Khmer / ភាសាខ្មែរ

History and Evolution

Khmer, also called Cambodian, is the earliest recorded and written language of the Mon-Khmer family. Old Khmer was the language of the historical empires of Chenla, Angkor, and, it is believed, its predecessor state, Funan. The Old Khmer language flourished during the 500-year reign of the Khmer empire, from the 9th century to the 13th century, when it ceased to be the language of government and lost its standardizing influence. The period of Middle Khmer lasted until the 18th century. During this time, it was heavily influenced by the languages of its more powerful neighbors, taking on characteristics of Thai, Lao, and Vietnamese. During the modern period, the language was influenced by colonialism, when French became the language of government, higher education, and the ruling economic class. In the 20th century, a monk named Chuon Nath sought to revitalize the language, using original Pali and Sanskrit roots to coin new words for modern ideas. He created the modern Khmer dictionary that is still in use today.

Geographic Distribution

Khmer is the native language of some 13 million people in Cambodia, where it has official status. It is also spoken by a million or so people in southern Vietnam and by 1.4 million in northeast Thailand. It is a second language for most minority groups and indigenous hill tribes.

There are at least four recognized dialects, mostly mutually intelligible. The dialect spoken in the area of Phnom Penh, in the central region, is considered Standard Khmer and is by far the most widely spoken, with other dialects distributed in the west, north, and south.

Prominence in Society

Khmer is the language of government, education, business, and the media in Cambodia.

Unique Characteristics

There are no inflections (changed form of a word), conjugations, or case endings in Khmer; rather, auxiliary words are used to indicate grammatical relationships.

Unlike neighboring languages, Khmer is not tonal, and words are almost always stressed on the last syllable.

There are no articles in Khmer, and nouns have no grammatical gender or number distinctions. Plural nouns are expressed by a number following the noun, as in: ឆ្កែពីរ  (dog two), meaning “two dogs.”

Similar to pluralization, adjectives follow the noun, as in: ឆ្កែធំ (dog large), meaning “large dog.” A very large dog is expressed as ឆ្កែធំធំ, or “dog large large.”

Khmer uses a biquinary (mixed-base) number system, so that the numbers from six to nine are expressed as "five one," "five two," etc. The words for multiples of ten from 30 to 90 are most likely borrowed from Thai, as they are not related to the basic Khmer numbers.

Loanwords in English

There are no Khmer words in common English usage. The term Khmer Rouge ខ្មែរក្រហម (from the French for “Red Khmers”) refers to the Communist-inspired regime led by Pol Pot in the late 1970s. While this phrase is widely known in English, its origins are not, strictly speaking, Khmer.

Say Whaaat?

Old Khmer is written in a script borrowed from south India, and many Khmer words trace their roots to Sanskrit.

The term “Khmer” describes not just the language but the ethnic group that comprises some ninety percent of Cambodia’s population. 

Standard Cambodian Khmer is mutually intelligible with the other dialects in common usage, although a speaker of Khmer Krom from Vietnam, for instance, may find it difficult to understand a Khmer native from, say, Sisaket Province in Thailand.

Writer: Bruce Falstein

French / Français

History and Evolution

The French language originated when Latin encountered the languages of pre-Roman Celtic tribes when Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, an area covering much of modern-day France, between 58 and 52 BCE. Gaulish words retained from this time mostly pertain to agriculture and rural life; examples include bourdaine (black alder), boue (mud), and cervoise (ale).

Germanic influences affected the language from approximately 200 CE, when the Franks and other Germanic tribes invaded Gaul. Words from Frankish often pertain to military vocabulary and feudal social structure; examples include attaquer (to attack), féodal (feudal), and gagner (to win).

Scandinavian words entered the language in 1204, when the Kingdom of France absorbed the Duchy of Normandy. Many of these words are related to seafaring, including flotte (fleet) and vague (wave).

Words from Arabic entered French during the Middle Ages. Many relate to mathematics and science, such as algèbre (algebra) and alchimie (alchemy), as well as luxury items, such as élixir (elixir).

Geographic Distribution

From the 1600s to the 1800s, France was one of the world’s major colonial powers. As a result, French is the second most widely spoken language in the world, and the official language in 29 countries.

Approximately 40 percent of French speakers live in Europe, while 35 percent come from sub-Saharan Africa, 15 percent from North Africa and the Middle East, 8 percent from the Americas, and 1 percent from Asia and Oceania. The community of French-speaking countries is known as “La Francophonie.”

Prominence in Society

During the Enlightenment, French established itself as the language of literature, diplomacy, and the arts throughout Europe. It was common as a court language even in Germany, Russia, and Scandinavia. 

After World War II, English became the diplomatic lingua franca. However, French is the second most common native language in the European Union, and is an official language of NATO, the European Union, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, the ICRC, and the International Olympic Committee.

Unique Characteristics

French has no gender-neutral “it” pronoun and all inanimate objects have a gender, which is reflected in sentence elements such as pronouns, adjectives, and some verb endings.

French has two levels of formality, characterized by tu (informal you) and vous (formal you). Verb tenses change to reflect formal or informal address. The language’s phonology includes nasal vowels and a uvular r. Final consonants are often silent (arrêt), as are the s or x placed at the end of nouns to indicate a plural (Les doigts, les berceaux).

The French numerical system advances in increments of twenty; for example, 70 is soixante-dix, or “sixty-ten,” and 80 is quatre-vingts, or “four twenties.”

Loanwords in English

Approximately 28 to 45 percent of all English words come from French. From 1066, when the Normans conquered England, Anglo-Norman French became the language of government, nobility, and commerce. Examples of loanwords in English include justice (fair treatment under the law); hors-d'œuvre (literally “outside of the main work,” meaning "appetizers"); and liqueur (a sweet, flavored alcoholic beverage).

Say Whaaat?

More people speak French in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, than in Brussels or Montreal. Kinshasa is the second largest French-speaking city in the world.

Cardinal Richelieu founded the Académie Française in 1634 to regulate and protect the French language. The Académie strenuously resists Anglicization, often inventing its own French words to replace borrowed English words relevant to modern technology. For example, courriel (email) is a conflation of courier (mail) and électronique (electronic).

In 1793, the year of the French revolution, approximately 75 percent of French people were not native French speakers. People in different regions of France spoke many different dialects and languages, among them Breton, Gallo, Gascon, and Provençal.

Writer: Jennifer Williamson