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104-533: Kang Kek Iew , also spelled Kaing Guek Eav ( Khmer : កាំង ហ្គេកអ៊ាវ [kaŋ geːk.ʔiəw] ; 17 November 1942 – 2 September 2020), alias Comrade Duch ( Khmer : សមមិត្តឌុច [samamɨt ɗuc] ) or Hang Pin , was a Cambodian convicted war criminal and member of the Khmer Rouge movement, which ruled Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979. As the Chairman of Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison camp, and head of

208-693: A Buddhist funeral . • Khmer language Khmer ( / k ə ˈ m ɛər / kə- MAIR ; ខ្មែរ , UNGEGN : Khmêr [kʰmae] ) is an Austroasiatic language spoken natively by the Khmer people . This language is an official language and national language of Cambodia . The language is also widely spoken by Khmer people in Eastern Thailand and Isan , Thailand , also in Southeast and Mekong Delta of Vietnam . Khmer has been influenced considerably by Sanskrit and Pali especially in

312-718: A Khmer language expert at the  Beijing Foreign Language Institute . He returned to the Thai-Cambodian border a year later and changed his name to Hang Pin. He worked as a senior bureaucrat just inside the Cambodian border at Pol Pot 's secretariat at Camp 505. Shortly after the Paris agreement in October 1991, he moved with his family to the small isolated village of Phkoam close to the Thai border. Here he purchased some land, and began teaching in

416-646: A minor (fully unstressed) syllable. Such words have been described as sesquisyllabic (i.e. as having one-and-a-half syllables). There are also some disyllabic words in which the first syllable does not behave as a minor syllable, but takes secondary stress . Most such words are compounds , but some are single morphemes (generally loanwords). An example is ភាសា ('language'), pronounced [ˌpʰiəˈsaː] . Words with three or more syllables, if they are not compounds, are mostly loanwords, usually derived from Pali, Sanskrit, or more recently, French. They are nonetheless adapted to Khmer stress patterns. Primary stress falls on

520-518: A 2003 pact between Cambodia and the United Nations establishing the tribunal. On 31 March 2009, Duch, in a statement in front of the Cambodia tribunal, accepted responsibility for torturing and executing thousands of inmates, expressed "heartfelt sorrow" for his crimes and vowed to cooperate fully with the tribunal. On 6 April, he told the tribunal that "Mr Richard Nixon and [Henry] Kissinger allowed

624-469: A dialect. Western Khmer , also called Cardamom Khmer or Chanthaburi Khmer, is spoken by a very small, isolated population in the Cardamom mountain range extending from western Cambodia into eastern Central Thailand . Although little studied, this variety is unique in that it maintains a definite system of vocal register that has all but disappeared in other dialects of modern Khmer. Phnom Penh Khmer

728-654: A final consonant. All consonant sounds except /b/, /d/, /r/, /s/ and the aspirates can appear as the coda (although final /r/ is heard in some dialects, most notably in Northern Khmer ). A minor syllable (unstressed syllable preceding the main syllable of a word) has a structure of CV-, CrV-, CVN- or CrVN- (where C is a consonant, V a vowel, and N a nasal consonant). The vowels in such syllables are usually short; in conversation they may be reduced to [ə] , although in careful or formal speech, including on television and radio, they are clearly articulated. An example of such

832-412: A list of 20 female detainees, Duch wrote annotations for each of them, ordering: "take away for execution," "keep for interrogation" or "medical experiment". At least 100 detainees died after having all of their blood drawn for transfusions for wounded soldiers. Surgical operations were also performed on detainees in order to train medical staff. Duch impressed his superiors with his work and was appointed

936-456: A transborder highway to Thailand was completed south of the Cardamoms, along the coast. The highway has fragmented habitats for large mammals, such as elephants, big cats and monkeys. The highway has also opened up for agricultural slash-and-burn projects and opportunistic poaching for endangered animals, all degrading the natural value and the forests’ ecosystems. Tourism is relatively new to

1040-492: A typical Khmer declarative phrase is a steady rise throughout followed by an abrupt drop on the last syllable. Other intonation contours signify a different type of phrase such as the "full doubt" interrogative, similar to yes–no questions in English. Full doubt interrogatives remain fairly even in tone throughout, but rise sharply towards the end. Exclamatory phrases follow the typical steadily rising pattern, but rise sharply on

1144-786: A unique feature of this region, and form a previously unrecorded burial practice in Khmer cultural history. Local legends suggest the bones are the remains of Cambodian royalty. Along with these jar burials archeologists have discovered various material evidence associated with the remains, such as glass beads consisting of various colors and composition. These glass beads, which were a common product in maritime trade between nearby countries, were most likely obtained by Cardamom Mountain communities by trading forest products, such as wood and resin, that they had access to. A unique rock art cave site known as Kanam depicts ancient elephants, elephant riders, deer and wild cow (or buffalo) in red ochre paint. The site

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1248-400: A word is មនុស្ស mɔnuh, mɔnɨh, mĕəʾnuh ('person'), pronounced [mɔˈnuh] , or more casually [məˈnuh] . Stress in Khmer falls on the final syllable of a word. Because of this predictable pattern, stress is non- phonemic in Khmer (it does not distinguish different meanings). Most Khmer words consist of either one or two syllables. In most native disyllabic words, the first syllable is

