A retired research director of the CNRS in Paris, a specialist of the Khmer language and civilization, she carried out extensive work of Khmer epigraphy, started as a young researcher with her teacher George Cœdès.
Her work in the field of etymology, specifically applied to Old Khmer (from the 6th to the 14th) was seminal, but her varied skills enabled her to tackle areas such as the very rich processes of derivation in Khmer, religion, codes of conduct ( CPAP '), zoology and botany, cooking, etc.
Born 24 August 1929 in Phnom Penh, Saveros Pou came to France for her graduate studies, carried out under the guidance of teachers such as François Martini, Au Chhieng, Jean Filliozat, Louis Renou and George Cœdès, which enabled her to acquire very varied theoretical language skills and practices.
[1] In 1965 she presented a postgraduate doctorate on Khmer toponymy, of which large extracts were included in 1967 in the Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient.
Thus, the modern word ទន្តពេទ្យ for "dentist", pronounced toan'pèt', but transliterated dantabedy, is a complex formation from the Sanskrit words danta : "tooth" and vaidya : "physician" (verbal root VID "to know"; in Sanskrit, b and v are often used interchangeably and the vowel e like ai derives from i.