Khmer Script - Ligatures

Ligatures

Most consonants, including a few of the subscripts, form ligatures with all dependent vowels that contain the symbol used for the vowel a (ា). A lot of these ligatures are easily recognizable, however a few may not be. One of the more unrecognizable is the ligature for the bâ and a which was created to differentiate it from the consonant symbol hâ as well as the ligature for châ and a. It is not always necessary to connect consonants with the dependent vowel a.

Examples of ligatured symbols:

léa (/liːə/) An example of the vowel a (ា) forming a connection with the serif of a consonant.

chba (/cɓaː/) Subscript consonants with ascending strokes above the baseline also form ligatures with the dependent vowel a (ា).

msau (/msaw/) Another example of a subscript consonant forming a ligature. In this case, it is with the digraph dependent vowel au. The digraph dependent vowel au includes the cane-like stroke of the vowel a.

bau (/ɓaw/) The combination of the consonant bâ (ប) and any vowels or digraph vowels based on the vowel a (ា) is written with a stroke in the center of the ligature to give a distinction between the consonant hâ (ហ).

tra (/traː/) The subscript for rô (រ) is written precedent to the consonant it is pronounced after.