1352-493: Is subject–verb–object , and modifiers follow the word they modify. Classifiers appear after numbers when used to count nouns, though not always so consistently as in languages like Chinese . In spoken Khmer, topic-comment structure is common, and the perceived social relation between participants determines which sets of vocabulary, such as pronouns and honorifics, are proper. Khmer differs from neighboring languages such as Burmese , Thai , Lao , and Vietnamese in that it

1456-429: Is a zero copula language, instead preferring predicative adjectives (and even predicative nouns) unless using a copula for emphasis or to avoid ambiguity in more complex sentences. Basic word order is subject–verb–object (SVO), although subjects are often dropped ; prepositions are used rather than postpositions. Topic-Comment constructions are common and the language is generally head-initial (modifiers follow

1560-580: Is a classification scheme showing the development of the modern Khmer dialects. Standard Khmer , or Central Khmer , the language as taught in Cambodian schools and used by the media, is based on the dialect spoken throughout the Central Plain , a region encompassed by the northwest and central provinces. Northern Khmer (called Khmer Surin in Khmer) refers to the dialects spoken by many in several border provinces of present-day northeast Thailand. After

1664-775: Is a release site for animals rescued from the illegal wildlife trade in Cambodia by the NGO Wildlife Alliance. Binturong, porcupine, pangolins, civets, macaques and an array of birds are among the many species that have been released on site. The station was opened to tourists in December 2013, offering guests an insight into the workings of a wildlife rehabilitation and release site while staying in jungle chalets and enjoying Cambodian hospitality. Activities offered can include feeding resident wildlife, jungle hiking, radio tracking and setting camera traps to monitor released wildlife. Wild Animal Rescue (WAR Adventures Cambodia) also organize

1768-504: Is also Cambodia's highest peak. Other important summits in the Cambodian parts are: In Thailand, the most prominent peaks are: The Cardamom Mountains holds many historic sites and relics from the 15th- to 17th-century specifically. This includes a number of exposed burial sites of a type known as jar burials . The burials are scattered around the mountains, set out on remote, natural rock ledges, and contains 60 cm exotic ceramic jars and rough-hewn log coffins. The jar burials are

1872-466: Is believed that he went to the forests of Samlaut where he was reunited with his family. Here Duch was demoted by Brother Number Two , Nuon Chea , for having failed to destroy the documents at Tuol Sleng. At the border, he learned to speak Thai and taught himself English. He later taught English and mathematics at a refugee camp in Borai just inside Thailand. In June 1986, Duch was sent to China to teach as

1976-423: Is contrastive before a vowel. However, the aspirated sounds in that position may be analyzed as sequences of two phonemes : /ph/, /th/, /ch/, /kh/ . This analysis is supported by the fact that infixes can be inserted between the stop and the aspiration; for example [tʰom] ('big') becomes [tumhum] ('size') with a nominalizing infix. When one of these plosives occurs initially before another consonant, aspiration

2080-669: Is home to the southernmost natural habitats of Betula (species Betula alnoides ). Throughout, Hopea pierrei , an endangered canopy tree rare elsewhere, is relatively abundant in the Cardamom Mountains. Other angiosperm tree species are Anisoptera costata , Anisoptera glabra , Dipterocarpus costatus , Hopea odorata , Shorea hypochra , Caryota urens and Oncosperma tigillarium . Other conifers include Pinus kesiya , Dacrycarpus imbricatus , Podocarpus neriifolius , P. pilgeri and Nageia wallichiana . The moist climate and undisturbed nature of

2184-513: Is included in the ecoregion. Most of the ecoregion is covered in evergreen rain forest, but with several different habitats. Above 700 metres, a special thick evergreen forest-type dominates, and on the southern slopes of the Elephant Mountains, dwarf conifer Dacrydium elatum forests grow. On the Kirirom plateau, Tenasserim pine forest is found. The northern part of the Cardamom Mountains

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2288-467: Is located in the eastern part of the Cardamoms near Kravanh Township (Pursat Province). The Cardamoms are home to one of the largest protected wild elephant populations in Southeast Asia. The human riders may represent elephant capture and training activities - a major cultural tradition among various ethnic groups in the area until the 1970s. Traditions, experts, and elephant populations were decimated by

2392-586: Is no longer contrastive and can be regarded as mere phonetic detail: slight aspiration is expected when the following consonant is not one of /ʔ/, /b/, /d/, /r/, /s/, /h/ (or /ŋ/ if the initial plosive is /k/ ). The voiced plosives are pronounced as implosives [ɓ, ɗ] by most speakers, but this feature is weak in educated speech, where they become [b, d] . In syllable-final position, /h/ and /ʋ/ approach [ç] and [w] respectively. The stops /p/, /t/, /c/, /k/ are unaspirated and have no audible release when occurring as syllable finals. In addition,

2496-449: Is not a tonal language . Words are stressed on the final syllable, hence many words conform to the typical Mon–Khmer pattern of a stressed syllable preceded by a minor syllable . The language has been written in the Khmer script , an abugida descended from the Brahmi script via the southern Indian Pallava script , since at least the 7th century. The script's form and use has evolved over

