Cham alphabet

Last updated
Cham
Type
Languages Cham
Time period
4th century–present [1]
Parent systems
DirectionLeft-to-right
ISO 15924 Cham, 358
Unicode alias
Cham
U+AA00–U+AA5F
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Closeup of the inscription on the Po Nagar stele, 965. The stele describes feats by the Champa kings. National Museum of Vietnamese History42.JPG
Closeup of the inscription on the Po Nagar stele, 965. The stele describes feats by the Champa kings.
A Champa manuscript recounting the social culture of the Cham community of the early 18th century Muzium Negara KL40.JPG
A Champa manuscript recounting the social culture of the Cham community of the early 18th century

The Cham alphabet is an abugida used to write Cham, an Austronesian language spoken by some 230,000 Chams in Vietnam and Cambodia. It is written horizontally left to right, as in English.

Abugida writing system

An abugida, or alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary. This contrasts with a full alphabet, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is absent, partial, or optional. The terms also contrast them with a syllabary, in which the symbols cannot be split into separate consonants and vowels. Abugidas include the extensive Brahmic family of scripts of South and Southeast Asia, Semitic Ethiopic scripts, and Canadian Aboriginal syllabics.

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, on Hainan (Tsat) and in Aceh, North Sumatra (Acehnese). Cham is notable for being the oldest-attested Austronesian language, with the Dong Yen Chau inscription being dated to the late 4th century AD.

Austronesian languages language family of Southeast Asia and the Pacific

The Austronesian languages are a language family that is widely dispersed throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, Madagascar and the islands of the Pacific Ocean, with a few members in continental Asia. Austronesian languages are spoken by about 386 million people (4.9%), making it the fifth-largest language family by number of speakers. Major Austronesian languages with the highest number of speakers are Malay, Javanese, and Filipino (Tagalog). The family contains 1,257 languages, which is the second most of any language family.

Contents

History

The Cham script is a descendant of the Brahmi script of India. Cham was one of the first scripts to develop from a Tamil Brahmi script called the Grantha alphabet some time around 200 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. [2] The earliest inscriptions in Vietnam are found in Mỹ Sơn, a temple complex dated to around 400 CE. The oldest inscription is written in faulty Sanskrit. After this, inscriptions alternate between Sanskrit and the Cham language of the times. [3]

Brahmi script ancient script of Central and South Asia

Brahmi, developed in the mid-1st millennium BCE, is the oldest known writing system of Ancient India, with the possible exception of the undeciphered Indus script. Brahmi is an abugida that thrived in the Indian subcontinent and uses a system of diacritical marks to associate vowels with consonant symbols. It evolved into a host of other scripts, called the Brahmic scripts, that continue to be in use today in South and Central Asia.

Hinduism is an Indian religion and dharma, or way of life, widely practised in the Indian subcontinent and parts of Southeast Asia. Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, and some practitioners and scholars refer to it as Sanātana Dharma, "the eternal tradition", or the "eternal way", beyond human history. Scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no founder. This "Hindu synthesis" started to develop between 500 BCE and 300 CE, after the end of the Vedic period, and flourished in the medieval period, with the decline of Buddhism in India.

Buddhism World religion, founded by the Buddha

Buddhism is the world's fourth-largest religion with over 520 million followers, or over 7% of the global population, known as Buddhists. Buddhism encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on original teachings attributed to the Buddha and resulting interpreted philosophies. Buddhism originated in ancient India as a Sramana tradition sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, spreading through much of Asia. Two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars: Theravada and Mahayana.

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 adequately express the Hindu religion in their own language. [3] By the 8th century, the Cham script had outgrown Sanskrit and the Cham language was in full use. [4] Most preserved manuscripts focus on religious rituals, epic battles and poems, and myths. [3]

Dharmaśāstra is a genre of Sanskrit theological texts, and refers to the treatises (shastras) of Hinduism on dharma. There are many Dharmashastras, variously estimated to be 18 to about 100, with different and conflicting points of view. Each of these texts exist in many different versions, and each is rooted in Dharmasutras texts dated to 1st millennium BCE that emerged from Kalpa (Vedanga) studies in the Vedic era.

