Sam Rainsy defends the use of the word “Yuon”

Sam Rainsy's videoconference (Photo: S.C., Cambodge Soir Hebdo)

Wednesday 03 Feb 2010
By A.L.G.
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Cation
Click here to read the article in French

The exiled opposition leader affirmed that this controversial naming of the Vietnamese has no pejorative connotation.

In a letter sent to the Phnom Penh Post, Sam Rainsy defends the use of the word “Yuon” to designate the Vietnamese. The Post reported that the opposition MP used “a racist epithet for the Vietnamese” during his videoconference speech on Monday 01 February.

“If you were right in your definition of the word “Yuon,” how come Mr. Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers -- whom you also quoted in the article – could also use this word “Yuon” twice in a short interview on Voice of America on January 28?” Sam Rainsy wondered.

Citing the 1967 Cambodian National Dictionary prepared by Samdech Chuon Nath, the supreme Buddhist patriarch, the opposition MP – who often uses the word “Yuon” in his political speeches – affirmed that this word has no racial connotation, and that it designates the Vietnamese well before the word “Vietnam” first appeared in the Khmer vocabulary.

The use of the word “Yuon” – usually described as being part of the common vocabulary in the majority of French-Khmer dictionaries – is a controversial subject, both etymologically and in its connotation.

Serge Thion, in his book “Watching Cambodia,” believes that this word comes from the Sanskrit “yavana” meaning “foreigner.” François Ponchaud indicated that it was derived from the word “Yunnan” and that it earned a pejorative connotation during the KR era.

When questioned by Cambodge Soir Hebdo, Steve Heder, the author of several books on political violence in Cambodia and a researcher for the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, declined to comment on the content of Sam Rainsy’s speech.

Nevertheless, in a website forum, Steve Heder wrote in 2009 that the word “Yuon”was used without any pejorative connotation prior to the colonial period, at a time when the word “Vietnam” was still in its infancy. According to Heder, the word was used with a pejorative connotation starting from 1970 during the Khmer Republic era. Under the KR, the word “Yuon” was considered a pejorative and racist word, whereas the word “Vietnam” was used in diplomacy. Under the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), Heder wrote that the ruling regime (of Heng Xamrin, Chea Xim and Hun Xen) accepted – under insisting demand from Vietnam – to consider the word “Yuon” as being irreversibly pejorative and that it should never be used in the common language. “The current situation is largely an extension of the PRK/anti-PRK period, but given the political hegemony of the PRK successors as translated into domination of education and media, there is a more widespread use of Vietnam in approved parlance, but Yuon common colloquially, but much more loaded with a pejorative feel than before 1970, less much 1860.”

The use of the word “Yuon” is regularly a controversial topic. In February 2009, Sam Rainsy lost his parliamentary immunity for calling the newly-elected National Assembly: “The Assembly of thieves, ghosts and Yuons.”

On 26 May 2009, during his trial, Duch corrected his translator who translated “Le Duan” – the name of the Viet communist party secretary – into “Les Yuons” (The Yuons). “I did not want to use a pejorative word,” he corrected.