Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

zhiguli
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Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

Postby zhiguli » 2006-11-17, 12:48

another useless forum for another language nobody cares about, but it will be the last one for awhile (promise!)
khmer, which has possibly the longest alphabet in the world at 74+ characters (so you can be sure it's bloody difficult, too)

khmer unicode is still not supported by windows (or any other os to my knowledge). here's what you'll need to be able to read/write khmer on your machine. khmer unicode still has yet to fully catch on, though - most of the sites listed below still use antiquated windows 95-era fonts.

books:
-Cambodian for Beginners by R.K. Gilbert, S. Hang
-Colloquial Cambodian by David Smyth
-Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader (pdf version of this book can be downloaded here) - and - Modern Spoken Cambodian (no online book, but audio files can be found at this site) by Franklin E. Huffman
-Contemporary Cambodian: Grammatical Sketch

links:
Cambodia SEAsite the most complete site on the net - conversational lessons, grammar, reading passages, alphabet tutorials, most of which come with sound files
Authentic Khmer more phrasebooky than SEAsite, but it does have sound files
learn khmer language more phrases
khmerlanguage.com still more phrases (but no audio and non-unicode font)
Grammaire Khmère a somewhat confusing page but potentially useful page about khmer grammar (in french/english)
khmer.cc possibly the only unicoded khmer-language forum on the net
I Learn Khmer flash site teaching khmer ("coming soon" for the past two years or so...)
ខ្មែរក្រៃលែង (Extreme Khmer) a khmer teacher's attempt to make khmer look cool (i think it succeeds quite nicely)

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Postby Sisyphe » 2006-12-19, 0:11

Thanks for the links zhiguli!
Mèsi anpil pou lye yo, zhiguli

Believe it or not, this language is actually useful in Southern California. :wink:
Se ou kwè si non, lang sa a se vrèmen itil nan (kèk pati) Californie du Sud. :wink:
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Postby zhiguli » 2007-03-30, 18:50

a couple of online, unicoded dictionaries:

http://sealang.net/khmer/dictionary.htm

http://www.khmerculture.com/ek/

and a blog i've started for khmer (nothing yet, updates coming soon):

http://khmaesuolhien.wordpress.com/

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Postby kalemiye » 2007-04-04, 23:04

Is khmer related to thai or burmese?
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Sisyphe
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Postby Sisyphe » 2007-04-04, 23:17

As related as Arabic and Turkish. :P There are many loan words that have been exchanged between the languages, but otherwise no. Some linguists theorize that it is related to Vietnamese - if you are more familiar with this language...

Thanks for the links Zhiguli. :) All of the other Khmer dictionaries that I've seen online have problems displaying, even if I change the encodage, and have the fonts installed... :roll:
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Postby kalemiye » 2007-04-05, 10:08

Thanks Sysiphe, i don't know any of these three languages, but i have seen them written down and the alphabets looked very similar to me.
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zhiguli
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Postby zhiguli » 2007-08-04, 8:50

The Khmer, Thai and Burmese alphabets are all descended from Brahmi script:

http://www.geocities.com/athens/academy ... asia2.html

Which includes many other scripts. The basic order of the alphabets is the same, as are many of the shapes:

http://www.geocities.com/athens/academy ... rahmi.html

The Thai alphabet is directly derived from Khmer and is basically a "hairless" version of it.

As for the languages themselves, they are not genetically related but a lot of their vocabulary has a common source in Pali/Sanskrit. Thai and Khmer are especially close - they have so much common vocabulary that they almost seem like related languages in spite of their classification.

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kalemiye
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Postby kalemiye » 2007-08-15, 17:22

Thanks a lot for the links zhiguli
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Postby Tenebrarum » 2008-02-11, 15:16

Sisyphe wrote:[s]Some[/s] Most linguists theorize that it is related to Vietnamese - if you are more familiar with this language...

Try a simple, basic noun phrase like "new year" and you'll see why this theory is so widely accepted :wink:
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Postby zhiguli » 2008-02-12, 5:38

indeed, this theory is pretty much accepted by the majority nowadays. quoting from wikipedia:

Vietnamese was identified more than 150 years ago[3] to be part of the Vietic (or Viet-Muong) grouping of the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family (a family that also includes Khmer, spoken in Cambodia, as well as various tribal and regional languages, such as the Munda languages spoken in eastern India, and others in southern China). Mường is the language that is most closely related to Vietnamese.

Even though this is supported by etymological comparison [4], some linguists[attribution needed] still believe that Viet-Muong is a separate family, genealogically unrelated to Mon-Khmer languages.

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Re: Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

Postby Sean of the Dead » 2009-04-25, 4:15

Hmm, I have become a bit interested in Khmer, I'll have to read more about it. It sounds like a really nice language. (:

Also, there are 2 native speakers* of it in my school, and both are in some of my classes, so I would be able to practice and get help since no one here speaks it. :P

*I'm sure about one of them, since I know for a fact he's Cambodian, and I've heard him speaking a foreign language to the other guy, so my guess is that it's Khmer, unless he speaks 3+ languages. :wink:
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Re: Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

Postby zhiguli » 2009-05-06, 21:34

i guess this mood didn't last long, did it

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Re: Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

Postby Sean of the Dead » 2009-05-06, 21:58

Nope. :P

I hate that there are no spaces between the words, which doesn't make sense, since it's an alphabet/whatever, although I'm fine with Kanji/Hanza doing it. (:
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Re: Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

Postby zhiguli » 2009-05-07, 8:01

Unfortunately, you're right. And that's not even the start of your troubles.
Japanese is "easier" to read because the kana/kanji break up sentences and clearly mark out the different parts of speech, in Khmer there is practically nothing to tell you where one word ends and another begins.

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Re: Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

Postby Meera » 2009-05-15, 12:34

My freind is from Cambodia, I would love to learn Khemer but unforuently its so hard! :cry:

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kalemiye
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Re: Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

Postby kalemiye » 2009-05-15, 21:21

I met a Cambodian guy here and he is so nice. I would like to try to tell him something in khmer next time I see him. Does anybody know some basic stuff like "hello, how are you?". thanks in advance.
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zhiguli
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Re: Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

Postby zhiguli » 2009-05-16, 3:32

Meera wrote:My freind is from Cambodia, I would love to learn Khemer but unforuently its so hard! :cry:


Well, at least it doesn't have tones and the grammar is fairly simple.

renata wrote:Does anybody know some basic stuff like "hello, how are you?". thanks in advance.


Try these introductory lessons (with audio): http://www.seasite.niu.edu/khmer/conver ... nv_set.htm

I'd write something here but translit sucks and you really need to hear how it sounds.

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Re: Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

Postby kalemiye » 2009-05-22, 0:14

Thanks for the link zhiguli!!
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Re: Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

Postby kalemiye » 2009-06-02, 15:39

Can anybody recommend me a book to read about Cambodia? Recently in my lesson about Religion in Asia we've been talking about Cambodian and I would like to know more about it, since it seems to have a fascinating history. I would like especially to read about the Khmer Empire and about Hinduism and Buddhism there.
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Re: Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ)

Postby zhiguli » 2009-06-03, 5:37

If you're interested in history this book is a good place to start.


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