Khmer language
Encyclopedia
Khmer or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people
and the official language of Cambodia
. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language
(after Vietnamese
), with speakers in the tens of millions. 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. The Khmer language has influenced, and also been influenced by, Thai
, Lao
, Vietnamese
and Cham
, all of which, due to geographical proximity and long-term cultural contact, form a sprachbund
in peninsular Southeast Asia
.
The Khmer language is written with an abugida
known in Khmer as âksâr khmêr
.
Khmer differs from neighboring languages such as Thai, Lao and Vietnamese in that it is not a tonal language.
The main dialects, all mutually intelligible, are:
study of the Khmer language divides its history into four periods one of which, the Old Khmer period, is subdivided into pre-Angkorian and Angkorian. 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 Old Khmer. The language became recognizable as Modern Khmer, spoken from the 19th century till today.
The following table shows the conventionally accepted historical stages of Khmer (Sidwell 2009:107).
Khmer is classified as a member of the Eastern branch of the Mon–Khmer language family, itself a subdivision of the larger Austroasiatic 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. As such, its closest relatives are the languages of the Pearic
, Bahnaric
, and Katuic
families spoken by the hill tribes of the region. The Vietic languages
have also been classified as belonging to this family.
of /r/.
Khmer once had a phonation
distinction in its vowels, which was indicated in writing by choosing between two sets of letters for the preceding consonant according to the historical source of the phonation. However, phonation has been lost in all but the most archaic dialect of Khmer (Western Khmer). For example, Old Khmer distinguished voiced and unvoiced pairs as in *kaa vs *ɡaa. The vowels after voiced consonants became breathy voice
d and diphthongized: *kaa, *ɡe̤a. When consonant voicing was lost, the distinction was maintained by the vowel: *kaa, *ke̤a, and later the phonation disappeared as well: [kaː], [kiə].
Khmer is frequently described as having aspirated stops
. However, these may be analyzed as consonant cluster
s, /ph, th, ch, kh/, as infix
es can occur between the stop and the aspiration (phem, phem), or as non-distinctive phonetic detail in other consonant clusters, such as the khm in Khmer. [b] and [d] are occasional allophones of the implosives.
In addition, the consonants /f/, /ʃ/, /z/ and /ɡ/ may occasionally occur in recent loan words in the speech of Cambodians familiar with French and other languages. These non-native sounds are not represented in the Khmer script, although combinations of letters otherwise unpronounceable are used to represent them when necessary. In the speech of those who are not bilingual, these sounds are approximated with natively occurring phoneme
s:
The precise number and the phonetic value of vowel nuclei vary from dialect to dialect. Short and long vowels of equal quality are distinguished solely by duration.
, with stress falling on the final syllable. There are 85 possible clusters of two consonants at the beginning of syllables and two three-consonant clusters with phonetic alterations as shown below:
Syllables begin with one of these consonants or consonant clusters, followed by one of the vowel nuclei. The aspiration in some clusters is allophonic. 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
, while /h/ and /ʋ/ become [ç] and [w] respectively. The stops /p, t, c, k/ are unreleased when occurring as syllable finals.
The most common word structure in Khmer is a full syllable as described above, which may be preceded by an unstressed, “minor” syllable that has a consonant-vowel structure of CV-, CrV-, CVN- or CrVN- (N is any nasal in the Khmer inventory). 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. However, these words are loanwords, usually derived from Pali, Sanskrit, or more recently, French.
, lexical derivation
by means of prefixes and infixes is common but not always productive in the modern language.
.
/srəj sʔaːt nuh/ (girl pretty that) = that pretty girl
/srəj sʔaːt sʔaːt/ (girl pretty pretty) = a very pretty girl
As Khmer sentences rarely use a copula
, adjectives are also employed as verbs. Comparatives are formed by the use of /ciəng/: "A X /ciəng/ B" (A is more X than B). The most common way to express the idea of superlatives is the construction "A X /ciəng ke:/" (A is X-est of all).
