BOT BOMPE KOUN: KHMER LULLABIES

Abstract

This article investigatesd Khmer Lullabies in Battambang province, Cambodia. The study not only examined the patterns, but also the contents. The results of this study revealed that Khmer lullabies tended to start with a rhythmic hum of “oh or eu eu”, followed by the sentence, “Koun ey keng tiw” (Baby, please sleep). Basically, there were two types of Khmer lullabies: (1) the pattern without prosody, and (2) the pattern with prosody itself had two sub-types: the traditional prosody called Kakagati, and the 7-to-9-syllable prosody, borrowed from Thai. Khmer Lullabies were often composed in simple language with word reduplication. Words that were referred to the baby in the lullabies are usually those which expressed the mother’s love toward the baby.  The Contents in the Khmer lullabies could be classified into 4 types: (1) a prayer for the baby, (2) a threatening then soothing, (3) a reward for the baby if he/she stop crying and goes asleep, and (4) moral teaching