2600-566: Is spoken in the Se San , Srepok and Sekong river valleys of Sesan and Siem Pang districts in Stung Treng Province . Following the decline of Angkor, the Khmer abandoned their northern territories, which the Lao then settled. In the 17th century, Chey Chetha XI led a Khmer force into Stung Treng to retake the area. The Khmer Khe living in this area of Stung Treng in modern times are presumed to be

2704-421: Is spoken in the capital and surrounding areas. This dialect is characterized by merging or complete elision of syllables, which speakers from other regions consider a "relaxed" pronunciation. For instance, "Phnom Penh" is sometimes shortened to "m'Penh". Another characteristic of Phnom Penh speech is observed in words with an "r" either as an initial consonant or as the second member of a consonant cluster (as in

2808-627: The Far Eastern Economic Review . Duch surrendered to the authorities in Phnom Penh following the publication of this interview. On 31 July 2007, Duch was formally charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity and detained by Cambodia's United Nations -backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia . Duch, represented by Cambodian lawyer Kar Savuth and French lawyer François Roux, appealed against his provisional detention by

2912-591: The Santebal , Kang Kek Iew was responsible for the interrogation and torture of thousands of individuals, and was convicted for the execution of at least 12,272 individuals, including women and children, but up to 14,000 in total could have died under his oversight. He was the first Khmer Rouge leader to be tried by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime, and

3016-593: The Communist Party of Kampuchea in 1967. Following the arrest of three of his students, he fled to the Khmer Rouge base in Chamkar Leu District where he was accepted as a full member of the Communist Party of Kampuchea . A few months later, he was arrested and witnessed others being tortured at the Prey Sar prison by Norodom Sihanouk 's police for engaging in communist activities. He was held without trial for

3120-546: The Golden West Cambodian Christian Church held in Battambang by Christopher LaPel , an evangelical Khmer-American. Duch was baptized by LaPel and eventually became a lay pastor. LaPel was later to observe that although he did not know Duch's real identity at the time, there were clues. For example, before his conversion, Duch had said to LaPel that he had done a lot of bad things in his life. Later, Duch

3224-647: The Institut de Pédagogie . The institute was a cradle of activism under the directorship of Son Sen who was later to emerge as the Defence Minister of the Khmer Rouge and Duch's immediate superior. On 28 August 1966, Kek Iew received his teaching certificate and was posted to a lycée in Skoun, a small town in Kampong Cham Province . He was a good teacher, remembered as earnest and committed by his pupils. He joined

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3328-468: The Khao Sa Bap , Khao Soi Dao and Chamao-Wong Mountains , east, north and west of Chanthaburi respectively, are the most prominent. Dense tropical rainforest prevails on the wet westward slopes which annually receive from 3,800 to 5,000 mm (150 to 200 in) of rainfall. By contrast, only 1,000 to 1,500 mm (40 to 60 inches) fall on the wooded eastern slopes in the rain shadow facing

3432-459: The Khmer Rouge regime, although his testimony at times contained discrepancies and at the conclusion of his trial he asked to be freed. Kang Kek Iew was born in Choyaot village, Kampong Chen subdistrict, Kampong Thom Province , to an ethnic Chinese family who migrated to Cambodia in his father's generation. A star pupil in his school, he passed his Brevet d'études secondaires de première in 1961 at

3536-498: The Khmer Rouge Regime . The cave and paintings may have played important roles for rituals and magic used to placate ancestors and spirits; seek protection (elephant capture is very dangerous); bring good fortune; and transmit specialized knowledge (teaching/training). Some of the paintings may be various species of wild cow or buffalo. It is difficult to distinguish the possible cow from the possible deer representations due to

3640-470: The [r] is dropped and the vowel begins by dipping much lower in tone than standard speech and then rises, effectively doubling its length. Another example is the word រៀន [riən] ('study'), which is pronounced [ʀiən] , with the uvular "r" and the same intonation described above. Khmer Krom or Southern Khmer is spoken by the indigenous Khmer population of the Mekong Delta , formerly controlled by

3744-421: The elision of /r/ . Intonation often conveys semantic context in Khmer, as in distinguishing declarative statements , questions and exclamations. The available grammatical means of making such distinctions are not always used, or may be ambiguous; for example, the final interrogative particle ទេ /teː/ can also serve as an emphasizing (or in some cases negating) particle. The intonation pattern of

3848-600: The 15th - 17th centuries. Eld's deer, muntjac, sambar, gaur, kouprey and banteng were probably far more prevalent in the past. Part of the mountains are home to indigenous people, including the Chhong in both Thailand and Cambodia, and the ethnic Por (or Pear ) in Pursat Province , Cambodia. They all belong to the group known as Pearic peoples . In Cambodia, indigenous people are collectively referred to as Khmer Loeu . This largely inaccessible mountain range formed one of

3952-451: The 9th century until the 13th century. The following centuries saw changes in morphology , phonology and lexicon . The language of this transition period, from about the 14th to 18th centuries, is referred to as Middle Khmer and saw borrowings from Thai in the literary register. Modern Khmer is dated from the 19th century to today. The following table shows the conventionally accepted historical stages of Khmer. Just as modern Khmer

