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Ethno-linguistic studies,
An ethno-linguistic atlas
of Cambodia

     The conception of the project has developed from an empirical consideration: very little is known about the dialects of the Khmer language on Cambodian territory. Various surveys conducted in the neighbourhood of Cambodia have led to substantial results, but, so far as the Kingdom of Cambodia is concerned, most of the lexical and phonological descriptions refer to a rather abstract "Khmer language". But, while not denying the quality of these descriptions, it is obvious that the very nature of their theoretical framework rules out any kind of "variationist" approach. This situation can be easily understood if you consider the development of dialectology over the past century. After an initial, fruitful period, characterized by the production of the first linguistic atlases, dialectology entered a dark one, as its methodology and results could not be fitted into the then-dominating trends in linguistic analyses. Since the late sixties, there has been a renewal of variationist studies, and it can be said, without exaggeration, that the analysis of variations in speech and language now constitutes, among other fields of linguistic science, a major part of linguistic research. The Cambodian language has not to date benefited from that renewal.

     The decision to compile a linguistic atlas of the Khmer language in Cambodia was taken first by the Linguistic Society of the Royal University of Phnom Penh, and then by the newly created Department of Linguistics. That decision led to various micro surveys

• Two surveys in seven villages in Prey Veng Province .
• Five surveys in the Saang District.
• Five surveys in the Saang District.
• One survey in Kampong Spoeu Province .
• Two surveys in Kampot Province .
• One survey in Siem Reap Province

     Those different surveys led to two kinds of conclusion. On the one hand, it allowed us to establish parameters of analysis, and descriptive procedures linked to them. One of the main problems in dialectology is to display in a discrete way elements that naturally form part of a continuum. This problem was partly solved in the following ways:

• Establishing criteria to select different places of inquiry.
• Defining inquiry procedures.
• Corpus.
• Linguistic fields to be taken in consideration.
• Displaying data.

     On the other hand, it soon appeared that the sectorial character of the surveys was a serious handicap: by definition, a micro survey offers no means of comparison. Micro surveys can be really useful once the traditional dialects have been described and displayed in an extensive way. That was the case in Europe , America and Japan , it is by no means the case in Cambodia .

     The project aims at describing the spatial variation of the Khmer language spoken in Cambodia in order to display the data in the form of a traditional linguistic atlas:

• Lexical variation will be displayed by using one page per lexical item, each difference being shown through a categorical symbol. More than 2000 items are the object of the survey.
• Phonological variation will be displayed in the same way as lexical variation, i.e. by selecting a number of items (800) and displaying them through categorical symbols.
• An original aspect of this linguistic atlas will be the treatment of phonetic variation, the display of which being a more complicated question.

On pure linguistic grounds, the interest of a language atlas is obvious. For instance:

• It allows the linguist to moderate his natural structural assumptions by taking into account the way language changes in space.
• It will help the historian of the Khmer language test various hypotheses related to language change.
• Specialists in Khmer language planning lack a serious instrument that helps them promote a language norm in a non-too-arbitrary way.
• Recently published bilingual dictionaries show a trend to use Khmer dialectal terms from Thailand and Vietnam , it would not be irrelevant to use regional Khmer words in a dictionary as well.

 

     On other grounds, although it is a linguistic discipline, dialectology also shares a lot with cognate disciplines: geography, ethnography, sociology, history, epigraphy, archaeology, etc. The linguistic atlas will constitute a data bank for specialists in social research in Cambodia . Nowadays, social sciences make extensive use of correlations, and, from this point of view, the study of linguistic variation can be of invaluable help, as a few examples will show:

• The geographer will have a tool to correlate his personal data relating to the nature of the soils, animal and plant production, country morphology, etc with the linguistic structuration of a given space. He will also be able to test in Cambodia hypotheses linked to geographical diffusion, which approach has proved extremely valuable in Sweden and England .
• The historian, whether a specialist in ancient or modern Cambodia , will likewise be able to compare his own data with the linguistic structuration of Cambodian space. For instance, are limits established long ago still linguistically relevant? Can the linguistic treatment of space be relevant in checking an historical hypothesis linked to the origin of Khmer people?
• From a strict dialectological point of view, prior to any correlation, the processing of collected data often highlights limits that would otherwise be left unseen. For instance, the divergence of two isoglosses in Siem Reap Province near the temple of Banteay Samre highlights a traditional phenomenon already analyzed under the name of "Rhenan fan" which denoted a linguistically ancient area.

