Khmer script (, )Huffman, Franklin. 1970. Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader. Yale University Press. . is an abugida (alphasyllabary) script used to write the Khmer language, the official language of Cambodia. It is also used to write Pali in the Buddhist liturgy of Cambodia and Thailand.
Khmer is written from left to right. Words within the same sentence or phrase are generally run together with no spaces between them. Consonant clusters within a word are "stacked", with the second (and occasionally third) consonant being written in reduced form under the main consonant. Originally there were 35 consonant characters, but modern Khmer uses only 33. Each character represents a consonant sound together with an inherent vowel, either â or ô; in many cases, in the absence of another vowel mark, the inherent vowel is to be pronounced after the consonant.
There are some independent vowel characters, but vowel sounds are more commonly represented as dependent vowels, additional marks accompanying a consonant character, and indicating what vowel sound is to be pronounced after that consonant (or consonant cluster). Most dependent vowels have two different pronunciations, depending in most cases on the inherent vowel of the consonant to which they are added. There are also a number of diacritics used to indicate further modifications in pronunciation. The script also includes its own numerals and punctuation marks.
Origin
The Khmer script was adapted from the Pallava script, used in southern India and Southeast Asia during the 5th and 6th centuries AD,Punnee Soonthornpoct: From Freedom to Hell: A History of Foreign Interventions in Cambodian Politics And Wars. Page 29. Vantage Press. which ultimately descended from the Tamil-Brahmi script.Handbook of Literacy in Akshara Orthography, R. Malatesha Joshi, Catherine McBride(2019), p.28 The oldest dated Khmer inscription was found at Angkor Borei District in Takéo Province south of Phnom Penh and dates from 611.Russell R. Ross: Cambodia: A Country Study. Page 112. Library of Congress, USA, Federal Research Division, 1990. Stelae of the Pre-Angkorean and Angkorean periods, featuring the Khmer script, have been found throughout the former Khmer Empire, from the Mekong Delta to what is now southern Laos, Northeast Thailand, and Central Thailand. Slight differences can be seen between ancient Khmer inscriptions written in Sanskrit and those written in Khmer. These two different systems have evolved into the modern and styles of Khmer script. The former is used for sacred inscriptions while the latter is used for general use. The style is a cursive form of , adapted to fit the Khmer language.
The oldest known record of the name “Khmer Script” (អក្សរខ្មែរ) is found in inscription K.362, dating to the late 9th century during the reign of King Yasovarman I. The inscription contains the Sanskrit term “Kāmvujākṣara”, written in Old Khmer “កម្វុជាក្សរ”. This serves as evidence that the Khmer people had a specific name for their script as early as the 9th century.
The modern Khmer script differs somewhat from precedent forms seen on the inscriptions of the ruins of Angkor. The Thai and Lao scripts are descendants of an older cursive form of the Khmer script, through the Sukhothai script.
Consonants There are 35 Khmer consonant symbols, although modern Khmer only uses 33, two having become obsolete. Each consonant has an inherent vowel: â or ô ; equivalently, each consonant is said to belong to the a-series or o-series. A consonant's series determines the pronunciation of the dependent vowel symbols which may be attached to it, and in some positions the sound of the inherent vowel is itself pronounced.
The two series originally represented voiceless and voiced consonants respectively (and are still referred to as such in Khmer). Sound changes during the Middle Khmer period affected vowels following voiceless consonants, and these changes were preserved even though the distinctive voicing was lost .
Each consonant, with one exception (ឡ), also has a subscript form. These may also be called "sub-consonants"; the Khmer phrase is , meaning "foot of a letter". Most subscript consonants resemble the corresponding consonant symbol, but in a smaller and possibly simplified form, although in a few cases there is no obvious resemblance. Most subscript consonants are written directly below other consonants, although subscript appears to the left, while a few others have ascending elements which appear to the right.
Subscripts are used in writing consonant clusters (consonants pronounced consecutively in a word with no vowel sound between them). Clusters in Khmer normally consist of two consonants, although occasionally in the middle of a word there will be three. The first consonant in a cluster is written using the main consonant symbol, with the second (and third, if present) attached to it in subscript form. Subscripts were previously also used to write final consonants; in modern Khmer this may be done, optionally, in some words ending -ng or -y, such as ("give").
The consonants and their subscript forms are listed in the following table. Usual phonetic values are given using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA); variations are described below the table. The sound system is described in detail at Khmer phonology. The spoken name of each consonant letter is its value together with its inherent vowel. Transliterations are given using the transcription system of the Geographic Department of the Cambodian Ministry of Land Management and Urban Planning used by the Cambodian government and the UNGEGN system; Reports by Governments on the Situation in Their Countries and on the Progress Made in the Standardization of Geographical Names Since the Seventh Conference. Eighth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. Berlin, 27 August-5 September 2002. Item 4 of the provisional agenda.Report on the Current Status of United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names – Khmer, UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems, September 2013 (linked from WGRS website). for other systems see Romanization of Khmer.