4056-400: The Cambodian government to halt a number of planned construction projects and clearings in protected areas. In 2016, the Cambodian government established a collaboration with international conservation organisations to increase on-ground patrolling and actual park ranger services, building several ranger headquarters and hiring armed personnel with arresting rights. This might signify a change in

4160-465: The Cardamom Mountain Range, although very small, is extremely poor. Threats to the ecological stability and biological diversity of the region include illegal wildlife poaching , habitat destruction due to illegal logging , construction and infrastructure projects, plantation clearings, mining projects, and forest fires caused by slash-and-burn agriculture . While the Cambodian forests in

4264-672: The Cardamom Mountains appears in the provincial seal of Trat Province in Thailand. The mountain range extends along a southeast-northwest axis from Chanthaburi Province in Thailand, and Koh Kong Province in Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand , to the Veal Veang District in Pursat Province , and extends to the southeast by the Dâmrei (Elephant) Mountains . The Thai part of the range comprise heavily eroded and dispersed mountain fragments of which

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4368-403: The Cardamom Mountains are fairly intact, the section in Thailand has been badly affected. Protections in the Cardamom Mountains comprise the following: The flora, fauna and ecosystems of the Cardamom Mountains are threatened by large construction and infrastructure projects, mining, illegal logging , and opportunistic hunting and poaching. Despite the very high level of protectional status,

4472-448: The Cardamom Mountains. In 2008, Wildlife Alliance launched a community-based ecotourism program in the village of Chi-Phat , marketed as the "gateway to the Cardamoms". Tourist visitors to Chi-Phat continue to grow and the community is regarded as a model for community-based ecotourism, with approximately 3,000 annual visitors generating more than $ US 150,000 for the local community. International conservation organizations working in

4576-507: The English word "bread"). The "r", trilled or flapped in other dialects, is either pronounced as a uvular trill or not pronounced at all. This alters the quality of any preceding consonant, causing a harder, more emphasized pronunciation. Another unique result is that the syllable is spoken with a low-rising or "dipping" tone much like the "hỏi" tone in Vietnamese . For example, some people pronounce ត្រី [trəj] ('fish') as [tʰəj] :

4680-599: The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia based on the more than eight years he spent without trial in Cambodian military detention. The appeal was unsuccessful and on 14 August 2008, the tribunal issued its indictment after completing their investigation of Duch. In February 2008, as part of the judicial process, Duch was taken to Tuol Sleng prison, the scene of his crimes. He reportedly collapsed in tears after stating, "I ask for your forgiveness – I know that you cannot forgive me, but I ask you to leave me

4784-503: The Funan period is unknown. It is possible that the practice, technology and knowledge was obtained through South Asian influence in the early first millennium AD. These paintings help with understanding the ecological history. Local ethnic groups were able to maintain, sustain and promote elephant populations through a somewhat symbiotic relation until the 20th century. Deer and wild cow/buffalo, however, may have been hunted to near extinction by

4888-591: The Khmer Empire but part of Vietnam since 1698. Khmers are persecuted by the Vietnamese government for using their native language and, since the 1950s, have been forced to take Vietnamese names. Consequently, very little research has been published regarding this dialect. It has been generally influenced by Vietnamese for three centuries and accordingly displays a pronounced accent, tendency toward monosyllabic words and lexical differences from Standard Khmer. Khmer Khe

4992-619: The Khmer Rouge to grasp golden opportunities" following the American bombing of Cambodia . Duch surprised the tribunal on 27 November 2009 with a plea to be released. In his final statement before the tribunal he acknowledged his involvement in Khmer Rouge-era crimes, including the execution of more than 12,000 Tuol Sleng prisoners, but said they were committed by a "criminal party". Duch also noted that he had served more than 10 years in detention, and stressed that he had been fully cooperative with

5096-583: The Khmer Rouge, Kek Iew took on his nom de guerre Comrade Duch (IPA:[dujc]) and became a prison commandant. He was appointed the head of Special Security by his immediate superior Vorn Vet . In the forests of Amleang, Thpong District , Duch set up his first prison, code-named ' M-13 '. Two years later, he also established a second prison ' M-99 ' in the nearby Aoral District . Assisted by his two deputies, Mam Nai (Comrade Chan) and Tang Sin Hean (Comrade Pon), Duch began perfecting his interrogation techniques and

5200-746: The Mon-Khmer sub-grouping and place the Khmer language as its own branch of Austroasiatic equidistant from the other 12 branches of the family. Khmer is spoken by some 13 million people in Cambodia , where it is the official language. It is also a second language for most of the minority groups and indigenous hill tribes there. Additionally there are a million speakers of Khmer native to southern Vietnam (1999 census) and 1.4 million in northeast Thailand (2006). Khmer dialects , although mutually intelligible, are sometimes quite marked. Notable variations are found in speakers from Phnom Penh (Cambodia's capital city),

5304-614: The Standard Khmer system and that of the Battambang dialect on which the standard is based. In addition, some diphthongs and triphthongs are analyzed as a vowel nucleus plus a semivowel ( /j/ or /w/ ) coda because they cannot be followed by a final consonant. These include: (with short monophthongs) /ɨw/ , /əw/ , /aj/ , /aw/ , /uj/ ; (with long monophthongs) /əːj/ , /aːj/ ; (with long diphthongs) /iəj/ , /iəw/ , /ɨəj/ , /aoj/ , /aəj/ and /uəj/ . The independent vowels are

