I/ The Khmer language and its Mon-Khmer family:

The Khmer language is an Indo-European language of the Khmer-mon family, spoken in Asia and mainly in South Asia. Together with the Munda languages, they form the austroasiatic language family ( Texte en français)

Researchers propose to classify the Khmer-mon language as follows::

Aslian languages (18 in number, Malay Peninsula)

• Aslian language  (Totally 18,  Malay Penisula)
• Easternl Khmer-mon languages (67) :
  • Bahnaric language (40 languages) :
    • Central Baharic ;
    • Northern Bahnaric;
    • Western Bahrain;
    • South Bahnaric;
  • Katuic languages (19 languages) :
    • Central Katuic (5 languages);
    • Western Katuic (6 languages);
    • Oriental Katuic (8 languages),
  • Khmer's groups (2 languages),
  • Pearic language (6),
• Monic languages (2 languages, Thaïlande, Burman) :
  • môn et
  • nyahkur,
• Nicobar languages (6),
• Northern Khmer-mon languages (40) :
  • Kkhasic languages (4, spoken in Bangladesh and India);
  • Khmuic languages (13, Laos, Thaïlande, Vietnam);
  • Mang (Vietnam) ;
  • Palaungic languages  (22 languages),
• Palyu languages (en) (2, spoken in China),
• Viet-muong languages (10, spoken in Vietnam, Laos, Thaïlande).
• Two unclassified languages, all spoken in China:
  • Kemie;
  • Kuan.

II/ The Khmer language

The Khmer language and literature can be classified into 6 major periods:

1/Pré-Angkor's period 1, 2 , 3
2/Angkor's period
3/Post-Angkor or moyen âge to early Udong
4/Udong's period
5/Udong to protectorat français
6/Present day

According to Khmer and EFEO academicians, the first Khmer inscription in Sanskrit dates back to the 2nd-3rd century, called the Vo-kanh inscription, located in the Cochinchina delta, former Khmer founding territory. This inscription speaks of a Khmer emperor named Sri Mara. Other inscriptions from the Funan period of the 5th and 6th centuries (Prasat 5 Lveng/KKK inscription) and 6th (Nak ta Dambang Dek/Takeo inscription, Tonlé Bati, Takeo inscription, prasat Ta Prom) etc., show regularization and mastery of the Sanskrit by the Khmers. However, we can think that the Khmers mastered this language well before it was engraved on the stones.

The modern Khmer language has 33 consonants transcribed from Sanskrit consonants. They are divided into 2 major groups with 2 different sounds, the low sound or Akhosak and the high sound or Khosak. With two major accents "Mosekaton" and "Treisab", they produce 14 two-sound consonants and one consonants with 3 sound. The 33 consonants combining with the two-sound consonants, can be grouped into 3 different groups, the low sounds to compose ordinary Khmer words. The high sounds for composing the words in Pali or Sanskrit and the third group, the 2-sound consonants, are used for composing the words in ordinary Khmer and in Pali or Sanskrit.

The Khmer language also has 24 dependent vowels which can be pronounced in 2 different sounds, the "Or" or low sound when they are conjugated with the low sound consonants and the sound (Oi, high sound) when they are combined or conjugate with the high sound consonants. In addition to this, the Khmer language also has 15 independent vowels . which can be used as consonants. These complicities draw their sources from the sacred root of the Khmer language which is initially a language created to resonate with creation laws in harmony with the creative sounds of nature and of the cosmos. So the Khmer language is about the creation and sacralization of perfect sounds according to the sacred geometry , called modern Fibonacci geometry to which the rules for the creation of these sacred sounds draw applicators and speakers dizzy.

3/History of the Khmer language

As mentioned above, the Khmer have had a written language since the 1st or at least the 2nd century but the spoken language, known as Khmer-mon, appears to be much older. Like their Pali and Sanskrit ancestors, the Khmer language seems to have borrowed the Brami writing system from the Pallava and Chula of southern India as well from the 6th century by the Kouchan Gupta from the north and plane Kashmir as shows many arts of Sambo-Gupta (Sambo-preikuk) of the Greco-Roman style, even of Mesopotamia of Assur and the Egypte. Factually, it sounds that Khmer's language was directly got its root from Brami because Khmer's ancient script from 1st to 5th, resemble to Brami's script than that of Pallava or Chula.

