Cham Tsiam

Cham (Tsiam), a historic nation of Indo-China which formerly occupied all the eastern seaboard from about 19° N. latitude to Cape St. James, but were gradually driven southwards, and at last broken into fragments by the Annamese in 1471; now confined to the S.E. corner of the peninsula, and to some districts in Camboja. The Chams have left monuments covered with inscriptions which appear to be written in a language intermediate between Cambojan and Malay. Are supposed by some ethnologists to represent the original stock of the Malay race, which afterwards spread from the Asiatic mainland over the oceanic world. See Bouillevaux, Le Ciampa, in Annales de l'extreme Orient (1879, 1881); Aymonier, Excursions, etc., Saigon, 1890.