Consonant Subscript form Name/Full value (with inherent vowel) Consonant value UNGEGN GD ALA-LC IPA UNGEGN GD ALA-LC IPA noneThe letter has no subscript form in standard orthography, but some fonts include one (្ឡ), as a form to be rendered if the character appears after the Khmer subscripting character (see under Unicode).
The letter appears in somewhat modified form (e.g. ) when combined with certain dependent vowels (see Ligatures).
The letter nhô is written without the lower curve when a subscript is added. When it is subscripted to itself, the subscript is a smaller form of the entire letter: -nhnh-.
Note that and have the same subscript form. In initial clusters this subscript is always pronounced , but in medial positions it is in some words and in others.
The series , , , , originally represented retroflex consonants in the Indic parent scripts. The second, third and fourth of these are rare, and occur only for etymological reasons in a few Pali and Sanskrit loanwords. Because the sound /n/ is common, and often grammatically productive, in Mon-Khmer languages, the fifth of this group, , was adapted as an a-series counterpart of for convenience (all other nasal consonants are o-series).
The letters śa and ṣa are obsolete and are used only for Pali/Sanskrit transliteration. Historically was used for palatal s and was used for retroflex s.
Variation in pronunciation The aspirated consonant letters (kh-, chh-, th-, ph-) are pronounced with aspiration only before a vowel. There is also slight aspiration with k, ch, t and p sounds before certain consonants, but this is regardless of whether they are spelt with a letter that indicates aspiration.
A Khmer word cannot end with more than one consonant sound, so subscript consonants at the end of words (which appear for etymological reasons) are not pronounced, although they may come to be pronounced when the same word begins a compound.
In some words, a single medial consonant symbol represents both the final consonant of one syllable and the initial consonant of the next.
The letter bâ represents only before a vowel. When final or followed by a subscript consonant ល, it is pronounced (and in the case where it is followed by a subscript consonant, it is also romanized as p in the UN system). For modification to p by means of a diacritic, see Supplementary consonants. The letter, which represented /p/ in Indic scripts, also often maintains the sound in certain words borrowed from Sanskrit and Pali.
The letters dâ and dô are pronounced when final. The letter tâ is pronounced in initial position in a weak syllable ending with a nasal.
In final position, letters representing a sound (k-, kh-) are pronounced as a glottal stop after the vowels , , , , , , , , . The letter is silent when final (in most dialects; see Northern Khmer). The letter when final is pronounced (which in this position approaches ).
Supplementary consonants The Khmer writing system includes supplementary consonants, used in certain loanwords, particularly from French and Thai. These mostly represent sounds which do not occur in native words, or for which the native letters are restricted to one of the two vowel series. Most of them are digraphs, formed by stacking a subscript under the letter , with an additional treisăpt diacritic if required to change the inherent vowel to ô. The character for pâ, however, is formed by placing the musĕkâtônd ("mouse teeth") diacritic over the character .
Supplementary consonant Description Full value (with inherent vowel) Consonant value Notes UNGEGN GD ALA-LC IPA UNGEGN GD ALA-LC IPA hâ + kô Example: ('gas'; from French ) hâ + kô + diacritic Example: ('train station'; from French ) hâ + nô Example: / ('shadow play' from Thai ) bâ + diacritic Example: ('to embroider'), ('bread'; from French ) hâ + mô Example: ('shaman'; from Thai ) hâ + lô Example: ('king'; from Thai ) hâ + vô Pronounced in ('clear'), in ('coffee'; from French ) hâ + vô + diacritic Example: ('film'; from French ) hâ + sâ Example: ('jazz'; from French ), ('pizza') hâ + sâ + diacritic Example: ('jeep'; from French ), ('Geneva'; from French )
Dependent vowels Most Khmer vowel sounds are written using dependent, or diacritical, vowel symbols, known in Khmer as or ("connecting vowel"). These can only be written in combination with a consonant (or consonant cluster). The vowel is pronounced after the consonant (or cluster), even though some of the symbols have graphical elements which appear above, below or to the left of the consonant character.
Most of the vowel symbols have two possible pronunciations, depending on the inherent vowel of the consonant to which it is added. Their pronunciations may also be different in weak syllables, and when they are shortened (e.g. by means of a diacritic). Absence of a dependent vowel (or diacritic) often implies that a syllable-initial consonant is followed by the sound of its inherent vowel.
In determining the inherent vowel of a consonant cluster (i.e. how a following dependent vowel will be pronounced), stops and fricatives are dominant over sonorants. For any consonant cluster including a combination of these sounds, a following dependent vowel is pronounced according to the dominant consonant, regardless of its position in the cluster. When both members of a cluster are dominant, the subscript consonant determines the pronunciation of a following dependent vowel.
A non-dominant consonant (and in some words also hâ) will also have its inherent vowel changed by a preceding dominant consonant in the same word, even when there is a vowel between them, although some words (especially among those with more than two syllables) do not obey this rule.