Abbreviations in 13th-Century French Manuscripts: Statistical Analyses - Dataset

Dataset and code for : Dominique Stutzmann and Viola Mariotti, with collab. Floriana Ceresato, «Les abréviations dans les manuscrits français du XIIIe siècle: analyses statistiques», in The Rise of Vernacular Writing. The Palaeographical Perspective. Proceedings of the 21st Colloquium of the Comité international de paléographie latine. Firenze (19-21 February 2020), ed. Irene Ceccherini and Teresa De Robertis, Turnhout, Brepols, 2026 (Bibliologia, 70) This article examines thirteenth-century French abbreviation systems through statistical analysis of the ECMEN project corpus (IRHT, 2015-2019), comprising dated manuscripts from the BnF’s French collection (fr. 1-1000) with granular XML-TEI transcriptions. Our methodology separates graphic description from editorial interpretation, enabling systematic study of abbreviation practices across chronological, geographical, and generic contexts. Two case studies reveal underlying coherence in scribal practices: personal name abbreviations show remarkably unambiguous systems where scribes systematically avoid confusion through specialized usage; and the tilde -us (ꝰ), often considered polyvalent, proves largely univocal in practice, with apparent ambiguities actually serving disambiguating functions, particularly in Picard scripta. These findings demonstrate that medieval scribes developed sophisticated, internally coherent abbreviation systems adapted to vernacular linguistic realities. Rather than sources of confusion, abbreviations functioned as tools for disambiguation, suggesting the need to revise assumptions about the relationship between Latin and vernacular abbreviation systems. The paper was delivered in 2020, the final text of the article was submitted in April 2021. The data and code marginally differs from the one used for the publication (minor typo corrections and xslt replaced by python).本数据集与配套代码源自：多米尼克·施特茨曼（Dominique Stutzmann）与维奥拉·马里奥蒂（Viola Mariotti），并由弗洛里亚娜·切雷萨托（Floriana Ceresato）协作完成，其研究论文《13世纪法语手稿中的缩略语：统计分析》（*Les abréviations dans les manuscrits français du XIIIe siècle: analyses statistiques*）收录于《通俗书写的兴起：古文字学视角》（*The Rise of Vernacular Writing. The Palaeographical Perspective*）——该文集为第21届国际拉丁古文字学委员会（Comité international de paléographie latine）学术研讨会（2020年2月19日至21日，佛罗伦萨）论文集，由艾琳·切凯里尼（Irene Ceccherini）与特雷莎·德罗贝蒂斯（Teresa De Robertis）主编，图尔洪特（Turnhout）布雷波尔出版社（Brepols）2026年出版，收录于《书目学》（Bibliologia）第70卷。 本文通过对ECMEN项目语料库（文本研究与历史研究所[Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes, IRHT]，2015-2019年）的统计分析，考察13世纪法语的缩略语使用体系。该语料库源自法国国家图书馆（Bibliothèque nationale de France, BnF）法语馆藏（编号fr. 1-1000）的标注年代手稿，并附带细粒度的XML-文本编码倡议（Text Encoding Initiative, TEI）转录文本。本研究方法将图形描述与编辑解读相分离，得以系统研究不同年代、地域与文体语境下的缩略语使用实践。两项案例研究揭示了抄写员书写实践中潜藏的内在一致性：其一，人名缩略语体系异常清晰，抄写员通过专属用法系统性避免混淆；其二，常被视为多义的波浪线形式-us（ꝰ），在实际使用中基本单义，表面的歧义实则承担消歧功能，尤其在皮卡第语书写体中。本研究表明，中世纪抄写员已发展出适配通俗语言现实的复杂且内在自洽的缩略语体系。缩略语非但未造成混淆，反而成为消歧工具，这提示我们需要修正关于拉丁语与通俗语缩略语体系间关系的既有假设。 该论文于2020年进行宣讲，最终文稿于2021年4月提交。本数据集与配套代码与出版时使用的版本略有差异：仅修正了少量排版错误，并将XSLT转换脚本替换为Python实现。