Tjampa — Dutch spelling of Champa, the Indianised polity of the Cham people that flourished along the central and southern coast of modern Vietnam from approximately the second to the nineteenth century CE — is named in Dr. Van Naerssen’s chapter De oudste cultuurstreamen in Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk (1946) as the probable stamland (homeland) of the Austronesian (Malay-Polynesian) language family. Van Naerssen’s wording, summarising the conclusion of the Dutch linguist Kern: “On the basis of these and other considerations, which we will not name here, Kern comes to the conclusion that the stamland probably lay in Tjampa, Cochin-China, Cambodja and the adjacent regions along the sea.”
The Austronesian homeland hypothesis
Van Naerssen’s account of the Tjampa homeland-hypothesis places the origin of the Austronesian language family — of which Atjehnese is one member — in the Indianised coastal polities of mainland Southeast Asia, in the region of Tjampa (central and southern Vietnam), Cochin-China (southern Vietnam) and Cambodja. The hypothesis rests on the linguistic evidence: the words for sugarcane (tēboe), coconut (niyur), banana (punti) and rice (padi, bēras) are common to all the Austronesian languages, suggesting that they were already present in the stamland; the word for “south” (sēlatan) in Malay derives from sēlat “strait, in particular that between Malakka and Sumatra”, suggesting that the Malays were not autochthonous to Sumatra but had migrated southward from a more northerly origin.
For the Atjeh-focused reader, the Tjampa homeland-hypothesis is significant in two respects. First, it places the Atjehnese language within the wider Austronesian family whose homeland lay in mainland Southeast Asia — that is, it documents the prehistoric migration that brought the ancestors of the Atjehners to the north Sumatran coast from the Asian mainland. Second, it connects the Atjeh case to the wider Indianised culture of mainland Southeast Asia, of which Tjampa (with its Sanskritic inscriptions and its Hindu-Buddhist temple-complexes) was a major centre. The Atjehnese langa (plough) word, cognate with Sanskrit langgala, is one of the linguistic survivals of this Indianised heritage (see Atjehnese langa (plough)).
Significance
For the Atjeh-focused reader, Tjampa’s significance is foundational: it is the probable stamland of the Austronesian language family of which Atjehnese is a member, and the Indianised polity of which the Atjehnese langa (plough) word is a linguistic survival. The prehistoric migration from Tjampa to the north Sumatran coast — documented in the linguistic evidence that Van Naerssen surveys — is the deep-historical frame against which the later Islamisation of Samudra in 1297 and the conversion of Minangkabau via Atjeh of c. 1550 are to be read.
Dutch terms used in this article
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
- Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
- oudste cultuurstroomen — oldest cultural streams
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Atjehner — Acehnese
- Acheh — Aceh
- Sumatra — Sumatra
- Tjampa — Champa
- Goedjarat — Gujarat
- Cambay — Khambhat
- Samudra — Samudra
- Minangkabau — Minangkabau
- Bacson-Hoabinh — Bacson-Hoabinh (mesolithic culture)
- Sumatra-bijl — Sumatra axe (mesolithic tool type)
- padi — unhusked rice
- bēras — husked rice
- langgala — plough (Sanskrit)
- langa — plough (Atjeh form)
- Dr. — Doctor
Sources
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
See Also
- Atjehnese langa (plough)
- Bacson-Hoabinh culture in Atjeh
- Sumatra-bijl
- Goedjarat
- Cambay
- Acheh
- F. H. van Naerssen
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- Bahnar
- Gayo
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), p. 42 (chapter De oudste cultuurstroomen door Dr. F. H. van Naerssen).