The Mon-Khmer Subfamily

Languages of the Mon-Khmer subfamily include Cambodian (or Khmer), Mon (or Talaing), and a number of other languages, such as Cham of Cambodia and southern Vietnam, Semang and Sakai of the Malay Peninsula, Nicobarese of the Nicobar Islands, and Khasi of Assam in India. Grammatically, the Mon-Khmer languages make great use of affixes (prefixes, infixes, and suffixes). They are agglutinative in that different linguistic elements, each of which exists separately and has a fixed meaning, are often joined to form one word. Cambodian and Mon have their own scripts, which are descended from alphabets of India. Both are written from left to right.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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