Editing Rhyme (section)

==Rhyme in various languages==
{{more citations needed section|date=February 2016}}

===Arabic===
Rhymes were widely spread in the [[Arabic language]] in pre-Islamic times, in letters, poems and songs, as well as long, rhyming [[qasida]]s.<ref name="Brill"/> In addition, the [[Quran]] uses a form of rhymed prose named [[saj']].

===Celtic languages===
{{For|Welsh|Cynghanedd}}

Rhyming in the [[Celtic languages]] takes a drastically different course from most other Western rhyming schemes despite strong contact with the Romance and English patterns. Even today, despite extensive interaction with English and French culture, Celtic rhyme continues to demonstrate native characteristics. Brian Ó Cuív sets out the rules of rhyme in Irish poetry of the classical period: the last stressed vowel and any subsequent long vowels must be identical in order for two words to rhyme. Consonants are grouped into six classes for the purpose of rhyme: they need not be identical, but must belong to the same class. Thus 'b' and 'd' can rhyme (both being 'voiced plosives'), as can 'bh' and 'l' (which are both 'voiced continuants') but 'l', a 'voiced continuant', cannot rhyme with 'ph', a 'voiceless continuant'. Furthermore, "for perfect rhyme a palatalized consonant may be balanced only by a palatalized consonant and a velarized consonant by a velarized one."<ref>Ó Cuív, Brian (1967). 'The Phonetic Basis of Classical Modern Irish Rhyme'. ''Ériu 20, pp. 96–97''</ref> In the post-Classical period, these rules fell into desuetude, and in popular verse simple assonance often suffices, as can be seen in an example of Irish Gaelic rhyme from the traditional song ''Bríd Óg Ní Mháille'':
{{Verse translation|italicsoff=1|{{lang|ga|Is a Bhríd Óg Ní Mháille}}
{{IPA|ga|ɪsˠ ə ˈvɾʲiːdʲ oːɡ n̠ʲiː ˈwaːl̠ʲə|}}
{{lang|ga|'S tú d'fhág mo chroí cráite}}
{{IPA|ga|sˠ t̪ˠuː ˈd̪ˠaːɡ mə xɾʲiː ˈkɾˠaːtʲə|}}
|
Oh young Bridget O'Malley

You have left my heart breaking}}

Here the vowels are the same, but the consonants, although both palatalized, do not fall into the same class in the bardic rhyming scheme.

===Chinese===
{{Further|Rime dictionary}}
Besides the vowel/consonant aspect of rhyming, [[Chinese language|Chinese]] rhymes often include [[Tone (linguistics)|tone]] quality (that is, [[Contour (linguistics)|tonal contour]]) as an integral linguistic factor in determining rhyme.

Use of rhyme in [[Classical Chinese poetry]] typically but not always appears in the form of paired couplets, with end-rhyming in the final syllable of each couplet.

Another important aspect of rhyme in regard to Chinese language studies is the study or reconstruction of past [[varieties of Chinese]], such as [[Middle Chinese]].

===English===
{{See also|English poetry}}
[[Old English poetry]] is mostly [[alliterative verse]]. One of the earliest rhyming poems in English is [[The Rhyming Poem]].

As [[stress (linguistics)|stress]] is important in English, lexical stress is one of the factors that affects the similarity of sounds for the perception of rhyme. Perfect rhyme can be defined as the case when two words rhyme if their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical.<ref name=Stillman>{{cite book|last=Stillman|first=Frances|title=The Poet's Manual and Rhyming Dictionary|year=1966|publisher=Thames and Hudson|isbn=0500270309}}</ref>

Some words in English, such as "[[Orange (word)|orange]]" and "silver", are commonly regarded as having no rhyme. Although a clever writer can get around this (for example, by obliquely rhyming "orange" with combinations of words like "door hinge" or with <!--POV: far-fetched--> lesser-known words like "[[Blorenge]]" – a hill in Wales – or the surname [[Gorringe (disambiguation)|Gorringe]]), it is generally easier to move the word out of rhyming position or replace it with a [[synonym]] ("orange" could become "amber", while "silver" could become a combination of "bright and argent"). A skilled orator might be able to tweak the pronunciation of certain words to facilitate a stronger rhyme (for example, pronouncing "orange" as "oringe" to rhyme with "door hinge").

One view of rhyme in English is from [[John Milton]]'s preface to ''[[Paradise Lost]]'':
{{Blockquote|The Measure is ''English'' Heroic  Verse without Rime, as that of ''Homer'' in ''Greek'', and of ''Virgil'' in ''Latin''; Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom...<!--carefully proofread -->}}

A more tempered view is taken by [[W. H. Auden]] in [[The Dyer's Hand]]:
{{Blockquote|Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice; if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.}}

Forced or clumsy rhyme is often a key ingredient of [[doggerel]].

===French===
<!-- This section is linked from [[Meter (poetry)]] -->

In [[French poetry]], unlike in English, it is common to have ''identical rhymes'', in which not only the vowels of the final syllables of the lines rhyme, but their onset consonants ("consonnes d'appui") as well. To the ear of someone accustomed to English verse, this often sounds like a very weak rhyme. For example, an English perfect rhyme of homophones, ''flour'' and ''flower'', would seem weak, whereas a French rhyme of homophones ''doigt'' ("finger") and ''doit'' ("must") or ''point'' ("point") and ''point'' ("not") is not only acceptable but quite common.

Rhymes are sometimes classified into the categories of "rime pauvre" ("poor rhyme"), "rime suffisante" ("sufficient rhyme"), "[[rime riche]]" ("rich rhyme") and "rime richissime" ("very rich rhyme"), according to the number of rhyming sounds in the two words or in the parts of the two verses. For example, to rhyme "tu" with "vu" would be a poor rhyme (the words have only the vowel in common), to rhyme "pas" with "bras" a sufficient rhyme (with the vowel and the silent consonant in common), and "tante" with "attente" a rich rhyme (with the vowel, the onset consonant, and the coda consonant with its mute "e" in common). Authorities disagree, however, on exactly where to place the boundaries between the categories.

Classical French rhyme not only differs from English rhyme in its different treatment of onset consonants. It also treats coda consonants in a distinctive way.

French spelling includes several final letters that are no longer pronounced and that in many cases have never been pronounced. Such final unpronounced letters continue to affect rhyme according to the rules of Classical French versification.

The most important "silent" letter is the "[[Silent letter#Vowels|mute e]]". In spoken French today, final "e" is, in some regional accents (in Paris for example), omitted<!--leads a kind of half-life: this is an abuse of the term "half-life"--> after consonants; but in Classical French prosody, it was considered an integral part of the rhyme even when following the vowel. "Joue" could rhyme with "boue", but not with "trou". Rhyming words ending with this silent "e" were said to make up a "double rhyme", while words not ending with this silent "e" made up a "single rhyme". It was a principle of stanza-formation that single and double rhymes had to alternate in the stanza. Virtually all 17th-century French plays in verse alternate masculine and feminine {{lang|fr|[[Alexandrin]]}} couplets.

The now-silent final consonants present a more complex case. They, too, were traditionally an integral part of the rhyme, such that "pont" rhymed with "vont" but not with "long". (The voicing of consonants was lost in liaison and thus ignored, so "pont" also rhymed with "rond".) There are a few rules that govern most word-final consonants in archaic French pronunciation:
* The distinction between voiced and unvoiced consonants is lost in the final position. Therefore, "d" and "t" (both pronounced /t/) rhyme. So too with "c", "g" and "q" (all /k/), and "s", "x" and "z" (all /z/). Rhymes ending in /z/ are called "plural rhymes" because most plural nouns and adjectives end in "s" or "x".
* Nasal vowels rhyme whether spelled with "m" or "n" (e.g., "essaim" rhymes with "sain").
* If a word ends in a stop consonant followed by "s", the stop is silent and ignored for purposes of rhyming (e.g., "temps" rhymes with "dents"). In the archaic orthography some of these silent stops are omitted from the spelling as well (e.g., "dens" for "dents").

====Holorime====
''[[Holorime]]''  is an extreme example of ''rime richissime'' spanning an entire verse. [[Alphonse Allais]] was a notable exponent of holorime. Here is an example of a holorime couplet from [[Marc Monnier]]:
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|fr|Gall, amant de la Reine, alla (tour magnanime)
Galamment de l'Arène à la Tour Magne, à Nîmes.}}
|
Gallus, the Queen's lover, went (a magnanimous gesture)
Gallantly from the Arena to the Great Tower, at Nîmes.}}

===German===
Because [[German phonology]] features a wide array of vowel sounds, certain imperfect rhymes are widely admitted in German poetry. These include rhyming "e" with "ä" and "ö", rhyming "i" with "ü", rhyming "ei" with "eu" (spelled "äu" in some words) and rhyming a long vowel with its short counterpart.

Some examples of imperfect rhymes (all from [[Friedrich Schiller]]'s "[[An die Freude]]"):
* Deine Zauber binden w'''ieder''' / Alle Menschen werden Br'''üder'''
* Freude trinken alle W'''esen''' / Alle Guten, alle B'''ösen'''

===Greek===
:''See [[Homoioteleuton]]''

Ancient Greek poetry is strictly metrical. Rhyme is used, if at all, only as an occasional rhetorical flourish.

The first Greek to write rhyming poetry was the fourteenth-century Cretan [[Stephanos Sachlikis]]. Rhyme is now a common fixture of Greek poetry.

===Hebrew===
Ancient [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] rarely employed rhyme, e.g., in [[Book of Exodus|Exodus]] 29 35: ועשית לאהרן ולבניו כָּכה, ככל אשר צויתי אֹתָכה (the identical part in both rhyming words being / 'axa/ ). Rhyme became a permanent - even obligatory - feature of poetry in Hebrew language, around the 4th century CE. It is found in the [[piyyut|Jewish liturgical poetry]] written in the [[Byzantine empire]] era. This was realized by scholars only recently, thanks to the thousands of [[piyyut]]s that have been discovered in the [[Cairo Geniza]]. It is assumed that the principle of rhyme was transferred from Hebrew liturgical poetry to the poetry of the [[Syriac Christianity]] (written in [[Aramaic]]), and through this mediation introduced into [[Latin poetry]] and then into all other languages of [[Europe]].<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

===Latin===
In [[Latin]] rhetoric and poetry [[homeoteleuton]] and [[Alliteration (Latin)|alliteration]] were frequently used devices.

[[#Classification by position|Tail rhyme]] was occasionally used, as in this piece of poetry by [[Cicero]]:
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|la|O Fortu'''natam''' '''natam''' me consule '''Romam'''.}}
|
O fortunate Rome, to be born with me consul}}

But [[#Classification by position|tail rhyme]] was not used as a prominent structural feature of [[Latin poetry]] until it was introduced under the influence of local vernacular traditions in the early [[Middle Ages]]. This is the [[Latin]] [[hymn]] ''[[Dies Irae]]'':
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|la|Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sybilla}}
|
The day of wrath, that day
which will reduce the world to ashes,
as foretold by David and the Sybil.}}

[[Medieval poetry]] may mix Latin and [[vernacular]] languages. Mixing languages in verse or rhyming words in different languages is termed [[macaronic]].

===Polish=== 
In Polish literature rhyme was used from the beginning. Unrhymed verse was never popular, although it was sometimes imitated from Latin. [[Homer]]'s, [[Virgil]]'s and even [[John Milton|Milton]]'s epic poems were furnished with rhymes by Polish translators.<ref>Wiktor Jarosław Darasz, Mały przewodnik po wierszu polskim, Kraków 2003, p. 19 (in Polish).</ref> Because of paroxytonic accentuation in Polish, feminine rhymes always prevailed. Rules of Polish rhyme were established in 16th century. Then only feminine rhymes were allowed in syllabic verse system. Together with introducing syllabo-accentual metres, masculine rhymes began to occur in Polish poetry. They were most popular at the end of 19th century. The most frequent rhyme scheme in Old Polish (16th - 18th centuries) was couplet AABBCCDD..., but Polish poets, having perfect knowledge of Italian language and literature, experimented with other schemes, among others [[ottava rima]] (ABABABCC) and [[sonnet]] (ABBA ABBA CDC DCD or ABBA ABBA CDCD EE).
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|pl|Wpłynąłem na suchego przestwór oceanu,
Wóz nurza się w zieloność i jak łódka brodzi,
Śród fali łąk szumiących, śród kwiatów powodzi,
Omijam koralowe ostrowy burzanu.}}
|attr1=Adam Mickiewicz,<br>"{{lang|pl|Stepy akermańskie}}", ''{{lang|pl|Sonety krymskie}}'', lines 1–4
|
Across sea-meadows measureless I go,
My wagon sinking under grass so tall
The flowery petals in foam on me fall,
And blossom-isles float by I do not know.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.sonnets.org/mickiewicz.htm#001| title = Adam Mickiewicz's Sonnets from the Crimea at Sonnet Central}}</ref>|attr2="The Ackerman Steppe", ''Sonnets from the Crimea'',<br>translated by [[Edna Worthley Underwood]]}}

