Learning an Asia Language isn't for Wimps!

In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. A lexical similarity of 1 (or 100%) would mean a total overlap between vocabularies, whereas 0 means there are no common words. For example, German has a 60% lexical similarity to English.  Furthermore, most western countries use what is called the Latin “alphabet”. This makes it very easy as a beginner to study and learn languages like Spanish or French because it is written in letters and characters that make it easy for us to understand.

Latin Alphabet World Distribution

The dark green areas shows the countries where this alphabet is the sole main script. The light green shows the countries where the alphabet co-exists with other scripts.

Now, if you look at the map closely, Cambodia is in the grey. This is when I say to myself sometimes during language study, why didn’t God send me to a GREEN COUNTRY! This would have made my life so much easier.  I do have to make another confession right now and say that sometimes I even go on to say “Those Latin American or African Missionaries have it so easy!” OK, so hopefully you can overlook this character flaw in me!

So, here is an example of the Khmer written script:

This is what I tell my language tutor every week, "SLOW DOWN, please!"

The Khmer language is influenced predominately by Sanskrit and Pali through the vehicle  of Hinduism and Buddhism and is the official language of only one country in the world with a population of 14 million.  Now, if your thinking this can’t be much further from the Latin alphabet and English language then you are right! Which is why Cambodia is exactly half way around the world from Texas!

Sometimes, and quite often, I think back at just how easy it was taking Spanish and French when I was at university.  I now often laugh at myself remembering how I moaned and cried about how hard it was to learn a new language back then.  My hat goes off to anyone who is learning an Asian language that does not use the Latin alphabet.

Danny, my language tutor

So, what compels me to learn this most difficult language?  It is my deep desire for one goal. My desire is to be able to go out to remote villages with my medical bag and medications and help those people who would otherwise not be able to receive healthcare due to poverty. I want to be able to go without a translator. I enjoy using my healthcare knowledge to unconditionally serve others. That is what is the most fun to me. That is when I am happy. 

So, I am still plugging away at language learning…..it’s not my gifting, but my desire still burns to learn. As long as God continues to put people in my life here in Cambodia that need medical help then I will continue to learn this fascinating, but difficult to pronounce language.