Khmer: Languages of Southeast Asia

Alexander Arguelles presents an introductory overview of the Khmer language, evaluates methods for studying it, and offers to make Skype contacts between Khmer teachers and English speaking students who would like free lessons in exchange for conversational practice. This film is the fifth in a series about the languages of Southeast Asia. For further information: http://foreignlanguageexpertise.com

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Khmer
• Cambodian
• Languages
• of
• Southeast
• Asia
• polyglottery
• foreign
• languages
• language
• learning
• polyglots
• linguistics
• study
• strategies
• methods

[Rajasen06]

Alexander..!! the two guys on your right are Chinese descendent And the guy in red on your left is pure Khmer. Cheers for your interests in Khmer language but there more researches for you and I to do...Lol.

[Rajasen06]

continue... There were phases of changes in Khmer Language from ancient Angkor to today. These evidence can be still studied and trace back to Khmer people who are still speaking Khmer in the former Khmer's provinces in Vietnam and Thailand. They still speak some traditional Khmer vocabularies and accent. But due to the introduction of some new vowels in modern Khmer language and consonants shift in some words, central Khmers sound slightly different to Northern Khmer.

[Rajasen06]

Continue... but the same bloodline. The Montagnards are the aboriginal of Cambodia, the Mons,Kuys, Samres, Stiengs, Sa'ohjs, Pnongs, Tumpoans etc. These tribes were the main tribal groups which later formed the Khmer Empire. When Indian scholars and traders arrived in Cambodia the new language and culture was formed- the amalgamation of the local tribe's cultures and languages to form the immaculate Khmer language and culture.

[Rajasen06]

Alex you should do more research on Khmer race and language...!! I don't agree to with your view that the Khmer language belongs to Vietnamese language family. There are fewer words which share the same meaning but the same case of countries in the world who share borders. Khmer belongs to Mon-Khmer family. The Mon language must have been the dominant language of ancient Khmer tribal groups-The Montagnards. In all the Montagnards itself there tribes who share similar tribal traditions.

[yueluo2000]

@khmerAZNet: I agree, there should be mistake, Vietnamese speak more like to Thai than Khmer, with more tonal language.

[khmerAZNet]

I was surprise too that they classify Vietnamese in Monkhmer language group. anyways for me sometimes Khmer sound mostly like Thai but little sometime sound like viet. And Thai too in there music thier language sound so nice but Thai people at market talk like viet too . At the end of the day we Asian so of course our language is different but can sound similar too.

[nneuhaus84]

@tofoodood Vietnam actually did not have it's OWN writing before they used the latin script, to help you out here. What they used was called chu nom, which is a modified chinese script. It was modified for use with vietnamese, just like the latin alphabet was, neither being "their own".

[MrTheara2010]

Hello, the 3 khmer languagges expert, don u feel and humiliated to post this lame video on youtube! Most of know so little about khmer language and its origin! Kmas ke klang nas!

[tofoodood]

@nneuhaus84 Viet Nam used to have its own writing and now it is using Latin alphabet.

[nneuhaus84]

@Toppixxmusic I honestly disagree with the contemporary belief that Vietnamese is more related to austroasiatic than sinotibetan languages. morphology, phonology, and phonetics might point to this "theory" however some times over analyzing can lead one astray. Although possibly due to sprachbund, vietnamese has as much as 60% sino based vocab as well as shared tones which sound closer to chinese tones. As a speaker of vietnamese and hearing a lot of chinese and khmer regularly... it cant be so