Khmer language

Khmer
Cambodian
ភាសាខ្មែរ
Pronunciation	pʰiːəsaː kʰmaːe
Native to	Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, USA, France, Australia
Ethnicity	Khmer
Native speakers	16 million (2007)[1] 1 million L2 speakers[2]
Language family	Austroasiatic Khmer
Dialects	Battambang Phnom Penh Northern Khmer (Khmer Surin) Khmer Krom (Southern Khmer) Cardamom Khmer
Writing system	Khmer script (abugida)
Official status
Official language in	Cambodia
Language codes
ISO 639-1	km
ISO 639-2	khm
ISO 639-3	Either: khm – Central Khmer kxm – Northern Khmer

This article contains Khmer text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Khmer script.

Khmer is the official language of Cambodia. It is spoken by the Khmer people, who live in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and many other countries. Its script was the base for the Thai script, although Thai does not use subscript consonants.

One thing that makes it particularly difficult for many foreigners to learn is that Khmer words are not separated in a sentence and the sounds are quite hard for foreigners to replicate. But still each word in the sentence can be distinguished. Also, there is not much material on Khmer, although this situation is changing.

1. ↑ Nationalencyklopedin "Världens 100 största språk 2007" The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007
2. ↑ Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Entry for Khmer