Ampok village
Ampok village V30 is located in Sambour district, Kratie province, very near the Kraol village of Srae Chis, one of the villages visited by Kraol residents of Roya commune.
Wordlists from Ampok and Srae Chis were 95 percent similar to each other. Over 100 Kraol families and ten Bunong families live in Ampok. According to the village chief, the Kraol
people living there originally came from Srae Chhuk village, Roluos Mean Chey commune, Sambour district. They moved to Ampok looking for land; they still travel back and forth
between Srae Chhuk and Ampok. They also visit Ktaoy village in Kaoh Nheaek, a fact that the commune head of Roya also mentioned. The government’s population list for Srae Chhuk
village does not include any Kraol people. The Kraol language is very strong in Ampok village,
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although they also speak Khmer. They say that all Kraol people in their village speak Kraol the same; they could not provide names for any villages that speak Kraol
differently. People from Ampok village and Ktaoy and Rovak villages in Kaoh Nheaek district of Mondul Kiri again, the same villages the commune head in Roya mentioned visit
each other back and forth and reportedly speak Kraol the same; Ampok’s village chief made no mention of Roya village. The 70-year-old man from whom we elicited the wordlist is
originally from Roya, but he has lived in Ampok for the last 40 years.
4.2.2 The Khaonh and the Mel
We collected two wordlists each from the Khaonh and the Mel. The portion of the lexical similarity of Bahnaric varieties table table 4 pertaining to Khaonh and Mel is shown in
table 5:
Table 5. Lexical similarity between Khaonh and Mel
Village District
Province Variety V26
Srae Tahaen Kratie
Kratie Mel{V26}
100 V29
Ou Krieng Sambour
Kratie Mel{V29}
84 100
V28
Chhok Kratie
Kratie Khaonh{V28} 80
90 100
V25
Kosang Kratie
Kratie Khaonh{V25} 81
86 95
100
Closer examination of these percentages reveals that not only are the wordlists from the two different groups similar to each other, but in the case of the Mel lists, Ou Krieng village
V29 was closer to both Khaonh varieties 90 and 86 percent than to the other Mel list elicited from Srae Tahaen 84 percent. This is especially interesting since Srae Tahaen and
the two Khaonh villages are close together, while Ou Krieng is further north. See figure 6, the map of sites visited, in section 3.1.
Kosang village—Khaonh
In Kosang village, where there are communities of both Bunong V24 and Khaonh V25, we interviewed the Changkrang commune chief, who is a Bunong man. He reported that
Chhok village in Thmei commune has Khaonh people and said that, in fact, the Khaonh people from Kosang originally came from Chhok. He did not comment on the level of
understanding between the Khaonh in these two places. Khmer people make up the majority of the population in Changkrang commune, almost double the Khaonh and two-and-a-half
times the Bunong.
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Other ethnicities living there, including Khmer, learn Kraol. We met a Khmer man who wanted to sit with us when we elicited the Kraol wordlist, eager to give his assistance.
Chhok village—Khaonh
Within Chhok village V28, the Khaonh comprise a very strong majority. Khaonh is the language used most often in the village; however, the children speak Khaonh poorly. Parents
and elders use either Khmer or Khaonh with the children, but those under 15 years of age have a passive understanding of Khaonh and speak Khmer. The commune chief from Kosang
reported that the Khaonh in his village originally came from Chhok, but Chhok’s former village chief says that the Khaonh from Chhok village originally came from Ou Krieng,
although the Khaonh in Ou Krieng speak differently. The list we obtained from the Department of Planning did not list any Khaonh people in Ou Krieng village or in any village
located in Ou Krieng commune. When asked about villages that speak Khaonh the same, the government worker listed Kosang, Chrava Kantuot commune, and Kou Loab Kou Loab
commune, in Kratie district. No minorities were listed for these latter two villages. Villagers from Chhok travel to Kosang village and speak Khaonh; people from Kosang and Ou Krieng
in turn visit them, speaking Khaonh.
Ou Krieng village—Mel
We found no Khaonh people in the village of Ou Krieng V29 and the chief made no mention of Khaonh people. Khmer are the clear majority in Ou Krieng village, with only ten
Bunong families and nine Mel families. However, the Khmer also call the Mel people “Paklae” after the name of a village nearby in Roluos Mean Chey commune with over 800
Mel people. The Mel people in Ou Krieng speak Khmer more than Mel, even in their own homes, and they report the same for Paklae village, telling us that all Mel people from Ou
Krieng come from Paklae. Both the Khmer village chief and a Mel woman who helped him answer the questionnaire say that all people in the village of Ou Krieng speak Khmer. The
Kratie provincial government had observed that the Mel had assimilated into the Khmer language and culture already and, in fact, we did not meet or hear of any communities of Mel
people who are using Mel more than they use Khmer.
Srae Tahaen village—Mel
Although Mel account for the majority of the population in Srae Tahaen V26, residents under the age of 25 speak Khmer exclusively. Mel people in Srae Tahaen originally came
from Chongdop village, Kbal Damrei commune. The head of village development we interviewed listed Chongdop as a village that speaks Mel in the same way as the Mel in Srae
Tahaen. When people over 25 years old from Srae Tahaen visit Chonghop village, they use Mel with Mel people and Khmer with others.
Based on the lexical similarity of Khaonh and Mel, as well as reported migration patterns, perhaps “Khaonh” and “Mel” are actually two names for the same language or ethnic group,
or perhaps they at least have one common origin. The Khaonh in Kosang had come from Chhok, the Khaonh in Chhok had come from Ou Krieng, but there are no Khaonh currently
living in Ou Krieng, and the residents there make no mention of relatives in either Chhok or Kosang. Perhaps at some point in the past, Mel from Ou Krieng founded Chhok village and
somehow became known as “Khaonh” people; then those Khaonh from Chhok left and settled in Kosang village. Under this hypothesis, the Mel of Srae Tahaen and Ou Krieng or,
more accurately, Paklae were either never part of the same village, or separated from each
other even further back than the founding of Chhok, and did not have much further contact with each other.
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4.2.3 The Stieng Chhnaeng village
