Veronese Riddle

[MarcoP]

Marco, I was interested in what you had to say about the Veneto dialect, so I looked at some more examples. I noticed that the "q" is often written without a following "u". That seems to be an older form also... In the past I've noticed "q" without "u" in some of the early medieval documents and also that many of the scribes who were using the "cc" shape for "a" (and also some that were using a more familiar "a") started putting a "cc" superscripted next to the "q" (where we would normally write "qu").

So... if it was small and next to a "q" it represented a "u" rather than "a" which is interesting because it's almost as though the "u" was secondary, not as important, and yet by the 15th century, in most places, the "q" and "u" are written together, on the same line... except, apparently in some parts of the Veneto.

Another thing you mentioned was the dropping of many of the doubled letters and I looked at another Veneto document and it was written in a similar way. That really reminded me of the VMS, where doubled letters are rare except for the "cc" (which I strongly suspect is a ligature rather than a doubled letter).

Hi JKP, I haven't seen enough documents to have an opinion about scribal practices typical of the Veneto area. 

On the other hand, the fact that most double consonants are reduced to a single consonant is a feature of the Veneto dialect: double consonants represent different sounds that don't exist in that language. But the fact that there are no doubles in the riddle seems accidental: doubles are also absent in the modern Italian translation posted by Davidsch.

Teneva davanti a sé i buoi, arava bianchi prati,
e un bianco aratro teneva e un nero seme seminava

About your other doubts ("tibi" etc.), the riddle is an important document which has been studied by a number of scholars. I am afraid I don't have the necessary level of competence to meaningfully add to their work.