Khmer language

Khmer
Cambodian
ភាសាខ្មែរ
Pronunciation	pʰiːəsaː kʰmaːe
Native to	Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, USA, France, Australia
Ethnicity	Khmer
Native speakers	16 million (2007) 1 million L2 speakers
Language family	Austroasiatic Khmer
Dialects	Battambang Phnom Penh Northern Khmer (Khmer Surin) Khmer Krom (Southern Khmer) Cardamom Khmer
Writing system	Khmer script (abugida)
Official status
Official language in	Cambodia
Language codes
ISO 639-1	km
ISO 639-2	khm
ISO 639-3	Either: khm – Central Khmer kxm – Northern Khmer

Khmer is the official language of Cambodia.

Overview

The Khmer is spoken by the Khmer people, who live in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and many other countries. Its script was the base for the Thai script, although Thai does not use subscript consonants.

One thing that makes it particularly difficult for many foreigners to learn is that Khmer words are not separated in a sentence and the sounds are quite hard for foreigners to repeat. But still each word in the sentence can be distinguished. Also, there is not much material on Khmer, although this situation is changing.

Writing

The Khmer script is based on an ancient Indian alphabet. It is written from left to right. There are 35 consonants, some of which can be written under other consonants (2 consonants are not used anymore). Vowels are combined with the consonants to make a sound.

For instance, the "t" sound ត can be combined with the "-ah" sound ា to make the word តា (tah, which means grandfather). The Khmer writing script also has its own special way of writing numbers. The Khmer numerals are ០១២៣៤៥៦៧៨៩.

Grammar

The language has a subject-verb-object order, just like English. Pronouns change based on who you are speaking to. For instance, if you are not a monk and you are speaking to a monk, you would call him "ព្រះតេជព្រះគុណ".

Examples

ខ្ញុំមិនចង់បានទេ "I don't want it."

អ្នកចង់ទៅលេងសៀមរាបទេ "Do you want to go to Siem Reap?"

Related pages

• History of Asia
• Austronesian peoples
• Austroasiatic languages