Languagle #43: Khmer
តក់ៗពេញបំពង់
tak tak penh bampong
"Drop by drop, the bamboo tube fills."
What it means
Small efforts add up. Drop by drop, a bamboo water tube fills. A saying often used to encourage saving money or steady work, like 'many a little makes a mickle'.
How to say it
tak tak PENH bam-PONG
Khmer isn't tonal, and it stresses the last syllable of a word. The nh at the end of penh is like the ny in 'canyon', cut short.
Word by word
- តក់ៗ tak tak: drip, drip (ៗ means 'say it twice')
- ពេញ penh: fills, full
- បំពង់ bam-PONG: bamboo tube
Where it was found
Khmer calls a proverb a supheasit (សុភាសិត). This one is from a list of traditional Cambodian proverbs on Eric Kim's blog.
Similar sayings
- Malay: Sedikit-sedikit, lama-lama jadi bukit. Little by little, in time it becomes a hill.
How to recognise Khmer
Khmer letters are wide and ornate, with little ticks on top, and extra consonants are tucked underneath the main line. Words run together without spaces. The mark ៗ, which means 'say the last word again', is a giveaway. Thai letters are smaller, with little loops, and Lao letters are rounder and simpler.
About the Khmer language
Khmer is an Austroasiatic language and the official language of Cambodia, spoken by around 17 million people there and in parts of Thailand and Vietnam. Unlike Thai and Vietnamese, it is not tonal. The Khmer script, descended from the southern Indian Pallava script, has one of the largest alphabets in the world, and it was the model for the Thai and Lao scripts. Inscriptions in Khmer go back to the 7th century.
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