// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did the Western Khmer dialect say? "Khmer" or less.

Western Khmer
Cardamom Khmer Chanthaburi Khmer
Native to	Thailand, Cambodia
Region	Cardamom Mountains
Language family	Austroasiatic Khmer Western Khmer
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Linguist List	khm-car
Glottolog	None

Western Khmer, also known as Cardamom Khmer or Chanthaburi Khmer, is the dialect of the Khmer language spoken by the Khmer people native to the Cardamom Mountains on both sides of the border between western Cambodia (Pailin Province) and eastern Central Thailand (Chanthaburi Province). Developing in an historically isolated region, Western Khmer is the only dialect of modern Khmer to conserve the Middle Khmer phonation contrast of breathy voice versus modal voice that has been all but lost in the other dialects.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p (pʰ)	t (tʰ)	c (cʰ)	k (kʰ)	ʔ
Voiced plosive	b	d
Nasal	m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Liquid		r l
Fricative	(f)	s			h
Approximant	w		j

(f) in loan words

Vowels

Clear Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close
Close-mid	e	eː	ə		o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɛː
Open	a	aː	ɒ	ɒː

Breathy Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i̤	i̤ː	ɨ̤	ɨ̤ː	ṳ	ṳː
Close-mid		e̤ː		ə̤ː	o̤	o̤ː
Open-mid		ɛ̤ː				ɔ̤ː
Open	a̤