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Coffee & Donatus

@coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social

310 followers 170 following 240 posts

Early grammars and related matters of art and design. Images from institutions (attributed) and private collections (watermarked C&D). Coffee and donuts to be found elsewhere.

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Nov 24

Visualizing prepositions (1668).

From John Wilkins’ An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language (London). Iterations and copies of this innovative diagram have appeared throughout the ages, but Wilkins appears to be the point of origin. Some variations to follow in this thread.

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · 10d

Interesting upcoming October workshop on grammatical tables.

www.atilf.fr/recherche/ma...

20251024 JE Mettre la langue en tables - ATILF | CNRS-UL

Journée d’études : Mettre la langue en tables Date : 24 octobre 2025 Lieu : Nancy | Campus Lettres et Sciences Humaines | ATILF | Bâtiment CNRS | Salle Paul Imbs Visioconférence : Lien à venir Org...

www.atilf.fr

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Aug 27

Congratulations!!

Reposted by Coffee & Donatus

Steven Van Impe @svanimpe.bsky.social · Aug 6

More diffuculties identifying this edition of Alexander de Villa Dei's Doctrinale... No M-form on this fragment.

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Reposted by Coffee & Donatus

AaronM @aaronm.bsky.social · Aug 25

I thought they were still on vacation, but the #Vatican added 12 #Manuscripts this week
www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2025...
a c.861 Gregory's Regula leads, with another Papal diary, a theological and a medical miscellany, Priscian, Pier Paolo Vergerio, even an antipope.. and more
#MedivalSky #skystorians

Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 34 of 2025

No manuscripts were digitized last week and only twelve this week, due to the summer holidays. The overwhelming majority of them, nine or 75%, are from Ott.lat. The rest are one each from Barb.lat, ...

www.wiglaf.org

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Reposted by Coffee & Donatus

波鴻漫錄 || Sven Osterkamp @schrift-sprache.bsky.social · Aug 17

Sol iustitiae illustra nos ... 🤯

< geheugen.delpher.nl/nl/geheugen/...

(There's also a chronogram right above, @schrisomalis.bsky.social 🤓)

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Reposted by Coffee & Donatus

Ennius @enniusredloeb.bsky.social · Jul 26

Figure wearing a Phrygian cap in the margin

BnF MS Latin 7501; Priscianus Caesariensis, Ars grammatica, sive Institutiones Grammaticae, libri I-XVIII, Opera minora; 9th century (3rd quarter); Abbey Saint-Pierre de Corbie; f.138r @gallicabnf.bsky.social

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Ennius @enniusredloeb.bsky.social · Jul 26

The Greek alphabet with numerical values

BnF MS Latin 7501; Priscianus Caesariensis, Ars grammatica, sive Institutiones Grammaticae, libri I-XVIII, Opera minora; 9th century (3rd quarter); Abbey Saint-Pierre de Corbie; f.210v @gallicabnf.bsky.social

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Jul 27

I realize that hand model is not one of my future career options.

Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Jul 26

If you are accepting guesses from the unskilled in paleography, I’ll throw “Sammuell” into the ring.

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Jul 26

I was not able to find a copy of any of the editions for sale, but I did find this lone fragment with the movable table. It’s very sturdy and well made.

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Reposted by Coffee & Donatus

Michael Cysouw @cysouw.bsky.social · Jul 4

Lev Ivanovich Polivanov (1838-1899), student of Buslaev and founder of the Polivanovskaya Gymnasium in Moscow, wrote many versions of a *Учебникъ русской грамматики*. In 1873 he adds a graphical analysis of complex sentences using vertical lines. #linguistics

cysouw.github.io/graphicalgra...

Graphical analysis of a complex sentence by Polivanov (1873). This graphic represents a sentence from a letter from N.M. Karamzin:

[А] Улицы прямы, широки и хорошо вымощены, а [Б] вь срединѣ проведены глубокіе каналы, [а] вь которыхь сь шумомь течеть вода, [а'] уносящая сь собою всю нечистоту иаь города, и [б'] сверхь того весьма полезная ву случаѣ ножара.

[А] The streets are straight, wide and well paved, and [Б] in the middle there are deep canals, [а] into which water flows noisily, [а'] carrying away with it all the sewage from the city, and [б'] moreover being very useful in case of a fire.

