The romanization of Khmer is a representation of the Khmer (Cambodian) language using letters of the Latin alphabet . This is most commonly done with Khmer proper nouns , such as names of people and geographical names, as in a gazetteer .
69-638: Khmer ( / k ə ˈ m ɛər / kə- MAIR ; ខ្មែរ , UNGEGN : Khmêr [kʰmae] ) is an Austroasiatic language spoken natively by the Khmer people . This language is an official language and national language of Cambodia . The language is also widely spoken by Khmer people in Eastern Thailand and Isan , Thailand , also in Southeast and Mekong Delta of Vietnam . Khmer has been influenced considerably by Sanskrit and Pali especially in
138-581: A prestige language even after the fall of the Mon kingdom of Thaton to Pagan in 1057. King Kyansittha of Pagan (r. 1084–1113) admired Mon culture and the Mon language was patronized. Kyansittha left many inscriptions in Mon. During this period, the Myazedi inscription , which contains identical inscriptions of a story in Pali , Pyu , Mon and Burmese on the four sides, was carved. However, after Kyansittha's death, usage of
207-481: A transliteration system, where representations in the Khmer script are mapped regularly to representations in the Latin alphabet (sometimes with some additional diacritics ). The results do not always reflect standard Khmer pronunciation, as no special treatment is given to unpronounced letters and irregular pronunciations, although the two registers of Khmer vowel symbols are often taken into account. When transcription
276-473: A Mon dialect in Thailand found that in some syllabic environments, words with a breathy voice vowel are significantly lower in pitch than similar words with a clear vowel counterpart. While difference in pitch in certain environments was found to be significant, there are no minimal pairs that are distinguished solely by pitch. The contrastive mechanism is the vowel phonation. In the examples below, breathy voice
345-466: A dialect. Western Khmer , also called Cardamom Khmer or Chanthaburi Khmer, is spoken by a very small, isolated population in the Cardamom mountain range extending from western Cambodia into eastern Central Thailand . Although little studied, this variety is unique in that it maintains a definite system of vocal register that has all but disappeared in other dialects of modern Khmer. Phnom Penh Khmer
414-653: A final consonant. All consonant sounds except /b/, /d/, /r/, /s/ and the aspirates can appear as the coda (although final /r/ is heard in some dialects, most notably in Northern Khmer ). A minor syllable (unstressed syllable preceding the main syllable of a word) has a structure of CV-, CrV-, CVN- or CrVN- (where C is a consonant, V a vowel, and N a nasal consonant). The vowels in such syllables are usually short; in conversation they may be reduced to [ə] , although in careful or formal speech, including on television and radio, they are clearly articulated. An example of such
483-720: A language closely related to Mon, called Nyah Kur . They are descendants of the Mon-speaking Dvaravati kingdom. Mon has three primary dialects in Burma, coming from the various regions the Mon inhabit. They are the Central (areas surrounding Mottama and Mawlamyine ), Bago , and Ye dialects. All are mutually intelligible. Ethnologue lists Mon dialects as Martaban-Moulmein (Central Mon, Mon Te), Pegu (Mon Tang, Northern Mon), and Ye (Mon Nya, Southern Mon), with high mutual intelligibility among them. Thai Mon has some differences from
552-565: A small proportion (estimated to range between 60,000 and 80,000) speak Mon, due to Thaification and the assimilation of Mons into mainstream Thai society. Mon speakers in Thailand are largely concentrated in Ko Kret . The remaining contingent of Thai Mon speakers are located in the provinces of Samut Sakhon , Samut Songkhram , Nakhon Pathom , as well the western provinces bordering Myanmar ( Kanchanaburi , Phetchaburi , Prachuap Khiri Khan , and Ratchaburi ). A small ethnic group in Thailand speak
621-491: A typical Khmer declarative phrase is a steady rise throughout followed by an abrupt drop on the last syllable. Other intonation contours signify a different type of phrase such as the "full doubt" interrogative, similar to yes–no questions in English. Full doubt interrogatives remain fairly even in tone throughout, but rise sharply towards the end. Exclamatory phrases follow the typical steadily rising pattern, but rise sharply on
