Khamerican life: BACKGROUND

Khamerican life: BACKGROUND
rana-cambodia.blogspot.com

Some Cambodian idioms

As I said in the introduction I have found rural life in Cambodia to be full of colorful idiomatic usage.

One of the problems one always encounters is finding a satisfactory phonetic language to transliterate Khmer into English. There is simply no way outside of the international phonetic alphabet, which almost no one knows. My offerings are primarily for speakers of Cambodian, who will immediately recognize both the deficiencies and the goal. For non speakers the translation will have to suffice.

ot krup teuk, "not enough water" This phrase generally refers to plants that are not completely whole or are mal-formed in some way due to a deficiency of water. With people however, the phrase means "stupid". For example: samrai otkrupteuk- stupid hillbilly.

Meul neaknaamuey doch kbai meul turatua. To look stupidly with total non comprehension at some body or something. Literally "to look at someone like a water buffalo looking at television.

There are also many idioms dealing, not surprisingly, with poverty. One of my favorites,
rosi ban m'ke, m'ke refers to a bird's crop. "To earn a lving from one crop to the next. Here, again, crop does not mean harvest. To live from one day to the next or to scratch out a living.

Toat kchhawl- "to kick the wind" to be unemployed

tweer kaa peak kandaal kuot- to work half assed, ""to work with the shirt covering only half of the ass.

BACKGROUND

I'm an American who has been living in Cambodia for years. Not in the big city living with foreigners, but in the countryside with my Cambodian wife and neighbors. As a consequence, I've learned some of the language and I've found a reservoir of humor and intelligence in their language that has irresistibly drawn me to know even more.

It is my hope that others will add to this blog site. Please understand I am interested in all facets of the language, if you're an overseas Cambodian and your hip-hop songs are a mixture of Cambodian and a second language, send it to me. I may not print everything, but I promise not to be "snotty"or squeamish."

Poems and short stories are also welcome, especially ones in which there is interaction between foreigners and Cambodians. Although expat/bar girl stories fall into this category, I' m not really interested in them, Khmer440.com already offers a forum for them.