Cham language

Not to be confused with Cham-Mona language.

Cham
Pronunciation	[caːm]
Native to	Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, China (Hainan Island), various countries with recent immigrants
Native speakers	320,000 (2002 – 2008 census)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian Malayo-Sumbawan Chamic Coastal Cham
Dialects	Western Cham (204,000) Eastern Cham (73,000)
Writing system	Cham alphabet (Vietnam), Arabic (Cambodia)
Official status
Official language in	none, recognised as a minority language in Cambodia and Vietnam
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: cja – Western Cham cjm – Eastern Cham
Glottolog	cham1328

Cham is the language of the Cham people of Southeast Asia, and formerly the language of the kingdom of Champa in central Vietnam. A member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family, it is spoken by 204,000 people in Cambodia and 79,000 people in Vietnam. There are also small populations of speakers in Thailand and Malaysia. Other Chamic languages are spoken in Cambodia and/or Vietnam (Raglai, Rade, Jarai, Chru and Haroi), on Hainan (Tsat) and in Aceh, North Sumatra (Acehnese).

Dialectal differences

Cham is divided into two primary dialects. Western Cham is spoken by the Cham in Cambodia as well as in the adjacent Vietnamese provinces of An Giang and Tây Ninh. Eastern Cham is spoken by the coastal Cham populations 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 Muslim (although some in Cambodia now practice Theravada Buddhism) and use either the Arabic script or the Western version of the Cham alphabet while the Eastern Cham practice both Islam and Hinduism and use the Eastern version of the Cham alphabet. Ethnologue states that the two dialects are no longer mutually intelligible. The table below gives some examples of words where the two dialects differed as of the 19th century.

	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

Grammar

Word formation

There are several prefixes and infixes which can be used for word derivation.

• prefix pa-: causative, sometimes giving more force to the word
  • thău (to know) → pathău (to inform)
  • blẽi (to buy) → pablẽi (to sell)
  • bier (low) → pabier (to lower)
  • yău (like, as) → payău (to compare)
  • jœû (finished) → pajœû (well finished)
• prefix mœ-: sometimes causative, often indicates a state, possession, mutuality, reciprocity
  • jruu (poison) → mœjruu (to poison)
  • gruu (teacher) → mœgruu (to study)
  • téan (belly) → mœtéan (pregnancy)
  • boḥ (egg, fruit) → mœboḥ (lay an egg, give fruit)
  • daké (horn) → mœdaké (having horns)
• prefix ta- or da-: frequentative
  • galuṇg (to roll) → tagaluṇg (to roll around)
  • dâp (to hide oneself) → dadâp (to be wont to hide oneself)
• infix -n-: noun formation
  • pvâch (to speak) → panvâch (speech)
  • tiêu (row) → taniêu (oar)
  • dok (to live) → danok (house, living place)
• infix -mœ-: no specific meaning
  • payău (to compare) → pamœyău (to compare)

Reduplication is often used:

• palẽi, pala-palẽi (country)
• raḅaḥ, raḅaḥ-raḅœp (misery)

Syntax and word order

Cham generally uses SVO word order, without any case marking to distinguish subject from object:

Dahlak	atong	nhu.
I	beat	he
I beat him.

Nhu	atong	dahlak.
he	beat	I
He beats me.

Dummy pronominal subjects are sometimes used, echoing the subject:

Inœû hudiêp dahlak	nhu	atong	adẽi puthang nhu.
my wife's mother	she	beat	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:

Bloḥ	nhu	ḍiḥ dii apvẽi	anẽk lakẽi.
then	she	lie at fire (i.e.: give birth)	son
"Then she gave birth to a son."

Sometimes, however, the verb is placed in front of the subject:

Lêk	dahlak.
fall	I
"I fall."

Auxiliary verbs are placed after any objects:

Nhu	ba	hudiêp nhu	nau.
he	bring	his wife	go
"He brings his wife."

If a sentence contains more than one main verb, one of the two will have an adverbial meaning:

Nhu	dâp	klaḥ	mœtai.
he	hide	evade	death
"He evaded death by hiding."

Adjectives come after the nouns they modify:

thang	prong
house	big
"a big house"

If the order is reversed, the whole will behave like a compound:

ôrang	prong	shap
person	big	noise
"a noisy person"

Composite sentences can be formed with the particle krung:

thaa drẽi athău thaa drẽi mœyău	krung	aï nhu brẽi kaa nhu
the dog and the cat	which	his brother gave him
"the dog and the cat his brother gave him"

nau tapak	danau	krung	aï that ikan
to go straight	lake	which	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:

Dahlak brẽi athêh nan	kaa va dahlak	∅	dok dii palẽi Ram.
I give this horse	to my uncle	who	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:

Anẽk	thău	vakhar	rẽi?
child	know	writing	q
"Can you write, child?"

Other question words are in situ:

Hẽû	nau	hatau?
you	go	where
"Where are you going?"

Nominals

Like many languages in Eastern Asia, Cham uses numeral classifiers to express amounts. The classifier will always come after the numeral, with the noun coming invariably before or after the classifier-numeral pair.

limœû	boḥ	chœk
five	clf	mountain
"five mountains"

palẽi	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.

harẽi	thaa	bangun
day	one	clf
"first day after new moon"

harẽi	dvaa	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.

Comparative and superlative are expressed with the locative preposition di/dii:

tapaa	di	aï nhu
big	at	his brother
"bigger than his brother"

Verbs

There are some particles that can be used to indicate tense/aspect. The future is indicated with shi or thi in Vietnam, with hi or si in Cambodia. The perfect is expressed with jϞ. The first one comes in front of the verb:

Arak ni	kău	shi	nao.
now	I	fut	go
"I will go now."

The second one is sentence-final:

Shit traa	kău	nao	jœû.
little more	I	go	prf
"I'll be gone in a moment."

Certain verbs can function as auxiliaries to express other tenses or aspects. The verb dok ("to stay") is used for the continuous, vœk ("to return") for the repetitive aspect, and kiœng ("to want") for the future tense.

The negation is formed with ôh/ô at either or both sides of the verb, or with di/dii in front.

The imperative is formed with the sentence-final particle bêk, and the negative imperative with the preverbal jvai/jvẽi (in Vietnam and Cambodia respectively).

See also

• Cham script
• Cham people
• Champa kingdom

Further reading

• Aymonier, Etienne and Antoine Cabaton (1906). Dictionnaire Cam-Français. Paris: Leroux.
• 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., and C. O. Blagden. 1939. “A Chinese Vocabulary of Cham Words and Phrases”. Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London 10 (1). Cambridge University Press: 53–91. http://www.jstor.org/stable/607926.
• Moussay, Gerard (1971). Dictionnaire Cam-Vietnamien-Français. Phan Rang: Centre Culturel Cam.