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|iso15924=Khmr |sample=Akkharakromkhmaer.png }} The Khmer alphabet or Khmer script ((クメール語:អក្សរខ្មែរ); ) 〔Huffman, Franklin. 1970. ''Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader''. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01314-0〕 is an abugida (alphasyllabary) script used to write the Khmer language (the official language of Cambodia). It is also used to write Pali in the Buddhist liturgy of Cambodia and Thailand. It was adapted from the Pallava script, a variant of the Grantha alphabet descended from the Brahmi script, which was used in southern India and South East Asia during the 5th and 6th centuries AD.〔Punnee Soonthornpoct: ''From Freedom to Hell: A History of Foreign Interventions in Cambodian Politics And Wars.'' page 29, Vantage Press, Inc〕 The oldest dated inscription in Khmer was found at Angkor Borei District in Takéo Province south of Phnom Penh and dates from 611.〔Russell R. Ross: ''Cambodia: A Country Study,'' page 112, Library of Congress. Federal Research Division, 1990〕 The modern Khmer script differs somewhat from precedent forms seen on the inscriptions of the ruins of Angkor. The Thai and Lao scripts are descended from an older form of the Khmer script. Khmer is written from left to right. Words within the same sentence or phrase are generally run together with no spaces between them. Consonant clusters within a word are "stacked", with the second (and occasionally third) consonant being written in reduced form under the main consonant. Originally there were 35 consonant characters, but modern Khmer uses only 33. Each such character in fact represents a consonant sound together with an inherent vowel – either ''â'' or ''ô''. There are some independent vowel characters, but vowel sounds are more commonly represented as dependent vowels – additional marks accompanying a consonant character, and indicating what vowel sound is to be pronounced after that consonant (or consonant cluster). Most dependent vowels have two different pronunciations, depending in most cases on the inherent vowel of the consonant to which they are added. In some positions, a consonant written with no dependent vowel is taken to be followed by the sound of its inherent vowel. There are also a number of diacritics used to indicate further modifications in pronunciation. The script also includes its own numerals and punctuation marks. == Consonants == There are 35 Khmer consonant symbols, although modern Khmer only uses 33, two having become obsolete. Each consonant has an inherent vowel: ''â'' /ɑː/ or ''ô'' /ɔː/; equivalently, each consonant is said to belong to the a-series or o-series. A consonant's series determines the pronunciation of the dependent vowel symbols which may be attached to it, and in some positions the sound of the inherent vowel is itself pronounced. The two series originally represented voiceless and voiced consonants respectively (and are still referred to as such in Khmer); sound changes affected vowels following voiced consonants, and these changes were preserved even though the distinctive voicing was lost (see phonation in Khmer). Each consonant (with one exception) also has a subscript form. These may also be referred to as "sub-consonants"; the Khmer term is ', meaning "foot of a letter". Most subscript consonants resemble the corresponding consonant symbol, but in a smaller and possibly simplified form, although in a few cases there is no obvious resemblance. Most subscript consonants are written directly below other consonants, although subscript ' appears to the left, while a few others have ascending elements which appear to the right. Subscripts are used in writing consonant clusters (consonants pronounced consecutively in a word with no vowel sound between them). Clusters in Khmer normally consist of two consonants, although occasionally in the middle of a word there will be three. The first consonant in a cluster is written using the main consonant symbol, with the second (and third, if present) attached to it in subscript form. Subscripts were previously also used to write final consonants; in modern Khmer this may be done, optionally, in some words ending ''-ng'' or ''-y'', such as ' ("give"). The consonants and their subscript forms are listed in the following table. Usual phonetic values are given using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA); variations are described below the table. The sound system is described in detail at Khmer phonology. The spoken name of each consonant letter is its value together with its inherent vowel. Transliterations are given using the UNGEGN system;〔(Report on the Current Status of United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names – Khmer ), UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems, September 2013 (linked from (WGRS website )).〕 for other systems see Romanization of Khmer. The letter ' appears in somewhat modified form (e.g. ) when combined with certain dependent vowels (see Ligatures). The letter ''nhô'' is written without the lower curve when a subscript is added. When it is subscripted to itself, the subscript is a smaller form of the entire letter: ''-nhnh-''. Note that ' and ' have the same subscript form. In initial clusters this subscript is always pronounced (), but in medial positions it is () in some words and () in others. The series ', ', ', ', ' originally represented retroflex consonants in the Indic parent scripts. The second, third and fourth of these are rare, and occur only for etymological reasons in a few Pali and Sanskrit loanwords. Because the sound /n/ is common, and often grammatically productive, in Mon-Khmer languages, the fifth of this group, , was adapted as an a-series counterpart of ' for convenience (all other nasal consonants are o-series). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Khmer alphabet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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