Breathe Life into the Chamorro Language

Breathe life in the Chamorro language

Michael Lujan Bevacqua

Pacific Daily News

October 6, 2016

 

From 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 10 at the University of Guam CLASS Lecture Hall, students in the Chamorro Studies program will organize an “Inadaggao Lengguahen Chamoru” or a Chamorro Language Forum. For this event, four senatorial candidates from each political party will be asked questions in the Chamorro language about pertinent island issues, and respond in the Chamorro language. The event is open to the public and refreshments will be provided.

Nowadays it is easy to forget that there are two official languages for this island, Chamorro and English. One of them has been here for a little over a century, the other for thousands of years. Despite changes that have taken place, the Chamorro language has probably been a part of this land, as long as it has hosted people. It is intimately tied to the natural world and it is the tongue that Chamorros have used to describe everything from typhoons to foreign invaders. In recent memory, one language has become dominant, while the other is increasingly quiet.

Due to overt efforts by the U.S. Navy prior to World War II to prohibit and discourage the use of the Chamorro language and postwar choices made by Chamorros to Americanize, the Chamorro language has been steadily declining. After surviving innumerable trials and tribulations, we can almost hear the end of the language on the horizon. Although the 20,000-plus speakers of Chamorro in the world today is positive compared to many smaller languages with just a handful of fluent speakers. Each successive census indicates that rather than stemming the tide of language death, we continue to lose tens of thousands of speakers.

The Chamorro renaissance, which has reversed so many formerly negative self-perceptions that Chamorros have of themselves, has done little to slow the decline of the Chamorro language. Chamorros no longer eagerly accept the idea that the primary value of their language and culture is that it can be sacrificed on the altar of American assimilation, but sadly this has not led to an increase of the number of Chamorro language speakers.

There are many factors that are affecting the decline of the Chamorro language, but the usual reasons that you will hear discussed around your average fiesta table aren’t the real villains. The Chamorro language isn’t being killed by Facebook, iPads, Netflix or anything of the sort. The Chamorro language isn’t dying because of a terrible laziness that afflicts the youth of today or a saddening unwillingness to learn their native tongue. The Chamorro language is declining because those who can speak Chamorro do not speak it to those who don’t, especially if they are younger than them. And furthermore, that who can speak Chamorro tend not to use it around those who can’t.

Observe your average Chamorro speaker and you’ll see this is true. Chances are good they will use Chamorro among those in their age group, especially if they are above the age of 60. But when it comes to interacting with those younger than them, even within their own family, you’ll see the amount of Chamorro drop dramatically.

Languages remain alive for a single reason; it has nothing to do with status, practicality or speaker community size. They are alive because they are passed on to the next generation.

There are still spaces in Guam where the Chamorro language remains strong and audible. There are still families where it is being passed on to the younger generations. But these spaces and instances are becoming fewer and fewer. As a result, the language becomes quieter and quieter.

Despite the dire state of the Chamorro language today, it is important to recognize that the language does not have to die. It is not destined for linguistic oblivion, existing only in recordings in the Guam Museum. It can be brought back to a healthy state again, but doing so requires far more than current efforts within families and within communities. As UOG President Robert Underwood argued during his keynote address at the Indigenous Language Conference during the Festival of Pacific Arts, you cannot just “håfa adai” your way to language revitalization. Given the deep tissue forms of colonization that convinced Chamorros that their language was useless in the first place, serious interventions are required to re-infuse value and reestablish a sense of linguistic integrity and practical flexibility.

It is common to see the decline of the Chamorro language as tied to technological or cultural changes, but that isn’t how languages work. Languages are adaptive, they can survive just about anything, so long as people continue to use them and pass them on to the next generation. The Chamorro language is disappearing because rather than adapting the language to the world around us, we have reduced the places where it has spoken, ceding more and more territory of everyday life to the realm of English, leaving Chamorro to feel stagnant and static in comparison. In addition to simply using it with our children and grandchildren, we have to expand the things we use Chamorro for and the places where it is natural to use it. This can mean pushing the Chamorro language to evolve in order to be able to accommodate shifts in technology or popular culture, but also use community outreach or public mandates in order to increase the number of places where Chamorro can be used or heard.

