sangkum khmer
សង្គមខ្មែរ
The Khmers are an Austroasiatic people — one of the oldest ethnic groups in mainland Southeast Asia. The Khmer script is derived from the ancient Brahmi script.
The Khmer Language
Khmer belongs to the Austroasiatic language family, alongside Vietnamese, Mon, and numerous tribal languages spoken throughout Southeast Asia.
Khmer music traces back over 1,000 years.
Carvings of musical ensembles on Angkor Wat's walls are nearly identical to ensembles performing in Cambodia today. Music was passed entirely through oral tradition — teacher to student, memorized, not written down. The core ensemble was the pin peat — xylophones, gongs, oboes, cymbals, drums. The roneat, kong vong thom, sralai, chhing, and chapey.
Indigenous Khmer animism — the worship of ancestor spirits, nature deities, and the naga serpent spirits of water — was never eradicated. It was incorporated into state religion.
The neak ta are the ancestral spirits of the neighborhood or village, associated with hills, mounds, and trees. Each village community had its neak ta, constrained by ritual to the protection of that place.
