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Month names collection / metastudy
- Month names collection / metastudy
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RE: Month names collection / metastudy
Koen G > 10-06-2026, 04:28 PM
I also fear we may have blind spots, but maybe not from lack of searching. Maybe it's the octembre effect? This particular lemma stands out so much and is incredibly easy to google/search, so we do find a lot of results in the regions that use "octembre" more often. -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
N._N. > 10-06-2026, 04:55 PM
Mainly in reference to the remark about saint names for dating, but maybe also relevant to this project as a whole: There is a useful handbook on medieval and early modern calendar systems. While originally published in the late 19th century, there is an online version, unfortunately in German as the main language, but a lot of it is in Latin, French etc. anyway: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
eggyk > 10-06-2026, 05:04 PM
(10-06-2026, 04:28 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I also fear we may have blind spots, but maybe not from lack of searching. Maybe it's the octembre effect? This particular lemma stands out so much and is incredibly easy to google/search, so we do find a lot of results in the regions that use "octembre" more often.
I'm pretty sure its not an octembre effect, as the vast majority of entries weren't found based on octembre. Almost all entries so far have been from:
Gallica searches for "calendrier", "calendar", "livre d'heures", and "horae".
The JONAS variable "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.".
Neither of which should favour or not favour a specific variant of octobre. However, they do favour manuscripts and works designated or partly designated as french. They also tend exclude manuscripts that themselves are predominantly Latin but may contain notes or marginalia in the vernacular (especially the JONAS variable). Perhaps these potential SW France entries are not designated as either "french" or "oil-francais" and as such have been overlooked so far.
When I asked google AI (pinch of salt) why I may not have found many occitan manuscripts from that area, it did mention that due to multiple reasons official works in the SW were pushed to be done in Latin, instead of local vernacular. Latin manuscripts and specific Occitan searches might be promising search avenues. -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
Koen G > 10-06-2026, 06:30 PM
Right, but the spreadsheet also includes entries found by earlier researcher, which also trend Northern French. And I know that there was quite some interest in Occitan month names in the past. In fact, my reason for making this thread initially had been that people said "northern French" and "Occitan" and even "German" with the same confidence, and I wanted to collect the actual evidence that had been presented up to that point, because I had no idea who was right.
I suspect that people have, in fact, looked elsewhere, but that the encountered sequences have often not been worth mentioning. Go too far south and you get wildly different spellings. Move into Germanic areas and you lose the -re endings (and gain Mertz).
That said, I would not yet rule out French/MHG border areas like Alsace and Switzerland. The more south-eastern French dialects would certainly make for a neater connection to regions of interest for the VM. -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
eggyk > 15-06-2026, 04:25 PM
There is now a "Less interesting Sequences" tab on the spreadsheet. In order to fill out some of the areas we've been missing, it's required to search through manuscripts from germanic areas and the South of france, researching dutch, german, occitan and latin manuscripts. That leads to sifting through many manuscripts with non-interesting sequences, so instead of discarding them they're being added so they may be used in the future.
This may be useful in particular for:
-Research into the diacritic use for 'may' (found frequently in may/mayus)
-Locating a rough origin for some interesting manuscripts (using saints, paleography etc)
-Having a large database of zodiac depictions
-Insight into vowel and consonant shifts/blends over time and location (p <-> b / au <-> ou)
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However, now and again there are interesting sequences when researching this way.
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15thC, Unknown Origin, but the title says schwäbisch, so maybe Swabia?
mercze
abrellen / apprelle
meige / maygen
brachmonet / brauchet, brouchmonot
hȯmonet
augste / ougst
herbstmonet
andern herbst
dritten herbst
wintermonet
This manuscript must have been from an area where the b/p sound was close enough to be interchangeable (at least in vernacular spelling). I think this has been assumed to be the case for a while, but this is finally a solid example.
Seperately, it also shows both Ougst and Augste being used, which gives us some insight into pronunciation for both. Honestly, whoever wrote this seems to have not particularly cared which vowels were used in words, as long as one was there.
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1368-1405AD, Germany?
mertz
aberell
erst may
ander may
prauchmon
erst awst
ander awst
erst herbst
ander herbst
christmon
'Aw' in august has only been confirmed in Metz, France (3 times) and in Huy, Belgium (once). Normally in 'awost' or 'awoust'. It's very unusual to see anything but some form of 'augst' in german sequences, so "awst" is a huge outlier. Perhaps awst indicates an origin somewhere in western germany or luxembourg?