 

    These examples could be multiplied. It is worth noticing in the case of Cambodia that there has thus far been no real study of Khmer language variation and that such a survey, displayed in the rational form of a linguistic atlas, would be a great help to anyone concerned with any aspect of the social sciences linked to Cambodia .

 

A grammar
of contemporary Khmer

     While research on epigraphy, philology and historical grammar has never been interrupted, and is being pursued both in Cambodia and abroad, there is no systematic research being done on the contemporary Khmer language at university level.
      By "systematic research", we mean a set of studies carried out by scholars within the framework of one or several linguistic schools in order to produce a comprehensive description of the contemporary Khmer language. We do not currently have the necessary basis for us to produce a descriptive grammar of contemporary Khmer from a synchronic point of view.
      In order to achieve this purpose it would be necessary to set up a team of Khmer and foreign researchers able to carry out studies on all aspect of the language, such as defining and characterizing the main categories of words and morphemes from the syntactic and semantic points of view.
      We are not concerned here with textbooks dealing with such matters as the introduction to Khmer language and culture; such books do exist already, and most of them seem to us quite satisfactory.
      Our purpose is to elaborate a comprehensive grammar that will be an explicit description of the linguistic facts enabling linguists to become acquainted with linguistic data on Khmer and affording them the means to use Khmer data in either the field of general and applied linguistics or educational research. In other words, we are planning a grammar focusing on an explicit presentation of facts within a modern linguistics framework; this grammar could be used as a reference grammar of contemporary Khmer.

The "Phnom Penh Linguistic Society" is currently dealing with the following tasks:

Teaching students general and applied linguistics.

Supervising young researchers.

Producing papers describing the Khmer language as well as minority languages. These papers have been published in internationally recognised journals of linguistics.

All research is being done in collaboration with national or foreign scholars and is submitted for professional scrutiny.

Research is conducted with the collaboration of advanced students. Close collaboration between students and researchers has enabled us to establish a team of young Khmer researchers. Such a team is a necessity for the future of Khmer linguistics.

A descriptive grammar of contemporary Khmer.

I. The Khmer language and Southeast Asian languages.
II. Phonetics and phonology.
III. Dialectology.
IV. Morphology
      Derivation: Prefixation, infixation.
      Compounds: Compounds of Mon-Khmer origin, compounds of Sanskrit origin.
V. Syntax.
      Categories of words and phrases.
      Determiners of the noun.
      Quantification and classification.
      The category of adjectives in Khmer.
      Verbs: definition, verbal phrases, auxiliaries, serial verbs.
      Adverbs.
      Particles.
VI. The sentence and its parts.
      Independent phrases.
      Subordinates: causality, concession, etc.
VII. Study of the main grammatical Khmer markers from a syntactic and a semantic point of view.

     Although this grammar is based on a diversified set of approaches, it is nevertheless linked to the theoretical framework of the "linguistics of markers and enunciation".
     The following academics and researchers will be associated with this work: D Lebaud ( University of Franche-Comté , France ), JJ Franckel ( University of Paris X , France ), S Aoki ( University of Tsukuba , Japan ).

 

Cambodian Minorities
Languages and Cultures

The description of Pearic languages.

