Khmer language Totally Explained

Everything about Khmer Language totally explained

Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ), or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. One of the more prominent Austroasiatic languages with speakers in the tens of millions, it's the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious registers, through the vehicles of Hinduism and Buddhism. It is also the earliest recorded and earliest written language of the Mon-Khmer family, predating Mon and by a significant margin Vietnamese. 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.
Khmer has its own script, an abugida known in Khmer as Aksar Khmer.
Khmer differs from neighboring languages such as Thai, Lao and Vietnamese in that it isn't a tonal language. All its main dialects that are mutually intelligible:

Battambang, spoken in northern Cambodia.

Phnom Penh, the capital dialect and is also spoken in surrounding provinces.

Northern Khmer, also known as Khmer Surin, spoken by ethnic Khmer native to Northeast Thailand

Khmer Krom or Southern Khmer, spoken by the indigenous Khmer population of the Mekong Delta.

Cardamom Khmer, an archaic form spoken by a small population in the Cardamom Mountains of western Cambodia.

History

Linguistic study of the Khmer language divides its history into four periods. 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. 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. 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. The Vietic languages have also been classified as belonging to this family.

Phonology

As described by Huffman, modern standard Khmer has the following consonant and vowel phonemes. The phonological system described here's the inventory of sounds of the spoken language, not how they're written in the Khmer alphabet.

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. These consonants don't appear in the chart above because they're not Khmer consonants per se and the sounds don't 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. Although primarily an isolating language, lexical derivation by means of prefixes and infixes is common. 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. As is typical of most East Asian languages, the verb doesn't 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. 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.

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. 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 don't 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/ The Khmer script is similar in appearance and usage to both Thai and Lao which were based on the Khmer system. Khmer numerals, which were inherited from Indian numerals, are used more widely than Hindu-Arabic numerals. The Khmer script is also used within Cambodia to transcribe hill tribe languages that have no writing system.

Numbers

The numbers 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

Further Information

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