Electoral politics was once a place, in the 20th century where the Chamorro language thrived. From pocket meetings to the speeches on the floor of the Guam Legislature, whereas English was the formal language of politics, Chamorro was a necessary companion, feeding a vitality into campaigns. Take, for example, this passage from Pedro C. Sanchez’s "Guahan/Guam: The History of Our Island":

The 1956 election was the first tie that a real contest for legislative seats was experienced on Guam … Popular Party meetings went into the wee hours of the morning. They stayed until they heard Senator James T. Sablan of Agana Heights deliver his nightly “bombshell” blasting the leaders of the Territorial Party slate. His attacks ranged from hilarious uses of the Chamorro and English languages to malicious attacks on his opponents. But the crowd loved it and would disperse only after he finished at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning.

As the number of Chamorro speakers has declined, the number of fluent speakers among our elected leaders has dropped as well. Pocket meetings used to be filled with speakers who would politick in the Chamorro language, but even their numbers are dwindling. Political events will feature common Chamorro phrases, perhaps a single speaker who will emphasis the use of Chamorro, but other than that, politics are now English with local flavor.

The Inadaggao Lengguahen Chamoru is an attempt to push back against this Chamorro decline and stagnation. It is a symbolic intervention aimed at expanding the borders of what we’ve come to commonly associate with the Chamorro language. To help Chamorros of all ages see that the language is so much more than tattoos, T-shirts or food words. But that it will only have as much value, as much life as we breathe into it through our use of it.

Michael Lujan Bevacqua is an author, artist, activist and assistant professor of Chamorro studies at the University of Guam.

Gåyu, Gåyu...Chamorro Political Wisdom

Gåyu, Gåyu…

by Michael Lujan Bevacqua

The Guam Daily Post

1/27/16

While watching a speech by Republic US Presidential candidate this week I found myself yelling at my computer screen in Chamorro, “an meggai sinangan-mu, meggai dinagi-mu lokkue’!” This Chamorro saying is tied to a belief that those who tend to tell the truth, tend to say less. While those who talk a lot, lie a lot and are trying to sell you something. The truth usually takes less words to express than a lie.

While I have been following the US Presidential election closely for months, it dawned on me in that moment that 2016 is also an election year in Guam, at least for mayors, senators and non-voting delegates.

In the spirit of my yelling a Chamorro saying at Donald Trump, I sat down to think about what other Chamorro sayings that I’ve collected in my research might have some relevance to selecting leaders on Guam. In this column I’ve put together seven sayings in Chamorro that you might want to consider when casting a vote this year. As a disclaimer, these are my interpretations of the sayings and openly acknowledge that there other ways of analyzing them.

1. Tåya’ apasi-ña i Yine’ase

Translation: “There is no reward for being merciful.” Every political candidate will say they are running for office “para i taotao” or for the people. But how much can people trust this assertion? This saying is a reminder that those who truly seek to help people, should not want to be rewarded for their efforts. Should we judge potential leaders not only based on what they can accomplish, but also their intentions and the direct or indirect benefits their receive through their actions? What doe this say then about leaders who use their power to give money, jobs or contracts to their supporter or their family members?

2. Tåya’ pinekkat sin fegi

Translation: “There are no steps without footprints” This saying can mean many things, but it reminds us that there is no path that does not leave a trail, and that no one is without sin, or perfect. It is understandable that we expect much from our leaders, but what should our standards be, short of perfection? What kind of mistakes are acceptable? What kind aren’t? Should we forgive them? Or is one serious mistake, one too many?

3. I taotao ni’ tumungo’ sumalamångka, ha suhahåyi i barångka

Translation: “A man who knows how to roll, will avoid the bumps” The previous two sayings dealt with idealized conceptions of what a leader should be, but what if we were to be more practical. As this saying suggests, should a good leader be someone who isn’t just virtuous on the inside, but someone who is effective in the political context? Should a leader be someone, who in their actions and with less emphasis on their motivations, is able to work the system to accomplish things? Does this imply that there is no timeless quality to a leader, but it is instead dependent upon the variables of a historical moment?

