Cham Language
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 100,000 people in Vietnam and up to 220,000 people in Cambodia (1992 estimate). There are also small populations of speakers in Thailand and Malaysia. Other Chamic languages are spoken in Vietnam (Raglai, Rhade, Jarai, Chru, H'roi) and on the Chinese island of Hainan (Tsat). Cham is related to the Malayo-Polynesian languages of Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, and the Philippines. It once had a much wider extent and possibly much larger number of speakers as it was the primary language of the Champa empire.
Read more about Cham Language: Dialectal Differences
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“Because language is the carrier of ideas, it is easy to believe that it should be very little else than such a carrier.”
—Louise Bogan (1897–1970)