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Month names collection / metastudy

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• Month names collection / metastudy

• RE: Month names collection / metastudy

  Koen G > 21-05-2026, 01:44 PM

  Assuming the month names tell us anything about the plaintext language stacks a lot of uncertainties.
  
  * Was the person who wrote the marginalia involved in making the MS or are they a later owner?
  * If they were involved, where were they from?
  * If they were involved and we know where they were from, what was their relation to the (almost certainly earlier) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. marginalia writer who wrote in German-ish?
  * If they were involved in a leading role and we know where they were from, did they actually use a plaintext in the same vernacular as the month names?
  * If they were involved in a leading role and we know where they were from and they did actually use a plaintext in the vernacular, which of the (evidently) several language groups/dialects they were familiar with did they select?
  
  Note that the answer to all of those questions is "we don't know".
  
  As for the languages involved, I'd say we're almost certainly looking at a peripheral form of French. Currently the evidence weighs strongest in favor of northern influences, but opinions here may vary.

• RE: Month names collection / metastudy

  Bernd > 21-05-2026, 10:23 PM

  Rationally (but what about the VM is rational), a Flemish background would make more sense than an obscure Northern French dialect. The County of Flanders was an economic and cultural powerhouse with ample connections throughout Europe. Flemish artists and traders could be found anywhere, but especially in Northern Italy where wealth and art also gathered.
  
  Regardless of the origin of the month names in the VM, we should not overlook that they don't necessarily mean the VM traveled to that region.The author of the month names might just have come from such a place, but it tells us little about where the VM was when he added the month names.

• RE: Month names collection / metastudy

  R. Sale > 22-05-2026, 12:44 AM

  And Flanders was part of the Burgundian state.
  <Subtle old VMs references to the Valois Melusine of Luxemburg and the Order of the Golden Fleece.>
  
  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

• RE: Month names collection / metastudy

  Koen G > 22-05-2026, 10:56 AM

  I agree, the majority of the places that stand out have either been part of Flanders historically or, like Hainaut, connected to it through the Burgundians. 
  
  More broadly speaking, it is extremely plausible in these places to presume language mixing:

  • Someone who grew up in a Flemish dialect but learned French.
    
  • Someone who grew up bilingually.
    
  • Someone who grew up speaking French but had a lot of contact with Flemish speakers.
    

  
  In the areas highlighted by our search, there's a good chance for any literate individual to have been in one of those cases. Basically modern day Belgium and large parts of northern France. If you consider the whole area of Burgundian influence, you can even go broader.
  
  The main outlier might remain the Norman entry?

• RE: Month names collection / metastudy

  oshfdk > 22-05-2026, 01:26 PM

  (22-05-2026, 10:56 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I agree, the majority of the places that stand out have either been part of Flanders historically or, like Hainaut, connected to it through the Burgundians. 

  
  I asked Gemini about Flemish and how different it was from medieval Dutch (which I already try to include in my tests), the below is what Gemini said. Does this look reasonable? Personally, I'm mostly interested in language statistics and spelling conventions.
  
  

  Gemini AI Wrote:To understand medieval Flemish, it helps to clear up a common modern misconception: in the Middle Ages, Flemish was not a separate language from Dutch.
  Instead, "Flemish" (Vlaams) was the most culturally dominant and prestigious dialect of the broader language we now call Middle Dutch (Dietsch or Dietsc). Between the 13th and 15th centuries, the wealthy trading cities of Flanders (like Bruges and Ghent) were the economic powerhouses of northern Europe, meaning their specific regional dialect became the literary and administrative standard for the region.
  Here is a breakdown of what it looked like, how it compared to its neighbors, and its closest linguistic relatives.
  
  What Medieval Flemish Looked Like
  Medieval Flemish was written in the Latin alphabet using Gothic scripts, but because there were no standardized spelling rules, writers spelled words phonetically. The same word could be spelled three different ways on the same page.
  If you looked at a Flemish manuscript from the 14th century (like the famous epic Van den vos Reynaerde — Reynard the Fox), you would notice a few distinct visual characteristics:

  • Vowel clusters: To show a long vowel, scribes often wrote it double or added an 'e' or 'i' after it. You would see spellings like ae, oe, and ij (e.g., jaer for year, doen for to do).
    
  • The letter 'C' and 'K': These were used interchangeably for the hard 'K' sound (e.g., clene or klene for small).
    
  • The 'ghe-' prefix: Where modern Dutch uses ge- for past participles, medieval Flemish heavily favored ghe- (e.g., ghemaect instead of gemaakt for "made").
    
  • Merged words: Prepositions and articles were often smashed together, just as people spoke them. Aan het (on the) became ant, and in het (in the) became int.

  
  

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