Khmer alphabet

The Khmer script (Khmer: ; IPA: [as kmae]) [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.[4] The modern Khmer script differs somewhat from precedent forms seen on the inscriptions of the ruins of Angkor.

Contents

1 Orthography o 1.1 Styles 2 Consonants 3 Dependent vowels 4 Independent vowels 5 Diacritics 6 Punctuation marks 7 Ligatures 8 Numerals 9 Unicode 10 See also 11 Notes 12 References 13 External links

Orthography
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 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

Several styles of Khmer writing are used for varying purposes. The two main styles are ksr chring (lit., slanted script) and ksr mul (lit., round script).
ksr khm (, 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.

ksr chring () refers to oblique letters. Entire bodies of text such as novels and other publications may be produced in ksr chring. 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.

ksr chhr () or ksr trng () 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 ksr chring.

ksr khrm () 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 k (). This style is also for yantra tattoos and yantras on cloth, paper, or engravings on brass plates in Cambodia as well as in Thailand.

ksr mul () is calligraphical style similar to ksr khm 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
There are 35 Khmer consonant symbols, although modern Khmer only uses 33, two having become obsolete. Each consonant has an inherent vowel of // or //. 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 ksr (), 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 ay (, /aoj/).

Consonants Subscript form UN romanization IPA

k kh k kh ng ch chh ch chh nh d th d th n t th

k k k k c c c c t t n t t

t th n b ph p ph m y r l v sh ss s h

t t n p p p m j r l s h l

* The consonant l 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 l 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 /h/ to form digraphs. The consonant for /p/, however, is created by using the diacritical sign called musktnd over the consonant for /b/. These additional consonants are mainly used to represent sounds in French and Thai loanwords.

Digraph consonants UN romanization IPA

g g n p m l f, w f, w , z , z

n p m l f, w f, w , z , z

Dependent vowels
The Khmer script uses dependent vowels, or diacritical vowels, to modify the inherent vowels of consonants. Dependent vowels are known in Khmer as srk nissy () or srk phsm (). 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.

IPA[2] Dependent UN romanization vowels a-series o-series a-series o-series

a ei o u aeu eua i ai a au

a i

a e j

i i i u u u

o ou

eu

a i ei ae

e j o w

ey o u

aj ao aw

Diacritics

UN romanization

IPA

a-series o-series a-series o-series om m m ng h h m um m eng eh uh om m am a a o ei uh a um um om e e u e e

Independent vowels

h ah

Independent vowels are non-diacritical characters that stand alone (i.e. without being attached to a consonant symbol) used to represent vowel phonemes occurring at the beginning of syllables. In Khmer they are called (/sra petu/) which means "complete vowels". The independent vowels are used in a small number of words, mostly of Indic origin, and consequently there is some inconsistency in their use and pronunciations.[2] However, a few words in which they occur are used quite frequently: (/jlw/ "now"), (/wpuk/ "father"), (/r/ ~ /r/ "or").

Independent UN romanization vowels

IPA e j

,
Diacritics

ei

u r r l l

u w r r l l ae; ,e aj ao aw

ai a, ay u

Diacritics

Name

nkkht () rehmkh () yklekpnt () musktnd () reispt () kbih kram () ' bntk () rbat () rphek () tndkhat ( )

Notes niggahita; nasalizes the inherent vowels and some of the dependent vowels, see anusvara, sometimes used to represent [a] in Sanskrit loanwords "shining face"; adds final aspiration to dependent or inherent vowels, usually omitted, corresponds to the visarga diacritic, it maybe included as dependent vowel symbol yugalabindu ("pair of dots"); adds final glottalness to dependent or inherent vowels, usually omitted

msikadanta ("mouse teeth"); used to convert some o-series consonants to the a-series

trsabda; used to convert some a-series consonants to the o-series

also known as bkcheung (); used in place when the diacritics treispt and musktnd impede with superscript vowels

used to shorten some vowels

rapda, repha; behave similarly to the tndkhat, corresponds to the Devanagari diacritic repha, however it lost its original function which was to represent a vocalic r

daaghta; used to render some letters as unpronounced

kakbat () sda ()

kkapda ("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/, /n/, /n/, /vj/, and the feminine response /cah/ denotes stressed intonation in some single-consonant words[5]

a short inherent vowel in Sanskrit and Pali words; usually sanhyok sannha represents omitted

() vram () cheung ()
a mostly obsolete diacritic, corresponds to the virma a.w. coeng; a sign developed for Unicode to input subscript consonants, appearance of this sign varies among fonts

Punctuation marks
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
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 b and a which was created to differentiate it from the consonant symbol h as well as the ligature for ch and a. It is not always necessary to connect consonants with the dependent vowel a. Examples of ligatured symbols: la (/li/) An example of the vowel a () forming a connection with the serif of a consonant. chba (/ca/) 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 (/aw/) The combination of the consonant b () 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 h (). tra (/tra/) The subscript for r () is written precedent to the consonant it is pronounced after.

Numerals
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.

Khmer numerals Arabic numerals 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Unicode
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+1780U+17FF. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points:

Khmer Unicode.org chart (PDF) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ABCDE F U+178x U+179x U+17Ax U+17Bx U+17Cx U+17Dx U+17Ex U+17Fx

The Unicode block for additional Khmer symbols is U+19E0U+19FF:

Khmer Symbols[1] Unicode.org chart (PDF) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ABC D E F U+19Ex U+19Fx