Chamorro (; ch, Finuʼ Chamorro, links=no (CNMI), (Guam)) is an Austronesian language spoken by about 58,000 people (about 25,800 people on

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

and about 32,200 in the rest of the

Mariana Islands The Mariana Islands (; also the Marianas; in Chamorro: ''Manislan Mariånas'') are a crescent-shaped archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen longitudinally oriented, mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, betw ...

and elsewhere). It is the native and spoken language of the

Chamorro people The Chamorro people (; also CHamoru) are the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, politically divided between the United States territory of Guam and the encompassing Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia. Today, sign ...

, the

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

of the Marianas (Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Guam is a

US territory In the United States, a territory is any extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters (around islands or continental tracts). The United States asserts sovereign rights for ...

while the CNMI has greater autonomy as a US commonwealth). There are three different dialects of Chamorro — Guamanian, Rotanese, and the general NMI (Saipan and Tinian) dialects.

Classification

Unlike most of its neighbors, Chamorro is not classified as a Micronesian or Polynesian language. Rather, like Palauan, it possibly constitutes an independent branch of the Malayo-Polynesian language family. At the time the Spanish rule over Guam ended, it was thought that Chamorro was a semi-

creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...

, with a substantial amount of the vocabulary of Spanish origin and beginning to have a high level of

mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as ...

with Spanish. It is reported that even in the early 1920s, Spanish was reported to be a living language in Guam for commercial transactions, but the use of Spanish and Chamorro was rapidly declining as a result of English pressure. Spanish influences in Chamorro exist due to three centuries of Spanish colonial rule. Many words in the Chamorro lexicon are of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

etymological origin via Spanish, but the pronunciation of these

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...

s has been nativized to the

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

of Chamorro, and their use conforms to indigenous grammatical structures. Some authors consider Chamorro a

mixed language A mixed language is a language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole or pidgin language in that, whereas creoles/pidgin ...

under a historical point of view, even though it remains independent and unique. In his ''Chamorro Reference Grammar'', Donald M. Topping states:

"The most notable influence on Chamorro language and culture came from the Spanish.... There was wholesale borrowing of Spanish words and phrases into Chamorro, and there was even some borrowing from the Spanish sound system. But this borrowing was linguistically superficial. The bones of the Chamorro language remained intact.... In virtually all cases of borrowing, Spanish words were forced to conform to the Chamorro sound system.... While Spanish may have left a lasting mark on Chamorro vocabulary, as it did on many Philippine and South American languages, it had virtually no effect on Chamorro grammar.... The Japanese influence on Chamorro was much greater than that of German but much less than Spanish. Once again, the linguistic influence was restricted exclusively to vocabulary items, many of which refer to manufactured objects....

In contrast, in the essays found in ''Del español al chamorro. Lenguas en contacto en el Pacífico'' (2009), Rafael Rodríguez-Ponga refers to modern Chamorro as a "mixed language" of "Hispanic-Austronesian" origins and estimates that approximately 50% of the Chamorro lexicon comes from Spanish, whose contribution goes far beyond loanwords. Rodríguez-Ponga (1995) considers Chamorro to be a Spanish-Austronesian or a Spanish-Austronesian mixed language or at least a language that has emerged from a process of contact and ''

creolization Creolization is the process through which creole languages and cultures emerge. Creolization was first used by linguists to explain how contact languages become creole languages, but now scholars in other social sciences use the term to describe ne ...

'' on the island of Guam since modern Chamorro is influenced in vocabulary and has in its grammar many elements of Spanish origin:

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

s, articles,

preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...

s, numerals, conjunctions, etc. The process, which began in the 17th century and ended in the early 20th century, meant a profound change from the old Chamorro (paleo-Chamorro) to modern Chamorro (neo-Chamorro) in its

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes doma ...

, and

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the ...

Speakers

The Chamorro language is threatened, with a precipitous drop in language fluency over the past century. It is estimated that 75% of the population of Guam was literate in the Chamorro language around the time the United States captured the island during the

Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (clock ...

