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57-463: Khmer has been written in an Indic-based script since the 6th–7th century. Old Khmer and the changes of Middle Khmer are recorded by an extensive epigraphy which has allowed Middle Khmer to be reconstructed and studied. During the Middle Khmer period, the language lost the voiced stops of Old Khmer which resulted in comprehensive compensatory changes to the vowel system. Old Khmer vowels following

114-593: A diacritic or modifier letter to the IPA symbols above. Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced , to the left are voiceless . Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible. Legend: unrounded  •  rounded Voiced alveolar implosive The voiced alveolar implosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages . The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound

171-494: A brief segment of breathy voice that identifies the plosive as voiceless and not voiced. In voiced plosives, the vocal folds are set for voice before the release, and often vibrate during the entire hold, and in English, the voicing after release is not breathy. A plosive is called "fully voiced" if it is voiced during the entire occlusion. In English, however, initial voiced plosives like /#b/ or /#d/ may have no voicing during

228-534: A distinct evolution from /p/ and /t/ as well as why the Old Khmer voiceless /p/ and /t/ were the consonants to "reacquire" voicing instead of the originally voiced series. This shift has historically received less attention from linguists than the evolution of registers and the complicated vowel systems. Earlier hypotheses assumed Old Khmer, similar to other languages of Southeast Asia, had, in addition to * /b/ ~ * /p/ ~ * /pʰ/ and * /d/ ~ * /t/ ~ * /tʰ/ ,

285-470: A fourth series that was both voiced and either implosive ( [ɓ] , [ɗ] ), preglottalized ( [ˀb] , [ˀd] ) or pre-nasalized ( [ᵐb] , * [ⁿd] ). According to these early hypotheses, since the Indic-based writing system had no symbol for these sounds, the Old Khmer letters for /p/ and /t/ did double duty, also representing this fourth series. As the Old Khmer voiced series became devoiced in Middle Khmer,

342-422: A greater extent than Standard Hawaiian, but neither distinguish a /k/ from a /t/ . It may be more accurate to say that Hawaiian and colloquial Samoan do not distinguish velar and coronal plosives than to say they lack one or the other. Ontena Gadsup has only 1 phonemic plosive /ʔ/ . Yanyuwa distinguishes plosives in 7 places of articulations /b d̪ d ḏ ɖ ɡ̟ ɡ̠/ (it does not have voiceless plosives) which

399-700: A single value in Old and Early Middle Khmer, this restructuring meant that the register of the preceding consonant symbol indicated different vowel pronunciations. The secondary characteristic of breathy phonation in the high register became redundant with the development of contrasting vowels for each series and was gradually lost in most dialects by the modern era. Breathy voice versus clear voice still contrast in Western Khmer and breathy voice in some high register vowels may still be heard in Central Khmer but it

456-514: A vowel. This term was calqued into Latin as mūta , and from there borrowed into English as mute . Mute was sometimes used instead for voiceless consonants, whether plosives or fricatives, a usage that was later replaced with surd , from Latin surdus "deaf" or "silent", a term still occasionally seen in the literature. For more information on the Ancient Greek terms, see Ancient Greek phonology § Terminology . A plosive

513-542: A wide variety of texts as well as inscriptions of the era. Middle Khmer evolved into three modern languages: Northern Khmer , Western Khmer and the various dialects of Central Khmer, including Standard Khmer and Khmer Krom. "Old Khmer" describes the language as it existed until the 14th century. It was the language of three successive polities in the region, Funan , Chenla and the Khmer Empire (Angkor), which, at its zenith, ruled much of mainland Southeast Asia from

570-412: Is pulmonic egressive , that is, with air flowing outward from the lungs. All spoken languages have pulmonic stops. Some languages have stops made with other mechanisms as well: ejective stops ( glottalic egressive ), implosive stops ( glottalic ingressive ), or click consonants ( lingual ingressive ). A fortis plosive is produced with more muscular tension than a lenis plosive . However, this

627-471: Is tenuis (unaspirated). When spoken near a candle flame, the flame will flicker more after the words par, tar, and car are articulated, compared with spar, star, and scar . In the common pronunciation of papa , the initial p is aspirated whereas the medial p is not. In a geminate or long consonant, the occlusion lasts longer than in simple consonants. In languages where plosives are only distinguished by length (e.g., Arabic, Ilwana, Icelandic),

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684-510: Is complete blockage of the oral cavity. The term occlusive may be used as a cover term for both nasals and plosives. A prenasalized stop starts out with a lowered velum that raises during the occlusion. The closest examples in English are consonant clusters such as the [nd] in candy , but many languages have prenasalized stops that function phonologically as single consonants. Swahili is well known for having words beginning with prenasalized stops, as in ndege 'bird', and in many languages of

