Cham script
| Cham | |
|---|---|
| Script type | |
Time period | 3rd century–present |
| Direction | Left-to-right  |
| Languages | Cham |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Cham (358), Cham |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Cham |
| U+AA00–U+AA5F | |
The Cham script is an abugida used to write Cham, an Austronesian language spoken by the Cham people in Vietnam and Cambodia. Cham has about 230,000 speakers. The dynamic development of the script is intertwined with the development of the Chamic culture and language as well as the influence of outside languages and scripts during the script's migration from India.
The Austronesian languages and scripts are descendants of the Brahmi languages and scripts that originated in India. These migrations to the Vietnam and Cambodia regions were coupled with the migration of Indian religions as well. Hence, the ruins of stone temples of Indian gods of the Chamic civilizations dispersed throughout Southeast Asia contain both Sanskrit and Chamic writing stone inscriptions. The zenith of the Chamic civilization was from the sixth to the seventh century BCE. Eventually, as these two languages influenced one another, Cham culture became very assimilated to Indian deity worship unlike the neighboring Khmer culture, and as a result could adequately express themselves religiously in Cham. The more recent inscriptions and manuscripts do not incorporate Sanskrit. Interestingly, most preserved manuscripts focus on religious rituals, epic battles and poems, and myths.
The Cham script is one of the first scripts to develop from the latter southern Brahmi alphabet called Vatteluttu of South India, beginning by 200 AD. It is written horizontally, and left to right, as in English. There are numerous spelling rules that make learning to use the script daunting (Blood 2008). The current languages demonstrate Southeast Asian features of monosyllabicity, tonality, and glottalized consonants. Curiously, the languages reached the Southeast Asia mainland as disyllabic and nontonal. Clearly, the abugida format of the Brahmi Indian writing system needed to be slightly altered to meet these changes.
The Cham now live in two isolated groups: Western Cham in Cambodia, and Eastern Cham in Vietnam. Each uses a distinct variety of the script, although the former are mostly Muslim (Trankell & Ovesen 2004) and now prefer to use the Arabic alphabet. The latter are mostly Hindu, and still use their own script. During French colonial times, both groups had to use the Latin alphabet.
The script is highly valued in Cham culture, but this does not mean that many people are learning it. There have been efforts to simplify the spelling and to promote learning the script, but these have met with limited success (Blood 1980a,b, 2008, Brunelle 2008). Traditionally, boys learned the script around the age of twelve when they were old and strong enough to tend to the water buffalo. However, women and girls did not typically learn the script. [1]
Structure
An abugida is a writing system that is the intermediate evolutionarily between syllabaries and alphabets. Abugidas, unlike syllabaries, use alphabet-like individual consonants whose structures are supplemented by an obligatory vowel diacritic, a tick mark or a dash tacked onto the consonant. This way, instead of needing to know 80-100 syllables, the writer merely needs to exchange the vowel diacritic on one consonant to change the syllable. Unlike alphabets, vowels do not bear the same size and hence, the same weight.
This is a table of the Eastern Cham Writing System.
Each consonant letter (for example, [b] or [t] or [p]) includes an inherent [a] sound where no diacritic is needed to represent the vowel. Nasal consonants (for example, [m] or [n] or [ng]), as an exception to this rule, have an inherent [ɨ] vowel sound. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, this vowel is called a "barred-i." A distinct diacritic called a kai is added below a nasal consonant to give it the [a] vowel. [1]The figure above shows each consonant with its inherent vowel. It's interesting to notice how the nasals (for example, the fifth and thirteenth characters in the second line of consonants) have the barred-i vowel expressed as [ue]. Many cultures, instead of using universal IPA format, have their own specific conventions of using the Roman alphabet to translate the pronunciation of their writings.
The orientation of these diacritics can be observed in the figure above. The circle represents the consonant symbol on which the diacritic is placed.
Furthermore, abugida words can come in clusters of these symbols of the consonant with the vowel diacritic. Throughout the word are /CV/ syllables and the word can end with a /CV/ syllable or a /CVC/ syllable and there are some symbols used as final consonants in the Cham script. Other symbols merely extend a longer tail on the right side. [1]
Cham in Unicode
The Unicode range for Cham is U+AA00 .. U+AA5F. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points.
| Cham[1][2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF) | ||||||||||||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| U+AA0x | ꨀ | ꨁ | ꨂ | ꨃ | ꨄ | ꨅ | ꨆ | ꨇ | ꨈ | ꨉ | ꨊ | ꨋ | ꨌ | ꨍ | ꨎ | ꨏ |
| U+AA1x | ꨐ | ꨑ | ꨒ | ꨓ | ꨔ | ꨕ | ꨖ | ꨗ | ꨘ | ꨙ | ꨚ | ꨛ | ꨜ | ꨝ | ꨞ | ꨟ |
| U+AA2x | ꨠ | ꨡ | ꨢ | ꨣ | ꨤ | ꨥ | ꨦ | ꨧ | ꨨ | ꨩ | ꨪ | ꨫ | ꨬ | ꨭ | ꨮ | ꨯ |
| U+AA3x | ꨰ | ꨱ | ꨲ | ꨳ | ꨴ | ꨵ | ꨶ | |||||||||
| U+AA4x | ꩀ | ꩁ | ꩂ | ꩃ | ꩄ | ꩅ | ꩆ | ꩇ | ꩈ | ꩉ | ꩊ | ꩋ | ꩌ | ꩍ | ||
| U+AA5x | ꩐ | ꩑ | ꩒ | ꩓ | ꩔ | ꩕ | ꩖ | ꩗ | ꩘ | ꩙ | ꩜ | ꩝ | ꩞ | ꩟ | ||
| Notes | ||||||||||||||||
Published sources
- Blood, Doris (1980a). Cham literacy: the struggle between old and new (a case study). Notes on Literacy 12, 6-9.
- Blood, Doris (1980b). The script as a cohesive factor in Cham society. In Notes from Indochina, Marilyn Gregersen and Dorothy Thomas (eds.), 35-44. Dallas: International Museum of Cultures.
- Blood, Doris E. 2008. The ascendancy of the Cham script: how a literacy workshop became the catalyst. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192:45-56.
- Brunell, Marc. 2008. Diglossia, Bilingualism, and the Revitalization of Written Eastern Cham. Language Documentation and Conservation 2.1: 28-46. (Web based journal)
- Moussay, Gerard (1971). Dictionnaire Cam-Vietnamien-Français. Phan Rang: Centre Culturel Cam.
- Trankell, Ing-Britt and Jan Ovesen (2004). Muslim minorities in Cambodia. NIASnytt 4, 22-24. (Also on Web)
References
External links
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