Khmer language

Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ), the language of the Khmer people of Cambodia, is one of the main Austroasiatic languages. Sanskrit and Pali have had considerable influence on the language, through the vehicles of Buddhism and Hinduism. As result of their geographic proximity, the Khmer language has influenced Thai and Laotian and vice versa.

Khmer is somewhat unusual among its neighboring languages (Thai, Laotian and Vietnamese) in that it is not a tonal language.

Phonology

Modern Standard Khmer has the following consonant and vowel phonemes. The phonological system described here is the inventory of sounds of the spoken language, not how they are written in the Khmer alphabet.

Consonants

	Labial	Apical	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive
Nasal
Liquid
Fricative
Approximant

The consonants , , and occur only in loanwords from French and other recent introductions.

Vowel nuclei

Long vowels
Short vowels
Long diphthongs
Short diphthongs

It must be noted that the precise number and the phonetic value of vowel nuclei vary from dialect to dialect.

Syllables and words

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:


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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. and can exist in a syllable coda. and become and 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). The vowel in these “minor” syllables is usually reduced to in the spoken language.

Words can also be made up of two full syllables.

Words with three or more syllables are mostly loanwords from other languages, usually Pali, Sanskrit, or French.

Dialects

Dialects are sometimes quite marked. Notable variations are found in speakers from Phnom Penh (the capital city), the rural Battambang area, the Cardamom Mountains and the adjacent areas of Thailand (such as Surin province).

Northern Khmer, the dialect spoken in Thailand, is referred to in Khmer as Khmer Surin and, although 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 (similar to French) 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 Northern Vietnamese. For example, some people pronounce (meaning "fish") as , 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 ("study, learn"). It is pronounced , with the "uvular r" and the same intonation described above.

Grammar

Word order in Khmer is generally Subject Verb Object. Khmer is primarily an isolating language, but lexical derivation by means of prefixes and infixes is common.

Writing system

Khmer is written with the Khmer alphabet. Khmer numerals, which were inherited from Indian numerals, are used more widely than Hindu-Arabic numerals.

Footnotes

References

Ferlus, Michel. 1992. Essai de phonétique historique du khmer (Du milieu du premier millénaire de notre ère à l'époque actuelle)", Mon-Khmer Studies XXI: 57-89)
Headley, Robert et. al. 1977. Cambodian-English Dictionary. Washington, Catholic University Press.
Huffman, Franklin. 1967. An outline of Cambodian Grammar. PhD thesis, Cornell University.
Huffman, Franklin. 1970. Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300013140
Jacob, Judith. 1974. A Concise Cambodian-English Dictionary. London, Oxford University Press.

External links

Khmer language | Languages of Cambodia | Languages of Thailand


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