741-465: Is difficult to measure, and there is usually debate over the actual mechanism of alleged fortis or lenis consonants. There are a series of plosives in the Korean language , sometimes written with the IPA symbol for ejectives, which are produced using " stiff voice ", meaning there is increased contraction of the glottis than for normal production of voiceless plosives. The indirect evidence for stiff voice

798-465: Is in the following vowels, which have a higher fundamental frequency than those following other plosives. The higher frequency is explained as a result of the glottis being tense. Other such phonation types include breathy voice , or murmur; slack voice ; and creaky voice . The following plosives have been given dedicated symbols in the IPA . Many subclassifications of plosives are transcribed by adding

855-454: Is incidental and conveys no lexical meaning; speakers are unaware of it. [ɡiː] > [ɡi̤ː] > [kiː] [kiː] > [kᵊiː] > [kəi] [ɟɛː] > [ɟɛ̤ː] > [cɛː] [cɛː] > [cɛː] > [caɛ] ~ [cae] [ɡaːŋ] > [ɡa̤ːŋ] > [ɡaːŋ] (modern: [kiəŋ] ) [kaːŋ] > [kaːŋ] > [kaːŋ] There is some disagreement as to when this process of devoicing and diphthongization completed, but all estimates fall within

912-637: Is silent: */kaːr/ > /kaː/. The exact phonetic realization of final /r/ in Middle Khmer has not been proven with certainty. It may have varied by dialect, either being [r], [l] or [Ø] (silent), although rhymes within a single text often suggest all three, indicating the pronunciation wasn't dialectal but rather the shift may have taken place gradually, affecting final /r/ in different environments in stages until /Ø/ gained prominence. Jenner suggests, by inference, that written final /r/ may have been pronounced [ɹl] in Early Middle Khmer. The remainder of

969-420: Is still between stages four and five; /b/ and /d/ are present, but many vowels have not diphthongized or are in the early stages of diphthongization (i.e. still consist of a monophthong plus a slight glide) and the breathy versus clear phonation contrast is still prominent in most vowels although it is displaying an increasingly lower functional load. This is taken as further validation of the mechanisms proposed in

1026-627: Is the most out of all languages. See Common occlusives for the distribution of both plosives and nasals. Voiced plosives are pronounced with vibration of the vocal cords , voiceless plosives without. Plosives are commonly voiceless, and many languages, such as Mandarin Chinese and Hawaiian , have only voiceless plosives. Others, such as most Australian languages , are indeterminate: plosives may vary between voiced and voiceless without distinction, some of them like Yanyuwa and Yidiny have only voiced plosives. In aspirated plosives ,

1083-444: Is typically analysed as having up to three phases: Only the hold phase is requisite. A plosive may lack an approach when it is preceded by a consonant that involves an occlusion at the same place of articulation, as in [d] in end or old . In many languages, such as Malay and Vietnamese , word-final plosives lack a release burst, even when followed by a vowel, or have a nasal release . See no audible release . In affricates ,

1140-456: Is used for single, tenuous, or voiced plosives. However, the terms fortis and lenis are poorly defined, and their meanings vary from source to source. Simple nasals are differentiated from plosives only by a lowered velum that allows the air to escape through the nose during the occlusion. Nasals are acoustically sonorants , as they have a non-turbulent airflow and are nearly always voiced, but they are articulatorily obstruents , as there

1197-419: The voice onset time (VOT) or the aspiration interval . Highly aspirated plosives have a long period of aspiration, so that there is a long period of voiceless airflow (a phonetic [h] ) before the onset of the vowel. In tenuis plosives, the vocal cords come together for voicing immediately following the release, and there is little or no aspiration (a voice onset time close to zero). In English, there may be

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1254-735: The International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association use the term "plosive". Either "occlusive" or "stop" may be used as a general term covering the other together with nasals. That is, 'occlusive' may be defined as oral occlusive (plosives and affricates ) plus nasal occlusives (nasals such as [ m ] , [ n ] ), or 'stop' may be defined as oral stops (plosives) plus nasal stops (nasals). Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996) prefer to restrict 'stop' to oral non-affricated occlusives. They say, what we call simply nasals are called nasal stops by some linguists. We avoid this phrase, preferring to reserve

1311-482: The labial [p] . In fact, the labial is the least stable of the voiceless plosives in the languages of the world, as the unconditioned sound change [p] → [f] (→ [h] → Ø ) is quite common in unrelated languages, having occurred in the history of Classical Japanese , Classical Arabic , and Proto-Celtic , for instance. Formal Samoan has only one word with velar [k] ; colloquial Samoan conflates /t/ and /k/ to /k/ . Ni‘ihau Hawaiian has [t] for /k/ to

