Objectors to yuon have been hypnotised by foreign

YUON: WHAT’S IN A XENONYM?

By Kenneth T. So and Sophal Ear

A version of this article first appeared in Vietnamese in the online journal Talawas (Autumn 2009)
Someone once said, “To understand others, you must first understand yourself.” We believe that understanding the Khmer language alone and living in Cambodia is necessary but not sufficient to truly open up the Khmer soul to non-Khmers. Khmerness is speaking the language, understanding Khmer idioms, appreciating Khmer jokes and their nuances, and enjoying Khmer music and poetry. It is a feeling that resonates with Khmer people living in Cambodia. Being Khmer should not be synonymous with Pol Pot. The actions that Pol Pot committed are complete anathema to the Khmer soul. A Khmer is someone who is proud of the civilization that Angkor has left as its legacy.
The Khmer have lived under threat of extinction (perhaps even saved by French colonialism), and who have witnessed the disappearance of Khmer territory to their powerful neighbors, Vietnam and Thailand. This is the context within which we write.
As Ronnie Yimsut has elaborated in a 2005 online essay: “These [invader] perceptions about Vietnam are also quite valid, historically speaking. The so-called Kampuchea Krom (area in … southern Vietnam including Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong delta region), and the former “Kingdom of Champa” (area in northern Vietnam) are two historical examples of successful Vietnamese annexation and expansionism.”
Pol Kang wrote in a 2004 article, “During the period 1813-15, Vietnamese perpetrated the infamous massacre known to every Khmer as prayat kompup te ong. It involved the most barbarous torture technique, in which the Khmer were buried alive up to their neck. Their heads were used as the stands for a wood stove to boil water for the Vietnamese masters.
Let us consider only the issue of language and the word used by Cambodians for the people of Vietnam: yuon. This remains a bone of contention because many non-Khmer have argued that the word is fundamentally racist in common parlance.
The word yuon may have come from the word yueh, what the Mandarin Chinese call Vietnam, yueh nam. The word nam means south in Chinese. Yueh indicates the name of the people of that region. Therefore, yueh means Viet or Vietnamese in Chinese, and yueh nam means the yueh people of the south. In this case, south means south of China. South Vietnam pronounces it yeaknam.
Chou Ta-Kuan (Zhou Daguan), the celebrated Chinese ambassador to Cambodia in the 13th century, indicated in his report that there was already a large population of Chinese settling in Cambodia at that time. He said that the Chinese preferred life in the Khmer Empire because it was easier than in China. There were a lot of Chinese men marrying the native Cambodian women. The word yuon may have derived from the Chinese word yueh to indicate the Vietnamese.
George Coedes, an expert on Southeast Asia, found evidence of the word yuon inscribed in Khmer on a stele dating to the time of the Khmer King Suryavarman I (1002-1050). Adhémar Leclère, a colonial French governor of Cambodia who lived there 25 years, used the word yuon throughout his book Histoire du Cambodge depuit le 1er siècle de notre ère (Librairie Paul Geuthner, 1914: 99, 413, 432, 434, 435, and 469).
While yuon has been equated with the word “savage” by David Roberts in a 2002 article for the Washington Times, in fact, the word savage in Cambodian translates to pourk prey or phnong (which unfortunately also refers to an ethnic hill tribe minority living in Cambodia). Cambodians call Vietnamese yuon the same way they call Indian khleung, Burmese phoumea, French barang and Chinese chen. These are all xenonyms and Khmer transliterations.
When the Vietnamese sometimes call Khmer people ngoi mien (when they should use ngoi campuchia), this is inaccurate because the word mien is the name for a minority group that is not ethnically Khmer. According to the Mien Network (http://www.miennetwork.com/miencommunity/history.html), “The Mien are a sub-group of the Yao in China, and they originated from Southwest China. According to 1995 population figures published by the Tribal Research Institute of Chiang Mai, there are over 40,000 Mien living in 173 villages in Northern Thailand. Larger numbers are found in Laos (85,000) and Vietnam (474,000), with the majority still in China. According to the 1990 census, there are about 2.1 million Yao living in China.”
