Khmer numerals

As both Thai and Lao scripts are derived from Old Khmer,[6] their modern forms still bear many resemblances to the latter, demonstrated in the following table: The spoken names of modern Khmer numbers represent a biquinary system, with both base 5 and base 10 in use.

Whilst Vietnamese vocabulary is very Sinicized, the numbers 1-5 retain proto-Austroasiatic origins.

The table below shows how the words in Khmer compare to other nearby Tai and Sinitic languages.

A few of the such can be observed in the following table: Reminiscent of the standard base 20 Angkorian Khmer numbers, the modern Khmer language also possesses separate words used to count fruits, not unlike how English uses words such as a "dozen" for counting items such as eggs.

[18] As a result of prolonged literary influence from both the Sanskrit and Pali languages, Khmer may occasionally use borrowed words for counting.

One reason for the decline of these numbers is that a Khmer nationalism movement, which emerged in the 1960s, attempted to remove all words of Sanskrit and Pali origin.

The Khmer Rouge also attempted to cleanse the language by removing all words which were considered politically incorrect.

Unlike modern Khmer, the decimal system was highly limited, with both the numbers for ten and one hundred being borrowed from the Chinese and Sanskrit languages respectively.