14 August 2008By Ung Chamroeun
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translation from French by Luc Sâr
Click here to read the original article in French
In 1938, the Buddhist Institute (BI) published the first Khmer dictionary in 2 volumes. The 1858-page dictionary was written by Samdech Sangh Chuon Nath, the Supreme Patriarch of the Buddhist Mohaniakaya sect. The National Committee of the Khmer Language, under the direction of Sok An, decided to use this dictionary exclusively as its reference in terms of spelling.
The fifth edition of the dictionary is now available in electronic format, under an initiative of the BI and the Sealang Projects. The electronic dictionary is distributed free of charge. “Numerous Cambodians, including journalists and students, make spelling errors. This dictionary will be very useful for them. One can refer to it or check the meaning of a word or its spelling with just a simple click,” Nguon Vanchanthi, the director of the BI, explained.
A dozen of BI employees participated in the setup of this major work for a duration of two years. “Errors are unavoidable, but I hope that they will be less than 2%. Everything was checked several times. Among the 18,003 words in the dictionary, we only found 461 keywords without definition. We will ask the National Committee of the Khmer Language to meet to define them,” Nguon Vanchanthi added.
This electronic dictionary can be used with Windows XP and Vista. “We want to encourage Cambodians to use Khmer Unicode software. Later on, we will come up with a software to make it accessible on mobile phones,” Vanchanthi indicated.
For this first version, the dictionary is opened to all critics that would improve the work accomplished by the team. “We will bring in a yearly update in order to reduce the number of errors to the maximum. One day, Cambodians will be able to download this dictionary on the website www.budinst.gov.kh,” he announced. The BI also plans to create electronic dictionaries specialized for medicine, economy, finance or legal.
To receive a free copy of the dictionary, contact the BI by email at: info@budinst.gov.kh or sorsokny@yahoo.com, or call (855-23) 212 046.
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KI-Media note:
The compressed “rar” file version of the dictionary is also available to download by clicking this link.
To decompress file, please download a shareware version of Winrar at:
The fifth edition of the dictionary is now available in electronic format, under an initiative of the BI and the Sealang Projects. The electronic dictionary is distributed free of charge. “Numerous Cambodians, including journalists and students, make spelling errors. This dictionary will be very useful for them. One can refer to it or check the meaning of a word or its spelling with just a simple click,” Nguon Vanchanthi, the director of the BI, explained.
A dozen of BI employees participated in the setup of this major work for a duration of two years. “Errors are unavoidable, but I hope that they will be less than 2%. Everything was checked several times. Among the 18,003 words in the dictionary, we only found 461 keywords without definition. We will ask the National Committee of the Khmer Language to meet to define them,” Nguon Vanchanthi added.
This electronic dictionary can be used with Windows XP and Vista. “We want to encourage Cambodians to use Khmer Unicode software. Later on, we will come up with a software to make it accessible on mobile phones,” Vanchanthi indicated.
For this first version, the dictionary is opened to all critics that would improve the work accomplished by the team. “We will bring in a yearly update in order to reduce the number of errors to the maximum. One day, Cambodians will be able to download this dictionary on the website www.budinst.gov.kh,” he announced. The BI also plans to create electronic dictionaries specialized for medicine, economy, finance or legal.
To receive a free copy of the dictionary, contact the BI by email at: info@budinst.gov.kh or sorsokny@yahoo.com, or call (855-23) 212 046.
-----------------------
KI-Media note:
The compressed “rar” file version of the dictionary is also available to download by clicking this link.
To decompress file, please download a shareware version of Winrar at:
http://www.rarlab.com
Please note: if the download link above does not work please click here to go the Buddhist Institute download website, then click on "Please click this link to download Khmer Dictionary in .rar format".
8 comments:
Thanks I been looking to buy the real version for a while now this is really wonderful!
Thanks for the article and the software. I have just started translation a social networking web site to Khmer and I found a lot of difficulties particularly wonder if I spell some words correctly. This software is very helpful. Thanks again
Kampuchea Ning http://kampuchea.ning.com
Every body can download from the Buddhist Institute's web site www.budinst.gov.kh
Good luck
Hi KI staffs,
Please repost the download link for the Khmer Dictionary one more time. Somehow, the current download link is not working now.
Thanks in advance,
thank you!
fantastic.
the Open Institute has also fund for this, right? because it's show in home page of this software. great!
hi,
first thank for the dictionary. it is a great idea.
i installed and everything seem fine. except the 'displaying result box' wouldn't display readable result. i mean i only see dots ...
other than that everything is fine. listing box, help... display fine.
what is wrong? and what i should do?
thanks
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