Khmer people

The Khmer ( ខ្មែរ: k: m: ɛər ) (also Camarini, My Coa, Kambuja, Kampuch, Khmae, Khom, Kui kmi, Kumar or My ) are the main ethnic group in Cambodia and provide with more than 12 million people over 86 percent of the population; in centuries past, they were used as labor in neighboring countries (Thailand, Laos and Vietnam) relocated, sometimes by force. Approximately three million Khmer live today in neighboring countries. A relatively large group of Khmer who had to flee from the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent occupation of the communist Viet Cong, now lives in the land of the former colonial masters of Cambodia in France, but also in the USA.

The Khmer built temples and temple cities, which are among the largest in the world, such as Angkor in present-day Cambodia and Khao Hin Prasaat - Phnom Rung and Prasaat Hin Phimai in Thailand today.

The Khmer are closely related to the mountain people of the Sun, whose descendants in Thailand live essentially as rice farmers and fishermen. Many minorities in the south of Laos, in Northeast Cambodia and Central Vietnam also speak similar languages.

The Khmer have experienced many ups and downs in the course of the history of Cambodia. Your past is very closely linked to the history of the Cham, with which they were from the 10th to the 15th century regularly in the war. In contemporary history, the reign of terror and the crimes of the Khmer Rouge should be mentioned that more than three million Khmer cost the lives of between 1975 and 1979.

History of Khmer

See also the main article history of Cambodia.

Probably in the 3rd century BC migrated Proto -Mon -Khmer from China to the south, whilst there 802, the first Khmer Empire under the ruler Jayavarman II after this Chenla had defeated. After his death in 850, his son Jayavarman III. in the capital Hariharalaya the throne. The Khmer built 893 the first religious center of the Khmer Empire in Angkor, Yasodharapura and attacked more than 50 years later, the Vietnamese kingdom of Champa successfully. In the 12th century, King Jayavarman VII adopted Theravada Buddhism and began the construction of Angkor Thom. End of the 12th century, all Khmer were practically converted from Hinduism to Buddhism.

With the conquest of Angkor by the Thai Ayutthaya in the 14th century ended the story of the eponymous kingdom. The capital was abandoned the following year. As a result, the Khmer most of the time were a bone of contention between the Vietnamese kingdom of Annam and the Siamese kingdom of Ayutthaya. After 1620 a Vietnamese princess had married into the Khmer monarchy, the Vietnamese were given the right settlement on the territory of the Khmer. This led to the Vietnamization of the eastern coastal region of the former Cambodian, today located around Saigon ( Ho Chi Minh City).

King Norodom I. led the Khmer 1863 in the French colonial rule, when he asked for the protection of France from the encroachments of its neighbors. Was the territory of the Khmer initially a French protectorate, it was incorporated in 1887 in the colony of French Indochina. Until 1953 Cambodia becomes independent.

Language

The Khmer speaking the Khmer language, which belongs to the family of Mon-Khmer languages. The Khmer script is derived from the Indian syllabic scripts.