Locale Km 001

Reference data for the Khmer locale — endonym ខ្មែរ, written in the Khmer script, left-to-right (LTR).

Identifiers

• BCP 47 tag: km-001
• ISO 639-1: km
• ISO 639-3: khm
• Script: Khmr (Khmer)
• Region: 001 (World)
• Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)

Speakers (approximate)

• L1 (native): 19,000,000
• L2 (additional): 1,000,000
• L1+L2 (total): 21,000,000

Regional variants

This is the base/macro locale for Khmer. Region-specific variants in this dataset:

• Locale Km Kh (Khmer (Cambodia))

Pluralization

CLDR plural categories for this locale: other (1 form).

• other — everything else (e.g. 0~15, 100, 1000, 10000, …)

See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.

Translating into this locale

Khmer is the national language of Cambodia, written in the Khmer script (left to right, no spaces between words), with a rich system of registers. See Locale Km Kh.

Translate ideas, not words.

• Khmer is analytic, with subject-verb-object order and modifiers after the noun. Reverse English noun stacks.
• Khmer drops subjects and pronouns when clear; address people by title, name, or kinship term, not a direct "you".
• Khmer has no inflection; use time words, classifiers, and context.
• Many technical terms are Sanskrit-Pali coinages from the Royal Academy of Cambodia; use established terminology and avoid raw English transliteration where a term exists.

Register.

• Khmer has several registers: ordinary, polite, royal (ពាក្យរាជសព្ទ), and monastic. Use the polite register in public text, and the royal register only for the royal family. Choose pronouns by relative age and status; formal UI avoids them.
• Politeness particles (បាទ for male speakers, ចាស៎ for female speakers) belong to speech, not UI.

Orthography and typography.

• No spaces between words; a space or zero-width space marks phrases or sentence boundaries. A Khmer-aware line breaker is required.
• Consonant stacking uses the subscript sign (coeng, U+17D2) with strict ordering; wrong input produces broken rendering. Use NFC and the Unicode order.
• Khmer digits (០ to ៩) and Arabic digits are both used; follow the project convention. Currency riel (៛) after the amount.
• Spelling follows the Chuon Nath dictionary (វចនានុក្រមខ្មែរ) and the Royal Academy of Cambodia.

Common pitfalls

• Using spaces between words as in English.
• Using the wrong register or royal vocabulary.
• Mixing Thai or Lao characters, or incorrect stacking order.
• Transliterating English terms where an official Khmer term exists.

Learn more

• Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
• Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
• Royal Academy of Cambodia (រាជបណ្ឌិត្យសភាកម្ពុជា), Khmer dictionary (Chuon Nath)
• Microsoft Localization Style Guide, Khmer (https://aka.ms/khmer-styleguide)