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.
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.
