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Font: Khmer
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Descended from the Indic Brahmi script, Khmer script is known to date back to the 6th century AD. Khmer is written from left to right and is alphasyllabic. The 33 consonants of Khmer script, classified into a first and second series, faithfully reflect their Indic origins rather than the phonology of contemporary Khmer. Consequently, Khmer script is a highly redundant alphabet where several consonants can represent the same sound. As in all Brahmi-derived scripts1, each consonant has an inherent vowel; moreover, in Khmer this vowel varies depending on the series to which the host consonant belongs. The inherent vowel can be overridden by an explicitly attached vowel which can appear to either side of the consonant, as well as above or below it. Syllable-initial consonant clusters can be formed by attaching a special subscript form of the secondary consonant below the primary one. As far as vowels are concerned, there is no consensus among scholars on the exact number of unique sounds. Each vowel symbol can represent two sounds depending on the consonant which it modifies. Words are not separated by spaces in Khmer writing, but changes in topic or discourse are indicated by special marks.
1 For a fuller description of the features of Brahmi-derived scripts, see 'Devanagari'.
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