85-552: Tonlé Sap ( / ˈ t ɒ n l eɪ s æ p / ; Khmer : ទន្លេសាប , Tônlé Sab [tɔnleː saːp] ; lit. ' Fresh River ' or commonly translated as 'Great Lake ') is a lake in the northwest of Cambodia . Belonging to the Mekong River system, Tonlé Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia and one of the most diverse and productive ecosystems in the world. It has been designated as
170-646: 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
255-530: 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 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
340-543: A Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1997 due to its high biodiversity. In the 21st century, the lake and its surrounding ecosystems are under increasing pressure from deforestation , infrastructure development and climate change . Tonlé Sap Lake is located in the northwest of the lower Mekong plain, formed by the collision and collapse of the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate . The lower Mekong plain used to be
425-473: A bay, and the sea level rose rapidly at the end of the last glacial period . About 4.5 metres (15 ft) high, cores from this period found near Angkor contain tidal deposits, as well as salt marshes and mangrove swamp deposits, deposited in caves about 7,900-7,300 years ago The sediments of Lake Sap also show signs of marine influence. The current river morphology of the Mekong Delta was developed over
510-474: 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
595-661: 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
680-473: A five figure total. This estimate was completed in 2001 with poor data quality, combined with a marked decrease in populations is would be reasonable to assume that the number is closer to 10,000 and bordering on being classified Vulnerable. The population is spread out over 5 million km² and is now thought be only common locally, with moderate rapid population decline throughout its range. Although there are no active conservation measures currently in place for
765-488: A government-lease system of fishing grounds, providing more than $ 2 million in tax revenue annually. Since Buddhism is against killing, fishermen tend to limit their catch to what they can feed their families. They do not kill the fish with their own hands but wait for the fish to die naturally after they leave the water. At the end of the rice season, people restore canoes that have been in use for hundreds of years or build new canoes when they can't be repaired in temples along
850-551: A nasally honking uh-wuk and a loud high pitched scream. These begin as subdued low short notes each succeeding one more strongly upturned and more strident then previous then dying away again and are uttered from a perch or on the wing. Fledglings give a longer nasal uuuw-whaar that starts low and subdued then becomes, louder and higher and strident. During the breeding season becomes quite vocal, with calls being loud and far carrying, often calling also at night. Although not currently considered to be threatened with extinction,
935-616: A small local population and scarce in Borneo and the Philippines. Grey-headed fish eagles live in lowland forest up to 1,500 m above sea-level. Their nests are close to bodies of water such as slow-moving rivers and streams, lakes, lagoons, reservoirs, marshes, swamps and coastal lagoons and estuaries. They are also known to frequent irrigation tanks in Sri Lanka, hence where their alternate English in Sri Lanka comes from. It
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#17327660684981020-497: 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
1105-966: A wide distribution (38˚ N to 6˚ S) that encompasses India and South-East Asia to Malaysia, Western Indonesia and Philippines. It is generally uncommon but can be rare or local. In North and East India it is found in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Assam. It is uncommon in North and East Sri Lanka, rare and local in Nepal and uncommon and local in Bangladesh. It is rare and local in South Thailand and rare in Laos; scarce in Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia to Sumatra; very rare in Java and Sulawesi except for
1190-452: 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
1275-571: Is 16,000 square kilometres (6,200 sq mi), and the volume is about 80 cubic kilometres (19 cu mi). About 34% of the water in the Tonlé Sap comes from the rivers that enter the lake, about 53.5% from the Mekong River, and 12.5% from precipitation. May to October is the rainy season in the lower Mekong plain, and November to March is the dry season. The annual rainfall is 1,000 to 4,000 millimetres (39 to 157 in). Almost all
1360-429: 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
1445-648: 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
1530-515: Is a fish-eating bird of prey from Southeast Asia. It is a large stocky raptor with adults having dark brown upper body, grey head and lighter underbelly and white legs. Juveniles are paler with darker streaking. It is often confused with the lesser fish eagle ( Icthyophaga humilis ) and the Pallas's fish eagle . The lesser fish eagle is similar in plumage but smaller and the Pallas's fish eagle shares
1615-531: 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 was first proposed as a language family in 1907. Despite the amount of research, there is still doubt about the internal relationship of
