Language
Kantrum is interesting from a linguistic perspective. As the Khmer native to Thailand are bilingual, Kantrum songs can be sung in Thai (Isan dialect), Northern Khmer or a combination of the two. In the case of the later, it is most common that a complete verse will be sung in Thai followed by a reciprocating verse in Khmer. However, code switching between the two languages within the same verse also occurs, lending to a wide variety of possibilities for rhyming and tonal euphony.
Read more about this topic: Kantrum
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“The language of the younger generation ... has the brutality of the city and an assertion of threatening power at hand, not to come. It is military, theatrical, and at its most coherent probably a lasting repudiation of empty courtesy and bureaucratic euphemism.”
—Elizabeth Hardwick (b. 1916)
“A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)