/cʰkae tʰom/ (dog large) = large dog
/cʰkae tʰom tʰom/ (dog large large) = a very large dog or large dogs
/cʰkae tʰom nah/ (dog large very) = very large dog
/cʰkae piː/ (dog two) = two dogs
Classifying particles
for use between numerals and nouns exist although are not always obligatory as in, for example, Thai. Pronouns are subject to a complicated system of social register, the choice of pronoun depending on the perceived relationships between speaker, audience and referent (see Social registers below). Kinship terms, nicknames and proper names are often used as pronouns (including for the first person) among intimates. Frequently, subject pronouns are dropped in colloquial conversation.
form. The gerund
is formed by using /kəmpɔːŋ/: "A /kəmpɔːŋ/ V" (A is in the process of V). Serial verb construction
is quite common. Negation is achieved by putting /min/ before them and /teː/ at the end of the sentence or clause. In normal speech verbs can also be negated without the need for an ending particle by putting /ʔɐt/ before them.
/kʰɲom cɨə/ – I believe
/kʰɲom min cɨə teː/ – I don't believe
/kʰɲom ʔɐt cɨə/ – I don't believe
s are sometimes quite marked. Notable variations are found in speakers from Phnom Penh
(which is 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. The dialects form a continuum
running roughly north to south. Standard Cambodian Khmer 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 following classification of Khmer dialects is from Ferlus (1992), as cited in Sidwell (2009).
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. 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.
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. 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"). The "r", trilled
or flapped
in other dialects, is either pronounced as an uvular trill
or not pronounced at all. 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 Vietnamese
. 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.
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 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/.
developed from the Pallava script of India before the 7th century. The Khmer script is similar in appearance and usage to both Thai and Lao, which were based on the Khmer system, and is distantly related to the Burmese script. 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.
Khmer people
Khmer people are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90% of the 14.8 million people in the country. They speak the Khmer language, which is part of the larger Mon–Khmer language family found throughout Southeast Asia...
and the official language of Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language
Austro-Asiatic languages
The Austro-Asiatic languages, in recent classifications synonymous with Mon–Khmer, are a large language family of Southeast Asia, also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The name Austro-Asiatic comes from the Latin words for "south" and "Asia", hence "South Asia"...
(after Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
), with speakers in the tens of millions. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
and Pali
Páli
- External links :* *...
, especially in the royal and religious registers
Register (linguistics)
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
, through the vehicles of Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
and Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
. It is also the earliest recorded and earliest written language of the Mon–Khmer family, predating Mon
Mon language
The Mon language is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Mon, who live in Burma and Thailand. Mon, like the related language Cambodian—but unlike most languages in Mainland Southeast Asia—is not tonal. Mon is spoken by more than a million people today. In recent years, usage of Mon has...
and by a significant margin Vietnamese. The Khmer language has influenced, and also been influenced by, Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
, Lao
Lao language
Lao or Laotian is a tonal language of the Tai–Kadai language family. It is the official language of Laos, and also spoken in the northeast of Thailand, where it is usually referred to as the Isan language. Being the primary language of the Lao people, Lao is also an important second language for...
, Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
and Cham
Cham language
Cham is the language of the Cham people of Southeast Asia, and formerly the language of the kingdom of Champa in central Vietnam. A member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family, it is spoken by 100,000 people in Vietnam and up to 220,000 people in Cambodia . There are also...
, all of which, due to geographical proximity and long-term cultural contact, form a sprachbund
Sprachbund
A Sprachbund – also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads – is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related...
in peninsular Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
.
The Khmer language is written with an abugida
Abugida
An abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
known in Khmer as âksâr khmêr
Khmer script
The Khmer script is an alphasyllabary script used to write the Khmer language . It is also used to write Pali among the Buddhist liturgy of Cambodia and Thailand....
.
Khmer differs from neighboring languages such as Thai, Lao and Vietnamese in that it is not a tonal language.
The main dialects, all mutually intelligible, are:
- 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 KromKhmer KromThe Khmer Krom are Khmer people living in the Mekong Delta and the Lower Mekong River area. Under the Khmer Rouge regime- according to the conservative estimates are that 150,000. Under the rule of Vietnam from 1979-93, Cambodia may have lost 20,000 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 MountainsCardamom MountainsThe Krâvanh Mountains, literally the "Cardamom Mountains" , is a mountain range in the south west of Cambodia, jutting into southeastern Thailand.-Location and description:...
of western Cambodia and eastern Central ThailandCentral ThailandCentral Thailand is a region of Thailand, covering the broad alluvial plain of the Chao Phraya River. It is separated from North-East Thailand by the Phetchabun mountain range, and another mountain range separates it from Myanmar to the west. In the north it gently changes into the more hilly...
