Cho Ro language
| Chrau | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Vietnam |
| Region | Đồng Nai, Tây Ninh, and Bình Dương provinces |
| Ethnicity | 26,900 Chrau people (2009 census) |
|
Native speakers
|
7,000 (1995 census) |
|
Austroasiatic
|
|
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | chra1242 |
Chrau(also known as Jro, Ro, Tamun, Charuo, Choro, Chíoro) /ˈtʃraʊ/ is a Bahnaric language spoken by some of the 22,000 ethnic Cho Ro people in southern Vietnam. Unlike most languages of Southeast Asia, Chrau has no lexical tone, though it does have significant sentence intonation.
There are approximately fewer than 20,000 people that are native speakers of Chrau. Most people who speak Chrau are from the Southern parts of Vietnam such as Bien Hoa and Binh Tuy. Most of the this research has been conducted by David Thomas.
The language of Chrau has a lot of Chinese influence which is why it can be seen as similar to many other languages. In the later years after they began to sell crops to others in the area, the influence of Vietnamese would begin to appear in their language. Similarly to the Chinese and Vietnamese language, there are also certain tones in the Chrau language that are emphasized when speaking.
The Chrau language is part of the South Bahnaric subgroup along with Kơho, Stiêng and the Mnon dialects. Many see Kơho and Chrau as an independent subgroup but there is not much on that, however the distinction between the two is seen to be obvious. Since it is of Bahnaric origin, there are many cognates with other divisions in this group such as Jarai and Radê. There is also seen to be many influences from other Southeast Asian countries other than Vietnam like Laos and Cambodia as well as Malaysia.
Many suspect the Chrau people were among the first inhabitants of now South Vietnam, however there has been some suspicion that some of the people may have been aboriginals. Before the Vietnamese had inhabited the country, the country was divided between the Malayo-Polynesian and Mon-Khmer speakers. With the Malayo-Polynesian people settling along the inland and high plateaus of Vietnam and the Mon-Khmer people living either North or South of the plateau. Although there is a gap in history between the two areas, many suspect that there could have been a Mon-Khmer invasion to the Malayo-Polynesian. Explaining why the Mon-Khmer language was more prevalent in Southern Vietnam. This has also sparked different stories by different groups of how the Chrau came about be it form the Cambodians of Chamic people.
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Wikipedia