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Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
- Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
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RE: Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
ReneZ > 12-10-2025, 12:19 PM
Interesting, but may I point out that my question was not answered?
These four things:
do not seem to all represent the same, and all of them have significant differences with the scribble on f57v.
Only one has a detached macron, and only one or two have a sharp bend below it. -
RE: Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
Koen G > 12-10-2025, 01:01 PM
Rene, this is not a formal book script, the variety is expected. In fact, great variety is what makes this exercise even harder than f116v.
Those are all g, and there are a thousand more variations. Of you look through the whole MS, you will find a shape very close to the "scribble". The strokes are the same. Someone wrote a "g" at the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in a script very similar to that of the month names.
Regarding your question, it is the first German language MS to score high. But we can do better
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RE: Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
davidma > 13-10-2025, 10:15 AM
Something just occurred to me while I was looking at Southern German/Swiss manuscripts. The VM September month has a distinctive "small" r after the b, which stands for "er". I do not recall seeing any such abbreviations when looking at French manuscripts; however, it seems to be fairly common in Swiss manuscripts for example. I haven't actually gone back and checked all the manuscripts so I can't really substantiate this impression.
Another indicator for Switzerland as a potential area of origin for the Month names is that the "french" looking forms (i.e. nouembre, decembre, septembre) are found in Swiss manuscripts, however the "german" ones (Augst, Aberil, and to a certain extent Jung and Iollet) are very rarely found as such in French language Manuscripts.
Southern Germany is also another potential area but the Manuscripts from that area seem to use predominantly Brachatmonat, Hewmonat etc... so I am more inclined towards a potential Franco-Swiss area than a proper German one.
2 other ideas:
- Could we, in theory, match the VM scribal writing using this methodology? A lot of the symbols, such as a,o,l,e,c,q,n are found regularly in other documents as abbreviations/numbers/letters. I wonder if we could match the actual voynichese writing to a macro-area. Would that be worth the effort?
- Off the back of that, could we match the Voynichese on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to one of the Scribes? I am sure there are enough characters in both voynichese marginalia to at least try a tentative identification. Just thinking for example if the marginalia from 116v is, say, from Zurich, and the voynichese in that marginalia is from Scribe 3, then it follows that Scribe 3 is likely from the Zurich area (we can't be sure but I think it unlikely someone would write the whole set of marginalia in a consistent hand and NOT be the author of the small Voynichese passage as well).
- Could we, in theory, match the VM scribal writing using this methodology? A lot of the symbols, such as a,o,l,e,c,q,n are found regularly in other documents as abbreviations/numbers/letters. I wonder if we could match the actual voynichese writing to a macro-area. Would that be worth the effort?
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RE: Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
Koen G > 13-10-2025, 11:20 AM
For the "r" being different after certain (round) letters, we have a separate column (r-rotunda). It might be worthwhile to not only see if they use r-rotunda, but also if they use the right type. But the version in the month names is too unclear to rely on in my opinion.
Regarding your two ideas:
1) I am not sure if it would make sense to use this exact method on Voynichese. What is EVA-d? 8, d or s? Is EVA-a really "a" in something like [aiin]? Look at it - [a] is integrated into the set of minims, which affects the ductus. [aiin] is four parallel, slanted minims with a starting and ending flourish. And is [a] in [aiin] the same as [a] in other contexts, where it may resemble the Latin letter more?
It's been tried before though. See You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
2) It is likely that one of the scribes did the marginalia, but I haven't been able to make a connection to a specific one. It's possible that the VM scribes weren't thinking of "a" when they wrote EVA-a, and thus formed something that can be read as "a" but in a different shape than their regular "a". I suspect that writing Voynichese was a different kind of activity to them than writing Latin script.
It should also be noted that the marginalia script is small compared to the Voynichese script - this is especially clear on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . -
RE: Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
Skoove > 13-10-2025, 04:57 PM
(13-10-2025, 11:20 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.2) It is likely that one of the scribes did the marginalia, but I haven't been able to make a connection to a specific one. It's possible that the VM scribes weren't thinking of "a" when they wrote EVA-a, and thus formed something that can be read as "a" but in a different shape than their regular "a". I suspect that writing Voynichese was a different kind of activity to them than writing Latin script.
