by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2010/10/20 07:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2010/10/20/10078247.aspx
THE WINDOWS 7 KHMER LANGUAGE INTERFACE PACK IS LIVE!
Click here to download the Khmer Windows 7 LIP via the Microsoft.com Download Center.
Please note that the Khmer Windows 7 LIP can only be installed on a system that runs an English client version of Windows 7. It is available to download for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.
The Khmer Windows 7 LIP is produced as part of the Local Language Program sponsored by Public Sector.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON KHMER
NUMBER OF SPEAKERS:
12 million native speakers in Cambodia; 20 million speakers worldwide
NAME IN THE LANGUAGE ITSELF:
ខ្មែរ
Khmer, also called Cambodian, is the official language of Cambodia where it is spoken by about 13 million people as first or second language. It is also spoken in neighboring Vietnam (1 million) and Thailand (1.2 million).
Due to the cultural influence of Hinduism and Buddhism, Khmer has heavily borrowed from the Indian languages Sanskrit and Pali. Unlike the neighboring languages Thai, Laotian and Vietnamese, Khmer is not a tonal language.
FUN FACT:
Khmer words are predominantly monosyllabic. Words with three or more syllables exist, particularly those pertaining to science, the arts, and religion. However, these words are loanwords, usually derived from Pali, Sanskrit, or more recently, French.
Khmer user interface primarily used Khmer UI, the font I discussed previously in blogs like Want to hear about a cool new typographic convention? Khmer, and I'll tell you about it...; as it turns out, the changes are leading to something of a generation gap, with older native speakers much less happy than the newer ones.
CLASSIFICATION:
Khmer is one of the main Austroasiatic languages. It belongs to the Mon-Khmer subfamily (of which Vietnamese is a member, too).
SCRIPT:
The Khmer script, an abugida, evolved from a variant of the Devanagari script called Pallava. Since Khmer does not have enough graphs for the vowels being used in the language, the vowel sign is interpreted differently depending on the accompanying consonant symbol (which can belong to two different series). There is also a number of diacritics which are used for differences in pronunciation and so-called subscript consonants which help form consonant clusters and cancel the vowel value of the preceding graph. Khmer has its own set of numerals derived from Indian numerals which also used for Thai.
Click here to learn more information about the Khmer language.
John Cowan on 20 Oct 2010 9:52 AM:
Not to spoil your pun or anything, but "Khmer" rhymes with "pie". Yes, really.
Michael S. Kaplan on 20 Oct 2010 10:21 AM:
Not the way we say it. :-)
John Cowan on 21 Oct 2010 9:31 AM:
Whatever, Mr. Koplin.
--Jon Cohen
Michael S. Kaplan on 21 Oct 2010 12:40 PM:
OTOH, some us thought Divehi was pronounced DIVE-HI.... so of course we'd riposte SWIM LOW....
Jason White on 2 Feb 2011 11:30 PM:
Sorry John Cowan, you are wrong. Khmer is different from Khmae.
In English/French it is called Khmer, in Khmer it is called Khmae.