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Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
- Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
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Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
Zauriek > 26-01-2026, 04:23 AM
Why the author didn't write the month names in voynichese?
a)Was trying to be scientific: To quote exactly the source material.
1) He know the language.
2) He didn't know the language.
b)Was obliged to write it down. (Why and how?)
1) He know the language.
2) He didn't know the language.
c)Wrote them latter as reference.
1) The author, for some reason.
2) A different person, for some reason. [Like a latter owner.]
d)???
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a) Then, why it is the only instance? For example, when naming plants one would expect the same as with the months.
b) No idea...
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I'm going with [c2]:
1. At first glance, the tint looks more persistent than the fading text of the manuscript:
2. Checking out the logic of the title placement of the potion section, i think the author or authors always leave enough space to put the titles of the drawings. While the placement of the month names look squeezed and clumsy:
Maybe even hinting that the drawings were made without the intention of having titles at all.
Implications of this idea for [c2]:
a) The individual who wrote the names may not have anything to do with voyniches.
b) The months could have been written without a source in mind.
c) The voiniches equivalent may be there somewhere in the page or they are totally absent (but then, why...) -
RE: Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
Jorge_Stolfi > 26-01-2026, 08:23 AM
I believe c2: the month names were added by a later owner.
Each diagram has 30 or 15 labels, and usually the same number of nymphs and stars (although in a couple of cases the star is missing, apparently errors by the Scribe/Artist).
That implies 360 labels/stars/nymphs in total. But a year has ~365.25 days.
Therefore the labels/nymphs/stars in each diagram cannot represent the days of a month. They presumably represent degrees of angle along the Ecliptic; and each diagram then refers to an arc of 30 or 15 degrees of the Ecliptic.
The understanding that each of the 12 signs of the Western Zodiac is a 30-degree arc of the ecliptic, rather than a certain period of 30 or 31 days, was current among the more astronomically oriented astrologers. But it implies that the 12 signs do not quite match the 12 months of the European calendar.
And indeed, the way the signs are defined means that each sign spans roughly 1/3 of a month and 2/3 of the following month of the current Gregorian calendar. In the Julian calendar, that was in use until 1582, the correspondence was shifted by about 10 days, so that each sign was roughly 2/3 of a month and 1/3 of the following month.
The sign of Gemini, for instance, today approximately goes from May 22 to June 21, but by 1430 it was approximately from May 12 to June 11. Thus the label "June" on the Gemini sign has been "1/3 wrong" since 1582 but would have been "2/3 wrong" when the VMS is believed to have been written.
That is a hint that the month names were added by a later owner. Another hint is the style of the letters, which AFAIK has been assigned to a later date by paleographers. And another hint is that, as you noticed, the Artist who drew the signs sometimes did not leave space for that name.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
nablator > 26-01-2026, 10:03 AM
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RE: Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
Koen G > 26-01-2026, 10:15 AM
(26-01-2026, 10:03 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not the paleographer I asked (Baptiste Etienne), who said 15th c. He's right.
I think it can certainly be pre-1500. But there's a half century difference between 1430 and 1480, both of which are 15th century. Just finished vs. potentially bounced around for two generations. -
RE: Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
ReneZ > 26-01-2026, 10:27 AM
(26-01-2026, 08:23 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The sign of Gemini, for instance, today approximately goes from May 22 to June 21, but by 1430 it was approximately from May 12 to June 11. Thus the label "June" on the Gemini sign has been "1/3 wrong" since 1582 but would have been "2/3 wrong" when the VMS is believed to have been written.
There was a discussion about this here, probably just before you joined, where the case: 'month in which the Sun leaves the sign', matches the assignments in the MS, and this was also used in some historical examples.
Apologies for my inexact recollection.
Also Toresella said that the month names are in a 15th century hand, but indeed this could be several decades later. [Edit: later than the creation of the MS]. Plenty of time for the MS to have travelled to France. (It is not certain that it was there). -
RE: Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
nablator > 26-01-2026, 10:28 AM
(26-01-2026, 10:15 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think it can certainly be pre-1500.
Yes, could be. The 'e', and 'g' especially. There was a discussion about 'ŷ' written like a circumflex accent, not a tittle/dot, I don't remember what was the conclusion. Did we find any in 15th century manuscripts? -
RE: Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
davidma > 26-01-2026, 10:49 AM
(26-01-2026, 10:28 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(26-01-2026, 10:15 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think it can certainly be pre-1500.
Yes, could be. The 'e', and 'g' especially. There was a discussion about 'ŷ' written like a circumflex accent, not a tittle/dot, I don't remember what was the conclusion. Did we find any in 15th century manuscripts?
I don't believe we found any circumflex accents on y's in any french manuscripts really, it appears to be exceedingly rare. I was considering emailing some experts to ask if they had any idea but I wouldn't even know who to contact. Funily enough, someone posted on another thread an occitan manuscript with the month names and may appears to have some sort of accent on top in one of the different spellings found within that manuscript, definitely different from the tittle we have seen elsewhere. I don't have the link at hand but it's one of the recent threads, the "accented" y is on a big zodiac chart at the end of the zodiac section. -
RE: Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
Koen G > 26-01-2026, 10:50 AM
I'm afraid we have only like 10% of the entries required to speak of a conclusion :)
There are a few examples in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., but often kind of weird ones. This one (1405) continues the descender loop upwards to end in some kind of circumflex on top (see e.g. the bottom line):
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -
RE: Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
Jorge_Stolfi > 26-01-2026, 10:59 AM
(26-01-2026, 10:03 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not the paleographer I asked (Baptiste Etienne), who said 15th c. He's right.
I stand corrected, thanks.
But now I wonder how handwriting and book bindings can be dated with such precision. Did they really change all over Europe, in step, over a few decades? Were there periodic EU Directives determining the use of new ISO Standards for those things?
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Why the month names aren't Voynichese?
Stefan Wirtz_2 > 26-01-2026, 01:03 PM
Am preferring c2), Months' names are not belonging to the original:
- the ink looks not brown or ("retracers"-)black, but anthracite like the ink of page numbers
- as remarked, writings touch or cover the drawings and appear cramped into it, which nearly never happens in the original VMS
- all of it (ink, letters, cursive writing, language) is different to VMS and made (much) later
- wording points to French (without saying the VMS was ever in France, produced there, or any author being french) and more close to 16th than 15th century -- could have been some researcher, we know there was some added writing from them
I would give nothing on some "anonymous paleographer" who tells this is 15th ct french (the last 6 anonymous botanists which approved that there are sunflowers in VMS were right with it...?):
the first attempt to standardize french spelling and grammar was not before ~1660AD, they came out with the first dictionary around 1694.
Before, everybody wrote just as he liked; and "the months" seem to be closer to 1580AD than to 1480...