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Khmer
Image:PhiesaKhmae.gif [pʰiːəsaː kʰmaːe]
Spoken in: Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, the People's Republic of China, USA, France, Australia
Total speakers: 15. The Kingdom of Cambodia ( formerly known as Kampuchea (, transliterated: Preăh Réachéanachâkr Kâmpŭchea) is a country in South East Vietnam (ˌviːɛtˈnɑːm Việt Nam) officially The Kingdom of Thailand (ˈtaɪlænd ราชอาณาจักรไทย, râːtɕʰa-ʔaːnaːtɕɑ̀k-tʰɑj Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES The United States of America —commonly referred to as the This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. 7 to 21. 6 million (2004)
  • Native speakers: 14. 7 to 20. 6 million
    • Cambodia: 12. 1 million
    • Vietnam: 1,055,174[1]
    • Thailand: 1. 2 million
    • USA: 190,000
    • France: ca. 50,000
    • Australia: 22,000
    • Canada: 16,500
  • 2nd language speakers: 1 million in Cambodia
Language family: Austro-Asiatic
 Mon-Khmer
  Eastern Mon-Khmer
   Khmer 
Writing system: Khmer script (abugida) 
Official status
Official language in: Cambodia
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: km
ISO 639-2: khm
ISO 639-3: either:
khm – Central Khmer
kxm – Northern Khmer
Indic script
 This page contains Indic text. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Austro-Asiatic languages are a large Language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The Mon-Khmer languages are the autochthonous Language family of Southeast Asia. A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The Khmer script (អក្ខរក្រមខេមរភាសា âkkhârâkrâm khémârâ phéasa informally aksar Khmer អក្សរខ្មែរ is used to write the An abugida ( from Ge‘ez አቡጊዳ ’äbugida or Amharic አቡጊዳ ’abugida is a segmental Writing system which The Kingdom of Cambodia ( formerly known as Kampuchea (, transliterated: Preăh Réachéanachâkr Kâmpŭchea) is a country in South East This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ), or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. The Khmer people are the predominant Ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90% of the 14 The Kingdom of Cambodia ( formerly known as Kampuchea (, transliterated: Preăh Réachéanachâkr Kâmpŭchea) is a country in South East One of the more prominent Austroasiatic languages with speakers in the tens of millions, it is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language. The Austro-Asiatic languages are a large Language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious registers, through the vehicles of Hinduism and Buddhism. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Pali ( ISO 15919 / ALA-LC: Pāḷi is a Middle Indo-Aryan language or Prakrit of India. In Linguistics, a register is a subset of a Language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting Hinduism is a religious tradition that originated in the Indian subcontinent. Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices It is also the earliest recorded and earliest written language of the Mon-Khmer family, predating Mon and by a significant margin Vietnamese. The Mon-Khmer languages are the autochthonous Language family of Southeast Asia. The Mon language is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Mon, who live in Burma and Thailand. Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ) formerly known under French colonization as Annamese ( see Annam) As a result of geographic proximity, the Khmer language has affected, and also been affected by, Thai, Lao, Vietnamese and Cham which all form a sprachbund in peninsular Southeast Asia. Thai (th ภาษาไทย, transcription: phasa thai, transliteration:; pʰāːsǎːtʰāj is the national and Lao or Laotian (BGN/PCGN phasa lao IPA: pʰaːsaː laːw is a Tonal Language of the Tai-Kadai language family Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ) formerly known under French colonization as Annamese ( see Annam) Cham is the language of the Cham people of Southeast Asia, and formerly the language of the kingdom of Champa in central Vietnam A Sprachbund (ˈʃpraːxbʊnt in German plural Sprachbünde) from the German word for “language union” also known as a linguistic area, convergence [2]

Khmer has its own script, an abugida known in Khmer as Aksar Khmer. An abugida ( from Ge‘ez አቡጊዳ ’äbugida or Amharic አቡጊዳ ’abugida is a segmental Writing system which The Khmer script (អក្ខរក្រមខេមរភាសា âkkhârâkrâm khémârâ phéasa informally aksar Khmer អក្សរខ្មែរ is used to write the

Khmer differs from neighboring languages such as Thai, Lao and Vietnamese in that it is not a tonal language. A tonal language is a language that uses tone to distinguish words All its main dialects that are mutually intelligible:

Contents

History

Linguistic study of the Khmer language divides its history into four periods. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields [4] Pre-Angkorian Khmer, the language after its divergence from Proto-Mon-Khmer until the ninth century, is only known from words and phrases in Sanskrit texts of the era. Old Khmer (or Angkorian Khmer) is the language as it was spoken in the Khmer Empire from the 9th century until the weakening of the empire sometime in the 13th century. The Khmer Empire was the largest empire of South East Asia based in what is now Cambodia. Old Khmer is attested by many primary sources and has been studied in depth by a few scholars, most notably Saveros Pou, Phillip Jenner and Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow. Following the end of the Khmer Empire the language lost the standardizing influence of being the language of government and accordingly underwent a turbulent period of change in morphology, phonology and lexicon. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning In Linguistics, the lexicon (from Greek Λεξικόν of a language is its Vocabulary, including its words and expressions The language of this transition period, from about the 14th to 18th centuries, is referred to as Middle Khmer and saw borrowing from Thai, Lao and, to a lesser extent, Vietnamese. The changes during this period are so profound that the rules of Modern Khmer can not be applied to correctly understand the Old Khmer. The language became recognizable as the Modern Khmer spoken today in the 19th century. [4]

Khmer is classified as a member of the Eastern branch of the Mon-Khmer language family, itself a subdivision of the larger Austro-Asiatic language group, which has representatives in a large swath of land from Northeast India down through Southeast Asia to the Malay Peninsula and its islands. The Mon-Khmer languages are the autochthonous Language family of Southeast Asia. As such, its closest relatives are the languages of the Pearic, Bahnaric, and Katuic families spoken by the hill tribes of the region. The Pearic languages are a group of endangered languages of the Eastern Mon-Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family, spoken by Pear people (the The Bahnaric languages are a group of about thirty Mon-Khmer languages spoken by about 700000 people in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The fifteen Katuic languages form a branch of the Austroasiatic languages spoken by about 1 [5] The Vietic languages have also been classified as belonging to this family. The Vietic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic Language family.

Phonology

As described by Huffman, modern standard Khmer has the following consonant and vowel phonemes. [6] The phonological system described here is the inventory of sounds of the spoken language, not how they are written in the Khmer alphabet. The Khmer script (អក្ខរក្រមខេមរភាសា âkkhârâkrâm khémârâ phéasa informally aksar Khmer អក្សរខ្មែរ is used to write the

Consonants

Labial Coronal Palatal Velar Glottal
Aspirated plosive pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ
Unaspirated plosive p t c k ʔ
Implosive ɓ ɗ
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Liquid r l
Fricative s h
Approximant ʋ j

The consonants /f/, /ʃ/, /z/ and /ɡ/ may occasionally occur in foreign words from, for example, French and other recent introductions. Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the Tongue. Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. Implosive consonants are stops (rarely Affricates with a mixed Glottalic ingressive and Pulmonic egressive Airstream mechanism. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Liquid consonants, or liquids, are Approximant Consonants that are not classified as Semivowels (glides because they do not correspond phonetically Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants These consonants do not appear in the chart above because they are not Khmer consonants per se and the sounds do not occur in any Khmer words. These non-native sounds are only heard by speakers familiar with the originating language and have no corresponding symbol in the Khmer script, although combinations of letters otherwise unpronounceable are used to represent these sounds when necessary. In the speech of those who are not bilingual, these sounds are approximated with natively occurring phonemes:

Foreign Sound (IPA) Khmer Representation Khmer Approximation (IPA)
/ɡ/ ហ្គ /k/
/ʃ/ ហ្ស /s/
/f/ ហ្វ /h/ or /pʰ/
/z/ ហ្ស /s/

Vowel nuclei

Long vowels iː eː ɛː ɨː əː aː uː oː ɔː
Short vowels i e ɨ ə ɐ a u o
Long diphthongs iə ei ɐe ɨə əɨ ɐə ao uə ou ɔə
Short diphthongs eə̆ uə̆ oə̆

The precise number and the phonetic value of vowel nuclei vary from dialect to dialect. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU [4] Short and long vowels of equal quality are distinguished solely by duration.

