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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 490,000 speakers.[1]
| Cham | |
|---|---|
| ꨌꩌ چم | |
 'Cham' in Cham script | |
| Pronunciation | [cam] |
| Native to | Cambodia and Vietnam |
| Region | Mainland Southeast Asia |
| Ethnicity | Cham |
Native speakers | 490,000 (2019)[1] |
Early forms | |
| Dialects |
|
| Cham, Jawi (Arabic), Latin | |
| Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:cja – Western Chamcjm – Eastern Cham |
| Glottolog | cham1328 |
| ELP | Eastern Cham |
 | |
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.
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Ancient roots
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. Old Cham is an Austronesian language and has the oldest written evidence of the family, namely the Đông Yên Châu inscription created around 350 AD.[3]
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. Cham language is also still spoken by a small community of Laotian Chams with Laotian influences.
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.
The persecution of the Cham people in Cambodia by Pol Pot in the 1970s also had a negative impact on the development of the Cham language. They became afraid to show their identity, even through their language, after their language and community almost went extinct.[4]
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The Cham language dialects each have 21 consonants and 9 vowels.[5]
Consonants
Vowels
Monophthongs
Diphthongs
/ia/, /iɯ/ (occurs only before /-ʔ/), /ea/, /ua/, /oa/, /au/ (occurs only before /-ʔ/), /iə/, /ɛə/, /ɔə/, /uə/.
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Cham languages are generally classified into two, Western Cham and Eastern Cham. These languages eventually separated from each other to the point where level mutual understanding was quite low. Because of this diversity, the Cham language is currently divided into several dialects.
Eastern Cham
Eastern Cham (Phan Rang Cham) is mainly spoken on the south central coast of Vietnam, in the provinces of Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận significantly, also in the provinces of Đồng Nai, Bình Định, Khánh Hòa, Phú Yên, Quảng Ngãi, to the northernmost traditional distribution in Quảng Nam.
Western Cham
Western Cham is primarily spoken in Cambodia, especially near Phnom Penh, around the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. Then also in the southern part of Vietnam, especially in An Giang. Here are some of the dialects.
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 | This section needs to be updated. (August 2013) |
Word formation
There are several prefixes and infixes which can be used for word derivation.[9]
- 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
- jru (poison) → mâjru (to poison)
- gru (teacher) → mâgru (to study)
- tian (belly) → mâtian (pregnancy)
- boh (egg, fruit) → mâboh (lay an egg, give fruit)
- daké (horn) → mâdaké (having horns)
- prefix ta- or da-: frequentative
- galung (to roll) → tagalung (to roll around)
- dep (to hide oneself) → dadep (to be wont to hide oneself)
- infix -an-: noun formation
- puec (to speak) → panuec (speech)
- tiw (row) → taniw (oar)
- dok (to live) → danok (house, living place)
- infix -mâ-: no specific meaning
- payao (to compare) → pamâyao (to compare)
Reduplication is often used:[9]
- palei, pala-palei (country)
- rambah, rambah-rambâp (misery)
Syntax and word order
Cham generally uses SVO word order, without any case marking to distinguish subject from object:[10]
Dahlak
I
atong
beat
nyu.
he
"I beat him."
Nyu
he
atong
beat
dahlak.
I
"He beats me."
Dummy pronominal subjects are sometimes used, echoing the subject:
Inâ hudiap dahlak
my wife's mother
nyu
she
atong
beat
adei puthang nyu.
her husband's younger sister
"My wife's mother beats her husband's younger sister."
Composite verbs will behave as one inseparable verb, having the object come after it:
Bloh
then
nyu
she
ndih di apvei
lie at fire (i.e.: give birth)
anek lakei.
son
"Then she gave birth to a son."
Sometimes, however, the verb is placed in front of the subject:
Lék
fall
dahlak.
I
"I fall."
Auxiliary verbs are placed after any objects:
Nyu
he
ba
bring
hudiap nyu
his wife
nao.
go
"He brings his wife."
If a sentence contains more than one main verb, one of the two will have an adverbial meaning:
Nyu
he
dep
hide
klaḥ
evade
mâtai.
death
"He evaded death by hiding."
Adjectives come after the nouns they modify:[11]
thang
house
praong
big
"a big house"
If the order is reversed, the whole will behave like a compound:
urang
person
praong
big
sap
noise
"a noisy person"
Composite sentences can be formed with the particle krung:[12]
tha drei athau tha drei mâyau
the dog and the cat
krung
which
ai nyu brei ka nyu
his brother gave him
"the dog and the cat his brother gave him"
nao tapak
to go straight
danao
lake
krung
which
ai that ikan
brother is fishing
"to go straight to the lake where his brother was fishing"
It is also possible to leave out this particle, without change in meaning:[10]
Dahlak brei athéh nan
I give this horse
ka wa dahlak
to my uncle
∅
who
dok dii palei Ram.
live in the village of Ram
"I have given this horse to my uncle, who lives in the village of Ram."
Questions are formed with the sentence-final particle rẽi:[13]
Anek
child
thau
know
wakhar
writing
rei?
Q
"Can you write, child?"
Other question words are in situ:
Hau
you
nao
go
hatao?
where
"Where are you going?"
Nominals
Like many languages in Eastern Asia, Cham uses numeral classifiers to express amounts.[14] 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
"five mountains"
palei
village
naṃ
six
boḥ
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.[15]
harei
day
tha
one
bangun
CLF
"first day after new moon"
harei
day
dua
two
klaṃ
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.[12]
Comparative and superlative are expressed with the locative preposition di/dii:[16]
tapa
big
di
at
ai nyu
his brother
"bigger than his brother"
Verbs
There are some particles that can be used to indicate tense/aspect.[17] 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
"I will go now."
The second one is sentence-final:
Sit tra
little more
kau
I
nao
go
jâ.
PRF
"I'll be gone in a moment."
Certain verbs can function as auxiliaries to express other tenses or aspects.[18] 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[19] in front.[17]
The imperative is formed with the sentence-final particle bék, and the negative imperative with the preverbal juai/juei (in Vietnam and Cambodia respectively).[17]
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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).[20][21]
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. Also used by the Laotian Chams in Vientiane and to a lesser extent in Champasak, Laos.
- 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.[22]
| 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)[23] 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.
- Chăm Hroi (population 4,000): in Phước Vân District (Bình Định Province), Đồng Xuân District (Phú Yên Province), and Tây Sơn District (Bình Định Province)
- Chàvà Ku, a mixed Malay-Khmer people in Châu Đốc
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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.[24][25]
Example text
ꨕꨨꨵꩀ ꨧꨮ ꨍꨯꩆ ꨇꩈ ꨟꨮꨭ ꨕꨮꩃ ꨆꩇ ꨨꩆ ꨨꩈ ꨕꩃ ꨕꨭ ꨟꨁꨁ ꨍꨭꨢꨮꩆ ꨚꩈ ꨔꩃ ꨣꩇ ꨆꨨꨁꨃꨂ ꨝꩆ ꨔꩆ ꨇꨯꩂ ꨍꨮꨭ ꨓꨮ ꨨꩃ ꨍꨮꨭ ꨆꨯ ꨟꨶꩆ ꨕꩈ ꨌꩌ
The Ming dynasty Chinese Bureau of Translators produced a Chinese-Cham dictionary.[citation needed]
John Crawfurd's 1822 work "Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin-China" contains a wordlist of the Cham language.[26]: 40
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