The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

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Would I have you questioning things... questioning your position? Look what happened just now, with the mentions I found of Aberil... in published books, in multiple copies, printed several times, over decades in two centuries, AI telling us there were no other 15th century examples, and the word also being used in not only a popular poem, but in several other cases... and the numbers of those books published unknown...

... yet, still, you say it is not probable that Voynich saw one of these examples? I think the very standards you, yourself have set to lower this threshold are impossible to meet... and so, I really doubt that if I find "... a "jollet", "iollet" or even a "joillet" (that isn't a smudged juillet) from later printed works", that likewise, you would not accept said find, and "really have you questioning things".

If you are not questioning things now, I mean, I am not sure what would, because what I found was actually pretty good, by almost any reasonable standard.

I meant what I said that the aberil was an interesting find, and admit that your finding of a printed aberil firmly puts the form into that category of "unlikely, but possible, in both the forgery and genuine theories", instead of what I assumed at first which was that it was only possible in the genuine theory. I say both theories now, as we now know that it was present in at least a few printed works -even if other forms are far far more common- and it was also present in a few manuscripts -even if other forms were far far more common- with evidence that the form existed in certain rare dialects. So your argument has pulled my position towards the neutral in this regard. 

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 correspondance or direct quotes from the 12th-15th centuries, and not the usage of octembre in works of the 18-19th century itself. (incidentally, these are books that I have come across in german digital libraries too) If those publications are being counted, then sure. I was under the impression that those were not widely printed and weremeant for research, but that may be totally wrong. 

"If you can find a "jollet", "iollet" or even a "joillet" (that isn't a smudged juillet) from later printed works, you would certainly have me questioning things, as it would constitute finding something that has never been found in any manuscript."

Would I have you questioning things... questioning your position? Look what happened just now, with the mentions I found of Aberil...

jollet is different. It represents something we've never seen. Evidence that it existed in later publications yet seemingly never existed in manuscripts would be extremely interesting to me. 

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But finally, none of this is meant to be a "gotcha" to disprove one theory or to prove another. In the first instance, I asked you for your view on some of these month name forms, given that I have done research in that area and had come to my own conclusions about their rarity/use across time. The fact that you are coming back with examples backing up your theory is exactly what I am looking for. 

So 'questioning my position' is what I am doing constantly. The reason that I search back to 800AD and forward to 1912AD for things like month names and zodiac signs is specifically because I am trying not to take a firm position on when/where the manuscript was written (or where/when the content was copied from).

Hi Egg of Yolks: Yes I see what took the time to explain, and see you are more of a skeptic than simply a contrarian. It is hard for me sometimes, especially on these forums, but in general, to know the different intents of the various commenters on my theories. I do usually get defensive, but not "because someone does not agree with me"- I genuinely don't care, and shouldn't care, what others believe. The things that bother me are when someone misstates, or reforms my ideas in a way that is not correct. I want to be understood properly. You have not, I don't think, misunderstood me... we seem to disagree on the relative merit and probability of the evidence.

Anyway, to your points:

1) First, how I search for pre-1912, printed/published references: a) I go to Google Books: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. b) I put the word I am looking for into the search bar, and press enter, c) The results that come up are chronologically global, of course d) I then click the drop down menu "tools", then "any time", then "custom range". e) In the upper box I put 1/1/1200, in the second box, 1/1/1912. f) then click "go", and you will get your results for only that word, in only that range of dates. And your range stays for as long as you have that window open, so you can keep plugging in words, one after the other. Below is a screenshot of the first couple of "octembre" references look like- but it goes on for several pages like this, with a great many references to the word, between the 18th and the early 20th centuries:

   

2) You can see that the results also give you a snippet of text, which is handy for finding the word... although it will open on the page if you click on it. In the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., for instance, you get the page with "Octembre", as "October", used several times.

3) For "jollet", it You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., and not as a month name, not as "July". But I only looked at the first couple of pages of results.