1700-421: Is a sedentary bird that can be solitary or occur in pairs. It is non-migratory. Juveniles disperse from the breeding areas, presumably in search of mates or another food source. The grey headed fish eagle spends much of its time perching upright on bare branches over water bodies, occasionally flying down to catch fish. Flight is heavy looking with sharp and full wing-beats on flattish wings. Spends little time in
1785-428: Is also dynamic in prey pursuit and can catch fish in rough water such as rapids. Both species in the genus Ichthyophaga have strongly recurved talons like the osprey (Pandionidae) a specialisation for catching fish, which is lacking in the genus Haliaeetus (sea eagles). The calls of the grey-headed fish eagle include a gurgling awh-awhr and chee-warr repeated 5–6 times, an owlish ooo-wok , ooo-wok , ooo-wok ,
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#17327660684981870-597: 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 the royal and religious registers , through Hinduism and Buddhism , due to Old Khmer being
1955-416: 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 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
2040-423: 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
2125-586: 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,
2210-460: 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 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
2295-582: 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
2380-421: 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
2465-409: Is surrounded by freshwater mangroves known as "flood forests", accounting for 3% of the basin area, and the floodplain is surrounded by low hills and covered with evergreen or deciduous seasonal tropical plants. The forest is dominated by Dipterocarpaceae , Leguminosae , Lacelandaceae, and in some places Pinaceae, Rohan pineaceae or bamboo. As the distance from the lake becomes farther and farther away,
2550-646: Is unclear whether these nest were old or being used for breeding. Breeding in the protected Prek Toal area of the Tonlé Sap follow the flood regimes that begin in September, with eggs near hatching or hatching at peak flood waters in October–November. The grey-headed fish eagle builds a huge stick nest, up to 1.5 metres across and, with repeated use, up to 2 metres deep. The nest is lined with green leaves and were situated in tall trees (8–30 m) on or near
2635-549: The Khmer Empire . The Northern Khmer dialect is spoken by over a million Khmers in 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
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2720-476: 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
2805-421: 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
2890-451: 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
2975-481: The Cambodian populations of the grey-headed fish eagle on the Tonlé Sap is the damming of the Mekong River for hydropower, which will possibly have adverse effects on critical flood regimes of the Tonlé Sap. The grey-headed fish eagle is currently listed as Near-Threatened on the IUCN Red List . The population is estimated to be between 10,000–100,000 mature individuals on the basis that it may not exceed
3060-513: 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] :
3145-603: 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
3230-627: 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
3315-489: The Tonlé Sap Lake area, which accounts for about 60% of Cambodia's annual freshwater catch of over 400,000 tons, account for 60% of the country's population's protein intake. Most fish are eaten fresh, and savory and fermented fish paste Prahoc is usually marinated from the least popular fish or leftover fish that cannot be sold fresh. For more than a century, the most productive lake areas have been privatized through
3400-453: The Tonlé Sap Lake with the Mekong River and contributes 9% of the flow of the Mekong River. The size and water volume of the lake varies greatly throughout the year, with a minimum area of about 2,500–3,000 square kilometres (970–1,160 sq mi) and a volume of about 1 cubic kilometre (0.24 cu mi) in the dry season, and the water body expands in the rainy season, increasing the depth to 9–14 metres (30–46 ft). The maximum area
3485-545: The Tonlé Sap Lake, is one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. A fisherman caught a Mekong giant catfish weighing nearly 648 pounds in May 2004, but its population has been declining since the mid-1970s. It is currently illegal for fishermen to catch and retain Mekong giant catfish, and only a few are used for scientific research. As a natural flood reservoir for the entire Mekong River system, Tonlé Sap Lake regulates floods in
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3570-619: The air soaring possibly due to habitat it lives in and no other aerial displays have been described. The breeding season of the grey-headed fish eagle usually takes place between November and May across most of its mainland range, but changes from December to March in Sri Lanka, November to January in India. Nests have been found in January–March in Burma, April in Sumatra and August in Borneo, it
3655-475: The catchments upstream of the lake. Sediment-bound phosphorus acts as the basis of the food chain through phytoplankton, and internal nutrient cycling plays a crucial role in the productivity of the floodplain and, therefore, the long-term sustainability of the lake's entire ecosystem. The land cover of the Tonlé Sap Lake Basin is 55% of the forest land and 45% of the agricultural land. The lake
3740-414: 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
3825-527: 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
3910-468: 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