4. I che’cho’ palao’an, tåya’ nai munhåyan

Translation: “A woman’s work is never finished” Given the Western ways that we have become accustomed to think in, it is easy to think of leaders as being masculine or primarily men. In Guam however, women traditionally held leadership roles, although this has changed significantly with the arrival of the Spanish and Catholicism. That historical power has manifested in the political realm in Guam, despite the way it has been weakened by various forms of patriarchy. Compared to most societies in the world, Guam has notably high female representation in elected positions. Should this reality, or the additional struggle that women face when seeking a leadership role in society affect how people vote?

5. Cha’-mu fañaluluda ni’ ti tihong-mu

Translation: “Don’t salute with a hat that isn’t yours.”  In the world of politics, praise and blame are everywhere, and the game seems to be, winners are able to hoard all the praise and the losers end up shoulder all the blame. In order to build their reputations leaders have a tendency to exaggerate their actions and sometimes outright steal credit for things that they aren’t really responsible for. In this saying, we see that it is not only wrong for someone to take credit for something they don’t deserve, but perhaps you should avoid giving credit to those that don’t deserve it. This can be difficult in practice however as people tend not to have good memories and also forget to ask good critical questions.

6. Yanggen guaha prublemå-mu tachu ya un fana’. Mungga manangga esta ki
pinalo’po’ hao.

Translation: “If you have a problem, stand and face it. Do not wait until it has overwhelmed you.” Decisiveness or the ability to act quickly and swiftly when it is deemed necessary, can be a defining quality of a leader. Action can always be put off until later, change can always be delayed, but at what cost? A good leader may be the one who can see that something must be done now, and work to help others see that need.

7. Yanggen taotao sin orna, esta sin tåya’ bali-ña

Translation: “If a man is without honor, he is not worthy of anything.” Is a sense of honor, or principle the core quality of a leader? Does this mean that he or she will act in ways that might even defy or challenge those around them? On the surface this quote seems very simple, but in practice it is difficult to perceive. Confucius argued that a good leader is like the northern star, a unchanging virtuous light that through its constancy compels others to follow it. The problem with this is that most people who look at the night sky don’t know which is the north star, and in the way might not recognize someone who is leading based on principle rather than pandering or hiding their agenda.

ChaNoWriMo 2013

"ChaNoWriMo"
by Michael Lujan Bevacqua
Marianas Variety
11/6/13

IN THE writing world, November is a special month, although a generally crazy one.

It is known as NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. During this month all of those who have a passion for writing are encouraged to cast caution into the wind and blitz out the novel they have always dreamed of writing. It is something anyone, from any walk of life can participate in. All it takes is commitment and time management. The link for the website where you can sign up is nanowrimo.org.

For those who take on the NaNoWriMo challenge, the number 50,000 signifies both a hated overseer and a inspiring target. As this process is about getting those who want to write, to write, everyone is given a target – 50,000 words – they are to reach by the end of the month. Over the course of November you are to type out 50,000 words of your chosen story.

Since the target is all that matters you are not encouraged to edit and rewrite as you write, but simply charge forward until you finally scale that 50,000 word tall peak. The rest of the year can be spent tweaking and rethinking, but November is purely for writing. So you take your idea and see whether it can take you to 50,000 words or not.

I participated last year and used November as a chance to start a story I had always imagined but never gotten around to really fleshing out. My story was titled “The Legend of the Chamurai” and takes place over 600 years after a great warrior makahna, or spiritual fighter, receives a vision foretelling the doom of her people. Along the way, conquistadors and Japanese samurai make appearances. Ferdinand Magellan appears in a cameo at one point.

As Ancient Chamorros believed in ancestral worship as their religion, they saw the world around them as filled with the spirits of their ancestors. These spirits give guidance and good fortune, and so my story tries to give life to this possibility, placing the worlds of the living and the dead side by side. Makahnas (today known as suruhanus) have the ability to harness the power of the spiritual world and cast spells, summon monsters and create shields of protection.

Famous taotaomo’na figures such as the white lady and Gadao are there, as are lesser known spirits such as Anufat and Gamson. Even the infamous trickster spirit Ukudu plays a role in the story.

