Barang (Khmer word)
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Barang (Khmer: បារាំង [ɓaːraŋ] or [paːraŋ]) is a Khmer term meaning French,[1] a Cambodian rendition of the word France.
As a remnant of the French colonial rule in Cambodia and the resulting significant French minority in Cambodia, in some regions of Cambodia the locals will often simply assume people of European ancestry to be French and refer to them as barang.
Since Khmer phonology does not have the unvoiced fricative f, it is pronounced with the voiced plosive b. In many of Khmer's loanwords, an n often changes to an ng, as in the word Allœmáng (អាល្លឺម៉ង់, "Germany" or "German") which comes from the French word Allemand. The rarely used Khmer term Barăngsês (បារាំងសែស) also shows its relation to the word Français.[citation needed]