Thus, it would be like saying of an Englishman that he is Basque. The geography is completely off, but the possible connotation may be of a nation without a state. In the late 17th century, the Vietnamese court of Hue changed the names of the Cambodian princesses Ang Mei, Ang Pen, Ang Peou and Ang Snguon to the Vietnamese-sounding names of Ngoc-van, Ngoc-bien, Ngoc-tu, and Ngoc-nguyen, respectively. Phnom Penh is also known in Vietnamese as Nam Vang. Indeed, our venerated Phnom Penh noodles are otherwise advertised in Vietnamese as heu tiev nam vang.
Moreover, while we call Chao Doc and Saigon (what is now HCMC) Mot Chrouk and Prey Nokor, respectively, this is the equivalent phenomenon in use when it comes to the word yuon, that of a xenonym in current use.
We surmise that confusion over the word yuon arises from the fact that the word Vietnam(ese) exists. The misunderstanding is that for Khmer people to opt for using the word yuon instead of the word Vietnam(ese) gives non-Khmer the impression that we are racists. To say this would be the equivalent of saying that anyone who uses the word Cambodian instead of Khmer is racist.
When we speak in Khmer, it is very awkward and does not sound right to the ear to use the word Vietnam, and even less so Vietnamese.
However, when we speak in English or French, it is more natural to use the word Vietnamese or Vietnamien, and it would become awkward to use the word yuon.
For example, if we want to say that “fishermen are mostly Vietnamese”, and both words, yuon and Vietnamese, are used in a Khmer sentence, the result would be as follows: pourk neak nisart trey keu chreun tè youn, or pourk neak nisart trey keu chreun tè choun cheat vietnam. It therefore requires more syllables to use the word Vietnam to describe the Vietnamese because we have to say choun cheat vietnam (literally National of Vietnam) to describe a Vietnamese person. We cannot say pourk neak nisart trey keu chreun tè vietnam because Vietnam is a country. In Khmer, the word Vietnamese per se does not exist unless one uses the word yuon.
It is rare in the Khmer language to have a racist word attributed to different ethnic groups. However, this does not mean that salty language does not exist. To the contrary, when wishing to disrespect someone, we add an adjective “a” in front of the word that we intend to use. If we say a yuon, then it is a sign of disrespect, but not necessarily a racist remark. To be racist requires that the following words be used: a katop (equating a Vietnamese to a diaper), a gnieung (a probable play on the common Vietnamese family name Nguyen) or a sakei daung (equating a Vietnamese to a coconut husk). Some might compare the word yuon to the word “nigger”, but that is too strong and ahistorical a comparison. In any case, to have called someone in 1860 racist for using the word nigger would be historically inaccurate. These were conventions then, and evolved out of fashion later.
The only basis to this is when, during the Lon Nol period (Khmer Republic 1970-1975), yuon was indeed used in a derogatory fashion during attacks on Vietnamese people. Thus, the word took on a negative connotation in the 1970s and was allegedly banned in the 1980s when Cambodia was occupied by Vietnam. Sour Vietnamese soup, samlar machou yuon, became samlar machou vietnam, but reverted to its original name in the 1990s. Of course, the Khmer Rouge also used the word yuon, as when they characterised the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) as yuon-TAC, an agent of the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian People’s Party. But again, just because the Khmer Rouge and the Khmer Republicans hijacked the word does not mean it must now be abandoned in everyday language.
The views expressed in this article are the authors’ alone and do not represent the views of their employers or the US government.

