Romanization of Khmer

Khmer romanization refers to the representation of the Khmer (Cambodian) language utilizing letters of the Latin (Roman) alphabet. Romanization of Khmer is usually applied to Khmer proper nouns such as names of people and geographical names as in a gazetteer.

Romanization Systems for Khmer

Transliteration, where one script is mapped onto another. As transliteration is a system based on the writing system, it may not always reflect colloquial pronunciations.

When using transcription, words would be romanized based on the pronunciation. However, pronunciation of Khmer can vary by speaker and region. Transcription of Khmer is often done by "amateurs" on Internet forums and chatrooms (i.e. ad hoc romanizations) and is often referred to as "Khmenglish" or "Khmerlish". Sometimes, the International Phonetic Alphabet is used to transcript Khmer words based on their Khmer spellings or their pronunciations.

There are a small number of romanization systems for Khmer but it is unclear if any have been officially adopted by the Cambodian government. Organizations which have developed systems for romanizing Khmer include:

; UNGEGN: Khmer romanization utilising the system from United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names can be seen in most recent maps with Cambodian geographical names and in the newer gazetteers.

; ALA-LC Romanization Tables : From the American Library Association and Library of Congress -- the system for romanizing Khmer uses the original Indic values of Khmer letter for romanization which are totally different from their modern values. The advantage of this system is that it is possible for etmylogical reconstruction of Sanskrit and Pali loanwords whose pronunciation may be totally different in modern Khmer, (e.g. "Kampuchea" and "Kambuja").

; Service Géographique Khmère: From the Khmer Geographical Service based in Cambodia.

; BGN/PCGN: the United States Board on Geographic Names & Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use

Links to romanization tables

* [http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_km.pdf UNGEGN] (PDF - 166kb)
* [http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/khmer.pdf ALA-LC] (PDF - 1,064kb)

Issues and tradeoffs with romanization

Many Khmer dependent vowel symbols represent two phonemes and some phonemes can be represented by more than one symbol (letter), hence it is sometimes impossible to revert the romanization back to the Khmer script. Virtually all romanization systems for Khmer use the letter "H" to represent a final aspirate but many ad hoc romanizers often prefer to use the letter "S" to represent it (e.g. "kâoh" vs. "koss").

References

* English-Khmer Dictionary; ISBN 0-300-02261-1
* [http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/ Working Group on Romanization Systems]
* [http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html ALA-LC Romanization Tables]