1368-399: The vocal cords (vocal folds) are abducted at the time of release. In a prevocalic aspirated plosive (a plosive followed by a vowel or sonorant), the time when the vocal cords begin to vibrate will be delayed until the vocal folds come together enough for voicing to begin, and will usually start with breathy voicing. The duration between the release of the plosive and the voice onset is called

1425-530: The "break-up of speech communities" that occurred during the Middle Khmer period. Comparative methods applied to modern varieties, along with the wealth of Middle Khmer texts, have given linguists a good picture of Middle Khmer. However, since there are no other extant descendants of Old Khmer, linguists must rely on analysis of its epigraphy and orthography , as well as the descriptions of Middle Khmer, to internally reconstruct Old Khmer. While this makes understanding Middle Khmer important, it has severely hindered

1482-494: The 16th century, much earlier than Lewitz's estimate. Despite having lost voiced stops, all modern Khmer varieties emerged from the Middle Khmer period with two in their inventory, /b/ and /d/ . In both cases, it is the Old Khmer voiceless stop that is now voiced and their realizations are most commonly implosive [ɓ] and [ɗ] , respectively. A thorough analysis of Middle Khmer must explain both how, if voiced stops merged to voiceless stops, only /b/ and /d/ reemerged and had

1539-419: The 16th to 18th century range. Jenner, based on internal evidence, gives a basic general range between the 16th to 18th century, concluding it wasn't possible to get anymore specific due to the undated nature of most Middle Khmer texts. Lewitz's argument cite foreign transliterations of "Angkor" (Middle Khmer: [ʔɔŋgɔːr] ), which in the 16th century were written "Angar" or "Angor" with a ⟨g⟩ and, by

1596-417: The 17th century had become "Anckoor" with a ⟨k⟩ , to posit that the actual devoicing of stops took place late in Middle Khmer, between the 16th and 17th century, and was completed by the 18th century. Vickery, using the same method with a larger word list, concluded that Spanish and Portuguese transliterations of Middle Khmer words proved the devoicing of stops culminated in the last two decades of

1653-781: The Mekong Delta west to the Andaman Sea and from the Gulf of Thailand north to China. Old Khmer was the language of the ruling Khmers and the language of administration throughout the empire. After the 14th century sack of Angkor by the Siamese Ayutthaya Kingdom , the Khmer Empire was terminally weakened and steadily lost both its hegemony and prestige in the region. Territory north of the Dangrek mountains

1710-846: The South Pacific, such as Fijian , these are even spelled with single letters: b [mb], d [nd]. A postnasalized plosive begins with a raised velum that lowers during the occlusion. This causes an audible nasal release , as in English sudden . This could also be compared to the /dn/ cluster found in Russian and other Slavic languages, which can be seen in the name of the Dnieper River . The terms prenasalization and postnasalization are normally used only in languages where these sounds are phonemic: that is, not analyzed into sequences of plosive plus nasal. Stops may be made with more than one airstream mechanism . The normal mechanism

1767-527: The catch and hold are those of a plosive, but the release is that of a fricative . That is, affricates are plosive–fricative contours . All spoken natural languages in the world have plosives, and most have at least the voiceless plosives [p] , [t] , and [k] . However, there are exceptions: Colloquial Samoan lacks the coronal [t] , and several North American languages, such as the Iroquoian languages (e.g., Mohawk and Cherokee ), and Arabic lack

Middle Khmer - Misplaced Pages Continue

1824-414: The development of Middle Khmer. Old Khmer allowed 15 consonants in syllable-final position, including /s/ and /r/ in addition to the 13 presently allowed in modern Khmer. Final /s/ and /r/ are still reflected in modern Khmer orthography, but during the Middle Khmer period, syllable-final /s/ simply debuccalized to /h/ and it is now pronounced /h/ in all modern varieties while the fate of syllable-final /r/

1881-436: The distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow that is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant. Some object to the use of "plosive" for inaudibly released stops , which may then instead be called "applosives". The International Phonetic Association and

1938-407: The final consonants that are allowed in modern Khmer correspond well with written forms from Old Khmer, which suggests that they were unchanged during the Middle Khmer period. Voiced stop In phonetics , a plosive , also known as an occlusive or simply a stop , is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with

