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Khmer linguistic data
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Common questions about Khmer
What linguistic data does this Khmer page show?
Word order, tone (or absence), gender count, case marking, adposition direction, syllable structure, consonant inventory traits, vowel system (one of the most complex), morphological alignment, script, register stratification, speaker count, and geographic area. Each row is one feature with Khmer's value visible; you can add other languages to read the same feature side by side.
Where do the Khmer data points come from?
Typological features are merged from URIEL+ (Mortensen et al.) and a curated set authored against descriptive grammars. Speaker counts come from Ethnologue and Glottolog. Geographic area is computed from the Asher 2007 world language atlas. Similarity scores combine genetic distance, typological overlap, and lexical-borrowing data.
Why doesn't Khmer have tones?
Khmer is a regional outlier: most Mainland Southeast Asian languages (Thai, Vietnamese, Lao, Burmese, Mandarin) developed tones, but Khmer kept its phonological complexity in the vowel system instead. The trade-off is sometimes called a 'register language' pattern — Khmer uses voice-quality and vowel distinctions to do work that tone does in neighboring languages.
How many vowels does Khmer have?
Modern standard Khmer has around 30 vowel phonemes, including a mix of monophthongs (10-12 short and long pairs) and diphthongs (15+). The exact count varies by analysis. Each consonant in the script also has an inherent first-series or second-series quality that determines how the following vowel is pronounced — vowels effectively have two phonetic realizations depending on consonant context.
Why does Khmer cluster with Vietnamese on similarity scores?
Both are Austroasiatic — Khmer is Mon-Khmer, Vietnamese is Vietic. They share SVO order and isolating morphology, but Vietnamese developed tones and Khmer didn't. They diverged early, and modern speakers can't understand each other. The factor breakdown chip on the row tells you which dimensions contributed most.
Sources for Khmer
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Haiman, John and Ourn Noeurng (2011). A Grammar of Colloquial Khmer. In Nikolaus Himmelmann (ed.), Mouton Grammar Library. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
- Huffman, Franklin E. (1970). Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader. Yale Southeast Asia Studies. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Headley, Robert K. et al. (1977). Cambodian-English Dictionary. 2 vols. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.
- Jacob, Judith M. (1968). Introduction to Cambodian. London: Oxford University Press.
- Open Michigan (2012). Basic Khmer. Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library.