Khmer
Language · official in 1 country
Unlike Thai, Lao, Burmese and Vietnamese around it, Khmer has no tones. It is an Austroasiatic language, related to Mon and Vietnamese, written since at least the 7th century in an abugida descended from the Pallava script of India, and it is the official and national language of Cambodia.
The language on record
- Own name
- ខ្មែរ
- ISO 639-1
- KM
- ISO 639-3
- KHM
- Script
- Khmer
- Family
- Austroasiatic
- Official in
- 1 country
Where Khmer is official
Cambodia alone. Outside it, Khmer communities in northeast Thailand and in southern Vietnam speak their own dialects without official standing on any record.
About Khmer
Where Khmer sits in Austroasiatic
The Austroasiatic family, which also holds Mon, Vietnamese and the Munda languages, was first proposed in 1907. Diffloth placed Khmer in an eastern branch of Mon-Khmer, closest to the Bahnaric and Pearic languages. More recent schemes doubt the Mon-Khmer grouping and give Khmer a branch of its own, equidistant from the family's other branches.
Which periods scholars divide it into
Old Khmer runs from 600 to 800 CE in its pre-Angkorian form and from the 9th to the 13th century as the language of the Khmer Empire. Middle Khmer, from about the 14th to the 18th century, borrowed from Thai in its literary register. Modern Khmer dates from the 19th century. Sanskrit and Pali entered through Hinduism and Buddhism, above all in the royal and religious vocabulary.
Who resisted French and Thai influence
Cambodia joined French Indochina in 1887, and French became the language of higher education. In the early 20th century scholars led by the monk Chuon Nath formed a Cultural Committee to standardise the language. They pushed Khmerisation, which purged foreign words and revived affixes. New terms were to come from Old Khmer roots or from Pali and Sanskrit. Keng Vannsak wanted new words from everyday Khmer instead, and Ieu Koeus favoured borrowing from Thai. Chuon Nath's side won; his dictionary is still in use, and he oversaw the translation of the whole Pali canon into Khmer.
How the script records lost sounds
Consonant letters come in two series, one with the inherent vowel ɑː and one with ɔː. The second series once wrote the voiced consonants of Old Khmer. When voicing disappeared, the difference moved into the vowel, so most consonant sounds now have two letters and each vowel sign two readings. Thai and Lao scripts were both based on the Khmer system.
When the word for eat changes
Speakers must choose a register by the status of the person addressed. To eat is siː between intimates or of animals, ɲam in polite speech, pisa for those of higher status, cʰan for monks and saoj for royals.
Common questions
Questions about Khmer
Is Khmer a tonal language?
No, though the colloquial speech of Phnom Penh has developed a contrast between a level and a peaking tone after dropping the sound r.
How is Khmer grammar built?
Khmer is analytic. Its words never inflect; particles and auxiliaries mark grammatical relations. The basic order is subject, verb, object, and modifiers follow the word they modify.
Which Khmer dialects are spoken outside Cambodia?
Northern Khmer in northeast Thailand, which some linguists count as a separate language, and Khmer Krom in southern Vietnam. In the Cardamom Mountains, a conservative dialect keeps features of Middle Khmer.