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Reposted by Coffee & Donatus

Michael Cysouw @cysouw.bsky.social · Jul 3

Jan Gebauer (1838-1907), a major figure in Czech linguistics, started out as a school teacher. He wrote a *Mluvnice česká* (1890) which includes various different graphical approaches to syntax, including hierarchical braces and line diagrams. #linguistics

cysouw.github.io/graphicalgra...

Hierarchical analysis of the internal structure of the sentence "The Earth rotates around its axis every twenty-four hours" by Gebauer (1890)

Graphical display of the internal structure of a complex sentence from Gebauer (1890). The example sentence is from Daniel Adam z Veleslavína and translates approximately as "Just as we have greater love for our true parents, who begot us, than for others, who chose and adopted us as their own sons: so too the country, in which we were born and raised, is dearer to us than another, to which fortune has turned us."

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Jun 22

I should have said their earliest edition that I’ve found.

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Jun 22

The earliest edition of this work with the movable table appeared in 1885.

www.google.com/books/editio...

Französisches Übungsbuch

www.google.com

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Jun 21

Breymann's and Möller movable grammar chart brings new meaning to the term "slide rule." I have only rarely seen movable charts used in grammars. If anyone knows of other examples, I would love to hear about them.

The book can be found here: www.google.com/books/editio...

Detail view of a 19th-century movable grammar table titled "Konjugationstafel I" designed to help with French verb conjugations. The table fills the entire page and features a long vertical strip that slides through a central window, created by small slits at the top and bottom. As the strip moves, different verb forms appear aligned with labeled tense and mood categories in both French and German. Some of the cells on the sliding strip are hand-colored.

Detail view of a 19th-century movable grammar table titled "Konjugationstafel II" designed to help with French verb conjugations. The table fills the entire page and features a long vertical strip that slides through a central window, created by small slits at the top and bottom. As the strip moves, different verb forms appear aligned with labeled tense and mood categories in both French and German. Some of the cells on the sliding strip and page are hand-colored.

Full view of a 19th-century movable grammar table titled "Konjugationstafel I" designed to help with French verb conjugations. The table fills the entire page and features a long vertical strip that slides through a central window, created by small slits at the top and bottom. As the strip moves, different verb forms appear aligned with labeled tense and mood categories in both French and German. Some of the cells on the sliding strip are hand-colored.

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Jun 19

I was a latecomer to Moby Dick too, and yes indeed a “bookish book.” I have started to curate a very small list of grammar books found in fiction. This is a Moby Dick post from a larger thread.

bsky.app/profile/coff...

Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Dec 15

…fighting demons and dangerous beasts of the deep in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale” (1851):

"The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief…”

Graphically manipulated detail image of the title page of Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.”

Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Jun 13

Beautiful!!

Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Jun 13

I’m so sorry for your loss, Carin. It’s been wonderful to see your photos of Bunter over the years, and I can only imagine how hard it is to say goodbye.

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · Jun 4

What a relief.

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Michael Cysouw @cysouw.bsky.social · May 3

Václav Zikmund (1816-1873) was a Czech teacher in Prague. His *Skladba jazyka českého* (1863) contains various graphical syntactic analyses, among them a very early dependency tree (left) and an illustration of different possible constituency structures (right).

cysouw.github.io/graphicalgra...

Very early dependency tree from Zikmund (1863) for Czech

Graphical illustration of different interpretations of a complex noun phrase using a kind of constituency analysis from Zikmund (1863)

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Reposted by Coffee & Donatus

National Museum of Ireland @nmireland.bsky.social · May 28

The rich history and interwoven artistry of early medieval Ireland are revealed by the Manuscripts on display at the Words on the Wave: Ireland and St. Gallen in Early Medieval Europe exhibition.
Opens May 30th
📍National Museum of Ireland, Kildare St
www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museum...

An Incipit (opening letter) with two birds from the St. Gallen manuscript Priscian Institutiones Grammaticae, Cod. Sang 904, p. 25. © Stiftsbibliothek St Gallen.

Vellum fragment from Saint-Maurice d’Agaune, CHN 64/2/88. With kind permission of l’Abbaye de Saint-Maurice d’Agaune.

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Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · May 31

Wonderful.

Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · May 30

A time of beauty and new life indeed.

Coffee & Donatus @coffeeanddonatus.bsky.social · May 30

Wonderful photos! If you venture southward to the beaches around Dover Delaware, you will find one of the rare spawning grounds for these extraordinary and ancient creatures. You can see hundreds and even thousands on the shore at a time. Their tracks create little zen gardens.

Horseshoe crabs nestling into the sand at their spawning grounds near Dover Delaware.