Journal of Socio-Cultural Studies of Khorasan

Journal of Socio-Cultural Studies of Khorasan

A Study of the Verbal Aesthetics in Khorasan’s Nonsense Verses (hīchānehā) Tahere Mirzaei

Author
tahere mirzaei
Assistant Professor Department of Persian Language and Literature, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
10.22034/fakh.2025.541508.1759
Abstract
Introduction
One of the enjoyable literary genres for children is nonsense verse (hīchānehā); it has rhetorical, semantic, and ideological layers and is supported by intellectual and cultural foundations. Nonsense verse is a type of poem that children recite during group games or physical activities. Contrary to what their name suggests, Nonsense verse is not meaningless or empty; rather, due to their meter and rhythm, they are highly engaging and stimulating. Since the greatest attractions for children lie in music, these poems serve as a good basis for movement, exercise, and children's games. This type of poetry, recognized in Iranian literature, European literature, and the literatures of other nations as a literary genre with a specific function in oral communication, has received little attention and study.
his study examines the aesthetics of Khorasan’s nonsense verses, alongside providing an overview of their features, and seeks to answer the following research questions:

What prominent linguistic features do the nonsense verse of Khorasan hold?
Which rhetorical devices occur more frequently in the nonsense verse?
What effect do the linguistic characteristics of Nonsense verse have on children’s language and speech skills?

Despite the significance of the topic and the need for scholarly studies, research on Persian nonsense verse remains limited. Existing studies include a master’s thesis titled “The Devices of Nonsense Verse in Iranian Children’s Literature”, an article examining the relationship between text and image in the book ‘Hich Hich Hichaneh’, and a study on the aesthetics of rhetoric and semantic playfulness in nonsense Verse in children’s folk literature. To date, no independent research has focused specifically on the nonsense verse of Khorasan, and the present article represents the first study in this area.

Methodology
The present research is qualitative and ethnographic in terms of its objective and has been conducted using a descriptive-field approach. Its main goal is to identify and document the common types of nonsense verses in Khorasan and to examine their aesthetic functions. In this study, ethnography was used as the primary research method. Ethnography, as one of the fundamental methods in anthropology, emphasizes the direct observation of people's behaviors and speech in their natural living environments. Accordingly, the researcher, by being present in the research field, collected the required data through participant observation, in-depth and informal conversations with locals, and note-taking of children’s poems related to nonsense verses.
The data collection tools included semi-structured interviews and participant observation. In the interviews, efforts were made to record and document native nursery rhymes that children had enthusiastically repeated in the past and to extract their special techniques. Additionally, part of the research data was gathered from the book Local and Indigenous Games of South Khorasan, and all nonsense verses samples were transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet and translated.

Results
In nonsense verses, a prominent or deliberate use of rhetorical devices is not generally expected; however, certain techniques and strategies enhance their rhetorical and aesthetic value and constitute the main reason for their durability and appeal. These techniques fall into two categories: foundational and general strategies, which include semantic defamiliarization (meaning-avoidance), musicality, and humor; and techniques specific to nonsense verse, which distinguish it from other similar forms such as tazrīq and nonsense.
A child does not seek correct or logical meaning in poetry. Freedom from the constraint of meaning expands the child’s imagination and doubles the pleasure derived from reading the poem. In nonsense verses, meaning-avoidance appears on two levels: the word level and the sentence level.
Music is the most crucial tool for creating dynamism and vitality in a child’s language and mind. It encompasses all components of speech—meter, rhyme, refrain, consonants and vowels, stresses, and pauses. The poet of nonsense verse employs every possible device to create musicality, since the poetic quality of nonsense verse depends on it. Under normal circumstances, music gives direction to meaning; but in nonsense verse, meaning is not the goal. The musical elements of nonsense verses include meter (short and rhythmic), innovative rhyme-making and repetition at both the word and sentence levels.
The techniques specific to nonsense verse include inversion, indeterminacy, syntactic balance and dynamization. Through inversion, we encounter an illogical, reversed, and chaotic world; a world wherein phenomena act contrary to their natural behavior and irrational events and unreal outcomes are regarded as acceptable and normal. Indeterminacy refers to the lack of clarity in nonsense verses achieved through surreal imagery. When faced with these ambiguous and unfamiliar images, children express surprise and wonder. This sense of astonishment causes the nonsense poem to imprint itself on the child’s mind and encourages the child to seek relationships among the poem’s events and concepts. Such effort activates and energizes the mind and ultimately increases the child’s creative power.
Posing questions and answers that are read with a fast, percussive rhythm—while simultaneously creating syntactic balance and a kind of semantic music, diverts the audience’s attention away from meaning and reinforces the poem’s nonsensical nature. Finally, the animation and personification of objects in nonsense verses are closely linked to the material and spiritual experiences of the creator of the nonsense verse.

Discussion and Conclusion
Nonsense verses whose core characteristics are semantic evasion and the breaking of habitual linguistic patterns, provide a rich space for fostering children’s cognitive development, creativity, and language acquisition. Through nonsense verses, children simultaneously engage in singing and play, combining verbal expression with physical activity.
These verses play a significant role in nurturing children’s imagination. The pleasure of discovering rhyme, together with the magic created by the juxtaposition of phonetically similar words, leads to a form of mental agility. Through the repeated recitation of these poems—as well as the play and joy associated with them—the child’s bodily movements become coordinated with mental processes. In the Hichhanehs of Khorasan, fundamental and widely used aesthetic strategies are clearly evident. The prominence of musicality—created through repetition, phonetic and lexical parallelism, rhythm, rhyme, and occasionally syntactic deviation—constitutes the most important aesthetic element of this poetic form.
The repetition of specific consonants, such as /t/, /l/, and /r/, contributes to the strengthening of articulatory muscles and enhances children’s linguistic skills. Moreover, semantic playfulness, inversion, and the disruption of conventional logic governing objects and phenomena—along with the creation of surprise, rapid and repetitive question-and-answer patterns that intensify rhythm and excitement, and the animation and personification of inanimate elements that open the door to the world of the impossible—are all prominently present in nonsense verses. Collectively, these features make nonsense verses both engaging and pleasurable for children, while simultaneously supporting their linguistic, cognitive, and imaginative development.
Acknowledgments
Thanks are extended to all the interviewees who provided the researcher with samples of nonsense verses.
Keywords
: Folk Literature, Children&rsquo
s Poetry, Nonsense Verses (hīchānehā), Poetry&rsquo
s Music, Repetition, Khorasan
Subjects

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    Interviews

    • Azad, Shahrbanu. Interview date: 25 March 2023
    • Behdani, Ali Mohammad. Interview date: 1 June 2023
    • Javan, Sharaf. Interview date: 13 September 2005
    • Danesh, Batoul. Interview date: 22 February 2023
    • Ameri, Khadijeh. Interview date: 17 November 2022
    • Kavousi, Nesa. Interview date: 27 January 2023
    • Mirzaei, Reza Qoli. Interview date: 13 January 2019
    • Mirzaei, Tayebeh. Interview date: 2 December 2019
    • Valeh, Reyhaneh. Interview date: 28 April 2023

  • Receive Date 17 August 2025
  • Revise Date 22 October 2025
  • Accept Date 30 November 2025