Enigma: Unpuzzling difficult Latin readings in medieval manuscripts

Enigma: Unpuzzling difficult Latin readings in medieval manuscripts

Enigma helps scholars to decipher Latin words which are difficult to read in medieval manuscripts. It is sometimes impossible to decipher all the letters in a word, for various reasons (difficult palaeography, unclear writing, damage to the document, etc.) If you type the letters you can read and add wildcards, Enigma will list the possible Latin forms, drawing from its database of more than 400 000 forms. 

Nota bene: Enigma does NOT solve abbreviations. To do so, you can resort to A. Cappelli's famous dictionary, available online (ed. Milan, 1912, and ed. Leipzig, 1928). If you cannot resolve an abbreviation, replace it by a wildcard in your Enigma query.

 

In the field above, type in the letters that you can read in the medieval document. You can use the following wildcards:

• The asterisk replaces any string of 0 to n characters. Examples:

  • *nimur

    Will retrieve all words ending with "nimur", whatever their beginning.

  • abst*

    Will retrieve words beginning with "abst", whatever their ending.

  • *atel*

    Will retrieve words containing "atel", whatever their beginning or their ending.
• A dot replaces a single character (exactly one). Example:

  po..m*

  Will retrieve words beginning with "po", followed by 2 characters, and then an "m": "polymita", "pomum", "ponemus", "postmodum", etc.
• If you are unsure of the characters, you can put them between square brackets. Example:

  [ad]ur*

  Will retrieve words beginning with "aur" or with "dur".
• You can also simply count the number of minims (vertical strokes) you can see by using an exclamation mark for eack stroke, without deciding a priori whether those strokes form letters i (1 minim), n or u (2 minims) or m (3 minims). Example:

  a!!!!!!*tur

  Will retrieve all words beginning with "a" followed by 6 vertical strokes in whatever combination of letters, and ending with "tur". The hits include "ammoneatur", "animatur", but also "annuntiatur", etc.