Cover not available
Article published In:
Asia-Pacific Language Variation
Vol. 4:1 (2018) ► pp.73–102

Diglossia and change from below in Eastern Cham

| University of California, Berkeley

Diglossia canonically refers to language situations with unequal attitudes towards a formal ‘H’ variety, connected to writing, and a colloquial ‘L’ variety, connected to everyday speech. This paper claims that variation that arises as a marker of diglossia can become dissociated from it and persist in the L variety, if it is sufficiently orthogonal to the writing system. With a sociolinguistic survey (n = 30), this paper examines five variables that were markers of quasi-diglossia in Eastern Cham in previous decades. Three of the variables continue to be stereotypes or shibboleths of diglossia, while the other two no longer exhibit any correlation with diglossia: the spirantization of r and the labial coarticulation of ŋ. The latter were changes from below that decoupled from diglossia, because they were sufficiently opaque to Cham script.

Keywords: diglossia, formality, language contact, Austronesian, Southeast Asia, Vietnamese
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Eastern Cham
  • 3.Survey
    • 3.1Variable 1
    • 3.2Variable 2
    • 3.3Variable 3
    • 3.4Variable 4
      • 3.4.1Coding Variable 4
      • 3.4.2The merger of r and j
    • 3.5Variable 5
    • 3.6Summary
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Results: Variables 1–3
    • 4.2Results: Variable 4
    • 4.3Results: Variable 5
    • 4.4Qualitative comparisons
  • 5.Cham script
  • 6.Vietnamese contact
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 September 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.17003.bac
References (55)
Alieva, Natalia
(1991) Morphemes in contemporary spoken Cham: Qualitative and quantitative alternations. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale, 201, 219–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1994) The progress of monosyllabization in Cham as testified by field materials. In C. Ode & W. Stokhof (Eds.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics [ICAL] (pp. 541–549). Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Aymonier, Etienne, & Cabaton, Antoine
(1906) Dictionnaire cham-français [Cham-French Dictionary]. Publications de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 7 [Publications of the French School of Asian Studies 7]. Paris: Leroux.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald
(2008) Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Babel, Anna
(Ed.) (2016) Awareness and control in sociolinguistic research. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bates, Douglas, Maechler, Martin, Bolker, Ben, & Walker, Steve
(2015) Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blood, Doris
(1961) Women’s speech characteristics in Cham. Asian Culture, 3(3–4), 139–143Google Scholar
(1962) Reflexes of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian in Cham. Anthropological Linguistics, 4(9), 11–20.Google Scholar
Blood, David
(1967) Phonological units in Cham. Anthropological Linguistics, 9(8), 15–32.Google Scholar
Bradley, David
(2007) East and Southeast Asia. In Christopher Moseley (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the world’s endangered languages, (pp. 349–424). London; New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brezina, Vaclav, & Meyerhoff, Miriam
(2014) Significant or random? A critical review of statistical analyses in corpus-based sociolinguistic studies. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 19(1), 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brunelle, Marc
(2005) Register in Eastern Cham: Phonological, phonetic and sociolinguistic approaches. Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
(2008) Diglossia, bilingualism, and the revitalization of written Eastern Cham. Language Documentation and Conservation, 2(1), 28–46.Google Scholar
(2009) Diglossia and monosyllabization in Eastern Cham: A sociolinguistic study. In James N. Stanford & Dennis Preston (Eds.), Variation in indigenous minority languages, (pp.47–75). Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brunelle, Marc, & Phú, Văn Hn
in press). Colloquial Eastern Cham. In Paul Sidwell & Matthias Jenny Eds. The Languages of Southeast Asia Hague Mouton de Gruyter DOI logo
Bùi, Khánh Th
(1996) Ng Pháp Ting Chăm [Grammar of the Cham Language]. Hà Ni: Nhà Xut Bn Giáo Dục.Google Scholar
Champely, Stephane
(2013) pwr: basic functions for power analysis (R package version 1.2–1). Available from [URL].
Cohen, Jacob
(1992) A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112(1), 155–159. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cœdès, Georges
(1939) La plus ancienne inscription en langue cham [The oldest inscription in the Cham language]. In Sumitra Mangesh Katre & Parshuram Krishna Gode (Eds.), A volume of Eastern and Indian studies presented to Professor F.W. Thomas (pp. 46–49). Bombay: Karnatak Publishing House.Google Scholar
Fasold, Ralph
(1984) The sociolinguistics of society: Introduction to sociolinguistics, volume 11. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Charles
(1959) Diglossia. Word, 151, 325–240. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fishman, Joshua
(1967) Bilingualism with and without diglossia; diglossia with and without bilingualism. Journal of Social Sciences, 23(2), 29–38.Google Scholar
(1980) Bilingualism and biculturism as individual and as societal phenomena. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 11, 3–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hajek, Jhon
(2006) On doubly articulated labial-velar stops and nasals in Tibeto-Burman. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 29(2), 127–130.Google Scholar
Heath, Jeffrey
(1989) From code-switching to borrowing: A case study of Moroccan Arabic. London; New York: Kegan Paul International.Google Scholar
Hoàng, Th Châu
