[1] The most widely spoken Chamic languages are Acehnese with 3.5 million speakers, Cham with about 280,000, and Jarai with about 230,000, in both Cambodia and Vietnam.

The Dong Yen Chau inscription, written in Old Cham, dates from the late 4th century AD.

Extensive borrowing resulting from long-term contact have caused Chamic and the Bahnaric languages, a branch of the Austroasiatic family, to have many vocabulary items in common.

The Proto-Chamic numerals from 7 to 9 are shared with those of the Malayic languages, providing partial evidence for a Malayo-Chamic subgrouping.

The following consonant clusters are reconstructed for Proto-Chamic:[9] *pl-, *bl-, *kl-, *gl-, *pr-, *tr-, *kr-, *br-, *dr-.