Sanskrit literature body of Indic literature

Sanskrit literature refers to texts composed in Sanskrit language since the 2nd-millennium BCE. Many of the prominent texts are associated with Indian religions, i.e., Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and were composed in ancient India. However, others were composed central, East or Southeast Asia and the canon includes works covering secular sciences and the arts. Early works of Sanskrit literature were transmitted through an oral tradition for centuries before they were written down in manuscript form.

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. [2]

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation, but not all languages use tones to distinguish words or their inflections, analogously to consonants and vowels. Languages that do have this feature are called tonal languages; the distinctive tone patterns of such a language are sometimes called tonemes, by analogy with phoneme. Tonal languages are common in East and Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Africa, and the Americas; as many as seventy percent of world languages may be tonal.

Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice. Glottalization of obstruent consonants usually involves complete closure of the glottis; another way to describe this phenomenon is to say that a glottal stop is made simultaneously with another consonant. In certain cases, the glottal stop can even wholly replace the voiceless consonant. The term 'glottalized' is also used for ejective and implosive consonants; see glottalic consonant for examples.

The Cham now live in two groups: the Western Cham of Cambodia and the Eastern Cham (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 the Vietnamese. The division of Cham into Western and Phan Rang Cham immediately followed the Vietnamese overthrow of the last Cham polity. [2] Each uses a distinct variety of the script, although the former are mostly Muslim [5] and now prefer to use the Arabic alphabet. The latter are mostly Hindu and still use the Cham script. During French colonial times, both groups had to use the Latin alphabet.

The Chamic languages, also known as Aceh–Chamic and Achinese–Chamic, are a group of ten languages spoken in Aceh and in parts of Cambodia, Vietnam and Hainan, China. 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 Vietnam from Borneo or perhaps the Malay Peninsula.

Arabic alphabet alphabet codified for writing the Arabic language

The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing Arabic. It is written from right to left in a cursive style and includes 28 letters. Most letters have contextual letterforms.

Latin alphabet alphabet used to write the Latin language (more specific than Q8229: Latin alphabet)

The Latin or Roman alphabet is the writing system originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language.

Usage

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. [6] 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. [4] The traditional Indic Cham script is still known and used by Vietnam's Eastern Cham but no longer by the Western Cham. [7]

Structure

As an abugida, Cham writes individual consonants supplemented by obligatory vowel diacritics tacked onto the consonant.

The Eastern Cham script. Nasal consonants are shown both unmarked and with the diacritic kai. The vowel diacritics are shown next to a circle, which indicates their position relative to any of the consonants. Chamscript.png
The Eastern Cham script. Nasal consonants are shown both unmarked and with the diacritic kai. The vowel diacritics are shown next to a circle, which indicates their position relative to any of the consonants.

Most consonant letters, such as [b], [t], or [p], includes an inherent vowel [a] which does not need to be written. The nasal stops, [m], [n], [ɲ], and [ŋ] (the latter two transliterated nh and ng in the Latin alphabet) are exceptions, and have an inherent vowel [ɨ] (transliterated eu). A diacritic called kai, which does not occur with the other consonants, is added below a nasal consonant to write the [a] vowel. [4]

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 a longer tail on the right side to indicate the absence of a final vowel. [4]

Consonants

Consonant letters
kakhagaghaṅưṅacachajajhañưña
ꨆꨇꨈꨉꨊꨋꨌꨍꨎꨏꨐꨑ
ṇ̃atathadadhanưnaḍapappaphaba
ꨒꨓꨔꨕꨖꨗꨘꨙꨚꨛꨜꨝ
bhamưmaḅayaralavaśasaha
ꨞꨟꨠꨡꨢ ꨣꨤꨥꨦꨧꨨ

Medial consonants

Medial consonants
-ya-ra-rwa-la-lja-lwa-wa
diacritics◌ꨳ◌ꨴ◌ꨴꨶ◌ꨵ◌ꨵꨳ◌ꨵꨶ◌ꨶ
examplesꨆꨳ
kya		ꨆꨴ
kra		ꨈꨴꨶ
grwa		ꨆꨵ
kla		ꨆꨵꨳ
klya		ꨆꨵꨶ
klwa		ꨆꨶ
kwa

Final consonants

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.

