Cham (Cham: ꨌꩌ, Jawi: چم, Latin script: Cam) is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the Austronesian family, spoken by the Chams of Southeast Asia. It is spoken primarily in the territory of the former Kingdom of Champa, which spanned modern Southern Vietnam, as well as in Cambodia by a significant population which descends from refugees that fled during the decline and fall of Champa. The Western variety is spoken by 220,000 people in Cambodia and 25,000 people in Vietnam. As for the Eastern variety, there are about 73,000 speakers in Vietnam,[2] for a total of approximately 491,448 speakers.[1]
Cham belongs to the Chamic languages, which are spoken in parts of mainland Southeast Asia, Indonesia's Aceh Province, and on the island of Hainan. Cham is the oldest-attested Austronesian language, with the Đông Yên Châu inscription being verifiably dated to the late 4th century AD. It has several dialects, with Eastern Cham (Phan Rang Cham; ꨌꩌ ꨚꨰ, Cam pai) and Western Cham (ꨌꩌ ꨚꨭꩉ, Cam pur) being the main ones. The Cham script, derived from the ancient Indic script, is still used for ceremonial and religious purposes.
The Cham people are believed to be descendants of the Champa Kingdom, which was a powerful and influential kingdom that flourished in what is now central and southern Vietnam from around the 2nd to the 17th century. The Champa Kingdom had a distinctive culture and language that set the Cham people apart from their neighbors.
Champa Kingdom
The Champa Kingdom played a significant role in regional trade and cultural exchange, interacting with neighboring civilizations such as the Khmer Empire, the Dai Viet (Vietnamese), and others. The Cham people developed their own script, known as Cham script, which was used for inscriptions and religious texts.
Decline of Champa
The decline of the Champa Kingdom began in the 15th century, and by the 17th century, it had been absorbed by the expanding Vietnamese state. This period marked significant cultural and linguistic changes for the Cham people as they came under the influence of the dominant Vietnamese culture.
Cham Diaspora
As a result of historical events, including wars and the annexation of Champa by Vietnam, the Cham people faced displacement. Some migrated to Cambodia, where they established communities, while others remained in Vietnam. The Cham language underwent changes and adaptations as the Cham people interacted with the cultures of their new environments.
Modern Challenges
In the contemporary era, the Cham language faces challenges such as assimilation, linguistic shifts, and the influence of dominant languages in the regions where Cham communities reside. Efforts are being made to preserve and revitalize the Cham language, including cultural programs, educational initiatives, and documentation of the language.
Phonology
The Cham language dialects each have 21 consonants and 9 vowels.[3]
/ia/, /iɯ/ (occurs only before /-ʔ/), /ea/, /ua/, /oa/, /au/ (occurs only before /-ʔ/), /iə/, /ɛə/, /ɔə/, /uə/.
Grammar
This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Last update: uses sources from the 19th century(August 2013)
Word formation
There are several prefixes and infixes which can be used for word derivation.[5]
prefix pa-: causative, sometimes giving more force to the word
thau (to know) → pathau (to inform)
blei (to buy) → pablei (to sell)
biér (low) → pabiér (to lower)
yao (like, as) → payao (to compare)
jâ (finished) → pajâ (well finished)
prefix mâ-: sometimes causative, often indicates a state, possession, mutuality, reciprocity
Like many languages in Eastern Asia, Cham uses numeral classifiers to express amounts.[10] The classifier will always come after the numeral, with the noun coming invariably before or after the classifier-numeral pair.
limâ
five
boḥ
CLF
châk
mountain
limâ boḥ châk
five CLF mountain
"five mountains"
palei
village
naṃ
six
boḥ
CLF
palei naṃ boḥ
village six CLF
"six villages"
The above examples show the classifier boḥ, which literally means "egg" and is the most frequently used — particularly for round and voluminous objects. Other classifiers are ôrang (person) for people and deities, ḅêk for long objects, blaḥ (leaf) for flat objects, and many others.
The days of the month are counted with a similar system, with two classifiers: one (bangun) used to count days before the full moon, and the other one (ranaṃ) for days after the full moon.[11]
harei
day
tha
one
bangun
CLF
harei tha bangun
day one CLF
"first day after new moon"
harei
day
dua
two
klaṃ
CLF
harei dua klaṃ
day two CLF
"second day after full moon"
Personal pronouns behave like ordinary nouns and do not show any case distinctions. There are different forms depending on the level of politeness. The first person singular, for example, is kău in formal or distant context, while it is dahlak (in Vietnam) or hulun (in Cambodia) in an ordinarily polite context. As is the case with many other languages of the region, kinship terms are often used as personal pronouns.[8]
There are some particles that can be used to indicate tense/aspect.[13] The future is indicated with si or thi in Vietnam, with hi or si in Cambodia. The perfect is expressed with jâ. The first one comes in front of the verb:
Arak ni
now
kau
I
si
FUT
nao.
go
{Arak ni} kau si nao.
now I FUT go
"I will go now."