690-624: A word is មនុស្ស mɔnuh, mɔnɨh, mĕəʾnuh ('person'), pronounced [mɔˈnuh] , or more casually [məˈnuh] . Stress in Khmer falls on the final syllable of a word. Because of this predictable pattern, stress is non- phonemic in Khmer (it does not distinguish different meanings). Most Khmer words consist of either one or two syllables. In most native disyllabic words, the first syllable is a minor (fully unstressed) syllable. Such words have been described as sesquisyllabic (i.e. as having one-and-a-half syllables). There are also some disyllabic words in which
759-493: Is subject–verb–object , and modifiers follow the word they modify. Classifiers appear after numbers when used to count nouns, though not always so consistently as in languages like Chinese . In spoken Khmer, topic-comment structure is common, and the perceived social relation between participants determines which sets of vocabulary, such as pronouns and honorifics, are proper. Khmer differs from neighboring languages such as Burmese , Thai , Lao , and Vietnamese in that it
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#1732848481842828-428: Is a zero copula language, instead preferring predicative adjectives (and even predicative nouns) unless using a copula for emphasis or to avoid ambiguity in more complex sentences. Basic word order is subject–verb–object (SVO), although subjects are often dropped ; prepositions are used rather than postpositions. Topic-Comment constructions are common and the language is generally head-initial (modifiers follow
897-629: Is a classification scheme showing the development of the modern Khmer dialects. Standard Khmer , or Central Khmer , the language as taught in Cambodian schools and used by the media, is based on the dialect spoken throughout the Central Plain , a region encompassed by the northwest and central provinces. Northern Khmer (called Khmer Surin in Khmer) refers to the dialects spoken by many in several border provinces of present-day northeast Thailand. After
966-604: Is a modification of that proposed by Lewitz (1969), and was developed by Franklin Huffman of Cornell University and Edwin Bonsack of the Library of Congress for the library cataloguing of publications in Khmer. This chart shows in full the three main systems for the romanization of Khmer: UNGEGN (or BGN/PCGN), Geographic Department and ALA-LC: 1st series 2nd series [Note 2] Various authors have used systems based on
1035-971: Is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Mon people . Mon, like the related Khmer language , but unlike most languages in mainland Southeast Asia , is not tonal. The Mon language is a recognised indigenous language in Myanmar as well as a recognised indigenous language of Thailand . Mon was classified as a "vulnerable" language in UNESCO 's 2010 Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger . The Mon language has faced assimilative pressures in both Myanmar and Thailand, where many individuals of Mon descent are now monolingual in Burmese or Thai respectively. In 2007, Mon speakers were estimated to number between 1800,000 and 2 million. In Myanmar,
1104-423: Is contrastive before a vowel. However, the aspirated sounds in that position may be analyzed as sequences of two phonemes : /ph/, /th/, /ch/, /kh/ . This analysis is supported by the fact that infixes can be inserted between the stop and the aspiration; for example [tʰom] ('big') becomes [tumhum] ('size') with a nominalizing infix. When one of these plosives occurs initially before another consonant, aspiration
1173-550: Is marked with under-diaeresis. Mon verbs do not inflect for person. Tense is shown through particles. Some verbs have a morphological causative, which is most frequently a /pə-/ prefix (Pan Hla 1989:29): Mon nouns do not inflect for number. That is, they do not have separate forms for singular and plural: sɔt pakaw apple mo̤a one me̤a CL {sɔt pakaw} mo̤a me̤a apple one CL 'one apple' sɔt pakaw apple ba two me̤a CL {sɔt pakaw} ba me̤a apple two CL 'two apples' Adjectives follow
1242-582: Is no longer contrastive and can be regarded as mere phonetic detail: slight aspiration is expected when the following consonant is not one of /ʔ/, /b/, /d/, /r/, /s/, /h/ (or /ŋ/ if the initial plosive is /k/ ). The voiced plosives are pronounced as implosives [ɓ, ɗ] by most speakers, but this feature is weak in educated speech, where they become [b, d] . In syllable-final position, /h/ and /ʋ/ approach [ç] and [w] respectively. The stops /p/, /t/, /c/, /k/ are unaspirated and have no audible release when occurring as syllable finals. In addition,
