Morphosyntax
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| Old Khmer | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Khmer Empire |
| Region | Cambodia (in the lowlands) Vietnam (in the Mekong Delta) Thailand (attested in inscriptions from the Northeast, Central, and Southern Regions) Contents
|
| Era | 7th to 15th century |
Austroasiatic
| |
Early forms | |
| Khmer Script, Pallava | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | okz |
| Glottolog | oldk1249 |
Old Khmer is the oldest attested stage of the Khmer language, an Austroasiatic language historically and presently spoken across Cambodia, Southern Vietnam, and parts of Thailand and Laos. It is recorded in inscriptions dating from the early 7th century until the first few decades of the 15th century. Such inscriptions, spanning nearly a millennium and numbering well over a thousand, present one of the most extensive sources of documentation in Southeast Asia.
Old Khmer was written in an early variant of the Khmer script derived from Pallava, a southern variant of Brahmi, and in turn became the basis of the scripts used for Thai and Lao. Along with Brahmi and Indian influence on Cambodia, Old Khmer saw an influx of Sanskrit loanwords in the domains of religion, philosophy, and to a lesser extent, in politics. Despite this, Old Khmer retained a prototypical Austroasiatic typology in phonology, syntax, and morphology, being sesquisyllabic, analytic, having a rich system of derivational affixes. [1]
The language is customarily divided into Pre-Angkorian (611–802) and Angkorian (802–1431) stages based on both the date and the distribution of surviving inscriptions, with Pre-Angkorian inscriptions concentrated in the southern regions of Cambodia. After the abandonment of the sites of Angkor as the political centre of the Khmer-speaking polity, the practice of epigraphy decreased in the following centuries but did not disappear, persisting until the 20th century. [2] However, inscriptions after the 15th century are customarily held to reflect the Middle Khmer stage of the language. [1]
As an endogenous term referring to the people and language, ក្មេរ៑ (kmér, /kmeː/) is attested in inscriptional lists specifying the ethnolinguistic affiliation of personnel attached to temples alongside terms for other ethnic groups, e.g. Mon, Chong, Bru. Its provenance is unknown, possibly deriving from mer "chief", "principal" or "mother". [3]
Old Khmer entered into the historical period rather abruptly in 611, with all earlier inscriptions in present-day Cambodia and the Mekong Delta being written in Sanskrit. [4] Even the earliest inscriptions, however, show a high degree of uniformity in orthography, suggesting a period of development prior to the first epigraphic attestation. [1] Their contents, like later inscriptions, tend to concern legal matters such as land and property, donations to temples, and genealogies and lineages, suggesting a society already deeply entrenched in lower Cambodia. In terms of geography, the earliest inscriptions are concentrated in the southern parts of Cambodia and subsequent inscriptions show a south-to-north dispersal. [5]
Due to the primarily legalistic nature of the inscriptions, the surviving corpus of Old Khmer represents only a partial picture of the language. Nonetheless, they provide important documentary evidence of the language's phonology, morphology, and syntax as well as clues about the natural and sociopolitical environments surrounding its speakers. [6]
Like other classical languages of Southeast Asia, Old Khmer was subject to heavy Sanskrit influence. This is especially evident in religious and philosophical concepts and in calendrical numerology, for which Khmer had no equivalents, but sometimes the choice of Sanskrit words over native equivalents were stylistic rather than necessary. [7]
There is some ambiguity in sound and grapheme correspondence in Old Khmer. In particular, plain plosives /p/ and /t/ are not distinguished from implosive /ɓ/ and /ɗ/, both sets being represented by p and t respectively. Vowels, in particular, show a higher degree of ambiguity. Written a can represent /ɔ/, /ɔː/, /a/, and /aː/; ā can represent /a/, and /aː/; o can represent /oː/, /ɔ/ and /ɔː/; and e and ē, can represent /e/, /eː/, /ɛ/, /ɛː/, /ɤ/, and /ɤː/. Diphthongs /iːə/ and /uːə/ are represented by digraphs ya and va respectively. [1]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unvoiced stop | /p/ | /t/ | /c/ | /k/ | /ʔ/ | |||||
| Voiced stop | /b/ | /d/ | /ɟ/ | /g/ | ||||||
| Implosive stop | /ɓ/ | /ɗ/ | ||||||||
| Nasal | /m/ | /n/ | /ɲ/ | /ŋ/ | ||||||
| Semivowel | /w/ | /j/ | ||||||||
| Liquid | /r/, /l/ | |||||||||
| Fricative | /s/ | |||||||||
| Height | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | /i/, /iː/ | /ɯː/ | /u/, /uː/ |
| Close-mid | /e/, /eː/ | /ɤ/, /ɤː/ | /o/, /oː/ |
| Open-mid | /ɛ/, /ɛː/ | /ɔ/, /ɔː/ | |
| Open | /a/, /aː/ |
| Long diphthongs | iːə | ɯːə | uːə |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short diphthongs | ɪə | ɯə | ʊə |
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Pre-Angkorian (611–802) and Angkorian (802–1431) show minor differences in orthography, reflecting perhaps dialectal differences between the south and the north of the country or perhaps just differences in convention. These differences include representations of certain vowels and consonants.