Final consonant letters
-k-g-ṅ-ch-t-n-p-y-r-l-ś
ꩀꩁꩂꩄꩅꩆꩇꩈꩉꩊꩋ
Final consonant diacritics
-ng-m-h
diacritics◌ꩃ◌ꩌ◌ꩍ
shown withꨌ(cha)ꨌꩃꨌꩌꨌꩍ

Independent vowels

Six of the initial vowels are represented with unique letters: [8]

Independent Cham vowels
aiueaio
ꨀꨁꨂꨃꨄꨅ

Dedependent vowels

Other initial vowels are represented by adding a diacritic to the letter ꨀ (a). [8] The same diacritics are used with consonants to change their inherent vowel:

Dependent Cham vowels
-ā-i-ī-ei-u-ū-ơ-ơ̄
diacritics◌ꨩ◌ꨪ◌ꨫ◌ꨬ◌ꨭ◌ꨭꨩ◌ꨮ◌ꨮꨩ
shown withꨆ(ka)ꨆꨩꨆꨪꨆꨫꨆꨬꨆꨭꨆꨭꨩꨆꨮꨆꨮꨩ
-e-ē-o-ō-ai-au-ư-ư̄
diacriticsꨯꨮꨯꨮꨩꨯꨯꨩꨰꨯꨱ◌ꨲ◌ꨲꨩ
shown withꨆ(ka)ꨆꨯꨮꨆꨯꨮꨩꨆꨯꨆꨯꨩꨆꨰꨆꨯꨱꨆꨲꨆꨲꨩ

Numbers

Cham has a distinctive set of digits: [8]

0123456789
꩐꩑꩒꩓꩔꩕꩖꩗꩘꩙

Punctuation

Three levels of text breaks can be marked with dandas, with progressive values of finality: ꩝, ꩞, and ꩟. [8] ꩞? can optionally be used to mark a question.

A spiral (꩜) can mark the beginning of a section. Sometimes it is combined with a danda: ꩝꩜.

European punctuation marks like hypen and colon have also found their way into Cham writing.

Unicode

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:

Cham [1] [2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+AA0xꨀꨁꨂꨃꨄꨅꨆꨇꨈꨉꨊꨋꨌꨍꨎꨏ
U+AA1xꨐꨑꨒꨓꨔꨕꨖꨗꨘꨙꨚꨛꨜꨝꨞꨟ
U+AA2xꨠꨡꨢꨣꨤꨥꨦꨧꨨꨩꨪꨫꨬꨭꨮꨯ
U+AA3xꨰꨱꨲꨳꨴꨵꨶ
U+AA4xꩀꩁꩂꩃꩄꩅꩆꩇꩈꩉꩊꩋꩌꩍ
U+AA5x꩐꩑꩒꩓꩔꩕꩖꩗꩘꩙꩜꩝꩞꩟
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 12.0
2. ^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

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References

  1. ↑ Marrison 1975, pp. 52-59.
  2. 1 2 3 Thurgood, Graham. From Ancient Cham to Modern Dialects: Two Thousand Years of Language Contact and Change. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999.
  3. 1 2 3 Claude, Jacques. “The Use of Sanskrit in the Khmer and Cham Inscriptions.” In Sanskrit Outside India (Vol. 7, pp. 5-12). Leiden: Panels of the VIIth World Sanskrit Conference. 1991.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Blood, Doris E. "The Script as a Cohesive Factor in Cham Society". In Notes from Indochina on ethnic minority cultures. Ed. Marilyn Gregerson. 1980 p35-44.
  5. ↑ Trankell & Ovesen 2004
  6. ↑ Blood 1980a,b, 2008, Brunelle 2008.
  7. ↑ Akbar Husain, Wim Swann Horizons of Spiritual Psychology 2009 - Page 28 "The traditional Cham script, based on an Indian script, is still known and used by the Eastern Cham in Vietnam, but it has been lost by the Western Cham. The Cham language is also non-tonal. Words may contain one, two, or three syllables."
  8. 1 2 3 4 Everson, Michael (2006-08-06). "Proposal for encoding the Cham script in the BMP of the UCS" (PDF).

Literature

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