The second one is sentence-final:
Sit tra
little more
kau
I
nao
go
jâ.
PRF
{Sit tra} kau nao jâ.
{little more} I go PRF
"I'll be gone in a moment."
Certain verbs can function as auxiliaries to express other tenses or aspects.[14] The verb dok ("to stay") is used for the continuous, wâk ("to return") for the repetitive aspect, and kieng ("to want") for the future tense.
The negation is formed with oh/o at either or both sides of the verb, or with di/dii[15] in front.[13]
The imperative is formed with the sentence-final particle bék, and the negative imperative with the preverbal juai/juei (in Vietnam and Cambodia respectively).[13]
Sociolinguistics
Diglossia
Brunelle observed two phenomena of language use among speakers of Eastern Cham: They are both diglossic and bilingual (in Cham and Vietnamese). Diglossia is the situation where two varieties of a language are used in a single language community, and oftentimes one is used on formal occasions (labelled H) and the other is more colloquial (labelled L).[16][17]
Dialectal differences
Cham is divided into two primary dialects.
Western Cham: It is spoken by the Chams in Cambodia as well as in the adjacent Vietnamese provinces of An Giang and Tây Ninh.
Eastern Cham: It is spoken by the coastal Cham population in the Vietnamese provinces of Bình Thuận, Ninh Thuận, and Đồng Nai.
The two regions where Cham is spoken are separated both geographically and culturally. The more numerous Western Cham are predominantly Muslims (although some in Cambodia now practice Theravāda Buddhism), while the Eastern Cham practice both Hinduism and Islam. Ethnologue states that the Eastern and Western dialects are no longer mutually intelligible. The table below gives some examples of words where the two dialects differed as of the 19th century.[18]
Cambodia
southern Vietnam
vowels
child
anœk
anẽk
take
tuk
tôk
not
jvẽi
jvai
sibilants
one
sa
tha
save from drowning
srong
throng
salt
sara
shara
equal
samu
hamu
final consonants
heavy
trap
trak
in front
anap
anak
lexical differences
market
pasa
darak
hate
amoḥ
limuk
Lê et al. (2014:175)[19] lists a few Cham subgroups.
Chăm Poông: in Thạnh Hiếu village, Phan Hiệp commune, Bắc Bình District, Bình Thuận Province. The Chăm Poông practice burial instead of cremation as the surrounding Cham do.
Cham script is a Brahmic script.[2] The script has two varieties: Akhar Thrah (Eastern Cham) and Akhar Srak (Western Cham). The Western Cham language is written with the Arabic script or the aforementioned Akhar Srak.[20][21]
^This happens to be homophonous with the locative preposition.
^Brunelle, Marc (2008). "Diglossia, Bilingualism, and the Revitalization of Written Eastern Cham". Language Documentation & Conservation. 2 (1): 28–46. hdl:10125/1848.
^Brunelle, Marc (2009). "Diglossia and Monosyllabization in Eastern Cham: A Sociolinguistic Study". In Stanford, J. N.; Preston, D. R. (eds.). Variation in Indigenous Minority Languages. John Benjamins. pp. 47–75.
^Lê Bá Thảo, Hoàng Ma, et. al; Viện hàn lâm khoa học xã hội Việt Nam - Viện dân tộc học. 2014. Các dân tộc ít người ở Việt Nam: các tỉnh phía nam. Ha Noi: Nhà xuất bản khoa học xã hội. ISBN978-604-90-2436-8
^Bruckmayr, Philipp (2019). "The Changing Fates of the Cambodian Islamic Manuscript Tradition". Journal of Islamic Manuscripts. 10 (1): 1–23. doi:10.1163/1878464X-01001001. S2CID167038700.
^Thurgood, Graham (1999). From Ancient Cham to Modern Dialects: Two Thousand Years of Language Contact and Change: With an Appendix of Chamic Reconstructions and Loanwords. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications. University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN0824821319. JSTOR20006770.
Blood, D. L., & Blood, D. (1977). East Cham language. Vietnam data microfiche series, no. VD 51-72. Huntington Beach, Calif: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Blood, D. L. (1977). A romanization of the Cham language in relation to the Cham script. Vietnam data microfiche series, no. VD51-17. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Edwards, E. D.; Blagden, C. O. (1939). "A Chinese Vocabulary of Cham Words and Phrases". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. 10 (1): 53–91. JSTOR607926.