History
LinguisticLinguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
study of the Khmer language divides its history into four periods one of which, the Old Khmer period, is subdivided into pre-Angkorian and Angkorian. 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
Khmer Empire
The Khmer Empire was one of the most powerful empires in Southeast Asia. The empire, which grew out of the former kingdom of Chenla, at times ruled over and/or vassalized parts of modern-day Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, and Malaysia. Its greatest legacy is Angkor, the site of the capital city...
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
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
, phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
and lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
. 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 Old Khmer. The language became recognizable as Modern Khmer, spoken from the 19th century till today.
The following table shows the conventionally accepted historical stages of Khmer (Sidwell 2009:107).
| Historical stage | Date |
|---|---|
| Pre- or Proto-Khmer | Before 600 CE |
| Pre-Angkorian Old Khmer | 600–800 CE |
| Angkorian Old Khmer | 800 to mid-1300s |
| Middle Khmer | Mid-1300s to 1700's |
| Modern Khmer | 1800–present |
Khmer is classified as a member of the Eastern branch of the Mon–Khmer language family, itself a subdivision of the larger Austroasiatic 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. As such, its closest relatives are the languages of the Pearic
Pearic languages
The Pearic languages are a group of endangered languages of the Eastern Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family, spoken by Pear people living in western Cambodia and southeastern Thailand....
, Bahnaric
Bahnaric languages
The Bahnaric languages are a group of about thirty Mon–Khmer languages spoken by about 700,000 people in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Paul Sidwell notes that Austroasiatic/Mon–Khmer languages are lexically more similar to Bahnaric and Katuic the closer they are geographically, independently of...
, and Katuic
Katuic languages
The fifteen Katuic languages form a branch of the Austroasiatic languages spoken by about 1.3 million people in Southeast Asia. People who speak Katuic languages are called the Katuic peoples. Paul Sidwell is the leading specialist on the Katuic languages...
families spoken by the hill tribes of the region. The Vietic languages
Vietic languages
The Vietic languages are a branch of the Austro-Asiatic language family. The branch was once referred to by the terms Việt–Mường, Annam–Muong, and Vietnamuong, but today these are understood as referring to a sub-branch of Vietic containing only the Vietnamese and Mường languages.-Origins:Based on...
have also been classified as belonging to this family.
Phonology
The phonological system described here is the inventory of sounds of the spoken language, not how they are written in the Khmer alphabet.Tone and phonation
Most Cambodian dialects are not tonal. However, the colloquial Phnom Penh dialect has developed a marginal tonal contrast (a level versus a peaking tone) to compensate for the elisionElision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
of /r/.
Khmer once had a phonation
Phonation
Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, phonation is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the definition used among those who study laryngeal anatomy and physiology...
distinction in its vowels, which was indicated in writing by choosing between two sets of letters for the preceding consonant according to the historical source of the phonation. However, phonation has been lost in all but the most archaic dialect of Khmer (Western Khmer). For example, Old Khmer distinguished voiced and unvoiced pairs as in *kaa vs *ɡaa. The vowels after voiced consonants became breathy voice
Breathy voice
Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...
d and diphthongized: *kaa, *ɡe̤a. When consonant voicing was lost, the distinction was maintained by the vowel: *kaa, *ke̤a, and later the phonation disappeared as well: [kaː], [kiə].
Consonants
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Dental/Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
| Plosive | p (pʰ) | t (tʰ) | c (cʰ) | k (kʰ) | ʔ |
| Implosive | ɓ ~ b | ɗ ~ d | |||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Liquid Liquid consonant In phonetics, liquids or liquid consonants are a class of consonants consisting of lateral consonants together with rhotics.-Description:... |
r l | ||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
s | h | |||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
ʋ | j | |||
Khmer is frequently described as having aspirated stops
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
. However, these may be analyzed as consonant cluster
Consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s, /ph, th, ch, kh/, as infix
Infix
An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem . It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the end of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.-Indonesian:...