I reached my goal of 50,000 words and have been eagerly awaiting November so that I can continue my story.

This year is different however, because I am currently the program coordinator for the Chamorro Studies major program at the University of Guam. The purpose of the program is to preserve, study and promote the knowledge, language and culture of Chamorros. So this year’s NaNoWriMo has a visibly local twist for me, and I am encouraging people to join me and participate in ChaNoWriMo, or “Chamorro Novel Writing Month.”

Participating in ChaNoWriMo is just as easy as NaNoWriMo, with one expected difference. For NaNoWriMo you can write about anything, for ChaNoWriMo, you have to take special care to weave throughout your story things that are representative of Chamorros. In other words, write a story that will use the Chamorro language, history and culture as core parts of how the plot unfolds.

This can mean that you write a story entirely in Chamorro, or it can mean just the dialogue is in Chamorro. Or it can just be a promise to use Chamorro words as much as possible in the dialogue or the text.

But these sorts of things can be incidental; the inclusion of a minor character from Guam, the use of “Hafa Adai? here or there, or as most films and novels do it, just the mention of Guam randomly at some point. For those who want to participate in ChaNoWriMO, you have to go a bit further. You have to really find a way to creatively represent Chamorros. This means finding a part of the Chamorro story or the Chamorro experience that doesn’t receive as much attention and highlighting it. Or it can mean taking something that people are already familiar with and writing about it in a completely new light.

For example, I am looking forward to someone updating the traditional “suruhanu/suruhana” figure. Suruhanus can help people in many ways. They have natural remedies, sometimes offer midwife service, can be experts at massage, and can also be our link to the spiritual world. When you are at a point where an illness seems to have no cure or where some supernatural mystery cannot be answered, you turn to a suruhanu to help you.

I can’t wait till someone writes a series titled, “CSI: Suruhanu.” In it, families and the police when faced with crimes or mysteries that cannot be solved or have some unfathomable dimension, they’ll call in the services of CSI: Suruhanu, who can use his mental fortitude to analyze clues, but also his connections to his “ga’chong” in the taotaomo’na world for finding the truth. If this concept doesn't interest you, take some other aspect and write a similar transformation for it.

The Chamorro Studies Program Facebook page will be offering more information on how to participate in ChaNoWriMo. To receive these updates please like it on Facebook.

Guahan or Guam?

GUAM GOVERNOR PUSHES FOR ‘GUAHAN’ NAME CHANGE
Island’s native name should replace ‘Guam’

By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

HAGÅTÑA, Guam (Marianas Variety, Feb. 17, 2010) – Governor Felix P. Camacho on Monday sought the adoption of "Guahan" as the territory’s official name, highlighting the newfound cultural activism sparked by the islanders’ resistance to the influx of American troops.

"‘Guahan’ means ‘we have’ and we have the right to do so," the governor said in his final state of the island address yesterday.

In an executive order signed after delivering his last annual address, the governor ordered that all "Guam" references in official documents be replaced with "Guahan," the island’s indigenous name.

Camacho also asked the Legislature to enact the pertinent measure to adopt the official name-change.

The governor’s deputy chief of staff, Shawn Gumataotao, said the executive order was the first step toward the lengthy process of officially renaming the territory.

"It requires a change in the Guam Code Annotated and the Organic Act. It also requires national international recognition and congressional action," Gumataotao said. 

The governor’s bid for reversion to the island’s indigenous name came as "We Are Guahan," a new movement that seeks to educate the community about the impact of the military buildup, became a household word overnight.

"Reclaiming the name ‘Guahan’ enhances the practice of Chamorro language and promotes the historic and cultural connection to the island," the executive order states.

The island has always been known as "Guahan" to its natives. 

The American started referring to the island as "Guam" when they came over in 1898. It had since become the official reference to the island.

On February 23, 1900, the first naval governor, Richard Leary, requested that the island be officially designated as "Isle of Guam."

"As a native son, and as the elected governor of our people, I hereby request that we reclaim our indigenous name of Guahan," Camacho said in his address. 

"As we quickly move in to this time of rapid growth and development that may forever change our island, our sense of identity, family and place, it is important that we reaffirm our identity as a people," the governor added.

