Khmer Page @ Omniglot

Khmer Orthography @ World's Writing System

Khmer Script @ Wikipedia

Khmer one of the most beautiful scripts around (Ofcourse next to Siddham :-) ) Similar to Burmese - a derivation of the Pallava Script, it retains the Sanskrit Varnamala as such with one-to-one correspondence to the Indic model for Consonants alone. As in Burmese, it has appended a huge list of Vowels and other Tonal Marker to represent the native phonemes.

The Character set use to Sanskrit/Pali is as follows:

Vowels

   a        ā         i        ī          u        ū        ṛ       ṝ        ḷ        ḹ        e       ai       o      au     aṁ      aḥ

Consonants

  ka        kha      ga        gha       ṅa

   ca       cha     ja        jha           ña

  ṭa       ṭha     ḍa       ḍha          ṇa

   ta       tha        da       dha       na

  pa       pha       ba       bha       ma

    ya      ra         la       va

 śa       ṣa        sa         ha        ḽa(ळ)

Consonant-Vowels Combinations

    ka        kā          ki         kī         ku        kū        kṛ       kṝ         kḷ

    kḹ         ke            kai           ko              kau       kaṁ        kaḥ

Khmer has lost the signs for the Vocalic signs. At present, Subjoined version of the Vocalic vowels are used to represent the sound in Vowel-Consonant combination.

Conjuncts

See: Omniglot Page

Khmer Repha

Khmer has a relic usage of Repha in borrowed Indic words. In Khmer Unicode, Repha has been encoded as a separate character U+17CC Khmer Sign Robat. The convertor uses the Repha by default.

/dharma/ -  (The diacritic above ma is the Repha)

Khmer Unicode

Khmer Unicode Block has two Viramas encoded. One is a subjoining Virama U+17D2 (Khmer Sign Coeng) and another is a visible Virama U+17D1 (Khmer Sign Viriam). The sub-joining Virama is used to form Subjoning conjuncts even with Vowels, where the Khmer Sign Viram is the explicit inherent vowel killer.

Fonts

Khmer fonts seem to have complete support for displaying Sanskrit Conjuncts and Vowel sign combinations. Fonts generally support 3 level of Consonant Stacking.

There are two typefaces for Khmer. One is the normal version and the other is a ornamental cursive variant of the script. DaunPenh displays the normal form & MoolBoran the latter ornamental form. These fonts are available with Windows.

Sample Sanskrit Text

अनिरोधम् अनुत्पादम् अनुच्छेदम् अशाश्वतम् ।

अनेकार्थम् अनानार्थम् अनागमम् अनिर्गमम् ॥

यः प्रतीत्यसमुत्पादं प्रपञ्चोपशमं शिवम् ।

देशयामास संबुद्धस्तं वन्दे वदतां वरम् ॥

Normal Typeface (DaunPenh):

អនិរោធម៑ អនុត្បាទម៑ អនុច្ឆេទម៑ អឝាឝ្វតម៑ ។  

អនេកាត៌្ហម៑ អនានាត៌្ហម៑ អនាគមម៑ អនិគ៌មម៑ ៕    

យះ ប្រតីត្យសមុត្បាទំ ប្របញ្ចោបឝមំ ឝិវម៑ ។   

ទេឝយាមាស សំពុទ្ធស្តំ វន្ទេ វទតាំ វរម៑ ៕   

Ornamental Typeface (Mool Boran):

អនិរោធម៑ អនុត្បាទម៑ អនុច្ឆេទម៑ អឝាឝ្វតម៑ ។  

អនេកាត៌្ហម៑ អនានាត៌្ហម៑ អនាគមម៑ អនិគ៌មម៑ ៕    

យះ ប្រតីត្យសមុត្បាទំ ប្របញ្ចោបឝមំ ឝិវម៑ ។   

ទេឝយាមាស សំពុទ្ធស្តំ វន្ទេ វទតាំ វរម៑ ៕   

(In the absence of the specific fonts, both the passages will be rendered using the same typeface)

Further Reading

1. N2412: On the suitability of the COENG encoding model for Khmer