Syllable structure

Khmer words are predominantly of one or two syllables. There are 85 possible clusters of two consonants at the beginning of syllables and two three-consonant clusters with phonetic alterations as shown below:

p ɓ t ɗ c k ʔ m n ɲ ŋ j l r s h ʋ
p pʰt- pɗ- pʰc pʰk- pʔ- pʰn- pʰɲ- pʰŋ- pʰj- pʰl- pr- ps-
t tʰp- tɓ tʰk- tʔ- tʰm- tʰn- tʰŋ- tʰj- tʰl- tr- tʰʋ
c cʰp- cɓ cʰk- cʔ- cʰm- cʰn- cʰŋ- cʰl- cr- cʰʋ-
k kʰp- kɓ kʰt- kɗ- kʰc kʔ- kʰm- kʰn- kʰɲ- kŋ- kʰj- kʰl- kr- ks- kʰʋ-
s sp- sɓ st- sɗ- sk- sʔ- sm- sn- sɲ- sŋ- sl- sr- sʋ
ʔ ʔʋ-
m mt- mɗ- mc mʔ- mʰn- mʰɲ- ml- mr- ms- mh-
l lp- lɓ lk- lʔ- lm- lŋ- lh- lʋ-

Syllables begin with one of these consonants or consonant clusters, followed by one of the vowel nuclei. When the vowel nucleus is short, there has to be a final consonant. /p, t, c, k, ʔ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, l, h, j, ʋ/ can exist in a syllable coda. /h/ and /ʋ/ become [ç] and [w] respectively. The most common word structure in Khmer is a full syllable as described above, preceded by an unstressed, “minor” syllable that has a consonant-vowel (CV) structure CV-, CrV-, CVN- or CrVN- (N is any nasal in the Khmer inventory). Words can also be made up of two full syllables. The vowel in these preceding syllables is usually reduced in conversation to [ə], however in careful or formal speech and in TV and radio, they are always clearly articulated.

Words with three or more syllables exist, particularly those pertaining to science, the arts, and religion. These words are loanwords, usually derived from Pali, Sanskrit, or more recently, French.

Grammar

Main article: Khmer grammar

Khmer is generally a Subject Verb Object (SVO) language with prepositions. This article discusses the Grammar of the Khmer language, focusing on the standard (Phnom Penh dialect In Linguistic typology, subject-verb-object ( SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first the Verb second and the object In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. [7] Although primarily an isolating language, lexical derivation by means of prefixes and infixes is common. In morphological typology (in linguistics an isolating language (also analytic language) is any Language in which words are composed of In Linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from A prefix is a type of Affix attached to a stem which modifies the meaning of that stem An infix is an Affix inserted inside a stem (an existing word [8] Adjectives, demonstratives and numerals follow their noun:

ស្រីឡើនោះ /srəːj lʔɐː nuç/ (girl pretty that) = that pretty girl

The noun has no grammatical gender or singular/plural distinction. Plurality can be marked by postnominal particles, numerals, or by doubling the adjective, which can also serve to intensify the adjective:

ឆ្កែធំ /cʰkae tʰom/ (dog large) = large dog

ឆ្កែធំធំ /cʰkae tʰom tʰom/ (dog large large) = large dogs or a very large dog

ឆ្កែពីរ /cʰkae piː/ (dog two) = two dogs

Classifying particles for use between numerals and nouns exist although are not obligatory as in, for example, Thai. Post-nominal letters, also called " post-nominal initials " or " post-nominal titles " are letters placed after the name of a person to indicate that A classifier, in Linguistics, is a Word or Morpheme used in some languages to classify a Noun according to its meaning As is typical of most East Asian languages,[9] the verb does not inflect at all; tense and aspect can be shown by particles and adverbs or understood by context. Verbs are negated by putting "/min/", "/pum/" or "/ʔɐt/" before them and "/teː/" at the end of the sentence or clause.