4) For "iollet", it only seems to appear as a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., such as when a longer word is split. The search then picks up only the "iollet" part. So from what I can see so far, it has not been used as month name in print.

5) For "Joillet", it You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., not used for "July".

6) Stephen Bax had it as possibly "jolliz". If so, no, again, I do not find it as "July", but some other Latin word.

7) However, I feel that in this case... not fudging here, not evading a possible failure of the Voynich Theorem #1, I feel... if this is the word we are talking about: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , then I do not think it is clear enough WHAT the writer of that word was intending at all. I don't really see any of the above suggestions in fact. And also, I am somewhat backed up by the fact that everyone else seems to share my opinion on that, and at best are grasping at straws to find ANY lettering for that word.
This is specifically why I specified in my theorem "any good comparison"... because of course there are a great many rough and indeterminate letters and illustrations in the Voynich that, so far, have no good comparisons. That's my "out", and I'm sticking to it.

8) Oh you wondered about "octebre", also. Yes, it frequently appears as "October" in many search results, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Whether that is an alternate spelling, or a common typo, IDK. But it is also common. And it is not a bad scan, or an inked in "o" that cased it to look like an "e" (at least not in any cases I saw): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

9) But back to the July word: I did a search and found that some think it may be "iullio". IDK, but if so, it is sometimes used as "July", as in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. (also as Pope Julius). This is key, I think, for several researchers have noted that the spelling "iullio" has been found in old manuscripts... which is fine of course, and interesting. But again, it was also in some number of printed books before 1910, and therefore is NOT exclusive to rare old manuscripts or something, and does fulfill the requirements of my Theorem.

10) My best guess would be it is the word "iolloa" or "iollo", and I get nothing valuable.

My conclusions.. and again everyone else's may be different:

1) Most of these Zodiac words do fulfill the requirements of my Voynich Theorem #1, in that they do appear in various contexts in several published works by 1910.

2) The one that does not, meant to be "July", is so indeterminate in spelling, that it is an equal problem for everyone, so, really, a moot point. I would say is such an unknown, that no conclusions or even strong opinions can be formed from it.

3) The fact that we have Occitan, French, German/Swiss origins (and others?) for this set of month names is in itself a sign of possible forgery, as I think it more likely that a forger just grabbed "old month names" and stuck them in there, rather than some diverse group of analysts each giving a guess, or one knowing all these languages, and also doing so. But the danger of using "likely" as a probability fails in that anyone can claim alternate "probabilities"... and do, by the way, all the time. I like to avoid that. So I would say that, given everything else about the willy-nilly nature of the content of the entire Voynich, the anachronisms, the anomalies... that this weights my take on it stronger, as simply another example of a forger who was not consistent, not accurate.

4) I feel that, after doing this exercise, an old phenomenon can be observed, yet again, and it is usually classed under the title, "Looking under Lamposts". In many cases with the Voynich, before doing any sort of research, the believer in 1420 will tend to apply the global filter on themselves, limit themselves, to some time close to 1420. Then they do not search for, and so, do not find, evidence outside their limiting range. And Eggyk I am not speaking of you, or anyone else who does dare to expand their searches. 

In this case, guess what... these words, for the most part, and very plausibly and reasonably could have been seen and used by a 20th century forger, so at the very least, that is NOT off the table.

As another example of this, for the NSA Historical Cipher Conference in 2017, I suggested that it was dangerous to limit one's attempts at decipherment by only looking at those ciphers and systems that they felt might have been used in the 15th century. And I still feel this way... no matter what one believes, they ought to expand their search into areas they don't believe possible, also. Michael Ventris solved Linear B exactly because of this... he was certain it was based on Phonetician, but tried Alice Kober's (sp?) Greek anyway... and it was the answer.

Another thing to realize: Those who insist you limit your own ideas and searches to the 1420 Genuine European Cipher Paradigm have no answers of their own. They do not know when it was made, where it was made, for what purpose, what it says, who wrote it, and what it contains. After over 100 years of sticking to that very rigid and limiting set of standards, I think it is time people broke free of this, and tried some other ideas.