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Khmer
Type	Abugida
Languages	Khmer
Time period	c. 611–present[1]
Parent systems	Proto-Sinaitic alphabet Phoenician alphabet Aramaic alphabet Brāhmī Pallava Khmer
Child systems	Thai Lao
Sister systems	Mon Old Kawi
ISO 15924	Khmr, 355
Direction	Left-to-right
Unicode alias	Khmer
Unicode range	U+1780–U+17FF, U+19E0–U+19FF
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols.

This article contains Khmer text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Khmer script.

The Khmer script (អក្សរខ្មែរ; âksâr khmêr^[2]) is an alphasyllabary script used to write the Khmer language (the official language of Cambodia). It is also used to write Pali among the Buddhist liturgy of Cambodia and Thailand.

It was adapted from the Pallava script, a variant of Grantha descended from the Brahmi script of India.^[3] The oldest dated inscription in Khmer was found at Angkor Borei in Takev Province south of Phnom Penh and dates from 611 AD.^[4] The modern Khmer script differs somewhat from precedent forms seen on the inscriptions of the ruins of Angkor.

Ancient Khmer script engraved on stone.

Orthography[link]

Khmer is written from left to right with multiple levels of character stacking possible. Originally, there were 35 consonants, but only 33 are now in use for modern Khmer. The vowel system consists of independent vowels and dependent vowels. The dependent vowels have two registers of phonemes to account for the that fact that there are fewer vowel graphemes for the vowel phonemes in the spoken language. Khmer also uses diacritics that further enhance the pronunciation of words.

Styles[link]

Several styles of Khmer writing are used for varying purposes. The two main styles are âksâr chriĕng (lit., slanted script) and âksâr mul (lit., round script).^[2]

Âksâr khâm (Aksar Khom), an antique style of the Khmer script as written in Uttaradit, Thailand. In this picture, although it was written with Khmer script, all texts in this manuscript are in Thai languages.

• Âksâr chriĕng (អក្សរជ្រៀង) refers to oblique letters. Entire bodies of text such as novels and other publications may be produced in âksâr chriĕng. Unlike in written English, oblique lettering does not represent any grammatical differences such as emphasis or quotation. Handwritten Khmer is often written in the oblique style.

• Âksâr chhôr (អក្សរឈរ ឬ អក្សរត្រង់) refers to upright or 'standing' letters, as opposed to oblique letters. Most modern Khmer typefaces are designed in this manner instead of being oblique, as text can be italicized by way of word processor commands and other computer applications to repsent the oblique manner of âksâr chriĕng.

• Âksâr khâm (អក្សរខម) is a style used in Pali palm-leaf manuscripts. It is characterized by sharper serifs and angles and retainment of some antique characteristics; notably in the consonant kâ (ក). This style is also for yantra tattoos and yantras on cloth, paper, or engravings on brass plates in Cambodia as well as in Thailand.

• Âksâr mul (អក្សរមូល) is calligraphical style similar to âksâr khâm as it also retains some characters reminiscent of antique Khmer script. Its name in Khmer, lit. 'round script', refers to the bold and thick lettering style. It is used for titles and headings in Cambodian documents, books, or currency, on shop signs or banners. It is sometimes used to emphasize royal names or other important nouns with the surrounding text in a different style.

Consonants[link]

There are 35 Khmer consonant symbols, although modern Khmer only uses 33, two having become obsolete. Each consonant has an inherent vowel of /ɑ/ or /ɔ/. These inherent vowels are used to determine the pronunciation of the two registers of vowel phonemes represented by the diacritical vowels.

The consonants have subscript forms that are used to write consonant clusters. Also sometimes referred to as "sub-consonants", subscript consonant resemble the corresponding consonant symbol but in a minuscule form. In Khmer, they are known as cheung âksâr (ជើង​អក្សរ), meaning the foot of a letter. Most subscript consonants are written directly below other consonants, although subscript r is written before while a few others have ascending elements which appear after. Subscript consonants were previously used to write final consonants. This method of writing has ceased in modern written Khmer but is retained in the word aôy (ឲ្យ, /aːoj/).

* The consonant lâ has no subscript form, but some Khmer fonts do provide a subscript form for this letter. In Khmer orthography, the subscript form of the consonant lâ is not used.

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/ to form digraphs. 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[link]

The Khmer script uses dependent vowels, or diacritical vowels, to modify the inherent vowels of consonants. Dependent vowels are known in Khmer as srăk nissăy (ស្រៈនិស្ស័យ) or srăk phsâm (ស្រៈផ្សំ). Dependent vowels must always be combined with a consonant in orthography. For most of the vowel symbols, there are two sounds (registers). The sound of the vowel used depends on the series (the inherent vowel) of the dominant consonant in a syllable cluster.

