was a comparatively rare phenomenon.
But the third word has a fairly common Latin abbreviation ("lucorum" -of the woods-, or less likely "lucem" -light- accusative).
As always, everything is possible, but I think it is easier to make sense of the words in Latin than in Italian.
[Added later, crossed with davidjackson, sorry]
One could also think of French / Spanish / Catalan / Provencal.
For instance "mullier" could be an alternative spelling for "mujer".
"Aller" is French.
Again, I have no alternatives for the third word.
I'm fluent in English and Spanish, but it wouldn't occur to me to mix the two languages when making notes - unless the prompt for the note was in the second language causing me to think in that language.
Still, the important thing is to find a coherent sentence in any language.
But if it's Italian we potentially have three notes in three languages - MH German, Spanish and Italian.
Hmm, "making sense" is not what I would call scientific approach. It generally leads to excessively voluntary interpretations. Let's consider an example. You propose that "mallior" stands for "melior". All right. But the scribe did not write "melior". He expressly wrote "mallior" (or "mallier", or "mal lier", but in any case it is not "melior"). Now, therefore, why should we assume that he meant "melior"? It is quite groundess.
Quote:I'm fluent in English and Spanish, but it wouldn't occur to me to mix the two languages when making notes - unless the prompt for the note was in the second language causing me to think in that language.
I mean not mixing two languages in a single sidenote, but using them in different notes (perhaps separated by a significant period of time). When I review my conspects from the times when I was a university student, I often find there marginalia in English - mostly those are excerpts from heavy metal songs that I've been fond of.
Yes, well, your English is exceptional for being a second language Anton.
actually, so is Marco and others.
You are correct with the accuracy. I suspect the lack of propositions puts paid to this being a romance language.
Incidentally, malhor(a) means 'a bad hour' in Spanish - and the Rae suggests a colloquial usage of a witch.
Albor means a start, or dawn. (Also albur which is white).
Luco is an ancient word for a grove.
But the sentence wouldn't be grammatical.
Perhaps, "mallior" could be a valid word form of "malo"?
About the "luco", my Spanish is not perfect, but this root can also be used in a verb, meaning something like "appear, look like", probably etymologically related to "lux". Any possibilities there?
(27-03-2016, 05:01 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'd say that it would be methodologically risky to assume beforehand that marginalia are related to the main content. It is not certain and just introduces bias. First of all, we need to discern at least a part of a cohesive phrase in any language, and only then should we look at whether it corresponds to the main content or not.
In the case of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. we have at least "pox leber" and "so rim/nim gas mich" which both make sense, although can bear not a single meaning. In the case of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. we don't have any phrase yet which would be compliant with orthography and grammar of any language.
From a couple of months ago: You are not allowed to view links.
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(27-03-2016, 09:30 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm fluent in English and Spanish, but it wouldn't occur to me to mix the two languages when making notes - unless the prompt for the note was in the second language causing me to think in that language.
Still, the important thing is to find a coherent sentence in any language.
But if it's Italian we potentially have three notes in three languages - MH German, Spanish and Italian.
Scribes in the 1400s were constantly tossing in Latin terms mixed with their own language. Even in the 1700s, when books were printed in mass quantity for a broader audience, Latin and Greek phrases were intermixed with the language in which the book was written (French, English, German, Italian, etc.) without a footnote to translate it. The fact that there were no footnotes indicates that they assumed the reader could read the Latin and Greek phrases without explanation.