(1987) H thng thanh điu thng Chàm và các kí hiu [The tone system of the Cham language and its symbols]. Ngôn Ng , 1(2), 31–35.Google Scholar
(1989) Ting Vit trên các Min Đt Nưc [The Vietnamese Language in the Regions of the Country: A Dialect Study]. Hà Ni: Nhà Xut Bn Khoa Hc Xã Hi.Google Scholar
Jacques, Roland
(2002) Portuguese pioneers of Vietnamese linguistics. Bangkok: Orchid Press.Google Scholar
Kirby, James
(2011) Vietnamese (Hanoi Vietnamese). Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 41(3), 381–392. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kirby, James, & Sonderegger, Morgan
(2018) Model Selection and Phonological Argumentation. In Diane Brentari & Jackson Lee (Eds.), Shaping Phonology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William
(2001) Principles of linguistic change, volume 3: Social factors. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lee, Ernest Wilson
(1974) Southeast Asian areal features in Austronesian strata of the Chamic languages. Oceanic Linguistics, 13(1–2), 643–668. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marrison, Geoffrey
(1975) The early Cham language and its relationship to Malay. Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 481, 52–59.Google Scholar
Maspero, Henri
(1912) Études sur la phonétique historique de la langue annamite. Les initiales [Studies on the historical phonetics of the Annamese (Vietnamese) language: The initials]. Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient [Bulletin of the French School of Asian Studies], 121, 1–124. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moran, Steven, McCloy, Daniel, & Wright, Richard
(Eds.) (2014) PHOIBLE Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available from [URL].
Moseley, Christopher
(Ed.) (2010) Atlas of the world’s languages in danger (3rd edition). UNESCO Publishing.Google Scholar
Moussay, Fr. Gérard
(1971) Dictionnaire cam-vietnamien-français [Cham-Vietnamese-French Dictionary]. Phan Rang: Centre Culturel Cam.Google Scholar
Moussay, Fr. Gérard
(2006) Grammaire de la langue Cam. Les Indes Savant [Grammar of the Cham Language]. Mission Étrangères de Paris [Foreign Missions of Paris]. Paris: Les Indes Savant.Google Scholar
Padgett, Jaye
(2008) Glides, vowels, and features. Lingua, 1181, 1937–1955. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Phú, Văn Hn, Edmondson, Jerold, & Gregerson, Kenneth
(1992) Eastern Cham as a tone language. Mon Khmer Studies, 201, 31–43.Google Scholar
Platt, John T.
(1977) A model for polyglossia and multilingualism (with special reference to Singapore and Malaysia). Language in Society, 61, 361–378. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Po, Dharma
(1991) Le déclin du Campa entre le XVIe et le XIXe siècle [The decline of the Champa between the 16th and the 18th century]. Le Campā et le Monde Malais: actes de la Conférence internationale sur le Campā et le monde malais [The Champā and the Malay World: Proceedings of the International Conference on Campā and the Malay World] (pp. 47–64). Paris: Publications du Centre d’histoire et Civilisations de la Péninsule Indochinoise.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana, Zentz, Lauren, & Dion, Nathalie
(2012) Phrase-final prepositions in Quebec French: An empirical study of contact, code-switching and resistance to convergence. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15(2), 203–225. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
PTB *səw SHEEP
(2015) In James A. Matisoff (Ed.), The Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus. Retrieved from [URL]
Quang, Can D.
(2012) The mother language teaching program addressing the language, culture, and identity rights of the Cham minority in Ninh Thuan province, Vietnam. Doctoral dissertation, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.Google Scholar
R Core Team
(2015) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Available from [URL].
Sayahi, Lotfi
(2014) Diglossia and language contact: Language variation and change in North Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schweyer, Anne Valérie
(1999 Chronologie des inscriptions publiées du Campā: Études d’épigraphie cam – I [Chronology of the published inscriptions of the Champā: Studies on Cham epigraphy – 1]. Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient, 861, 321–344. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scotton, Carol
(1986) Diglossia and code-switching. In Joshua Fishman (Ed.), The Fergusonian impact, Vol. 2: Sociolinguistics and the sociology of language (pp. 403–415). Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Stanford, James N., Severance, Nathan, & Baclawski Jr, Kenneth
(2014) Multiple vectors of unidirectional dialect change in Eastern New England. Language Variation and Change, 26(1), 103–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Laurence
(1991) A Vietnamese reference grammar. Seattle: University of Washington Press. (Original work published 1965).Google Scholar
Thurgood, Graham
(1993) Phan Rang Cham and Utsat: Tonogenetic themes and variants. In Jerold Edmondson & Kenneth Gregerson (Eds.), Tonality in Austronesian Languages (pp. 91–106). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
(1996) Language contact and the directionality of internal drift:The development of tones and registers in Chamic. Language, 72(1), 1–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1999) From Ancient Cham to modern dialects: Two thousand years of language contact and change. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
(2005) A preliminary sketch of Phan Rang Cham. In K. Alexander Adelaar & Nikolaus Himmelmann (Eds.), The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar (pp. 489–512). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by 1 other publications

Kashima, Eri
2020. Word-initial [h]-drop variation in Nmbo. Asia-Pacific Language Variation 6:2 ► pp. 250 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 june 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.