Even the Pallava and Chola claimed to be ancestors of the Khmer language but the early Pallava's scripts are differents from those of the Khmers at the same time. It is to say, only from the 7th-8th century that the writing forms of Pallava/Tamil resemble those of the Khmers of 2nd-5th century. In Indonésia/Java as in Thaïland, the former Khmer's territory, researchers found inscriptions claimed as that of Pallava yet was writting with Khmer's cursives(Aksor kbach) of that period. We can consider that in the 2nd-3rd century BCE, the Khmers borrowed the Brami cursive writing system or form but from the 2nd-3rd century, the Khmers invented new forms of cursive which were borrowed by the Pallavas and the Cholas from the 7th and 8th century.

4/The influence of the Khmer language on Thai writing

According to certain Thai sources, from the 15th-16th century, Khmer scholars deported to the country of Siam (present-day Thailand) invented a new Thai writing system based on Khmer's cursives from the 15th-19th century. In reality, they simply removed what the Khmers considered to be the head and feet of Khmer writing and invented a new form, Thai. According to an inscription from Ramakamhaeng, true or false, from the 13th century when the first king of Sokuthai Pha meung plotted with the Sino-Mongol and had detached Sokuthai from the Khmer Empire, the princess of Angkor Sokharamahadevi, queen of Pha Moeung, mother of Ramakamhaeng, had invented a new writing system for Sokuthai but this is considered by the Thais of Ayutthaya to be too complicated reasons why they had to invent a new system from the 15th according to them.

But in reality the current form of modern Thai writing seems to have been invented rather in the reign of Rama4 by the Khmers deported with the Khmer Monarch Angkor Duong, his son Norodom and his court around the middle of the 19th century in the country of the Siams. King Siam Rama4 was a reformer king, it was he who changed the Thai culture and political system from Chinese to Khmer, forging modern Thai culture. Indeed, from the middle of the 14th century, taking advantage of the weakening of the Khmer Empire attacked on all sides by both the Sino-Mongol and then the Muslims of Champas, the Chinese communities, mainly Song royals and senior Song dignitaries, revolted against the Khmers and detached Ayutthaya and Lavo/Dvaravati from the Khmer Empire to form primitive Thailand composed of former Khmers, Tais and Song Chinese. They attacked and pillaged twice the sacred city of the Khmer, the Angkor. It's important to remind that, primitif Thailand remained as a simple Chinese province since its foundation at mid 14th until the reign of Rama4. Indeed, since the founding of the Siam/Thai kingdom by a high Sino-Thai dignitary in the middle of the 14th century, the high Tai dignitaries, including the embassies, the military, etc., were Chinese. The Tai kings have fashioned many statues representing their legendary Sino-Tais heroes everywhere in pagodas of Thailand and even within the confines of Thai royal palaces today. A chapel was also built on the old Khmer site for a Chinese princess at wat Phanam cheung (Phnom kang cheung in Khmer, wat prah keo late 19th and present)

As is their early tradition, the kings of Thailand use the seal sent by the Chinese emperors as the royal seal of Thailand . On this seal written in Chinese "the king of Siam" It is to say that, since the 14th century, the China's border with the Khmers is no longer in Yunan but in Ayutthaya. Then at the end of the 18th century, it extended to the current Khmero-Thai border or even deeper into Khmer territory if there was no intervention from France.

To counter the overwhelming domination of the Chinese over its course as well as over the political-economic and social and even demographic system, King Rama4 changed the traditional seal of the Siams sent by the Chinese course to that of Khmer. On this new seal of Rama4 the letters in Khmer replace those in Chinese "Prah reach Oka ព្រះបរមរាជឱង្កា" (Royal order) The designs on the seal were also changed from the Chinese "lotus" to the Khmer style "the pointed crown" , mythical animals as we usually see on the walls of Angkor and many other Khmer temples and many other sacred Khmer symbols. This goes the same for the seals of all the Thai ministries reformed by Rama4. Then gigantic reform were taken up successively by these children Rama5 and Rama6. The Rama4 seal was abandoned and replaced by the current Thai one only in 1940.(History of thai's seal | Khmer's culture heritage in Laos and Thailand | thai's cultural heritage | thai's language varun thesis | thai's treiphum primitif by Masahiko | Sino thai's diplomacy up 14th | Sino-tai relation, ming, qing | thai's gift to French | Wat Phaman/Phnom Cheung)