Cham Letter I

It writes Cham’s independent i vowel.

In Cham, “independent” means that no consonant is written before the vowel in that syllable. In Eastern Cham, ꨁ can begin a word or a later syllable within one.

After a consonant, Eastern Cham writes the same vowel with the dependent sign ꨪ, attached to that consonant. When Cham is written in Latin letters, the spelling may mark a brief catch in the throat before a word-initial vowel; that catch is not a separate Cham letter.

How did Cham writing develop?

It grew from South Asian writing traditions derived from Brahmi.

An Old Cham stone inscription catalogued as C.174 at Đông Yên Châu, in present-day Vietnam, is generally dated around the late fourth century. It is the earliest attested Old Cham inscription. The surviving record includes Sanskrit and Cham inscriptions on temples and monuments.

Cham belongs to a Brahmi-derived South Asian writing tradition. Pallava, a South Indian script tradition, is a historical link between Cham and Khmer and Kawi scripts; that connection is between writing traditions, not proof that individual letters are interchangeable. In Cambodia’s Muslim Cham manuscript community, Arabic-script Jawi displaced much Cham-script writing from the mid-19th century. The Imam San community preserved Cham manuscripts as part of its community identity.