       The Pearic languages form a subgroup of the Mon-Khmer language family. Six Pearic languages are still used in Cambodia and Thailand . Owing to their small number of speakers, these languages and cultures are fast disappearing; some of them are nowadays used as a means of communication only sporadically. With the exception of the Chong spoken in Thailand , and the Sui spoken in the Cambodian Province of Kompong Spoeu, it is difficult therefore to write comprehensive linguistic descriptions of these languages. But it is still possible to describe their sound system and realization, and a significant part of their lexicon. Fieldwork sessions organized by the Linguistic Society of the Royal University of Phnom Penh began in 1999 to describe the Saoch language, which is spoken in one village in south eastern Cambodia , and the Poa language, which is spoken in three villages in northeastern Cambodia . The Sui language, which is spoken in five central Cambodian villages, has not been analysed yet. This program will take into account two more Pearic languages spoken in the Cardamom Mountains , an area about which very little is known, as most of this mountain chain is still unexplored.
      In spite of the small number of speakers, these languages and cultures have to be described and the descriptive data published.

• These fast-disappearing cultures are an endangered part of our human cultural heritage. Once extinct, nothing will remain of the Pearic languages and cultures, if no proper description takes place now.
• These languages possess exceptional phonetic peculiarities such as the combination of four voice registers in at least two of them.
• Through the reconstruction of the proto- Mon-Khmer language family, the description will make a major contribution to comparative linguistics, cultural anthropology, and the history of Southeast Asia .
• The Pearic languages borrowed many words from the neighboring languages, principally Khmer. These loanwords can help us a lot to understand the past of Southeast Asia through the analyzis of contacts and migrations.

 

Ethnography of Democratic
Kampuchea

Context

       Democratic Kampuchea (the Khmer Rouge period) has been the object of a number of books. Those studies are concerned with various topics, but the history of this period has not been written yet. Moreover, it cannot be conceived of in terms of traditional history-writing methodologies: this is due to the rarity of the written sources and to their monolithic and unilateral nature. The only relevant approach has to be based on the anthropological method. This task has to be immediately undertaken, because the remaining sources for that period consist of local communities and their memories. Although it is still possible to interview the remaining witnesses, it goes without saying that, contrary to the written sources, they are subject to the effects of time: witnesses and memories fade away.
       It is then urgent that data and information relating to the 1975-1979 period be collected by setting up a significant program of ethnographic enquiry. In this context, cultural anthropology has to serve historical goals.

This program has a double objective.
       It consists in systematically collecting precise and detailed information about the Democratic Kampuchea period from a synchronic and diachronic point of view. The data collected will be classified and archived into a proper data bank on the history of that period. Once it has become substantial in size, the data bank will be made available to researchers. This research will analyze all the topics necessary to reconstruct the sequence of events and the functioning of Cambodian society between 1975 and 1979. A better understanding of the history of Democratic Kampuchea will throw present-day events into greater relief and enable the difficulties linked to the country's reconstruction to be analyzed.

     This research project has another objective, too, namely to improve the research capabilities of young graduates from Cambodian universities. The research project will develop into a cultural- anthropology research training program and introduce students to:

	Research methodologies.
	Fieldwork.
	Analysis of results and writing up.
	Documentary classification and archiving techniques.

Program development.

1. Topics to analyze:

	Transplantation of people
	Food policy
	Religious practices
	Coercion in politics
	Power organization at different levels
	Relationships within the family
	Sexuality
	Agricultural work
	Industry in Phnom Penh

2. Data classification and electronic archiving.
3. Setting up a research team.
4. Student training.

Student selection

Training session 1: Cultural anthropology, history, research methodology.
Fieldwork.
Training session 2: analyzing, classifying, and archiving the collected data.
Training session 3: scientific-article writing techniques, research-dissertation writing techniques.

Necessary resources.

One researcher in cultural anthropology experienced in research and teaching.
Two research assistants who have graduated from Cambodian universities.
One archivist trained in advanced technology.
Data capture, recording, archiving, and photographic equipment.

Outcome.

Setting up a data bank on the Khmer Rouge period.
Training young researchers so that they can undertake scientific research on their own in the future.