For technical reasons, the dependent vowels are seen here paired with the letter អ (KHMER LETTER QA in Unicode) as not all browsers will display them by themselves correctly.

Independent vowels[link]

Independent vowels are non-diacritical characters used to represent vowel phonemes occurring at the beginning of syllables. In Khmer they are called srăk penhtuŏ (ស្រៈពេញតួ) which means complete vowels.

Diacritics[link]

Diacritics	Name	Notes
ំ	nĭkkôhĕt (និគ្គហិត)	niggahita; nasalizes the inherent vowels and some of the dependent vowels, see anusvara, sometimes used to represent [aɲ] in Sanskrit loanwords
ះ	reăhmŭkh (រះមុខ)	"shining face"; adds final aspiration[disambiguation needed ] to dependent or inherent vowels, usually omitted, corresponds to the visarga diacritic, it maybe included as dependent vowel symbol
ៈ	yŭkôleăkpĭntŭ (យុគលពិន្ទុ)	yugalabindu ("pair of dots"); adds final glottalness to dependent or inherent vowels, usually omitted
៉	musĕkâtônd (មូសិកទន្ត)	mūsikadanta ("mouse teeth"); used to convert some o-series consonants to the a-series
៊	reisâpt (ត្រីសព្ទ)	trīsabda; used to convert some a-series consonants to the o-series
ុ	kbiĕh kraôm (ក្បៀសក្រោម)	also known as bŏkcheung (បុកជើង); used in place when the diacritics treisâpt and musĕkâtônd impede with superscript vowels
៌'	bântăk (បន្តក់)	used to shorten some vowels
៌	rôbat (របាទ) répheăk (រេផៈ)	rapāda, repha; behave similarly to the tôndâkhéat, corresponds to the Devanagari diacritic repha, however it lost its original function which was to represent a vocalic r
៍	tôndâkhéat (ទណ្ឌឃាដ)	daṇḍaghāta; used to render some letters as unpronounced
៎	kakâbat (កាកបាទ)	kākapāda ("crow's foot"); more a punctuation mark than a diacritic; used in writing to indicate the rising intonation of an exclamation or interjection; often placed on particles such as /na/, /nɑː/, /nɛː/, /vəːj/, and the feminine response /cah/
៏	âsda (អស្តា)	denotes stressed intonation in some single-consonant words[5]
័	sanhyoŭk sannha (សំយោគសញ្ញា)	represents a short inherent vowel in Sanskrit and Pali words; usually omitted
៑	vĭréam (វិរាម)	a mostly obsolete diacritic, corresponds to the virāma
្	cheung (ជើង)	a.w. coeng; a sign developed for Unicode​ to input subscript consonants, appearance of this sign varies among fonts

Punctuation marks[link]

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. Guillemets are used for quotation marks.

Ligatures[link]

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:

 

léa (/liːə/) An example of the vowel a (ា) forming a connection with the serif of a consonant.

 

chba (/cɓaː/) Subscript consonants with ascending strokes above the baseline also form ligatures with the dependent vowel a (ា).

 

msau (/msaw/) Another example of a subscript consonant forming a ligature. In this case, it is with the digraph dependent vowel au. The digraph dependent vowel au includes the cane-like stroke of the vowel a.

 

bau (/ɓaw/) The combination of the consonant bâ (ប) and any vowels or digraph vowels based on the vowel a (ា) is written with a stroke in the center of the ligature to give a distinction between the consonant hâ (ហ).

 

tra (/traː/) The subscript for rô (រ) is written precedent to the consonant it is pronounced after.

Numerals[link]

The numerals of the Khmer script, similar to that used by other civilizations in Southeast Asia, are also derived from the southern Indian script. Arabic numerals are also used, but to a lesser extent.

Unicode[link]

Khmer was added to the Unicode Standard in September, 1999 with the release of version 3.0. Additional Khmer symbols were added to the Unicode Standard in April, 2003 with the release of version 4.0.

The Unicode block for basic Khmer characters is U+1780–U+17FF. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points:

The Unicode block for additional Khmer symbols is U+19E0–U+19FF:

See also[link]

• Brahmic family
• Khmer language
• Romanization of Khmer

Notes[link]

References[link]

• 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 0-300-01314-0
• Jacob, Judith. 1974. A Concise Cambodian-English Dictionary. London, Oxford University Press.

External links[link]

• FAQ and Resources on Khmer in Unicode
• Enabling Khmer Unicode
• Khmer Unicode in some mobile phones
• Khmer Alphabet Chart with Audio
• How to Install Khmer Unicode on your Windows 7 Computer
• How to Install Khmer Unicode on your Windows XP Computer
• 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)
• Khmer wordlist sortet frequenzy
• CBC radio documentary referring to development of keyboard for Khmer script
• A small Primer on the Khmer Language