es can occur between the stop and the aspiration (phem, p
In addition, the consonants /f/, /ʃ/, /z/ and /ɡ/ may occasionally occur in recent loan words in the speech of Cambodians familiar with French and other languages. These non-native sounds are not represented in the Khmer script, although combinations of letters otherwise unpronounceable are used to represent them when necessary. In the speech of those who are not bilingual, these sounds are approximated with natively occurring phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s:
| Foreign Sound (IPA) | Khmer Representation | Khmer Approximation (IPA) |
|---|---|---|
| /ɡ/ | /k/ | |
| /ʃ/ | /s/ | |
| /f/ | /h/ or /pʰ/ | |
| /z/ | /s/ | |
Vowel nuclei
There is little agreement as to the vowels of Khmer. This may be in part because political centralization has not yet been achieved, so standard Khmer does not prevail throughout Cambodia. As such, many speakers of even the same community may have different phonological inventories. Two proposals follow:| Long vowels | iː | eː | ɛː | ɨː | əː | aː | uː | oː | ɔː | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short vowels | i | e | ɨ | ə | ɐ | a | u | o | ||
| Long diphthongs | iə̯ | ei̯ | ɐe̯ | ɨə̯ | əɨ̯ | ɐə̯ | ao̯ | uə̯ | ou̯ | ɔə̯ |
| Short diphthongs | eə̯̆ | uə̯̆ | oə̯̆ |
| Long vowels | iː | e̝ː | eː | ɛː | ɯː | ə̝ː | əː | aː | uː | o̝ː | oː | ɔː |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short vowels | i | e | ɛ | ɯ | ə | a | u | o | ɔ | |||
| Long diphthongs | iə̯ | aɛ̯ | aə̯ | o̞u̯ | ao̯ | |||||||
| Short diphthongs | ɛə̯ | ʷɔ | ||||||||||
The precise number and the phonetic value of vowel nuclei vary from dialect to dialect. Short and long vowels of equal quality are distinguished solely by duration.
Syllable structure
Khmer words are predominantly either monosyllabic or sesquisyllabicMinor syllable
Minor syllable is a term used primarily in the description of Mon-Khmer languages, where a word typically consists of a reduced syllable followed by a full tonic or stressed syllable...
, with stress falling on the final syllable. 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 | tʰ | kʰ | |
| p | pʰt- | pɗ- | pʰc- | pʰk- | pʔ- | pʰn- | pʰɲ- | pʰŋ- | pʰj- | pʰl- | pr- | ps- | pʰ- | ||||||
| t | tʰp- | tɓ- | tʰk- | tʔ- | tʰm- | tʰn- | tʰŋ- | tʰj- | tʰl- | tr- | tʰ- | tʰʋ- | |||||||
| c | cʰp- | cɓ- | cʰk- | cʔ- | cʰm- | cʰn- | cʰŋ- | cʰl- | cr- | cʰ- | cʰʋ- | ||||||||
| k | kʰp- | kɓ- | kʰt- | kɗ- | kʰc- | kʔ- | kʰm- | kʰn- | kʰɲ- | kŋ- | kʰj- | kʰl- | kr- | ks- | kʰ- | kʰʋ- | |||
| s | sp- | sɓ- | st- | sɗ- | sk- | sʔ- | sm- | sn- | sɲ- | sŋ- | sl- | sr- | sʋ- | stʰ- | |||||
| ʔ | ʔʋ- | ||||||||||||||||||
| m | mt- | mɗ- | mc- | mʔ- | mn- | mɲ- | ml- | mr- | ms- | mh- | |||||||||
| l | lp- | lɓ- | lk- | lʔ- | lm- | lŋ- | lh- | lʋ- | lkʰ- | ||||||||||
Syllables begin with one of these consonants or consonant clusters, followed by one of the vowel nuclei. The aspiration in some clusters is allophonic. 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
Syllable coda
In phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a rime. Some syllables consist only of a nucleus with no coda...
, while /h/ and /ʋ/ become [ç] and [w] respectively. The stops /p, t, c, k/ are unreleased when occurring as syllable finals.
The most common word structure in Khmer is a full syllable as described above, which may be preceded by an unstressed, “minor” syllable that has a consonant-vowel structure of CV-, CrV-, CVN- or CrVN- (N is any nasal in the Khmer inventory). 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. However, these words are loanwords, usually derived from Pali, Sanskrit, or more recently, French.
Grammar
Khmer is generally a subject–verb–object (SVO) language with prepositions. Although primarily an isolating languageIsolating language
An isolating language is a type of language with a low morpheme-per-word ratio — in the extreme case of an isolating language words are composed of a single morpheme...