(there are no similar language fluency estimates for other areas of the

during this time). A century later, the 2000 U.S. Census showed that fewer than 20% of Chamorros living in Guam speak their heritage language fluently, and the vast majority of those were over the age of 55. A number of forces have contributed to the steep, post-World War II decline of Chamorro language fluency. There is a long history of colonization in the Marianas, beginning with the Spanish colonization in 1668 and, eventually, the American acquisition of Guam in 1898 (whose hegemony continues to this day). This imposed power structures privileging the language of the region's colonizers. According to estimates, a large majority, as stated above (75%), maintained active knowledge of the Chamorro language even during the Spanish colonial era, but this was all to change with the advent of American imperialism and enforcement of the English language. In Guam, the language suffered additional suppression when the U.S. government banned the Chamorro language in schools and workplaces in 1922. They collected and burned all Chamorro dictionaries. Similar policies were undertaken by the Japanese government when they controlled the region during World War II. After World War II, when Guam was recaptured by the United States, the American administrators of the island continued to impose "no Chamorro" language restrictions in local schools, teaching only English and disciplining students for speaking their indigenous tongue. Even though these oppressive language policies were progressively lifted, Chamorro usage had substantially decreased. Subsequent generations were often raised in households where only the oldest family members were fluent. Lack of exposure made it increasingly difficult to pick up Chamorro as a second language. Within a few generations, English replaced Chamorro as the language of daily life. There is a difference in the rate of Chamorro language fluency between Guam and the rest of the Marianas. On Guam (called ''Guåhan'' by Chamorro speakers, from the word ''guaha'', meaning "have"; its English gloss "We have" references the island's providing everything needed to live ) the number of native Chamorro speakers has dwindled in the last decade or so. In the Northern Mariana Islands (NMI), young Chamorros speak the language fluently but prefer to use English when speaking to their children. Chamorro is common among Chamorro households in the Northern Marianas, but fluency has greatly decreased among Guamanian Chamorros during the years of American rule in favor of

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...

, which is commonplace throughout the inhabited Marianas. Today, NMI Chamorros and Guamanian Chamorros disagree strongly on each other's linguistic fluency. An NMI Chamorro would say that Guamanian Chamorros speak the language incorrectly or speak "broken Chamorro", whereas a Guamanian Chamorro might consider the form used by NMI Chamorros to be archaic.

Revitalization efforts

Representatives from Guam have unsuccessfully lobbied the United States to take action to promote and protect the language. In 2013, "Guam will be institutin
Public Law 31-45
which increases the teaching of the Chamorro language and culture in Guam schools," extending instruction to include grades 7–10. Other efforts have been made in recent times, most notably Chamorro immersion schools. One example is the Huråo Guåhan Academy, at the Chamorro Village in Hagåtña, GU. This program is led by Ann Marie Arceo and her husband, Ray Arceo. According to Huråo's official YouTube page, "Huråo Academy is one if not the first Chamoru Immersion Schools that focus on the teaching of Chamoru language and Self-identity on Guam. Huråo was founded as a non-profit in June 2005." The academy has been praised by many for the continuity of the Chamoru language. Other creative ways to incorporate and promote the Chamorro language have been found in the use of applications for smartphones, internet videos and television. From Chamorro dictionaries, to the most recent "Speak Chamorro" app, efforts are growing and expanding in ways to preserve and protect the Chamorro language and identity. On YouTube, a popular Chamorro soap opera ''Siha'' has received mostly positive feedback from native Chamorro speakers on its ability to weave dramatics, the Chamorro language, and island culture into an entertaining program. On TV, ''Nihi! Kids'' is a first-of-its-kind show, because it is targeted "for Guam’s nenis that aims to perpetuate Chamoru language and culture while encouraging environmental stewardship, healthy choices and character development."

Phonology

Chamorro has 24

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s: 18 are

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...

s and 6 are

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...

Vowels

Chamorro has at least 6 vowels, which include: * ,

open back unrounded vowel The open back unrounded vowel, or low back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is A. The ...

equivalent to the "a" in "father." * ,

near-open front unrounded vowel The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase of the ligature. Bo ...

equivalent to the "a" in "cat." * , close-mid front unrounded vowel equivalent to the "e" in the Received Pronunciation of "met". * , close front unrounded vowel equivalent to the "ee" in "sleep." * , close-mid back unrounded vowel equivalent to the "o" in "corn." * ,

close back rounded vowel The close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u. I ...

equivalent to the "u" in "flu."

Consonants

Below is a chart of Chamorro consonants; all are unaspirated. * does not occur initially. * Affricates // can be realized as palatal [] before non-low front vowels.

Grammar

Chamorro is a VSO or verb–subject–object language. However, the word order can be very flexible and change to SVO (subject-verb-object), like English, if necessary to convey different types of relative clauses depending on context and to stress parts of what someone is trying to say or convey. Again, that is subject to debate as those on Guam believe the Chamorro word order is flexible, but those in the CNMI do not. Chamorro is also an

agglutinative language An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to rem ...

, whose grammar allows

root word A root (or root word) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. The root word is the prima ...

s to be modified by a number of

affixes In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...

. For example, ''masanganenñaihon'' "talked a while (with/to)", passive marking prefix ''ma-'', root verb ''sangan'', referential suffix ''i'' "to" (forced

morphophonemic Morphophonology (also morphophonemics or morphonology) is the branch of linguistics that studies the interaction between morphological and phonological or phonetic processes. Its chief focus is the sound changes that take place in morphemes ...

ally to change to ''e'') with excrescent consonant ''n'', and suffix ''ñaihon'' "a short amount of time". Thus ''Masanganenñaihon guiʼ ''"He/she was told (something) for a while". Chamorro has many Spanish

s and other words have Spanish etymological roots (such as ''tenda'' "shop/store" from Spanish ''tienda''), which may lead some to mistakenly conclude that the language is a

Spanish creole A Spanish creole, or Spanish-based creole language, is a creole language (contact language with native speakers) for which Spanish serves as its substantial ''lexifier''. A number of creole languages are influenced to varying degrees by the Sp ...

, but Chamorro very much uses its loanwords in a Micronesian way (''bumobola'' "playing

ball A ball is a round object (usually spherical, but can sometimes be ovoid) with several uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. Balls can also be used f ...

" from ''bola'' "ball, play ball" with verbalizing

infix An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word or the core of a family of words). It contrasts with '' adfix,'' a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix. When marking text for i ...

''-um-'' and

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...

of the first syllable of root). Chamorro is a

predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...

-initial head-marking language. It has a rich agreement system in the nominal and in the verbal domains. Chamorro is also known for its

wh-agreement Wh-agreement refers to morphological changes triggered by wh-movement, usually in verbs or complementisers. It occurs in a number of Bantu languages, Austronesian languages including Chamorro and Palauan, Algonquin languages such as Ojibwe, as w ...

in the verb. The agreement morphemes agree with features (roughly the

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...

feature) of the question phrase and replace the regular subject–verb agreement in transitive realis clauses:

Pronouns

This set of pronouns is found in Chamorro:

Orthography

Additionally, some letter combinations in Chamorro sometimes represent single phonemes. For instance, "ci+ owel and "ti+ owel are both pronounced , as in ('justice') and the surname (Spanish influence). The letter is usually (though not always) pronounced more like ''dz'' (an approximation of the regional Spanish pronunciation of ''y'' as ); it is also sometimes used to represent the same sound as the letter ''i'' by Guamanian speakers. The phonemes represented by and as well as and are not always distinguished in print. Thus the Guamanian place name spelled '' Yona'' is pronounced "Dzonia"/, not as might be expected. is usually pronounced like ''ts'' rather than like English ''ch''. Chamorro is usually a tap , but is rolled between vowels, and it is a retroflex approximant , like English ''r,'' at the beginning of words. Words that begin with ''r'' in the Chamorro lexicon are exclusively loanwords. Chamorro has

geminate consonant In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct fr ...

s which are written double (GG, DD, KK, MM, NGNG, PP, SS, TT), native

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

s AI and AO, plus OI, OE, IA, IU, IE in loanwords; penultimate stress, except where marked otherwise, if marked at all in writing, usually with an

acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ...

, as in 'blue' or 'big'. Unstressed vowels are limited to , though they are often spelled A E O. Syllables may be consonant-vowel-consonant, as in 'sibling', 'unload', 'shy', or 'lie face down', (Old Chamorro word for 100), (capital of Guam); B, D, and G are not distinguished from P, T, and K in that position.. Today, there is an ongoing issue on the Chamorro language orthography between NMI Chamorros and Guamanian Chamorros (example: NMI Chamorro vs. Guamanian CHamoru). As of 2021, the Guamanian Chamorros have come out with an official orthography for the Guamanian dialect, whereas the NMI Chamorros have yet to develop an official orthography. Rather, the NMI Chamorros spell their words based on how it sounds.

Vocabulary

Numbers

Current common Chamorro uses only the number words of Spanish origin: ''uno'', ''dos'', ''tres'', etc. Old Chamorro used different number words based on categories: basic numbers (for date, time, etc.), living things, inanimate things, and long objects. * The number 10 and its multiples up to 90 are dies (10), benti (20), trenta (30), kuårenta (40), sinkuenta (50), sisenta (60), sitenta (70), ochenta (80), nubenta (90). These are similar to the corresponding Spanish terms diez (10), veinte (20), treinta (30), cuarenta (40), cincuenta (50), sesenta (60), setenta (70), ochenta (80), noventa (90).

Days of the Week

Current common Chamorro uses only the Days of the Week which are Spanish in origin but are spelled differently. There is currently an effort by Chamorro Language advocates to introduce/re-introduce native terms for the Chamorro Days of the Week. Unfortunately, both major dialects differ in the terminology used. Guamanian advocates support a number-based system derived from Old Chamorro Numerals, whereas the NMI advocates support a more unique system.

Months

Before the Spanish-based 12-month calendar became predominant, the Chamoru 13-month lunar calendar was commonly used. The first month in the left column below corresponds with January. In the right column are the Spanish-based months.

Basic phrases

Studies

Chamorro is studied at the

University of Guam University of Guam ( ch, Unibetsedåt Guåhan) (U.O.G.) is a public land-grant university in Mangilao, Guam. It is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and offers thirty-four degree programs at the undergraduate level a ...

and in several academic institutions of Guam and the Northern Marianas. Researchers in several countries are studying aspects of Chamorro. In 2009, the Chamorro Linguistics International Network (CHIN) was established in Bremen, Germany. CHiN was founded on the occasion of the Chamorro Day (27 September 2009) which was part of the programme of the Festival of Languages. The foundation ceremony was attended by people from Germany, Guam, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States of America.The Maga’låhi (president) is Dr. Rafael Rodríguez-Ponga Salamanca (Madrid, Spain); Maga’låhi ni onrao (honorary president): Dr. Robert A. Underwood (president, University of Guam); Teniente maga’låhi (vice-president): Prof. Dr. Thomas Stolz (Universität Bremen).

Footnotes

References

Notes

References

* * * * * * * *

External links

Chamorro-English Online Dictionary
*https://web.archive.org/web/20131223170220/http://ns.gov.gu/language.html *https://web.archive.org/web/20060613193013/http://www.offisland.com/thelanguage.html *https://web.archive.org/web/20031119062318/http://www.chamorro.com/fino/fino.html
Chamorro-English dictionary
partially available at Google Books. z*
Chamorro Reference Grammar
partially available at Google Books. *https://web.archive.org/web/20050405213852/http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Chamorro-english/
Chamorro Wordlist at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database
*https://web.archive.org/web/20081210161635/http://www.sous-le-soleil-de-guam.com/ *https://web.archive.org/web/20110716095102/http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/chin/ Chamorro Linguistics International Network (CHIN). * Text and software files from "Chamorro-English Dictionary (PALI Language Texts: Micronesia)" by Donald M. Topping, Pedro M. Ogo, and Bernadita C. Dungca, published in 1975 by University of Hawaii Press archived at

Kaipuleohone Kaipuleohone is a digital ethnographic archive that houses audio and visual files, photographs, as well as hundreds of textual material such as notes, dictionaries, and transcriptions relating to small and endangered languages. The archive is stored ...

. * Index cards of plant and animal names in Chamorro language in

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Chamorro Language

Language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

Agglutinative languages Endangered Austronesian languages Endangered languages of Oceania Languages of Guam Languages of the Mariana Islands Languages of the Northern Mariana Islands Malayo-Polynesian languages Verb–subject–object languages Vulnerable languages

Classification

Speakers

Revitalization efforts

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

Grammar

Pronouns

Orthography

Vocabulary

Numbers

Days of the Week

Months

Basic phrases

Studies

See also

Footnotes

References

Notes

References

Further reading

External links