Sometimes it's helpful to post an example from a medieval text to show how a word or abbreviation is used. There is a word on 17r with two abbreviation symbols, the "z" shape at the end and the macron over the cz.
The "z" shape is a very common Latin scribal abbreviation usually used at the ends of words. It stands for "-em" most of the time, but it can represent homonyms of "-em" as well (what it expands into depends partly on the language and partly on context).
Without the macron, this would usually be interpreted as
lucum in Latin, but the macron indicates more letters have been omitted:
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attachment=2343]
That's a convincing parallel. So to paraphrase, there is a very high chance that this word is luc...m or buc....m where the dots are anything over one letter?
If you'll accept awkward language mixing it could be mallier aller bucorum, painter of all books. But that's a stretch grammar wise, like some German - Latin pidgin.
(12-09-2018, 02:30 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The "z" shape is a very common Latin scribal abbreviation usually used at the ends of words. It stands for "-em" most of the time, but it can represent homonyms of "-em" as well (what it expands into depends partly on the language and partly on context).
Without the macron, this would usually be interpreted as lucum in Latin, but the macron indicates more letters have been omitted:
Lucrum or luctum? That is the question.
[Profit or sorrow?]
(12-09-2018, 03:21 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That's a convincing parallel. So to paraphrase, there is a very high chance that this word is luc...m or buc....m where the dots are anything over one letter?
If you'll accept awkward language mixing it could be mallier aller bucorum, painter of all books. But that's a stretch grammar wise, like some German - Latin pidgin.
I've seen a number of manuscripts that are a mix between Latin and German (usually what happens is that it is mostly Latin with a few German words here and there).
I have also seen some that look like Latin at first glance but turn out to be Middle French, but... leaning slightly more toward the French than the Latin. These are disconcerting. My brain wants to go into one language or the other and it doesn't work, you have to context switch several times per line.
So... a few German words mixed with Latin is not uncommon but the French ones are not a word here and there, they are more of a blend. I was wondering why and then realized the explanation might be fairly simple... Middle French is closer to Latin than Middle German is to Latin, so blending perhaps happens more naturally.
OH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That first letter in luc'm really is strange. Not quite "l" (there's an extra and quite distinct jog in the stem), not quite "b" (the top of the loop is missing).
When I was staring at it just now, it suddenly occurred to me it also looks a bit like the Rx (radix) abbreviation. There's a faint angular line across the jog in the stem... I think.
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This abbreviation was used to indicate recipes/prescriptions (just as it is today), and also to refer to roots (the root was often the part that was used medicinally).
Which means, another possibility is that it might be Rx uc'm, thus something like
mallier aller Rx uc'm hoc
paint all the roots ochre [of] this pi???/vi????
Ochre is just one idea for uc'm, it could be other things but interpreting the first letter as Rx opens up another cupboard of possibilities.
If you put it like that it looks like the chi rho christogram. Is that the same? I don't remember having seen it in Latin text, do you happen to have an example?
Interesting idea. I hadn't thought of that.
I do have examples of the chi rho, from both Greek and Latin texts, although they don't use the stem-crossed form as often in Latin texts. Unfortunately, I would have to hunt them up manually, I didn't make this particular abbreviation searchable in my database.
That's an interesting reading, but "uc-" is a very unusual word beginning both in Latin and in German, I think. This adds to the absence of space, of course, - but spaces appear something disrespected in the VMS.
I just played with color once more, and the word next to this "bucorum" appears to be "he*", where the "*" stands for something like m or g. What would such abbreviation expand to?
(13-09-2018, 04:52 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That's an interesting reading, but "uc-" is a very unusual word beginning both in Latin and in German, I think. This adds to the absence of space, of course, - but spaces appear something disrespected in the VMS.
I just played with color once more, and the word next to this "bucorum" appears to be "he*", where the "*" stands for something like m or g. What would such abbreviation expand to?
It usually stands for et cetera, is very common in the VMS and in late medieval mss. and is one of the reasons why I think the VMS is just a highly abbreviated Latin ms.
Christos something etcetera