Re: Data and Musings...

David Peterson wrote:
><snip a godless amount of language books>
>
>     Has anyone every heard of a language called Cham ([tSAm], I imagine)?
>Before I was introduced to its script, Sinhala had my favorite; now I can
>definitely say that the best script on Earth is that of the Cham language.
>If you go to www.omniglot.com and go to the scripts part you can see it.
>It's related to other Indian languages (languages of India, that is), but
>I'm
>not sure how closely, or anything like that--they just show the script.
>They
>say it's spoken in Southern Vietnam (hee, hee...  That's like saying "South
>South Carolina").  Anyone heard of it?  I want to learn it just because of
>the script.
I know nothing of the language, but the Cham people used to have an empire
called Champa in what's now soutern Vietnam (roughly what was South Vietnam
minus the Mekong delta). Eventually got conquered and assimilated by the
Vietnamese - the realm lasted from the 200s to the early 1800s, with the
golden age in the later middle ages.

                                              Andreas


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