Khmer Translation Service

Unlike the languages spoken by some of its Southeast Asian neighbours, the Khmer language does not employ tones. Because it is not a tonal language, Khmer does not have special intonations of words to alter the meaning of the words.

It is an extremely vowel-rich language. An example will be the usage of different social registers with the Khmer language, which will be for informal speech, polite speech, speaking to or about royals or monks. There are also different verbs and pronouns in each register – one slight error could make you sound rude and offensive!

The notable absence of verb conjugations, gender inflections, different endings for single and plural, and no different endings for masculine and feminine makes Khmer translation all the more challenging.

There is no official method for the transcription of Khmer letters. As such, you will find that both words and names of places can be written differently depending on the author- e.g. ‘Hello‘ in Khmer can be written ‘sues’day‘, ‘sour s’day‘, ‘sour s’dei‘ etc.

All of those mentioned above are merely a drop in the ocean.

There are many more things to consider than just getting someone who knows Khmer to handle translation into English and from Khmer.

ABOUT THE KHMER: THE CAMBODIAN LANGUAGE

Spoken by about an estimated 12.6 million people across the globe, the Cambodian language which is also known as Khmer or the Mon-Khmer language, is the second most spoken Austroasiatic language in the world, after Vietnamese. Speakers of Khmer also live in the bordering countries Viêt Nam and Thailand and the wide use of the Khmer language is also evident with the large expatriate Khmer communities in Canada, China, France, the US, and Laos. There are many other languages spoken in Cambodia but Khmer is by far the most popular language in Cambodia spoken by 90% of the population.

The Khmer language, influenced by many languages including Thai and Vietnamese overtime, is written in a script derived from the roots of Sanskrit and Pali. The Khmer alphabet closely resembles the Thai and Lao alphabets. There are symbols for thirty-three consonants, twenty-four dependent vowels, twelve independent vowels, and several diacritics for the language itself.

As a result of centuries of linguistic and cultural interaction and their shared faith in Theravada Buddhism, the Cambodian language shares many features and some vocabulary with Thai. During French colonial hegemony, many French loanwords entered the language and the rapid growth of international trade and tourism over the last few years has led to an increasing number of English words being used.

Hence, if you are looking to go global with your products and services, communicating in Khmer is definitely important. The influence of the Khmer language cannot be undermined, especially in its use in the media, government administration, and education.

Here is a fun fact about the Khmer language: According to Guinness World Records, do you know that this is the language with the most number of letters?! Hence, if you are looking to pick up the language, be warned and be prepared as you will need to memorize more than 2,000 characters just to read a Cambodian newspaper!

CAMBODIA: ONE OF THE FASTEST GROWING ECONOMIES IN AISA

With a population of more than 16 million, the Kingdom of Cambodia is the world’s 70^th most populous country. The once-mighty Khmer Empire, the country was colonized by the French in the 19^th century. After its independence in 1853, Cambodia plunged into a civil war in 1970 as it suffered under the Khmer Rouge. Only in 1993, after an UN-sponsored election, did the country see some signs of normalcy.

Today, Cambodia relies heavily on textiles and tourism as its main source of income.

According to the Asian Development Bank’s Asian Development Outlook 2016, Cambodia has one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia. The country embraces the ‘factory Asia’ model of economic growth involving usage of its large supply of inexpensive labour – which attracted foreign investments for businesses. Hence, the importance of the Cambodian economy and the Cambodian language cannot be further emphasized.

YOUR BEST CHOICE FOR PROFESSIONAL KHMER TRANSLATION