The Chamic languages, also known as Aceh–Chamic and Acehnese–Chamic, are a group of ten languages spoken in Aceh (Sumatra, Indonesia) and in parts of Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Hainan, China. The Chamic languages are a subgroup of Malayo-Polynesian 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 Formosa. The most widely spoken Chamic languages are Acehnese with 3.5 million speakers, Cham with about 280,000, and Jarai with about 230,000, in both Cambodia 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, a branch of the Austroasiatic family, to have many vocabulary items in common.

Classification

Graham Thurgood gives the following classification for the Chamic languages. Individual languages are marked by italics. 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 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.

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. 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-. Initial *n did not exist, it was replaced by *l instead (*nanaq → *lanah "pus").

Vowels

There are four vowels (*-a, *-i, *-u, and *-e, or alternatively -ə) and three diphthongs (-ay, *-uy, *-aw).

Morphology

Reconstructed Proto-Chamic morphological components are:

Pronouns

Proto-Chamic has the following personal pronouns: Singular Plural

Proto-Chamic and Chamic lexical correspondences

Proto-Chamic, Mainland Chamic, Acehnese and Malay comparative table: