COUNTING-OUT RHYME
COUNTING-OUT RHYME is a folklore genre, rhythmized and rhymed short poem which aims to distribute roles in games. In ancient times C.r. were used to distribute work among the members of a commune in conditions of allegorical speech (E.g., at hunting), etc. There are C.r. with plot, C.r. informs of dialogue, etc. They are preserved in children folklore and aim to define a leader of a game (by the last syllable), e.g.: “The winter’s gone, the spring came, /Ducks and geese returned, / Nightingales sing, / Children gathered./ A crow, a sparrow, / You – stay, he – goes!”. They are not attached to a particular game. The poetics of the genre uses allegories, repetitions, sound-combinations, metaphors, different parts of speech, interjections, etc. The genre is observed to be sometimes a combination of two or three languages as a result of integrated art on the territory of Bashkortostan.
I.E.Karpukhin, A.M. Suleymanov