, lexical derivation
Derivation (linguistics)
In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...
by means of prefixes and infixes is common but not always productive in the modern language.
Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives, demonstratives and numerals follow the noun they modify. Adverbs likewise follow the verb. Morphologically, adjectives and adverbs are not distinguished with many words often serving either function. Similar to other languages of the region, intensity can be expressed by reduplicationReduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
.
/srəj sʔaːt nuh/ (girl pretty that) = that pretty girl
/srəj sʔaːt sʔaːt/ (girl pretty pretty) = a very pretty girl
As Khmer sentences rarely use a copula
Copula
In linguistics, a copula is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate . The word copula derives from the Latin noun for a link or tie that connects two different things.A copula is often a verb or a verb-like word, though this is not universally the case...
, adjectives are also employed as verbs. Comparatives are formed by the use of /ciəng/: "A X /ciəng/ B" (A is more X than B). The most common way to express the idea of superlatives is the construction "A X /ciəng ke:/" (A is X-est of all).
Nouns
The noun has no grammatical gender or singular/plural distinction and is uninflected. Technically there are no articles, but indefiniteness is often expressed by the word for "one" following the noun. Plurality can be marked by postnominal particles, numerals, or reduplicating the adjective, which, although similar to intensification, is usually not ambiguous due to context./cʰkae tʰom/ (dog large) = large dog
/cʰkae tʰom tʰom/ (dog large large) = a very large dog or large dogs
/cʰkae tʰom nah/ (dog large very) = very large dog
/cʰkae piː/ (dog two) = two dogs
Classifying particles
Classifier (linguistics)
A classifier, in linguistics, sometimes called a measure word, is a word or morpheme used in some languages to classify the referent of a countable noun according to its meaning. In languages that have classifiers, they are often used when the noun is being counted or specified...
for use between numerals and nouns exist although are not always obligatory as in, for example, Thai. Pronouns are subject to a complicated system of social register, the choice of pronoun depending on the perceived relationships between speaker, audience and referent (see Social registers below). Kinship terms, nicknames and proper names are often used as pronouns (including for the first person) among intimates. Frequently, subject pronouns are dropped in colloquial conversation.
Verbs
As is typical of most East Asian languages, the verb does not inflect at all; tense and aspect can be shown by particles and adverbs or understood by context. Most commonly, time words such as "yesterday", "earlier", "tomorrow", indicate tense when not inferrable from context. There is no participleParticiple
In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
form. The gerund
Gerund
In linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....
is formed by using /kəmpɔːŋ/: "A /kəmpɔːŋ/ V" (A is in the process of V). Serial verb construction
Serial verb construction
The serial verb construction, also known as serialization, is a syntactic phenomenon common to many African, Asian and New Guinean languages...
is quite common. Negation is achieved by putting /min/ before them and /teː/ at the end of the sentence or clause. In normal speech verbs can also be negated without the need for an ending particle by putting /ʔɐt/ before them.
/kʰɲom cɨə/ – I believe
/kʰɲom min cɨə teː/ – I don't believe
/kʰɲom ʔɐt cɨə/ – I don't believe
Dialects
DialectDialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s are sometimes quite marked. Notable variations are found in speakers from Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security,...
(which is the capital city), the rural Battambang
Battambang Province
Battambang is a province in northwestern Cambodia. It is bordered to the North with Banteay Meanchey, to the West with Thailand, and to the East and South with Pursat. The capital of the province is the city of Battambang. The name, meaning 'lost staff', refers to the legend of Preah Bat Dambang...
area, the areas of Northeast Thailand adjacent to Cambodia such as Surin province
Surin Province
Surin is one of the north-eastern provinces of Thailand. Neighboring provinces are Buriram, Maha Sarakham, Roi Et and Sisaket...
, the Cardamom Mountains, and in southern Vietnam. The dialects form a continuum
Dialect continuum
A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
running roughly north to south. Standard Cambodian Khmer is mutually intelligible with the others but a Khmer Krom
Khmer Krom
The Khmer Krom are Khmer people living in the Mekong Delta and the Lower Mekong River area. Under the Khmer Rouge regime- according to the conservative estimates are that 150,000. Under the rule of Vietnam from 1979-93, Cambodia may have lost 20,000 Khmer Krom...
speaker from Vietnam, for instance, may have great difficulty communicating with a Khmer native to Sisaket Province
Sisaket Province
Sisaket , is one of the north-eastern provinces of Thailand. Neighboring provinces are Surin, Roi Et, Yasothon and Ubon Ratchathani. To the south it borders Oddar Meancheay and Preah Vihear of Cambodia.-Geography:...
in Thailand.
