Carolyn Balk
Trailblazer Foundation
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Not surprisingly, Khmer is a very hard language to learn. Surprisingly, it is one of the easiest Asian languages *not including Asian languages written in the Latin alphabet (ex. Indonesian, Malay)* to learn because it is not tonal, while Khmer is surrounded by languages that are tonal. What I find most difficult are not the sounds (the “ng” does not come naturally for me) but rather having to write the words in Roman letters to remember them, all the while knowing this is not how they are really written. One person, i.e. my textbook, might write the words one way, while I may write it another making it super confusing to flip through my notes and textbook simultaneously. Moreover, my teacher might say a word one day, I write it down, and then the next day he says it again and it sounds different. Or more commonly: two different words sound the same to me, and when I am finally told that I have said them differently enough to move on to a new word, I just think “What? I was saying the same thing!”
The back of my reading / writing book…..for first graders.
That all being said, some of the words in Khmer (or rather “pia-sa Khuhmy”) that I have learned so far are super interesting (for a language nerd like me) and frankly a few are hilarious. Being a former French colony, it is only natural that some French words entered the Khmer language, especially for things/ideas/actions etc. that did not exist previously in Khmer before the French. Other words just hammer down the fact that rice is an integral part of Cambodian life (although again, being a former French colony, baguettes are quite common as well. Some people I have met have a strict “non-western-food-diet,” but I welcome bread into my life.). Below are some true gems of the Khmer language:
Pia-sa onglei = English language
Pia-sa alamon = German language
Pia-sa espan = Spanish language
P’ly pom = fruit apple (get it? “pommes” is apple in French, too)
K’tim barang = onion, or translated literally, “the thing you chop that is French” (barang = French)
P’ly sau mau = rambutan, but really means hairy (as in, um, armpit hairy. They taste good I swear!)
K’lean bai = hungry, or rather, hungry for rice (rice = bai)
ñam bai = to eat rice. Although ñam is to eat and you can eat whatever you want, if someone is asking you if you are going to eat, he/she says “ñam bai.” See below for more ñam twists
bai peil prruk = breakfast, or rather, rice time morning
bai t’ngai trong = lunch, or literally, rice afternoon. Even more literally, “t’ngai trong” means “day straight” (noon– get it? with the sun?) and when giving directions, “trong” can signify to continue straight. Hence, lunch means: rice, continue with the day
bai peil yoop = dinner, or rather, rice time night
srrool = easy. Doesn’t that word just sound like it means easy? Because I always forget the word for hard yet remember this amazing word, I continuously say “not easy” rather than hard.
yoo yoo m’dong = once in a while. this is just a hilarious word, nothing else.
book-a-look = staff. again, just funny.
twerka = to work. like “werk” which cracks me up
Another interesting aspect of Khmer language is that some words, such at to eat, to go, and to sleep, change depending on who you are talking to. Talking about myself, or “simple people” as my teacher puts it, uses a different word than talking about the King or a monk. This derives from Pali, a language from India that was used in ancient Buddhist texts. Although no one speaks solely Pali anymore, it still wiggles its way into Khmer.
I might ñam bai, but the king, queen, prince, and princess so-y bai. A Buddhist nun / female monk can either peer-saw bai or baw-rit poh bai, but a male monk ch-han bai. Hun Sen, Cambodia’s authoritarian prime minister, baw-rit poh bai along with female monks. If I am from a village and there is a big ceremony at the pagoda, I hope rather than ñam. Ma-hope also means food in any case. My dog does not ñam bai but rather see bai, and saying that a human see bai is very rude and derogatory. I pointed out that if we spoke Khmer in the United States, we might say that dogs also ñam because dogs in the U.S. are treated as if they are part of the family. When I told my teacher that my dog often will sleep in my bed with me, he was horrified. I explained that dogs in the U.S. often stay inside and are kept very well, making this not uncommon.
Speaking of sleeping, I can kane or dayl, but a male monk sung and a female monk sum rahn. The king, queen, prince, and princess all praw-tumb. When I go somewhere, I tao, but a male monk nit mon tao, and a female monk can either twer dom na or cheng dom na. The king, queen, and prince can yee-ung, but only the prince and princess can nit man. I forgot to ask what animals do for going and sleeping, but can only assume it is yet another word. Luckily, I will likely only be talking to “simple people” and do not need to remember all of these words!