The objective of this project is to trace historical changes in the Khmer (Cambodian) script in terms of character shapes and composition, by digitalizing part of a Khmer edition of the Tripitaka, a Buddhist scripture, and Cambodian inscription written in Sanskrit and Khmer.

The Khmer script is one of the oldest scripts of Indic origin in the Southeast Asian mainland. The earliest confirmed Sanskrit inscriptions date back as far as the 7th century, while the oldest inscriptions are believed to be from the first century. The Khmer script was first used to write Sanskrit, and later for the Khmer language and Buddhist scriptures in the Pali language.

Creating a text database for the Khmer script version of the Tripitaka (written in the Khmer and Pali languages)

This project is creating a text database for the Tripitaka written in both the Khmer and Pali languages, with which to investigate Khmer graphemes, their co-occurrence, and glyph expression in writing Khmer and Pali, which is necessary to implement the Khmer script on the Internet.

Research into the historical changes in the Khmer script

Work is in progress on creating a database of Khmer inscriptions, based on previous research by G. Coedes and other historians, in order to investigate the historical changes in the Khmer script in terms of the character shapes and their composition.