Tampuan People

The Tampuan (also spelled Tompuan or Tampuon, Tumpoun, Tumpuon, Khmer: ទំពួន) are an indigenous ethnic group living in northeast Cambodia. Numbering about 31,000, the Tampuan people live in the mountainous Southern and Western portions of the Cambodian province of Ratanakiri. They have their own language of the Mon–Khmer language family.

Tampuans, along with the other Mon-Khmer groups of the mountains, are referred to as Khmer Loeu (“Upper Khmer”) by the Khmer majority. In English, montagnards, a designation given to all hill tribes in the former French Indochina is often used. Though historically their language has been without a writing system, in the last ten years an NGO has overseen the creation of a writing system, based on the Cambodian alphabet. However, fewer than 80% of Tampuans are literate.