Editing Cham script (section)

==Variety==
The Cham now live in two groups: the Western Cham of Cambodia and the Eastern Cham (Panduranga/Phan Rang Cham) of Vietnam. For the first millennium AD, the [[Chamic languages]] were a dialect chain along the Vietnam coast. The breakup of this chain into distinct languages occurred once the Vietnamese pushed south, causing most Cham to move back into the highlands while some like Phan Rang Cham became a part of the lowland society ruled by the Vietnamese. The division of Cham into Western and Phan Rang Cham immediately followed the Vietnamese overthrow of the last Cham polity.<ref name="book2" /> The Western Cham people are mostly [[Muslim]]<ref>Trankell & Ovesen 2004</ref> and therefore prefer the [[Arabic script]]. The Eastern Cham are mostly [[Hindu]] and continued to use the Indic script. During French colonial times, both groups had to use the [[Latin alphabet]].{{citation needed|date=June 2019}}

There are two varieties of the Cham script: ''Akhar Thrah'' (Eastern Cham) and ''Akhar Srak'' (Western Cham). The two are distinct enough to be encoded in separate blocks, the Eastern Cham block included in Unicode Standard version 5.1 since March 2008, the Western Cham block approved but still awaiting inclusion as of late 2023.<ref>"Proposal for encoding the Cham script in the BMP of the UCS"[https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7nw110n4].</ref><ref>Hosken, Martin. (2019). [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19217-western-cham.pdf L2/19-217 ''Proposal to encode Western Cham in the UCS''].</ref><ref>Everson, M. & Cunningham, A. (2016). [https://unicode.org/L2/L2016/16198-n4734-western-cham.pdf L2/16-198 ''Proposal to encode Western Cham in the SMP of the UCS''].</ref> A standard [[ALA-LC romanization]] of both varieties, which is based on EFEO romanization of Cham, is available.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/cham.pdf ALA-LC Cham romanization]</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2015|title=Cham Alphabet|url=https://kauthara.org/cham-lesson/3|access-date=2020-07-20|website=kauthara.org}}</ref>