Vocabulary

One of my favourite things about learning a new language is what the vocabulary teaches me about the culture. We all know the story about the Inuits and their hundreds of words for snow. Well, the Khmers have at least that many pertaining to rain.

There's probably a single word for pedalling a cyclo
in the rain, but I haven't come across it yet.

As I learn to read Khmer, Meng introduces words which use certain letters or diacritical marks. Some of these words are obscure -- he chose them for their illustrative value -- but they are charming and evocative, nonetheless. Khmer has single words to express all of the following:

• to slip on a wet surface and fall flat, face-up
• wind-blown rain coming into the house
• the sound of footsteps walking in rain
• the sound of a falling raindrop

I'm sure there are many more rainy words, but these are the only ones I've encountered so far.

Khmer makes great use of onomatopoeia, or words that sound like what they represent.

Here, or over there?  Ort, ort, ort, ort....

ort - a hen looking for a place to lay an egg

ngek-nguk - childish  (reminds me of Curly in The Three Stooges)

ngeet-ngort - opening or closing a door (the sound of a creaky hinge)

nyeh-nyawh or meh-mawh - friendly teasing

ngeh-ngawh - to sound unwell  (go ahead, say it! Your sinuses will instantly sound clogged.)

go'awk - to cough


Most of all, though, I love the words that express something about the culture. It may be one word to express a complex idea -- something that would require a paragraph in English -- or it may simply be an endearing usage that expresses something unique about the Khmer lifestyle and values.

Saeng:  to carry a heavy object suspended from a pole which is carried by two people. 

lo-laa or vwaok-vwiak - to speak too loudly in public. It's so frowned upon that they have two words for it.
kooik - when applied to an inanimate object, like a moto or a computer, it means broken or not working. When applied to people, it means dead:  "My grandmother is not working today -- she's broken."
baing-jaik - this means both to organise, and to be wise, which suggests that the path to wisdom is an orderly one.
kong - refers to property that has gained value through years of good care, but it's also an invitation to a monk to sit inside your gates while you go to fetch rice and food for him. Is there a connection between the two definitions? Good maintenance and monks' blessings will increase your home's property value?  I don't know, but again, I love that one short word conveys so much.