3995-584: The diet of the grey-headed fish eagle in the Prek Toal protected area of the Tonlé Sap contains the endangered Tonlé Sap water snake. Whether this is the primary prey item of their diet or a seasonal occurrence in this are remains unclear. The most common method of foraging used is to catch fish from a hunting perch close to a water source with a short flight to snatch prey on the water surface or just below. Also quarters over stretches of river or lakes and fish too heavy to lift may be dragged to bank to devour. It
4080-583: 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
4165-566: 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),
4250-400: 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
4335-574: The floodplain, which will adversely affect fish productivity and overall biodiversity in the Tonle Sap. Forest loss hotspots are located in low floodplain areas where protected areas are located, significant farmland expansion is mainly in the intersection between the lower and upper floodplains, population growth, fuelwood gathering and logging are the main causes of forest loss, intensification of agricultural activities and upstream hydropower development reduces buffers to natural habitats and increases
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#17327660684984420-435: The flow of the Tonlé Sap then reverses and begins to replenish the flow of the Mekong. The extreme hydrodynamic complexity of the Tonlé Sap Lake, both in time and space, makes it impossible to measure specific flow, and water level rather than velocity and volume determines the movement of water as it shapes the landscape. 72% of the modern sediments deposited in the Tonlé Sap come from the Mekong River, while only 28% come from
4505-457: The forest gradually turns into a thicket, and finally into a meadow. In areas with higher quality soils or higher altitudes, deciduous mixed forests and semi-evergreen forests occur. This diversity of vegetation types underlies the species diversity of the Tonle Sap ecosystem, with interlocking forests, grasslands and swamps providing refuge for local wildlife. The lake is home to at least 149 species of fish, 11 of which are globally endangered, and
4590-404: 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
4675-488: The grey headed fish eagle, the evidence points towards monogamy and shared parental care duties. Both incubation, foraging and fledgling feeding are carried out by the male and female, with incubation lasting 45–50 days and the fledgling period 70 days. As the common name suggests the grey-headed fish eagle is a specialist piscivore , which preys upon live fish and scavenges dead fish and occasionally reptiles and terrestrial birds and small mammals. Tingay et al. found that
4760-467: The grey-headed fish eagle, there is an annual monitoring programme for the breeding population in the Prek Toal protected area at the Tonlé Sap Lake in Cambodia, which has been conducted each year since 2006. The programme provides baseline information on the ecology of the species and the status and distribution of the breeding population. A number of other conservation actions have also been proposed by
4845-514: The lake area is also home to 6 near-threatened species, including spotted-billed, great bald, bengal, black-bellied, and Grey-headed fish eagle and Far Eastern reed, in addition to supporting reptile populations including the endangered Siamese crocodile and numerous freshwater snakes, and although much of the Lake District has been turned into farmland, 200 species of higher plants are still recorded. The Mekong giant catfish, which lives in
4930-543: The lake. Most of the fishermen of Tonlé Sap Lake are of Vietnamese origin. They have lived in Cambodia for a long time and are the main suppliers of the country's fishery market. They had to flee to Vietnam during the Khmer Rouge reigning era from 1975 to 1979. Only returned after the downfall of the regime and continued to fish in the Tonle Sap. Khmer language Khmer ( / k ə ˈ m ɛər / kə- MAIR ; ខ្មែរ , UNGEGN : Khmêr [kʰmae] )
5015-469: 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
5100-773: 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 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
5185-569: 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 the Mon-Khmer sub-grouping and place the Khmer language as its own branch of Austroasiatic equidistant from the other 12 branches of
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#17327660684985270-517: 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
5355-469: The lower reaches of Phnom Penh during the rainy season, and is also an important supplement to the dry season flow of the Mekong Delta . In 1997, UNESCO designated the Tonle Sap as a biosphere reserve, but scientists have been concerned that high dams built in southern China and Laos will affect the strength and flow of countercurrents into the Tonlé Sap, reducing the number of fish in the lake. Tonle Sap habitat for nesting, breeding, spawning, and foraging in
5440-571: 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
5525-504: 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
5610-505: The monotypic genus Ichthyophaga . A smallish to medium-sized but quite bulky fish eagle. Has a small bill, a small head on long neck, rounded tail and shortish legs with unfeathered tarsi and long talons. Wings aren't very long and wingtips reach less than halfway down tail. Males and females are sexually dimorphic. The grey-headed fish eagle has a body length of 61–75 cm. Females are heavier than males at 2.3–2.7 kg compared to 1.6 kg. The tail measures between 23–28 cm and