1995-446: The former series came to take on a secondary characteristic breathy phonation . Thus, when the two consonant series merged in articulation, the contrast was maintained in the following vowels. Vowels following the originally voiceless stops were lowered in quality, in most cases manifesting on-gliding diphthongs. As the shift progressed, the on-glide became the focus of a new vowel nucleus. In words with /aː/ , which can't be lowered, it

2052-403: The formerly voiced stops remained mostly unchanged while the same vowels following the originally corresponding voiceless initials were lowered by different processes including diphthongization . Furthermore, the loss of final "-r", all but complete in most modern Khmer dialects, and the merger of syllable-final -/s/ to -/h/ took place during the Middle Khmer period. Middle Khmer is attested in

2109-606: The intricacies of the vowel system. More recently, there have been two theories as to how this seeming "flip-flop" occurred, both of which elegantly integrate the phenomenon into the devoicing shift and attribute the redevelopment of voiced /b/ and /d/ to the complicated phonological details of that process. Diffloth proposed a five-stage process presented in the table below as given by Wayland and Jongman: The second theory, proposed by Wayland and Jongman, also postulates five stages of development with results similar to Diffloth's but reached by different means. In their second stage,

2166-416: The investigation and reconstruction of Proto-Khmer . Informally, linguists speak of two periods of Middle Khmer based on availability of sources. Evidence of the language dated with surety from the 14th to early 17th century is scant. The many Middle Khmer texts are undated. Internal evidence gives estimates of chronological ordering, but not absolute dates. It is assumed that many of the latest texts date to

2223-470: The letters previously used for /b/ and /d/ came to be indicate pronunciations of /p/ and /t/ , respectively, so the letters for original /p/ and /t/ became redundant and were used only for the fourth series, which then normalized to /b/ ( [ɓ] ) and /d/ ( [ɗ] ) as part of the Middle Khmer consonant restructuring. These hypotheses, based on assumptions about Proto-Mon-Khmer and orthographic conjecture, did not take into account phonation or account for

2280-489: The long plosives may be held up to three times as long as the short plosives. Italian is well known for its geminate plosives, as the double t in the name Vittoria takes just as long to say as the ct does in English Victoria . Japanese also prominently features geminate consonants, such as in the minimal pair 来た kita 'came' and 切った kitta 'cut'. Estonian is unusual for contrasting three lengths, as in

2337-409: The minimal triplet kabi /kɑpi/ 'hoof', kapi /kɑpːi/ 'wardrobe [gen. sg.]', and kappi /kɑpːːi/ 'wardrobe [ill. sg.]'. There are many languages where the features voice, aspiration, and length reinforce each other, and in such cases it may be hard to determine which of these features predominates. In such cases, the terms fortis is sometimes used for aspiration or gemination, whereas lenis

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2394-462: The most time to develop and there is overlap between the stages. According to the authors, this theory best accounts for all the shifts and phonological processes involved as well as explains the current situation in Modern Khmer. The shift is complete in Central Khmer, Northern Khmer and Khmer Krom, the three modern varieties representing the overwhelming majority of Khmer speakers. Western Khmer

2451-592: The new vowel inventory was beginning to take shape. The phonological inventory of the earliest Middle Khmer closely resembles that of Old Khmer. The consonants and vowels of the language before the major sound changes occurred are listed below. The voiced implosives [ ɓ ] and [ ɗ ] may have contrasted with [ b ] and [ d ], which is rather rare, or the two sets may have evolved during different stages of Middle Khmer and never have contrasted. The vowels in parentheses are assumed to have been used in early Middle Khmer but this has never been proved nor disproved. In addition to

2508-422: The period of occlusion, or the voicing may start shortly before the release and continue after release, and word-final plosives tend to be fully devoiced: In most dialects of English, the final /b/, /d/ and /g/ in words like rib , mad and dog are fully devoiced. Initial voiceless plosives, like the p in pie , are aspirated, with a palpable puff of air upon release, whereas a plosive after an s , as in spy ,

2565-449: The term 'stop' for sounds in which there is a complete interruption of airflow. In addition, they restrict "plosive" for pulmonic consonants ; "stops" in their usage include ejective and implosive consonants. If a term such as "plosive" is used for oral non-affricated obstruents, and nasals are not called nasal stops, then a stop may mean the glottal stop ; "plosive" may even mean non-glottal stop. In other cases, however, it may be

2622-402: The time of King Ang Duong (1789–1859), to whom is attributed the cbap srei ("Conduct for Ladies"). Analysis of metrical rhymes in the cbap literature indicated that among the earliest cbap were the ker kala and kuna cau which could have dated from the early middle period. Much of the phonological changes that mark Middle Khmer were already established and many others were well underway by

