Cambodia is a sovereign state located in the southern part of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. The state borders on Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.
Many are interested in: what language is in Cambodia? This article will tell you about the main language of this exotic country.
What language is spoken in Cambodia
Khmer is the official dialect in this southeastern state. It is spoken by approximately 10 million people. Khmer is the second most widely spoken Austro-Asian language (after Vietnamese). Khmer was greatly influenced by extinct languages such as Sanskrit and Pali, which are currently only used in religious ceremonies.
What is the main language in Cambodia? Most people in Cambodia speak Khmer.
Austro-Asian language family
Khmer belongs to the Austro-Asian language family, it is autochthonous (indigenous) in the region, which extends from the Malay Peninsula through Southeast Asia to East India. The Austro-Asian family also includes Vietnamese, Mons, Thai.
This linguistic group has been studied since 1856. It was first named a language family in 1907. Despite a large number of studies, many scientists still doubt the internal kinship of the branches of this family. Some scholars include Khmer in the eastern group of Mon Khmer languages. In these classification schemes, the Khmer dialects are the closest genetic relatives of the Khmer dialects.
Later classifications of scholars cast doubt on the existence of the Mon-Khmer group and consider the Khmer independent branch of the Austro-Asian family.
Native speakers
Khmer speakers are approximately 10 million people. About half of the carriers live in Cambodia itself. In Vietnam, there are a million people who speak Khmer. More than one and a half million live in Thailand. There are also a significant number of carriers residing in the United States, France, Australia, and Canada. In the Khmer language, there are many dialects, the main of which are:
- Battambang;
- Phnom Penh;
- northern Khmer;
- southern Khmer;
- Cardamom
The Battambang dialect is a Cambodian dialect spoken in the north of Cambodia.
Phnom Penh - the capital of the state, has its own regional dialect. He is the only Cambodian dialect that uses tonal intonation. The northern Khmer dialect is spoken in Thailand; the Khmer dialect is called Khmer Surin.
South Khmer is also known as Khmer Krum, it is spoken by people living in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. Khmer Cardamom is an older form spoken by a very small number of people living near the Cardamom Mountains in Western Cambodia.
Khmer language history
Linguistic science divides the history of the Khmer language into four periods, one of them is the period of the ancient Khmer language, which is divided into pre-Angkor and Angkor. Pre-Angkor is an ancient Khmer language that existed from 600 to 800 AD. It is known only for words and phrases in Sanskrit texts of that era.
The Angkor version of Khmer was the language of the Khmer empire from the 9th century until the weakening of the empire around the 13th century. Ancient Khmer has been studied in detail by many linguistic scholars. After the collapse of the Khmer Empire, the language experienced a turbulent period of changes in morphology, phonology and vocabulary. This transition period lasted from about the 14th to the 18th century. The language of this period is often called "Khmer Middle." At this time, a large number of borrowings from Thai, Lao and Vietnamese fell into Khmer.
The changes of this period are so profound that the rules of the modern Khmer cannot be applied for a correct understanding of the ancient version of this dialect. Khmer, currently spoken in Cambodia, has been formed since the middle of the 19th century. Modern Khmer is essentially the same language spoken two hundred years ago. However, he has come a long way in lexicon, morphology, and phonetics. This was due to standardization, which was carried out by the government. Thus, the more ancient linguistic forms are very difficult to understand even for people who are fluent in Khmer.
Khmer Features
Khmer is relatively similar to Thai. Linguists consider the language of Cambodia insulating. The Khmer grammatical structure is as follows: SVO (subject - verb - object). The word order in it is not strict. The official language of Cambodia often uses certain words and particles to express respect for the interlocutor. This rule is considered mandatory. The speaker must know the social status of the person with whom he is talking. There are many different ways to talk with someone. The form of appeal directly depends on the position of a person in society.
The specifics of Khmer vocabulary
Words in Khmer consist of only one syllable, as in many other oriental languages. Emphasis always falls on the last syllable. Naturally, there are also two-syllable words that were borrowed from other languages, or various endings are added to the root. Basically, the words, which consist of several syllables, were borrowed from Sanskrit and French. They are used for scientific, religious and political terminology.
Often words can consist of a pair of full syllables, with the replacement of unstressed vowels. The main feature of Khmer is a clear pronunciation of each syllable and word. If you do not pronounce them clearly, then the meaning of the utterance may be lost. These are the main features of Khmer.
Learning Khmer
Since Khmer is a large Austro-Asian language, a large number of people study it. The official language of Cambodia is not easy to learn and seems not the most popular. It is very exciting to teach him, as he is considered the easiest to master in his family.
The Khmer alphabet is based on a rather interesting writing system. This letter system is also used in Thai and Lao. Unlike other related languages, it is not tonal, this feature greatly facilitates the learning process.
There are special tutorials that are designed for beginners to learn the language without teachers and tutors. For example, the most famous of the manuals are edited by Samarin or Jean-Michel Philippi. Khmer textbooks and phrasebooks at the moment have become quite popular among tourists, since this direction has become unusually fashionable in recent years.