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Wherefore art thou, aberil?
- Wherefore art thou, aberil?
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RE: Wherefore art thou, aberil?
Koen G > 03-02-2026, 07:44 PM
Language change is not a coin toss though, these things are regional. If someone says "abril" in an "april" region, they immediately stand out as a speaker of a different dialect.
Since people tended to write (the vernacular) as they spoke, looking for "aberil" may still be informative. -
RE: Wherefore art thou, aberil?
Dana Scott > 04-02-2026, 12:05 PM
(09-06-2025, 10:19 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Depends a bit how long it was before 2012. Some people may have saved them but I do not have them.
Quote:Dana Scott recently referred members of the Vms list to a very interesting image from a French manuscript which, in turn, had many points in common with a small group of Regensberg/Salzburg ms – and the Vms
Dana may remember...
Nothing comes to mind at the moment. I will let the group know if I find something.
Regards,
Dana Scott -
RE: Wherefore art thou, aberil?
eggyk > 04-02-2026, 01:05 PM
(03-02-2026, 07:44 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Language change is not a coin toss though, these things are regional. If someone says "abril" in an "april" region, they immediately stand out as a speaker of a different dialect.
Since people tended to write (the vernacular) as they spoke, looking for "aberil" may still be informative.
Before widespread education and standardisation, it may have been a coin toss from person to person.
A father may have said "april" and the son or grandson may have said "abril" and as long as everyone understood which word was being said they may not have even noticed the difference. If it was a larger change, like someone saying "Aprilis" instead of "Aberil" it would be noticeable.
Hopefully youtube links are okay, this is a video from Simon Roper demonstrating these kinds of differences over only 2 generations at a time: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(link is timestamped to the part i mean)
Additionally, if someone was a learned, literate person with knowledge of Latin, its entirely plausible that the person would code switch depending on the situation or context. Like in this example, where a german speaker clearly uses both "Apprilis" and "abrel", "Mayus" and "mayen", (as well as jenner/Gornug alongside the latin january and february).
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RE: Wherefore art thou, aberil?
Koen G > 04-02-2026, 03:12 PM
I also noticed the code-switching in several manuscripts: they were well aware of the Latin names, but especially in almanac-type manuscripts would include the vernacular names.
I maintain that looking for the exact spelling variant (aberil) remains helpful though. Language change is not a personal choice. It starts by affecting one (often elite) group or region in society, and then spreads from there over a wider area.
It's possible that the month name writer was in such an area that was in flux, in the middle of a transition. If they had used "p", this would be of little use since it's right there in the Latin "Aprilis". But the fact remains that they wrote the marked form (aprilis did not have "b"), so it remains useful to track where else people used that marked form.
It may well be that in their region, "b" and "p" had become indistinguishable in certain positions, so they freely switched. But once again, in that case it remains useful to track where this was done, because it's the marked form.
The least we can say is that the writer was from an area which allowed b-use. Cross-reference that with attestations of marked forms for the other months, and you can hopefully hone in on a source. -
RE: Wherefore art thou, aberil?
DG97EEB > 01-05-2026, 07:51 PM
Using You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I found a number of references to aberil but nothing in this database earlier than 1676..
1676 — Aberil — Reichertshofen, Bavaria — Der Deutsche Herold vol. 18 (Berlin, 1887), p. 126, reproducing a 1676 Bavarian aristocratic obituary
1680 — Aberil — Austria — Hausbuch of Count Franz von Meran, edited by Joseph von Zahn, entry p. 18 (21 April 1680)
1686 — Aberil — Austria — Hausbuch of Count Franz von Meran, ed. Joseph von Zahn, entry p. 42
1687 — Aberil — Vienna / Austria — Hausbuch of Count Franz von Meran, ed. Joseph von Zahn, entry p. 45 (18 April 1687)
1791 — Aberil — Toggenburg, canton St. Gallen, Switzerland — Tagebuch der Familie Schüni an Unterwasser, bei St. Johann, edited by Nikolaus Senn von Buchs-Werdenberg, entries pp. 17, 23, 25
1876 — Aberil — Linthal, canton Glarus, Switzerland — Bernhard Becker, St. Fridolins Land. Gedichte in Schriftsprache und Mundart, Basel 1876, p. 131 -
RE: Wherefore art thou, aberil?
