The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[JustAnotherTheory]

Several examples of "Octebre" exist, they are all modern. Here is an example from a 1898 French letter:

   

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

Here's another one from 1810:

   

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

There's even a Spanish example:

   

[eggyk]

Mr. Ova Yolk: I didn't want you to think I had walked away from this line of conversation. As I said it is not something I had paid a great deal of attention to, in the past. But you make good points, and I wanted to fill myself in on this whole "month names" story... what everyone else has said about it, what we know, what we don't, and how it affects my own ideas, any everyone's, for better or worse.

I mean it is definitely an issue... I haven't been ignoring because I thought it was an issue, but just because I had not explored it much.

So I have actually been spending a great deal of my spare time in working on this. I have discovered that the reality of the "octēbre" situation is fascinating in its own right. I'm not quite finished, but I'm getting there... I hope. But like many things like this, I've found that what people think they know about it is very different than the reality of it, when you begin to dig deeper and deeper.

In any case, for one thing, that Picard Astrolabe, which of course David King was writing about in 2001. You may know this, already, but I'm not sure... because there are many discussions on the Ninja's and elsewhere, and unless I am wrong... and someone here please correct me because I would like to see ANY examples of octēbre... but there seems to be NO examples of it other than in the Voynich, and engraved on the Picard Astrolabe. None.

What I discovered is that any examples of it are assumed... that is, the form "Octembre" is of course well known but not with the short hand bar for the "em" sound, written octēbre. Apparently, because the bar was not typeset, it was assumed that if you saw "Octembre", that it must have meant a transcriber for print... a typesetter... had seen a manuscript octēbre, and typeset it as "octember", knowing the conventions. But that, while we see many Octembres, I don't think there are actually any known written octēbre's. But I mean this: If I am wrong (I'm still climbing a steep learning curve on these month names), please forgive my ignorance, and point me to it.

It's no problem at all! If you haven't seen it already, the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. contains almost all of the things that we/I have found about this. A ctrl+f on there will show any of the forms found so far. 

As for the zodiac signs, this has become a big project for me. The link in my signature is to a spreadsheet where 100s of zodiac signs from 100s of sources are displayed and rated to find the most similar to the VMS (printed works are included, mostly from the 16thC). The discussion thread for the spreadsheet is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., along with a new You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. thread and the existing You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. thread (whose spreadsheet I integrated and expanded upon). At this point, the vast majority of what has been mentioned before will have been added there. I also track the context in which they appear, attempt to link together related works/copies, as well as tracking other certain VMS-like imagery that occur within the source. It's why I know we haven't seen any lobsters connected like pisces 

octēbre with a macron has indeed been found a bunch of times. It is quite a lot rarer than octembre, which is quite common to find. I'm actually not sure i've come across any 15-16th century printed octembres either, for what it's worth. I haven't been tracking whether entries are printed or written, but I think all of the ones i've seen have been written. I would have to check. 

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

(note that the last two are octēbres, but are found in a context where all of the month names appear to end in s for some reason)

[eggyk]

Several examples of "Octebre" exist, they are all modern. Here is an example from a 1898 French letter:



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

Here's another one from 1810:



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

There's even a Spanish example:

I'm sorry, but I have to push back on the first 2 examples here. An obscure spelling mistake halfway through a huge book should not count for these purposes imo. Firstly, because of the missing macron, and secondly because noone would ever find these without an OCR scan. This is how that octebre looks on those pages; the rest of the pages contain not a single other example (but do contain many octobres).

Context is important here. This is page 413 of 620, most of which are pages full of dates. 

   

[JustAnotherTheory]

Thank you for pointing out these examples. Turns out I was wrong, again. Shocker

[proto57]

Hi Eggo: There seems to have been some confusion on my part! And great work...

It's no problem at all! If you haven't seen it already, the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. contains almost all of the things that we/I have found about this. A ctrl+f on there will show any of the forms found so far.

First of all, that is magnificent work, on yours and everyone's part! Granted I've only been on the case for a week or so, but still I failed at finding ONE "octēbre", and here you have quite a few. And the organized layout of the spreadsheet is excellent. All this must have taken a huge amount of work! Kudos. And is it OK if I link it to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.? The list of the links is general, and even, mostly either non-committal or outright pro-1420 genuine.

That being said, I was very confused! You were asking me if I could find any examples of octēbre, and octembre and so I misunderstood and thought you could not find them. I went back to look, to see how I got it so wrong. I just looked, and now think I know the reason for the confusion. You wrote,

"As for octembre/octebre, if you have the time I would appreciate the links to those. I don't know exactly how you search, but all I get on google books are history publications containing written correspondence or direct quotes from the 12th-15th centuries, and not the usage of octembre in works of the 18-19th century itself", and, "But more importantly, the VMS uses octēbre with a macron, indicating a deliberate and attested shortening of 'octembre'. The only instance of octēbre with a macron that shows up in results is a 2001 david king book about astrolabes... in the context of the of the picardy dialect of french from medieval times."

So I mistakenly thought you could not find ANY WRITTEN octēbre's. And here is the reason for the disconnect: I learned that when a typesetter came across the manuscript version, octēbre, they did not have, nor have the means to add "on the fly", the character "ē". Nor did they have the means, or for whatever technical reason didn't, add the macron above the "e".

