Freightdog's very own translation thread...

Have questions or resources regarding Khmer Culture? This forum is all about the Kingdom of Cambodia's culture. Khmer language, Cambodian weddings, French influence, Cambodian architecture, Cambodian politics, Khmer customs, etc? This is the place. Living in Cambodia can cause you to experience a whole new level of culture shock, so feel free to talk about all things related to the Khmer people, and their traditions. And if you want something in Khmer script translated into English, you will probably find what you need.
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Re: Freightdog's very own translation thread...

Post by Jamie_Lambo »

StroppyChops wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 2:44 pm After all, doth thee now speaketh in King James? Is "owned" still "owned"?
Haha depends where ya from, im from the Five Boroughs of Danelaw and around here and south yorkshire we still speak the language of old! :D

Thy, Thee, Thou, Tha, Thissun, Thattun, Yourns, Youns, Ourns, Ye, Mi, Yesen, Mesen is all common tongue
you might find this a good read... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Midlands_English
The Eastern English Midlands were incorporated in the Norse-controlled Danelaw in the late 9th century by Ivar the Boneless. With their conquest, the county towns of the East Midlands counties were converted into fortified, Viking city-states, known as the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw. The region's dialect owes much of its grammar and vocabulary to the Nordic influences of its conquerors. For example, the East Midlands verb to scraight ('to cry') is thought to be derived from the Norse, skrike in modern Scandinavian, also meaning to cry....

"Ey up" (often spelt ayup / eyup) is a greeting thought to be of Old Norse origin (se upp) used widely throughout the North Midlands, North Staffordshire and Yorkshire, and "m' Duck" is thought to be derived from a respectful Anglo Saxon form of address, "Duka" (literally "duke"), and is unrelated to waterfowl.[6] [n 2] Non-natives of the East Midlands and North Staffordshire are often surprised to hear men greet each other as "M' Duck"....

The greeting 'now then' (as 'Nah theen') is still in use in Lincolnshire and North-East Derbyshire, used where other people might say "Hello".
example... lol
:tophat: Mean Dtuk Mean Trei, Mean Loy Mean Srey
Punchy McShortstacks School of Hard Knocks :x
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Re: Freightdog's very own translation thread...

Post by Jamie_Lambo »

Kammekor wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 10:07 am
Barang chgout wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 6:25 am
superferret wrote:StroppyChops, the reason you can't hear the difference between these words is probably because you come from an English background. I come from a European language background and I can distinguish these very clearly, since our languages train us to perceive these small differences in vowel sounds. English doesn't. This has nothing to do with tonality, and khmer is not a tonal language, that said every language has a tonal rhythm to it, like statements vs questions, emphasis on parts of words, etc. The problem with Khmer as already mentioned is that spoken formed is a highly different dialect, and especially PP dialect. You can learn to distinguish these wovels, you just need to spend enough time with it. Regarding this, it's interesting that the khmers have a vowel between "o" as in "no" and "a" as in "Walter", since this sound doesn't exist in my language I have difficulty producing it, though I do perceive it.

The other things is spoken khmer has a lot of liberty in changing vowels sounds according to the mood of the speaker. This is a feature not found in Western languages. Like a simple example, you can either say "Loy" or "Looy" for money, to me those are completely different vowels, still khmers interchange them all the time.
Loy...money.
Looy......good.
As in that new car is looy mes !

Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk
I am pretty sure those words are pronounced differently. Money I would spell luy in English and the word 'good' in the way you mean it I would pronounce as lowy. It has more an o sound than an oo (u) sound and it has a much stronger w sound before the y.
there isnt a great deal in it tbh one is លុយ (Luy) the one everyone knows for money and the other is ឡូយ (Louy written as Loy) for someone unfamiliar with all the vowel sounds it would sound pretty identical, without context it would be difficult to pick out regardless...
heres some examples for people to try listen, this is (Louy) not the one meaning money...

bit clearer in this one...


i think the word is a bit slangy, Loy how people use it it means like good/cool, but the word itself translates into English more accurately as "arrogant"
:tophat: Mean Dtuk Mean Trei, Mean Loy Mean Srey
Punchy McShortstacks School of Hard Knocks :x
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Re: Freightdog's very own translation thread...

