Errata, Corrigenda, Addenda…Punctuation

This blog has been online for about 6 months now and I’m still at the beginner’s stage of my studies. This means some errors have inevitably crept in…so I’ll be spending the next week or so correcting as many of these as I can.
One of my worst mistakes has been not putting the invisible spaces in between words and writing everything as one big long sentence, as it appears in writing. But the invisible spaces are necessary when typing, to divide words and to make it easier for search engines to find your pages. So if you’re just starting out with typing Khmer, please, don’t forget to put your invisible spaces in…

As for the full space (shift+space on the Khmer Unicode keyboard, in case you’re wondering), taking a cue from the “ green book” , page 54:

1. ឃ្លា /kliə/ (space)

Cambodian words are not normally separated by spaces in closely knit syntactic phrases or single-clause sentences. The /kliə/ ’space’ is used in a way roughly analogous to the use of the comma in English; but is more comprehensive.
There are stylistic differences from one text to another, but space typically occurs in the following situations:

a) between clauses within a sentence
b) between sentences in a cohesive group of sentences
c) after preposed adverbial words or phrases, such as “ usually,” “ today,” “ in that town,” etc.
d) before and after proper names
e) before and after numbers
f) before and after the symbols ។ , ៗ , [...]

I don’t know how current these rules are but lacking any other credible reference, these are the ones I will be using here henceforth.

ត្រឡប់មកវិញហើយ

Sorry for the lack of updates…I’ve been a bit busy and frankly haven’t had the time to study _Khmer_, much less think up brilliant ideas for this blog. But now that the worst is over I should be posting here a bit more often.

For now, enjoy the first episode of the new season of ខ្មែរក្រៃលែង:

ខ្មែរសុរិន្ទ

Khmer has many dialects, and one of the most (in)famous of these is ខ្មែរសុរិន្ទ (khmae sorən) – Khmer Surin or Northern Khmer, which is spoken in the eastern provinces of Surin, Buriram etc. of Thailand. Khmer Surin speakers have a very distinctive accent – one of the most prominent features is the syllable-final r, which is not pronounced in Standard Khmer (as an example, the word ខ្មែរ Khmer, which is pronounced “ khmae” in Standard is pronounced “ khmeer” in Surin.)

Besides their dialect, they are also well-known for their songs. In this post I will attempt to translate one of the more famous of these – ពាក់អាវមិនដែលឃើញដោះ – which revolves around a slightly off-colour play on words, the word in question being ដោះ dâh, which can mean either “ remove/take off” or “ breasts” .
Another version was posted on prahok.com but since the translation is not forthcoming I’ve decided to give it a stab, though there are naturally some holes in this one:

*Note – the transcriptions given below are Standard. Just listen and follow along with the lyrics, the differences in pronounciation will be immediately obvious.

មានអាវមួយពាក់មិនដែលឃើញដោះ មានមួយប៉ុណ្ណោះឬយ៉ាងណាស្រីង៉ា
miən aaw muəy peək mın dael khəəñ dâh miən muəy ponnâh rıı yââŋ naa srəy ŋaa
have shirt one wear never see remove/breasts have one like-that or how girl baby
You have a shirt that you wear, I never see you take it off [never see your breasts], do you have only one or what, baby
ឃើញសព្វដង មិនថាថ្ងៃណា មិនថាបនត្រង់ណា ពាក់តែអាវដដែលៗ
khəəñ sap dââŋ mın thaa thŋay naa mın thaa bâân* trâŋ naa peək tae aaw dâdael-dâdael
see every time not say day which not say place place which wear only shirt same-same
Whenever or wherever I see you, you always wear the same shirt
អាវយឺតសល្អត្រូវចិត្តស្រី ថាមើលក្ដីមិនដែលដោះម្តាក់ម្ដង
aaw yııt sââ l’ââ trəw cət srəy thaa məəl kdəy mın dael dâh mdak mdââŋ
shirt loose white good satisfied girl that look kdəy never remove/breast time-time
A good white t-shirt pleases you….???
ប៉ុន្មានថ្ងៃហើយ ក្រមុំខន់បង ដល់ណាដោះម្ដាក់ម្ដង ព្រោះតែបងចង់ឃើញ
ponmaan thŋay haəy krâmom khân* bââŋ dâl naa dâh mdak mdââŋ pruəh tae bââŋ câŋ khəəñ
how-many day already girl of bong when/how-long remove time-time because bong wants see
How many days has it been already, when will you take it off, because I want to see
ពាក់អាវមិនដែលឃើញដោះ
peək aaw mın dael khəəñ dâh
wear shirt never see remove/breasts
You always wear the same shirt, I never see you take it off [never see your breasts]
កើតអីឬវាយ៉ាងណា? ម្តេចស្រីង៉ាបងមិនគើយឃើញដោះ
kaət əy rıı viə yaaŋ naa? mdəc srəy ŋaa bââŋ mın kəəy* khəəñ dâh
happen what or is way which? why girl baby bong not ever see remove/breasts
What’s the matter? Why, baby, don’t I ever see you take it off [see your breasts]

