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Human Rights Resource Centre (for ASEAN) Rule of Law Conference and Film Screening Raffles Le Royal, Phnom Penh, 8-9 Oct. 2013
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30 years later
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Periodically, I see Facebook posts of a child or children striking a pose completely in the nude, oftentimes the photo taken by a relative thinking it's cute that the son or nephew or brother is posing in his birthday suit and the image should be shared with the world.
It may be correctly argued that this is part of Cambodian culture, as many children out of poverty run around without clothes anyway. Yes, but we do not take photos of them visibly nude and plaster them on the internet.
Also, culture changes and is subordinate to law.
It may be cultural, but it does not make it right or wise or healthy for children and society generally, particularly in light of the prevalence of child pornography, incest and social media and its multiplying public effect.
But here, cultural or not, it's criminal. - Theary, Phnom Penh, 6 Oct. 2013
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How I will landscape my home on land of brother's orchard... Sharing so you WILL duplicate and help transform Cambodia into a garden and fight against the ugly, destructive local mentality of concrete as beautiful (because erroneously associated with social upward mobility)
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The Phnom Penh Post | 26 Sept. 2013 Question: Where does the term and idea of "scapegoat" originate from?
Answer: The Judeo-Christian story of the Day of Atonement recorded in the Jewish Pentateuch (also part of the Christian Bible)'s book of LEVITICUS (chapter 16).
In editing and punctuating the Khmer version of the book of LEVITICUS (as with other books I edited/punctuated of the Khmer Bible), I consulted the people who are experts on the issue at hand, and one of them on the Khmer language issue was Dr. Phalkun Tan, the smartest Cambodian I know.
Here's an exchange of the process of consultation in determining the best Khmer word to use for "scapegoat":
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James Q. Wilson, Geoge L. Kelling, The Manhattan Institute The community level, disorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind of developmental sequence. Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighborhoods as in run -down ones. Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. (It has always been fun.) [...]
. . . "Often mistaken, never in doubt" -- PARTICULARLY for us Cambodians. With regards to the punctuation issue I've raising: Donna Alvermann, a language and literacy researcher at the University of Georgia, notes that in study after study, “students ignored correct textual information when it conflicted with their previously held concepts. On measures of free recall and recognition, the students consistently let their incorrect prior knowledge override incoming correct information.”
- TIME Magazine "Learning from Mistakes is Harder than We Think"
I am glad to see the growing and more confident use of commas -- even if yet baby steps. I've been side-tracked -- e.g. the current fury of election-related issues -- that I've not been able to finish the grammar/rules of punctuation book in Khmer I've been promising. - Theary, Phnom Penh, 9 Aug. 2013 . . .
(except in Cambodia) Do you know that we have 2 seminal history books on Cambodia by well-respected Cambodia historians translated into the Khmer language: HISTORY OF CAMBODIA by David Chandler and WHEN THE WAR WAS OVER by Elizabeth Becker. These are really the ONLY NOTEWORTHY, TRUSTED history books on Cambodia in the Cambodian language.
But I can tell you with great confidence: the local Cambodians, even with limited English, will prefer to read the English version than the Khmer, because the translation is not easily understandable. And these were translated by the best translators in the country.
THE MAIN PROBLEM: no punctuation (sufficient, proper, consistent) save the period.
- Theary C. Seng, Phnom Penh, 30 July 2013
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appointment of Ms. Theary C. Seng Phnom Penh, 13 June 2013
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Why Punctuation Matters: CLARITY!
"យើងនឹងឈ្នះ ហើយយើងនឹងផ្តល់អនាគតរបស់ប្រទេសជាតិយើងជូនប្រជារាស្រ្តយើងវិញ។" «យើង នឹងឈ្នះ, ហើយ យើង នឹងផ្តល់អនាគត របស់ ប្រទេសជាតិយើង ជូនប្រជារាស្រ្តយើងវិញ។» ឬ «យើង នឹងឈ្នះហើយ! យើង នឹងផ្តល់អនាគត របស់ ប្រទេសជាតិយើង ជូនប្រជារាស្រ្តយើងវិញ។»
The Cambodian EDUCATIONAL system NEEDS A COMPLETE OVERHAUL! Our history has been so fragmented with no documentary continuity (and/or limited passing on of stories from parents to children) that is why no one knows of punctuation.