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5408-455: The actual protection of the conservation areas and implementation of the law has been very poor. The violation of the protection laws has happened on all levels, from opportunistic locals, and local business entrepreneurs, to governmental institutions, foreign companies and international criminal organisations. In the late 2010s, international conservation organisations, and the UN , has collaborated with

5512-542: The age of nineteen. He finished the first half of his Baccalaureate in 1962 at the Lycée Suravarman II in the town of Siem Reap . The same year he was offered a place in the prestigious Lycée Sisowath in Phnom Penh where he completed his Baccalaureate in mathematics , scoring second in the entire country. From his childhood on, Kang's name was changed many times. One such occasion of name changing took place when he

5616-413: The animals are fourteen endangered and threatened mammal species, including the largest population of Asian elephant in Cambodia and possibly the whole of Indochina although this still needs to be proved. Other mammals, many of which are threatened, include Indochinese tiger , clouded leopard ( Pardofelis nebulosa ), dhole (a wild dog) ( Cuon alpinus ), gaur ( Bos gaurus ), banteng ( Bos javanicus ),

5720-559: The area includes Wildlife Alliance, Conservation International , and Fauna and Flora International . In 2016, the southern slopes of the Cardamom Mountains were designated as a new national park; Southern Cardamom National Park . It appears, however, that rampant illegal poaching is continuing nonetheless. These relatively isolated mountains are part of the Cardamom Mountains rain forests ecoregion, an important ecoregion of mostly tropical moist broadleaf forest . Being one of

5824-772: The camp, he worked for the American Refugee Committee as the Community Health Supervisor. In late 1998, he returned to Cambodia when fighting subsided. He settled in the village of Andao Hep in Rattanak Mondul and worked closely with World Vision International , the Christian relief agency. The photojournalist Nic Dunlop tracked Duch down in Samlaut. In 1999, Nate Thayer , who had previously interviewed Pol Pot and Ta Mok , and Dunlop interviewed Duch for

5928-574: The capital, including the infamous Tuol Sleng prison . Duch's request for a transfer in May 1975 to the Industrial Sector of government was denied. The Tuol Sleng prison camp was initially headed by In Lon (aka Comrade Nath) with Duch acting as deputy. Subsequently, In Lon was transferred and Duch was promoted to Director. By May 1976, all the prisons in Phnom Penh were consolidated and relocated to Tuol Sleng. Prisons like Tuol Sleng were created to cleanse

6032-569: The centuries; its modern features include subscripted versions of consonants used to write clusters and a division of consonants into two series with different inherent vowels . Khmer is a member of the Austroasiatic language family, the autochthonous family in an area that stretches from the Malay Peninsula through Southeast Asia to East India. Austroasiatic, which also includes Mon , Vietnamese and Munda , has been studied since 1856 and

6136-414: The clusters consisting of a plosive followed by /ʔ/, /b/, /d/ , in those beginning /ʔ/, /m/, /l/ , and in the cluster /kŋ-/ . After the initial consonant or consonant cluster comes the syllabic nucleus , which is one of the vowels listed above. This vowel may end the syllable or may be followed by a coda , which is a single consonant. If the syllable is stressed and the vowel is short, there must be

6240-520: The conservation organisation Fauna and Flora International uncovered new species, such as a new Cnemaspis gecko, C. neangthyi . With the establishment of the Southern Cardamom National Park in May 2016, nearly all of the Cardamom Mountains are now under some form of high level protection, mostly national park area and wildlife sanctuaries . However, the level of active protection has been criticised. The human population of

6344-527: The consonants /ɡ/ , /f/ , /ʃ/ and /z/ occur occasionally in recent loan words in the speech of Cambodians familiar with French and other languages. Various authors have proposed slightly different analyses of the Khmer vowel system. This may be in part because of the wide degree of variation in pronunciation between individual speakers, even within a dialectal region. The description below follows Huffman (1970). The number of vowel nuclei and their values vary between dialects; differences exist even between

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6448-517: The descendants of this group. Their dialect is thought to resemble that of pre-modern Siem Reap. Linguistic study of the Khmer language divides its history into four periods one of which, the Old Khmer period, is subdivided into pre-Angkorian and Angkorian. Pre-Angkorian Khmer is the Old Khmer language from 600 CE through 800. Angkorian Khmer is the language as it was spoken in the Khmer Empire from

6552-582: The destructive trends, at least concerning governmental responsibilities. The Cardamom Mountains are an emerging tourist destination. The village of Chi Phat runs a Community-Based Eco-Tourism project with the support of conservation NGO, Wildlife Alliance . Previously a logging and hunting community, villagers now make sustainable income through homestays, multiple day guided treks to natural and cultural sites, mountain bike, boat and bird watching tours. The Wildlife Release Station in Koh Kong Province

6656-471: The disputed kting voar ( Pseudonovibos spiralis ), Malayan sun bear , pileated gibbon ( Hylobates pileatus ), Sumatran serow ( Capricornis sumatraensis ), Sunda pangolin and the Tenasserim white-bellied rat . There are at least 34 species of amphibians , three of them described as new species to science from here. The rivers are home to both Irrawaddy and humpback dolphins and are home to some of