2679-479: The time of Late Middle Khmer and the processes occurring in the early period oftentimes must be inferred by comparing Late Old Khmer with the language of later Middle Khmer texts. Late Middle Khmer is the period for which we have the most evidence. In addition to inscriptions, there are palm-leaf manuscript from multiple genres or disciplines, including chronicles , romances, ethical treatises and technical manuals. The devoicing of stops were complete by this time and

2736-538: The tongue tip or blade ( [ t ] , [ d ] ), tongue body ( [ k ] , [ ɡ ] ), lips ( [ p ] , [ b ] ), or glottis ( [ ʔ ] ). Plosives contrast with nasals , where the vocal tract is blocked but airflow continues through the nose, as in / m / and / n / , and with fricatives , where partial occlusion impedes but does not block airflow in the vocal tract. The terms stop, occlusive, and plosive are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on

2793-418: The very early years of Middle Khmer, indicating that Old Khmer final /r/ was already weakening by the beginning of Middle Khmer. This trend continued gradually throughout the Middle Khmer period so that by the transition to Early Modern Khmer, /-r : -Ø/ rhymes were used instead of /-r : -l/, which agrees with the fact that written final /r/ is unpronounced in modern Central Khmer. The loss of final /r/

2850-400: The voiced implosives /ɓ/ and /ɗ/ while slack voiced /b̥/ and /d̥/ become /p/ and /t/. The redundant breathy phonation is minimized and lost in most dialects in the fifth phase. In this proposal, /b/ and /d/ never contrast with /ɓ/ and /ɗ/ and most dialects are never truly "register languages" as vowel phonation is never the sole contrastive element. In this theory, stage two and stage four take

2907-468: The voiced stops take on a slack voice quality which causes following vowels to become breathy voiced while the voiceless stops become stiff voiced . In the third stage, slack vs stiff voice stops still contrast and the formant transitions from stiff voiced stops to following vowels begin to affect the vowels by lowering and then were reinterpreted as diphthongization. In stage four, the abrupt release of stiff voice gradually conditions /p/ and /t/ to become

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2964-517: The vowel nuclei listed, there were two diphthongs inherited from Old Khmer, [iə] and [uə], and a third, [ɨə], entered the language via loanwords from Thai. The impetus for the major changes that took place during Middle Khmer was the devoicing of the Old Khmer voiced stops. Unlike the modern language, Old Khmer contrasted voiced stops /ɡ ɟ d b/ with unvoiced /k c t p/ and had a simple vowels system consisting of eight or nine long monophthongs with short counterparts and two diphthongs. Vowels following

3021-467: The word "plosive" that is restricted to the glottal stop. Generally speaking, plosives do not have plosion (a release burst). In English, for example, there are plosives with no audible release , such as the /p/ in apt . However, English plosives do have plosion in other environments. In Ancient Greek , the term for plosive was ἄφωνον ( áphōnon ), which means "unpronounceable", "voiceless", or "silent", because plosives could not be pronounced without

3078-574: Was lost to Lao kingdoms while the west and northwest succumbed to the forerunners of the Thais. The Mekong Delta was lost to Vietnam. The center of Khmer culture retreated southeast and eventually was reduced to a small wedge between its powerful neighbors, Thailand and Vietnam, both of which vied for control of the rump polity as a vassal state. It is within this context, the collapse of the Khmer Empire, that Old Khmer began to quickly evolve into Middle Khmer. All modern varieties of Khmer descend directly from

3135-547: Was not as complete as the loss of final /s/, however. Final /r/ is still pronounced prominently in Northern Khmer and by some speakers of Western Khmer. Also remnants of the early Middle Khmer /r/ > /l/ merger are still evident in Central Khmer where Middle Khmer */kɑntor/ ("rat") is pronounced /kɑndol/ ~ /kɑndao/, */prampiːr/ ("seven") as /prampɨl/, and */her/ ("hot, spicy") as /hɨl/ ~ /haə/. Excepting few similar examples, written final /r/ in modern Central Khmer dialects

3192-403: Was not so simple. Texts written in verse throughout the Middle Khmer era demonstrate that the sound of written final /r/ was confused with, and probably pronounced as or similar to, final /l/. In the poetic meters, words written with final /r/ were often used as if they rhymed with words written with final /l/. In fact, /-r : -l/ rhymes were more common than /-r : -r/ rhymes, especially in

3249-438: Was the vowel following the formerly voiced consonants that diphthongized. This left the language with two redundant series of consonants and a complementary set of contrasting vowels for each consonant series, effectively doubling the number of vowel nuclei in the language. The formerly voiced stops are referred to as "high register" while the formerly voiceless stops are called "low register". While each vowel symbol represented

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