It should also be noted that the marginalia script is small compared to the Voynichese script - this is especially clear on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
I might be misremembering but I believe that in her recent talk, Lisa said she thought You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to be the same hand and that following her theory of an unbound original VMS, it must have been Scribe 3 (because they wrote You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which forms the other side of f116v). I was doing other things whilst listening though so please correct me if I hallucinated this connection
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RE: Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
Koen G > 13-10-2025, 08:32 PM
I believe that all three are in the same hand, but that may not help us all that much.
* The Voynichese on f17r is by scribe 1. So it is either by him or anyone who decided the page needed a marginal annotation.
* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (with the "der mus del" or whatever) is part of Quire 8, two bifolios with mixed scribes, subject matter... This bifolio has scribes 1 and 5.
* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was an empty page and likely still had "last page" appeal, whether the pages were bound or not. Again, anyone who was around the project in the early 15th century could have used this.
For me, scribe 1 is equally a contender, though I'm not certain either way. -
RE: Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
Aga Tentakulus > 14-10-2025, 07:02 AM
I don't think f66 and f116 were the same writer. I would even go so far as to say that f66 was the older one.
It's because of the ‘s’. On 116, he writes it with a long ‘s’. Normally
With f66, it's written with a short ‘s’. What's special is that it has a hook in the ‘s’ that makes it look like an ‘L’. This “s” disappears from the books or is used less frequently. The long ‘s’ becomes more common.
And the sentence only makes sense with an ‘s’.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version) -
RE: Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
Petrasti > 21-10-2025, 05:17 AM
I have a quick question about chronology. Do you assume that the names of the months were written by the authors of the Voynich Manuscript? Or do you believe that the names of the months were written with the same broad pen by the person who, after rebinding the manuscript, also wrote the page numbers in the upper right corners? -
RE: Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
Jorge_Stolfi > 21-10-2025, 05:33 AM
(21-10-2025, 05:17 AM)Petrasti Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have a quick question about chronology. Do you assume that the names of the months were written by the authors of the Voynich Manuscript? Or do you believe that the names of the months were written with the same broad pen by the person who, after rebinding the manuscript, also wrote the page numbers in the upper right corners?
Speaking for myself, I suspect that the names of the months were written by a later owner, because the ink looks different from the ink used in the text and drawings.
But whether the Month Labeler was the Author or someone else, I suspect that he had only an imperfect knowledge of the language L that those labels are supposed to be in. That is, I suspect that he was trying to write those names not for himself, but for the benefit of a third person (like a prospective buyer of the book) who was supposed to understand language L.
That would explain why the language remains unidentified after 100 years of intense scrutiny by paleographers and linguists...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)
Koen G > 21-10-2025, 08:38 AM
(21-10-2025, 05:17 AM)Petrasti Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have a quick question about chronology. Do you assume that the names of the months were written by the authors of the Voynich Manuscript? Or do you believe that the names of the months were written with the same broad pen by the person who, after rebinding the manuscript, also wrote the page numbers in the upper right corners?
This is my pet theory: that the month names and the folio numbers were both written by the person who 'misbound' the manuscript. The most likely part of that hypothesis is that the month names were added to aid binding in the correct order, since this is the only section of the MS with an inherent sequence. I.e. the only place where the misbinder could make sure to get it right.
I'm probably way off on the folio numbers though: Lisa says the MS was bound in the 1400's, and that the folio numbers were added in the early 1600's (Prague). (It would not be uncommon at all for foliation to be done long after a MS was bound). So if that is true, I would guess this is the order:
1) The bifolios are written, including You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. marginalia
2a) Either the MS is bound for the first time, or if we go with Lisa's proposal, the bifolios are left unbound.
2b) The month names are added and the MS is misbound.
3) Later, the MS is foliated.
If we are able to deepen our understanding of the month names script, we could make more informed statements about this instead of hypothesizing... but I find it hard to find good samples.
Some time, I would also like to find good parallels for the foliation numbers.