1311-449: Is not a tonal language . Words are stressed on the final syllable, hence many words conform to the typical Mon–Khmer pattern of a stressed syllable preceded by a minor syllable . The language has been written in the Khmer script , an abugida descended from the Brahmi script via the southern Indian Pallava script , since at least the 7th century. The script's form and use has evolved over
1380-566: Is spoken in the Se San , Srepok and Sekong river valleys of Sesan and Siem Pang districts in Stung Treng Province . Following the decline of Angkor, the Khmer abandoned their northern territories, which the Lao then settled. In the 17th century, Chey Chetha XI led a Khmer force into Stung Treng to retake the area. The Khmer Khe living in this area of Stung Treng in modern times are presumed to be
1449-421: Is spoken in the capital and surrounding areas. This dialect is characterized by merging or complete elision of syllables, which speakers from other regions consider a "relaxed" pronunciation. For instance, "Phnom Penh" is sometimes 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
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#17328484818421518-433: Is used, words are romanized based on their pronunciation. However, pronunciation of Khmer can vary by speaker and region. Roman transcription of Khmer is often done ad hoc on Internet forums and chatrooms , the results sometimes being referred to as Khmenglish or Khmerlish . These ad hoc romanizations are usually based on English pronunciations of letters, although they may also be influenced by Khmer spelling (as with
1587-514: The American Library Association and Library of Congress , romanizes Khmer words using the original Indic values of the Khmer letters, which are often different from their modern values. This can obscure the modern Khmer pronunciation, but the system has the advantage of relative simplicity, and facilitates the etymological reconstruction of Sanskrit and Pali loanwords whose pronunciation may be different in modern Khmer. The system
1656-840: The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to transcribe Khmer. One such system is used in the books of Franklin E. Huffman and others; a more recent scheme is that used in J.M. Filippi's 2004 textbook Everyday Khmer or Khmer au quotidien . These systems differ in certain respects: for example, Huffman's uses doubling of vowel symbols to indicate long vowels, whereas Filippi's uses the IPA triangular colon vowel length symbol. Mon language The Mon language ( / ˈ m oʊ n / , listen ; Mon: ဘာသာမန် [pʰesa mɑn] ; Mon-Thai: ဘာသာမည် [ pʰiəsa moʊn ]; Burmese : မွန်ဘာသာစကား listen ; Thai : ภาษามอญ listen ; formerly known as Peguan and Talaing )
1725-496: The Sittaung River in the north to Myeik (Mergui) and Kawthaung in the south, remains a traditional stronghold of the Mon language. However, in this region, Burmese is favored in urban areas, such as Mawlamyine , the capital of Mon State. In recent years, usage of Mon has declined in Myanmar, especially among the younger generation. While Thailand is home to a sizable Mon population due to historical waves of migration, only
1794-469: 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 រៀន [riən] ('study'), which is pronounced [ʀiən] , with the uvular "r" and the same intonation described above. Khmer Krom or Southern Khmer is spoken by the indigenous Khmer population of the Mekong Delta , formerly controlled by
1863-419: The elision of /r/ . Intonation often conveys semantic context in Khmer, as in distinguishing declarative statements , questions and exclamations. The available grammatical means of making such distinctions are not always used, or may be ambiguous; for example, the final interrogative particle ទេ /teː/ can also serve as an emphasizing (or in some cases negating) particle. The intonation pattern of
1932-536: The 19th century, in addition to concomitant economic and political instability in Upper Burma (e.g., increased tax burdens to the Burmese crown, British rice production incentives, etc.) also accelerated the migration of Burmese speakers from Upper Burma into Lower Burma. The Mon language has influenced subtle grammatical differences between the varieties of Burmese spoken in Lower and Upper Burma. In Lower Burmese varieties,
2001-447: The 9th century until the 13th century. The following centuries saw changes in morphology , phonology and lexicon . The language of this transition period, from about the 14th to 18th centuries, is referred to as Middle Khmer and saw borrowings from Thai in the literary register. Modern Khmer is dated from the 19th century to today. The following table shows the conventionally accepted historical stages of Khmer. Just as modern Khmer