But the key point is, they understood what it was... that it was meant as the phonetic sound "em". And THIS is why it does not appear in print, AS "octēbre". Instead, they reverted it to the pronunciation meant by the manuscript author, and typeset it as "octembre".

I had actually surmised wrong, although I knew the above was the practice of typesetters: Since I didn't know of the finds off all the manuscript octēbre's, I had surmised that perhaps these typesetters were assuming octēbre, and so, writing octembre. But now I see that it is actually all very pat: Octēbre was used in many cases, and the typesetters were converting them to Octembre, and you were asking me if I knew of the form Octēbre in print, and it does not exist in print.

All that being said... and since this was part of the premise of your request... we can both see that the Theorem has been fulfilled in a more direct way than the technical minimum of some small and unfounded possibility he saw that astrolabe, because all these examples of octēbre in manuscript form fulfill one of the requirements, that the source, if not in print, be in a place he is known to, or could reasonably assumed to have possibly visited. Several of your links do show this.

Now the July is still up in the air. And as I've related, I think that the very indistinct and vague form would make it so difficult to pin down what spelling was actually meant by it... so I would reserve judgment on what that spelling was. I have to say that I do intend to pore over your spreadsheet, and look at all examples carefully, and perhaps I could form an opinion on this... not really so far though, not that it matters to anyone else!

As for the zodiac signs, this has become a big project for me. The link in my signature is to a spreadsheet where 100s of zodiac signs from 100s of sources are displayed and rated to find the most similar to the VMS (printed works are included, mostly from the 16thC). The discussion thread for the spreadsheet is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., along with a new You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. thread and the existing You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. thread (whose spreadsheet I integrated and expanded upon). At this point, the vast majority of what has been mentioned before will have been added there. I also track the context in which they appear, attempt to link together related works/copies, as well as tracking other certain VMS-like imagery that occur within the source. It's why I know we haven't seen any lobsters connected like pisces 

"Wow" again. Excellent work. Can I also place this link on my blog? No problem if not of course.

octēbre with a macron has indeed been found a bunch of times. It is quite a lot rarer than octembre, which is quite common to find. I'm actually not sure i've come across any 15-16th century printed octembres either, for what it's worth. I haven't been tracking whether entries are printed or written, but I think all of the ones i've seen have been written. I would have to check. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes and, as I answered above, the reason we find many printed "octembre's", and as octēbre it is only written, seems to be because the typesetter understood the meaning of the macron on "e" as "em", and set it as "em". Well of course in "modern times", with the technological advancements in typesetting and various other printing methods, printed works ceased to have a problem with representing the original manuscript octēbre in print. Like us!

Great discussion, great work, and once again, I learned far more than I was able to offer.... thanks.

Rich

[RadioFM]

I keep coming back to this thread just to enjoy reading Mr. Ovoplasma's aliases

[proto57]

I keep coming back to this thread just to enjoy reading Mr. Ovoplasma's aliases

They are meant entirely lovingly, no yoke (but I'm not sure if the Eggster is a Mr. or not, not that it matters. Do we?)

Proto

[eggyk]

All that being said... and since this was part of the premise of your request... we can both see that the Theorem has been fulfilled in a more direct way than the technical minimum of some small and unfounded possibility he saw that astrolabe, because all these examples of octēbre in manuscript form fulfill one of the requirements, that the source, if not in print, be in a place he is known to, or could reasonably assumed to have possibly visited. Several of your links do show this.

I admit that is is possible, albeit quite unlikely, that voynich saw the form Octēbre -either on an astrolabe or in a french book of hours- or alternatively that he came across the form octembre in one of these historical books, and then chose to shorten it the same way septēbre, nouēbre and decēbre often got used.

Now the July is still up in the air. And as I've related, I think that the very indistinct and vague form would make it so difficult to pin down what spelling was actually meant by it... so I would reserve judgment on what that spelling was. I have to say that I do intend to pore over your spreadsheet, and look at all examples carefully, and perhaps I could form an opinion on this... not really so far though, not that it matters to anyone else!

Fair enough, but I would say that everyone would agree that the word has 'oll' in the middle of it. Such a spelling -no matter what comes before or after- is unattested afaik. Previously unattested forms do trickle in as we do this work sometimes. For example, we have a lone 'jugnius' for june instead of julius in one of the latin entries. 

Or similarly, we have You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (wonderful) unique zodiacs that I only found a couple of days ago:

           

I doubt we'll see these designs in another manuscript, nor I assume in later printed works. It's a good reminder that some things were genuinely unique back then. If the VMS had copied the above designs, but the above manuscript was lost to a fire, we would be saying such designs are completely unattested. That is the nature of medieval works. Hell, it feels like every time I open a german manuscript I find a new, ridiculous unique spelling of something or other. 

Can I also place this link on my blog? No problem if not of course.

You are welcome to add the zodiac spreadsheet onto the blog, but as it is connected to my personal google account I would prefer the form to be a link to the Voynich Ninja You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (which contains the spreadsheet link), so nefarious actors (or AI scrubbers) can't freely access/provide the share-link without registering.   Sorry for being awkward! 

The month name spreadsheet is owned by Koen, so you would require his permission.

I keep coming back to this thread just to enjoy reading Mr. Ovoplasma's aliases

They are meant entirely lovingly, no yoke (but I'm not sure if the Eggster is a Mr. or not, not that it matters. Do we?)

Hahaha