Learning resource
Cambodian-English Dictionary
The Cambodian-English dictionary (វចនានុក្រម ខ្មែរ-អង់គ្លេស) is a two-volume Khmer-English dictionary by Robert K. Headley, Jr. and others, published in 1977.[1] It appeared in Washington as volume 3 of Publications in the Languages of Asia.[1]
About the resource
Robert K. Headley compiled the 1977 edition with Kylin Chhor, Lam Kheng Lim, Lim Hak Kheang and Chen Chun, and Catholic University Press published it.[2] The dictionary draws heavily on traditional Cambodian lexicography, above all the Chuon Nath dictionary. It has some 20,000 headwords and almost 25,000 subentries, with phonemic and grammatical analyses. It gives nearly 10,000 Pali and Sanskrit word origins and hundreds more from Thai, Cham, French, Vietnamese and a dozen other languages.[2]
The two volumes run to xxvii and 1,495 pages with 13 leaves of plates. They are illustrated and stand 29 cm (11.4 in) tall, and a bibliography appears on pages xxv to xxvii.[1]
Later edition
A second, very different Cambodian-English Dictionary by Robert K. Headley, Rath Chim and Ok Soeum was published by Dunwoody Press in 1997 (ISBN 0-931745-78-0). It has more than 50,000 entries and centers on modern written and spoken Cambodian, while keeping many literary and poetic forms for reading classic texts. It carries less word history than the 1977 edition but far more usage labels, such as social level, and more than 2,000 example sentences.[2]
Both editions are the main basis of the SEAlang Library Khmer Dictionary, an online dictionary that also returns entries from the Chuon Nath Khmer Dictionary (Buddhist Institute, Phnom Penh, 1966). It can find words by sound, using the International Phonetic Alphabet.[2]
Access
- The Center for Khmer Studies library holds copies under call number 495.932321 HEA; ISBN 0813205093.[1]
- Both volumes can be searched, but not read in full, in HathiTrust, from copies at the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan.[3]
- SEAlang Library Khmer Dictionary