ខ្ញុំជឿ /kʰɲom cɨə/ - I believe

ខ្ញុំមិនជឿទេ /kʰɲom min cɨə teː/ - I don't believe

Dialects

Dialects are sometimes quite marked. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of Notable variations are found in speakers from Phnom Penh (the capital city), the rural Battambang area, the areas of Northeast Thailand adjacent to Cambodia such as Surin province, the Cardamom Mountains, and in southern Vietnam. Phnom Penh ( Khmer: ភ្នំពេញ official Romanization Phnum Pénh; pʰnum pɯɲ is the Capital Battambang (also Batdambang) is a province of Cambodia. It is in the northwest of the country and its capital is Surin (สุรินทร์ is one of the north-eastern provinces ( changwat) of Thailand. [4] The dialects form a continuum running roughly north to south. A dialect continuum is a range of Dialects spoken across a large geographical area differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close and gradually decreasing The speech of Phnom Penh, considered the standard, is mutually intelligible with the others but a Khmer Krom speaker from Vietnam, for instance, may have great difficulty communicating with a Khmer native to Sisaket Province in Thailand. The Khmer Krom ( Khmer:, Vietnamese: Khơ Me Crộm) - Khmer people living in the Delta and the Lower Mekong area Sisaket (ศรีสะเกษ transliteration of Chinese character "四色菊" literally means "Four colours chrysanthemum" is one of the north-eastern

Northern Khmer, the dialect spoken in Thailand, is referred to in Khmer as Khmer Surin and, although it only began divergence from standard Khmer within the last 200 years, is considered by some linguists to be a separate language. This is due to its distinct accent influenced by the surrounding tonal language, Thai, lexical differences and its phonemic differences in both vowels and distribution of consonants. Thai (th ภาษาไทย, transcription: phasa thai, transliteration:; pʰāːsǎːtʰāj is the national and Final "r", which has become silent in other dialects of Khmer, is pronounced in Northern Khmer.

Western Khmer, also called Cardamom Khmer, spoken by a small, isolated population in the Cardamom mountain range extending from Cambodia into Thailand, although little studied, is unique in that it maintains a definite system of vocal register that has all but disappeared in other dialects of modern Khmer. Register (sociolinguisticsIn Linguistics, a register language also known as a pitch-register language is a language which combines tone and vowel [4]

A notable characteristic of Phnom Penh casual speech is merging or complete elision of syllables, considered by speakers from other regions as a "relaxed" pronunciation. Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a Vowel, a Consonant, or a whole Syllable) in a word or phrase producing a result that is easier For instance, "Phnom Penh" will sometimes be shortened to "m'Penh". Another characteristic of Phnom Penh speech is observed in words with an "r" either as an initial consonant or as the second member of a consonant cluster (as in the English word "bread"). In Linguistics, a consonant cluster (or consonant blend) is a group of Consonants which have no intervening Vowel. The "r", trilled or flapped in other dialects, is either pronounced as an uvular trill (similar to French) or not pronounced at all. The alveolar trill is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental The alveolar tap or flap is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that The uvular trill is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents This alters the quality of any preceding consonant causing a harder, more emphasized pronunciation. Another unique result is that the syllable is spoken with a low-rising or "dipping" tone much like the "hỏi" tone in Northern Vietnamese. Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ) formerly known under French colonization as Annamese ( see Annam) For example, some people pronounce /trəj/ (meaning "fish") as /təj/, the "r" is dropped and the vowel begins by dipping much lower in tone than standard speech and then rises, effectively doubling its length. Another example is the word /riən/ ("study, learn"). It is pronounced /ʀiən/, with the "uvular r" and the same intonation described above. [10]

Social registers

Khmer employs a system of registers in which the speaker must always be conscious of the social status of the person spoken to. In Linguistics, a register is a subset of a Language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting The different registers, which include those used for common speech, polite speech, speaking to or about royals and speaking to or about monks, employ alternate verbs, names of body parts and pronouns. This results in what appears to foreigners as separate languages and, in fact, isolated villagers often are unsure how to speak with royals and royals raised completely within the court do not feel comfortable speaking the common register. Another result is that the pronominal system is complex and full of honorific variations.

As an example, the word for "to eat" used between intimates or in reference to animals is /siː/. Used in polite reference to commoners, it's /ɲam/. When used of those of higher social status, it's /pisa/ or /tɔtuəl tiən/. For monks the word is /cʰan/ and for royals, /saoj/[2].

