The Chamic languages, also known as Aceh–Chamic and Achinese–Chamic, are a group of ten languages spoken in

Aceh Aceh ( ), officially the Aceh Province ( ace, Nanggroë Acèh; id, Provinsi Aceh) is the westernmost province of Indonesia. It is located on the northernmost of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capital and largest city. Granted a ...

(

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

) and in parts of

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...

and

Hainan Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. The Chamic languages are a subgroup of Malayo-Sumbawan languages in the Austronesian family. The ancestor of this subfamily, proto-Chamic, is associated with the Sa Huỳnh culture, its speakers arriving in what is now

from

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and e ...

or perhaps the

Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula ( Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The ar ...

. After Acehnese, with 3.5 million, Jarai and Cham are the most widely spoken Chamic languages, with about 230,000 and 280,000 speakers respectively, in both

and Vietnam. Tsat is the most northern and least spoken, with only 3000 speakers.

History

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. Extensive borrowing resulting from long-term contact have caused Chamic and the

Bahnaric languages The Bahnaric languages are a group of about thirty Austroasiatic languages spoken by about 700,000 people in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Paul Sidwell notes that Austroasiatic/ Mon–Khmer languages are lexically more similar to Bahnaric and K ...

, a branch of the Austroasiatic family, to have many vocabulary items in common.

Classification

Graham Thurgood Graham Thurgood () is a retired professor of linguistics at California State University, Chico. Thurgood graduated with a Ph.D. in linguistics from University of California, Berkeley, where he studied under James Matisoff. Thurgood's areas o ...

gives the following classification for the Chamic languages. Individual languages are marked by ''italics''. *'' Acehnese'' *Coastal Chamic **'' Haroi'' ** Cham language ( vi, Chăm) ***''Western Cham'' ***''Phan Rang Cham'' *Highlands Chamic **Rade–Jarai ***'' Rade'' ( vi, Ê-đê) ***'' Jarai'' ( vi, Gia Rai) **Chru–Northern ***'' Chru'' ( vi, Chu Ru) ***Northern Cham ****'' Roglai'' ( vi, Ra Glai) ****'' Tsat'' The Proto-Chamic numerals from 7 to 9 are shared with those of the Malayic languages, providing partial evidence for a Malayo-Chamic subgrouping.

Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and w ...

also proposes that there may have been at least one other

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...

branch in coastal Vietnam that is now extinct, based on various Austroasiatic loanwords in modern-day Chamic languages that cannot be clearly traced to existing Austroasiatic branches.

Reconstruction

The Proto-Chamic reconstructed below is from

's 1999 publication ''From Ancient Cham to Modern Dialects''.

Consonants

The following table of Proto-Chamic presyllabic consonants are from Thurgood. There are a total of 13–14 presyllabic consonants depending on whether or not * is counted. Non-presyllabic consonants include *ʔ, *ɓ, *ɗ, *ŋ, *y, *w. Aspirated consonants are also reconstructable for Proto-Chamic. The following consonant clusters are reconstructed for Proto-Chamic: *pl-, *bl-, *kl-, *gl-, *pr-, *tr-, *kr-, *br-, *dr-.

Vowels

There are four vowels (*-a, *-i, *-u, and *-e, or alternatively *-ə) and three

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

s (*-ay, *-uy, *-aw).

Morphology

Reconstructed Proto-Chamic morphological components are: * *tə-: the "inadvertent" prefix * *mə-: common verb prefix * *pə-: causative prefix * *bɛʔ-: negative imperative prefix (borrowed from Austroasiatic languages) * *-əm-: nominalizing infix * *-ən-: instrumental infix (borrowed from Austroasiatic languages)

Pronouns

Proto-Chamic has the following personal pronouns: Singular * – 'I' (familiar) * – 'I' (polite); 'slave' * – 'I' (polite) * – 'you; thou' * – 'he, she; they' Plural * – 'we' (exclusive) * – 'we' (inclusive) * – 'we' (inclusive); reflexive * – other; group (borrowed from Austroasiatic languages)