Moreover, we need to do away with the KNEE-JERK DEFENSIVE REACTION without first thinking through what it is that we are saying.
For this runs contrary to what CRITICAL THINKING is all about.
We need to remember that our society learns by ROTE MEMORIZATION, which is just the repeating of statements. And if the statement is nonsense, than the nonsense is repeated over and over and over and over again, that everyone thinks it must be great wisdom!
- Theary C. Seng, Phnom Penh, 23 July 2013
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This is the vision when Cambodians currently read.
NO ONE can be made to enjoy reading if the mangled language frustrates and confuses them, giving them headaches from the burden and work of having to decipher and fight the printed page before they can get to the content. And here, the content is another layer of morass because of the messy or incorrect translation. And the above-mentioned barriers of reading haven't even factor in the deep trauma and social living conditions which inhibit reading...
This is the vision when Cambodians read with punctuation (as a consequence, use of punctuation automatically allows for more word spacing)
I deeply believe EVERY CAMBODIAN can be habituated to love to read if given INTERESTING reading materials, and WHEN THE LANGUAGE is cleaned up with correct, clear translation (if translated, which currently the majority of published materials are) AND with PROPER, CONSISTENT, SUFFICIENT PUNCTUATION.
Use punctuation so your mind can see with 20/20 vision.
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Khmer Grammar -- Punctuation
Click here for more authority, examples. rules of Khmer punctuation
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Why Punctuation? (And its development)
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Old vs. New books ("Spiritual Reading" by C. S. Lewis)
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The Country that Stopped Reading
Education through Imagination:
A Closed Mind is a Beautiful Thing to Lose
Theary C. Seng, June 2007
Read. Read. Read. A critical component of the development of the imagination is reading. We Khmers need to read, read, read and read some more. When we read, we prepare ourselves for any and all opportunities which otherwise would pass us by. The Chinese have it right it defining 'success' by combining the character for preparation (internal individually determined) with the character for opportunity (externally determined). The majority of Khmer live in a harsh reality of abject poverty, crimes and abuse. More than ever we need to keep in mind that reality can be 'beaten with enough imagination'. Imagination, then, is the gateway to wisdom and change, and ultimately to personal and social development.
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Losing our mother tongue The Phnom Penh Post, Feb. 9, 2013 Some young people seemingly pretend to be unable to speak their mother tongue... But when writing in Khmer, which is their native tongue, no one seems to care about accuracy. Even if the dictionary of Patriarch Chuon Nat is installed on their computer, they never bother to open it... "Khmer citizens must know the national language clearly, in both oral and written form, to ensure it survives."
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Rare reading materials in the Khmer language that have been edited for clarity and easy comprehension! With the scarcity of available reading materials in the Khmer language in electronic form where I can edit to raise my larger point of the NEED FOR USE OF PUNCTUATIONS, I am glad I can illustrate using the Khmer Bible.
If you ONLY know English, and this is how you have been habituated to read English, how far would you go in your education?
For the KHMER reader, click here and read this chapter from the book of JOSHUA. (The verse numbers are acting as a punctuation, but without them, the chaos would be UTTER CHAOS.) For the ENGLISH reader, click here and read this chapter, but imagine there are no proper nouns (no capitalized words) and no punctuations except for the full stop. The vocabulary (translation) is very good -- as it done by a committee with checks and rechecks, unlike most of the other translations being produced in the whole of society. But without commas and other punctuation, is the Khmer chapter clear and understandable?
This is how Cambodians read the Cambodian language. For Cambodians with means or an opportunity to rely on another language, after they're stuck with the Cambodian language (which is very early on), they rely on their 2nd language for knowledge.
But for the MAJORITY of Cambodians who do not know a 2nd language, they have to fight the printed page and mangled language (of misspelling, of "creative" texting-style punctuation, or just run-on phrases) to get even a scant piece of knowledge.