Khmer is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Khmer people, and the official and national language of Cambodia. Khmer has been influenced considerably by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious registers, through Hinduism and Buddhism. It is also the earliest recorded and earliest written language of the Mon–Khmer family, predating Mon and Vietnamese, due to Old Khmer being the language of the historical empires of Chenla, Angkor and, presumably, their earlier predecessor state, Funan.
Khmer architecture, also known as Angkorian architecture, is the architecture produced by the Khmers during the Angkor period of the Khmer Empire from approximately the later half of the 8th century CE to the first half of the 15th century CE.
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Angkor, also known as Yasodharapura, was the capital city of the Khmer Empire. The city and empire flourished from approximately the 9th to the 15th centuries. The city houses the Angkor Wat, one of Cambodia's most popular tourist attractions.
The Khmer Empire was a Hindu-Buddhist empire in Southeast Asia, centered around hydraulic cities in what is now northern Cambodia. Known as Kambuja by its inhabitants, it grew out of the former civilisation of Chenla and lasted from 802 to 1431. Historians call this period of Cambodian history the Angkor period, after the empire's most well-known capital, Angkor. The Khmer Empire ruled or vassalised most of mainland Southeast Asia and stretched as far north as southern China. At its peak, the Empire was larger than the Byzantine Empire, which existed around the same time.
Funan was the name given by Chinese cartographers, geographers and writers to an ancient Indianized state—or, rather a loose network of states (Mandala)—located in mainland Southeast Asia centered on the Mekong Delta that existed from the first to sixth century CE. The name is found in Chinese historical texts describing the kingdom, and the most extensive descriptions are largely based on the report of two Chinese diplomats, Kang Tai and Zhu Ying, representing the Eastern Wu dynasty who sojourned in Funan in the mid-3rd century CE.
The early history of Cambodia follows the prehistoric and protohistoric development of Cambodia as a country in mainland Southeast Asia. Thanks to archaeological work carried out since 2009 this can now be traced back to the Neolithic period. As excavation sites have become more numerous and modern dating methods are applied, settlement traces of all stages of human civil development from neolithic hunter-gatherer groups to organized preliterate societies are documented in the region.
Khmer script is an abugida (alphasyllabary) script used to write the Khmer language, the official language of Cambodia. It is also used to write Pali in the Buddhist liturgy of Cambodia and Thailand.
Chenla or Zhenla is the Chinese designation for the successor polity of the kingdom of Funan preceding the Khmer Empire that existed from around the late sixth to the early ninth century in Indochina. The name was still used in the 13th century by the Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan, author of The Customs of Cambodia. It appears on the Mao Kun map. However, modern historiography applies the name exclusively to the period from the late 6th to the early ninth century. This period of Cambodian history is known by historians as the Pre-Angkor period. It is doubted whether Chenla ever existed as a unitary kingdom, or if this is a misconception by Chinese chroniclers. Most modern historians assert that "Chenla" was in fact just a series of loose and temporary confederations of principalities in the pre-Angkor period.
Khmer numerals are the numerals used in the Khmer language. They have been in use since at least the early 7th century, with the earliest known use being on a stele dated to AD 604 found in Prasat Bayang, near Angkor Borei, Cambodia.
The Khmer people are an Austroasiatic ethnic group native to Cambodia. They comprise over 90% of Cambodia's population of 17 million. They speak the Khmer language, which is part of the larger Austroasiatic-language family alongside Mon and Vietnamese.
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Hariharalaya was an ancient city and capital of the Khmer empire located near Siem Reap, Cambodia in an area now called Roluos. Today, all that remains of the city are the ruins of several royal temples: Preah Ko, the Bakong, Lolei.
Sambor Prei Kuk (Isanapura) is an archaeological site in Cambodia located in Kampong Thom Province, 30 km (19 mi) north of Kampong Thom, the provincial capital, 176 km (109 mi) east of Angkor and 206 km (128 mi) north of Phnom Penh. The now ruined complex dates back to the Pre-Angkorian Chenla Kingdom, established by king Isanavarman I as central royal sanctuary and capital, known then as "Isanapura". In 2017, Sambor Prei Kuk was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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