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Overview
| Set of short, basic Catholic prayers translated into Middle Khmer, presumably by/for the French Catholic Mission in Cambodia. An extremely old specimen of Khmer jrieṅ script; very few pieces of Khmer writing, on any format, survive from the eighteenth century. No reliable guide to the paleography of Khmer writing in this period is yet available. The translations are archaic to the modern ear and include various phonetic transcriptions from Latin/French, along with Buddhist terms applied in a Catholic context. The manuscript is completely out of order as digitized and as labeled in Arabic numerals in pencil. The proper beginning of the manuscript is on folio 4v, with the “Signum cruscis” (toyº saṃgāl sădhdā gruss…). This is followed by the “oratio dominicalis” (ābuk yöṅ khñuṃ tèl gaṅ’ lö meńgh braḥ nām braḥ aṅg oyº jā prakaŕthṭh mahºā praseŕthṭh krai…[Middle Khmer translation for pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum…]). Then the “salutatio angelica,” ending in the middle of 4r. Then the “Symbolum apostorolum,” which continues through 3v, and ends at the top of 3r. This is followed by a “confession” prayer. This and the “actus” and “mandata dei et ecclesia” continue on folio 6v, 6r, 5v, and 5r, before concluding on folio 2v. The original foliation is 1–4. The correspondences, original to current, are as follows: 1r = 4v, 1v = 4r, 2r = 3v, 2v = 3r, 3r = 6v, 3v = 6r, 4r = 5v, 4v = 5r, 5r = 2v. |
manuscripts