| Western Khmer | |
| Also Known As: | Cardamom Khmer Chanthaburi Khmer |
| States: | Thailand, Cambodia |
| Region: | Cardamom Mountains |
| Speakers: | ? |
| Familycolor: | Austroasiatic |
| Fam2: | Khmer |
| Isoexception: | dialect |
| Linglist: | khm-car |
| Glotto: | none |
Western Khmer, also known as Cardamom Khmer or Chanthaburi Khmer, is the dialect of the Khmer language spoken by the Khmer people native to the Cardamom Mountains on both sides of the border between western Cambodia (Pailin Province) and eastern Central Thailand (Chanthaburi Province). Developing in an historically isolated region, Western Khmer is the only dialect of modern Khmer to conserve the Middle Khmer phonation contrast of breathy voice versus modal voice that has been all but lost in the other dialects.[1] [2]
| Glottal | ||||||
| Plosive | pronounced as /p (pʰ)/ | pronounced as /t (tʰ)/ | pronounced as /c (cʰ)/ | pronounced as /k (kʰ)/ | pronounced as /ʔ/ | |
| Voiced plosive | pronounced as /b/ | pronounced as /d/ | ||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /m/ | pronounced as /n/ | pronounced as /ɲ/ | pronounced as /ŋ/ | ||
| Liquid | pronounced as /r/ pronounced as /l/ | |||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /(f)/ | pronounced as /s/ | pronounced as /h/ | |||
| Approximant | pronounced as /w/ | pronounced as /j/ |
pronounced as /(f)/ in loan words
| Front | Central | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | ||
| Close | |||||||
| Close-mid | pronounced as /e/ | pronounced as /eː/ | pronounced as /ə/ | pronounced as /o/ | |||
| Open-mid | pronounced as /ɛ/ | pronounced as /ɛː/ | |||||
| Open | pronounced as /a/ | pronounced as /aː/ | pronounced as /ɒ/ | pronounced as /ɒː/ | |||
| Front | Central | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | ||
| Close | pronounced as /i̤/ | pronounced as /i̤ː/ | pronounced as /ɨ̤/ | pronounced as /ɨ̤ː/ | pronounced as /ṳ/ | pronounced as /ṳː/ | |
| Close-mid | pronounced as /e̤ː/ | pronounced as /ə̤ː/ | pronounced as /o̤/ | pronounced as /o̤ː/ | |||
| Open-mid | pronounced as /ɛ̤ː/ | pronounced as /ɔ̤ː/ | |||||
| Open | pronounced as /a̤/ | ||||||