Khmer Script - Consonants

Consonants

There are 35 Khmer consonant symbols, although modern Khmer only uses 33, two having become obsolete. Each consonant has an inherent vowel of /ɑ/ or /ɔ/. These inherent vowels are used to determine the pronunciation of the two registers of vowel phonemes represented by the diacritical vowels.

The consonants have subscript forms that are used to write consonant clusters. Also sometimes referred to as "sub-consonants", subscript consonant resemble the corresponding consonant symbol but in a minuscule form. In Khmer, they are known as cheung âksâr (ជើងអក្សរ), meaning the foot of a letter. Most subscript consonants are written directly below other consonants, although subscript r is written before while a few others have ascending elements which appear after. Subscript consonants were previously used to write final consonants. This method of writing has ceased in modern written Khmer but is retained in the word aôy (ឲ្យ, /aːoj/).

* The consonant lâ has no subscript form, but some Khmer fonts do provide a subscript form for this letter. In Khmer orthography, the subscript form of the consonant lâ is not used.

For some phonemes in loanwords, the Khmer writing system has 'created' supplementary consonants. Most of these consonants are created by stacking a subscript under the character for /hɑ/ to form digraphs. The consonant for /pɑ/, however, is created by using the diacritical sign called musĕkâtônd over the consonant for /bɑ/. These additional consonants are mainly used to represent sounds in French and Thai loanwords.