Micheal Lujan Bevacqua, a cultural activist and an instructor of Guam History at the University of Guam, described the governor’s executive order as "a step toward keeping the heritage and language of the Chamorro people."

Marianas Variety: www.mvariety.com

 
Copyright © 2010 Marianas Variety. All Rights Reserved

The Importance of Being Bilingual

The Importance of Being Bilingual
Michael Lujan Bevacqua
May 19, 2015
No Rest for the Awake - Minagahet Chamorro

For the Importance of Second Language Learning Forum that I helped organize a few weeks ago, we were honored to have a very diverse and exciting panel. Coming at it from different angles, they covered a number of way, some more philosophical and others more practical, as to how learning a second language can be important and as a result, something that should be required at UOG. 

The panel featured the following guests:

Kenneth Gofigan Kuper, a Ph.D. student in Political Science at UH Manoa and former student of mine. He is a young activist who has taken up both the banner of decolonization and language revitalization. I've been working with him on a number of projects such as Ha'anen Fino' Chamoru Ha' and the upcoming Lalahen Sinahi project. He took Chamorro as his second language requirement at UOG and it changed the course of his life. 

Ronald T. Laguana, the current director of the Division of Chamorro Studies in the Guam Department of Education. He is a founding member of the group Nasion Chamoru and is also one of the people behind the popularization of the Inefrei written by Dr. Bernadita Camacho Dungca. He is a proud and active member of the Inetnon Lalahin Guahan, YMLG. 

Toyoko Kang and Clarisa Quan are both professors at UOG. Kang is a Japanese language professor and Quan is a Linguistics and English professor. Both of them have been critics of the dropping of the second language requirement at UOG. 

Dr. Laura Souder Betances is a pioneering Chamorro scholar. She was the one who first connected the academic ideas of feminism into Chamorro scholarship. She is the author of Daughters of the Island and the co-editor of the volume Chamorro Self-Determination with Robert Underwood. She and her husband are consultants for diversity and education.

With the help i nobia-hu Elizabeth Kelley Bowman, we gathered together some of the main quotes by the panelists. I'm sharing them below for people to see. As you can see, it was a very interesting discussion. This may have been part of the reason why the overwhelming majority of people who attended the event and who completed a survey, supported keeping the language requirement in place. 

*******************

 

I took Chamorro 101 to fulfill the language requirement.  I didn’t really care about the Chamorro language.  There was nothing in it for me.  . . . There was so much evidence of internalized racism and internalized colonialism, but what happened was that I ended up taking a few courses, with Chamorro language being a pivotal one, with Siñora Teresita Flores . . . and I learned a lot.  We would come to class and I would learn words that I used to remember hearing my grandmother speak when I grew up.  . . . You have just given me the gift, siñora, of understanding something that I never understood my entire life.  I got more and more involved with this, based off of taking a random class, because it was a GE requirement. 

I really had no interest in the Chamorro language four years ago, when I was twenty.  I’m twenty-four now.  And so, it was so important that I took that course, because sometimes the best things in life tend to hit you over the head when you least expect it.  And that’s why I support having second-language requirements as a GE, because we should not take away the opportunity for another person to have the story that I have.  To have the story of reconnecting with their roots as a Chamorro, no matter if you’re taking Tagalog classes, you’re taking Chinese, there’s so much reconnection to who you are, because through language, you can see the worldview, hear the worldview, the epistemology of your ancestors.  And there’s nothing that should take that away from you.

Kenneth Gofigan Kuper, M.A.

Yanggen para taiguini pa’go, na mafunas ya para mungga machule’ I Chamorro guini, pat maseha hafa na suhetu, Chapones, Tagalog pat maseha hafa, insuttu enao! Para guini gi tano’-ta gi este i eskuela-ta. I Unibetsedat Guahan i mas takhilo’ na unibetsedat guini gi Pasifiku.

Ronald T. Laguana

Language learning, teaching, shares some category of the learning process of critical thinking.  For example, . . . in [Japanese] 101 they are really completely beginners.  So they can’t analyze each word vocabulary particle, or prepositions; they have to analyze, and then, to get the meaning, they have to synthesize.  . . . Students have to learn how to analyze the information and to synthesize and then find out, evaluate, those information . . . Those kinds of learning process occur in second-language learners.  For example, each language has different concepts or realizations. . . .

