CHAMORRO LANGUAGE

'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.
Chamorro's nearest grammatical relatives are found in the Philippines. Some of the similarities between the Chamorro language and languages of the Philippines may be due at least in part to the fact that after 90%-95% of the native Chamoru population was wiped out during Spanish rule, large numbers of Filipinos began to be shipped to the archipelago, thus possibly influencing Chamoru language and culture.

Contents

Alphabet

Chamorro basic phrases

Numbers

Further reading

External links

Alphabet

:' (glottal stop), A, Å, B, Ch, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, Ñ, Ng, O, P, R, S, T, U, Y
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

Håfa Adai ''Hello'' åti adeng-mu ''Greetings'' Håfa tatatmånu hao? ''How are you?'' Håyi na'ån-mu? ''What is your name?'' Guåhu si Bruce ''I am Bruce'' Ñålang yu' ''I'm hungry''

Adios [Spanish introduced] ''Good bye'' Fanatåtte[Indigenous] '' And so you will follow'' Buenas dihas [Spanish introduced] ''Good morning'' Oga'an Maolek ''Good Morning'' Talo'ånen Maolek ''Good Afternoon'' Buenas tatdes [Spanish introduced] ''Good afternoon'' Puengen Maolek ''Good Evening'' Pupuengen Maolek ''Good Night'' Buenas noches [Spanish introduced] ''Good night''

Håfa adai ''Hello'' Esta agupa' ''See you tomorrow'' Si Yu'us ma'ase ''Thank you'' Buen probecho' [Spanish introduced] ''Not at all; you're welcome''

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". it is also similar to the Bisaya language which is found in the Philippines:

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

★

★ http://ns.gov.gu/language.html

★ http://www.offisland.com/thelanguage.html

★ http://www.chamorro.com/fino/fino.html

★ http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Chamorro-english/