2070-486: The Burmese dialects of Mon, but they are mutually intelligible. The Thai varieties of Mon are considered "severely endangered." Unlike the surrounding Burmese and Thai languages, Mon is not a tonal language . As in many Mon–Khmer languages, Mon uses a vowel-phonation or vowel- register system in which the quality of voice in pronouncing the vowel is phonemic. There are two registers in Mon: One study involving speakers of
2139-506: The English word "bread"). The "r", trilled or flapped in other dialects, is either pronounced as a uvular trill 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 Vietnamese . For example, some people pronounce ត្រី [trəj] ('fish') as [tʰəj] :
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2208-589: The Khmer Empire but part of Vietnam since 1698. Khmers are persecuted by the Vietnamese government for using their native language and, since the 1950s, have been forced to take Vietnamese names. Consequently, very little research has been published regarding this dialect. It has been generally influenced by Vietnamese for three centuries and accordingly displays a pronounced accent, tendency toward monosyllabic words and lexical differences from Standard Khmer. Khmer Khe
2277-553: The Mon language declined among the Bamar and the Burmese language began to replace Mon and Pyu as a lingua franca . Mon inscriptions from Dvaravati 's ruins also litter Thailand . However it is not clear if the inhabitants were Mon, a mix of Mon and Malay or Khmer. Later inscriptions and kingdoms like Lavo were subservient to the Khmer Empire . After the fall of Pagan, Mon again became
2346-743: The Mon-Khmer sub-grouping and place the Khmer language as its own branch of Austroasiatic equidistant from the other 12 branches of the family. Khmer is spoken by some 13 million people in Cambodia , where it is the official language. It is also a second language for most of the minority groups and indigenous hill tribes there. Additionally there are a million speakers of Khmer native to southern Vietnam (1999 census) and 1.4 million in northeast Thailand (2006). Khmer dialects , although mutually intelligible, are sometimes quite marked. Notable variations are found in speakers from Phnom Penh (Cambodia's capital city),
2415-612: The Standard Khmer system and that of the Battambang dialect on which the standard is based. In addition, some diphthongs and triphthongs are analyzed as a vowel nucleus plus a semivowel ( /j/ or /w/ ) coda because they cannot be followed by a final consonant. These include: (with short monophthongs) /ɨw/ , /əw/ , /aj/ , /aw/ , /uj/ ; (with long monophthongs) /əːj/ , /aːj/ ; (with long diphthongs) /iəj/ , /iəw/ , /ɨəj/ , /aoj/ , /aəj/ and /uəj/ . The independent vowels are
2484-674: The UNGEGN system are detailed in the Khmer alphasyllabary article. The Geographic Department of the Cambodian Ministry of Land Management and Urban Planning has developed a modified version of the UNGEGN system, originally put forward in 1995, and used in the second edition of the Gazetteer of Cambodia in 1996. Further modifications were made in 1997, and the system continues to be used in Cambodia. The main change made in this system compared with
2553-573: The UNGEGN system is that diacritics on vowels are omitted. Some of the vowels are also represented using different letter combinations. A system used by the United States Board on Geographic Names and the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use , published in 1972. It is based on the modified 1959 Service Géographique Khmer (SGK) system. This system (also called Transliteration System for Khmer Script), from
2622-568: The centuries; its modern features include subscripted versions of consonants used to write clusters and a division of consonants into two series with different inherent vowels . Khmer is a member of the Austroasiatic language family, the autochthonous family in an area that stretches from the Malay Peninsula through Southeast Asia to East India. Austroasiatic, which also includes Mon , Vietnamese and Munda , has been studied since 1856 and
2691-412: The clusters consisting of a plosive followed by /ʔ/, /b/, /d/ , in those beginning /ʔ/, /m/, /l/ , and in the cluster /kŋ-/ . After the initial consonant or consonant cluster comes the syllabic nucleus , which is one of the vowels listed above. This vowel may end the syllable or may be followed by a coda , which is a single consonant. If the syllable is stressed and the vowel is short, there must be