Sophal Ear is an assistant professor of national security affairs in Monterey, California. Kenneth T So is a rocket scientist and Khmer historian.

Objectors to yuon have been hypnotised by foreign ‘experts’

Thursday, 04 February 2010
Bora Touch
Letter to The Phnom Penh Post

Dear Editor,

Because of general ignorance and political manipulation – especially by foreigners, with the foreign “experts” on Cambodia being the worst offenders – the term yuon has become so controversial that the Khmers and the Khmer language have become the victims. The term has been criticised by foreign experts as “contemptible”, “derogatory” and as having a “savage connotation”.

In his letter to the editor of the Washington Times (September 13, 2002) David Roberts defamatorily called the opposition leader, Mr Sam Rainsy, a racist for using the term yuon when referring to Vietnamese. Roberts was harshly critical of Mr Rainsy and wrote: “Mr Rainsy is not a democrat. He is a disappointed authoritarian in the Cambodian tradition. He refers to his Vietnamese neighbors as ‘yuon,’ meaning savage”.

Yasushi Akashi, the head of UNTAC, was hypnotised by the foreign “experts” on Cambodia to the degree of, reportedly, speechlessness, when a Khmer journalist used yuon to refer to Vietnamese when asking him questions. Akashi’s foreign advisers even discussed criminalising the use of the term.

Samdech Hun Sen’s letter to US senators John McCain and John Kerry of October 3, 1998, capitalised on the senators’ ignorance of the term yuon in Hun Sen’s campaign against Mr Rainsy. Hun Sen stated, “Mr Sam Rainsy referred to me as a yuon puppet. In case Your Excellencies are not familiar with the term yuon, yuon is highly derogative and racist term used to denigrate those of Vietnamese ancestry”. Hun Sen is known for his ties to the Vietnamese. What Sam Rainsy said was nothing new. Hun Sen chose to attack his use of the term yuon rather than answer the charge that he was too close to the Vietnamese.

The term began to be politicised in the late 1970s, especially during the Khmer Rouge-Vietnam war. In an attempt to demonise the KR, the Vietnamese propagandists propagated that yuon is a pejorative term for the Vietnamese (see Hanoi’s propaganda against KR: Kampuchea Dossier (KD), April 1978, Pt I, p 35).

Robert’s definition of yuon as “savages” appears to have been drawn from the KR’s definition of the term found in the KR Black Papers (1978, p 9). The definition is incorrect and baseless, and was included by the KR and the Vietnamese for the purpose of their respective propaganda.

Let me set the record straight. The term is neither new nor contemptible or derogatory. In fact, the Khmers have been using the term for more than a thousand years, and it has become a piece of Khmer tradition and language. As far as the surviving recorded evidence shows, the word yuon appears in Khmer inscriptions dating back to the reign of King Suryavarman I (1002-1050), an immediate predecessor to the Angkor Wat temple builder Suryavarman II (see Inscription K105 or Coedes, Inscriptions du Cambodge, K Hall, Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (1985) etc). Yuon was used in the context of trade and commerce to refer to the Vietnamese people and in no way was a term of contempt.

As a matter of fact, yuon was well-known and used by early European travellers and officials; for instance, by the British linguist Lieut-Col James Low, by a famous French naturalist Henri Mouhot, by Thai King Mongkut (1851-68) in his official correspondence, etc. Yuon was still in use by some French writers after the independence of Indochina states; for instance, by a French Sergeant Resen Riesen. In Khmer writings, the term yuon was not used as a racist slur nor to indicate contempt, but to refer to what since WWII have been known as Vietnamese people. None of the Khmer language dictionaries define yuon as “savage” or indicate that it is a pejorative term. Yuon has been used in old and new Khmer poetry and songs for hundreds of years compared with the term “Vietnamese”, which has been used for about 50 years.

It is true that most Vietnamese do not know the term yuon and only the Khmer colloquially use it to refer to them, but this surprises no Khmer because equally most of the Vietnamese do not know that almost the whole of south Vietnam (from Don Nai to Hatien provinces) rightly belong(ed) to Cambodia, and the Vietnamese ancestors (and themselves) have colonised that part of Khmer lands for the last three centuries. Yuon had been used long before the beginning of this brutal Vietnamese colonisation started in the late 15th century.