The metre of Mickiewicz's sonnet is the [[Polish alexandrine]] (tridecasyllable, in Polish "trzynastozgłoskowiec"): 13(7+6) and its rhymes are feminine: [anu] and [odzi].

===Portuguese===
[[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] classifies rhymes in the following manner:

*'''rima pobre''' (poor rhyme): rhyme between words of the same [[grammatical category]] (e.g., noun with noun) or between very common endings (''-ão'', ''-ar'');
*'''rima rica''' (rich rhyme): rhyme between words of different grammatical classes or with uncommon endings;
*'''rima preciosa''' (precious rhyme): rhyme between words with a different [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphology]], for example ''estrela'' (star) with ''vê-la'' (to see her);
*'''rima esdrúxula''' (odd rhyme): rhyme between [[Proparoxytone|proparoxytonic]] words (example: ''ânimo'', "animus", and ''unânimo'', "unanimous").

===Russian===
Rhyme was introduced into [[Russian language|Russian]] poetry in the 18th century. Folk poetry had generally been unrhymed, relying more on dactylic line endings for effect. Two words ending in an accented vowel are only considered to rhyme if they share a preceding consonant. Vowel pairs rhyme—even though non-Russian speakers may not perceive them as the same sound. Consonant pairs rhyme if both are devoiced. As in French, formal poetry traditionally alternates between masculine and feminine rhymes.

Early 18th-century poetry demanded perfect rhymes that were also grammatical rhymes—namely that noun endings rhymed with noun endings, verb endings with verb endings, and so on. Such rhymes relying on morphological endings become much rarer in modern Russian poetry, and greater use is made of approximate rhymes.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wachtel|first=Michael|title=The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry|year=2006|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=9780511206986}}</ref>

The rules for rhyming used by [[Alexander Pushkin]] and subsequent [[Russian poets]] owe much to French verse. The basic rules, as laid out by [[Vladimir Nabokov]] in his ''[[Notes on Prosody]]'', are as follows:

* As in French, rhymes are divided into [[Masculine and feminine endings|masculine and feminine]] according to whether the word is stressed on the last or second-to-last syllable. Two different masculine rhymes or two feminine rhymes cannot normally occur in succeeding lines. Rhyme schemes involving words stressed on the third-to-last syllable or earlier in the word are found in some poems but are relatively rare, especially in longer poetry.
* As in French, two words with the same pronunciation but different meanings can be rhymed, e.g., ''супру́га'' ("wife") and ''супру́га '' ("husband's").
* Words ending in a stressed vowel (e.g., ''вода́'') can only rhyme with other words which share the consonant preceding the vowel (e.g., ''когда́'').
** Words ending in a stressed vowel preceded by another vowel, as well as words ending in a stressed vowel preceded by /j/, can all be rhymed with each other: ''моя́'', ''тая́'' and ''чья'' all rhyme.
** According to Nabokov, a special dispensation is made for ''любви́'', an inflected form of ''любо́вь'' ("love"), allowing it to be rhymed with all words ending in a vowel followed by /ˈi/ (e.g., ''твои́''). Some poets, including Pushkin, go further and rhyme ''любви́'' with any word ending in /ˈi/.
* Unstressed ''а'' and ''о'' (e.g., ''жа́ло'' and ''Ура́ла'') can be rhymed with each other. For most contemporary Russian speakers these letters when unstressed are pronounced identically as /ə/. See also ''[[vowel reduction in Russian]]'' and ''[[akanye]]''.
* In unstressed syllables, /ɨ/, /ɨj/ and /əj/ are considered more or less equivalent: thus ''за́лы'', ''ма́лый'' and ''а́лой'' can all be rhymed. Nabokov describes rhyming /ɨ/ with /ɨj/ as "not inelegant" and rhyming /ɨj/ with /əj/ as "absolutely correct".

