Chamorro language
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Chamorrois the native language of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. Although the English language is commonplace on both Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands, people still use the Chamorro language. Chamorro is also used in mainland United States by immigrants and some of their descendants.
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, Spanish, Tagalog, and Japanese have 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, 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.
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 infix -um- and reduplication of root). However, Chamorro can also be considered a mixed language (Hispano-Austronesian) or a language that resulted of a contact and creolization process in the Mariana Islands. Modern Chamorro grammar has many elements of Spanish origin, especially in articles, numbers and prepositions.
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.
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. (Filipinos outnumber Chamorus in the Northern Mariana Islands.)
Alphabet
Note that the letter Y is pronounced more like 'dz' as it is in some dialects of Castilian Spanish, and that Ch is usually pronounced like 'ts' rather than 'tsh'. Note also that A and Å are not always distinguished in written Chamorro, often being written simply as 'A'; nor are N and Ñ always distinguished. Thus the Guamanian place name spelled Yona is pronounced 'dzo-nya', not 'yo-na' as might be expected.Chamorro basic phrases
Håfa adai "Hello"
Håfa tatatmanu hao? "How are you?"
Hayi na'an-mu? "What is your name?"
Si Bruce yu' "I am Bruce"
Guåhan "Guam"
Adiós "Good bye"
Buenas días "Good morning"
Buenas tatdes "Good afternoon"
Buenas noches "Good night"
Asta agupa' "See you tomorrow"
Si Yu'us ma'ase "Thank you"
Buen probechu "Not at all; you're welcome"
Ñam-ñam "I'm hungry"
Numbers
Current common Chamorro uses only number words of Spanish origin: unu, dos, tres, kuatro, sinko, sais, siette, ocho, nuebi, dies, onse, dose, trese, katotse, kinse, disesisáis...; beinte (benti), trenta, kuarenta, sinkuenta...: sien, dos sientos, tres sientos... kinientos...; mit, dos mit, tres mit...
The Old Chamorro used different number words based on categories: "Basic numbers" (for date, time, etc), "living things", "inanimate things", and "long objects".
Basic old numbers (which resemble the Visayan language of the Philippines): 1.Hacha 2.Hugua 3.Tulu 4.Fatfat 5.Lima 6.Gunum 7.Fiti 8.Gualu 9.Sigua 10.Manot/Fulu 100.Gatus
External links
- http://www.visitguam.net
- http://ns.gov.gu/language.html
- http://www.offisland.com/cham.html
- http://www.chamorro.com/fino/fino.html
- http://www.rubyandjesse.com
- [Similarities among some Oceanic languages, including Chamorro]
- [Chamorro - English Dictionary]: from [Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition.
- [Dictionary and Grammar of the Chamorro Language of the Island of Guam], by Edward R. von Preissig, Ph.D. From [ChamorroBible.org] (http://ChamorroBible.org).
- [The Chamorro Language of Guam: A Grammar of the Idiom Spoken by the Inhabitants of the Marianne or Ladrones, Islands], by William Edwin Safford. From [ChamorroBible.org] (http://ChamorroBible.org).
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