2760-525: The consonants /ɡ/ , /f/ , /ʃ/ and /z/ occur occasionally in recent loan words in the speech of Cambodians familiar with French and other languages. Various authors have proposed slightly different analyses of the Khmer vowel system. This may be in part because of the wide degree of variation in pronunciation between individual speakers, even within a dialectal region. The description below follows Huffman (1970). The number of vowel nuclei and their values vary between dialects; differences exist even between
2829-603: The constituent words. Thus សំបុកចាប , the name of a kind of cookie (literally 'bird's nest'), is pronounced [sɑmˌbok ˈcaːp] , with secondary stress on the second rather than the first syllable, because it is composed of the words [sɑmˈbok] ('nest') and [caːp] ('bird'). Khmer once had a phonation distinction in its vowels, but this now survives only in the most archaic dialect ( Western Khmer ). The distinction arose historically when vowels after Old Khmer voiced consonants became breathy voiced and diphthongized; for example *kaa, *ɡaa became *kaa, *ɡe̤a . When consonant voicing
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2898-461: The descendants of this group. Their dialect is thought to resemble that of pre-modern Siem Reap. Linguistic study of the Khmer language divides its history into four periods one of which, the Old Khmer period, is subdivided into pre-Angkorian and Angkorian. Pre-Angkorian Khmer is the Old Khmer language from 600 CE through 800. Angkorian Khmer is the language as it was spoken in the Khmer Empire from
2967-702: The elementary level. This system has been recognized as a model for mother-tongue education in the Burmese national education system, because it enables children taught in the Mon language to integrate into the mainstream Burmese education system at higher education levels. In 2013, it was announced that the Mawlamyine -based Thanlwin Times would begin to carry news in the Mon language, becoming Myanmar's first Mon language publication since 1962. Southern Myanmar (comprising Mon State , Kayin State , and Tanintharyi Region ), from
3036-566: The fall of the Khmer Empire in the early 15th century, the Dongrek Mountains served as a natural border leaving the Khmer north of the mountains under the sphere of influence of the Kingdom of Lan Xang . The conquests of Cambodia by Naresuan the Great for Ayutthaya furthered their political and economic isolation from Cambodia proper, leading to a dialect that developed relatively independently from
3105-419: The final syllable, with secondary stress on every second syllable from the end. Thus in a three-syllable word, the first syllable has secondary stress; in a four-syllable word, the second syllable has secondary stress; in a five-syllable word, the first and third syllables have secondary stress, and so on. Long polysyllables are not often used in conversation. Compounds, however, preserve the stress patterns of
3174-464: The first syllable does not behave as a minor syllable, but takes secondary stress . Most such words are compounds , but some are single morphemes (generally loanwords). An example is ភាសា ('language'), pronounced [ˌpʰiəˈsaː] . Words with three or more syllables, if they are not compounds, are mostly loanwords, usually derived from Pali, Sanskrit, or more recently, French. They are nonetheless adapted to Khmer stress patterns. Primary stress falls on
3243-402: The government sponsored Cultural Committee to define and standardize the modern language, they championed Khmerization, purging of foreign elements, reviving affixation, and the use of Old Khmer roots and historical Pali and Sanskrit to coin new words for modern ideas. Opponents, led by Keng Vannsak , who embraced "total Khmerization" by denouncing the reversion to classical languages and favoring
3312-464: The language of higher education and the intellectual class. By 1907, the French had wrested over half of modern-day Cambodia, including the north and northwest where Thai had been the prestige language, back from Thai control and reintegrated it into the country. Many native scholars in the early 20th century, led by a monk named Chuon Nath , resisted the French and Thai influences on their language. Forming
3381-509: The last syllable instead of falling. Khmer is primarily an analytic language with no inflection . Syntactic relations are mainly determined by word order. Old and Middle Khmer used particles to mark grammatical categories and many of these have survived in Modern Khmer but are used sparingly, mostly in literary or formal language. Khmer makes extensive use of auxiliary verbs , "directionals" and serial verb construction . Colloquial Khmer
