Harman Patil (Editor)

Chamic languages

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ISO 639-2 / 5:
  
cmc

Glottolog:
  
cham1327

Geographic distribution:
  
Indonesia (Aceh), Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, China (Hainan Island), various countries with recent immigrants

Linguistic classification:
  
Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (MP) Nuclear MP Malayo-Sumbawan Chamic

Subdivisions:
  
Acehnese Coastal Highlands

The Chamic languages, also known as Aceh–Chamic and Achinese–Chamic, are a group of ten languages spoken in Aceh (Sumatra, Indonesia) 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.

Contents

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

Due to extensive borrowing resulting from long-term contact, Chamic and the Bahnaric languages - a branch of the Austroasiatic family - have many vocabulary items in common.

Classification

Graham Thurgood (1999:36) gives the following classification for the Chamic languages. Individual languages are marked by italics.

  • Acehnese
  • Coastal Chamic
  • Haroi
  • Cham language (Vietnamese: Chăm)
  • Western Cham
  • Phan Rang Cham
  • Highlands Chamic
  • Rade–Jarai
  • Rade (Vietnamese: Ê-đê)
  • Jarai (Vietnamese: Gia Rai)
  • Chru–Northern
  • Chru (Vietnamese: Chu Ru)
  • Northern Cham
  • Roglai (Vietnamese: Ra Glai)
  • Tsat
  • The Proto-Chamic numerals from 7 to 9 are shared with those of the Malayan languages, providing partial evidence for a Malayo-Chamic subgrouping (Thurgood 1999:37).

    Roger Blench (2009) also proposes that there may have been at least one other Austroasiatic 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 (Blench 2009; Sidwell 2006).

    Reconstruction

    The Proto-Chamic reconstructed below is from Graham Thurgood's 1999 publication From Ancient Cham to Modern Dialects.

    Consonants

    The following table of Proto-Chamic presyllabic consonants are from Thurgood (1999:68). There are a total of 13-14 presyllabic consonants depending on whether or not ɲ 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 (Thurgood 1999:93): *pl-, *bl-, *kl-, *gl-, *pr-, *tr-, *kr-, *br-, *dr-.

    Vowels

    There are 4 vowels (*-a, *-i, *-u, and *-e, or alternatively *-ə) and 3 diphthongs (*-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 (Thurgood 1999:247-248):

    Singular

  • *kəu – I (familiar)
  • *hulun – I (polite); slave
  • *dahlaʔ – I (polite)
  • *hã – you; thou
  • *ñu – he, she; they
  • Plural

  • *kaməi – we (exclusive)
  • *ta – we (inclusive)
  • *drəi – we (inclusive); reflexive
  • *gəp – other; group (borrowed from Austroasiatic languages)
  • References

    Chamic languages Wikipedia