Jarai people

Jarai people or Jarais (Người Gia Rai, Gia Rai, or Gia-rai; ចារ៉ាយ, Charay) are an Austronesian indigenous people and ethnic group native to Vietnam's Central Highlands (Gia Lai and Kon Tum Provinces, with smaller populations in Đắk Lắk Province), as well as in the Cambodian northeast Province of Ratanakiri. During the Vietnam War, many Jarai persons, as well as members of other Montagnard groups (Khmer Loeu and Degar), worked with US Special Forces, and many were resettled with their families in the United States, particularly in North Carolina, after the war. The Jarai language is a member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family. It is related to the Cham language of central Vietnam and Cambodia and the Malayo-Polynesian languages of Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, Philippines and other Pacific Islands such as Hawaii and New Zealand. There are approximately 332,558 Jarai speakers. They are the largest of the upland ethnic groups of the Central Highlands known as Degar or Montagnards and they make up 23% of the population of Ratanakiri Province in Cambodia. Both groups, the Cambodian and Vietnamese Jarai, share the same traditions and keep a close relation of cultural interchange, but their language gets the influence of their respectively Khmer and Vietnamese linguistic environment. A few of khmer Jarai words are borrowed from Khmer and Lao. While trading conversation between Khmer Jarai and Vietnamese Jarai, there can be some perplexity among them. Vietnamese Jarai has a written form in Latin script, but Khmer Jarai does not. The word Jarai (ចារ៉ាយ - Charay) means "People of the Waterfalls" or "People of the Flowing River". Studies about the Jarai people and their culture have mainly focused on their language and were made by evangelical groups seeking conversions. Linguistically, they are related to the Malayo-Polynesian language. There are no known ancient records of Jarai people in the area.