Khmer , or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. One of the more prominent Austroasiatic languages with speakers in the tens of millions, it is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious registers, through the vehicles of Hinduism and Buddhism. It is also the earliest recorded and earliest written language of the Mon-Khmer family, predating Mon and by a significant margin Vietnamese. As a result of geographic proximity, the Khmer language has affected, and also been affected by, Thai, Lao, Vietnamese and Cham which all form a sprachbund in peninsular Southeast Asia.
Khmer has its own script, an abugida known in Khmer as Aksar Khmer.
Khmer differs from neighboring languages such as Thai, Lao and Vietnamese in that it is not a tonal language. All its main dialects that are mutually intelligible:
* Battambang, spoken in northern Cambodia.
* Phnom Penh, the capital dialect and is also spoken in surrounding provinces.
* Northern Khmer, also known as Khmer Surin, spoken by ethnic Khmer native to Northeast Thailand
* Khmer Krom or Southern Khmer, spoken by the indigenous Khmer population of the Mekong Delta.
* Cardamom Khmer, an archaic form spoken by a small population in the Cardamom Mountains of western Cambodia.
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The court is currently trying three more top leaders of the regime, but many critics say this is as far as the hybrid court will go.
Meanwhile, two suspects in those cases told VOA Khmer this week they would be relieved to have the cases dropped.
Kaing Kek Iev, better known as Duch, had appealed to reduce his 35-year-term.
Duch, who is 69, was handed a commuted sentence of 19 years at the end of his atrocity crimes trial in 2010.
Some of Wednesday’s female protesters tore off their shirts as they faced off with riot police carrying batons and shields.
Defense attorneys for three jailed regime leaders have challenged the authenticity of documents from the well-established organization.
The ruling Cambodian People’s Party received about 78 percent of the votes, with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party taking the remainder.
Hun Sen said Tuesday he would take back land concessions if the violence continues.
Nil Nonn, head judge of the Trial Chamber, stopped him and reminded him to keep his questions limited to the case at hand—No. 002.
Nearly 80 land cases involved government land concessions that affected more than 30,000 families.
Sia Phearum told “Hello VOA” people are being forced off land they earned through “backbreaking” work.
The UN sent its expert for the court to Cambodia this week to meet with government and court officials over a UN-appointed judge.
Overcoming such trauma is not easy and going back into the past does not help either, Sam Keo said.
Bou Meng and Chhum Mey spend less time at the trial of Khmer Rouge leaders these days, and more time at S-21 museum.
Provincial Police Chief Chhoung Seanghak said police are working the case and focusing on the two guards.
Nearly 400 families were forcibly evicted from the Borei Keila site this month.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon nominated Kasper-Ansermet to replace a German judge who resigned last year.
A number of Asean countries have conflicts with China over maritime territories in the South China Sea.
The group counted nearly 50 community evictions last year alone, affecting almost 12,000 families.
Cambodia is pushing for a seat on the council, UN Security Council, for 2013 and 2014; voting will be held later this year.
The Documentation Center has collected nearly 1 million documents on the Khmer Rouge since 1995.
In 2002, as many as 13 percent of Cambodian blood donors tested positive for the antigen of the Hepatitis-B virus.
Most H5N1 deaths have occurred in East and Southeast Asia, including China, Cambodia and Vietnam.
HRW also detailed what it views as severe violations of human rights in nations including Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Kasper-Ansermet was to have filled a vacancy created by the departure of German judge Siegfried Blunt - who resigned late last year.
A UN spokesman told VOA Khmer this week the government has an obligation to fill vacant posts at the court.
The letter was delivered to China, France, Russia, the UK and the United States.
The measures are designed to crack down on the sales of pirated U.S. products overseas.
Phan Imex was supposed to build 10 buildings to house evicted residents and built eight instead.
The UN appointed a reserve judge to the position, Laurent Kasper-Ansermet, but that appointment has not been confirmed.
The Khmer alphabet is descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India by way of the Pallava script, which was used in southern India and South East Asia during the 5th and 6th Centuries AD. The oldest dated inscription in Khmer, found at Angkor Borei in Takev Province south of Phnom Penh, dates from 611 AD.
The Khmer alphabet closely resembles the Thai and Lao alphabets, which were developed from it.
Notable features
* This is syllabic alphabet in which each consonant has two forms, one with an inherent /a/ (first series) and one with an inherent /o/ (second series)
* Vowels are indicated using either separate letters or diacritics, which written above, below, in front of, after or around consonants. The pronunciation of the vowels depends on whether a consonant they are attached to is of the first or second series.
* All consonants have a subscript form which is used to write the second consonant of a cluster.
* In a Khmer text there are no spaces between words, instead spaces indicate the end of a clause or sentence.
* Inspite of efforts to standardise written Khmer, many words have more than one accepted spelling.
Khmer (Cambodian), a member of the Mon-Khmer group of Austro-Asiatic languages, spoken by about 8 million people in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, China, France and the USA. Khmer shares many features and much vocabulary with Thai as a result of centuries of two-way borrowing. There are also borrowings from Sanskrit, Pali, French and Chinese in Khmer.