Writing system

Main article: Khmer script

Khmer is written with the Khmer script, an abugida developed from the Pallava script of India before the 7th century. The Khmer script (អក្ខរក្រមខេមរភាសា âkkhârâkrâm khémârâ phéasa informally aksar Khmer អក្សរខ្មែរ is used to write the The Khmer script (អក្ខរក្រមខេមរភាសា âkkhârâkrâm khémârâ phéasa informally aksar Khmer អក្សរខ្មែរ is used to write the An abugida ( from Ge‘ez አቡጊዳ ’äbugida or Amharic አቡጊዳ ’abugida is a segmental Writing system which Grantha ( Tamil: கிரந்த ௭ழுத்து Bengali: গ্রন্থলিপি Malayalam: ml ഗ്രന്ഥലിപി Sanskrit [11] The Khmer script is similar in appearance and usage to both Thai and Lao which were based on the Khmer system. The Thai Alphabet (อักษรไทย àksŏn thai) is used to write the Thai language and other minority languages in Thailand The Lao script is used mainly to write the Lao language. The minority languages of Laos are also written in the Lao script and officially it is the only script [11] Khmer numerals, which were inherited from Indian numerals, are used more widely than Hindu-Arabic numerals. Khmer numerals are the numerals used in the Khmer language of Cambodia. The arabic numerals (often capitalized are the ten Digits (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 which—along with the system The Khmer script is also used within Cambodia to transcribe hill tribe languages that have no writing system. [6]

Numbers

Main article: Khmer numerals

The numbers[8] are:

0 ០ សូន្យ (son) /soːu̯n/
1 ១ មួយ (muŏy) /muːə̯j/
2 ២ ពីរ (pi) /piː/
3 ៣ បី (bei) /ɓəj/
4 ៤ បួន (buŏn) /ɓuːə̯n/
5 ៥ ប្រាំ (prăm) /pram/
6 ៦ ប្រាំមូយ (prăm muŏy) /pram muːə̯j/
7 ៧ ប្រាំពីរ (prăm pi) /pram piː/ (also /pram pɨl/)
8 ៨ ប្រាំបី (prăm bei) /pram ɓəj/
9 ៩ ប្រាំបួន (prăm buŏn) /pram ɓuːə̯n/
10 ១០ ដប់ (dâp) /ɗɑp/
100 ១០០ មួយរយ (muŏy rôy) /muːə̯j rɔj/
1,000 ១០០០ មួយពាន់ (muŏy péan) /muːə̯j piːə̯n/
10,000 ១០០០០ មួយម៉ឺន (muŏy mein) /muːə̯j məɨn/
100,000 ១០០០០០ មួយសែន (muŏy sên) /muːə̯j saːe̯n/
1,000,000 ១០០០០០០ មួយលាន (muŏy léan) /muːə̯j liːə̯n/

References and notes

  1. ^ Vietnam's estimated amount of Khmer speakers by Ethnologue.com in (1999)
  2. ^ a b David A. Khmer numerals are the numerals used in the Khmer language of Cambodia. Smyth, Judith Margaret Jacob (1993). Cambodian Linguistics, Literature and History: Collected Articles. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0728602180147852369*.  
  3. ^ Nancy Joan Smith-Hefner (1999). Khmer American: Identity and Moral Education in a Diasporic Community. University of California. ISBN 0520213491.  
  4. ^ a b c d e Mon-Khmer Studies Paul Sidwell. Australian National University. Accessed February 23, 2007.
  5. ^ Shorto, Harry L. edited by Sidwell, Paul, Cooper, Doug and Bauer, Christian (2006). A Mon-Khmer comparative dictionary. Canberra: Australian National University. Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 0-85883-570-3
  6. ^ a b Huffman, Franklin. 1970. Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01314-0
  7. ^ Huffman, Franklin. 1967. An outline of Cambodian Grammar. PhD thesis, Cornell University.
  8. ^ a b David Smyth (1995). Colloquial Cambodian: A Complete Language Course. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0415100062.  
  9. ^ East and Southeast Asian Languages: A First Look at Oxford University Press Online
  10. ^ William Allen A. Smalley (1994). Linguistic Diversity and National Unity: Language Ecology in Thailand. University of Chicago. ISBN 0226762882.  
  11. ^ a b Khmer Alphabet at Omniglot.com

Further reading

External links

Samdech Sangha Raja Jhotañano Chuon Nath ( March 11, 1883 – September 25, 1969) is the late Supreme Patriarch Kana Mahanikaya of
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