===Sanskrit===
Patterns of rich rhyme (''prāsa'') play a role in modern Sanskrit poetry, but only to a minor extent in historical Sanskrit texts. They are classified according to their position within the ''pada'' (metrical foot): ''ādiprāsa'' (first syllable), ''dvitīyākṣara prāsa'' (second syllable), ''antyaprāsa'' (final syllable) etc.

===Spanish===
Spanish mainly differentiates two types of rhymes:

* '''rima consonante''' (consonant rhyme): Those words of the same stress with identical endings, matching consonants and vowels, for example robo (robbery) and lobo (wolf), legua (league) and yegua (mare) or canción (song) and montón (pile).
* '''rima asonante''' (assonant rhyme): those words of the same stress that only the vowels identical at the end, for example zapato (shoe) and brazo (arm), ave (bird) and ame (would love), reloj (watch) and feroz (fierce), puerta (door) and ruleta (roulette).

Spanish rhyme is also classified by stress type since different types cannot rhyme with each other:

* '''rima llana''' (plane rhyme): the rhyming words are unaccented, for example cama (bed) and rama (branch), pereza (laziness) and moneda (coin) or espejo (mirror) and pienso (I think).
* '''rima grave''' (oxytonic rhyme): The rhyming words are accented on the last syllable, for example: cartón (cardboard) and limón (lemon), jerez (sherry) and revés (backwards). Grave words that end in a single same vowel can be asonante rhymes for example compró (he/she bought) and llevó (he/she carried), tendré (I will have) and pediré (I will ask), perdí (I lost) and medí (I measured). 
* '''rima esdrújula''' (odd rhyme): The rhyming words are accented on the [[antepenult]]. For example, mácula (stain) and báscula (scale), estrépito (noise) and intrépido (fearless), rápido (fast) and pálido (pallid).

===Tamil===
There are some unique rhyming schemes in Dravidian languages like Tamil. Specifically, the rhyme called ''etukai'' (anaphora) occurs on the second consonant of each line.

The other rhyme and related patterns are called ''mō<u>n</u>ai'' ([[alliteration]]), ''toṭai'' ([[epistrophe|epiphora]]) and ''iraṭṭai kiḷavi'' ([[Parallelism (rhetoric)|parallelism]]).

Some classical Tamil poetry forms, such as ''veṇpā'', have rigid grammars for rhyme to the point that they could be expressed as a [[context-free grammar]].

===Urdu===
Rhymes are called Qafiya in Urdu. Qafiya has a very important place in Urdu Poetry. Couplet of an Urdu [[Ghazal]] is incomplete without a Qafiya.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://sahityaduniya.com/qafiya-list-urdu-shayari/ | title=उर्दू शायरी में क़ाफ़िया | date=11 February 2023 }}</ref> Following is an example of an Urdu couplet from [[Faiz Ahmad Faiz|Faiz Ahmed Faiz]]'s ghazal

dono jahaan teri mohabbat mein ''haar'' ke,<br>
wo jaa rahaa hai koi shab e ghum ''guzaar'' ke<ref>{{cite web | url=https://shayarighar.com/2017/02/dono-jahaan-teri-mohabbat-mein-haar-ke/ | title=Dono jahaan teri mohabbat mein haar ke | date=11 February 2017 }}</ref>

''haar'' and ''guzaar'' are qafiyas in this couplet because of rhyming.

===Vietnamese===
Rhymes are used in [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] to produce [[simile]]s. The following is an example of a Rhyming Simile:

'''Nghèo''' như con '''mèo'''
<br>/'''ŋɛu''' ɲɯ kɔn '''mɛu'''/ 
<br>"Poor as a cat"

Compare the above Vietnamese example, which is a ''rhyming'' simile, to the English phrase "(as) poor as a church mouse", which is only a ''semantic'' simile.<ref>See p. 98 in Thuy Nga Nguyen and [[Ghil'ad Zuckermann]] (2012), "Stupid as a Coin: Meaning and Rhyming Similes in Vietnamese", ''International Journal of Language Studies'' 6 (4), pp. 97–118.</ref>