Đông Yên Châu inscription

The Đông Yên Châu inscription is a Cham inscription written in an Old Southern Brahmi script, found in 1936 at Đông Yên Châu, northwest of Trà Kiệu near the old Champa capital of Indrapura, Vietnam. The inscription was written in prose, is the oldest document of Cham, and testifies the existence of indigenous beliefs among the ancient Cham people of Champa kingdom. Though not itself dated, the phrasing of the inscription is identical with those of dated Sanskrit inscriptions of Bhadravarman I of the second dynasty, who ruled Champa at the end of the 4th century CE. It contains an imprecatory formula ordering respect for the "naga of the king", undoubtedly a reference to the protective divinity of a spring or well. This vernacular text shows that in the 4th century, the land which now constitutes modern day central Vietnam was inhabited by an Austronesian-speaking population. The evidence, both monumental and palaeographic, also suggests that Hinduism was the predominant religious system.

The fact that the language in the inscription shares some basic grammar and vocabulary with Malay has led some scholars to argue that the inscription contains the oldest specimen of Malay words in the form of Old Malay, older by three centuries than the earliest Srivijayan inscriptions from southeastern Sumatra. However, most scholars consider it established that this inscription was written in Old Cham instead. The shared basic grammar and vocabulary comes as no surprise, since Chamic and Malayic languages are closely related; both are the two subgroups of a Malayic–Chamic group within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family.