Khmer

អក្សរខ្មែរ
Khmr Left-to-right Living Abugida Southeast Asian
Sample Text
សួស្ដី

Sample Characters

First 48 characters from Khmer (U+1780–U+17F9)

About Khmer

The Khmer script is an abugida used to write the Khmer language, the official language of Cambodia. It is the script of the ancient Khmer Empire, which built the famous Angkor Wat temple complex.

Khmer script descended from the Brahmi script through the Pallava script of South India. It is written left-to-right and does not use spaces between words. The Khmer script influenced the development of the Thai, Lao, and Cham scripts. It has one of the largest character inventories among South and Southeast Asian scripts.

Data sourced from the ISO 15924 registry, Unicode CLDR, and the Unicode Character Database.

Script Family & Lineage

Ancestor Chain
Brahmi Khmer
Descended Scripts

Languages Using Khmer 1

Frequently Asked Questions

What type of writing system is Khmer?
Khmer is an Abugida. Abugidas (alphasyllabaries) use consonant characters with an inherent vowel modified by diacritics.
What direction does Khmer read?
Khmer is written Left-to-right, the same direction as most European scripts.
How many languages use the Khmer script?
1 language use Khmer according to Unicode CLDR data. Together these languages are spoken by approximately 16M people worldwide.
When was the Khmer script created?
The Khmer script originated around 611 CE.
Does Khmer have uppercase and lowercase letters?
Khmer does not have separate uppercase and lowercase forms. Each consonant carries an inherent vowel sound that is modified by diacritical marks.

Compare Khmer With Another Script

Direction, characters, languages — side by side.

Key Facts

ISO Code
Khmr
ISO Number
355
Script Type
Abugida
Direction
Left-to-right
Status
Living
Region
Southeast Asian
Characters
146
Introduced
611 CE
Languages
1
Total Speakers
~16M

Unicode Ranges

  • Khmer
    U+1780–U+17F9
  • Khmer Symbols
    U+19E0–U+19FF

Script Properties

Has Case
No
Cursive
No
Vowels
inherent

Official Use In

KH