Some “experts” have argued that if the Vietnamese are offended with the use of term, the Khmer should follow their wish. Political “correctness”, or forced accommodation rather, is not new to the Khmer. Back in the 19th century, the Khmer were forced to learn and speak Vietnamese rather than the Khmer language, and to behave and to dress the way the Vietnamese did under the policy of Vietnamisation by Emperor Minh Mang or his dynasty. When the Khmer resisted, they were punished and, in some cases, executed. The resistance has continued.

Believe me, Khmers know which words in their own language are “bad” or pejorative, and we do not need foreigners to teach us or show us the way.

Bora Touch
Sydney, Australia

September 20, 2002

Dear Sir:

I am writing this letter in response to your Washington Times article of Dr. David Roberts (Lecturer from the School of History and International Affairs, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland) dated 09/13/02, who accused the Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy as undemocratic and authoritarian. In addition, he implied that Mr. Sam Rainsy was a racist, when he used the word “Youn” to refer to the Vietnamese.

First, the Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy is a true patriot and democrat. He is well deserving of the award that was given to him by Senator John McCain.

Dr. Roberts may be an expert in his field but he is no expert in Khmer language. In the Khmer dictionary, it says “Youn” means Vietnamese and is possibly related to the Sanskrit word “Yavana” that means savage. However, this possibility of a link between the words “Youn” and “Yavana” is just pure speculation and has no basis for it.

Anyhow, my own research indicates that the word “Youn” came from the word “Yueh”. The Mandarin Chinese calls Vietnam, Yueh Nam. The word “Nam” means south in Chinese. “Yueh” indicates the name of the people of that region. Therefore, “Yueh” means Viet or Vietnamese in Chinese and “Yueh Nam” means the “Yueh” people of the south. In this case, south means south of China. The North pronounces it Yeknam (with a “Y” sound).

Chou Ta-Kuan (Zhou Daguan), the celebrated Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia in the 13th century, indicated in his report that there was already a large population of Chinese settling in Cambodia at that time. He said that the Chinese preferred life in the Khmer Empire because it was easier than in China. There were a lot of Chinese men marrying the native Cambodian women. I don't know when Khmer started to call the Vietnamese “Youn”, but the habit may have been picked up from the Chinese settlers who lived in Cambodia at the time. The word “Youn” may have derived from the Chinese word “Yueh” to indicate the Vietnamese. If one starts to think about it, “Viet” (as pronounced by the North Vietnamese) or “Yeak” (as pronounced by the South Vietnamese) sounds very similar to “Yueh”; and “Yueh”, meaning Vietnamese, in turn sounds very similar to “Youn”. George Coedes, the French expert on the Southeast Asian classical study, found an earlier evidence of the word “Yuon” inscribed in Khmer on a stele dating to the time of the Khmer King Suryavarman I (1002-1050.)

Why do the so-called Western scholars and journalists keep on perpetrating this kind of misinformation about the word “Yuon”? “Youn” does not mean savage as Dr. Roberts had mistakenly indicated in his writing. Savage in Cambodian means "Pourk Prey" or "Phnong". Cambodians calls Vietnamese “Youn” the same way they call Indian “Khleung”, Burmese “Phoumea”, Chinese “Chen”, and French “Barang”.

When the Vietnamese calls Cambodian “Mien” why did the Western press and scholars not report it to be a derogatory word also? If I were to follow the logical thinking of the Western press and scholars, then “Mien” must be a derogatory word also. In the late 17th century, the Vietnamese court of Hue had indiscriminately changed the names of the Cambodian princesses Ang Mei, Ang Pen, Ang Peou, and Ang Snguon to the Vietnamese sounding names of Ngoc-van, Ngoc-bien, Ngoc-tu, and Ngoc-nguyen, respectively. Also they changed the name of Phnom Penh to Nam Vang. Why do scholars and press stay silent on these subjects.

