Devinalh

The devinalh ([deviˈnaʎ], roughly meaning "guesswork"), was a genre of Old Occitan lyric poetry practiced by some troubadours. It takes the form of a riddle, or series of riddles or cryptograms and is, if read literally, mostly nonsensical. Known practitioners include Guilhen de Peiteu, Raimbaut of Orange, Giraut de Bornelh, Guilhem Ademar, Guilhem de Berguedan and Raimbaut de Vaqueiras.

The term was created by modern scholars of Old Occitan and was never used by the troubadours themselves to refer to a specific type of poem.

Examples

This was a rare genre, of which only a handful of examples exist; among them:

gollark: Also, I think there are some nuclear plane concepts? Generally they use the heat from the nuclear stuff directly in some way.
gollark: This is probably far beyond the life expectancy of a plane.
gollark: > And also if you have a kerosene powered plane it will become useless in however many years when a drop of oil costs $100
gollark: They aren't exactly emojis. You cannot put them inline in messages.
gollark: https://i.osmarks.tk/bees.png

References

Kay, Sarah: Courtly Contradictions: The Emergence of the Literary Object in the Twelfth Century, Arthuriana, Vol. 13 No. 3 (2003) pp. 118-120

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