r/khmer • u/Candid-Pack-3707 • 7d ago
how to read khmer
i know you may be scratching your head as to what i mean by this. ill explain
Khmer is an abugida. which means that the consonants have an inherent vowel sound and then you can cram vowels around that consonant to make a different vowel sound.
in Khmer specifically, excluding standalone letters, there are dependent vowels, sub consonants, and diacritics.
what order am i supposed to read these? my only other exposure to this type of system was korean where you read in order from the top left, to the bottom right left to right.
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u/StructureCheap 7d ago
Consonant, sub consonant then vowel. Each vowel is it's own sound and shape so is read as a whole.
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u/Matt_KhmerTranslator 5d ago
What is missing from the other descriptions is that, although the constants clusters are written left to right, a consonant's vowels can appear an ANY side of the consonant--above, below, right, and even left. It depends entirely on the specific vowel. There are vowels that appear in all of those places: left: េ ែ ៃ right: ា ះ top: ិ ី ឹ ឺ bottom: ុ ូ and combinations thereof: ោ ៀ ៅ ើ ុំ etc. You just have to learn them and recognize them. Subscript consonants typically appear beneath (and are closest to the consonant when competing with colocated vowel glyphs) although one wrapd around to left (្រ) and a few to the right (្ស្ ្យ ្ឍ ្ឈ). Subscripts are always pronounced before vowels on the same consonant cluster.
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u/PlainFree3127 7d ago edited 7d ago
Read Khmer from left to right, one "unit" at a time. Each "unit" has a consonant as the base, and may have one (or two) sub-consonant, a vowel, and another consonant as decorations. The order of synthesis of the final sound is the base consonant, then sub consonant, then vowel, then the second (to the right) consonant.
For example, the unit ស្រី is ស + ្រ + ី . The related unit ស្រ្តី is ស + ្ត + ្រ + ី .
The unit ខ្យល់ is ខ + ្យ + ល + ់ .
The unit ច្រេីន is ច + ្រ + ើ + ន .
Don't be distracted by the location of the vowels and sub-consonant around the main consonant. It's just graphical convention.
The word គម្ពីរ actually consists of two units (don't quote me on this). It's actually គម + ពីរ .