Chamorro language

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Chamorro
Chamorro
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    Central-Eastern MP ?     Chamorro
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
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Chamorro is a Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian) language, spoken on the Mariana islands (esp. Guam and Saipan) by about 47000 people (ca. 35000 speakers of Chamorro on Guam, ca. 12000 in the N. Marianas).^[1]

It is an agglutinative language, grammatically allowing root words to be modified by a number of affixes. For example, masanganenñaihon "talked awhile (with/to)", passivizing prefix ma-, root verb sangan, directional suffix i "to" (forced morphophonemically to change to e) with excrescent consonant n, and suffix ñaihon "a short amount of time". Thus Masanganenñaihon gue' "He/she was told (something) for a while".

Chamorro has many Spanish loanwords and other 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).

Contents 1 Chamorro speakers 2 Classification 3 Alphabet 4 Chamorro grammar 5 Chamorro basic phrases 6 Numbers 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Chamorro speakers

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. On Guam (called "Guåhan" by Chamorro speakers, probably from either the word guaha, meaning "have", or the word guihan, meaning "fish", or perhaps a portmanteau of both), 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. Various representatives from Guam have unsuccessfully lobbied the United States to take action to promote and protect the language.^{[citation needed]}

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.

[edit] Classification

Unlike most of its neighbors, Chamorro is not a Micronesian or Polynesian language. Rather, like Palauan, it constitutes a possibly independent branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages. Its origins are thus somewhat obscure. A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database^[2] suggested at at 85% confidence level that it is closest to the Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages.

[edit] Alphabet

Letter	pronunciation
’	[ʔ] (glottal stop)
A	[æ]
Å	[ɑ]
B	[b]
Ch	[ts]
D	[d]
E	[e]
F	[f]
G	[g]
Gu	[ɡʷ]
H	[h]
I	[i]
K	[k]
L	[l]
M	[m]
N	[n]
Ñ	[ɲ]
Ng	[ŋ]
O	[o]
P	[p]
R	[ɾ]
Rr	[r]
S	[s]
T	[t]
U	[u]
Y	[dz]

Note that the letter Y is pronounced more like 'dz' (an approximation of the regional Spanish pronunciation of "Y"/"LL" as [ɟʝ]; 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'). R in Chamorro is pronounced like [ɾ] like Spanish and Chamorro also has a trill [r] which is spelled RR.

Chamorro has geminate consonants which are written double (GG, DD, KK, MM, NGNG, PP, RR, SS, TT), native diphthongs AI and AO, plus OI, OE, IA, IU, IE in loanwords; penultimate stress, except where marked otherwise with an acute accent, as in asút "blue" or dángkulo "big". Unstressed vowels are limited to /ə i u/, though they are often spelled A E O. Syllables may be consonant-vowel-consonant, as in che’lu "sibling", diskatga "unload", mamahlao "shy", or oppop "lie face down", gatus (old word for 100), Hagatña "Agana", though B D G are not distinguished from P T K in that position^[vague].

[edit] Chamorro grammar

Chamorro is predicate-initial, head-marking language. It has a rich agreement system both in the nominal and in the verbal domains. The following table gives the possessor-noun agreement suffixes:^[3]

Person/Number	Suffix
1 sg	-hu / -kku
2 sg	-(m)mu
3 sg	-(n)ña
1 incl du/pl	-(t)ta
1 incl du/pl	-(n)mami
2 du/pl	-(n)miyu
3 du/pl	-(n)ñiha

Chamorro is also known for its wh-agreement in the verb: these agreement morphemes agree with features (roughly, the Grammatical_case feature) of the question phrase, and replace the regular subject-verb agreement:^[4]

(1)	Ha-fa'gasi	si	Juan	i	kareta.
	3sSA[5]-wash	PND[6]	Juan	the	car

'Juan washed the car.'

(2)	Hayi	fuma'gasi	i	kareta?
	who?	WH[nom][7].wash	the	car

'Who washed the car?'

[edit] Chamorro basic phrases

Håfa Adai Hello. Memorias Greetings Kao mamaolek ha' hao? How are you? [lit.: Are you doing well?][informal] Håfa tatatmånu hao? How are you?[formal] Håyi na'ån-mu? What is your name? Na'ån-hu si Chris My name is Chris. Ñålang yu' I'm hungry. Må'o yu' I'm thirsty.

Ådios [Spanish introduced] Good bye. Put Fabot [Spanish introduced] please Fanatåtte[Indigenous] And so you will follow Buenas dihas [Spanish introduced] Good morning. Buenas tåtdes [Spanish introduced] Good afternoon. Buenas noches [Spanish introduced] Good night.

Esta ågupa' Until tomorrow Si Yu'os ma'åse' (: Thank you (lit: God have mercy) Buen probecho [Spanish introduced] "You're Welcome"

[edit] 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 Chamorro	Old Chamorro: Basic Numbers	Old Chamorro: Living Things	Old Chamorro: Inanimate Things	Old Chamorro: 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	siento	gatus	gatus	gatus	gatus/manapo

• 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)
• similar to Spanish terms.

[edit] References

• Aguon, K. B. (1995). Chamorro: a complete course of study. Agana, Guam: K.B. Aguon.
• Chung, Sandra. 1998. The design of agreement: Evidence from Chamorro. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
• Rodríguez-Ponga, Rafael (2003). El elemento español en la lengua chamorra. Madrid: Servicio de Publicaciones, Universidad Complutense.
• Topping, Donald M. (1973). Chamorro reference grammar. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
• Topping, Donald M., Pedro M. Ogo, and Bernadita C. Dungca (1975). Chamorro-English dictionary. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
• Topping, Donald M. (1980). Spoken Chamorro: with grammatical notes and glossary, rev. ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
• Hunt, Mike (2008). "Speaking Chamoru Moru Moru". San Roque, Saipan.

[edit] External links

• Chamorro language at Ethnologue
• http://ns.gov.gu/language.html
• http://www.offisland.com/thelanguage.html
• http://www.chamorro.com/fino/fino.html
• Chamorro-English dictionary, partially available at Google Books.
• A Chamorro Reference Grammar, partially available at Google Books.
• http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Chamorro-english/
• Chamorro Wordlist at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database