Usable Khymer Language
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taabarang
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Re: Usable Khymer Language
"Maybe some people dont speak Khmer well."
There is NO doubt in my mind you belong to that group.
There is NO doubt in my mind you belong to that group.
As my old Cajun bait seller used to say, "I opes you luck.
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khmerhamster
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Re: Usable Khymer Language
If we are being honest, I think there are plenty of us in that group.taabarang wrote:"Maybe some people dont speak Khmer well."
There is NO doubt in my mind you belong to that group.
Despite what sycophantic locals like to tell us!
Re: Usable Khymer Language
I will explain another example.
Phnom Penh ends with the same ញ.
If you listen to Cambodians there is a definite ny sound at the end.
If you were to write the sounds in English, you would write Pnom Peny.
However, people would then pronounce it Pnom Penny, the same as the old coin, which would be wrong.
So to get the closest sound, you would write it Pnom Pen, but people would pronounce it a little different from Cambodians.
The French put h's in, which are silent, at least when English speakers read it.
That is probably why the French spell it nh.
Phnom Penh ends with the same ញ.
If you listen to Cambodians there is a definite ny sound at the end.
If you were to write the sounds in English, you would write Pnom Peny.
However, people would then pronounce it Pnom Penny, the same as the old coin, which would be wrong.
So to get the closest sound, you would write it Pnom Pen, but people would pronounce it a little different from Cambodians.
The French put h's in, which are silent, at least when English speakers read it.
That is probably why the French spell it nh.
## I thought I knew all the answers, but they changed all the questions. ##
Re: Usable Khymer Language
I am not here to have a competition about who speaks Khmer the best. I am just sharing information which may help some new users.
## I thought I knew all the answers, but they changed all the questions. ##
Re: Usable Khymer Language
Whether it's from the French or not is no issue, the issue is there is consensus all around Cambodia the ញ becomes a nh. If you want to write it as a ny go ahead, but then you are not following the conventions.
Kammekor wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 10:24 am For instance the name បញ្ញា is converted into Panha using the official conversion rules, where I would convert it to Panja because in my language an h is never pronounced as a j-sound. When I had to translate my kids birth certificate at the MoFA a few years ago I needed quite some (monetary) persuasion to convince the officer at the MoFA to not use the official conversion table but instead convert បញ្ញា to Panja.
It's funny you can pronounce my kid's name clearer than me.
But there is no u in បញ្ញា. See Jamie's other post, this is the same issue.
Ask who? Who are 'they'? Again, in Cambodia there's consensus over how to converse the Khmer script into Latin script. There are conversion tables.
Accent has nothing to do with it. A certain combination of letters creates a certain sound. It's the fact you are not aware of the conversion rules that creates the confusion, not your accent or your mothertongue. You convert បញ្ញា to Bunya, where the official conversion is Panha. You create your own confusion by converting an a to an u for instance.
Learning the Khmer alphabet is difficult, don't pretend it's a five minute job. In primary it takes nearly a full year to learn the alphabet and create simple words. The whole structure of the Khmer language with two groups of consonants, the rules about multiple consonants, the lack of spacing between words, etc etc makes learning to read and write Khmer a very complicated task. My kid learns both Dutch and Khmer, and learning to read and write Dutch is much easier to learn than Khmer.
And yes, being able to read and write adds refinement to your pronunciation, but it's not needed. I could perfectly make myself clear in Khmer before I was able to read or write, and all my teacher used was Khmer words converted into Latin script using consequent conversion rules. Even now when I read a Khmer word it takes me relatively a long time to read it, I sometimes wonder if it was worth the effort.
Re: Usable Khymer Language
I agree, the way I pronounce something depends on the language (or accent) I read it in. The letter "j" is a good example, a Scandinavian would natively pronounce it like a soft "j", like "yoyo" ("You hannes"), while an English speaker pronounces it harder sounding "dj" like "jungle" ("Joe hannes").
This is why IPA was invented?
This is why IPA was invented?
Last edited by fax on Tue Jan 29, 2019 11:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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taabarang
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Re: Usable Khymer Language
explorer wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 11:39 am I will explain another example.
Phnom Penh ends with the same ញ.
If you listen to Cambodians there is a definite ny sound at the end.
If you were to write the sounds in English, you would write Pnom Peny.
However, people would then pronounce it Pnom Penny, the same as the old coin, which would be wrong.
So to get the closest sound, you would write it Pnom Pen, but people would pronounce it a little different from Cambodians.
The French put h's in, which are silent, at least when English speakers read it.
That is probably why the French spell it nh.
As my old Cajun bait seller used to say, "I opes you luck.
Re: Usable Khymer Language
If English speaking people use the French spelling, and understand how it is pronounced, that may work for them.
For example, if they know nh is pronounced ny, and they know ch is pronounced j, they may pronounce it ok.
There are some sounds you cant write in English.
## I thought I knew all the answers, but they changed all the questions. ##
Re: Usable Khymer Language
The h in the conversion from ញ to nh has nothing to do with a silent h. The reason they use nh instead of n is that the ញ has a different sound than the ន from 'bread' which is a n-sound.explorer wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 11:39 am I will explain another example.
Phnom Penh ends with the same ញ.
If you listen to Cambodians there is a definite ny sound at the end.
If you were to write the sounds in English, you would write Pnom Peny.
However, people would then pronounce it Pnom Penny, the same as the old coin, which would be wrong.
So to get the closest sound, you would write it Pnom Pen, but people would pronounce it a little different from Cambodians.
The French put h's in, which are silent, at least when English speakers read it.
That is probably why the French spell it nh.
There is a reason រាជធានីភ្នំពេញ is converted to Phnom Penh and not Pnom Pen, Pnoom Pen or even Nom Pen or something.
First of all the ph is used for another sound in the conversion than a p. The same for the nh at the end the points to another sound than the n.
If you know the conversion rules you can read Khmer in Latin and pronounce it correctly. You just have to be aware which combi of Latin letters relates to what sound. That might be confusing in the beginning, but it will save you months of studying the Khmer characters.
Re: Usable Khymer Language
Are the conversion rules available somewhere? Would be interesting to see. TIA
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