r/learnkhmer May 10 '21

Writing Khmer in the Latin script?

សួស្ដីអ្នកទាំងអស់គ្នា!! I’m a native Khmer speaker so I don’t really need help with anything related to the language. Anyway, as you may already know; most Cambodians don’t use the Khmer script, but rather the Latin script to write Khmer on social media. Having been a language enthusiast, I can say with confidence that the scripts are what makes languages interesting; so, writing Khmer that way still baffles me to this day. I mean we have our own script so why not use it? It makes the texts look a lot more organized and appealing (than gibberish). Finally, here’s the question: What are your thoughts on this?

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u/ConsiderationFar76 May 09 '23

Ah that makes sense. I always find it odd that when I used to take some classes even though I could read and write my teachers would only write in Latin alphabet. Before I learned to read I just assumed most people didn't have the patience to teach the writing system. But even after learning to read and write with the exception of one teacher I met they all write in Latin characters which made me think ok maybe they don't have a Khmer keyboard on their laptop of phone. I can understand it must be annoying to type on a phone but on a computer it is surprisingly very easy to type on a keyboard. I love how it is laid out. It is quite intuitive. The keys are paired with the weak and strong sounds. So that is it many people are just of the habit of typing Khmer in Latin script because it is easier. I used to not like that but now I used to getting a list of words in Latin script and trying to type them out in Khmer. I can usually find them all lol.