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Re: Tone Rhyme (was: POETRY/TRANS.: 2 poems & "googogigglabyte")

From:JS Bangs <jaspax@...>
Date:Wednesday, July 17, 2002, 19:47
Steg Belsky sikyal:

> Hmmm... talking of Chinese poetry, does anyone know if there's such a > thing as "tone rhyme" in tone (static or contour) languages? So, for > instance, instead of rhyming lines by having them end in the same > sequence of consonants and/or vowels, they would end in the same sequence > of tones?
This exists in Thai poetry, which has various forms that constrain both the number of syllables in the line and the tones which must occur at each position. The Thai poetic system is quite elaborate, and is explained in pretty good detail at http://thaiarc.tu.ac.th/host/thaiarc/poetry/poem.html. This page claims that a few of the Thai forms have also been borrowed from Chinese, which would suggest that Chinese does something similar. Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/ "If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time." --G.K. Chesterton