Month names collection / metastudy
(04-09-2026, 01:25 PM)eggyk wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(04-09-2026, 11:21 AM)DG97EEB wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I've found an Aberil... But it's 18th century.... On the other hand, when you start pulling the threads, it gets interesting...

Fascinating, almost every single april variant is in there. Abrell(en) abrill(en), aprill(en), aprellen, aberel(len), and aberill. Even aperil and aperel. What exactly is this sourcing from?

GPT/Exa found it.. 

"This specific ledger details the administrative and agricultural accounts for the Alpine cooperative in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The years you mentioned (1717, 1719, and 1721) represent crucial chronological logging periods within this volume: [1The Book (Alpbuch I): It originally contained 222 sheets detailing cattle drive rights, milk measurement records, and financial balances for the alpine pastures (specifically the Pradamee region"
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(04-09-2026, 01:27 PM)DG97EEB wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.GPT/Exa found it.. 

"This specific ledger details the administrative and agricultural accounts for the Alpine cooperative in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The years you mentioned (1717, 1719, and 1721) represent crucial chronological logging periods within this volume: [1The Book (Alpbuch I): It originally contained 222 sheets detailing cattle drive rights, milk measurement records, and financial balances for the alpine pastures (specifically the Pradamee region"

What I mean is who exactly wrote the words that were transcribed? If these were the writings of various farmers, it effectively demonstrates that a huge amount of these april variants continued to be effectively used by the uneducated (or less educated?) population all the way into the 18th century, even though official or well learned people largely standardised their spelling by the 1600s.
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From Gemini (which I wouldn't normally trust to tell me the time but this seems plausible)

"The ledgers were maintained by the Alpvogt (plural: Alpvögte), the elected administrative heads of the alpine cooperative.These governors were local, respected figures chosen from among the Alpgenossen (the cooperative members). They were literate, fluent in basic arithmetic, and trained in regional accounting practices 

Because these men were working cattlemen, cooperative stakeholders, and local officials rolled into one, their writing reveals a unique duality:

The Clerk Element: They understood the formal administrative structure of the Holy Roman Empire and the local princely chancellery. They knew how to format a debt ledger, calculate milk measurements, and structure a legal contract.

The Farmer Element: When they sat down to write, they were physically sitting in the mountains or local village rooms. They were not bound by the strict spelling rules of a distant imperial court. Instead, they wrote phonetically, exactly how they spoke. This is precisely why a word like "Aberil" ends up in the official Vaduz ledger. A high-level chancellery clerk in Vienna or Zurich would write the standardized April. But a local Vaduz Alpvogt, thinking and speaking in his native High Alemannic dialect, wrote down the month exactly how it sounded when the local farmers discussed when the mountain passes would clear for the spring cattle drive"

Humbly yours,

Edward meat proxy...
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Okay, interesting. The alpbuch 1 (1641-1732) actually has 37 instances of aberil(len) as well, so quite a bit more common further back. 

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In fact, aberil seems to be the 2nd most common, behind aberel! My crtl+f gives me: 

56 aberel, 37 aberil, 18 abrel, 4 april, 3 abril, 2 aprel, 1 aperel

If such types of ledgers exist further back into the 16th century, it could be a really worthwhile avenue to search.
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I came across another "Aougst" in a french calendar:  

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1450-1457AD
France, Angers

mars, apuril, may*, juing, juillet, aougst, septēbre, octobre, nouembre, decembre

Made for You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., the daughter of Charles VII. 
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I wonder if some of these French attestations are misguided "spelling corrections"? Like they had dropped the "g" in speech but knew it was somewhere in there? With French, it's always hard to know what was actually pronounced.
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(24-09-2026, 04:17 PM)eggyk wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.juillet
We’re already closer to iollet…
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Quote:I wonder if some of these French attestations are misguided "spelling corrections"? Like they had dropped the "g" in speech but knew it was somewhere in there? With French, it's always hard to know what was actually pronounced.
Latin-like spellings were fairly common in the past: 
[Image: Tiers_livre_des_faictz_et_-...-Rabelais_...t=original]
Doigt ("finger") and Vingt ("twenty") also have etymological 'g'. In vingt, the 'g' was added in the wrong position: the Latin words are digitus and viginti. If you search for "aougst", there are quite a few 16th-century examples. I have also come across one from the 15th century, in the name of a Breton river, which was also hypercorrected in Latin: the Out (Latin Ulda) became Aoust, Aougst, and Augusta in Latin.
[Image: 2026-09-24-20h17-00.png]
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Not sure if this has been found before, but "Aberil" 

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As it is the only case of "Aberil" in the book and the tense being used, I'm wondering if this is taken directly from the record of when the grave was placed (1676)? I'm relying on computer translation so, could be wrong!

   
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Here is another, 
Die Chroniken der schwäbischen Städte. 1, Augsburg - 1865
   

It is in the glossary section - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The page it references is here. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

It seems to be listing historical events and the April one is of 1372 where they write "aberils", then note "aprilis" below on the page, so I'm guessing the "aberils" is from some document they were writing from.
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