មុខមាត់ស្រីមើលទៅស្នំស្នួន
muk moət srəy məəl tıw snâm snuən
face mouth girl look go proper
Your appearance is proper
តែអាវក្នុងខ្លួនពាក់មកច្រើនថ្ងៃ
tae aaw knoŋ kluən peək môôk craən thŋay

but shirt in/on body wear from many day
But that shirt, you’ve been wearing it for many days
អាវដែលៗ ក្អែលចាប់ហើយស្រី ប្ដូរអាវថ្មី បានហើយស្រីង៉ា
aaw dael-dael k’ael cap haəy srəy pdou aaw thməy baan haəy srəy ŋaa
shirt same-same dirt start already girl change shirt new have already girl baby
The same shirt has started getting dirty, change it to a new one already baby
បងសង្ស័យមកច្រើនថ្ងៃហើយ មិនដែលដោះឡើយពាក់បានយ៉ាងណា?
bââŋ sâŋsay môôk craən thŋay haəy mın dael dâh laəy peək baan yaaŋ naa?
bong doubt come many days already never remove at-all wear have way which?
I’ve wondered for many days, you never take it off, how can you wear it like that
បងចង់ដឹងដណ្ដឹងស្រីង៉ា ឃើញកាលណា ពាក់មិនគើយឃើញដោះ
bââŋ câŋ dəŋ dândəŋ srəy ŋaa khəəñ kalnaa peək mın kəəy* khəəñ dâh
bong want know ask girl baby see when wear not ever see remove/breasts

I want to know, baby, how can I see when you wear it, I never see you remove it [never see your breasts]

*Surin words:
បនbâân place surin = trâŋ location
ខន់ khân of (possessive)​​ = របស់ rôbâh
មិនគើយ​ mın khəəy = មិនដែល. In Thai – เคย
ไม่เคย mây ˈkʰəəy 1 AA never (e.g. “ have never done” ).

To complete this post:

Extreme Khmer Episode 1: Surin Khmers

Extras

រៀនភាសាអង់គ្លេស

Sometimes it’s possible to gain a better understanding of the language you are studying by looking at learning material for native speakers learning *your* language.

For those who like learning their languages “ in reverse” (and Khmers wanting to learn English), Radio Australia’s English lessons for Khmer speakers is a good resource – it has audio and full transcripts of the lessons as well as study notes. Check it out.

ឲ្យអាពីងបីមក​នឹងបៀរអង្គរមួយដបផង

This season’s final episode of Extreme Khmer, about the famous spiders (អាពីង aapiŋ) of Skuon (ស្គន់ skuən):

And a story about the rat (កណ្ដុរ kândao) restaurants of Battambang (បាត់ដំបង batdâmbââŋ).

Dictionnaire Cambodgien-Français / par J.B. Bernard.

From 1902. Interesting to see how the spelling differs from that of today.

Cambodian Rocks!!!

It’s often the case with some languages that masses of new learners are created overnight by some pop culture phenomenon of foreign origin. Icelandic has its Bjork and Sigur Ros fans…Russian has (had) its Tatu fans…Japanese has long had its hordes of manga/anime/hentai fans. While (thankfully) there doesn’t seem to be a great rush to learn Khmer because of it, classic Khmer rock from the pre-Year Zero period has nevertheless gotten the attention of a lot of people who otherwise might never have cared about Cambodia or its culture.

