我们这种语言,
语言的离合诗

Each line in Women Zhezhong Yuyan contains six syllables in the spoken language and six characters in the written language. In order not to disturb the arrangement of characters, a punctuation mark is only shown if it occurs at the end of a line. Each block of four lines has crossed rime and at least some alliteration. ('Rime' here does not necesssarily mean that the tones of the final syllables concerned are the same as well.) These alliterative cross-rime quatrains are presented as separate stanzas.

The title and subtitle have the same form as the first two lines of a stanza:
  我们这种语言 (Wǒmen Zhèzhǒng Yǔyán)
  语言的离合诗 (yǔyán de líhéshī).

Below you will find an of the stanzas of the poem. Repetitions of single sounds or groups of sounds in the same line, in consecutive lines or in corresponding lines within the same stanza are in boldface. Obviously, the effect of these repetitions is stronger as they occur closer together, and if the syllables in which they occur have the same tone.

Women Zhezhong Yuyan is an acrostic with the characters for ZHE, ZHONG, YU and YAN as the initial characters of the stanzas. It belongs to a series of three acrostics. The other two poems are about This Language and Deze Taal and have been written in the respective languages. Their titles are The Lay of This Our Language and Door Deze Taal verbonden. These language acrostics have the same general structural characteristics but differ considerably in content.