Unclear Awareness of the Term Climate Change in Khmer

The terms ‘climate’ and ‘weather’, ‘akas theat’ and ‘theat akas’  in Khmer are very similar. They literally mean ‘the five elements’, which are water, earth, fire, wind and air, or atmosphere.

A female Cambodian respondent is
explaining her understanding of the two
terms -- climate change and global warming

Therefore, the term ‘climate change’ (‘Kar PreProul Akas Theat’) can be understood as ‘weather changes’ (‘Kar PreProul Theat Akas’). This is important, given that ‘weather changes’ suggests short-term changes in the weather, whereas ‘climate change’ conveys changes in weather patterns over a longer period of time. It is unsurprising, then, that key informants frequently refer to isolated weather events, such as drought, or seasonal changes, to explain the term ‘climate change’. As one commune council leader explains, “Over the past few years, the climate has changed a lot but this year it has changed very much… in more than 65 years I met with climate change once. I do not remember the year, but when I was 13 or 14 years old, there was no rain until December. There was no rain for one year… We don’t know what causes it and we are not scientists.”

 ‘Kar Leung Kamdao Phen Dey’ is the Khmer translation of ‘global warming’, and means ‘the increase of heat on the earth’. ‘Phen Dey’ is the term for ‘planet earth’, while ‘dey’ means ‘earth’ in the sense of ‘soil’. It is possible that this term could be misunderstood to mean ‘the heating of the soil’, and so might be conflated with drought.

The ‘greenhouse effect’ and ‘greenhouse gases’ are particularly problematic terms. First, few Cambodian people have ever seen a greenhouse, so the expression does not function as a successful metaphor for the process of global warming in the Cambodian context. Instead, ‘greenhouse’ is translated as ‘glass house’, and this leads many to make connections between increasing temperatures and the increase in urban construction, or the more ubiquitous use of glass and reflective surfaces in building, machines, and motor vehicles. As one media representative explains, “I have heard the word. People said that because we use a lot of glass, it reflects heat from the sun. I don’t know whether it is right or wrong.”

Reference

BBC World Service Trust and the Ministry of Environment, (2011), Understanding Public Perceptions of Climate Change in Cambodia