Cambodian Rocks is credited as the thing that started it all – it is likely the first album of such music (released to a non-Cambodian audience – the same songs have been repackaged and sold by Cambodian-owned record companies for ages – see Wat Phnom). The record is deliberately obscure – there is no information about the singers or composers, no song titles, no translations. What it is is a lot of fun, the performances are over-the-top, the musicianship is first-rate and the blend of American classic rock and Cambodian elements is seamless. It’s clear from listening that this is not a cheap imitation. It’s also a hint that there is another side to this country than genocide and doom and gloom:

Since then interest in the music has continued to grow. Another album of old and new Cambodian music has been released (Cambodian Cassette Archives Vol 1). A new outfit called Khmerrocks has released a series of albums also titled “ Cambodian Rocks” , this time with full credits and translated lyrics.

There is even a Cambodian Rock revival band, Dengue Fever, who along with the classic singers like Sin Sisamouth (ស៊ីន ស៊ីសាមុត), Pan Ron (ប៉ែន រ៉ន), Ros Serey Sothea (រស់ សេរីសុទ្ធា) and others were featured on the soundtrack to City of Ghosts, possibly the most high profile exposure this music has had to date.

And the movies haven’t stopped coming – a short film, The Golden Voice (សម្លេងមាស sâmleeŋ miəh) was made about Ros Serey Sothea’s (the most famous of the female singers) life, with another longer one promised, as well as documentary about the music of the pre-Year Zero years, “ Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten” (កុំស្មានបងភ្លេច kom smaan bââŋ plıc)

A few more links to complete this post:

Another commercial site selling mp3s
A biography of Sin Sisamouth
Fan site for Ros Serey Sothea and Pan Ron (and some mp3s of their music)
Khmer Lyric Fellow wordpress.com blogger who posts Khmer lyrics to songs new and old.

And a rare video of Sin Sisamouth and Seang Dy

On Learning the Awful Khmer Language

Title taken from this page linked to in a previous post.
I didn’t read it to the end the first time (otherwise I would have discovered that the author had managed to up his alphabet count to 155 *phonemes*). As I read it now I waver between sympathy (thinking of my own struggles with the Khmer Alphabet from Hell) and annoyance, simply because this guy seems to have little respect for Khmer and the people that speak it, and spends more time making clever, smart-ass comments about the language than learning it.
And only does he not learn it, but he also manages to get some very elementary facts wrong:

Khmer had a unique word for ten and a word for twenty. But then the tens, from thirty to one-hundred, were the same as in Thai.

Without doing any research, this tells me the early Khmers weren’t people who needed large numbers. And large numbers here, would be defined as larger than twenty-nine. Having this mix of Thai and Khmer was completely inconsistent. For example, the word for FIFTY was not related to the word for FIVE, because FIVE was Khmer, and FIFTY was Thai. Apparently it doesn’t bother the Khmers to look at two FIVES, as in 55, and pronounce it HASEP PRAM, instead of HA or PRAM SEP PRAM. HA SEP means FIVE TENS in Thai. So, that part is logical in Thai. But in Khmer HA SEP has no meaning other that it is FIFTY.

While it’s likely true that Khmer got the multiples of 10 from Thai, it’s even more likely that Thai got them, and a lot more, from Chinese. Let’s compare the names of the Thai numbers with their Cantonese pronunciations:

1 nèung
2 sãwng
3 sãam (sam)
4 sìi (sei)
5 hâa
6 hók (lok)
7 jét (jat)
8 páet (bat)
9 kâo (gau)
10 sìp (sap)
11 sìp-ét (sap-yat)
12 sìp-sãwng
20 yîi-sìp (yi-sap)
21 yîi-sìp-ét (yi-sap-yat)
30 sãam-sìp (sam-sap)

Following this logic, the Thais likely had no need for numbers larger than…5.

Newspaper and magazine were both French words. So, this would suggest that they must not have had either before the French came. The word for air-conditioner is MACHINE DRAWJACK, which literally translates as COLD MACHINE. Now this isn’t too far off. A lot of languages use the word machine for every single apparatus. In Chinese and Thai, and even in Italian machine is everything, from a camera to an airplane. But the frightening thing is that Khmer uses the French word for machine. So does this mean that they didn’t have any machines before the French came?