To learn culture, to just read about Japanese culture in English, I don’t agree.  I don’t agree. Learn through the language, and learn to use it.  Otherwise they cannot use it. Learning should be used.  . . .  So that means students got deeper perspective. 

Toyoko Kang, Ph.D.

When I heard that they wanted to take away the second language requirement, I said, “Huh?”  We live in an island that’s multilingual, that’s multiethnic, that’s multicultural, and they want to take it away?  And Guam, I think, reflects the world as it is today.  We’re living in an increasingly multilingual, global world where multilingualism, multiculturalism, are the norm, rather than the exception.  And for you to take it away is ridiculous.  Or even to kind of reduce the requirement for it.  Second-language learning is cultural learning as well; learning modern languages is to learn the cultures as well.  . . . It promotes cultural awareness, it promotes criticism of ethnocentrism, believing that yours is the only correct one, superior one, it promotes acceptance of other people, other cultures, and I think it is very, very important. 

Clarisa Quan, Ph.D.

To the members of the faculty senate, who may be listening, who may be eavesdropping: it’s important that these voices, our voices, be heard.  . . . As Dr. Underwood said, “Siña mantulaika este na recommendation,” no?  And that’s the thing to remember.  Sometimes we make logical decisions, and they lead us to wrong destinations.  And we have the opportunity here to change course.  And to defy logic, because sometimes things are simply not logical, especially when they belong to matters of the heart. . . .

Universities exist to universalize students.  And how do we universalize students?  We universalize them by providing them with different universes in which to learn, to make decisions, and to operate, and to be successful.  One of the things that Sammy [Betances] and I have been doing lately, in the Marianas, in the Northern Marianas, and in Palau, is that we have been talking about the global-island divide, and how do we bridge that divide?  . . . If we’re going to operate and be successful in the global reality, we need to know more than one language.  Fortunately, many – most – of us are bilingual.  But we need to know many languages, because in order to be successful, you have to negotiate in many parts of the world.  In order to have an economic future, we need to be able to speak the languages of the people that we are trading with.  . . .

So that’s very important, from a language perspective, from a global perspective, from a university perspective.  Diminishing the capacity of students to learn more than one language, than the lingua franca which is English, is diminishing the capacities of universities to fully function as universalizing places for students. . . .

So that’s one aspect of language.  And I’d like you to think about another aspect of language, and that is language as the umbilical cord of culture.  Language connects us with culture.  And ladies and gentlemen, we don’t need to be reminded of this.  The Chamorro language and culture exists here, on this island, and these islands, of the Marianas.  Nowhere else on earth, nowhere else on earth, do we have the sovereign right to speak and live as Chamorros except in the Marianas.  So we have another responsibility.  This is not just about making available languages.  We’re not talking about just any language.  We’re talking about our indigenous language.  We’re talking about the responsibility that we have to protect the sovereignty of our language and our culture.  Nowhere else will anybody do this for us. 

This is our game.  These are our decisions.  . . . It is our responsibility to stand up, and that is why this kind of gathering is so important, because we need to make our voices heard.

Laura Torres Souder Betances, Ph.D.

Learning Chamorro Outside of a Classroom

“Learning Chamorro Outside of a Classroom”

by Sandy Uslander

February 24, 2013

Guam PDN

In the previous weeks I have shared current efforts to teach the Chamorro language outside of the islands.  While it has been inspiring to learn about these opportunities, obviously many aspiring Chamorro speakers do not have access to study in this type of formal setting.  This sent me on a quest to find the best resources for learning the language on your own.

The start of this investigation was where many of us go when we want to make connections across the miles: Facebook.  I asked the question, “What is the best resource you have found to learn or brush up on your Chamorro language”? I also did my own online searches and inquired from knowledgeable individuals.

The Facebook discussion did not provide any help at first, mostly one guy I’ll call “J” who said I would never learn the real Chamorro because it was essentially gone.   That was not what I wanted to hear.