What's also kinda(?) weird is the fact that we see 'aberell' for april, yet we see 'prauchmon' for july instead of the more common 'brachmon'. Perhaps just another indicator that the b/p usage was quite fluid. -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
nablator > 15-06-2026, 05:08 PM
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RE: Month names collection / metastudy
eggyk > 18-06-2026, 12:34 PM
A large amount of german entries have been added, many onto the main spreadsheet.
There were a decent amount of abrill, abrell, and also aberel. There was also an "abpril". Examples with 'b' in april are overwhelmingly from southern germany.
For "aberel" and "abrell", examples are commonly found in manuscripts designated as a "schwäbisch" dialect or from areas in Swabia.
For "abrill", it tends to be slightly further east on average: in bavaria, but also going into the munich/salzburg area and austria.
Each of the 'b' aprils also appear to commonly match with sequences with "brachet/brachat" for the month of june.
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There was an entry that used both ougst/ögst, which now gives some justification for considering augst/ougst/ögst to all be different spellings for the same vernacular.
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1506AD, Germany S (Constance?)
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(15-06-2026, 05:08 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Most languages avoid the "vg" sound, difficult to pronounce.
No problem with "avgust" in the Balkans (Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro).
Are we sure the 'w' from those times represented a 'v' or 'f', instead of a 'u' or 'wuh'?
I genuinely don't know. Obviously in modern german and dutch that is the case. I'm almost certain that I saw a couple of examples when a w and ü were interchanged, but I can't find them right now. I'll try to locate them.
There was an "awgst" (at least i think its awgst), where the writer also used "augst'n" You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Edit: Most of the new entries were found from a search on Handschriften Portal, set to german language and keyword "kalender": You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
Koen G > 18-06-2026, 02:11 PM
What an expansion! Nice work. I feel like the list has grown to such an expanse that it would be interesting also outside of Voynich studies, basically for anyone interested in month names in these vernaculars.
Regarding au/ou/ö for August: I agree that these may have been interchangeable in some areas. But pronunciation is just one aspect, we're also looking at spelling because we know exactly which spelling the Month Name Writer used. While writing "au" would have been feasible almost anywhere, ö certainly isn't. On the other hand, "ou" is closer to "au" because it's a digraph without diacritics.
Am I correct to conclude that the German entries keep following the established pattern? That is, potentially interesting April and August, but the tradeoff is "Mertz" and folk names for six months? -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
eggyk > 18-06-2026, 03:17 PM
(18-06-2026, 02:11 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Am I correct to conclude that the German entries keep following the established pattern? That is, potentially interesting April and August, but the tradeoff is "Mertz" and folk names for six months?
I would say so, yes. April, may, and august are still the only matches. However, it really feels like the circle is narrowing in. On one side of the border in NE france, you have higher scoring places like Metz, and on the other side in SW germany there are "high scoring" areas like constance and swabian dialect speaking areas. I've seen remarkably few manuscripts from luxembourg, switzerland, or Basel (so far) so the map is not yet filled in by any means.
I'm also looking for cases where the author decides to mix their sequences, in case that's what the VMS is. I''ve just added one that starts off with mercz, abrill, may, and then switches to latin for the rest for no apparent reason.
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~1500AD, Germany S, Neuburg an der Donau
(18-06-2026, 02:11 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Regarding au/ou/ö for August: I agree that these may have been interchangeable in some areas. But pronunciation is just one aspect, we're also looking at spelling because we know exactly which spelling the Month Name Writer used. While writing "au" would have been feasible almost anywhere, ö certainly isn't. On the other hand, "ou" is closer to "au" because it's a digraph without diacritics.
100% agree, it's just if we find an otherwise perfect sequence except with ögst, i'm calling it a match
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RE: Month names collection / metastudy
eggyk > 19-06-2026, 04:55 PM
I think we finally have an 'aberil'? The handwriting is pretty bad, but the alternatives are 'abrril' , 'abeeil' or 'abreil'.
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1475-1525AD (Late 15thC - Early 16thC)
Germany S, Bavaria, Rebdorf
"Bavarian Dialect"