Khom

The term has been used extensively in 20th-century Thai historiography, partly as a way to disassociate the historical Angkorian civilization—of which many archaeological sites are spread throughout present-day Thailand—from the present-day Khmer people who form the majority population of Cambodia, whom many Thais still believe to be an inferior race unrelated to the people of the ancient empire. This discourse was popularized by 20th-century Thai nationalist thinker Luang Wichitwathakan who incorrectly claimed that contemporary Khmers are unrelated to the ethnic group responsible for the Angkorian civilization, coining the term "khom" for this purpose. By repurposing the term "khom" derived from the native Khmer term "Khmer Krom" meaning "lowland Khmer", Wichitwathakan attempted to create a new ethnicity to accentuate a distinct separation between Angkor and Cambodia, despite the ethnic continuity between Angkor's builders and present-day Khmer being well-established. == Etymology ==

In Thai, the term khom has its roots in the Dvaravati Old Mon and Nyah Kur term *krɔɔm meaning "under, below, beneath [prep.]; the under part of (sth.) (especially house) [noun]." The vowel sequence also derived as a variant form: *krɔɔm *kǝrɔɔm, *kǝnrɔɔm • Proto-Katuic: *dǝroom ~ *gǝroom "underneath" • Khmu: kn(d)ruum *krɔɔm • Mon: *krom *krɔɔm karoṃ, karom (Angkorian) karoṃ, karom, karomm (pre-Angkorian) *kǝrɔɔm, *kǝnrɔɔm, *krɔɔm (Mon). • Hmong–Mien languages • Hmongic: *gom *[kom]kom *krom (Mon) *krɔɔm. • Northern Thai and Lao: khom *krom (Mon) *krɔɔm. (Note: the term khom, sometimes used to refer to the Khmer period in Siam, from about 1000 CE to the latter half of the 13th century CE, which was subject to the Angkor empire.) and the term gywans used to refer to the Siam.) ==See also==