Post by Jamie_Lambo »

superferret wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 9:57 pm
StroppyChops wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 2:44 pm In spoken form (in my lived experience) especially in the city, the vowel distinction is typically not obvious (at least to my ears) and that in that particular word cluster sounds are (to my ears) separated mostly by a tonal difference - note here that tonal variation is produced by moving the centre of sound production back and forward along the mouth, nose, throat region of the respiratory system. Remember that there are different forms of spoken/understood Khmer, north vs south, city vs province, old vs new/young. What I experience most is urban slang or informal, and (for example) when I've asked to buy salt, one person had understood me clearly and another has argued that I wanted a light bulb - and the two have then had a longer conversation on which is the correct pronunciation. This often becomes a group discussion, with people NOW stressing the vowel distinctions to make their points.
This is very true, but I don't believe tonality is the explanation. A lot of low educated khmer don't even know what the exact words are, so you could easily get people from the country who say salt and lightbulb exactly the same, and don't even know it's supposed to be different. A shopkeeper selling lightbulbs will just know a lot of khmer pronounce it the same way as salt, and in fact over time pronouncing it like salt could become a valid pronunciation for lightbulb.
My low educated khmer friends regularly pronounce even the same words differently, on some days they'll say "chwaa" for monkey on other days they might say "Svaa".
They also regularly pronounce words that educated khmers pronunce with a certain consonant using a different consonant "sosei" "tasei" to write, etc. As for vowels, they pronounce certain ones all over the place. Khmer has a lot more flexibility and disparity among speakers than we're used to. If you find a pattern of tonality in Khmer, and can prove it has tonal elements that would be of interest to linguists, but it could also just be a few individuals using tonality to signal their word is not standard or something like that.
some words have different similar ways to spell the same thing, an easy example is បុរស - Boras and ប្រុស - Bros, both mean exactly the same thing and are variants of the same word for "Man/Male", maybe the words you hear are similar, there are many like it, some are older words some might be newer ways of spelling/pronouncing or some might be more formal variants
:tophat: Mean Dtuk Mean Trei, Mean Loy Mean Srey
Punchy McShortstacks School of Hard Knocks :x
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Re: Freightdog's very own translation thread...

Post by armchairlawyer »

Jamie_Lambo wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 7:33 pm
true but you wouldnt class English a tonal language just because people pronounce things differently,
in English we have words like Where/Wear/We're/Were which all sound and spelt similar like your words, and you would struggle hearing the difference depending on your location, but changing the tone of how you say them doesnt change the word meaning, the same as for your example, they may sound similar and are spelt similar, but changing the tone wont change the meaning of the word
How about the English word 'quite'?
As an adjective it can either mean 'very' or 'a little bit' depending on the tone.
For example, "the food was quite amazing" (the word quite spoken short and clipped and the tone is high but flat)
Or, "the food was quite good" (the word quite spoken long and falling tone).
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Re: Freightdog's very own translation thread...

Post by Username Taken »

Quite is an adverb, so it depends on the adjective that it's describing. Quite amazing. Quite good.
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Re: Freightdog's very own translation thread...

Post by cautious colin »

Jamie_Lambo wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 11:37 pm some are older words some might be newer ways of spelling/pronouncing or some might be more formal variants
This is the part I find hard. Just asked someone how to pronounce sugar cane and the first 'am' was barely noticeable to me, so sounded like pumpkin.

Same with numbers when the 'bram' all but disappears into into 'm' or even just a space. In the same way a Yorkshire-man treats 'the'

In English you shorten words by leaving off the end but here it seems to be the other way.
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Re: Freightdog's very own translation thread...

Post by Jamie_Lambo »

cautious colin wrote: Thu May 31, 2018 1:02 pm
Jamie_Lambo wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 11:37 pm some are older words some might be newer ways of spelling/pronouncing or some might be more formal variants
This is the part I find hard. Just asked someone how to pronounce sugar cane and the first 'am' was barely noticeable to me, so sounded like pumpkin.

Same with numbers when the 'bram' all but disappears into into 'm' or even just a space. In the same way a Yorkshire-man treats 'the'

In English you shorten words by leaving off the end but here it seems to be the other way.
:thumb:
yeah ive often related the Khmer Language to Northern English, the way we merge words and shorten them etc..
eg. Mouy Neak = M'neak, the letter H isnt that existent where im from,
theres a common phrase "A'ya Gorra Wi'ya" what actually means "Have you got her with you" but because we dont pronounce the H thats how it sounds
:tophat: Mean Dtuk Mean Trei, Mean Loy Mean Srey
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Re: Freightdog's very own translation thread...

Post by taabarang »

Without going into detail some language learners here are confusing tonality and intonation.
As my old Cajun bait seller used to say, "I opes you luck.
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Re: Freightdog's very own translation thread...

Post by that genius »

Christ, there's no hope for me. I can understand every word of that.
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Re: Freightdog's very own translation thread...

Post by StroppyChops »

taabarang wrote: Thu May 31, 2018 1:25 pm Without going into detail some language learners here are confusing tonality and intonation.
You're aware that there's a grey area in between the two, right?

Pitch-accent is a third factor along with tone and intonation, and the three factors are not as distinct as you might think.
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