From my individual inquiries I did get recommendations for two sites, www.LearnChamorro.com, and www.Guampedia.com  (you need to look for “Chamorro” under “Lesson Plans”).

Later, Facebook came back with a recommendation for www.Chamoru.info/dictionary, which is helpful and widely used.  There was also mention of a closed Facebook group dedicated to the use of the Chamorro language.  The discussion here included many of the news and resources that I had seen in other places, including www.Paleric.blogspot.com, and www.minagahet.blogspot.com.

There was also another post from “J” who said my best hope of learning the language was to find a group of old Chamorro speakers at a barbecue and ask them to teach me.  Again, he wasn’t encouraging.

In my own research, I came upon lessons on www.OffIsland.com.  There is also a government site at www.ns.gov.gu that provides an almost overwhelming number of Chamorro cultural resources.  Scrolling down the home page you can find a link to “Learn the Chamorro Language”, which takes you to lists of vocabulary and phrases at www.uog2.uog.edu.lessonz/.

Some of my favorite video resources are the Word of the Day and Chagi Chamorro produced by the Hurao Academy on Guam and available on their YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/huraoguahan.  I must also mention the most useful dictionary that I have found, the Chamorro-English Dictionary by Topping, Ogo and Dungca, a standard, first published in 1975.

As great as all these resources are, I have to wonder if they alone can really teach you the language.  You have to learn so much about pronunciation and what is common usage, and you just have to get into the habit of speaking it.  Recently, Dr. Robert Underwood wrote an opinion in the PDN entitled, “Preserve the Chamorro language by using it,” and in it he says, “If we are going to create a Chamorro-speaking community, we must have Chamorro language immersion programs…” This is a prominent educator involved in the Chamorro language discussion for three decades.  It occurs to me that these language tools need to work together with actual use of the language.

Back to Facebook, I find a message from a kind stranger I’ll call “D”: “Sandy, I’ll teach you.  Where do you live? Or better yet, am just a phone call away”.   Then “J” again chimes in. As I get ready for another of his discouraging posts, I’m pleased to read his response:  “And THAT is how you learn Chamorro”, he says.  Maybe he has a point after all.

The Garrido Manuscript

Mirconesian Area Research Center Presents Findings on over 200-Year-Old Garrido Manuscript

Research offers unique glimpse of Chamorro Language in 1798

A one-of-a-kind document written in the Chamorro language of the 18^th Century is being brought to light as a result of research recently conducted at the University of Guam Micronesian Area Research Center (MARC). The UOG Chamorro Studies Program and MARC are presenting a translation of this document to the community and offering a rare look into what the Chamorro language looked and sounded like more than 200 years ago.

The presentation will be held at the CLASS Lecture Hall on the University of Guam Campus from 6 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 27, 2014.

About the Manuscript

In 1798, Manuel Garrido, a Chamorro and official of the Spanish Government of the Mariana Islands was asked to translate into Chamorro news received from Manila regarding the victory of Spanish and Filipino soldiers against a British ship attacking Zamboanga, in Mindanao. In the translation of this document, Dr. Calos Madrid (MARC Researcher) and Jeremy Cepeda (Chamorro instructor, Simon Sanchez High School) have uncovered a sizable amount of Ancient Chamorro words now in complete disuse or completely unknown to Chamorros today.

The translation process required working simultaneously in three languages, Spanish, Chamorro and English, but by the end of this one year research project, theories regarding many of these unknown words have been formed. Working side by side and providing input and guidance in this endeavor was Leonard Iriarte (I Fanlalai'an Oral History Project), Fr. Eric Forbes (Capuchin Friary), Rosa Salas Palomo (UOG) and Dr. Michael Lujan Bevacqua (Chamorro Studies Program).

At A Glance
UOG MARC Presentation
The Garrido Manuscript: A Unique Glimpse of the Chamorro Language in 1798
by Dr. Carlos Madrid and Jeremy Cepeda.
6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 27, 2014
University of Guam, CLASS Lecture Hall

This presentation is free and open to the public and anyone with an interest in Chamorro language or Marianas History is encouraged to attend.

For more information, please contact Dr. Carlos Madrid at cmadridap@hotmail.com or 735-2154/2153.