French language in Cambodia

Street sign in Khmer and French in Kratié.

French was an official language of Cambodia for over a century, from the establishment of the French protectorate in the mid-19th century to the start of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1975. Cambodia is the smallest of the three Francophone communities in Southeast Asia, the others being Vietnam and Laos. Out of all Asian Francophone nations, Cambodia is where French has declined the most since the end of the Indochina Wars.[1] Nevertheless, French remains an administrative and cultural language in the country.[2]

In 2022, French was fluently spoken by a little under half a million people, which is about 3% of the country's population,[3] but only by 873 people as a mother tongue according to the country's 2008 census.[4]

  1. ^ La Francophonie in Asia, France-Diplomatie, 2005, archived from the original on 2009-05-02, retrieved 2010-10-14
  2. ^ Baker, Colin; Jones, Sylvia Prys (1998). Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Multilingual Matters. p. 384. ISBN 9781853593628.
  3. ^ La langue française dans le monde, 2022, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF),
  4. ^ Schliesinger, Joachim (11 January 2015). Ethnic Groups of Cambodia Vol 1: Introduction and Overview. BooksMango. p. 211. ISBN 9781633232327.