3450-666: The lingua franca of the Hanthawaddy Kingdom (1287–1539) in present-day Lower Myanmar , which remained a predominantly Mon-speaking region until the 1800s, by which point, the Burmese language had expanded its reach from its traditional heartland in Upper Burma into Lower Burma . The region's language shift from Mon to Burmese has been ascribed to a combination of population displacement, intermarriage, and voluntary changes in self-identification among increasingly Mon–Burmese bilingual populations in throughout Lower Burma. The shift
3519-576: The majority of Mon speakers live in Southern Myanmar, especially Mon State , followed by Tanintharyi Region and Kayin State . Mon is an important language in Burmese history. Until the 12th century, it was the lingua franca of the Irrawaddy valley —not only in the Mon kingdoms of the lower Irrawaddy but also of the upriver Pagan Kingdom of the Bamar people . Mon, especially written Mon, continued to be
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#17328484818423588-557: The midpoint of the Middle Khmer period. This has resulted in a distinct accent influenced by the surrounding tonal languages Lao and Thai , lexical differences, and phonemic differences in both vowels and distribution of consonants. Syllable-final /r/ , which has become silent in other dialects of Khmer, is still pronounced in Northern Khmer. Some linguists classify Northern Khmer as a separate but closely related language rather than
3657-416: The modern Khmer language dictionary that is still in use today, helping preserve Khmer during the French colonial period. The phonological system described here is the inventory of sounds of the standard spoken language, represented using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The voiceless plosives /p/, /t/, /c/, /k/ may occur with or without aspiration (as [p] vs. [pʰ] , etc.); this difference
3726-430: The royal and religious registers , through Hinduism and Buddhism , due to Old Khmer being the language of the historical empires of Chenla and Angkor . The vast majority of Khmer speakers speak Central Khmer , the dialect of the central plain where the Khmer are most heavily concentrated. Within Cambodia, regional accents exist in remote areas but these are regarded as varieties of Central Khmer. Two exceptions are
3795-511: The rural Battambang area, the areas of Northeast Thailand adjacent to Cambodia such as Surin province , the Cardamom Mountains , and southern Vietnam. The dialects form a continuum running roughly north to south. Standard Cambodian Khmer is mutually intelligible with the others but a Khmer Krom speaker from Vietnam, for instance, may have great difficulty communicating with a Khmer native of Sisaket Province in Thailand. The following
3864-616: The southern regions of Northeast Thailand and is treated by some linguists as a separate language. Khmer Krom, or Southern Khmer, is the first language of the Khmer of Vietnam , while the Khmer living in the remote Cardamom Mountains speak a very conservative dialect that still displays features of the Middle Khmer language. Khmer is primarily an analytic , isolating language . There are no inflections , conjugations or case endings. Instead, particles and auxiliary words are used to indicate grammatical relationships. General word order
3933-513: The speech of the capital, Phnom Penh , and that of the Khmer Khe in Stung Treng province , both of which differ sufficiently enough from Central Khmer to be considered separate dialects of Khmer. Outside of Cambodia, three distinct dialects are spoken by ethnic Khmers native to areas that were historically part of the Khmer Empire . The Northern Khmer dialect is spoken by over a million Khmers in
4002-416: The start of a syllable are /str/, /skr/ , and (with aspirated consonants analyzed as two-consonant sequences) /sth/, /lkh/ . There are 85 possible two-consonant clusters (including [pʰ] etc. analyzed as /ph/ etc.). All the clusters are shown in the following table, phonetically, i.e. superscript ʰ can mark either contrastive or non-contrastive aspiration (see above ). Slight vowel epenthesis occurs in
4071-468: The use of s rather than h to represent a final aspirate ). Since some sounds can be represented by more than one symbol in Khmer orthography, it is not generally possible to recover the original Khmer spelling from a pronunciation-based Roman transcription. Even transliteration systems often do not preserve all of the distinctions made in the Khmer script. Some of the more commonly used romanization systems for Khmer are listed below. For full details of