6760-566: The fall of the Khmer Empire in the early 15th century, the Dongrek Mountains served as a natural border leaving the Khmer north of the mountains under the sphere of influence of the Kingdom of Lan Xang . The conquests of Cambodia by Naresuan the Great for Ayutthaya furthered their political and economic isolation from Cambodia proper, leading to a dialect that developed relatively independently from

6864-400: The final syllable, with secondary stress on every second syllable from the end. Thus in a three-syllable word, the first syllable has secondary stress; in a four-syllable word, the second syllable has secondary stress; in a five-syllable word, the first and third syllables have secondary stress, and so on. Long polysyllables are not often used in conversation. Compounds, however, preserve

6968-404: The government sponsored Cultural Committee to define and standardize the modern language, they championed Khmerization, purging of foreign elements, reviving affixation, and the use of Old Khmer roots and historical Pali and Sanskrit to coin new words for modern ideas. Opponents, led by Keng Vannsak , who embraced "total Khmerization" by denouncing the reversion to classical languages and favoring

7072-524: The head of Democratic Kampuchea 's dreaded "special branch"; the Santebal . As the party purges increased toward the end of the Democratic Kampuchea period, more people were brought to Duch, including former colleagues, among them his predecessor at Tuol Sleng, In Lon. Throughout this period, Duch built up a large archive of prison records, mug shots, and extracted "confessions". On 6 January 1979, he

7176-506: The hope that you might." On 16 February 2009, the UN supervised trial of Duch began at a Phnom Penh court. Duch was prosecuted by international co-prosecutors William Smith and Anees Ahmed and was charged with "personally overseeing the systematic torture of more than 15,000 prisoners." The presiding judge of the case was Nil Nonn . Duch was tried by a panel of five judges — three Cambodian, one French, and one New Zealander — according to

7280-505: The interior Cambodian plain, such as the Kirirom National Park . Most of the mountains are a dense wilderness, with almost no human population or activity, but on the eastern slopes, cardamom and pepper are grown commercially, and several large-scale construction projects have begun since the turn of the century. The highest elevation of the Cardamom Mountains is Phnom Aural in the northeast at 1,813 m (5,948 ft). This

7384-465: The language of higher education and the intellectual class. By 1907, the French had wrested over half of modern-day Cambodia, including the north and northwest where Thai had been the prestige language, back from Thai control and reintegrated it into the country. Many native scholars in the early 20th century, led by a monk named Chuon Nath , resisted the French and Thai influences on their language. Forming

7488-459: The largest and still mostly unexplored forests in Southeast Asia , it is separated from other rainforests in the region by the large Khorat Plateau to the north. For these reasons, the ecoregion is home to several endemic species and is a refuge for species that have been decimated or are endangered elsewhere. The Vietnamese Phú Quốc island off the coast of Cambodia has similar vegetation and

7592-751: The last populations on Earth of the very rare Siamese crocodiles and the only nearly extinct northern river terrapin , or royal turtle remaining in Cambodia. While the forests are habitat for more than 450 bird species, half of Cambodia's total of which four, the chestnut-headed partridge , Lewis's silver pheasant ( Lophura nycthemera lewisi ), the green peafowl ( Pavo muticus ) and the Siamese partridge ( Arborophila diversa ) are endemic to these mountains. A reptile and amphibian survey led in June 2007 by Dr Lee Grismer of La Sierra University in Riverside, California, USA, and

7696-470: The last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge , driven out by Vietnamese forces during the Cambodian–Vietnamese War . The Thai border to the west acted as a conduit for Chinese support and, eventually, a sanctuary for fleeing Khmer fighters and refugees. The inaccessibility of the hills has also helped to preserve the primeval forest and ecosystems of the area relatively intact. In 2002, however,

7800-511: The last syllable instead of falling. Khmer is primarily an analytic language with no inflection . Syntactic relations are mainly determined by word order. Old and Middle Khmer used particles to mark grammatical categories and many of these have survived in Modern Khmer but are used sparingly, mostly in literary or formal language. Khmer makes extensive use of auxiliary verbs , "directionals" and serial verb construction . Colloquial Khmer

7904-534: The late Angkorian period through the post-Angkor period (contemporaneous with the jar burials, perhaps created and used by the same ethnic groups). The site may date to as early as the Funan period (1st - 6th centuries) when the practice of capturing, training, and trading live elephants was first historically noted (a mission was sent to China in 357 AD with trained elephants as part of the tributary gifts to Emperor Mu of Jin). Whether or not elephant capture, training, and use for labor, prestige and warfare existed prior to

8008-418: The local school. He was known as a good teacher, but one with a fiery temper. In 1995, Duch's wife was killed under mysterious circumstances in an attack on his home. Duch was the only witness and suspected Pol Pot of instigating it. He sold all his possessions, secured a transfer to Svay Chek College, and moved there with his children. Shortly after his wife's murder, Duch began attending the prayer meetings of

