| Chamorro Chamoru |
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|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Guam, Northern Mariana Islands | |
| Region: | Western Pacific Ocean | |
| Total speakers: | First language: more than 60,000 | |
| Language family: | Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (MP) Nuclear MP Sunda-Sulawesi Chamorro |
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| Official status | ||
| Official language in: | Guam, Northern Mariana Islands | |
| Regulated by: | no official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | ch | |
| ISO 639-2: | cha | |
| ISO 639-3: | cha | |
Chamorro language spread in the United States
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| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Chamorro (Chamoru in "Chamorro") is the native language of the Chamorro or Chamoru of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. It is also used in the mainland United States by immigrants and some of their descendants. It is an agglutinative language, grammatically allowing root words to be modified by an unlimited number of affixes. For example, manmasanganenñaihon "(plural) talked awhile (with/to)" from pluralizing prefix man-, past tensifying prefix ma-, root verb sangan, suffix i "to" (forced morphophonemically to change to e) with excrescent consonant n, and suffix ñaihon "a short amount of time". Thus "In manmasanganenñaihon gui' ": "We (exclusive) talked to him/her for a bit". A large number of Chamorro words have Spanish etymological roots (e.g. tenda "shop/store" from Spanish tienda), which may lead some to mistakenly conclude that the language is a Spanish Creole: Chamorro very much uses its loan words in a Micronesian way (eg: bumobola "playing ball" from bola "ball, play ball" with verbalizing infix -um- and reduplication of first syllable of root). The numbers of Chamorro speakers have declined in recent years, and the younger generations are less likely to know the language. The influence of English has caused the language to become endangered. Various representatives from Guam have unsuccessfully lobbied the United States to take action to promote and protect the language. In Guam (called "Guåhan" by Chamorro speakers, from the word guaha, meaning "have"), the number of native Chamorro speakers have dwindled in numbers in the last decade or so while in the Northern Mariana Islands, young Chamorros still speak the language fluently. There are approximately 50,000 to 75,000 speakers of Chamorro throughout the Marianas archipelago. It is still 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 (a largely pidginized) American English, which is commonplace throughout the inhabited Marianas.
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Alphabet
Note that the letter Y is pronounced more like 'dz' (an approximation of the regional Spanish pronunciation of "Y"/"Ll" as "(d)ʒ", the exact sound of which did not exist among the Chamoru); nor are N and Ñ always distinguished. Thus the Guamanian place name spelled Yona is pronounced 'dzo-nia', not 'yo-na' as might be expected. Note also that Ch is usually pronounced like 'ts' rather than 'tsh' and that A and Å are not always distinguished in written Chamorro (often being written simply as 'A').
Chamorro basic phrases
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Numbers
Current common Chamorro uses only number words of Spanish origin: unu, 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".
| English | Modern Chamoru | Old Chamoru: Basic Numbers | Old Chamoru: Living Things | Old Chamoru: Inanimate Things | Old Chamoru: Long Objects |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| one | unu/una (time) | hacha | maisa | hachiyai | takhachun |
| two | dos | hugua | hugua | hugiyai | takhuguan |
| three | tres | tulu | tato | to'giyai | taktulun |
| four | kuåttro' | fatfat | fatfat | fatfatai | takfatun |
| five | singko' | lima | lalima | limiyai | takliman |
| six | sais | gunum | guagunum | gonmiyai | ta'gunum |
| seven | sietti | fiti | fafiti | fitgiyai | takfitun |
| eight | ocho' | gualu | guagualu | guatgiyai | ta'gualun |
| nine | nuebi | sigua | sasigua | sigiyai | taksiguan |
| ten | dies | manot | maonot | manutai | takmaonton |
| hundred | sien | gatus | gatus | gatus | gatus/manapo |
- The tens digit numbers starting from 10 is dies(10),benti(20),trenta(30),kuårenta(40),singkuenta(50),sisenta(60),sitenta(70),ochenta(80),nubenta(90)
Further reading
- Aguon, K. B. (1995). Chamorro: a complete course of study. Agana, Guam: K.B. Aguon.
- Topping, D. M., & Ogo, P. (1969). Spoken Chamorro; an intensive language course with grammatical notes and glossary. Micronesia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
External links