. . . A LANGUAGE IN CRISIS
4-Part Series of Commentary to The Phnom Penh Post Re-posted on KI-Media and Facebook Accounts Sent to 1,500 on Email List-serve
Part I A LANGUAGE IN CRISIS (edited version published in The Phnom Penh Post, 16 Aug. 2011)
Part II A LANGUAGE IN CRISIS The Written Khmer: The Problem (edited version published in The Phnom Penh Post, 17 August 2012)
Part III A LANGUAGE IN CRISIS The Written Khmer: A Few Questions (anecdotes of the problems on the ground posed in list of questions, forthcoming)
Part IV A LANGUAGE IN CRISIS The Written Khmer: A Few Recommendations (a few initial recommendations of the way forward, forthcoming) Background
Venerable Chuon Nath's Dictionary and other Authority (the learned monk of the 20th century is the strongest authority on all things educated, in Khmer)
Language and National Identity by Dr. Stephen Heder (a chapter on Cambodia in a book published by Oxford University Press)
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សេចក្តីប្រកាស ជាសកល ស្តីអំពី សិទ្ធិមនុស្ស Universal Declaration of Human Rights
This version is from a couple of translations published by the UNOHCHR (booklet, webpage) which I have edited mainly with regards to spacing and punctuations for easier comprehension. On occasions, I have corrected translation inaccuracies. – Theary C. Seng, Phnom Penh, 30 Nov. 2012
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The Khmer Bible
Version with Proper Punctuations/Formatting
Theary Seng Version
As the Khmer Standard Version of the Bible, 2005 is extremely well translated in terms of word choice/vocabulary, and recently made available in electronic form on the internet, and because I am already very well familiar with the stories and books of the Bible (reading, re-reading them since I first became a Christian at the age of 9 years old--32 years ago!), I am editing the KSV 2005 with proper, consistent, and "new" punctuations as well as reformatting it for clarity and easier comprehension.
I am starting with books and portions of the Bible which contain ideas and concepts which are already familiar, even if the non-Christian Khmer reader may be surprised to find the source as the Bible, e.g. the Book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Sermon on the Mount, Gospel of Luke and of John, Letter of James, etc.
Both Christian and non-Christian Cambodian readers will be able to appreciate these edited books of the Bible in Khmer, mainly because they rare reading materials available in the Khmer language that are clear and understandable. For the non-believing Khmer readers, take these edited books of the Bible as good literature, which they are (plus more, for the Khmer believers!).
In all instances, I have changed to the correct spelling of ឲ្យ (from អោយ, which is incorrect).
Samdech Sangh (Venerable) Chuon Nath Dictionary (1967) and another dictionary before 1977 have ឲ្យ. Dictionaries of 2004, 2007 have ឱ្យ. ឱ្យ is an accepted form of ឲ្យ. However, the introduction page of Samdech Sangh Chuon Nath dico (1967-1968) edition - note No. ខ៣, he also indicated that while this form is correct, we should not use: ឱយ or អោយ. Writing អោយ (which is INCORRECT) is akin to texting in English luv . It is common practice to write informally text or email messages "I luv you" but it doesn't make "luv" the correct spelling of "love". The principle also applies to writing Khmer properly. I am also changing the spelling of សម្រាប់ (correct) from សំរាប់ (incorrect).
When the dictionaries are in conflict without a reasonable explanation, go with the strongest authority, Ven. Chuon Nath dictionary of 1967 which has សម្រាប់ as the correct spelling (as well as the Dictionnaire Détaillé des Homonyses et des Paronymes, 2007).
(សំរាប់ is found in 2 later dictionaries published during great political instability when there were no infrastructure: Cambodian-English of 1977, during the Khmer Rouge genocide, American University Press, and Oxford English-Khmer of 2004, only one year after UNTAC left.)
I am currently having my staff at CIVICUS Cambodia typing two basic books on the history of Cambodia, already translated but lacking proper punctuations, so that I may edit them and make them freely available online for the public.
READING MUST BE TRIGGERED with INTERESTING MATERIALS.
READING Must be free of the burdens of having to fight the printed page and mangled language.
READING Is the beginning of effective DIALOGUE, of quality EDUCATION, of RECONCILIATION, of Cambodian FLOURISHING (PEACE with JUSTICE, or SHALOM).
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