8112-468: The massive deerskin trade to Japan in the 15th - 17th centuries. Taiwan's deer populations had been almost annihilated due to insatiable demands for Samurai armor and Japanese accessories made of deerskin. Deerskin sourcing shifted to Cambodia and Thailand. As deer populations decreased, local hunters also may have resorted to more investment in magic and ritual to seek assistance from ancestors and spirits to increase luck. The paintings are thought to date from

8216-558: The midpoint of the Middle Khmer period. This has resulted in a distinct accent influenced by the surrounding tonal languages Lao and Thai , lexical differences, and phonemic differences in both vowels and distribution of consonants. Syllable-final /r/ , which has become silent in other dialects of Khmer, is still pronounced in Northern Khmer. Some linguists classify Northern Khmer as a separate but closely related language rather than

8320-491: The modern Khmer language dictionary that is still in use today, helping preserve Khmer during the French colonial period. The phonological system described here is the inventory of sounds of the standard spoken language, represented using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The voiceless plosives /p/, /t/, /c/, /k/ may occur with or without aspiration (as [p] vs. [pʰ] , etc.); this difference

8424-574: The next two years. In 1970, when he was released following the amnesty granted to political prisoners by Lon Nol , he joined the Khmer Rouge rebels in the Cardamom Mountains bordering Thailand . Communist groups in France's former colonies in Indochina borrowed the French World War II expression ' maquis ' when referring to their resistance movements in the jungles. In the zone under the control of

8528-464: The population of suspected enemies of the revolution. In Tuol Sleng, Duch ordered the execution of prisoners after their interrogation was completed. For example, on a list containing the names of 17 prisoners (eight teenagers and nine children), he wrote the order "Smash them to pieces." On a longer list of detainees, his annotation reads "smash: 115; keep: 44 persons." The text below this annotation reads "Comrade Duch proposed to Angkar; Angkar agreed." On

8632-486: The purging of perceived enemies from the Khmer Rouge ranks. Prisoners at these camps, mostly from the ranks of the Khmer Rouge, were routinely starved and tortured to extract real and made-up confessions. While in the maquis, Duch married Chhim Sophal, aka Rom, a dressmaker from a nearby village. They had four children while he worked at S-21. After the Khmer Rouge victory in April 1975, Duch and his men set up prisons throughout

8736-556: The rocky mountainsides appear to have allowed a rich variety of wildlife to thrive, although the Cardamom and Elephant Mountains are poorly researched and the wildlife that is assumed to be here remains to be catalogued. They are thought to be home to over 100 mammals, such as the large Indian civet and banteng cattle, and most importantly the mountains are thought to shelter at least 62 globally threatened animal species and 17 globally threatened trees, many of them endemic to Cambodia. Among

8840-431: The royal and religious registers , through Hinduism and Buddhism , due to Old Khmer being the language of the historical empires of Chenla and Angkor . The vast majority of Khmer speakers speak Central Khmer , the dialect of the central plain where the Khmer are most heavily concentrated. Within Cambodia, regional accents exist in remote areas but these are regarded as varieties of Central Khmer. Two exceptions are

8944-454: The rural Battambang area, the areas of Northeast Thailand adjacent to Cambodia such as Surin province , the Cardamom Mountains , and southern Vietnam. The dialects form a continuum running roughly north to south. Standard Cambodian Khmer is mutually intelligible with the others but a Khmer Krom speaker from Vietnam, for instance, may have great difficulty communicating with a Khmer native of Sisaket Province in Thailand. The following

9048-400: The simple silhouette style. However, cowhides are extremely important for lassoes, ropes, snares and riggings related to elephant capture. Local elephant masters claimed there was more ritual and magic associated with these highly critical items than all others related to elephant capture. Thus, wild cow or buffalo representation might be expected. The large representation of deer may relate to

9152-616: The southern regions of Northeast Thailand and is treated by some linguists as a separate language. Khmer Krom, or Southern Khmer, is the first language of the Khmer of Vietnam , while the Khmer living in the remote Cardamom Mountains speak a very conservative dialect that still displays features of the Middle Khmer language. Khmer is primarily an analytic , isolating language . There are no inflections , conjugations or case endings. Instead, particles and auxiliary words are used to indicate grammatical relationships. General word order

9256-513: The speech of the capital, Phnom Penh , and that of the Khmer Khe in Stung Treng province , both of which differ sufficiently enough from Central Khmer to be considered separate dialects of Khmer. Outside of Cambodia, three distinct dialects are spoken by ethnic Khmers native to areas that were historically part of the Khmer Empire . The Northern Khmer dialect is spoken by over a million Khmers in

9360-417: The start of a syllable are /str/, /skr/ , and (with aspirated consonants analyzed as two-consonant sequences) /sth/, /lkh/ . There are 85 possible two-consonant clusters (including [pʰ] etc. analyzed as /ph/ etc.). All the clusters are shown in the following table, phonetically, i.e. superscript ʰ can mark either contrastive or non-contrastive aspiration (see above ). Slight vowel epenthesis occurs in

