Khuon Sokhamphu

Khuon Sokhampu was a close student of Chuon Nath, and his used the weekly radio talk shows of the latter as the raw material for his study of the phonetics of the Phnom Penh dialect. In 1971, the National Institute of Languages ​​and Civilizations of the East of Paris appointed him as assistant professor in the Khmer language, but due to the dramatic political situation, the government of the Republic of Cambodia did not allow him to travel abroad. He was then appointed as a Professor of Higher Education by the Ministry of National Education and continued to work as a Professor of Linguistics and director of the Linguistics Research Institute of the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences at the Royal University of Phnom Penh until 1975. He delved into the study of Khmer literature and published a in-depth study of the newly emerged Khmer novel, in 1972, establishing a list of all Khmer novels since the pioneering work of Rim Kin, which he presented at a research conference at the Sorbonne in Paris in July 1973.

In 1963, he published a critical pedagogical curriculum in which he promoted the joint study of Khmer literature in connection to Khmer civilisation, which helps understand the development of Khmer literature during the Sangkum, as illustrated by the novel A New Sun Rises Over the Old Land.

In 1962, he was appointed Professor of Khmer at the University of Humboldt in East Germany. At that time during the Sangkum era, Prince Sihanouk was trying to maintain a neutral policy of non-alignment in the context of the Cold War. Cambodia did not yet have a diplomat in Berlin, therefore Khuon Sokhampu acted as both a professor of the Khmer language and a representative of the Cambodian government in overseeing Cambodian students who had received scholarships from the German government to study in the socialist country. While working in East Berlin, German government studied general linguistics at Humboldt University until obtaining his doctorate on the phonetics of the Khmer language, before returning home to Cambodia in late 1969. However, as Cambodian flipped from neutrality to American ally under the Khmer Republic, his diplomas from a socialist country were not fully recognized. He became a member of the Khmer Writers Association on May 24, 1962.

Khuon Sokhampu married Nam Soun Sunny in the early 1950s. In 1956, he co-published his first history of Khmer literature. In 1960, Khuon Sokhampu passed the entrance exam for the Phnom Penh Pedagogical Institute and completed two years of teaching at the Lycée Descartes. As a teacher in this prestigious call, he started having good relationships with the Cambodian intellectual elite.

Khuon Sokhampu was born on November 27, 1931 in Sangkat Touk Meas, Banteay Meas District, in Kampot Province. His father's name was Yuon Hung, and his mother's name was Nget Nheb. Khuon Sokhampu started primary school in his hometown and studied until obtaining his baccalauréat in high school.