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 wondering: what is the language 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 language in this southeastern state. It is spoken by approximately 10 million people. Khmer is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language (after Vietnamese). Khmer has been heavily influenced by extinct languages such as Sanskrit and Pali, which are now only used in religious ceremonies.
What is the main language in Cambodia? Most people in Cambodia speak Khmer.
Austroasiatic language family
Khmer belongs to the Austroasiatic language family, it is autochthonous (indigenous) in an area that stretches from the Malay Peninsula through Southeast Asia toEastern India. The Austroasiatic family also includes Vietnamese, Mon, 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 relationship of the branches of this family. Some scholars include Khmer in the eastern group of Mon-Khmer languages. In these classification schemes, the closest genetic relatives of Khmer are the Bahnar dialects.
Later classifications of scholars question the existence of the Mon-Khmer group and consider Khmer an independent branch of the Austroasiatic family.
Native speakers
Khmer is spoken by approximately 10 million people. About half of the speakers live in Cambodia itself. Vietnam has a million people who speak Khmer. Over one and a half million live in Thailand. There is also a significant number of speakers residing in the US, France, Australia and Canada. There are many dialects in the Khmer language, the main ones are:
- Battambang;
- Phnom Penh;
- Northern Khmer;
- Southern Khmer;
- kardamomsky;
Battambang is a Cambodian dialect spoken in northern Cambodia.
Phnom Penh - the capital of the state, has its own regional dialect. It is the only Cambodian dialect that uses tonal intonation. Northern Khmer is spoken in Thailand, Khmer is called "Khmer Surin".
Southern Khmer is also known as "Khmer Krum" and is spoken by the people of 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.
History of the Khmer language
Linguistic science divides the history of the Khmer language into four periods, one of them is the period of ancient Khmer, which is divided into pre-Angkor and Angkor. Pre-Angkor is an ancient Khmer language that existed from 600 to 800 AD. He is known only from words and phrases in Sanskrit texts of that era.
Angkor Khmer was the language of the Khmer Empire from the 9th century until the decline of the empire around the 13th century. Ancient Khmer has been studied in detail by many linguists. After the collapse of the Khmer Empire, the language went through a turbulent period of change in morphology, phonology and vocabulary. This transitional period lasted approximately from the 14th to the 18th century. The language of this period is often referred to as "Middle Khmer". At this time, a large number of loanwords from Thai, Lao and Vietnamese got into Khmer.
The changes of this period are so profound that the rules of modern Khmer cannot be applied to a correct understanding of the ancient version of this dialect. Khmer, currently spoken in Cambodia,formed in the middle of the 19th century. Modern Khmer is essentially the same language that was spoken two hundred years ago. However, he went through a huge path of changes in vocabulary, morphology and phonetics. This was due to the standardization that was carried out by the government. Thus, older linguistic forms are very difficult to understand even for people who speak Khmer fluently.
Features of Khmer
Khmer is relatively similar to Thai. Linguists consider the language of Cambodia to be isolating. The grammatical structure of Khmer 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 be aware of the social status of the person he is talking to. There are many different ways to talk to someone. The form of address directly depends on the position of a person in society.
Specific Khmer vocabulary
Words in Khmer consist of only one syllable, as in many other Eastern languages. The stress 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, words that 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 pairfull syllables, with the replacement of unstressed vowels. The main feature of Khmer is the clear pronunciation of each syllable and word. If they are not pronounced clearly, then the meaning of what was said may be lost. These are the main features of Khmer.
Learning Khmer
Because Khmer is a major Austroasiatic language, it is studied by a large number of people. The official language of Cambodia is not easy to learn and does not seem to be the most popular. It is a lot of fun to learn as it is said to be the easiest one in the family to master.
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 teaching aids that are designed for beginners to learn the language without teachers and tutors. For example, the most famous of the manuals are published under the editorship of Samarin or Jean-Michel Philippi. Khmer textbooks and phrase books have become quite popular among tourists at the moment, as this direction has become unusually fashionable in recent years.