5695-641: The past 6,000 years, while the remaining waters in the northwest corner of the lower Mekong plain formed the Tonlé Sap. The Tonlé Sap drainage basin is bordered to the southwest by the Cardamom Mountains , with heights of more than 1,700 metres (5,600 ft), and to the north are the Piandan Mountains with an average height of 500 metres (1,600 ft). The basin covers an area of 86,000 square kilometres (33,000 sq mi). The 120 kilometres (75 mi)-long Tonlé Sap River connects
5780-538: The population of grey-headed fish eagles is declining, the result of numerous and varied threats. The loss of suitable wetland habitat, deforestation, over-fishing, siltation, persecution, human disturbance and pollution resulting in a loss of nesting sites and reduced food supply. Tingay et al. noted that these statements are based mostly on anecdotal evidence, although their studies found a definitive negative link between human habitation and grey-headed fish eagle nest occupancy rates in Cambodia. Another critical threat to
5865-412: The precipitation is in the rainy season. At the end of the dry season, the Tonlé Sap Lake has a typical depth of 1 metre (3.3 ft). As the monsoon rain begins, the water level of the river begins to rise, eventually reversing the flow of the river. The water level of the Tonlé Sap increases by about 10 metres (33 ft), the flow of the Mekong gradually decreases at the end of the rainy season, and
5950-531: The risk of forest loss. By the 2030s, hydropower development may lead to large-scale changes in habitat, with the area of coastal forests likely to decrease by 82%, while the area of rain-fed habitats may increase by 10–13%. In July 2020, under the influence of the El Niño phenomenon and the impoundment of dams in the tributaries of the Mekong River, the water level of the Tonle Sap Lake hit a record low for
6035-535: The river, in preparation for the boating competition of the water festival. After two days of racing all the canoes come together to celebrate the Naga , the water serpent, who supposedly spit out the lake into the sea at the end of the rainy season, while bringing fish into the Mekong through the Tonlé Sap River. The area is home to many Cambodians of Vietnamese origin who live in floating villages on boats by
6120-510: 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
6205-412: The same habitat and feeding behaviour but is larger with longer wings and darker underparts. Is often called tank eagle in Sri Lanka due to its fondness for irrigation tanks. The grey-headed fish eagle is included in the order Accipitriformes and the family Accipitridae , which includes most birds of prey except for the ospreys and falcons . Lerner & Mindell placed the grey-headed fish eagle in
6290-507: The same period in the past 60 years. The Tonlé Sap Lake District has always been a vital fishing and agricultural production area for Cambodia, and it has largely maintained Angkor , the largest pre-industrial settlement complex in history. While many fish left lakes and ponds to spawn in flooded forests at the onset of floods, the inflow of Mekong floods brought large numbers of fry, which found shelter and food in flooded forests and floodplains. The approximately 1.2 million people who live in
6375-417: 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
6460-628: 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
6545-450: The subfamily Haliaeetinae , which includes the genera Haliaeetus (sea eagles) It was first described by Horsfield in 1841 as Falco ichthyaetus . This paraphyletic group forms a close sister relationship with the subfamily Milvinae (composed of two genera, Milvus and Haliatur ), based on the shared trait of basal fusion of the second and third phalanges found only in these two groups. Some taxonomic authorities place this species in
6630-435: The tarsus 8.5–10 cm. The wingspan measure between 155–170 cm. Adults are grey-brown with a pale grey head and pale iris, belly and tail are white with the having a broad black subterminal band. Breast and neck are brown, with the wings on top dark brown with blacker primaries and below brown. Juveniles the head and neck are brown, greyer on the ides of throat, with buff supercilia and whitish streaks. The rest of
6715-434: The top of the tree with an open crown structure, which can be in a forest or a standalone tree. Nest sites were always near or by a water source with the avoidance of human habitations and is consistent with other fish eagles due to ease of access and food abundance. The clutch size can be between 2 and 4 eggs but usually 2 unmarked white eggs are laid per couple. Little is known about the level of parental care employed by
6800-442: The upperparts are darker brown, edged with grey and secondaries and tertials faintly barred. Tail black and white marbled with broader dark subterminal band and white tip. Belly and thighs white, while breast and flanks brown streaked with white. Iris is darker than adult. As juveniles mature subterminal band becomes more prominent, head becomes greyer and loses streaking becoming uniformly brown. The grey-headed fish eagle has
6885-471: 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
6970-470: 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
7055-470: 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. Grey-headed fish eagle The grey-headed fish eagle ( Icthyophaga ichthyaetus )
7140-438: 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
7225-407: 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
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