Khmer is definitely the language belonging to the Khmer people and also the official language of Cambodia. It's the second most widely spoken Austro-Asiatic language (after Vietnamese), with speakers within the tens of millions. Khmer Language continues to be substantially affected from Sanskrit and Pali, particularly in the royal and religious registers, over the vehicles of Hinduism and Buddhism. Additionally it is the first recorded and earliest written language of the Mon-Khmer family, predating Mon through a major margin Vietnamese.
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The actual Khmer terminology has influenced, as well as been affected by, Thai, Lao, Vietnamese and Cham, which, because of geographical proximity and long-term social contact, form a sprachbund in peninsular Southeast Asia. Khmer differs from neighboring languages such as Thai, Lao and Vietnamese because it's not a tonal language.
The main dialects, all mutually intelligible, are:
1-Battambang, spoken in northern Cambodia.
2-Phnom Penh, the capital dialect which is spoken in encircling provinces.
3-Northern Khmer, also called Khmer Surin, spoken by ethnic Khmer indigenous to Northeast Thailand
4-Khmer Krom or Southern Khmer, spoken by the indigenous Khmer population in the Mekong Delta.
5-Cardamom Khmer, an archaic form spoken by the small population within the Cardamom Mountains of western Cambodia and eastern Central Thailand.
Linguistic study on the Khmer language splits the history into four periods one of these, the Old Khmer period, is subdivided into pre-Angkorian and Angkorian. Pre-Angkorian Khmer, the language right after it's divergence from Proto-Mon-Khmer till the ninth century, is barely known from phrases and words in Sanskrit texts of this era. Old Khmer (or Angkorian Khmer) is a language since it was spoken within the Khmer Empire in the 9th century till the weakening in the empire between the 13th century.
Old Khmer is attested by many primary sources and has been studied detailed by a few historians, such as Saveros Pou, Phillip Jenner and Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow. After the end of the Khmer Empire the language lost the standardizing influence to be the language of government and accordingly undergo a tumultuous duration of change in morphology, phonology and lexicon. The language of this transition period, from around the 14th to 18th centuries, is known as Middle Khmer and saw borrowing from Thai, Lao and to the lesser extent, Vietnamese.
The alterations in those times are so profound which the rules of Modern Khmer can't be used on correctly understand Old Khmer. The language started to be well known as Modern Khmer, spoken in the 1800s until today. Just like modern Khmer was rising from the transitional period symbolized by Middle Khmer, Cambodia fell intoxicated by French colonialism. In 1887 Cambodia was fully integrated into French Indochina which made possible a French-speaking aristocracy. This resulted in French becoming the language of higher education and also the intellectual class.
Several native historians during the early twentieth century, led by a monk named Chuon Nath, opposed the French influence on their own language and championed Khmerization, utilizing Khmer origins (and Pali and Sanskrit) to coin new words for modern ideas, instead of French. Chuon Nath developed modern Khmer-language identity and traditions, managing the interpretation from the overall Pali Buddhist canon into Khmer and producing today's Khmer language dictionary which is still in use today, therefore making sure that Khmer would survive, and even blossom, within the French colonial time period.
Khmer is classified like a member of the Eastern branch in the Mon-Khmer language family, by itself a subdivision from the larger Austroasiatic language group, that has representatives in the big swath of land from Northeast India down through Southeast Asia in the Malay Peninsula and its islands. Consequently, its closest relatives are the languages of the Pearic, Bahnaric, and Katuic families spoken through the hill tribes in the region. The Vietic languages are also classified as belonging to this family.
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-David A. Smyth, Judith Margaret Jacob (1993). Cambodian Linguistics, Literature and History: Collected Articles. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0728602180147852369*.
-Enfield, N.J. (2005). Areal Linguistics and Mainland Southeast Asia.
-Nancy Joan Smith-Hefner (1999). Khmer American: Identity and Moral Education in a Diasporic Community. University of California. ISBN 0-520-21349-1. .
The actual Khmer terminology has influenced, as well as been affected by, Thai, Lao, Vietnamese and Cham, which, because of geographical proximity and long-term social contact, form a sprachbund in peninsular Southeast Asia. Khmer differs from neighboring languages such as Thai, Lao and Vietnamese because it's not a tonal language.
The main dialects, all mutually intelligible, are:
1-Battambang, spoken in northern Cambodia.
2-Phnom Penh, the capital dialect which is spoken in encircling provinces.
3-Northern Khmer, also called Khmer Surin, spoken by ethnic Khmer indigenous to Northeast Thailand
4-Khmer Krom or Southern Khmer, spoken by the indigenous Khmer population in the Mekong Delta.
5-Cardamom Khmer, an archaic form spoken by the small population within the Cardamom Mountains of western Cambodia and eastern Central Thailand.
Linguistic study on the Khmer language splits the history into four periods one of these, the Old Khmer period, is subdivided into pre-Angkorian and Angkorian. Pre-Angkorian Khmer, the language right after it's divergence from Proto-Mon-Khmer till the ninth century, is barely known from phrases and words in Sanskrit texts of this era. Old Khmer (or Angkorian Khmer) is a language since it was spoken within the Khmer Empire in the 9th century till the weakening in the empire between the 13th century.
Old Khmer is attested by many primary sources and has been studied detailed by a few historians, such as Saveros Pou, Phillip Jenner and Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow. After the end of the Khmer Empire the language lost the standardizing influence to be the language of government and accordingly undergo a tumultuous duration of change in morphology, phonology and lexicon. The language of this transition period, from around the 14th to 18th centuries, is known as Middle Khmer and saw borrowing from Thai, Lao and to the lesser extent, Vietnamese.
The alterations in those times are so profound which the rules of Modern Khmer can't be used on correctly understand Old Khmer. The language started to be well known as Modern Khmer, spoken in the 1800s until today. Just like modern Khmer was rising from the transitional period symbolized by Middle Khmer, Cambodia fell intoxicated by French colonialism. In 1887 Cambodia was fully integrated into French Indochina which made possible a French-speaking aristocracy. This resulted in French becoming the language of higher education and also the intellectual class.
Several native historians during the early twentieth century, led by a monk named Chuon Nath, opposed the French influence on their own language and championed Khmerization, utilizing Khmer origins (and Pali and Sanskrit) to coin new words for modern ideas, instead of French. Chuon Nath developed modern Khmer-language identity and traditions, managing the interpretation from the overall Pali Buddhist canon into Khmer and producing today's Khmer language dictionary which is still in use today, therefore making sure that Khmer would survive, and even blossom, within the French colonial time period.
Khmer is classified like a member of the Eastern branch in the Mon-Khmer language family, by itself a subdivision from the larger Austroasiatic language group, that has representatives in the big swath of land from Northeast India down through Southeast Asia in the Malay Peninsula and its islands. Consequently, its closest relatives are the languages of the Pearic, Bahnaric, and Katuic families spoken through the hill tribes in the region. The Vietic languages are also classified as belonging to this family.
References
-David A. Smyth, Judith Margaret Jacob (1993). Cambodian Linguistics, Literature and History: Collected Articles. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0728602180147852369*.
-Enfield, N.J. (2005). Areal Linguistics and Mainland Southeast Asia.
-Nancy Joan Smith-Hefner (1999). Khmer American: Identity and Moral Education in a Diasporic Community. University of California. ISBN 0-520-21349-1. .
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