The following classification of Khmer dialects is from Ferlus (1992), as cited in Sidwell (2009).
- Middle Khmer
- Cardamom (Western) Khmer
- Central Khmer
- Surin (Northern) Khmer
- Standard Khmer and related dialects
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
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
, lexical differences and its phonemic differences in both vowels and distribution of consonants. Final /r/, which has become silent in other dialects of Khmer, is pronounced in Northern Khmer.
Western Khmer
Western Khmer
Western Khmer, also known as Chanthaburi Khmer, is the dialect of the Khmer language spoken by the Khmer people native to the Cardamom Mountains on both sides of the border between western Cambodia and eastern Central Thailand...
, 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
Register (phonology)
In linguistics, a register language, also known as a pitch-register language, is a language which combines tone and vowel phonation into a single phonological system. Burmese and the Chinese dialect Shanghainese are examples...
that has all but disappeared in other dialects of modern Khmer.
A notable characteristic of Phnom Penh casual speech is merging or complete elision
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
of syllables, considered by speakers from other regions as a "relaxed" pronunciation. 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
Consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
(as in the English word "bread"). The "r", trilled
Alveolar trill
The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. It is commonly called the rolled R, rolling R, or trilled R...
or flapped
Alveolar tap
The alveolar flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar flaps is .-Definition:...
in other dialects, is either pronounced as an uvular trill
Uvular trill
The uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital R...
or not pronounced at all. 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
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
much like the "hỏi" tone in Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
. 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.
Social registers
Khmer employs a system of registersRegister (linguistics)
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
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 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/.
Writing system
Khmer is written with the Khmer script, an abugidaAbugida
An abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
developed from the Pallava script of India before the 7th century. The Khmer script is similar in appearance and usage to both Thai and Lao, which were based on the Khmer system, and is distantly related to the Burmese script. Khmer numerals
Khmer numerals
Khmer numerals are characters used for writing numbers for several languages in Cambodia, most notably Cambodia's official language, Khmer. They date back to at least the oldest known epigraphical inscription of the Khmer numerals in 604 AD, found on a stele in Prasat Bayang, Cambodia, located not...
, 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 | /soːu̯n/ | |||
| 1 | /muːə̯j/ | |||
| 2 | /piː/ | |||
| 3 | /ɓəːj/ | |||
| 4 | /ɓuːə̯n/ | |||
| 5 | /pram/ | |||
| 6 | /pram muːə̯j/ | |||
| 7 | /pram piː/ (also /pram pɨl/) | |||
| 8 | /pram ɓəːj/ | |||
| 9 | /pram ɓuːə̯n/ | |||
| 10 | /ɗɑp/ | |||
| 100 | /muːə̯j rɔj/ | |||
| 1,000 | /muːə̯j pɔə̯n/ | |||
| 10,000 | /muːə̯j məɨn/ | |||
| 100,000 | /muːə̯j saːe̯n/ | |||
| 1,000,000 | /muːə̯j liːə̯n/ |
See also
- Literature of CambodiaLiterature of CambodiaCambodian or Khmer literature has a very ancient origin. Like most Southeast Asian national literatures its traditional corpus has two distinct aspects or levels:*The written literature, mostly restricted to the royal courts or the Buddhist monasteries....
External links
- SEAlang Project: Mon–Khmer languages. The Khmeric Branch
- Khmer Swadesh vocabulary list (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
- Learn Khmer Interactively
- Ethnologue entry on Khmer
- Dictionary and SpellChecker open sourced and collaborative project based on Chuon Nath Khmer Dictionary
- How to install Khmer script on a Windows 7 computer
- How to install Khmer script on a Windows XP computer
- Khmer at UCLA Language Materials project
- Online Khmer & English dictionary
- Khmer Online Dictionaries
- A small primer on the Khmer Language
- USA Foreign Service Institute (FSI) Cambodian basic course
- Khmer audio lessons at WikiBabel