Talk:Khom

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Unexplained deletion of sourced material; original research

@ASmutk

You've deleted sourced content without explanation. Charnvit Kasetsiri, for example, is a Thai historian with an impressive body of work. Every claim in the content you deleted is supported by the sources provided, yet the content in your edit is not. For example, you wrote "Khom is not an ethnic designation equivalent to Khmer (ខ្មែរ) in the modern sense." Yet you deleted content and their sources explaining how/why 'Khom' is used as an ethnic designation, albeit fabricated.

I can't locate any mentions of the Khom by Penny Edwards or Michael Vickery, much less used to encompass "prestige-culture," but maybe you did. So can you please give a source for this claim?

You say that Michael Vickery, A. Reid (Anthony Reid), Chris Baker, and Pasuk Phongpaichit "emphasize that 'Khom' is a prestige-cultural category, not a racial label." But your source for that is 'A History of Ayutthaya: Siam in the Early Modern World,' a book in which Anthony Reid and Michael Vickery had zero involvement.

I've read over reviews and abstracts of Anthony Reid's book 'A history of Southeast Asia: critical crossroads,' including at this link here https://www.academia.edu/125607282/A_history_of_Southeast_Asia_critical_crossroads. Zero mention of Khom , much less how it's a term to encompass "prestige-culture." Do you have a source I missed?

I can also find material from Chris Baker discussing Khom Script, which already has a Wikipedia article, but nothing used in the context you insist. Is there something I've overlooked??

The same goes for (well respected) Thai Professor Pasuk Phongpaichit. I can't locate content related to Khom she's covered. Can you please provide it? Additionally, since you used it as a source, can you provide a quote or excerpt from her informative book 'A History of Ayutthaya: Siam in the Early Modern World' explaining that Khom is in fact a "prestige-culture category, not a racial label"? I've scoured reviews of the book in question but zero mentions of "Khom." — Preceding unsigned comment added by MoonsMoon (talk • contribs) 20:59, 1 December 2025 (UTC) MoonsMoon (talk) 21:16, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

You also say: 'Meanwhile, Penny Edwards shows how under the French protectorate, colonial scholars and Khmer intellectuals fused Angkor‑era monuments, religion, and history into a singular, national "Khmer" narrative that retroactively imposed ethnic homogeneity onto a much more heterogeneous past.'

Putting aside whether that's an accurate summation of her work, what does that have to do with Khom?

You further state: These inscriptions make clear that Khom referred to cultural and technological sophistication, especially in temple construction, writing, and religion

But your source for that is this publication: https://www.academia.edu/33094517/AKSOON_KHOOM_Khmer_Heritage_in_Thai_and_Lao_Manuscript_Cultures

We can all see that 'Khom' (or Khoom as it's spelled in the text) is used by this author exclusively to refer to Khom Script. That does not back up your claim.

It looks like you're "implying a conclusion that isn't stated in the sources," which falls under WP:SYNTH and violates WP:NOR. Are you able to locate any other sources for your claims and we can go from there? We can add content to the article if it's backed by the sources.

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'''''Khom''''' ([[Thai language|Thai]]: <span lang="th">ขอม</span>, <span class="IPA-label IPA-label-small">pronounced</span> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="th-Latn-fonipa">[[Help:IPA/Thai|[kʰɔ̌ːm]]]</span>) is a [[Thai language|Thai]]- and [[Lao language|Lao]]-language term referring to the people and civilization of the ancient [[Khmer Empire]]. Its use is recorded as early as the 12th century, though its exact meaning—whether it refers to a specific empire, a certain historical period, or the [[Khmer people]] in general—has been unclear throughout history. From 20th century onwards the term has been commonly leveraged for [[anti-Khmer sentiment]] and [[historical negationism]] in [[Thai nationalism|Thai nationalist]] discourse.The term has been used extensively in 20th-century Thai historiography, partly as a way to disassociate the historical [[Khmer Empire|Angkorian]] civilization—of which many archaeological sites are spread throughout present-day [[Thailand]]—from the present-day Khmer people who form the majority population of [[Cambodia]], whom many Thais still believe to be an [[inferior race]] unrelated to the people of the ancient empire. This discourse was popularized by 20th-century Thai nationalist thinker [[Luang Wichitwathakan]] who incorrectly claimed that contemporary [[Khmer people|Khmers]] are unrelated to the ethnic group responsible for the Angkorian civilization, coining the term "khom" for this purpose. By repurposing the term "khom" derived from the ancient Thai term "[[Khmer Krom]]" meaning "lowland Khmer", Wichitwathakan attempted to create a new ethnicity to accentuate a distinct separation between [[Angkor]] and [[Cambodia]], despite the ethnic continuity between Angkor's builders and present-day Khmer being well-established.
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'''''Khom''''' ([[Thai language|Thai]]: <span lang="th">ขอม</span>, <span class="IPA-label IPA-label-small">pronounced</span> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="th-Latn-fonipa">[[Help:IPA/Thai|[kʰɔ̌ːm]]]</span>) is a [[Thai language|Thai]]- and [[Lao language|Lao]]-language term referring to the people and civilization of Angkor elite state. Khom is not an ethnic designation equivalent to Khmer (ខ្មែរ) in the modern sense. It is an exonym used broadly to refer to: Angkorian elites, Angkor-based polities, People associated with stone-temple building, sacred, literate, or Brahmanical specialists from the southwest Asia. Scholars such as Chris Baker & Pasuk Phongpaichit, Michael Vickery, and A. Reid emphasize that “Khom” is a prestige-cultural category, not a racial label. In modern historiography, using the term Khom to refer specifically to the Angkor‑period elites remains a defensible and useful practice because it preserves the analytical distinction between a Hindu–Buddhist, Sanskrit‑literate court civilization and the later, multiethnic, post‑Angkor Cambodian polity that emerged under different religious and demographic conditions. Scholars such as Michael Vickery have demonstrated that the early state of Angkor was more akin to one among many competing regional mandalas, composed of diverse ethnic, linguistic, and cultural groups whose primary loyalty was to office, ritual, and the devarāja cult, not to an ethnic “Khmer nation.” Meanwhile, Penny Edwards shows how under the French protectorate, colonial scholars and Khmer intellectuals fused Angkor‑era monuments, religion, and history into a singular, national “Khmer” narrative that retroactively imposed ethnic homogeneity onto a much more heterogeneous past. This colonial‑era reimagining served to create a unified national identity, but it did so at the cost of erasing the social, religious, and ethnic discontinuities between Angkor and modern Cambodia. By preserving Khom as a distinct term, scholars can resist this homogenizing narrative and more accurately reflect the complex historical reality of Southeast Asia — where polities were often fluid, multiethnic, and based on fiscal, religious, or ritual allegiance rather than fixed ethnic identity.

* MoonsMoon (talk) 20:43, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

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