Chamorro language

The Chamorro language (autoglottonym: Chamoru) is the language spoken on the island of Guam and in the Northern Mariana Islands where it shares official status with English. In some homes in the Carolinas, notably Yap and Ponape, it is also still used and officially recognized. These islands of Oceania were linked to Spain from 1521 to 1898-1899. They also use the language, in the United States, some immigrants and their descendants. It is a Malayo-Polynesian language, in the Austronesian family, and has many influences from Spanish, Chamorro having come to be considered spoken at the turn of the century XIX was a Spanish-based creole.

It is an agglutinative language, allowing roots to be modified by an unlimited number of affixes. For example, manmasanganenñaihon "(plural) to talk for a while (with/to)" comes from the plural prefix man-, the past intensifier ma-, the verb stem sangan, the suffix i "to, towards" (which in this case changes its timbre to e) with the added consonant n and the suffix ñaihon "a small amount of time& #3. 4;. So "In manmasanganenñaihon gui'" means "We were talking to you for a while".

Just like Spanish, it also has the letter ñ in its alphabet and a large amount of vocabulary from Spanish (approximately 50% of the roots of the words). However, some authors consider that this does not make it a creole of Spanish, since Chamorro often uses Micronesian-style loanwords (for example: bumobola, "jugar con la bola or ball" with the verbalizing infix -um- and the reduplication of the first syllable of the root).

There are approximately 50,000 Chamorro speakers throughout Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Rota, Yap, Ponapé, and other parts of the United States.

The most closely related languages to Chamorro are found in the Philippines, although some linguists consider Chamorro to be a language isolate within the Malayo-Polynesian family.

The number of Chamorro speakers has declined in recent years, and young people generally show increasing influence from English, and tend to mix Chamorro and English in conversation. In Guam (called Guåhan by Chamorro speakers) the number of native speakers has declined over the past decade, while in the Northern Marianas young people are still fluent in the language.

Chamorro as Creole Spanish

Rafael Rodríguez-Ponga considers Chamorro a Spanish-Austronesian or a mixed Hispano-Austronesian language or, at least, a language that has emerged from a process of contact and creolization on the island of Guam, since modern Chamorro is not only influenced by vocabulary, but also has numerous elements of Spanish origin in its grammar: verbs, articles, prepositions, numerals, conjunctions, etc. That process, which began in the 17th century and ended in the early XX, signified a profound change from ancient Chamorro (paleo-Chamorro) to modern Chamorro (neo-Chamorro), in its grammar, phonology, and lexicon.

For his part, linguist Donald M. Topping, in the textbook Chamorro Reference Grammar, says that although there has been a massive influx of Spanish loanwords and even Spanish influence in the system of Chamorro sounds, the influence is linguistically superficial, with little effect on grammar.

Chamori, Chamorro and Chamoru

Pre-colonial society in the Mariana Islands was based on the caste system, "Chamori" was the name of the ruling caste.

After Spain annexed and conquered the Mariana Islands, the caste system finally died out during Spanish rule, so the Spanish began to refer to the natives by the exonym chamorro. The name chamoru is an endonym derived from the native pronunciation of the same Hispanic exonym.

Some people postulate that the Spanish definition of "chamorro" it played an important role when it was used to refer to the inhabitants of the archipelago. In addition to the fact that Chamorro is a surname of Spanish origin, more specifically Castilian, which according to some sources means "the one with the sheared head", in addition to being used as a nickname for the Portuguese, who had the habit of shaving. Other sources argue that the meaning is "echar moros" this pronounced would quickly sound like chamorro. Accordingly, the term chamorro could have been used to designate the inhabitants of these islands since Circa, a Catholic missionary reported that the men wore a sporty style in which they shaved their heads. This style has even been portrayed in "caricatures" modern that try to ridicule the Chamorros of yesteryear. However, the first European descriptions of the physical appearance of the "chamorros" in the years 1520-1530 he reports that both sexes had long hair, reaching even below the waist. Another description, made about 50 years later, reported that the natives of that time tied their hair in one or two knots.

Alphabet

' (glotal cognizance), 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 usually pronounced more like 'dz' (approximation to a regional pronunciation of "y" or "ll", whose sounds do not exist in Chamorro), nor is it usually possible to differentiate N from Ñ. Thus the place name Yona is pronounced 'dzo-nia', not 'yo-na' which would be expected. Also note that the CH sound is more like 'ts' than to 'tsh' and that A and Å are frequently not differentiated in written Chamorro, both being written as 'A', although careful writing in textbooks or official publications does take care to differentiate them.

Basic expressions in Chamorro

Numerals

Current Chamorro uses the entire numeral system borrowed from Spanish.

• 1-10: Unu, dos, tres, kuåtro, sinko, sais, seven, eight, nuebi, dies
• 11-19: onse, dose, threee, katotse, kinse, diesiséis, diesisiete, diesiocho, disinuebi
• 20-90: beinti (benti), thirty (trenta), kuarenta, sinkuenta, sisenta, sitenta, eighty, nobenta
• 100-900: sien(to), two feelings, three sorrys, kuåtro sorrys, kinientos, sais sorrys... nobesientos (nine sorrys)
• 1000-9000: mit, two mit, three mit...
• 1 000 000: a miyon, two miyon, three miyon...

However, it is common in spontaneous conversation for Chamorros to use numerals in English when counting dollars.