4140-462: The use of contemporary colloquial Khmer for neologisms, and Ieu Koeus , who favored borrowing from Thai, were also influential. Koeus later joined the Cultural Committee and supported Nath. Nath's views and prolific work won out and he is credited with cultivating modern Khmer-language identity and culture, overseeing the translation of the entire Pali Buddhist canon into Khmer. He also created
4209-670: The various systems, see the links given in the External Links section. The Khmer romanization scheme published by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names is based on the BGN/PCGN system, described below. It is used for Cambodian geographical names in some recent maps and gazetteers, although the Geographic Department's modified system (see below) has come into use in the country since 1995. Correspondences in
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#17328484818424278-556: The verb ပေး ("to give") is colloquially used as a permissive causative marker, like in other Southeast Asian languages, but unlike in other Tibeto-Burman languages. This usage is hardly employed in Upper Burmese varieties, and is considered a sub-standard construct. In 1972, the New Mon State Party (NMSP) established a Mon national school system, which uses Mon as a medium of instruction , in rebel-controlled areas. The system
4347-470: The vowels that can exist without a preceding or trailing consonant. The independent vowels may be used as monosyllabic words, or as the initial syllables in longer words. Khmer words never begin with regular vowels; they can, however, begin with independent vowels. Example: ឰដ៏, ឧទាហរណ៍, ឧត្តម, ឱកាស...។ A Khmer syllable begins with a single consonant, or else with a cluster of two, or rarely three, consonants. The only possible clusters of three consonants at
4416-470: The words they modify). Some grammatical processes are still not fully understood by western scholars. For example, it is not clear if certain features of Khmer grammar, such as actor nominalization , should be treated as a morphological process or a purely syntactic device, and some derivational morphology seems "purely decorative" and performs no known syntactic work. Romanization of Khmer#UNGEGN Cambodian geographical names are often romanized with
4485-808: Was certainly accelerated by the fall of the Mon-speaking Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom in 1757. Following the fall of Pegu (now Bago), many Mon-speaking refugees fled and resettled in what is now modern-day Thailand. By 1830, an estimated 90% of the population in the Lower Burma self-identified as Burmese-speaking Bamars; huge swaths of former Mon-speaking areas, from the Irrawaddy Delta upriver, spanning Bassein (now Pathein) and Rangoon (now Yangon) to Tharrawaddy, Toungoo, Prome (now Pyay) and Henzada (now Hinthada), were now Burmese-speaking. Great Britain's gradual annexation of Burma throughout
4554-436: Was emerging from the transitional period represented by Middle Khmer, Cambodia fell under the influence of French colonialism . Thailand, which had for centuries claimed suzerainty over Cambodia and controlled succession to the Cambodian throne, began losing its influence on the language. In 1887 Cambodia was fully integrated into French Indochina , which brought in a French -speaking aristocracy. This led to French becoming
4623-408: Was expanded throughout Mon State following a ceasefire with the central government in 1995. Mon State now operates a multi-track education system, with schools either using Mon as the primary medium of instruction (called Mon national schools) offering modules on the Mon language in addition to the government curriculum (called "mixed schools"). In 2015, Mon language courses were launched state-wide at
4692-503: Was first proposed as a language family in 1907. Despite the amount of research, there is still doubt about the internal relationship of the languages of Austroasiatic. Diffloth places Khmer in an eastern branch of the Mon-Khmer languages . In these classification schemes Khmer's closest genetic relatives are the Bahnaric and Pearic languages . More recent classifications doubt the validity of
4761-406: Was lost, the distinction was maintained by the vowel ( *kaa, *ke̤a ); later the phonation disappeared as well ( [kaː], [kiə] ). These processes explain the origin of what are now called a-series and o-series consonants in the Khmer script . Although most Cambodian dialects are not tonal , the colloquial Phnom Penh dialect has developed a tonal contrast (level versus peaking tone) as a by-product of
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