One very frustrating experience for me has been trying to apply standard Cambodian in the few textbooks available with the Cambodian spoken in my rural village. The one, actually two words that had me stumped for a while were "pi naa"" which is usually and correctly translated by the prepositional phrase from where or where and invariably appears in the sentence, "Mao piinaa?" Where do you come from? or more colloquially where are you coming from? Just to confuse issues it is used in another way which has the same meaning as noonaa muey or neaknaa muey meaning who. But piinaa predominates in our village. Also, the word neung(usually meaning and)is also used at the end of a sentence to soften it or make it more polite. Thus the sentence Piinaa nau pteah neung is a polite way of asking who is at home.
From the textbook Cambodian I had read it was gibberish as in From where at home and..
A pronunciation variant here is either the dropping of the consonant R or replacing it with an H. This quite well know in the word krabai which is universally pronounced k'bai. Here are some more examples-
ku p'hian equals kru bangrian, hoap for roap(to count) and so on.

It is also found in names. Marie become Ma hi and Chanri is Chanhi.

Great. Nice one.

Thank you Samouth, I always appreciate the approbation of a native speaker. I also wrote it for foreigners in big cities, since there are many native rural speakers there, particularly in Phnom Penh. While I had trouble with it, I am certain that native Cambodian speakers experience none at all.

i actually have heard and now are using all what you wrote above. I also grew up in the rural area. Your level of understanding khmer is exceptionally great. You must speak fluent khmer don't you?

Username Taken wrote:

taabarang wrote:Thus the sentence Piinaa nau pteah neung is a polite way of asking who is at home.

In the above sentence, 'neung' would translate as 'this'. This house.

Just like in informal Khmer to ask 'What is this?' They could say 'Ay neung' or 'A'vay neung' អ្វីនិង

Perhaps Samouth could confirm.

In Khmer, The word នឹង​​ means (will), and និង means (and).
We also can say អានេះ or អានោះ for this or that. i.e, This gift is for Samout. So in Khmer we can say. A nis somrab Samouth or Amnouy nis somrab samout.

However the word 'neung' in above sentence doesn't mean this. Actually the sentence still make sense without nenug. It is like in English, you say 'well' before you say anything.

Quite simply if I am a house where we know each other it would be stupid to say this house, as if I did not know the owner. Besides in our village if I am at the house, I would say pteah nih, not pteah neung, but either way I would sound stupid since nau pteah removes any doubt of the house under consideration. You are confusing book Cambodian with village Cambodian. I know the problem well. Context is everything. But here is one other example which may be more to your liking.

For instance if I hear someone outside of my house aat night, I may inquire Piinaa neung? It means who is it ((please) not who is that who.

Another and common example of consonant substitution is pam for pram and I have heard many different pronunciations of that word. So, pam riel means $5 not five riels. But you knew that.


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taabarang wrote:One very frustrating experience for me has been trying to apply standard Cambodian in the few textbooks available with the Cambodian spoken in my rural village. The one, actually two words that had me stumped for a while were "pi naa"" which is usually and correctly translated by the prepositional phrase from where or where and invariably appears in the sentence, "Mao piinaa?" Where do you come from? or more colloquially where are you coming from? Just to confuse issues it is used in another way which has the same meaning as noonaa muey or neaknaa muey meaning who. But piinaa predominates in our village. Also, the word neung(usually meaning and)is also used at the end of a sentence to soften it or make it more polite. Thus the sentence Piinaa nau pteah neung is a polite way of asking who is at home.
From the textbook Cambodian I had read it was gibberish as in From where at home and..
A pronunciation variant here is either the dropping of the consonant R or replacing it with an H. This quite well know in the word krabai which is universally pronounced k'bai. Here are some more examples-
ku p'hian equals kru bangrian, hoap for roap(to count) and so on.

It is also found in names. Marie become Ma hi and Chanri is Chanhi.

Great! I very appreciate you

It is very gratifying to find more Khmer contributing to this forum and especially this thread. Keep it up!

Username Taken wrote:

taabarang wrote:Thus the sentence Piinaa nau pteah neung is a polite way of asking who is at home.

In the above sentence, 'neung' would translate as 'this'. This house.

Just like in informal Khmer to ask 'What is this?' They could say 'Ay neung' or 'A'vay neung' អ្វីនិង

Perhaps Samouth could confirm.

Neung=និង and, នឹង (will),ហ្នឹង
ហ្នឹង Sometimes mean this or here but sometimes no meaning and we can omit it.
Here is example
អីហ្នឹង? អ្វីហ្នឹង?= what is this?
ទៅណាហ្នឹង? Where do you go? Where are you going?
កន្លែងហ្នឹង here/this place
អង្គុយហ្នឹង!sit here
ធ្វើអីហ្នឹង?what are you doing?
ហ្នឹងហើយ!of course!