Cham has the oldest literary history of any Austronesian language . The Dong Yen Chau inscription , written in Old Cham , dates from the late 4th century AD.
17-470: The Cham people had their own script, known as the Cham script , which was used for inscriptions on temple walls, steles, and other surfaces. This script is descended from the ancient Indic scripts and is one of the distinguishing features of Cham culture. It has been used for religious and ceremonial purposes. Many Old Cham inscriptions have been found on archaeological sites in the areas that were once part of
34-640: A distinctive set of digits: Cham script was added to the Unicode Standard in April, 2008 with the release of version 5.1. The Unicode block for Cham is U+AA00–U+AA5F: Below is a sample text in Cham, in Rumi, Jawi, and Cham scripts. This text is the translation of a famous Vietnamese short poetry. Loss of money; Sad for a few days Loss of friends; Sad for a few months Loss of girlfriend; Sad for
51-683: A few years Loss of mother; Sad for life Lahik jiên; drut druy hadôm harei Lahik sabat; duk duy hadôm bilaan Lahik payô; padrut padruy hadôm thun Lahik Amêk; su-uk su-uôn ha umôr لحيء جييٛن؛ دروت دروي حدوٛم حغاٛي لحيء سباة؛ دوء دوي حدوٛم بيلآن لحيء فيوٛ؛ فدروت فدروي حدوٛم تهون لحيء أميٛء؛ سوعوء سوعووٛن ها عوموٛر ꨤꨨꨪꩀ ꨎꨳꨯꨮꩆ ꨕꨴꨭꩅ ꨕꨴꨭꩈ ꨨꨕꨯꩌ ꨨꨣꨬ ꨤꨨꨪꩀ ꨧꨝꩅ ꨕꨭꩀ ꨕꨭꩈ ꨨꨕꨯꩌ ꨝꨪꨤꨩꩆ ꨤꨨꨪꩀ ꨚꨢꨯꨩ ꨚꨕꨴꨭꩅ ꨚꨕꨴꨭꩈ ꨨꨕꨯꩌ ꨔꨭꩆ ꨤꨨꨪꩀ ꨀꨟꨯꨮꩀ ꨧꨭꨂꩀ ꨧꨭꨂꨅꩆ ꨨꨩ ꨂꨟꨯꩉ Mất tiền; Buồn vài ngày Mất bạn; Buồn vài tháng Mất gấu; Buồn vài năm Mất mẹ; Buồn cả đời [REDACTED] Media related to Cham script at Wikimedia Commons Monosyllabic In linguistics ,
68-499: A longer tail on the right side to indicate the absence of a final vowel. Cham does not employ a virama to suppress vowels. Final consonants are indicated in one of three ways: an explicit final consonant letter, a combining diacritic mark, or by ꨥ . Six of the initial vowels are represented with unique letters: Other initial vowels are represented by adding a diacritic to the letter ꨀ (a). The same diacritics are used with consonants to change their inherent vowel: Cham has
85-570: A temple complex dating from c. 300 CE to c. 1200 CE. The oldest inscription is written in faulty Sanskrit. After this, inscriptions alternate between Sanskrit and the Cham language of the times. Cham kings studied classical Indian texts, such as the Dharmaśāstra , and inscriptions make reference to Sanskrit literature . Eventually, while the Cham and Sanskrit languages influenced one another, Cham culture assimilated Hinduism, and Chams were eventually able to adequately express
102-472: Is available. The script is highly valued in Cham culture, but this does not mean that many people are learning it. There have been efforts to simplify the spelling and to promote learning the script, but these have met with limited success. Traditionally, boys learned the script around the age of twelve when they were old and strong enough to tend to the water buffalo. However, women and girls did not typically learn to read. The traditional Indic Cham script
119-742: Is still known and used by Vietnam's Eastern Cham but no longer by the Western Cham. Similar to other abugidas, the consonants of Cham have the inherent vowel. Dependent vowel diacritics are used to modify the inherent vowel. Since Cham does not have virāma , special characters should be used for pure consonants. This practice is similar to the chillu consonants of the Malayalam script . Most consonant letters, such as [b] , [t] , or [p] , include an inherent vowel [a] which does not need to be written. The nasal stops , [m] , [n] , [ɲ] , and [ŋ] (the latter two transliterated ny and ng in
136-762: Is written horizontally left to right, just like other Brahmic abugidas. The Cham script is a descendant of the Brahmi script of India. Cham was one of the first scripts to develop from the Pallava script , this happened in the mid 350s CE. It came to Southeast Asia as part of the expansion of Hinduism and Buddhism . Hindu stone temples of the Champa civilization contain both Sanskrit and Chamic language stone inscriptions. The earliest inscriptions in Vietnam are found in Mỹ Sơn ,
