Khmer

About Khmer

Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ) is the official language of Cambodia. It is a member of the Austroasiatic language family, and is related to languages such as Vietnamese and Mon, a minority language spoken in Myanmar.

Khmer is written using the Khmer script, which is ultimately derived from the Brahmi system of ancient India. Khmer is an abugida, and unlike alphabets such as Greek or Latin, is not written with complete vowels. The 33 consonants of modern Khmer are written in full, and vowels are represented with the use of diacritics which modify the consonant letter. Like other Brahmic scripts, Khmer is written from left to right, without distinguishing between upper and lower case, but unlike most others, spaces are not normally included between words, appearing instead at the end of phrases or sentences.

Like the Burmese writing system, the Khmer script evolved from Pallava, a descendant of Brahmi used in the 5^th to 6^th centuries CE. From the 9^th century, the Khmer Empire dominated in the region and the language flourished, but this did not last. After the collapse of the empire, other languages such as Thai became the prestige languages of the region. Later, the area came under French control, and the language of the elite was again replaced. In the 20^th century, there was a great deal of debate about the modern Khmer language. Efforts have been made to reduce vocabulary borrowed from Thai and French and standardize orthography.

Different styles of writing may be used for different purposes in Khmer. For example, for titles and headlines in documents, shop signs and banners, a calligraphy style called Âksâr mul, literally, round script, is used. For normal text in books or newspapers, an oblique style called Âksâr chriĕng is used. Unlike in written English, oblique styles do not represent any grammatical differences such as emphasis or quotation. Handwritten Khmer is often written in the oblique style.

Khmer Fonts

You can download free Khmer fonts from our free fonts collection. If you want to use Khmer fonts online without downloading, you can use our text generator below.

The following tool will transform your text into graphics with your selection of fonts, colors, and text effects. You can then save the image or use the EMBED button to get image links.

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