02-02-2025, 03:36 AM
I'm not sure what Occam would say here. Its basic premise, in the most useful sense of the razor, is that the explanation that requires the least amount of assumption is to be preferred. The premises are:
* We have a whole text in an unknown writing system written by various people.
* Much of the extraneous writing is in Latin script
Wouldn't Occam say that the Latin script should be intelligible, exactly because it is not the weird script? I don't really think Occam helps us here.
To your possibilities I would add this:
5 - The scribe writes like this because he is trying to write the language of his colleagues, which he is still learning. An Italian in a German speaking group for example. I don't think anything specifically points in this direction though and I don't necessarily think it is the case, but it sounds to me like a reasonably possible scenario.
One often overlooked, but in my opinion crucial property of the marginal writings is that in our best efforts, three out of the four sentences point towards ingredients and recipes (cooking or medicine).
One of the reasons why I am fond of the "pen tests" hypothesis, is that they could really be anything the scribe had in his mind at that moment. Like a common phrase used in recipes. "Maria" is also a common one, by the way. They are unfortunately not very often studied and rather unknown, even though they are frequent.
Here's an extreme case, from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Count the Marias
![[Image: figure_3_bpl_3327_221.jpg]](https://medievalbooks.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/figure_3_bpl_3327_221.jpg)
* We have a whole text in an unknown writing system written by various people.
* Much of the extraneous writing is in Latin script
Wouldn't Occam say that the Latin script should be intelligible, exactly because it is not the weird script? I don't really think Occam helps us here.
To your possibilities I would add this:
5 - The scribe writes like this because he is trying to write the language of his colleagues, which he is still learning. An Italian in a German speaking group for example. I don't think anything specifically points in this direction though and I don't necessarily think it is the case, but it sounds to me like a reasonably possible scenario.
One often overlooked, but in my opinion crucial property of the marginal writings is that in our best efforts, three out of the four sentences point towards ingredients and recipes (cooking or medicine).
- "So nim", as Richard Salomon already knew, is an extremely common phrase in German recipes. It means "then take... (an ingredient)".
- It is followed by gasmich, which must be the ingredient. Only an "l" is missing to make of it an acceptable form of "goat's milk" (a common ingredient)
- pox leber is also an attested ingredient
- Both muss and mel are often read as ingredients. Marco showed some time ago that the reclining figure is applying something yellow to its stomach area, indicating a likely medicinal context.
One of the reasons why I am fond of the "pen tests" hypothesis, is that they could really be anything the scribe had in his mind at that moment. Like a common phrase used in recipes. "Maria" is also a common one, by the way. They are unfortunately not very often studied and rather unknown, even though they are frequent.
Here's an extreme case, from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Count the Marias
