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Forms Contents
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This issue we look at a Cambodian form, the pathya vat. Cambodian poems are intended to be read aloud, recited or sung. There are eight reciting styles, each with a particular application. For example, the chbapp, or traditional code, is used to teach children appropriate behaviors. Pathya vat has not often been attempted, or at least published, in English. It is a short verse form composed of four lines, each with four syllables. The second and third lines rhyme. Longer poems are made by chaining, with the last line of each stanza rhyming with the second and third lines of the next (x indicates a syllable; other letters indicate the rhyme):
Pathya vat is similar to several other short verse forms: the Japanese haiku (DS, Winter 2001); the Burmese than-bauk, and the Welsh forms of the rhupunt and the cywydd deuair fyrion (rarely seen outside of manuals). Than-bauk is a form that has three line stanzas of four syllables each with the rhyme on the fourth syllable of first line, third syllable of the second line, and second syllable of the third line. Rhupunt has inter-rhyming stanzas of three, four, or five lines. Each line has four syllables. All but the last line within each stanza rhyme. The last lines rhyme in pairs (e.g. the last lines of stanzas 1 and 2 rhyme, and the last lines of 3 and 4 rhyme). Cywydd deuair fyrion is composed of couplets of four syllable lines in true- or off-rhyme.
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