9464-628: The stress patterns of the constituent words. Thus សំបុកចាប , the name of a kind of cookie (literally 'bird's nest'), is pronounced [sɑmˌbok ˈcaːp] , with secondary stress on the second rather than the first syllable, because it is composed of the words [sɑmˈbok] ('nest') and [caːp] ('bird'). Khmer once had a phonation distinction in its vowels, but this now survives only in the most archaic dialect ( Western Khmer ). The distinction arose historically when vowels after Old Khmer voiced consonants became breathy voiced and diphthongized; for example *kaa, *ɡaa became *kaa, *ɡe̤a . When consonant voicing

9568-459: The tribunal. There were also conflicting closing arguments from Duch's defense team. His Cambodian lawyer, Kar Savuth demanded his client's acquittal and release, while his international counterpart, François Roux pressed judges to hand down a lenient sentence. At the conclusion of the trial, prosecutors asked that Duch be given 40 years in prison if convicted. On 26 July 2010, Duch was found guilty of crimes against humanity, torture, and murder; he

9672-463: The use of contemporary colloquial Khmer for neologisms, and Ieu Koeus , who favored borrowing from Thai, were also influential. Koeus later joined the Cultural Committee and supported Nath. Nath's views and prolific work won out and he is credited with cultivating modern Khmer-language identity and culture, overseeing the translation of the entire Pali Buddhist canon into Khmer. He also created

9776-470: The vowels that can exist without a preceding or trailing consonant. The independent vowels may be used as monosyllabic words, or as the initial syllables in longer words. Khmer words never begin with regular vowels; they can, however, begin with independent vowels. Example: ឰដ៏, ឧទាហរណ៍, ឧត្តម, ឱកាស...។ A Khmer syllable begins with a single consonant, or else with a cluster of two, or rarely three, consonants. The only possible clusters of three consonants at

9880-425: The words they modify). Some grammatical processes are still not fully understood by western scholars. For example, it is not clear if certain features of Khmer grammar, such as actor nominalization , should be treated as a morphological process or a purely syntactic device, and some derivational morphology seems "purely decorative" and performs no known syntactic work. Cardamom Mountains The silhouette of

9984-569: Was 15, when his parents changed his name to Yim Cheav. As the name is important in Chinese culture , Kang therefore gave his name to his grandson, significantly adding the Chinese name "Yun" to this name. He was described by his former classmates as a bright and quiet boy who rarely smiled during his youth. In 1964, Kek Iew began studying for his teaching certificate in Mathematics, a subject he loved, at

10088-626: Was convicted of crimes against humanity , murder, and torture for his role during the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. On Candlemas Day, 2 February 2012, his sentence was extended to life imprisonment by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Kang Kek Iew, unlike many other Khmer Rouge cadres, did not dismiss or justify his crimes. He admitted that he had been wrong and that he had done horrible things; he said that he repented and that he had converted to Christianity . During his trial, he provided detailed accounts of what happened inside S-21 and inside

10192-438: Was emerging from the transitional period represented by Middle Khmer, Cambodia fell under the influence of French colonialism . Thailand, which had for centuries claimed suzerainty over Cambodia and controlled succession to the Cambodian throne, began losing its influence on the language. In 1887 Cambodia was fully integrated into French Indochina , which brought in a French -speaking aristocracy. This led to French becoming

10296-477: Was final with no other chance for appeal. On 20 October 2018, he was hospitalized in serious condition. After serving ten years in prison, on 2 September 2020, Duch died at the age of 77 at the Khmer–Soviet Friendship Hospital of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease . Due to the complicated situation of COVID-19 in Cambodia , he was quickly cremated on the same day in Phnom Penh , without

10400-507: Was first proposed as a language family in 1907. Despite the amount of research, there is still doubt about the internal relationship of the languages of Austroasiatic. Diffloth places Khmer in an eastern branch of the Mon-Khmer languages . In these classification schemes Khmer's closest genetic relatives are the Bahnaric and Pearic languages . More recent classifications doubt the validity of

10504-407: Was lost, the distinction was maintained by the vowel ( *kaa, *ke̤a ); later the phonation disappeared as well ( [kaː], [kiə] ). These processes explain the origin of what are now called a-series and o-series consonants in the Khmer script . Although most Cambodian dialects are not tonal , the colloquial Phnom Penh dialect has developed a tonal contrast (level versus peaking tone) as a by-product of

10608-438: Was ordered by his superior to kill the remaining prisoners. The next day, Duch was among the last Khmer Rouge cadres to flee Phnom Penh after it fell to the Vietnamese army. Though he was unable to destroy much of the prison's extensive documents, he saw to the execution of several surviving prisoners before he fled the city. Duch reached the border of Thailand in May 1979. Details of his whereabouts at this time remain unclear. It

10712-443: Was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment, with a pre-trial detention credit of 11 years being applied to his sentence and an additional controversial five-year deduction because his period of pre-trial detention exceeded the maximum allowed under Cambodian law. On 3 February 2012, an upper court U.N. war crimes tribunal rejected his appeal and extended his sentence to life imprisonment because of his "shocking and heinous" crimes. The ruling

10816-465: Was to say, "I don’t know if my brothers and sisters can forgive the sins I've committed against the people". Soon after his identity was discovered, Duch accepted a transfer to Samlaut as Director of Education. When fighting broke out in 1996 following the split of the Khmer Rouge and the coup to oust Prince Rannariddh in 1997, he fled with his family to the Ban Ma Muang camp just inside Thailand. At

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