Again, very flawed logic here.
ម៉ាស៊ីន​​ maasiin is not the only word Khmers have for machines, they also have the Sanskrit derived យន្ត yuən– found in the word យន្តហោះ yuənhâh ​“flying machine” = airplane, and គ្រឿង (krıəŋ, apparently a native Khmer word):

ជួសជុល​គ្រឿង​អគ្គិសនី
cuəh cul krıəŋ akkisanii
repair of electrical appliances/machines
akkisanii – derived from Pali aggi “fire” asani “lightning”. Does this mean the Khmers got electricity from India?

And it doesn’t stop here:

My first post-graduate studies were in the field of applied linguistics, which I studied at the University of Mainz, Germany, for four years. I never delved deeply into the field of psycholinguistics, but I have always been fascinated by the cultural facts which are revealed by a language and the way it is spoken. I really want to get a history book, and read about how undeveloped Cambodia must have been in the 1850s, before the French came. They must have had absolutely nothing, because even very basic words were French

Had enough yet? Let’s go on, shall we?

“Gi that is the Khmer word for ride, like ride a horse.” Said my teacher.
“No, actually Gi is the Chinese word for ride.” I pointed out.

Sealang, which is (usually) reliable about giving the etymology of words, does not give anything for ជិះ cih, so we’ll give him a pass.

“Rot that is the Khmer word for car.”
“No, that is the Thai word for car.”

But here he is wrong. Thai got this word from Khmer រទេះ rôteh. Which very likely got it from Pali/Sanskrit (referring to sealang again:

1 n cart, vehicle, carriage, coach, chariot. (see: រថ which is probably related. According to Menetrier, 1933 រទេះ was borrowed from an Indian language, which may not have been Sanskrit, during preKhmer times.) (see plate 8.) )

Thai also has the word គ្រឿង (In เครื่องบิน kʰrʉ̂aŋ ˈbin – airplane) and many, many, other words taken from Khmer. Not to say that the borrowing was all one-way, but anyone who reads their history will know that the Thais are relative newcomers to the area and did not even have an *alphabet* until they created their own – based on Khmer.
It’s understandable that a simple tourist, comparing richer, more prosperous Thailand with the relative poverty of Cambodia would come to the conclusion that the poorer cousin is the one that steals its ideas from the richer one. But this guy is a trained *linguist* who really ought to know better.

KhmerOS Moul Bali Font finally released!

You can download it here.
Pali (បាលី​ baalii in Khmer) is written with a slightly different version of the alphabet, similar to Muol script but less ornate:

ពុ​ម្ព​អក្សរ​ខ្មែរ​អូអេស​មូល​បាលី
(pum aksââ khmae ou eeh muul baalii)
Khmer OS Muol Bali Font

Take note especially of the three-legged ក​ in អក្សរ​ , which is one of the distinguishing features of this script.

បារាំង​ពូកែ​និយាយ​ភាសា​ខ្មែរ !

Khmer is obviously far from being the most popular Asian language among white people. That’s not to say *nobody* is learning it. Take a look at some of the clever (ពូកែ puukae) white Khmer speakers on youtube:

Jimmy Joe, who not only speaks Khmer, but sings karaoke and dances in a sarong!

ប្រុស​បារាំង​ (Proh Baraŋ) and ស្រី​ខ្មែរ ​(Srәy Khmae)
(proh – generic title for males, srəy – for females)
(baraŋ – French/European)

គេ​ស្មាន​បង​ខ្ទើយ (kee smaan bââŋ khtəəy) – they think Bong is gay
-អត់​ទេ​ បង​មិន​ខ្ទើយ​ មើល​សាច់​ដុំ​មើល​ មើល​សាច់​ធំ ! (ât tee, bââŋ mın khtəəy, məəl sacdom məəl, məəl sac thom!) no, Bong is not gay, look at the muscles, look at the big muscles!

Some white guy with singer ខាត់​សុខឃីម​ (Khat Sokhim)

And last but not least, the Khmer teacher himself, Frank Smith, with some former students: