Cham language

ia, iɯ (occurs only before -ʔ), ea, ua, oa, au (occurs only before -ʔ),

iə, ɛə, ɔə, uə.

There are several prefixes and infixes which can be used for word derivation.[4]

• prefix pa-: causative, sometimes giving more force to the word
  • thău (to know) → pathău (to inform)
  • blẽi (to buy) → pablẽi (to sell)
  • bier (low) → pabier (to lower)
  • yău (like, as) → payău (to compare)
  • jœû (finished) → pajœû (well finished)
• prefix mœ-: sometimes causative, often indicates a state, possession, mutuality, reciprocity
  • jruu (poison) → mœjruu (to poison)
  • gruu (teacher) → mœgruu (to study)
  • téan (belly) → mœtéan (pregnancy)
  • boḥ (egg, fruit) → mœboḥ (lay an egg, give fruit)
  • daké (horn) → mœdaké (having horns)
• prefix ta- or da-: frequentative
  • galuṇg (to roll) → tagaluṇg (to roll around)
  • dâp (to hide oneself) → dadâp (to be wont to hide oneself)
• infix -an-: noun formation
  • pvâch (to speak) → panvâch (speech)
  • tiêu (row) → taniêu (oar)
  • dok (to live) → danok (house, living place)
• infix -mœ-: no specific meaning
  • payău (to compare) → pamœyău (to compare)

Reduplication is often used:[4]

• palẽi, pala-palẽi (country)
• raḅaḥ, raḅaḥ-raḅœp (misery)

Cham generally uses SVO word order, without any case marking to distinguish subject from object:[5]

Dummy pronominal subjects are sometimes used, echoing the subject:

Inœû hudiêp dahlak	nhu	atong	adẽi puthang nhu.
my wife's mother	she	beat	her husband's younger sister
"My wife's mother beats her husband's younger sister."

Composite verbs will behave as one inseparable verb, having the object come after it:

Bloḥ	nhu	ḍiḥ dii apvẽi	anẽk lakẽi.
then	she	lie at fire (i.e.: give birth)	son
"Then she gave birth to a son."

Sometimes, however, the verb is placed in front of the subject:

Lêk	dahlak.
fall	I
"I fall."

Auxiliary verbs are placed after any objects:

Nhu	ba	hudiêp nhu	nau.
he	bring	his wife	go
"He brings his wife."

If a sentence contains more than one main verb, one of the two will have an adverbial meaning:

Nhu	dâp	klaḥ	mœtai.
he	hide	evade	death
"He evaded death by hiding."

Adjectives come after the nouns they modify:[6]

thang	prong
house	big
"a big house"

If the order is reversed, the whole will behave like a compound:

ôrang	prong	shap
person	big	noise
"a noisy person"

Composite sentences can be formed with the particle krung:[7]

It is also possible to leave out this particle, without change in meaning:[5]

Dahlak brẽi athêh nan	kaa va dahlak	∅	dok dii palẽi Ram.
I give this horse	to my uncle	who	live in the village of Ram
"I have given this horse to my uncle, who lives in the village of Ram."

Questions are formed with the sentence-final particle rẽi:[8]

Anẽk	thău	vakhar	rẽi?
child	know	writing	q
"Can you write, child?"

Other question words are in situ:

Hẽû	nau	hatau?
you	go	where
"Where are you going?"

Like many languages in Eastern Asia, Cham uses numeral classifiers to express amounts.[9] The classifier will always come after the numeral, with the noun coming invariably before or after the classifier-numeral pair.

The above examples show the classifier boḥ, which literally means "egg" and is the most frequently used — particularly for round and voluminous objects. Other classifiers are ôrang (person) for people and deities, ḅêk for long objects, blaḥ (leaf) for flat objects, and many others.

The days of the month are counted with a similar system, with two classifiers: one (bangun) used to count days before the full moon, and the other one (ranaṃ) for days after the full moon.[10]

Personal pronouns behave like ordinary nouns and do not show any case distinctions. There are different forms depending on the level of politeness. The first person singular, for example, is kău in formal or distant context, while it is dahlak (in Vietnam) or hulun (in Cambodia) in an ordinarily polite context. As is the case with many other languages of the region, kinship terms are often used as personal pronouns.[7]

Comparative and superlative are expressed with the locative preposition di/dii:[11]

tapaa	di	aï nhu
big	at	his brother
"bigger than his brother"

There are some particles that can be used to indicate tense/aspect.[12] The future is indicated with shi or thi in Vietnam, with hi or si in Cambodia. The perfect is expressed with jϞ. The first one comes in front of the verb:

Arak ni	kău	shi	nao.
now	I	fut	go
"I will go now."

The second one is sentence-final:

Shit traa	kău	nao	jœû.
little more	I	go	prf
"I'll be gone in a moment."

Certain verbs can function as auxiliaries to express other tenses or aspects.[13] The verb dok ("to stay") is used for the continuous, vœk ("to return") for the repetitive aspect, and kiœng ("to want") for the future tense.

The negation is formed with ôh/ô at either or both sides of the verb, or with di/dii[14] in front.[12]

The imperative is formed with the sentence-final particle bêk, and the negative imperative with the preverbal jvai/jvẽi (in Vietnam and Cambodia respectively).[12]

Brunelle observed two phenomena of language use among speakers of Eastern Cham: They are both diglossic and bilingual (in Cham and Vietnamese). Diglossia is the situation where two varieties of a language are used in a single language community, and oftentimes one is used on formal occasions (labelled H) and the other is more colloquial (labelled L).[15][16]

Cham is divided into two primary dialects. Western Cham is spoken by the Cham in Cambodia as well as in the adjacent Vietnamese provinces of An Giang and Tây Ninh. Eastern Cham is spoken by the coastal Cham populations in the Vietnamese provinces of Bình Thuận, Ninh Thuận, and Đồng Nai. The two regions where Cham is spoken are separated both geographically and culturally. The more numerous Western Cham are predominantly Muslims (although some in Cambodia now practice Theravāda Buddhism), while the Eastern Cham practice both Islam and Hinduism. Ethnologue states that the Eastern and Western dialects are no longer mutually intelligible. The table below gives some examples of words where the two dialects differed as of the 19th century.[17]

	Cambodia	southern Vietnam
vowels
child	anœk	anẽk
take	tuk	tôk
not	jvẽi	jvai
sibilants
one	sa	tha
save from drowning	srong	throng
salt	sara	shara
equal	samu	hamu
final consonants
heavy	trap	trak
in front	anap	anak
lexical differences
market	pasa	darak
hate	amoḥ	limuk

Lê et al. (2014:175)[18] lists a few Cham subgroups.

• Chăm Poông: in Thạnh Hiếu village, Phan Hiệp commune, Bắc Bình District, Bình Thuận Province. The Chăm Poông practice burial instead of cremation as the surrounding Cham do.
• Chăm Hroi (population 4,000): in Phước Vân District (Bình Định Province), Đồng Xuân District (Phú Yên Province), and Tây Sơn District (Bình Định Province)
• Chàvà Ku, a mixed Malay-Khmer people in Châu Đốc