Khmer alphabet

Ancient Khmer script engraved on stone.

The Khmer script (អក្ខរក្រមខេមរភាសា: âkkhârâkrâm khémâraphéasa) is used to write the Khmer language which is the official language of Cambodia. The oldest dated inscription in Khmer, found at Angkor Borei in Takev Province south of Phnom Penh, dates from 611 AD, but Khmer script was probably in use much earlier. Before this the Khmer used a southern indic script (Sanskrit) for several hundred years. Khmer script is probably the oldest writing system among the Southeast Asian cultures next to Mon script. Mon script was developed around the 8th century and Thai script was established in the late 13th century (1292 AD). It is also used to write a few other minority languages in Cambodia who have no form of script of their own.

A notable feature of the Khmer alphabet is that it has fewer symbols for vowels than the language has vowel phonemes. Instead, each consonant belongs to one of two series, and the vowel produced depends on which series the consonant belongs to (incidentally making it an abugida rather than a true alphabet). Therefore, most vowel signs have two different possible pronunciations, depending on which series the consonant belongs to. When no vowel sign is present, usually the inherent vowel of the consonant is used. Vowels can be divided into two groups: dependent vowel signs, which are written around a consonant letter, and independent vowel letters, which can stand alone. Dependent vowel signs are used more frequently than independent vowels and all independent vowel letters can be phonetically rendered with a dependent vowel. Khmer also has a number of diacritics, which can change the series of the consonant or change the pronunciation of the vowel.

Styles

There are several styles of the Khmer script which are used for different purposes. 'Âksâr chriĕng' refers to slanted (or italic) letters. Slanted letters do not serve the same purpose as italics in English, so entire bodies of text such as novels and other publications may be produced in 'âksâr chriĕng' .

'Âksâr chhôr' refers to any style that is "standing" or upright. Upright letters were previously not common as 'âksâr chriĕng', but now most computer fonts defaultly display Khmer text upright making it more widely seen.

'Âksâr mul' is a round style which can be seen used for titles and headings in Cambodian documents, books, or currency, on shop signs or banners. Religious text on palm leaves can be entirely composed of this style of script. It is sometimes used to write royal names while the surrounding text was plain. Several consonants and some subscripts in this style look totally different than the usual.

'Âksâr khôm' is a variation of 'âksâr mul', but with some minor difference.

When these two styles are handwritten, they can be pencil-line width. Most Khmer computer fonts depict neither of these two styles correctly, in fact, some may meld elements of 'âksâr mul' and 'âksâr khôm' into one style, so generally either is referred to as 'âksâr mul'.

Consonants

There are 35 Khmer consonants, but in modern Khmer, two of them have become obsolete leaving only 33. To form consonant clusters, subscript consonants are used. Subscript consonants are commonly referred to plainly as subscripts or sometimes sub-consonants. In Khmer, they are known as 'cheung âksâr' (ជើង​អ័ក្សរ) meaning the foot of a letter. Subscript consonants help form consonant clusters by cancelling out the inherent vowel of the preceding consonant it's paired with. Listed in the table below are the pronunciation of the consonants when recited, their pronunciation values may be slightly different in orthography. About 99.9% of the time, the inherent vowels of consonants in the final position are never pronounced. The two obsolete consonants are highlighted in gray.

* The subscript for the consonant lâ is included in Unicode even though it is never used in modern Khmer.

For some phonemes in loanwords, the Khmer writing system has 'created' supplementary consonants. Most of these consonants are created by stacking a subscript under the character for/hɑ/. The consonant for /pɑ/, however, is created by using the diacritical sign called musĕkâtônd over the consonant for /bɑ/. These additional consonants are mainly used to represent sounds in French and Thai loanwords.

Dependent vowels

There are 23 dependent vowel symbols, however this may vary among other sources which counts certain diacritics and their combination with basic vowel symbols as unique vowel symbols. Dependent vowels are known in Khmer as srăk nissăy (ស្រៈនិស្ស័យ) or srăk phsâm (ស្រៈផ្សំ). Dependent vowels always have to be combined with a consonant in orthography. For most of the vowel symbols, there are two phones. As to which phone is used depends on the series (or the inherent vowel) of the dominant consonant in a syllable cluster. Some vowel symbols may even have a regular third or fourth phone after certain consonants.

Independent vowels

Independent vowels are vowels that do not have to be paired with a consonant in a syllable, hence the name. In Khmer they are called srăk penhtuŏ (ស្រៈពេញតួ) which means complete vowels.

Diacritics

Punctuation marks

The Khmer script uses several unique punctuation marks as well as some borrowed from the Latin script such as the question mark. The period in the Khmer language resembles an eighth rest in music writing.

Ligatures

Most consonants, including a few of the subscripts, form ligatures with all dependent vowels that contain the symbol used for the vowel a (ា). A lot of these ligatures are easily recognizable, however a few may not be. One of the more unrecognizable is the ligature for the bâ and a which was created to differentiate it from the consonant symbol hâ as well as the ligature for châ and a. It is not always necessary to connect consonants with the dependent vowel a.

Examples of ligatured symbols:

Ligatured consonant subscript and vowel combination:

Numerals

Khmer has its own set of numerals derive from Indian numerals, which is also used by the Thais. Arabic numerals are used to a lesser extent.

Khmer in Unicode

References

• Dictionnaire Cambodgien, Vol I & II, 1967, L'institut Bouddhique (Khmer Language)
• 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.

See also

• Khmer language
• Brahmic family

External links

• FAQ and Resources on Khmer in Unicode
• Enabling Khmer Unicode
• Omniglot entry on Khmer
• Geonames Khmer Alphabet Chart
• Khmer Romanization Table (PDF)
• Evolution of the Khmer script
• Authentic Khmer Online (common phrases in Khmer script with audio file examples)