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Month names collection / metastudy
- Month names collection / metastudy
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RE: Month names collection / metastudy
Koen G > 21-06-2025, 07:13 AM
The second one you posted has some nice spikes on the "e". Too bad we don't have a more precise location (for some reason I can't access the catalogue).
I will add these when I'm home. Even if they'll score low, the color system will show how complementary they are. I wonder if it's possible that the month name writer was familiar with this naming system, but combined it with -embre names from French. I assume there were many regions where people were familiar with both a Romance and a Germanic dialect. -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
MarcoP > 21-06-2025, 08:07 AM
(21-06-2025, 07:13 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I wonder if it's possible that the month name writer was familiar with this naming system, but combined it with -embre names from French. I assume there were many regions where people were familiar with both a Romance and a Germanic dialect.
I agree, Koen, a Romance / German mix sounds like a possible explanation. It's the idea I also expressed here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I guess that, if such mixes occurred, we should find other examples sooner or later... -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
davidma > 21-06-2025, 12:55 PM
I feel the next step would be doing some serious archival work at BnF or the Belgian, Swiss and Lixemburghish equivalents to look for livres d'heures and mémoires from Picardie, Lorraine, and other French speaking border territories in Belgium luxembourg and Switzerland. Unfortunately that takes a lot of time and would probably be better suited for a professional researcher. -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
cvetkakocj@rogers.com > 21-06-2025, 05:22 PM
(21-06-2025, 08:07 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I agree, Koen, a Romance / German mix sounds like a possible explanation. It's the idea I also expressed here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I am surprised that nobody is thinking of putting a Slavic into mix, since Slovenian was widely spoken in Carinthia and northern Italy, particularly in Veneto region, and in Parts of medieval Switzerland. A Czech linguistic influence is also noticeable in the manuscripts from Alsace and can explain the strange spelling of the months. Several Slovenian books were printed in Italy (Udine, Apulia) in 16th century. In Carinthia, Slovenian Protestant books were secretly copied by hand at the time of Counter Reformation. There is also a possibility that the medieval Calendars, plasters and Bibles were written by monks who from time to time change their location. -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
Koen G > 21-06-2025, 07:22 PM
(21-06-2025, 12:55 PM)davidma Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I feel the next step would be doing some serious archival work at BnF or the Belgian, Swiss and Lixemburghish equivalents to look for livres d'heures and mémoires from Picardie, Lorraine, and other French speaking border territories in Belgium luxembourg and Switzerland. Unfortunately that takes a lot of time and would probably be better suited for a professional researcher.
There is... another way, though I am hesitant to speak of it. The handwriting has some interesting features, and a pretty good profile can be made of several letters. Any kind of document can be scored against this, regardless of the contents.
Marco and I did this for the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. script (which is definitely different from this one), with some results. To be presented on VMD.
If the same is done for the month names, we now have the additional advantage that we could overlay the results of the handwriting comparison and those of the month name variants. It would make for an interesting map.
But it's a lot of work that requires strong discipline. -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
MarcoP > 22-06-2025, 05:45 PM
I agree with Koen, researching the script together with the spelling can probably give a narrower range for both place and date.
In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Rene mentioned ms Bodmer 113, which appears to have been written in a rather informal way, that matches the “feel” of the VMS months.
Morgan B.28, posted by R.Sale in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., is written more formally and doesn’t look close at first sight. But as Koen wrote it has the right shape for e. Initial “m” also looks comparable to the style of the Voynich months (though it lacks the descender below the right leg). On the other hand, Bodmer's 'a' looks more similar. -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
R. Sale > 22-06-2025, 08:29 PM
A script investigation should be interesting and hopefully relevant.
My disclaimer is that I know nothing in this area.
The two-part letter 'e' seems to be fairly common. The exact shape of the parts may vary particularly with individual handwriting. However, it was generally understood that the two parts were meant to be connected. So, the fact that the 'e' in "aberil" exists in two separate parts is something of an idiosyncrasy, not a structural variation.
The letter 'm' as Maro points out in Post #76 is rather uncommon in form. It looks sort of like 'cn' combined together. Starting to look for examples, most versions of the letter 'm' are based on an initial down stroke. There is often a little "hiccup" at the point of contact, but the primary stroke is downward.
The letter 'm' from the VMs Zodiac months has a different structure. When compared to 'cn', it seems to start at the bottom of the 'c' and go up. Initially <at the moment> this seems to be more unusual and more distinctive, but maybe there's a bunch of them somewhere.
So far, one good upstroke example, but the 'm' has an "extra" bump.
Second paragraph, third line, last word and fifth line, third word are good ones.
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RE: Month names collection / metastudy
R. Sale > 24-06-2025, 01:54 AM
The investigation of the form of the letter 'm' in written text is a step in the wrong direction. The initial induction stroke for 'm' in standard texts is minimal, though not everyone got the memo. There are writing styles where the nature of the induction stroke can vary in both thickness and length. Thickness being hairline or normal, length starting from the baseline or even starting below the baseline.
The problem is that if the induction stroke is removed, the letter 'm' is still there. That doesn't work with the VMs examples. There is no induction stroke to remove.
The form of the letter 'm' used in VMs "mars" and "may" is the same as that found in some liturgical calendars.
[Geneva (?) · around 1450]
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But not the overly elaborate form that is found in other examples.
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And circa 1450 is early enough to be within the dating of the VMs as a finished composition.
More artistic trickery??? -
RE: Month names collection / metastudy
R. Sale > 24-06-2025, 06:50 AM
Back in the liturgical calendars again to check the form of the letter 'm' in the months of March and May. There is a lot of variation, like each source is different, So, the Geneva example above is pretty close. Other similar examples with simplified structures are found in Saint Gall 1432.
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And St Gall in the second half of the 15th C.
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One variation is how close the little 'feet' get to bumping into something. In some cases, one side of the 'm' (usually the left) can become a closed loop.
In other examples, the form of the 'm' is totally over the top.
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RE: Month names collection / metastudy
MarcoP > 24-06-2025, 07:06 PM
This image compares a few characters and bigrams from:- One of the kalendars posted by R.Sale (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 15th Century). I did a quick search and couldn't find 'rs', so I included 'ris' instead. I couldn't find no 'y' either (the ms is written in Latin).
- A You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Switzerland, from monasterium.net, a site that nablator pointed out maybe one year ago
- The Voynich manuscript
The other two sources don’t have that bastarda pointed ‘e’, which certainly is an interesting feature. Another other detail that doesn’t seem to be paralleled is the final -s in Mars (the Basel manuscript usually has nice 8-shapes as final -s). Voynich month ‘g’s are also peculiar, but the difference could be due to the hasty nature of the annotations and maybe the limited space. There are several other differences (e.g. 'r', 'y') and it's not always clear if they are relevant or accidental. Anyway, a more extensive search sounds interesting: I am quite sure that better matches can be found.
EDIT: Maybe this has been noted already, but I guess the dot above ‘y’ has the function of making it distinguishable from the common Latin prefix -ii which was usually written ij and can therefore be easily confused with y, if ‘i’ and ‘j’ have no tittles. - One of the kalendars posted by R.Sale (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 15th Century). I did a quick search and couldn't find 'rs', so I included 'ris' instead. I couldn't find no 'y' either (the ms is written in Latin).