The Ministry of Information is to establish an “E-Book” to register more than 200 new terminologies related to media and news, all of which have been approved by the National Council for Khmer Language at the Royal Academy of Cambodia.

The planning was discussed by officials from the ministry in an April 18 meeting at its headquarters in Phnom Penh.

Phos Sovann, head of the ministry’s General Department of Information and Broadcasting, told The Post on April 18 that the ministry had a commission tasked with formulating new terms and translating and transcribing terms from foreign languages into Khmer.

However, he noted that some of the terms were sometimes used in the wrong context.

For example, the terms “fake news”, “misinformation” and “disinformation” were approved but officials had been using them interchangeably.

To address this, information minister Khieu Kanharith has instructed the ministry’s Information Technology unit to set up an E-Book which included all of the terms and their precise definitions. This would be easy to access and would ensure that the correct terms would be used in the future, especially by officials, he said.

“We don’t have many new terms; I would say around 200 words. Within the ministry, there is a commission which collects terms that are regularly used in the media sector. We submit them to the Khmer language council for approval. Naturally, some are approved and some are not,” he said.

According to Sovan, the minister instructed that a hard-copy publication of the new lexicon be printed and bound, but only once the number approved had reached 400.

The minister has recommended that the E-Book be available in Khmer, English and French. Once the approved terms are registered, all levels of institution under the ministry will be required to use them. Ministry secretary of state Hor Sopheap will be in charge of this work, he added.