French in Cambodia

French began to penetrate into Cambodia at the beginning of the 19th century after French explorers and traders made their way to the country from Vietnam. In 1863, Cambodia became a protectorate of France and became part of the French Indochina in 1887. The penetration of the French language into Cambodia remained insignificant until the early 1890s, when the French authorities began to introduce the teaching of the French language in the country, but it was limited only to elite educational institutions. With the growth of revolutionary movements in Vietnam, the French stopped encouraging education in Cambodia, which kept the literacy rate low, and this situation continued until Japan occupied Cambodia during World War II . During the Japanese occupation, along with French, the Khmer language gained official status and was also taught in schools. After the war, French again became the only official language of Cambodia. After the independence of the country in 1953, it was still widely taught and used in official circles.

By the beginning of the 1960s, the spread of the French language in Cambodia began to decline, and much more than in South Vietnam and Laos . In the mid-1970s, when the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia, thousands of educated Cambodians were killed, most of whom spoke French. By the end of the Khmer Rouge reign in 1979, francophones were almost completely destroyed in Cambodia ^[2] . After the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime and the creation of the People's Republic of Kampuchea in 1979, a certain revival of the French language began, which lasted until 1993, when the Cambodian government declared Khmer the only official language and main language of instruction. Since the late 1990s, the teaching of foreign languages ​​in Cambodia has been given priority to the English language, as it is more in demand for international communications. At the same time, a French language center was opened in Phnom Penh in 1997, and dozens of Cambodian students began to go to study in France annually ^[1] . The community of Cambodian francophones is growing due to refugees returning from France and Quebec , as well as students who studied in French-speaking countries.

The vocabulary of the Cambodian French was formed under the influence of the Khmer , Cantonese Chinese and Chaoshan dialects . Cambodian French is based on the standard Parisian dialect of French, but differs from it more significantly than the Vietnamese and Lao dialects of French.

Two newspapers in French are published in Cambodia - “Cambodge Soir” and “Cambodge Nouveau”, as well as broadcasting of television channels in French ^[1] .