Linda > 02-05-2026, 08:37 PM
(10-06-2025, 09:48 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I put some of the locations from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I mentioned before on a map (very likely containing mistakes), and this is what I got for Octembre:
(I repeat, this is likely to contain mistakes and would need to be checked).
That kind of matches what I was reading about the Occitan/Swiss/Rhine corridor re Aberil.
Today I saw Edith Sherwood's post about Leonardo da Vinci's birth notice being marked "Abr." for April in 1452. It was evidently his grandfather who wrote it, who was a retired notary, so short forms were the norm for him, likely an older habit also. This may or may not have abbreviated the e, as it is abbreviated in the vms also. But this extends the 'b' usage further to the southeast than I had been thinking previously, Vinci being located between Pisa and Florence. It seems Leonardo himself used the Italian 'Aprile'. His grandfather was born and lived in Tuscany also, so the Abr. usage is likely more to do with the shorthand he used in his work as a notary. But the vms version is not fully cut off, so that seems more like a native speaker's usage.
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![[Image: 1_1_ASF_Notarile_Antecosimiano_16912_105v.jpg]](https://mostre.museogalileo.it/bibliotecaleonardo//images/oggetti/1_1_ASF_Notarile_Antecosimiano_16912_105v.jpg)
![[Image: figure10.jpg]](https://www.edithsherwood.com/voynich_decoded_part2/images/figure10.jpg)
I also saw a few mappings like this one for greater Occitania which includes Catalonia.
![[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...04x600.png]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!DE6k!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F113c3e2e-8960-435f-87c5-f27e479faabc_804x600.png)
This seems interesting to me because it represents the shoreline that I see on f80r, but to which the vms adds the area of the Ligurian shore that you can still see on this map, which coincidentally ends at about Pisa. Could it have been outlining their version of a greater Occitania at the time? Which could be why Northern regions are included also? It also strikes me that Genoan sailors would come across this language in their travels, so perhaps there was also a pidgin type language amongst sailors that would spread it out even further.
Another reason it was interesting to me is that it includes the Balearic Islands, and I have recently noted Majorcan portolan chart similarities with quire 13. -
RE: Wherefore art thou, aberil?
DG97EEB > 02-05-2026, 09:42 PM
(02-05-2026, 08:37 PM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(10-06-2025, 09:48 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I put some of the locations from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I mentioned before on a map (very likely containing mistakes), and this is what I got for Octembre:
(I repeat, this is likely to contain mistakes and would need to be checked).
That kind of matches what I was reading about the Occitan/Swiss/Rhine corridor re Aberil.
Today I saw Edith Sherwood's post about Leonardo da Vinci's birth notice being marked "Abr." for April in 1452. It was evidently his grandfather who wrote it, who was a retired notary, so short forms were the norm for him, likely an older habit also. This may or may not have abbreviated the e, as it is abbreviated in the vms also. But this extends the 'b' usage further to the southeast than I had been thinking previously, Vinci being located between Pisa and Florence. It seems Leonardo himself used the Italian 'Aprile'. His grandfather was born and lived in Tuscany also, so the Abr. usage is likely more to do with the shorthand he used in his work as a notary. But the vms version is not fully cut off, so that seems more like a native speaker's usage.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
I also saw a few mappings like this one for greater Occitania which includes Catalonia.
This seems interesting to me because it represents the shoreline that I see on f80r, but to which the vms adds the area of the Ligurian shore that you can still see on this map, which coincidentally ends at about Pisa. Could it have been outlining their version of a greater Occitania at the time? Which could be why Northern regions are included also? It also strikes me that Genoan sailors would come across this language in their travels, so perhaps there was also a pidgin type language amongst sailors that would spread it out even further.
Another reason it was interesting to me is that it includes the Balearic Islands, and I have recently noted Majorcan portolan chart similarities with quire 13.
There's nothing Occitan in the manuscript... This is one of those canards that hasn't died yet... -
RE: Wherefore art thou, aberil?
MarcoP > Yesterday, 07:05 PM
No "abr" there...
adi / 15 d'ap[r]ile in sabato a ore 3 di notte
Modern Italian:
“Addì 15 aprile, di sabato, alle ore 3 di notte.”
English:
“On April 15th, Saturday, at 3 o’clock in the night.”