The students have decorated the hall for the Christmas celebrations this week. The big red writing says "susdaynoael" which is a greeting like "Merry Christmas". "Susday" is a common greeting word used like we use "hello".The yellow writing underneath it says "Jesus was born". The word used for "born" is different to the one used for normal people, this vocab is used for kings and gods.
In Khmer language kings and gods have their own words. For example people "daeu" (walk) but gods/kings "yeang". People "nyum" (eat), but royals "saoy". When people are young they are a "goan" (child) but the royal word is "bot". When people are sad they "yoom" (cry) but kings "kanseng".
The prefix "Phreah" is used before most of these royal words. Example: "Preah yesu" is Jesus, "Preah Sihamoni" is what they call King Sihamoni.
In the New Testament the royal words are used for Jesus. The last few months I have been reading some simple Bible stories from the gospels. Jesus is God, but he is also human, and when the events of the gospels were happening it was more obvious to the people around him that he was human than God (I think?).
But reading the gospel stories in Khmer he is very obviously not a normal person. Just from the little bit of Khmer Bible reading I've done, I've got a much less human view of Jesus. Some parts of the gospel he is interacting with people who have no idea who he is but it is obvious to the reader he is a royal.
