A NEW KHMER PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY

INTRODUCTION
About Khmer Pronunciation
- Standard Khmer and Phnom Penh Dialect
A standard language is generally based on a given dialect and can be defined through
the contexts it is going to be used: Media, education .
Nowadays in Cambodia, Standard Khmer can be more or less assimilated to the Phnom
Penh dialect. It is nevertheless not entirely identical to Phnom Penh dialect, as spoken Phnom
Penh language display a number of features that are very often seen as opposed to Standard
Khmer.
Moreover, due to the circumstances of modern Cambodian history, the Phnom Penh
population cant be seen as stable as people who are living in Phnom Penh Nowadays are, for
most of them, coming from the countryside.
Various past analysis
The descriptive documents at our disposal to describe Khmer language are various texts
published at the time of the French protectorate and later, generally till 1975. Nothing
significant has been written afterwards, mainly due to political turmoil that characterized
Cambodian political life.
The numbers of descriptions we have at our disposal are very dependent on 2 facts:

1, the informant (chosen by the linguist). Most of the time and contrary to the
current main trends in linguistics, the descriptions were generally based on a very
small number of informants, very often only one informant. Variation hadnt
become yet a part of linguistic research.
2, the very nature of Phonetics theory at the time of the description. A description,
or as far as a dictionary is concerned, a transcription is very often highly dependent
on the stage of advancement of the Phonetic theory.
We can thus compare a number of modern descriptions:

One of the most famous in Cambodia is Khuon Sokhampus doctorate thesis. Khuon
Sokhampu was visibly trained in French and that was not uncommon even after Cambodia had
got its independence. The symbols Khuon Sokhampu uses to describe Khmer language are
vowel signs generally used to describe French vowels. For instance, Khuon Sokhampu uses the
following symbols [][][][] to transcribe Khmer central vowels. These symbols are in fact
Front labialized French vowels that are different from the Khmer central vowels [] [] [].
This simply amounts to say that Khuon Sokhampu had a vision of Khmer Phonetics
that was strongly influence by the description of French language.
Before Khuon Sokhampu, another highly emblematic description was HENDERSONs.
The main problem with Hendersons description is that it does not describe Khmer language
spoken in her time (1952), but a variety of Khmer which is obviously linked with diachronic
analysis of Khmer language. In other terms, it means that what Henderson described was
certainly closer to Khmer language spoken in the 14th century and this is well shown by the
presence of a phonological opposition: Breathy voice register vs modal voice register.
Another famous description is F. Huffmans. Huffmans description does not use IPA
symbols stricto sensu but a mixture of IPA and Traditional American Phonetics transcription.
Huffman description is in any case much more phonemic than Phonetics. For instance, as far as
the consonant clusters are transcribed, Huffman does not go deeper into Phonetics details and
does not mention in his transcription the small details between C 1 and C 2. Another interesting
point is Huffmans treatment of velar consonants [k] and *+: his transcription relies more on
the script than on the real pronunciation as he doesnt consider their palatalization after the
front vowels and open diphthongs.
Another point that shows the influence of the script is the use of the [] to transcribe
what is normally a central mid open vowel
Ex [tk+ *t]

Our Dictionary of Pronunciation strictly uses the symbols of the international

Phonetics alphabets and the analysis that led to our transcription, in short our transcription
principles, is based on the current Phonetics theory.
In sharp contrast with the 1960 phonetic analysis, one of the main features of current
Phonetics theory consists in a threefold approach of sound description:
A. Articulation, or the description of the various articulatory events between the
glottis and the lips

B. Phonation, or the description of the state and the shape of the glottis
C. Initiation, or the place the airflow comes from and its direction
This relatively new division of the phonetics analytic framework can partly explain the
various differences between our description and older approaches of Khmer Pronunciation. For
instance, as far as phonation is concerned, even if the theory of voice registers is not something
new as it can be traced back to H. Sweet (references), the study of voice registers became
systematic only in the mid 70.
To write a dictionary implies to gather material first. As far as Standard Khmer is
concerned in order to gather the material display in our dictionary we had to record our
informant in a number of formal contexts.
A. Reading of Isolated word
B. Reading of minimal pair
C. Recording of formal speech sequences ( for instance, a course delivered in the
University)
The various tables present our results.

(Table: consonants)

(Table: vowels)
If we compare our description and transcription with the previous one, we have to
emphasize a number of points:
A. The palatalization of the velar consonants after the front vowels. Contrary to
various approaches and to the script where velar consonants are noted, we consider that these
consonants are in fact palatal and should be transcribed as such.
B. The constraints operating within consonant clusters. There are 3 types of consonant
clusters in Standard Khmer:
The first type of consonant clusters in Standard Khmer C1+C2 = C1C2
C1= p t c k + C2= r h or C1 = s + C2 = p t k m n l r
The second type of consonant clusters in Standard Khmer C1 +C2 = C1C2
C1 = p t c k + C2 = p t c k m n j s
The third type of consonant clusters in Standard Khmer C1 +C2 = C1C2
C1= m l +C2=..
C1 =

+C2= b d

Even if the phonetic shape of each of them can be predicted, it is very interesting to
notice that the rules applying to Standard Khmer are very different from the various dialects.
(Take examples in Kampot dialect [phtah] > [ptah])
Another important point is that we did not limit our dictionary to standard
realizations. This is perfectly logical because the very term of standard implies precisely what
is not standard. That means that we recorded and transcribed many occurrences of nonstandard spoken Khmer and this led us to a very important question:
How can differences between standard and non-standard Khmer be stated? In other
words: when is a variety considered to be standard and when is it considered not to be
standard? This question is fundamental to describe spoken styles in modern Khmer
pronunciation.
It would be too long to quote all the different points that differentiate between
standard and non-standard Khmer. But two of them, they cannot remain:
A breathy voice register

This breathy voice register is of course transcribed according to the IPA convention: a
2 points subscript under the vowel. This breathy voice register, sometimes described as a tonal
realization, has been traditionally an important point in differentiating standard and Nonstandard Khmer.

Conclusion:
This dictionary is in no way a normative work. It means that the authors obviously do
not intend to explain people the way they should speak. It is only a descriptive work. Our
ambition here was simply to give an account of modern standard Khmer Pronunciation with, of
course, the Non-standard variants. A last important point the dictionary reveals that standard is
more or less equivalent to the current Phnom Penh dialect.