It is very dangerous for foreigners, like Dr. Roberts, to interpret the meaning of certain native words when they do not fully understand the languages and customs of those natives. It is people like Dr. Roberts who helps perpetrate the misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the word “Youn” to mean savage, and aggravate the mistrust and hate between Cambodian and Vietnamese.

Cambodians have been using the word “Youn” to refer to the Vietnameses before the word Vietnamese had even existed. Because of the ignorance of some scholars and journalists about the meaning of this word, are we therefore supposed to abandon using this word that we have done from time immemorial?

If Dr. Roberts insists on saying that the word “Youn” means savage, then I would ask him to prove to Cambodians how it is so. How does he know that this word means savage? What did he base his knowledge from? If he is a true scholar, then he must not base his understanding on hearsay. Otherwise, his credibility is at risk.

Sincerely,

Kenneth T. So

J'étais et suis toujours très étonné que l'on ait donné tant d'importance au mot "yuon", en accusant ceux qui l'emploient de "racistes" envers les originaires du Vietnam, ex-Annam, ex-Dai Viêt, ex-Dai Cô Viêt, ex-Nam Viêt, ex-Au Lac et ex-Van Lang... Soyons sérieux et un peu plus raisonnable : pour connaître l'origine de ce mot "yuon", il faut connaître d'abord l'histoire tumultueuse du "Viêt-Nam", les langages viêtnamiens et les différents noms que se sont donnés les Viêtnamiens eux-mêmes à différentes époques et par les différents régimes politiques du nord au sud. Ensuite, il faut connaître aussi les noms entiers ou abrégés que les voisins de ce peuple viêt donnent à ce dernier, certainement sans mépris pour ce peuple puissant et conquérant.

Les Khmers eux-mêmes ne savent pas pourquoi ni depuis quand ils les ont appelés "Yuon" dans leur langage courant, y compris dans leurs chansons populaires et joyeuses, louant même les qualités de cette ethnie particulière. Récemment, les Khmers les appellent aussi les Yeak-Minh (Vietminh, pour les Français), puis les Yeak-Kong (Vietcong, pour les Américains) qui sont des appellations abrégées des noms politiques que se sont donnés les Vietnamiens. Ces mots sont-ils "méprisants", "racistes" ? Réfléchissez !

Chez les Khmers, un point est sûr : les rois d'Angkor ignoraient totalement l'existence des Yuon, même si, une fois, ils ont dû envoyer leurs troupes chasser des "bandits" venant du "Tonkin" qui agressaient leur territoire du nord-est (le Laos actuel). Le mot "yavana" que l'on a trouvé sur une ou deux stèles angkoriennes, d'après de récentes recherches du Pr Thach Toan, n'a rien à voir avec le Yunnan, ni avec les Yuon, mais ce fut un rappel hindouiste des forces des... Grecs, de l'histoire d'Alexandre le Grand qui envahit l'Asie mineure et l'Inde ancienne avant de rebrousser chemin au 4e siècle avant JC. Mais, par ce mot "yavana", les vietnamisants ont voulu y justifier une présence et une importance des Viêts au Cambodge dès l'époque angkorienne. C'est une manière comme une autre de falsifier l'histoire, comme ils savent si bien le faire.

Ce n'est qu'à partir du 17e siècle que les Khmers ont fait vraiment connaissance avec les Yuon, lorsque ces derniers allaient absorber complètement le Champa. Le mot "yuon" est très probablement d'origine chame, mais les Chams eux-mêmes auraient adopté ce mot d'après ce que leur firent comprendre les conquérants vietnamiens de cette époque et, sans aucun doute, il n'y eut alors aucune résonance "raciste" ou méprisante envers ces derniers.

A rappeler aussi que quand les Khmers tiennent à insulter les Vietnamiens, ce n'est pas en les appelant les "Yuon", mais les "Kantôp", les "Srâkei" et par d'autres superlatifs plus succulents encore.