Khmer is the official language of Cambodia. It is spoken by the Khmer people, who live in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and many other countries. Its script was the base for the Thai script, although Thai does not use subscript consonants.
| Khmer | |
|---|---|
| Cambodian | |
| ភាសាខ្មែរ | |
| Pronunciation | pʰiːəsaː kʰmaːe |
| Native to | Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, USA, France, Australia |
| Ethnicity | Khmer |
Native speakers | 16 million (2007)[1] 1 million L2 speakers[2] |
Austroasiatic
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Khmer script (abugida) | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Cambodia |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | km |
| ISO 639-2 | khm |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:khm – Central Khmerkxm – Northern Khmer |
One thing that makes it particularly difficult for many foreigners to learn is that Khmer words are not separated in a sentence and the sounds are quite hard for foreigners to replicate. But still each word in the sentence can be distinguished. Also, there is not much material on Khmer, although this situation is changing.
The Khmer script is based on an ancient Indian alphabet. It is written from left to right. There are 35 consonants, some of which can be written under other consonants (2 consonants are not used anymore). Vowels are combined with the consonants to make a sound. For example, the "t" sound ត can be combined with the "-ah" sound ា to make the word តា (tah, which means grandfather).
The Khmer writing script also has its own special way of writing numbers. The Khmer numerals are ០១២៣៤៥៦៧៨៩.
The language has a subject-verb-object order, just like English.
Pronouns change based on who you are speaking to. For example, if you are not a monk and you are speaking to a monk, you would call him "ព្រះតេជព្រះគុណ".
ខ្ញុំមិនចង់បានទេ
"I don't want it"
អ្នកចង់ទៅលេងសៀមរាបទេ
"Do you want to go to Siem Reap?"
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