153-537: The Champa kingdom . These inscriptions provide valuable insights into the history, religion, and society of the Champa people. Some of the inscriptions are written in the Cham script, and others are in Sanskrit . Old Cham originated from Proto-Chamic languages, however under cultural influence from India , it was greatly influenced by Sanskrit . Old Cham was closely tied to the cultural and religious practices of
170-458: The Cham language, and the Cham script is still used for certain ceremonial and religious purposes. This Austronesian languages -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Cham script The Cham script ( Cham : ꨀꨇꩉ ꨌꩌ)is a Brahmic abugida used to write Cham , an Austronesian language spoken by some 245,000 Chams in Vietnam and Cambodia . It
187-528: The Cham script: Akhar Thrah (Eastern Cham) and Akhar Srak (Western Cham). The two are distinct enough to be encoded in separate blocks, the Eastern Cham block included in Unicode Standard version 5.1 since March 2008, the Western Cham block approved but still awaiting inclusion as of late 2023. A standard ALA-LC romanization of both varieties, which is based on EFEO romanization of Cham,
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#1732765893513204-500: The Champa Kingdom. Inscriptions often contain information about religious rituals, temple dedications, and the deeds of rulers. Sanskrit, as well as Old Cham, was used in religious texts and inscriptions. In addition, the names of Champa principalities such as: Indrapura , Amaravati , Vijaya , Kauthara , Panduranga are Cham words of Sanskrit origin. As the Champa kingdom faced external pressures and eventual annexation by
221-715: The Hindu religion in their own language. By the 8th century, the Cham script had outgrown Sanskrit and the Cham language was in full use. Most preserved manuscripts focus on religious rituals, epic battles and poems, and myths. Modern Chamic languages have the Southeast Asian areal features of monosyllabicity , tonality , and glottalized consonants . However, they had reached the Southeast Asia mainland disyllabic and non-tonal. The script needed to be altered to meet these changes. The Cham now live in two groups:
238-488: The Latin alphabet) are exceptions, and have an inherent vowel [ɨ] (transliterated â ). A diacritic called kai, which does not occur with the other consonants, is added below a nasal consonant to write the [a] vowel. Cham words contain vowel and consonant-vowel (V and CV) syllables, apart from the last, which may also be CVC. There are a few characters for final consonants in the Cham script; other consonants merely extend
255-621: The Vietnamese. The division of Cham into Western and Phan Rang Cham immediately followed the Vietnamese overthrow of the last Cham polity. The Western Cham people are mostly Muslim and therefore prefer the Arabic script . The Eastern Cham are mostly Hindu and continued to use the Indic script. During French colonial times, both groups had to use the Latin alphabet . There are two varieties of
272-459: The Western Cham of Cambodia and the Eastern Cham (Panduranga/Phan Rang Cham) of Vietnam. For the first millennium AD, the Chamic languages were a dialect chain along the Vietnam coast. The breakup of this chain into distinct languages occurred once the Vietnamese pushed south, causing most Cham to move back into the highlands while some like Phan Rang Cham became a part of the lowland society ruled by
289-585: The expanding Vietnamese state , the use of the Old Cham language declined. The language underwent changes and adaptations, and the Cham people became increasingly influenced by the dominant culture of the region. While the Old Cham language is not commonly spoken in its original form today, elements of it have survived in the contemporary Cham language, which is still spoken by Cham communities in Cambodia and Vietnam . Efforts are made to preserve and revitalize
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